Grown Man Business

Strippers and bachelor parties go together like gin and tonic water. The general presumption, at least amongst brides-to-be, is that their future hubbies end up in a dark back room receiving an endless string of lap dances and affections from beautiful women. From my own personal experience, however, this isn’t very accurate. I can count about eleven stag parties in which I have taken part over the years. Ten of them featured performances by exotic dancers; of those ten, the bachelor was too drunk at half of them to even make it into the strip club. And even when he does stay conscious long enough to see the inside of the club, it’s rare that the bachelor ever gets a sendoff anywhere near the fantasy scenario described above. Sometimes he just hangs out at the edge of the stage with his buddies, sliding the occasional dollar bill into a garter. Sometimes the best man takes him to the private room and buys him one innocent lap dance from the girl of his choosing. And sometimes he gets the will to live beaten out of him onstage by two dancers (who, invariably, experience simultaneous flashbacks of domestic violence, and as a result go all Tina-whooping-Ike-with-a-boot-in-the-limo on the poor, unsuspecting sap).

Unfortunately for Gaelic Gangsta, his bachelor party in Wheeling, WV last weekend fell along the lines of the third—and least enjoyable—scenario.

Most of our party crew began the night by pounding beers at the TGI Fridays in Washington while watching NCAA tourney games. I met up with them late, though, and had only enough time to chug one Miller Lite draught. We caravanned to a Hampton Inn a couple of miles away from Wheeling Island, which would be the night’s main event. The best man, “Mo-Fo,” had booked two rooms, but we had 11 guys congregated. So while he and three others went inside to check in, the rest of us played the old prom night game of “hang back in the parking lot.” We waited about 10 minutes and then finally went inside to catch up with them. Unfortunately, we didn’t know what the room numbers were, and had to try stopping on each floor. When we reached the second floor, the elevator doors opened to a temporary wall; third floor, same thing. The hotel, apparently, was doing some remodeling. “How much you wanna bet,” said GG, “that one of us is going to crash through those walls tonight?”

“I fully expect there to be a man-shaped hole in one of them tomorrow from you running through it,” I replied.

When the doors opened on 4, we half-expected to see another temporary wall. Instead it was Mo-Fo; he ushered us down the hall to the rooms, one of which had a large, full cooler of cold Labatt Blue cans and Smithwick’s bottles awaiting us. “Weatherman”, the bride-to-be’s brother, brought a bottle of Jack Daniels that he was daring to splash Coke at. And it was only about 7 pm. This night was not going to be for the faint of heart.

When everyone decided that it was time to head to the casino to eat, Mo-Fo called the front desk and asked about arranging for the casino’s shuttle to pick us up. The woman at the desk informed him that all he needed to do was push the “dice button” on the room phone, and he would be connected with Wheeling Island. “Wow,” Mo-Fo said impressed. “You guys are on top of it!”

At Wheeling Island we ravaged the buffet, washing down chicken, steak, and pasta with beers, Jack, and vodka. While gathered around a table at a bachelor party, the discussion topics typically have a more macho flavor to them. You’ve got plates with meat piled high, bottles of beer, glasses of whiskey, 12-14 virile young guys, gambling; it’s like a big stew of “manliness” symbolism. One of our friends sitting at the table (“E Bomb”—man, my ability to craft creative aliases is really starting to fade), though, is openly gay [which almost sounds like a sociological experiment: “Let’s throw as much testosterone-fueled, heterosexual overload at a gay man as we can, and then see what happens”]. But E Bomb long ago proved himself able to drink and joke with the best of us. When conversation eventually came to GG’s scrap the previous Saturday, E Bomb weighed in:

E Bomb: “If I had been there, it would’ve been great to knock him out and then look down and say ‘You just got your ass kicked by a faggot!’”
Me: *choking on my Red Bull and vodka*

After eating we hit the dog track to bet on a few races. While not busy raking in the free money (GG, Weatherman, and I all won at different times), some of the guys bought and passed around shots of Jack. After an hour or so it was deemed time to hit Godfather's Gentlemen's Club, which is within walking distance of the casino. Weatherman and I were among the first to arrive at the rendezvous point on the casino floor. He decided to throw a $20 on red at the roulette table; I followed suit, putting $20 on black.

Always bet on black.

I took my small winnings to the cage to get cashed, and Weatherman sat down at a slot machine. He threw in $5, and after a few minutes of automated whirling and beeping, it posted a $95 win. The rest of our group showed up as Weatherman took his voucher to the cage. He was still standing over at the window several minutes later, though, and the rest of us—eager to have naked breasts shook in our faces—began to get impatient. I went over to ask what the hold up was, but once I looked over his shoulder I understood. Being laid out in front of him by the cashier were ninety-five $1 bills. Weatherman looked at me with a big grin. “I’m gonna make it rain!”

Though I had heard mixed reviews of it throughout the day, I was impressed with Godfathers. The girls weren’t superstars, but they were solid 7s and 8s (I think that may count as a 20 in West Virginia). We pooled money to buy a VIP table and bottle service, and we poured ourselves vodka and Jack from a small lounge of leather couches stage left. One of our guys—who seemed to appoint himself Secretary of Strip Club Affairs as soon as we walked in—picked out two dancers, and worked out the terms of the show they would perform for the bachelor. GG was quickly being led to the stage by a tall, tattooed girl with jet black hair (“Tats”), and a petite blonde with a well-sculpted derriere (“WGWA”). He smiled like a little kid about to blow out the candles on his birthday cake. Oh, if only he understood that this was a show for us, not for him.

While he sat on his hands in a chair backed against the pole, Tats and WGWA proceeded to do their best to remind GG of every reason he loves and cherishes his fiancée. To the cheers of the rest of us, they paddled, teased, tickled, and abused him like two deranged cats slowly killing a mouse. A few minutes into the show, Weatherman handed out wads of his dollar bills to some of us. Together, we gathered around the edge of the stage and tossed a rainstorm of Washingtons across it while two borderline sadistic exotic dancers beat our drunken friend silly. The only word I can conceive of to describe it is “wondrous.”

For the grand finale, WGWA climbed up onto GG and stood on his thighs—10 inch stripper heels and all—and began thrusting her g-string covered crotch into his face, pinballing his head between her pelvic bone and the pole behind it. Having enough, he wearily raised his hand and tapped out on WGWA’s firm heiny.

We packed our trampled buddy into the shuttle to the hotel, and the bulk of the party called it a night as well. A few of us, however, decided we wanted to gamble some more. Mo-Fo and his boy stuck to the blackjack tables, and I headed downstairs to the poker room at about 2:30 am, where I repeatedly ordered cups of ice water from waitresses and watched my chip stack fluctuate. At about 9:30 I finally decided it time to tap out myself, down only $55 from what I had stumbled in with. I cabbed it back to the hotel, where 10 guys were packed into two modest hotel rooms like refugees.

As we all said our goodbyes before hitting the highway back to PA, GG showed us a lasting reminder of his last night as a free man: a bruise on his ass about the size of a coaster on a coffee table.

Yep—definitely not for the faint of heart.