Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
tough, gritty life outside the club sears a haunt into them which is intact Sunday even-
ings at Beebe's. Many are low-wage workers, and material standings are often unstable
and afflicting. Many toil in the new burgeoning service economy and work-fare eco-
nomy of Chicago as fast-food workers, phone solicitors, grounds keepers, burger flip-
pers, postal workers, retail sellers, and the like. Some are retired or semi-retired but
struggle to produce a livable income. As proof, an elderly man, in discussion with me
this evening, touches upon the haunt and the problem of minimal opportunity: “my life
ain't great … it's hard … it's a real challenge … yeah, I feel it all the time, it stays
with me … and it's tough for my kids too, there's just not a lot of opportunities around
anymore, lots of marginal stuff—fast food jobs, doin' some repair, ya know, the usual
thing.” More curtly, another elderly man says to me: “It's hard to shake, this crazy life
… where you don't have much money … but ya know, ya gotta keep going….” Their
most poignant struggle, Jackie realizes, is to economically subsist. As she told me, this
population has daily struggles and fears around food insecurity, housing insecurity, low
wages, growing debt, and fear of job termination.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, then, Jackie permits long-term regulars to support an active
shadow economy at Beebe's. This subgroup seeks to capitalize on their skills, abilities,
and social acceptance at Beebe's to supplement frequently meager incomes. This eco-
nomy flourishes in an informal, mouth-to-mouth way. An informalized peddling of
childcare services, home maintenance care, video and CD sales, haircut services,
gardening care, plumbing services, and car fixing occurs throughout the evenings.
Sellers eye the crowd, identify a best spot for intervention, and go from table to table,
bar stool to bar stool. This evening, I was approached at the bar by two amiable sellers,
hawking blues CDs and lawn care maintenance. Both encounters were friendly, direct,
and brief. With sellers told that I had no interest, they quickly withdrew from the inter-
action. As other clubbers later told me, many at Beebe's are, in their words, “survivors
…foragers.”“Itis,”onepersontoldme,“thewaythecluboperates…everyoneaccepts
it, even Jackie [the owner], she looks the other way … the battle is to haul in that dollar
… that almighty thing [laughter].”
Jackie's Body and Social Relations
In addition to offering club rules and regulations, Jackie produces Beebe's social char-
acter through something transparent: her body and styles of engagement. Jackie, in this
way, seeks to create her ideal Beebe's by affixing in the club her values, beliefs, and de-
sires. Jackie thus strives to construct an ideal Beebe's by locating and activating power
through mundane, ritualized activities and practices; that is, “the capillar[ies] … the ex-
tremities … the 'outer limits' of societal formation” (Foucault 1970). This complex de-
ployment of power is important to this study: it fundamentally shapes Jackie's concrete
