Have you ever had to fight your way out of a situation? I'm talking about a sink or swim series of unfortunate events where physical violence was the only alternative. No rationalizing or cooler heads prevailing, you had to kick some ass or your ass was going to be kicked! The funny thing is that I never wondered how I'd react to this type of situation until I got a bar job in Ocean City.
My day job at the Beach Patrol paid well enough, but if you could find a job a few nights a week that paid you cash under the table, fed you free drinks, & still freed you up to hit on women would you take it? Well unless there was something mentally wrong with you from being hit in the head too many times with a tack hammer, fuck yes you would take it!
This very type of employment came my way in the form of a bouncing job at a dive bar called Spanglers(For those of you here were there with me & are calling shenanigans on this, I've obviously changed the bar name to protect the guilty, mainly me!!! I'm sure the statute of limitations has run out, but it's better to be safe than sorry bitches, Natch!). Our bouncing crew consisted of myself & some of my roommates & lifeguard buddies . To ake matters even better, my buddy Etzio(E-Z) was even hired on as a bartender. Booze & hook-ups were taken care of & all we had to do was check a few id's 98% of time time. The remainig 2% dealt with breaking up fights & a little of the ultraviolence. Let me tell you, that 2% was no joke! Before the Summer of '95, I'd been in a few scuffles, but I had no idea that my cake-ass night job was at Patrick Swayze's fucking 'Road House!!!'
One night in particular stands out & I still have the gap in-between 2 teeth in my lower jaw as a reminder to this very day! Every local bar had their own night for drink specials to keep the local alcoholic population drunk & happy. My crew & I worked at Spanglers every Wednesday & Sunday for their 50-cent draft night. You heard that right, 50-fucking-cent draft night. I think it's common knowledge that if you put a large gathering of college-age fucktards in a building & start shoveling cheap 50-cent beers down their gullet, that something bad can & normally will happen.
So Spanglers has a deck outside of the bar beside the bay that has tables & chairs out during lunch & dinner, but around 9pm we, the bouncing crew, have to shoo the patrons out of said chairs & tables as nicely as possible while the herds of of drunken, retarded, hormonal co-eds file into the bar to find oblivion at the bottom of a cheap plastic cup. Sometimes the dinner patrons didn't take too kindly of us lowly minions moving their precious seats & could be a wee bit belligerent. Normally they'd just bitch us out & threaten to, 'tell the manager' about our boorish behavior & how we 'ruined' their evening(Bear in mind most of these patrons were clearly finished with their dinners & just wanted to jockey for choice spots on the deck for the fucking drink special!). I don't know what the cosmic joke on me was that summer, but it always seemed like the biggest steroid abuser in the bar wearing a tank top(Any guy who's wearing a tank top in a bar at night is a fucking asshole! Go ahead & try to disprove this theory, I dare you!!!) would have to start some form of ruckus in my area. The night in question was obviously no exception & a particular dreg of humanity sporting a white tank top that said 'Bad Boy Club' across his chest(See my theory is proven yet again!) & tight acid washed jeans with combat boots. Oh yeah, he was also about 6'5 & 250 pounds & was clearly not happy with me, oh no not one bit!
'Why the fuck do you have to take our chairs you little bitch? Can't you see that I'm with my woman(Also, I almost fogot to menation, his 'woman' was a real catch who would've given Miss Piggy a run for her money, but I digress!)???!'
'I can see that, but we have to move out all of the tables & chairs now to make room for all of the patrons coming in for the drink special.'
'Fuck them & fuck you! We wuz here first!'
'I know that, but it doesn't work that way. We have to move all of the tables & chairs.'
'No!'
'What do you mean no???'
'I'm not letting you take our chairs! I stand for my job all day & you're not taking them!'
I was kind of bemused at this verbal volleyball, so I retorted:
'Well I sit at my day job all day lifeguarding & now I have to stand at this job. We all have to stand sometime buddy, so why don't you just let me take the chairs.'
Apparently this notion still did not compute with Dreg(Dreg is not this meathead's name, it just means, 'the least valuable part of anything' which I think describes this shithead to a T!) & he began jabbing his meaty index finger into my chest.
'I said no you little bitch!'
'Do not touch me.'
'What?'
'I said do not touch me!'
This is right about the time that my blood began to boil & my anger was just beginning to percolate. If you've spent any extended periods of time with me or drank with me, you'd know that this is very bad, or at least very bad for the person who my anger is directed towards.
Dreg then proceeded to punch me directly in the jaw.
I stumbled back on one knee & a low, gutteral growl started emanating from deep within my body. I defiantly stood back up & walked back over to Dreg, loooked up at him & smiled.
'You little asshole! I shit bigger tha---
KA-RAAAK!!!
My Father has given me multitudes of sage advice over the years, none ringing more true than these pearls of wisdom:
'If you ever find yourself in a fight with somebody who's much larger than you remember that these guys are probably not used to many people fighting back. When your opponent starts into his initial diatribe about how he's going to kick your ass, punch him as hard as you can directly in the nose. You will probably break his nose which will cause his eyes to water & next comes the disorientation. As he stumbles back, wrestle him to the gound & finish him off.'
The lovely comic book sound that you read in the previous paragraph was me making my Dad proud. I punched this meathead directly in the nose with all of the fury that I could muster. As he stumbled back I could hear him bellow,
'You broke my fucking nose!!!'
But it was too late. I was quite possibly the angriest that I have ever been in my life. My eyes rolled back into my head & I pounced on him much like a cheeta does chasing down a gazelle in the wild during a kill. I wrestled him to the ground & wrapped my legs around him & began repeatedly pummeling his face over & over with my fists.
Right around this time somebody yanked me of off Dreg by my ponytail & punched me in the face. Dreg had friends there. I was momentarily stunned, but the adrenaline & anger coursing through my veins kept me moving. I regained my balance, dodged the 2nd punch & then kicked my new protagonist in the balls. When he doubled over, I round-housed him in the face, knocking him to the floor. I was then able to get a glance at the rest of the bar which just happened to be in a full on brawl! Apparently Dreg's friends & my friends decided to join in on the fun which spead the voilence far & wide.
At this point of the fight, I had completely lost track of Dreg. He was no longer on the deck & I wasn't finished with him yet. I started punchinig & kicking my way through the bar in an anarchic, ultraviolent dance looking for my prey. All the while the dj was playing that god-awful Right Said Fred Song, 'I'm Too Sexy' which pissed me off even more. 'They had better not fuck with this animal!' I muttered as I gradually made it over to the dj booth & screamed,
'Turn this shit off & play me a fight song or I kick your ass next!!!'
Before I could say another word, I was hoisted up into the air & thrown down through a table. Dreg had caught me off guard. I was hurting & clearly seeing stars at that point, but then I heard a familiar baseline'
'Bam-Ba-Dam-Ba-Da-Bam-Bam!'
It was the opening to Motorhead's 'Ace of Spades.' I picked myself up out of the splintered rubble that used to be a hardwood table & could literally feel the music making me stronger!(Fun fact: Lemmy, the leadsinger of Motorhead was asked in an interview one time to describe his band's music & he said, 'Well if we moved next door to you, your lawn would die!' That my friends is why Lemmy is a god & you're not!). I charged Dreg & bulldogged him to the ground & wrapped myself around him much like the stingray looking monster did in the movie 'Alien' to it's victim's face & commenced to using his face as a punching bag again while simultaneaously trying to rip off his right ear(My good friend Reo once told me that you can rip a person's ear clean off of their head with 12 pounds of pressure. I wanted to see if this would work!). Dreg jumbed up, screamed & ran through a side door ripping it off of the hinges while I was still attached to his face playing 'Wipeout' with my fists. We spilled out onto the street with about a dozen people following us. Eventually, we were pulled apart & Dreg was twisty-tie cuffed to a telephone pole.
I spit some blood on the gound & said,
'Do you still want to keep your chair asshole!???'
This was around the time that I noticed I had a new space in-between 2 of my teeth on my lower jaw.
'Haw-haw! Exclaimed Dreg.
'Oh yeah, just wait till you take a look in the mirror pal! Your nose is about an inch further to left than when you woke up this morning!!!' Good luck getting laid the rest of this summer looking like Sloth from 'The Goonies!'
Defiantly I leaned down & looked him into his eyes & said,
'I did this to you!'
Exhausted, I walked back into the bar with a safe assumption that I was probably going to be arrested soon. I went into the back bathroom by the kitchen. My hands were still shaking from the previoius rush of adrenaline & the blood dripping off of them clearly was not my own. As I washed my hands I noticed in the mirror that I had a black eye & a cut on my chin, also my right hand was throbbing(I thought that I might have broken it, but later found out that it was just badly bruised). 'Well that should make for a pretty mug shot' I thought to myself as I wrapped my right hand with some silver duct-tape for support.
I walked back out to the deck bar & E-Z lined up some tequila shots for me. The irony of the situation was that it wasn't even 10pm yet, so I had to work for 3 more hours(I didn't really work. I just self-medicated with the free shots E-Z kept feeding me.)! I thought that Dreg had been arrested & that I was next, but as the night progessed, I was never taken away. It wasn't until the next day that I found out that Dreg & his cronies were actually local off-duty police officers! Apparently they were so embarrassed about participating in a near-riot where they got their asses handed to them, that they never wrote up a report. Everything was swept under the rug & the owners of the bar were actually happy with how we handled the situation. So to recap, I didn't get arrested or lose my cushy night job!
I still have the space between my teeth & haven't been in a fight of that caliber since. And oh yeah, I've mellowed out a bit!
