I love Cinco de Mayo. I love going out in the city. I love free booze. I wrote a little song about. Like to hear it? Here it goes...

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On a day celebrated by Mexican-Americans in commemoration of the Mexican Army's single victorious battle over the French (pause here, pick your jaw up off the floor, catch your breath, and read on) at Puebla in 1862, I went out drinking Monday night with an Irishman (Jack), a Pakistani (Samir), and a Puerto Rican (Cesar). How the fuck does that work? It was their treat, though. So I didn't give a SHIT how it worked as long as it involved alcohol. Lots of alcohol.

We start the night around 8 at a new English pub around the corner from my office. It generally sucks, thus requiring me to find/create/instigate my own fun. As we make our way to the back of the pub we pass a table full of white guys in sombreros and ponchos drinking pitchers of wine margaritas. As I am more interested in getting my drink on at this point, I merely make a mental note of the ridiculousness inherent in their situation and head to a back table. They'll get theirs.

Jack broke up with his live-in girlfriend of 2 years that weekend and he was ready to get fucked-in-half drunk. He's been my copy-vendor for the last year or so and not once had I seen in him the determination he exhibited when attacking his beers and his shots. I drink quick. He drinks quicker. We spend the next couple of hours getting trashed and bullshitting when it comes out that Jack was an Army Ranger in the first Gulf War. I am floored by this revelation and proceed to pump information out of him while, at the same time, pumping alcohol into him. He told us some stories that could make your testicles bid a hasty retreat into your abdominal cavity. The most interesting tidbit that came out, however, was how to kill a man with a knife:

Step 1: from behind, slit his throat

Step 2: two quick slashes across his chest like an "X"

Step 3: stab him in the nuts (pause for collective male wince)

Step 4: plunge knife into the inner thigh, severing the femoral artery

Steps 2 and 3 might seem superfluous to those of us who lack the penchant for bloodlust, but they have a purpose. They are intentionally non-fatal to trigger the victim's instinct for escape. This gets the adrenaline pumping instantaneously. Multiple wounds + adrenaline + severed femoral artery = 30 second bleed out and flatline. SWEEEEEEEEEEEEEEET!!

Jack immediately became the coolest person in San Francisco. Samir and Cesar have heard these stories before since they work with him. They weren't as impressed. Their lack of awe bothered me. So I told them they'd be well-served to display a sufficient degree of amazement or I would gut them like Luau pigs with my new-found knowledge and mash their intestines into poi. Everyone got a big kick out of that one. But I was serious. I was also pretty drunk. So it's really anyone's guess.

The rest of the time at the pub was pretty uneventful except for a couple moments:

---our waitress was this mulatto princess named Jennifer. She had ass, attitude, tight clothes, and she was serving us lots of alcohol. I was enamored with her and told her so every time she came over. Once, as she went to the bar to get us what turned out to be the last round in a long line of rounds, I got up and yelled to her. "HEY, JENNIFER! DO YOU KNOW HOW GODDAMN HOT YOU ARE!? YOU SHOULD BE THE POSTER CHILD FOR MISCEGENATION!!" I thought this was the funniest thing in the world. So did most of the white people in the pub. No one else got it.

---this prompted the 22 year-old pip-squeak floor manager to come over and warn us to pipe down or get out. I inform him that we are not going to listen to a word he says until he stops shopping at ROSS, goes through puberty, and can kill my buddy Jack here with his bare hands. He thinks I am joking. I am not joking. He somehow musters the courage to tell us to get the fuck out or face, and I quote, "the beating of your lives." At this point Jack stands up and I am praying to all that is holy and true that he will put into practice the knife lesson he taught me at the table earlier in the night.

Unfortunately, he tries to be "diplomatic." He's not getting anywhere with the low-rent Doogie Howser though, so he turns to veiled threats. Jack leans forward and whispers to him (he relates this to me later), "we are just having some fun. Why don't you do the smart thing and back off. I have at least a $400 tab going back there and if you try and kick us out I won't pay it. I will get my credit card before you have a chance to swipe it. Believe me--I will." Apparently this is enough to convince Neil Patrick Harris to go back to rolling silverware or straightening coasters or doing whatever the fuck he does as floor manager.

---Funnily enough, we decide to leave 20 minutes later. Fortunately for me, the gaggle of honkies in Tijuana Gear hasn't left. I ask the guy at the head of the table if he owns a mirror. He tells me to shut up. I tell him that he and his entire crew look like a living, breathing promotional video for the benefits of eugenics and partial-birth abortion. This doesn't amuse them. Another guy starts mouthing off and asks the foolishly rhetorical question, "What are you trying to say?"

I inform him that what I am trying to say is that each one of their fathers should have pulled out when they had the chance. That San Francisco would have been entirely better off had each one of them just been a blowjob. That their parents should have been sterilized 30 years prior and short of that each one of them should have had their skulls crushed and brains sucked out during birth.

The dork at the end of the table snaps back at me. "Man you're such an idiot. I'm not even from Frisco." I was absolutely dumb-founded. How do you respond to that? I mean, honestly! So, I do what comes naturally and snatch one of the pitchers of frozen margarita off the table and start chugging it. I get about two gulps down and realize that these are wine margaritas. I register my disgust with the drink and the party full of idiots by spraying the contents of my mouth across the table. At this point my buddies are laughing hysterically and someone at their table has gotten up to get Doogie. Needless to say, we leave.

Outside the pub waiting for a cab, Samir (the only married guy in the group) gets the brilliant idea of going to a strip club. I hate strip clubs. HATE. THEM. I am, however, outnumbered. So I relent with the single stipulation that the place has to serve liquor. In San Francisco, this means we can only go to topless clubs. They agree. We get in a cab and tell the driver to take us to the Hustler Club.

We pile out directly in front of the club and MOB down the stairs past the doorman collecting the cover. We get to the bottom of the stairwell and Jack starts waving his credit card in the air and yelling. "I'M A VIP GODDAMNIT. A V.I.FUCKING.P. I WANT CHAMPAGNE. I WANT BITCHES. AND I WANT THEM YESTERDAY GODDAMNIT!!" The manager meets us just inside the club and tells Jack that he needs to calm down. That the Hustler Club is a classy establishment. That his customers expect a certain degree of decorum. This sends me into a fit of laughter. The manager, who has introduced himself as Larry, asks me what I think is so funny. So I tell him. In a very loud voice. "THIS IS A GODDAMN TITTY BAR. YOUR SUIT IS OFF THE RACK FROM MERVYN'S AND YOU HAVE GLOW-IN-THE-DARK PLASTIC SHOTGLASSES. WHO ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING!!" Larry is not pleased with me but, I don't know why, seats us in the VIP section. Not more than 2 minutes later 4 girls with 4 bottles of champagne come over.

Apparently, Jack has given Larry his company AMEX to cover the bill. Normally this would provoke a cautionary note from the cardholder to his fellow spenders. In this instance, however, the handing over of the credit card was accompanied with the equivalent of a Papal Bull. We had carte blanche. In Jack's words, "Go to town fellas. Go to town." I don't think he was aware of how much things cost in a topless club. Samir had 3 dances. From the same girl. Jack and Eric both had 2 from different girls.

I sat there and drank champagne and vodka tonics with a little topless strumpet in my lap. She was hotter than shit. She was also dumber than shit. SURPRISE! Her stage name was Meghan but her real name was Amanda. Creativity was not her strong suit. She spent 2 hours trying to give me a dance and telling me that I was the cutest guy she'd seen in the club in a long time and that there are certain things "not on the menu" that she would "give me." At this point I decided that if she wasn't going to leave me alone I was going to fuck with her. I alternated between arrogant prick and sweet romantic pushover nearly every two minutes. Nothing worth noting happened over the next hour or so, but some of my lines were priceless. These are in chronological order:

--baby, you're dealing with a future lawyer. In 3 years you'll be paying ME to fuck YOU.

--Amanda, you have got to be the most beautiful woman in here hands down. How do you not have a boyfriend? I would pay to be your boyfriend. I bet you get that a lot.

--girl, I don't pay for SHIT. Do I LOOK like a black man?!

--how about this. We will rock-paper-scissors for a dance. Best out of three. You win I pay you the cost of a dance. I win, you give my buddy Samir here a free dance. You aren't going to win though because I am WAAAAAY smarter than you.

--Amanda, I would love to take you out for a nice lunch tomorrow afternoon. Maybe take a walk in Union Square. Feed the pigeons. Talk.

--the only way I am going into the champagne room is if you BEG me and let my Labrador retriever eat peanut butter off your body.

I don't know how, but this girl ATE MY BULLSHIT UP. She couldn't stop laughing and smiling. I felt like a king. A king with a very full bladder. I got up, took a leak, bullshitted with the bathroom attendant, got some air. I came back in the club and saw from across the room that she was trying to surreptitiously look through the gym bag I was carrying. So much for feeling like a king.

I go back to the table and I tell her I saw her looking through my bag. I'm fucking fuming at this point and I'm about to go tell Larry what happened when she starts bawling in the chair. Big, 5-year-old, you ran over my puppy, tears. I ask her why she's crying, if it's because she's afraid she's gonna lose her job? She blubbers to me that that isn't it at all. She just really liked me and was trying to find some I.D. because she couldn't remember my name and didn't want to seem insensitive....

RIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIGGGHHHT! I wasn't buying it for a second. It was, however, a perfect opportunity to try and fuck a stripper. I immediately put on the sensitive, charming, romantic hat and started spewing hallmark cards. My performance was positively brilliant.

2am rolls around and it's time to leave. The lights start to come up and Jack and Samir are over at the bar settling the tab (Cesar had gone home an hour earlier). I start to walk over there and a stripper catfight erupts over by the restrooms. These two flesh-peddlers are beating the shit out of each other. One girl (a black-haired white girl) is grabbing the other (a big-breasted Latina) by the hair and smashing her head into the carpet. The Latina is gouging the white-girls legs with her nails in retaliation and drawing blood. Finally, Larry comes over to break it up and try to shoo me out. I tell him I'm with the guys at the bar.

I walk over there and ask them what is taking so long. Jack's card is being declined. The tab is $4100. I am speechless. So I go over to where Amanda is sitting and tell her I want to take her home. She says she will pick me up outside the little pizza place up the street at 3 and goes back into the dressing room to shower and change. I head back to the bar and Samir has finally convinced the bartender to just run the card on the manual slide, take the slip to the bank the next night, and Jack will rectify the situation with AmEx the next morning. Little did Samir or I know that while Jack was outside earlier in the night going to the ATM he also called AmEx and had them put a hold on the card. Genius. Pure fucking genius.

Samir, still unaware of Jack's antics, is fuming mad. He wants to go into the dressing room and see the girl who gave him 3 dances. Larry just laughs at him and starts pushing us physically up the stairs. This infuriates Jack who starts yelling and threatening. I am laughing uncontrollably. This is a bad thing because it makes my stomach hurt. I throw-up all over the stairs. Now Larry is pissed and calls all of his security staff up to the front. At this point we figure it's probably a good idea to leave and we start jogging up the stairs. We are met at the top of the stairs by a guy who looks like Stone Cold Steve Austin. He pushes us into the street and tells us never to come back. He turns to head down the stairs pulling the door closed behind him when Jack snaps, runs at the door and kicks the hell out of it. It slams. Against Stone Cold's hand. He kicked it so fucking hard it crunched the bouncer's fingers, rebounded all the way open, and closed again. We could hear him screaming as we bolted around the corner for the pizza place.

At this point Samir decides it would probably be wise if he cabbed it home--being married and all. Jack and I walk into the pizza place and bust out laughing at the absurdity of the last 3 hours. This of course hurts my stomach some more and I run outside to throw-up in the street. Again. I go back inside, order two slices, and come back to Jack still laughing. Out of nowhere we here a voice tell us to shut the fuck up. We look over and it's two San Francisco County Sheriff's deputies scarfing down pepperoni pizza. Being quiet, finishing my pizza, and going home was the wise move. Do you think I made that move? I didn't think so.

I look over at them and I ask them which part of the regular police exam they failed; because the sheriff's office is where failures and fatasses go if they want a job that lets them carry a gun. I ask them which ones they were. The Failures? Or the Fatasses? They immediately get up and tell me to get to my feet. I tell them to go fuck themselves. I am waiting for a stripper to pick me up so I can fuck her brains out. The shorter of the two deputies tries to pick me up by my shirt collar when Jack bolts up.

I tell the deputies that Jack was an Army Ranger and can kill each of them with his bare hands before either of them would even have a chance to draw their guns. This elicits a smile from one of the deputies. He tells Jack that he was in the Army. 12 years. I laugh and ask if it was in the Motor Pool or the MPs. This doesn't amuse the other deputy and he threatens to arrest me. I inform him that not only does he not have jurisdiction, but that he probably can't spell it either. The Army deputy tells us to leave and, for once, we do what we're told. Sort of.

I still have a slice left. As we walk out I hurl it against the side of the Sheriff's van in full view of the deputies. Jack and I sprint down the street and down the alley to the back door of the Hustler Club. I start banging on the metal door until somebody answers. It's Samir's girl. I ask her if Amanda left and she says no. I tell Samir's girl to tell Amanda to hurry up and meet me out back. She finally comes out. Jack is long gone and I am hiding behind a dumpster in case the deputies roll down the alley. I pop out, trying to act nonchalant after hiding behind a fucking trashbin like a bitch, and tell her to take me home. Absolute shot in the dark, but she says okay. This girl is a fucking whore. A lying, stealing fucking whore. I hate lying, stealing fucking whores. So I decided I would hate-fuck this lying, stealing fucking whore.

We get back to her place--a two-bedroom she shares with two other strippers. We go in her room and start going at it. I last like 5 minutes because I am shit-housed drunk and exhausted. She gets up to shower the stink off her. As she closes the door I see her little metal box on the bureau across the room. It was the one she was carrying in the club that she put all her money in. I remember that she was going through my bag earlier. I get a brilliant idea. I throw on my clothes as quick as I can, grab the box and run out of the apartment.

I have no idea where I am. Somewhere in The Avenues but where exactly I don't know. I start running toward downtown until I see a cab. It felt like I ran 2 miles. It was probably only 3 blocks. I get in the cab and tell the driver Berkeley. I catch my breath and starting cracking up. This hurts my stomach. Again. And, again, I puke. This time out the window. The cabbie asks if I'm okay and I shrug him off. Then I get the great idea to call my friend Stydie and tell him what I did. He didn't answer so I left a message.

Amanda's little metal box had just over $700. I am giddy. Fifteen minutes later we are driving over the Bay Bridge listening to Tumbling Dice by the Stones when I get another brilliant idea. I roll down the window and CHUCK THE LITTLE METAL BOX OFF THE BRIDGE AND INTO THE BAY. I giggle all the way to Berkeley. Until it's time to pay the driver. $47.60. I look in my billfold and there is no money. I am officially stupid. Now I have to go to an ATM, so I have the driver take me to the nearest Wells Fargo. Unfortunately, I forgot to activate my new ATM card. I am officially stupid and officially fucked. I have him drive me back to the BART station where my car is parked with assurances that my checkbook is in the glovebox. Cabfare + tip? $58.80. FUCK. And, no little metal box.

I get in my car, gun the engine and take off. I go screeching around the corner, Hollywood-Stop a major intersection and go shooting up the hill. Just as I made the dog-leg right up the hill I saw a police car flip a bitch and come back in my direction. His sirens weren't on and I didn't see any flashing lights, but I was CONVINCED that the pig was coming after me. I floor it. I'm doing 65 up tight, twisting, hilly roads at 4A.M., drunk and exhausted. Wise it was not. I get to the top of the hill, make the right, and red-line it for the last 1/2 mile stretch to my house. I don't know if the cop is behind me, but I am SURE he is tracking me. I bring the car to a screeching halt, grab my bag, and run inside. I sprint down the stairs, into the back yard, up into the sideyard between the houses and lay down flat in the bushes waiting to see if the cop would roll by and stop.

That's where I woke up at 9AM. 5 hours later.

Posted by nils at 8:27 PM

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