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Meanwhile, I'd mentioned that although I've been to strip clubs, it's only been while in the company of others. I've never gone to a strip club alone. Hell, I don't think I've ever walked into a normal bar by myself, and I even have trouble going to the supermarket without a chaperone: I tend to wander the aisles, spend way too much time reading labels, fill up my cart with impulse items, freak out moments before I reach the checkout line, and abandon the cart and slink off empty-handed.
Now, if you recall, my first club experience was in Niagara Falls at a place called Mints. That locale required people to sit at tables or on stools right in front of the runway. There was a bar, but it was mainly for the waitress to fulfill their orders. If you got your drink at the bar, the waitresses wouldn't get tips, and the waitresses would get mad.
But other clubs had accessible bars. These bars are very handy if your party just wants to check things out without making the commitment to sit at a table. Some strip clubs don't have this option, while the smaller ones have only this option: in other words, the main "stage," if you can call it that, is surrounded by the bar, and there are private-dance areas in the back.
I'M NO "REGULAR"
Each time I've visited such a venue, I've always felt completely out of place and prepared to bolt the establishment at the drop of a hat or G-string. I've never felt "comfortable" or "at home" there, but there are obviously fellows who spend an inordinate amount of time at these clubs.
Here's an example. One evening, after hitting a few non-strip bars, my friends and I decided to stop somewhere local to see what went on in there. My main experience with strips clubs, besides the couple of times I crossed into Canada, was at bachelor parties, and those clubs were almost always in the city.
Strip clubs in New York City feel like you're having a wild night. Strip clubs in your neighborhood feel like something you do to kill some time while your prescription is being filled at Target. The club we entered was surrounded by a radiology office and an Applebee's, and on the outside looked like a building that would sit between where the placed you'd get X-rays and the place where you'd eat so many overfried mozzerella sticks that you'd need that X-ray.
IT'S A SMALL WORLD AFTER ALL
As soon as we walked into the club, which looked like a former medical office that had some walls hastily removed and a couple of poles planted in the floor, we realized we wouldn't be staying for more than one beer. We went over to the bar and some guy on a stool recognized me.
I didn't recognize him at first, but then I realized he was a guy I knew from the school bus. He lived in my neighborhood. He was in my brother's grade. He was in my Cub Scout troop. And he was alone, at a strip club, chatting up a stripper.
As I've said, a strip club has a very alternative-universe atmosphere. The ladies want you to stare at them, and they all flirt with you. So it shouldn't seem out of the ordinary to see a fully-clothed guy having a conversation with a woman wearing nothing but what looks like licorice and a bra. But it does.
Scott, as I'll call him, was pretty drunk, so it was clear that he'd been here for a while. He kept calling me "brother" -- "How ya doin', brother?" "How's the family, brother?" -- which I found kind of odd. (Note: neither of us is black.) He was very happy to see me -- I hadn't seen him since high school, at that point at least five years -- and he asked me all these questions about what I was doing for a living and what my brother was up to and at no moment did he make any attempt to explain why he was in a strip club by himself.
After our little conversation, I excused myself and left with my friends. Scott turned on his stool to continue the chat he was having with the stripper. What they could have been talking about, I can only wonder, but I had a feeling that this evening wasn't the first time that he's been here.
NO ONE NEEDS TO PONDER THESE QUESTIONS
Just for the hell of it, I looked up Scott on Facebook. Sure enough, there he was. We share about a dozen Facebook friends, including my brother, and I sure he'd accept my friend request if I ever decided to send him one.
Thanks to the lax controls he put on his account, I was able to browse a few of his photo albums. He has what appears to be a lovely wife and a couple of cute girls that look to be around Son Of The Anthony Show's age.
I wonder if he still goes to strip clubs alone. I have a feeling that he probably goes with his friends after work (he's got a municipal job), but he no longer wanders into a club by himself. I wonder if his wife knows about his earlier forays as a solo strip club attendee. And most of all, I wonder what state he was in that made him decide to go to a strip club alone in the first place.
Looking at the photos of him with his wife and kids, I'd like to hope that whatever was compelling him to go to strip clubs alone was no longer a part of his life. Maybe "Tiffani" convinced him that what he was seeking could only be achieved with an honest relationship, that strip clubs were merely fantasy, and an empty fantasy at that, a false stew of fake tans, plastic surgery, possibly lesbianism and likely drug use, that finding fulfillment at strip clubs is like trying to put a rainbow in your pocket and all you get is a wet hand from the rain.
Or, his girlfriend found out and told him if she ever found out he was going to strip clubs, she'd cut off his junk. Either way, it looks like it turned out to be a happy ending!
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