The Bare Ass Bologna Toss

Rarely in this world do we encounter a visionary with a mind so imaginative and a vision so raw that it makes us drop down onto our knees — to peel disgusting processed meats and cheeses off the strip club's stage. It could have been worse, I suppose. I could have been one of the dancers that were doing the same thing, but to their bare asses as opposed to being the underappreciated drink fetching, floor scrubbing titty-bar waitress. As many other young larva of the adult entertainment industry I was about to undergo a metamorphosis, my catalyst being an innovative new activity so brilliantly titled The Bare Ass Bologna Toss.

It had been months now that the Sunday shift at The Soul Hole was dying out. What was once a great, laid-back shift with big tippers and little effort, had become increasingly stale as the weeks continued to roll by. The high-rolling drug dealers were disappearing from the state or into correctional facilities. Traveling business execs no longer came in to awe their clients or escape their mundane marriages. Dancers were flocking south in search of new clubs, cheaper plastic surgeons, and a readily available supply of sugar daddies. The herd was thinning fast as our remaining regulars were running out of money and escaping the costly club fees back in their cheap-ass motel rooms.

Many of our long-valued VIP members stopped coming in, which is to be expected as men reach a certain age where in a dark setting, it is no longer possible to distinguish the difference between a boner and rigor mortis. Desperate to bring in new clientele, our managers were granted a special permission, or as a realist would call it, tasked, with coming up with their own gimmicks to wrangle in more horny, money-spending dudes. What we weren’t aware of was that very soon we were to bear witness to an event that would change my perspective of my fellow human beings' social and mating rituals until the very day that I die.

“The Bare-Ass Bologna Toss!" My manager, Meaty, had proudly unveiled his new customer snatching scheme to us, “men will be lining up for this.”

I began to realize that this wasn’t a total fucking joke as I had so naively assumed, as this was my first time working in a strip club. He continued explaining to our staff how this would play out:

First, we would have at least three dancers volunteer to line up on the far end of the stage and bend over. At this point, the DJ and Meaty would begin auctioning off the slots for the men to take aim with one mouth-breathing goon per entertainer. Once the girls are in line and position, and the mouth-breathers are selected and paid up, they may ascend the main stage, opposite of the ladies. At this point, good ol’ Meaty is handing out bologna for the working class dudes who were so eagerly awaiting to take aim. Their objective? Toss the bologna across the stage to your corresponding bent over dancer/stripper/entertainer's ass and make lasting contact with your stale meat. The first happily intoxicated male who successfully lofts a slice of this disgusting meat-product through the air and have it slap down onto your girl’s bare ass without it sliding off, is the winner. As you could probably imagine, this was such a coveted title for the competitive sportsman that this disgusting, oily ritual only lasted about four weeks or so.

It wasn’t easy to find girls willing to subject themselves to a hand-tossed assmeat sandwich but there is a very magical phenomena that occurs behind the closed doors and the black lights of a boobie-bar in which women synthesize their principles into crisp twenty dollar bills. Usually, this requires some sort of alchemic process of converting alcohol into a very flexible moral fiber in which we use to hold ourselves together. Standing in front of main stage, I was disgracefully excited for the first ever bologna ass-tossing to commence. I was trying to keep my anticipation to myself while they were scouring for girls when Fern, one of the dancers, came frantically shuffling over to where I was attempting to stand alone.

“There is no fucking way anyone is going to make me do that. My job is already degrading enough. I can’t fucking believe any of these girls would let someone throw bologna at them.” Fern was ironically the first one to volunteer all of seven minutes after her empowering declaration. To be fair with poor Fern in this scenario, one thing you will learn in a strip club is that everyone has a price. Hers was $20.00.

Fern truly was typical as far as stripper stereotypes go. She was a prima donna of high principles covered in low-end cosmetics, pin art tattoos, and bastard children — a one woman force of bleach blonde entitlement and a faux sense of validation tucked within a mediocre physique, laced together with a bad attitude and longer than necessary acrylic talons that never chip on the Ozzy nail.

The moment had finally arrived and I must say I truly was ashamed of how much I had been looking forward to witnessing this event. The three girls made their way onto the stage to begin their lineup. Next up were the three schmucks eager to participate, appropriately dawning steel toe boots, flannel, and the odor of cheap beer and chew — a breed of human male that is found in great abundance in northern New England. Each one of these scoundrels that walked up onto that filthy stage was even sweatier and redder in the face than the last. My anticipation grew. This was going to be great, I just knew it. The only thing missing would have been that starting shot, but the simple, “Ladies, assume the position!” did me just as well.

There it was moving through the air like a tiny, slimy meat Frisbee just soaring so unfucking believably gracefully. I watched it soar in complete awe, at the edge of my seat. I thought to myself; Is this dude going to land this on the first throw and make history, tonight, right here in our very own Soul Hole? Time had stopped, the bologna-saucer was frozen in the air, drunk dudes and hungry titty-dancers were on the absolute edge of their seats. The DJ had gone silent, bartenders were cheering, good ol' patronizing Meaty was as proud as a new father as the lap dance room was empty — apart from the lurkers waiting for the utter privacy of an unattended couch room, of course. I looked around to notice all other peepers were pointed at the stage as well. Everyone was ready. Time started again, the bologna made a wet slap as it fell to the floor. Before anyone had a chance to feel any form of discontent or react to this epic failure in any way, the stage began to rain with bologna. I laughed wholeheartedly while bologna covered the stage, the tip bar, surrounding seats, customers, stains and naked bodies. I can only assume that there must be some particular pitching technique to the art of bologna tossing as not one of these schmucks could slap an ass with a slice of meat to save their damned lives.

Tensions were running high as the bologna was running out, and it was running out fast. As our rations were depleting, customers and workers alike were running out of hope. Did we all really just subject ourselves to watching some sweaty fucktards chuck stinky pink meat at three women who were bent over and ready to feed their children or their sinuses —whichever was hungrier? If you would have blinked at just that moment you would have missed it. As the last few pieces of bologna were flung across the stage artlessly there it was, a light wet slap whispered from the ass of one of these bombed babes. One round, perspiring, and sticky piece of meat-shame stuck ever so delicately to the back of a large and wonderfully jiggly bare ass. The stars had aligned; this mother fucker actually managed to stick it and just as time and meat were about to run out. He was an American hero.

It truly was magnificent, like watching a basketball soar across the arena and swoosh through the net just as the buzzer starts going off. Or like dropping your kid in the grocery store but catching that mouthy little shit mid air before anyone has a chance to notice how neglectful you were while you were so busy looking at tabloids or soy milk. If that wasn’t enough, at that exact moment the heavens opened upon The Soul Hole and cast its spotlight upon the winning bologna-ass. The girls returned to the upright position and there in the middle I see a neon manicured hand reach back and peel said victory slice of bologna off her sweet ass like a soggy band-aid. She turned around smiling proudly. It was Fern. Fuckin' Fern had just won and I couldn’t believe it. Just as I began laughing maniacally to myself at all the irony that had transpired in the past ten minutes, Meaty was next to me and he was holding bleach and a rag. He truly was the most patronizing man I have ever known.

There I went up the four steps to the illuminated main stage of shame. It looked different at this angle. You could see all the bologna outlines and toe prints. There were smooshed meat pieces everywhere — streaked across the stage, stuck around the base of the pole, flopped over the rails, stuck down in between the cushions of the surrounding chairs, hanging from the main stage lighting system. It was hotter and muggier up here and it stank like an unwashed lunchbox and athlete's foot. But there I was on my hands and knees, scrubbing down the main stage in little more than my clearance panties and stilettos. It felt like an eternity that I was up there on my hands and knees, crawling around, scrubbing and picking at ass bologna for all the perverse voyeurs to enjoy. I could have sworn that there was another waitress there somewhere who should have been sharing in this awful duty but she was nowhere to be found. She was either a slacker or a real savage bitch to leave me up there cleaning that mess all by myself. It was at that moment that I decided I was done being a waitress. I wasn’t going to quit working there completely, just maybe try out a different position in the industry because apparently being a waitress in a strip club is the very bottom of the totem pole. You aren’t treated especially badly or anything. You just make the least amount of money and get stuck doing the really degrading bitch-work in the Bimbo Limbo. Had I known all this would transpire beforehand, I may never have filled out that application at the Soul Hole to begin waiting tables and wiping spunk to support my climb to an independent lifestyle. I probably just would have dumped-them-out to begin with to save myself so much shame — but we all learn life lessons the hard way now don't we? Had Kiwi — I knew that ginger-haired servers name all along — not hid in the titty bar kitchen or deep within the champagne room stalls I may have never had the lone experience of traumatic sexual acts with lunch meats and cleaning up all the shame it left behind. Lucky for me Kiwi — you know who you are — was absent. I, in turn, learned the art of preemptively dodging disaster, my manager Meaty, and of course, knee cheese. I was ready to move forward with my life and become a taboo black-light beauty, Penny-Lane.

The Bare Ass Bologna Toss didn't last more than a few weeks. Not for lack of effort though — that is one point I must make adamantly clear. Meaty, the entrepreneur he was, did attempt to keep things fresh — so to speak. The following Sundays involved upping the ante to this horrible new tradition by adding and incorporating new media, or in this case, it was meats. What started as flinging bologna at the money loving asses of the willing participants evolved into flying ham, olive loaf, and processed American cheese asswiches. I can assure you, after the first week I was nowhere to be found come cleanup time. Fuck it. I figured I would rather listen to Meaty rip me a new asshole in the office for not being readily available on the floor than to pick ass-cheese from underneath my fingernails or help someone pull lunch meat out of their freshly waxed ass crack again. Needless to say, all but one of us working in that sin bin was elated to see the end of The Bare-Ass Bologna Toss. Good-fucking-riddance.