The Male of Two Cities
A Mini-Series on Frat Boys, Black People, Acceptance, Being Cool, and Most Imporantly: Me

M Y R T L E B E A C H

If there’s one thing I hate more than lame ass big guys and their sexist, fratboy ways, it’s being among them. Because not only are they perpetuating the patriarchy, driving down women’s salaries, ruining the quality of comedy movies, and dwarfing girls’ self esteem to the point of niche market sex appeal, but they take away attention from me.

Now that is a crime.

This is a lesson I learned the hard way at the Freaky Tiki Club in Myrtle beach. Nick looked forward to a place like this the most and it became the kind of thing that we decided, hey, why not? Even though we probably wouldn’t have come up with the plan on our own without him.

Here’s all I have to say: the waitresses wore bikini tops to get tips. Tonight was Ladies’ night, but the only male employed there for the evening was the man who emceed the “booty shake contest.”

Girls don’t look at me, however, every guy I pass looked me up and down from red shiny shoes to non-heterosexual shirt.

This is of course divine justice for all of those times in junior high and highschool when I would play the “wacky” card at dances, so that instead of feeling awkward in front of girls-- possessing no rhythm and having never danced with anyone, not even my mom—I was the guy in the Indian headdress second in the congo line leading everyone in the YMCA.

When the “booty shake” begins, a wire somehow gets strung around the room separating me from J.D., John, and Nick.

I look over for a way out and a large man from the other side of the line smacks me in the chest and screams over the beats: “Hey, why don’t you just get the fuck out of here?”

It may have been too warm for a whitehat, but believe me, he has one. His pectoral size was 45b, and we’ll leave his biceps out of this.

Of couse, I leaned in and asked him to repeat what he followed his slap with.

“I said, why don’t you get the fuck out of here, faggot?”

There is, of course, a limit to what I can take. In most situations, I have grown to rely on my friends to protect me from my big mouth, but I didn’t know where they were at the time. So I poked him between the cups and said:

“You know something? You are a complete piece of shit.”

He twitched and was probably about to whip out some clever rotort like “What did you say?” But I walked away.

He forgot about me immediately, and instead devoted all of his attention to hooting, raising his plastic beer cup in the air, and giving stage directions to the girls who were participating in the booty shake.

All four groups started out by dancing, and moved immediately to turning their back to the crowd, putting their hands on their knees like outfielders and shaking their spread legs.

I waited for a farmer to walk out in flannel and overalls and say, “Yep, she’s a beaut antche?” while he patted her ass and noted what kind of meat cuts would make the best sausage.