It'd been a violent week in my downtown strip club world. I was in a fight, I witnessed a scratch match in the dressing room and I had to cancel band practice when some psychotic drunk tried to murder my bass player but murdered her car instead.

What the fuck was going on? Were current economic woes turning men into monsters? Was it the moon? Or Mars, careening so close to our planet? Maybe just coincidence?

Nope. It was Johnny Cash, stirring things up from beyond the grave.

I got decked onstage at Mary's last month. It was my second set of the night. The place was packed. I was in maniacally high spirits, giggling through a babydoll set in a white nightie that barely covered my fluffy bunny-tail g-string. I danced to "Sunday Girl" by Blondie. Danced to "The Kids Are Alright." Then started a pissing match with a buttoned-down mid-fifties businessman from North Dakota.

He was sitting at the rack, which was full of tippers. But he wasn't tipping, wasn't gonna. He was "waiting." And saying extremely rude and retarded things. I asked him sweetly to move. "No." I asked the staff sweetly to move him. "You can't make me."

Johnny Cash came on the jukebox, singing Dylan's "It Ain't Me Babe" with his wife June. Go away from my window. Leave at your own chosen speed. I picked my nightie up off the floor and danced around with it like it was an imaginary boyfriend. Then I put it back on. Cute!

Asshole pipes up again, more rude, more retarded. So I drop the babydoll act, roll my eyes and relax onstage. "Sir, you are a real asshole." He says, "Shut up and take off your clothes."

That was it. I got on my knees and crawled over the rack so I could be at eye level with him and snarled, "Get the FUCK off my rack NOW." I was pointing at him sternly, Uncle-Sam style, when he slapped my hand away, hard.

So.... I hauled off and hit him. His little round businessman glasses went flying across the room and broke. Then he hit me right back. In an instant, the entire bar was up, chaos and chivalry mixing for a very sexy effect. The guy was escorted out in a headlock by some musician friends of mine and Mary's fixture Jerome.

Me, I'm still onstage. Johnny Cash is still singing the Dylan song. My eyes welled with tears so I swallowed hard and realized that my mouth was filled with blood. What a dick! I forced some giggles and pulled it together and finished the set. Every guy in the house came up with a one, a five, a twenty. Someone even tipped a hundred dollar bill. Everybody bought a Mary's Club t-shirt. The bartender complained about it, saying, "I feel like I'm working at the fucking Gap!"

The stupid fuck came back in later looking for his glasses. The cocktail waitress yelled, "If I find them, I'll break them AGAIN." Vicki the boss gave me one of the lenses as a souvenir. My mouth kept bleeding all night and my tongue swelled up for a week. Now the boys call me Slugger, Bruiser, etc. They suggest that I stage fights more often. And why not? The take was pretty good, after all. And I gotta say I kinda liked it. It was a great show, and I've always said you should get decked once a year, just to remind you you're alive.