by Dee Simon
“Whoa, what are you doing? Don’t do that.” The girl just stood there looking at me confused. “No, I don’t want you to do that,” I repeated, waving my finger at her admonishingly. She smiled and tried to grab the towel. I gripped her shoulder with my right hand and gently pushed her away. “No, that’s not cool. Just a massage. That’s it.” She giggled and reached for the towel again.
“Tug tug,” she said, still giggling.
“No. No tug tug. Just massage.” She wasn’t listening and instead snatched the corner of the towel and gave it a hard pull. I pulled back with enough force that it wrenched free from her grip. I slipped off the table, still holding the towel over my crotch, and repeated myself using a more authoritative tone, “No, I don’t want a tug tug.”
“Yes, tug tug,” she said, now laughing.
“No,” I shouted the word like I would to a puppy that just shit on the living room carpet. “No tug tugs.” She ran around the massage table and tried to grab the towel. I pushed her hand away and ran backwards to the other side of the table. She chased after me, laughing hysterically, while trying to snatch the towel from my hands. “Stop. You need to stop this right now,” I shouted, running away from her. We circled the table two times before I stepped to the right corner of the room and used the chair with the stereo on it as a bulwark. The naked girl stood facing me with the chair standing between us. She made swift reaches around the chair, trying to grab the towel, the whole time yelling, “tug tug” and laughing. We probably would have continued this perverted cat-and-mouse game for some time had the door to the room not swung open to reveal Mr. Wang standing there with blood pouring out of his nose. His face was flushed and it was obvious that he was really pissed off. Loud and furious shouts emanated from one of the other rooms down the red hallway.
“You get Mr. Doug and get the fuck out of here. Now!” Wang screeched, spittle forming in the corners of his mouth. He delivered a salvo of what I thought were obscenities at me, but I couldn’t really tell because he was speaking in Korean, and then he slapped the young girl so hard that she fell backwards and knocked over the massage table. Wang rushed towards her as if he was about to give her a hard kick, but I stepped in front of him, still holding the towel over my crotch.
“Yo, chill. Calm down, dude. I’ll get Doug. We’ll get out of here. Just calm down and let me put my fucking pants on.”
“You get the fuck out of here. Now!” he yelled, sharply emphasizing “now.” Then he turned towards the sobbing girl and viciously berated her in Korean.
Without bothering to put on my underwear, I hastily shoved my right leg into my trousers and almost fell over. I had to use the chair for balance before trying the other leg. The whole time Wang eyed me distrustfully, not bothering to wipe the blood streaming from his nose. The front of his white shirt was covered in dark red splotches. “Hey, Mr. Wang. I don’t really know Doug, and whatever he did does not involve me. Okay?” I had no idea the severity of Doug’s infraction, and I was trying to vindicate myself as best I could.
Wang dismissed my caveat and glared at me before shouting again in broken English, “You take Mr. Doug and get the fuck out of here!”
“Okay, that’s cool. We’re outta here.” I put my hands in the air in a defensive pose, trying to show him that I meant no harm as I bent down and grabbed my shirt off the floor. I threw it on without fastening the buttons and quickly slipped on my shoes. Wang was still screaming at the crying girl, but as soon as he noticed that I was dressed, he grabbed my arm, pulled me out of the room, and led me down the hallway towards an open door at the end. The shouting was much louder in the hallway, and I could hear a woman screaming and Doug cursing at her. When we got to the doorway, Wang shoved me inside.
“You get Mr. Doug and get the fuck out!”
“Okay. okay, we’re go…” The words froze in my mouth as I gazed upon the chaotic scene playing out before me. One of the Korean masseuses was lying in a heap on the floor, crying hysterically, her face and hands covered in blood; the other girl was straddling Doug’s wheelchair, clawing at him like a wild animal, screeching in Korean; and the younger Korean man in the dark suit had Doug in a headlock and was trying to pull him and his wheelchair towards the doorway. Doug was yelling, “Get off me, you gook bitch,” and holding on for dear life to the leg of the massage table. Even though there was a naked girl on top of him, I could see that he was also naked and that there was some type of plastic pump device between his legs. Wang shoved me out of his way and began pummeling Doug’s face while cursing at him in Korean. Oddly, what I recall most about the situation was the Styx song “Lady” playing on the portable stereo that lay overturned on the ground. The song seemed like the perfect soundtrack at the time. I stood there in shock for what seemed like ten minutes but was probably less than ten seconds. With most violent situations, time ceases to be linear and all events seem to occur in chorus. I stood in the doorway, paralyzed, surveying the bedlam happening in slow motion before me, struggling to determine my role in resolving it when the adrenalin coursing through my body triggered its natural fight-or-flight response. Instinctively, I turned around and fled from the room. I bolted full speed down the hallway lit with the red Christmas lights and through the plastic rainbow-beaded curtain and out the grey metal door without once looking back. I didn’t even check to see if I was being followed. At that point, I just wanted to get the fuck out of there.
The cool night air barely soothed my trembling body, and I took several deep breaths before walking briskly up the street away from Paradise Club. When I had felt that I had reached a safe distance, I looked over my shoulder to see if I was being followed. Even though no one was chasing after me, I was still scared shitless and walked as fast as I could without appearing conspicuous. After about two blocks, I stopped and lit a cigarette and noticed Doug’s Mercedes parked across the street. I crossed the street and knocked on the tinted driver’s window. Nothing happened. I knocked again, this time a bit harder, and the window rolled down about halfway. The nurse who resembled John Waters sat in the driver’s seat holding his cellphone listlessly in his right hand. He was visibly annoyed at having his conversation interrupted.
“What?”
“Umm. You might want to go in there and fetch Doug. Something serious is going down. I don’t know what he did, but they’re not very happy with him.”
“Fuck him,” he replied, and rolled up the tinted black window.
I stood there staring at the closed window for a few seconds before backing away from the van and heading up the street. I didn’t have the faintest clue where I was, but I wasn’t all that concerned. San Francisco isn’t a very large city and sooner or later I was bound to find a cab somewhere. But I did make one resolution that evening: the next time I encounter a disabled man lying on a bathroom floor, I’m leaving him there.
The Birthday Boy
I sincerely enjoyed emceeing the birthday and bachelor parties at all the strip clubs that I have worked at because these are prime occasions for mockery. Not only is the DJ encouraged to embarrass the bachelor boy, it’s practically required by his peers and the club’s management. It’s the only instance on the job where the DJ is expected to be a complete and utter bastard. I must admit that it was a lot of fun. There was nothing off limits, and I had absolutely no misgivings about personally insulting the bachelor boy. The procedure at most clubs was essentially the same for bachelor parties and birthday parties. At the Doll House and most other strip clubs, bachelor parties were a free service provided by the club as long as the bachelor or birthday boy showed proof of his age or his upcoming marriage. Typically, a member of the bachelor party would come to the DJ booth and ask me about how the bachelor parties worked at the club. I persuaded him to purchase one for the bachelor even though I knew full well that the party was offered as a courtesy. But by the time most bachelor parties arrived at a strip club, they were so intoxicated, and eager to humiliate the bachelor, that they would pay me whatever I asked, w
hich was usually around $200. I didn’t have qualms about lying to customers because they were usually too drunk to realize it, and if I didn’t do it, another employee would have taken their money. Regardless, I made sure that they purchased the bachelor boy a memorable experience. I’d wait for an appropriate time to announce the bachelor’s name and put him onstage with his back against the pole surrounded by ten to fifteen dancers. The dancers then took his shirt off and used his belt to bind his hands together behind the pole. With Motley Crue’s “Girls, Girls, Girls” blaring from the speakers and his friends jeering at him, the strippers formed a single-file line and each one of them had a chance to straddle the inebriated bachelor and shove their tits in his face. Some of the more sadistic dancers climbed to the top of the pole and slid down hard onto the poor guy’s lap and bounced up and down a few times. Others bent the guy over, grabbed a hold of his underwear, and pulled until it tore, giving him the most painful wedgie he had ever experienced. All this was done for the delight of his companions. Amidst all the sadism, I delivered the standard cheesedick DJ bachelor party lines:
“Hey, ladies, did you know that the bachelor boy is twenty-seven years old and still a virgin? So let’s pop that cherry tonight.”
“Hey, (name of bachelor). Do you remember your first blowjob? Yeah. Well, how did you get the taste out of your mouth?”
“His last two wives divorced him because they couldn’t find his dick. It’s a good thing his fiancé is blind, he can just use his finger.”
A DJ can also get a positive reaction from the crowd by mocking his fiancé’s weight, peg leg, facial hair, penis, and so on. There’s a plethora of good material available. It all hinges on the delivery. Frequently, the best man would provide me with a list of embarrassing personal details and inside jokes. That facilitated matters, because now all I had to do was simply read the comments, embellish them a bit, and they were guaranteed to make the crowd roar with laughter. Once each girl had her chance to punish the bachelor boy, we untied him and asked the crowd to give him a round of applause for being a good sport. At some clubs, I’d cajole the bachelor to do a little dance for the girls onstage to some ridiculous song like “YMCA” or “I’m Too Sexy.” This was a surefire crowd-pleaser, and I could usually encourage the intoxicated bachelor to do a pole trick for the audience. At the very end, one of the managers would give him a T-shirt, porn, or a shot glass as a souvenir. It was the least we could do after that embarrassing spectacle.
I did one birthday at the Doll House that still vexes me to this day. I’ll never forget the poor eighteen-year-old kid whose older brother forced him to go onstage and celebrate, as he so aptly put it, “entering into manhood.” It was a Friday night, and there were about twenty-two girls on the rotation and a roomful of miserly perverts not purchasing dances and hardly tipping. In other words, it was a typical evening. The girls were annoyed because they were getting naked for free, and I was forced to put them onstage for a pointless Red Light Special every twenty minutes in a feeble attempt to raise the sagging dance count. During one of these futile specials, a large, bespectacled man with a freshly buzzed haircut and a seriously pockmarked face approached the DJ booth. He told me that his younger brother was going to turn eighteen at midnight and wanted to know if we did anything special for birthdays. His haircut and harsh, unyielding tone clued me in that I was dealing with a military man.
“Sir, are you a member of the Armed Forces?” I inquired.
“I’m a US Marine currently on leave.”
“Your haircut gave it away. Since you’re a Marine, I’m going to hook you up with a great show for your little bro over there. We support the troops here at the Doll House. For you, it’ll only be $100.”
The Marine was quite grateful and eagerly handed me a crisp $100 bill. Military men make easy marks, and most tend to spend a great deal of money at strip clubs. Either they are too hard up to realize they are being hustled or too drunk to care. He waited by the booth till I announced the next girl, shook my hand firmly, and said, “My brother is an eighteen-year-old virgin, and it’s about damn time he became a man.”
I laughed out loud when he said this and reassured him, “Don’t worry, soldier, it will be my mission to make sure the girls pop his cherry tonight.” I continued chuckling but stopped abruptly when I realized that the Marine wasn’t laughing.
He grimaced and spoke in a solemn tone. “While I see the humor, this is no laughing matter. My brother’s virginity is of deep concern to my family. We think he may be a homosexual.”
This almost caused me to begin laughing again, but I could tell that the Marine was deadly serious. I was at a loss. Really, I didn’t know what to tell him. Not to mention, I was trying with all my might to suppress an outburst of laughter. He stood there—arms akimbo—staring at me like a terrorist at a military tribunal.
“You know, it’s not uncommon for some guys to lose their virginity in their twenties, and for all you know, he might be saving it for marriage.”
The Marine frowned deeply and replied, “Bullshit. My brother’s a faggot, and you know it.”
“Hey, I’m just a strip club DJ, not a psychologist. But don’t worry, I’ll make sure the ladies take care of your brother.”
He nodded, slapped my shoulder, and walked away from the booth. Unable to suppress it any longer, I crouched down and burst into a fit of laughter. I seriously hoped his brother was gay because then he probably wouldn’t be forced to join the military like the rest of the male members of his family. But honestly, I couldn’t care less. Midnight was about a half hour away, and I continued running the show while scanning the audience members for the Marine and his alleged homosexual sibling. The pair sat stone-faced in the back corner of the room, not even attempting conversation. It was more than obvious that this visit to the strip club was not the gay brother’s idea. The kid had a youthful, feminine appearance. He was extremely thin, and his freshly shaved scalp made him look a bit like a young Sinéad O’Connor. In hindsight, I never asked the Marine for an ID, so as far as I knew the kid could have been fifteen. But it was obvious by his facial expression and nervous fidgeting that the kid was scared shitless. This excursion to the nudie bar was going to be a traumatic experience for him, one he’ll no doubt share with his therapist years later. He paid no attention to the writhing naked bodies onstage. Instead, his eyes darted nervously around the room, and his hand trembled like a Parkinson’s patient as he gingerly lifted his soda glass to his lips. The kid was so agitated that he dropped his glass on the floor twice while trying to rest it on the oblong side table. The callous Marine was either oblivious to his brother’s distress or trained to ignore it, and he focused his complete attention on the girl on the main stage. He analyzed her every move with military precision as if he was waiting for her to pull out a revolver and endanger his life or the lives of his comrades. That poor kid. I could tell by looking at him that he would have rather masturbated with a handful of thumbtacks than be put on a stage with these ladies. The kid sat there nervously playing with a coin, counting the seconds to his impending doom, much like a condemned murderer with a rosary clutched within his sweaty palms awaiting his inevitable date with the mercy seat. The Marine was firm in his conviction that this was the only way to cure his brother of his homosexuality, and he forced his brother to sit in the strip club like a normal, heterosexual male and enjoy the sight of naked females whether he liked it or not. Finally, the clock struck midnight and it was time for his brother to enter into manhood. I announced for all the girls to stand by the main stage and then excitedly called out the name of the Birthday Boy.
“Well, guess what, ladies and gents? We have a Birthday Boy in the house! Billy Clemens. I need you on the main stage.”
I pressed the play button, and 50 Cent’s “In Da Club” blared from the speakers. One of the bouncers hoisted a chair onto the stage, and another escorted the hapless wretch to his inevitable fate. The kid walked slowly and carefully as if his hands and legs were man
acled.
“Ladies and gents, let’s make a little noise out there for Billy. It’s his birthday, for fuck’s sake.”
The audience erupted into a loud round of applause and cheers. I don’t quite know the reason I made the next comment. It might have been to rouse the crowd or to incite the strippers, but for some nefarious reason, I gleefully announced: