Christmas at ‘Hunk-o-Mania’: At nine months pregnant, I had one of the best nights of my life

Nine years ago, around this time, I was nine months pregnant and overwhelmed. This was my first and only baby, and I wasn’t prepared for how much my life was about to change. I didn’t know how to be a mother without my own mom, who had died six years earlier. I was carrying every heavy feeling you could carry, along with a heavy, squirmy stranger, and I couldn’t put anything down.

I needed to do something to escape the enormous change I was facing, and to end my childless years with a bang. I needed a great night out in Philly.

For some reason — maybe all the hormones — I wanted to go to a male revue.

Anyone familiar with Chippendales — the subject of a new Hulu series — and Magic Mike (which has a new trailer for its third installment) will know what happens at a male revue: A group of men put on a show that involves taking off most of their clothes. I’d gone to one years ago in Montreal, and the whole spectacle of it was hysterical, the women screaming with joy at every inch of extra skin. It didn’t feel seedy, and the men had no desperation or fear in their eyes — they knew we couldn’t hurt them, so they just laughed at us and took our money.

I did a little research, and saw I was in luck. Every Saturday night, Philly was home to something called “Hunk-o-Mania.” This, I knew, would take my mind off of everything. My plan set, I searched for people who would go with me.

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I was busy getting ready for the baby and working a lot so I could take time off, so the only Saturday night I could go was four days before Christmas. Many of the people I asked had very legitimate reasons why they couldn’t come — they were seeing The Nutcracker, having dinner with their grandparents, or frankly didn’t want to. (I get it.)

After asking everyone I could think of, I started to get worried — I couldn’t imagine anything sadder than going to Hunk-o-Mania alone, nine months pregnant. Would I not get the adventure I so needed?

Finally, I emailed my friend Brenda, who had just moved home after living for years in Portland, Ore. I gave her plenty of outs — I know it’s weird, totally get it if you’re tired or this isn’t your scene, blah blah. She wrote back right away.

“That sounds like a total riot!!” she said. “Can’t wait to see you and boogie down with the strippers and the lil peanut in your belly.” With that, my night was saved.

So the Saturday before Christmas, Brenda and I, along with some other intrepid stragglers who were game for a weird night, showed up to Hunk-o-Mania. It had moved from its usual spot to a smaller place at Sixth and Spring Garden (the building I will always think of as the Palmer Social Club) because they didn’t expect many people four days before Christmas.

We walked up narrow, dark, sticky stairwells to a small room where greasy guys dressed as firefighters, military men, and other ridiculous archetypes danced to distorted music blasting from a boombox because the speakers weren’t working. (At one point, one of us said: “Only in Philly.”)

Brenda had been right: It was a total riot. We laughed our faces off, tossed dollar bills as if they were paper, took amazing pictures (Brenda snapped one of me getting an unasked-for dance by a guy in neon green booty shorts that I believe is the greatest photograph in the history of the medium), then left at 9:30 — because I was pregnant, and tired, and I’d already had exactly the night I wanted. For two blissful hours, I forgot about everything I was facing, and just had fun.

For two blissful hours, I forgot about everything I was facing, and just had fun.

Four days later, on Christmas, my water broke. It was two weeks before I was due, and I like to tell people it happened because of that night — I had so much fun with Brenda, my baby decided to come early to see what all the fuss was about.

Soon after that amazing night, Brenda was diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer. She started having lots of her own Philly adventures, and I showed up when I could (for trips down the Shore, Zumba classes where neither of us could follow the routine, an escape room at the Franklin Institute). I tried to show her how grateful I was to her for showing up when I needed to laugh and forget about what lay ahead.

One year ago, around this time, Brenda started slowing down. On one of our visits, I sat next to her on her parents’ couch and reminded her about Hunk-o-Mania. She was tired and foggy by then, but she remembered that night. “Oh yeah,” she said, and smiled.

A few weeks later, she died. She was only 44.

At Brenda’s memorial at the Philadelphia Ethical Society, I stood in front of everyone and told the story of our amazing night. And we all laughed. Some of us had been crying only moments before, but we stopped crying to laugh at how ridiculous I had been to want such a thing, at the picture Brenda took of a pregnant woman getting a lap dance from a guy in neon green booty shorts — at the absurdity of it all.

For one moment, we forgot how hard it would be to live without Brenda, and remembered how much joy she once brought a sad, scared pregnant woman, just by showing up.