Jesus Don't Want Me For a Sunbeam

I did consider taking a trip to Church. There's one over in White River Junction, so I really still could, now that I think about it. But I've held off for now, even though I'm so sexually frustrated and pent up that I could explode. At least a Church trip would take some of the edge off. I would like the edge to come off a wee bit.

People who have known me a while know what I mean by Church. It's something I was especially known for at FMC during 1998-99, so much so that I became something of the patron saint of strip clubs. I suppose I was the ringleader of the major excursions, but really that reputation came because I went every week for several months. I'm not sure where the Church nickname came from, at least as far as who came up with it. I don't think it was me. It could have been Dan or Markwell, but the true origin is lost to history. Ostensibly it came because there was an actual church located across the road from our regular strip club, but to me the nickname always had a deeper meaning.

The whole thing started from humble beginnings. Back in the late fall of 1993 I was working for Dunkin Donuts down in Hadley on second shift. At the time I was living with X on High Street, and she was doing that job with the crazy hours, which meant I wasn't seeing a lot of her. Dan was staying with us off and on (mostly on), as was X's younger sister Terry. It was quite the arrangement, let me tell you. Anyway, this one night I got a call from Dan at work. He wanted me to meet him at the Diner after I got out of work. He sounded terrible. If I could describe it, it would be like a Vietnam vet with a case of shellshock. "I've done something horrible." That was all I could get out of him.

I met him at the Diner, and he told me what happened. I won't just come out and say it, but I was at work and X was at work, and that left two people alone there, and you do the math. Anyway, he needed to do something to get rid of the horrible feeling he was feeling, and he suggested we check out the local strip club. I was hesitant, but always up for anything when hanging around with him, so what the heck. I didn't even know there was a strip club local to the Diner at the time, but there was. And my introduction to the world of strippers began with Castaways.

As strip clubs go, as I'd later learn, Castaways was kind of a dive. The dancers there weren't the cream of the crop, let's say. But a naked chick is a naked chick sometimes, and this was my very first experience with a young lady dancing naked for my entertainment dollar, so I wasn't too snobbish about it. Although, at first I could barely even look at them. I was a wee bit embarassed, and it took me a while to warm up. I'm not sure that first night I ever did get comfortable, but it was fun. We stayed for about an hour.

Then we set off in search of the holy grail. Dan had heard of a strip club in South Hadley named Anthony's. Neither of us knew how to get there, or even how to get to South Hadley, but we set off in search. That first night we took a wrong turn in Alberquerque and went in through Chicopee and got hopelessly lost. We finally did hit the major artery that runs through South Hadley, which we would have needed to make the right turn off of, but since we didn't know that we never made that turn. The mission failed, but he and I never liked to give up, so we were going back out in search of this place the next day, while X was at work.

And we did. I'm not sure what brainstorm ever set us down the correct road, but the holy grail was found. The trick turned out to be turn on the corner where the Midas is, and the arrow on the sign actually points out the way. Now Anthony's was more upscale than Castaways by a good sight, and it was bigger, and the dancers were incredible. I only remember two from that first trip -- Cassandra, who Dan had a crush on, and Heather, who I had a crush on. We spent a good chunk of change that afternoon, stayed longer than we should have, swore each other to secrecy, and made a pact to return the next time we could.

That turned out to be the following Friday night ... and every Friday night for the next few months, until I started working at the hospital. At some point we started taking private shows with our favorites, too, which were nothing then compared to what the girls can do now, but that much attention from a very pretty dancer was always a nice thing to get. Dan would meet me at Dunkin's at 11, we'd fly down the backroads to South Hadley, and then stay until closing. Getting such a late start meant we didn't burn as much money, and that was a good thing. I only had so much to burn in those days.

Dan and I developed a sort of protocol, which we stuck to like they were ironclad rules. Well, they were to us. Anthony's is so large that several dancers are on stage at once. People leave their dollars up to attract strippers towards them, and then the stripper dances for you. Some high rollers didn't care who showed up to collect that dollar, but those of us on a limited budget needed to be more thrifty. And so Dan and I developed the first rule: Safety First. Say you were trying to attract Cinnamon over to you with your dollar, but she ended up going the other way, it is then perfectly acceptable to remove the dollar from the stage before it attracts someone you don't want. And yes, every strip club I've been to has had at least one dancer on shift that was somewhat undesirable.

But you need to be quick, because Dan and I always stuck to rule #2: Honor the Deal. If your dollar misses Cinnamon, but does attract another dancer and she starts performing for you, the contract must be honored, no matter what, whether or not you wanted her to dance for you. Rule #2 is really just a dictum not to be rude. I have seen other guys there violate rule #2, and it makes me want to smack them. On the other hand, I've also seen dancers swoop in like hyenas on a fresh kill for any dollar that's up there, even when it's obviously meant for someone else. A lot of them won't do that, but every club has the hyenas.

Every so often a dancer will just show up and try to start dancing for you even if you don't have a dollar up, trying to reverse-engineer rule #2. So Dan and I developed Rule #3: Don't Look. If you aren't looking, and especially don't make eye contact, it's acceptable to not put up money. I've always thought it's kind of shady for a dancer to do that sort of thing, but my thinking is our putting up the money starts the contract, *or* making eye contact and/or watching that performance also implies a contract. So if that happens and you aren't interested, just Don't Look.

Most of the time I'm sure Dan and I were the only two people in there following that code, and I feel proud that he and I always stuck by it. There are, of course, other rules and standards of conduct set down by the house, but those apply everywhere. I always took it upon myself to hold myself to a certain standard in dealing with all of the dancers and waitresses in that I would be extra polite right across the board. I always thanked a dancer for her time, and I always tipped the waitress staff very well.

Then the Summer of Darkness Tour 98 began in earnest. I was depressed and discouraged, and the only way I wanted to feel better was to go to Church and get drunk off my ass. Back in Greenfield Dan and Larissa were over at Bobby's house, and normally I'd at least have Dan as my co-pilot, but that night I needed to go it alone. And I got hammered well beyond my usual limit. I knew how much beer I could drink and make it home, and several trips to Church had raised my tolerance, but that night I just blew right over it. I didn't care. That was a night that the Nice Lady was surely looking out for me, because I was in no condition to drive, but I made it to Greenfield in one piece. Then I met up with Dan and Larissa, threw my keys to Dan, we left, and I passed out in the backseat of my own car. I got home because Dan drove me there, and we both pretty much slept in my car. I'm not sure how I slipped that entire summer past mom, but I never got any questions about anything I was doing, and I can't imagine how it must have looked.

The legend of Church then started to grow. One Friday Dan and I took Markwell down there for his virgin strip club experience, over Meredith's *strong* objections, and it was his report about what he saw there that started the buzz. The Church nickname grew out of that night, too. If ever there was a nickname designed to deflect the true meaning of something that backfired so spectacularly ... I don't know about it. But before long everyone in the kitchen (and beyond) knew exactly what Church was. That night was something else, too. Dan and I took this 18 year old clean cut kid, got him drunk, got him stoned, took him to a strip club, and totally corrupted him. Nobody was more gung-ho for a Church trip after that than Markwell, not even me. It's like we were living out an American Pie movie. I'll probably go to Hell for a lot of things that happened that summer.

Dan and I experimented with a number of other Strip Clubs, including Mardi Gras, the Magic Lantern, Wings, and a few down on the Berlin Turnpike, but Anthony's was always the shining star, the one we would return to, the best of the best. Other people would always ask about these other clubs, and we'd give them the skinny on the good and the bad, and some of those questions inspired one of my best ever ad-libs: "Same religion, different church."

I make no apologies. Sometimes the best remedy for stress is to have someone wave a naked tit in your face, even if it costs you a buck.