After I finished with my girl at the meet-up, Papi and Rech decided that they wanted to leave Tootsies and go to a black dive club. This was fine with me since going to a black dive has been on my bucket list for a while, and I figured that going with Papi as a guide was as safe as I could get.
After surviving the car ride with Heck, and being searched at the door (both firsts for me), I was the first of our group to enter the club. You push aside some red velvet curtains and walk in. What was my first impression upon entering a black dive club? I can describe it precisely. I was immediately transformed into a classic movie scene. I wasn’t just reminded of the scene. Rather, because I was high, and because weed makes me slightly paranoid, I literally felt like I was in the movie. For that moment, I became a character in this movie. And I uttered out loud the words spoken in the movie scene: “we are gonna die.” If you don’t smoke weed this might not make sense to you, but trust me as far as I could tell for about 15 seconds or so I was an actor in this movie scene.
This place was completely familiar, and entirely foreign, both at the same time. On the familiar side, it had everything that you would expect in a strip club -- stages, nude dancers, a bar, lap dance areas, tables, waitresses, etc. But the dancers were unlike anything I’ve ever seen. Yeah they were all black, as was every customer other than us, but that’s not it. They were all, every single one, what you guys call thick. I can’t tell the difference between fat and thick, so I’ll just call them thick. Every dancer was very very thick.
But most bizarre was the fact that every single dancer, with nothing even approaching an exception, had a gargantuan ass. I expected this to a degree, but not on every single dancer. The ass on every stripper was at least 5-20 times what you’d expect on a average woman. In breast terms, every dancer’s ass was a least a DDDDD. It looked like some mad scientist had released a toxin into the air which made every woman’s ass expand until it stopped just prior to exploding. I may have seen one or two of these asses in a strip club before, but here they are everywhere.
The dancers are also very different in another respect. This is by far the laziest bunch of strippers that I’ve ever seen. Nothing else that I’ve ever seen comes even remotely close. Rech got a dance that literally consisted of the dancer standing beside him for a while and then walking next to him. That was the “dance.” I got dances too, just so I could say that I had, and they weren’t much better. She ground her ass into me a little bit, but apparently the weight of that giant ass is to substantial for the strippers to move very much. For the most part, she just stood there. I may have heard snoring.
The club is also physically very different, but that’s to be expected. The ceilings are very low, an effect made that much stronger by the fact that the ceilings were covered with balloons. And while Tootsies is very upscale, this place was very downscale. It wasn’t necessarily the most run down strip club I’d ever been in, but it was probably tied for that honor.
Papi was an amazing guide who made sure that Rech and I felt totally safe and comfortable. The first thing he did within two minutes of our arrival was to leave with one of the giant ass dancers. I think Papi got about 10 dances because he was gone for a long time. But that’s ok, Rech and I could take care of ourselves, couldn’t we? Rech blends in nicely; he’s very white, but he’s dressed like an upscale homeless guy so nobody notices him. But my dress is a different matter. I’ve been staying in South Beach for the past two days, and I dressed for that and for Tootsies. I’m wearing polo shorts, sperry top sider boat shoes, and a bright red flowered Hawaiian shirt. I looked like a rich boat captain getting ready to take his yacht for a spin from the South Beach harbor. Even though I’ve got a good tan going from the last two days at the beach, I am the whitest looking person that you have ever seen in your entire life.
I’m standing there contemplating making a stage tip when Papi returns. I know this because he sneaks up behind me, puts a finger gun in my side, and indicates that I’m about to die. This is the third time on our little black dive oddessy that Papi has snuck up behind me and threatened me with imaginary weapons of some sort. And of course I’m high which means that I fall for this every single time.
Finally, once my heart started beating again, I decided to give a stage tip to the hottest dancer that I’ve seen. Unfortunately, it turns out that I don’t know how to tip at a black dive. I walk up to the stage and wait for her to approach and do her thing. Nothing. She doesn’t appear to see me. I’m not sure that she’s fully awake. So I hold up the universal “get over here bitch” stripper hand signal -- ie a few $1 bills in my hand. Still, nothing. Perhaps she’s unconscious. I should have walked away, but instead I reached far over to where the dancer was and put a few bills in her thong. She doesn’t utter the slightest word or make the slightest gesture in response. I could have been a piece of furniture.
A little while later I discovered that what I was supposed to do was to throw the $1 bills at her and let them flutter to the floor. Guys weren’t really throwing enough to say they made it rain. It was more like a small sprinkle, maybe $5-15 at a time. I should have known. It surprised me that the girls were willing to undertake the physical effort needed to bend down and pick up money that was thrown at them but they did it. Barely.
I’m sure Papi will say this but he assured us that the day shift dancers gave much better service. He said that weekends bring out stripper wanna bees who have no idea or interest in what they are doing. So don’t take my lazy stripper comments as any sort of an indictment against black dive strip clubs. in general.
The highlight of the evening was when gunfire erupted. I ducked and was prepared to hide behind Rech, but nobody but me seemed to notice. Then I saw why. The gunfire that I heard was a waitress carrying a bucket containing a bottle of alcohol along with a lit sparkler. The sparkler was near the low ceiling and every third of fourth step it would bust one of the balloons on the ceiling. It still sounded like gunfire though, even when I had figured out what it was.
So by about 12:30 am we left after about an hour visit. Overall it was a very educational visit to a culture that I know very little about. I think the people there probably felt more comfortable after the boat captain left.
Great story.