Max "Bunny" Sparber

IT'S LONELY HERE in the menstrual hut. I mean, sure, there are magazines, although I've never been much of a fan of Life or People. I tried to flip through a story about Angelina Jolie's latest adoption, but lost interest after two paragraphs. There are a few books scattered around, but they all seem to be old romance novels, mostly about nurses. There is a small black and white television in the corner of the room, perched on a broken rattan chair, with wire rabbit ears affixed to the top. But it only receives two channels, and it is 10am just now, and there is little to watch but judge shows. I watched one. Both cases were identical. A young woman let a young man use her cell phone service, and the young man racked up a thousand dollars worth of phone calls to other girlfriends and baby mamas. I made a mental note never to put anyone else on my cell phone plan, or, at least, nobody who has a child by another mother, and turned the television off.

I'm alone here. There is another hut, but I'm not allowed to use it. That's the hut for women. From what I hear, its something like a sleepover party over there, with the women braiding each other's hair and telling ghost stories. Sometimes I hear laughter from their hut. Sometimes they play acoustic guitars and sing until late in the night. They discuss their cramps and give each other back rubs. Sometimes they make late night phone calls to cute boys.

I have cramps, and there is nobody to rub my back. And I don't even have a telephone in my hut.

Oh well. On average, I'm only here three to five days per month. That's usually how long it takes for me to shed my endometrium.

I just wish a little more care had been taken to maintain this hut. It was constructed back in 1943 for a Merchant Marine named Sailor John Miller, but he died three years later from a heart embolism. He was only 34, although he weighed nearly 300 pounds. The hut has been unused since then, or mostly unused. There was a month back in 1963 when an unusually large number of women had their periods at the same time, and my hut was used to avoid overcrowding the women's hut, which explains the old romance novels. Nobody is certain the source of the phenomena. Some claim it was the result of a comet passing very close to the earth. Others suspect some sort of secret hormonal experiment originating from the Navy base that used to be stationed on this island. At least one scientist has made a compelling case that the event was triggered by three days that Elvis Presley spent on the island, filming exterior location shots for Girls! Girls! Girls!

I've asked for repairs to be made to the hut. Just basic maintenance. The thatched roof was partially blown off during a particularly vicious Pacific squall, and was repaired with cheap pitch, so the hut leaks. The water in the bathroom is brown from rusted pipes. The refrigerator hasn't worked for years, and so I must bring dried food with me, which the ants get into. Last month, when my menses cycle began, I found that bats were nesting in the hut, and had to evict them myself, which I did by shouting very loudly and flapping a blanket. These are not the sorts of things you want to put up with when you're moody and bloated.

But my complaints go nowhere. There is only a certain amount of money set aside for maintaining the menstrual huts, and, for years, all that money went to the women's hut. There was no reason for it not to. Nobody used the men's hut after Sailor John Miller died. There are just not that many men who menstruate. And the women of the island are protective of their funds, even though a lot of their money goes to pizza parties. There's no arguing with them. These are the same women who fought to keep the menstrual huts, even after the navy disabused the islanders of the idea that a menstruating woman can kill goats.

Frankly, there is a lot of suspicion that the rumor was initially spread by the women. Although menstrual huts are indigenous to the South Seas, this island was uninhabited until 1936, when the Navy decided it would be an ideal location for a supply and research base. Many of the islander's roots are from that time, and about half of the island's residents are ex-military. The island is also home to the Clear Springs Tropical Health Resort, which started in 1954 and continues to be popular to this day, and so many of the islanders hail from Los Angeles and San Francisco, where they were recruited to work as manicurists and massage therapist. I was hired a few years ago to work as a dance instructor -- the Lambada craze had just reached the Pacific Island chain, and I was a regional champion. The job offer seemed irresistible. The salary and benefits were excellent, and the island was a tropical paradise. I spent my first month swimming in vibrant blue lagoons with white sand beaches, or hiking along volcanic cliffs, or taking helicopter rides around the island with an African American Vietnam veteran named Calvin, who claimed the character TC from Magnum, P.I., was based on him. Calvin bought me rum drinks in Buddha-shaped mugs and regaled me with tales of romantic exploits, and I shared my own. After all, I was a single man whose only job consisted of teaching the bored wives of millionaires how to do the forbidden dance of love.

And then, one day, I started bleeding. The island doctors couldn't explain it. It stopped. A month later, I bled again, and went to Los Angeles for further tests. The specialists were baffled, although they ruled out the most frightening possibilities. The bleeding stopped. I remained at UCLA for testing, and finally one doctor remembered a book he had read as an undergraduate. The book was called The Island of Menstruating Men: Religion in Wogeo, New Guinea, and detailed early anthropologist Ian Hogbin's research into a South Seas island where men experienced menses. It happens now and then, they told me. Perhaps there is something in the food favored by Pacific Islanders. Perhaps there is an unknown enzyme in the water. Whatever the case, they assured me my monthly cycle would not harm me, although they advised me to take iron supplements.

Back on the island, the local doctors met the assessment of the specialists without much surprise. They told me about Sailor John Miller, who had also started to menstruate when he moved to the island. Then they showed me the hut. Then they warned me to steer clear of goats.

After my first trip to the menstrual hut, students stopped showing up at my lambada classes. That surprised me. My students were almost all women, and I suppose I thought they would understand. I ran into one of my students at a supermarket, the 60-year-old wife of a poi farmer, and I asked her why I hadn't seen her lately. Her eyes grew wet, and she explained that island feminists had organized a boycott. "They say you have no right," she exclaimed.

"No right to what?" I asked.

"No right to our special experience!" she told me, and then fled the grocery store, weeping. The women of the island now greet me with hostile stares. Once, when it was my time of the month, I went to the men's hut and found the word "thief" spray painted on it. My complaints were ignored, but for a polite letter explaining that there was no budget for repainting the hut. So one day, I painted over the graffiti myself.

I would fix the place up more, but I don't feel I should have to put my own money into the hut. After all, I didn't ask for this. Besides, I just don't have that much money. The Clear Springs Tropical Health Resort had to let me go, of course, and I make my living now carving monkeys out of coconuts and then selling them on eBay. I hope to teach myself how to make driftwood lamps soon. I need to make more money.

What has hurt me most about all this is that my male friends have shunned me as well, even Calvin. He pretended not to be bothered by it, and we continued to drink together for several months, but slowly he drifted away. He has not explained himself, and I have not asked him to. The last time we went out, he pointedly mentioned that his brother owns a goat farm, and I don't think he was just making conversation. Sometimes, when I get very lonely, I want to call Calvin and tell him how disappointed and angry I am. But I can't afford to get into a fight with him. When I have enough money, I will go to him, and I will offer to pay him to fly me away. I will ask him to take me to Wogeo, New Guinea, where Ian Hogbin wrote about other men that are just like me.

As I hear it, the men's menstrual huts there are spectacular.

Read more of I'm Just a Bad Boy, a Fake Memoir.