The girls were standing on the sidewalk when we pulled up. Kev and I were already half smashed on wine coolers, and bloated to Michelin Man size from tacos with finger lickin’ chicken chasers. No matter, it was just about happy hour. Ladies, your Mercury Grand Marquis chariot awaits. Let’s do this thing. So they hop in the car and away we go. Problem is, we have no idea where we’re going or what we’re doing. The plan, apparently, is to drive around the town drinking Sambuca from the bottle and hoping we don’t end up incarcerated. At some point I believe we stopped at another liquor store. We must have purchased something smooth, like beer or more coolers, to go with the Sambuca. I don’t recall specifically. What I do recall is that we definitely bought some miniature bottles of Goldschlager.

DETOUR
I once had a friend offer to purchase my shots of Goldschlager as long as I drank as many as he did. Never an alcoholic to back down from a challenge, I agreed. In addition to whatever “normal” drinking I did that particular night, I also drank what I believe to have been around 10 shots. When last call hit a number of us went to Silver Diner in Rockville, MD and got a big corner booth. I was wedged into the back, trapped between some friends. As everyone was eating my food sat in front of me, untouched. I’m not even sure I was concious. What I am sure of is that, at some point, I became concious and promptly threw up on the table. As it spread between the plates and cups of my companions, my friend Victor unceremoniously dragged me from the table and through the diner. As I passed all the other late night patrons, gold-flecked vomit poured from my mouth onto the 50’s style tile floor. Looking behind me I saw another of my pals, Andy, take a running start and fling himself into my vomit as if it were a Slip N’ Slide. His arms were grabbed by more of our companions who dragged him down the rest of my puke path and out the door behind me. This was my fondest Goldschlager memory.
END DETOUR

At some point in our tour of the town, we all decided it would be fun to attend the actual bodybuilding contest. This was the pre-judging segment where the judges determined the placings of the contestants and most of the audience consisted of their friends and family. The primary “show”, for the public, took place later in the evening and, after that, the banquet we’d come here to attend. Let me also point out that the Jan Tana Classic Bodybuilding Competition was a women’s contest. There were no male bodybuilders competing. This is only pertinent in as much as I never cared for women’s bodybuilding. It just didn’t appeal to me in any way. So me, hammered, sitting next to the friends and family of people on stage that I wasn’t interested in, was a bad, bad situation. To make matters worse. we snuck in the mini-Goldschlager bottles so that we could continue drinking. It took about 20 minutes before we realized that we’d been openly mocking every woman on stage and doing it loud enough for anyone within a 25 foot radius to hear. We came to this realization by way of everyone in that 25 foot radius glaring at us. This would be a recurring theme that night. The thought of being beaten by the roided out husbands of the roided out women on stage prompted us to develop an instant exit strategy. Moments later we were back in the car and headed for more trouble, er, fun.

Grass parking lots are for county fairs, family reunions and klan rallys. They are not, however, for bars. Unless the bar closely resembles one of the three previously listed events. Suffice to say, the bar we found had no funnel cake and no crazy aunt who smelled like cooked oatmeal. What it had now, in addition to a large group of beer swilling rednecks, was one black man. One very large black man. One very large black man wearing spandex pants. Yes, what I have failed to mention was that Big Kev was wearing full length spandex tights. This might sound strange to you but back in the 90’s all the bodybuilders wore them in lieu of sweatpants. The big name brand was ‘Hot Skins’ and they came in a number of different colors and striped patterns. The ones BK had on were just plain black. I’m sure it seems odd that he was wearing them but it wasn’t at all. He’d thrown them on for the drive down and we’d never stopped to change. It wasn’t his intention to wear them OUT. I was wearing much more suitable attire. A t-shirt and denim shorts, cut long and then rolled up to just above my knees. I don’t remember specifically but I’m confident that I was also wearing the t-shirt with the sleeves rolled up to show off my arms. Sadly, for those times, I probably looked pretty normal. Either way I’d have looked normal in this redneck bar, standing next to a 250 pound black man in tights. I mean, comparitively speaking. As was common with Kev and I, we did not give one fuck, no damns and nary a shit. We walked into that bar and it was like you see in the movies. The sound of a needle scratching across a record to instant, cold, dead silence. Heads turned so fast I think everybody in the bar ended up with whiplash. 40 percent of the population of Bumfuck were wearing a neck brace the next day. We did what we always did under those circumstances.

We drank.

Granted, that’s what we did under pretty much any circumstances, but we also did that under these particular circumstances. Never caring about the other people in a bar, we usually just found our own little spot to camp out and act up. That’s what we were doing there too. Myself, Kev and the girls were just chillin off in the corner socializing amongst ourselves, oblivious to the evil eyes we were getting from everyone in the joint. At one point I noticed a few of the local ladies glaring at me as if they wanted me to die. Suddenly I realized that Sheila, one of my companions, was kneeling in front of me and licking my calf muscle. How drunk does one have to be to “suddenly realize” that an aerobics teacher is kneeling before him in a public place, licking his calf? Why she was doing this I had no idea. It didn’t occur to me to ask. But watching a bunch of hillbilly’s watch me with great disdain caused me to laugh my ass off. This angered them even more. Sensing this, and the brewing tension, the bartender/manager went to the door and started whispering to the bouncer. The bouncer was a young guy, probably early 20’s, who looked like he’d been one of the towns high school football heroes. Not a giant, but not a small guy either. Somebody who wouldn’t have too much trouble breaking up a few good ol’ boys in a shoving match. But Kev and I were another story. We were huge. I mean fucking HUGE. Not tall, mind you, just big. At that point my arms probably measured close to 19 inches and my thighs closer to 32. Hell, I could squat almost 700 pounds and bench over 400. Kevin was a slightly larger, blacker version of me. The kid at the door looked at us, looked back at his manager and shook his head. The manager gestured angrily and walked away, probably having just threatened to remove HS football hero from one of the towns most coveted jobs. The kid pauses for a few moments and walks toward us. Expecting him to puff out his chest and demand we exit the premises, Kev and I both prepare to laugh. Not that we’d have done anything. We were both more likely to just go than to start a fight. Being big was fun and sometimes, when Jack n Coke were involved, we might lean toward a little violence, but mostly we just wanted to laugh. Anyway, the bouncer walks up and, as he gets closer, starts to move more slowly, eventually stopping a safe distance away. He tries to stand up tall, showing us that, at the very least, he was larger in a vertical sense. I imagined his saying, “You giant midgets get out of here or else I’ll um, I’ll uh, I’ll school the shit out of you in basketball.” But he didn’t. Sadly. What he did do, while the entire bar and manager watched, was say quietly, “Look guys. My manager is being a dick and says you’re bothering the other customers. I’m gonna get in trouble if you don’t leave.” Kev gives the guy a little smile and, knowing we’re upping his stock immensely, nods his head toward the door and ushers the girls in front of him. We start walking. The kid is so dumbfounded I think he just stood there while we walked through the bar. If he’d had the presence of mind he might have followed us out, just in case we “caused any trouble.” No doubt he instantly became the biggest bad ass bouncer that place had ever seen. The Patrick Swayze of this Roanoke roadhouse. I hope he got laid AND a raise for that. He deserved it.

As the four of us, wasted, walk toward the car, we are confronted by a terrible vision. A cop leaning against the hood of his car, parked just before ours in the grassy lot. This is not good. We can’t go back in the bar as our boy would probably get fired. And who knows, maybe this cop is out here on a call from the manager, just in case bouncer boy didn’t step up. “Shoot those blocky little bastards if they make any false moves.” The problem is that, at this juncture, getting in the car and driving seems like a poor decision. Because going to jail seems like a poor decision. So we sort of dilly dally around for a minute, each of us individually trying to figure out what to do. Sheila, fresh off some calf licking, has an epiphany. She walks her drunk ass right toward the cop and starts flirting. In my mind there is no way that this podunk deputy is gonna fall for anything this drunk, calf-licking slut has to say. Nothing she can do will entertain him enough to let us get in that car and drive away. Moments later I am proven incorrect.

She is making out with him.

I blink repeatedly to make sure I’m seeing this correctly and yes, I am blinded but not blind. She is in a lip lock with Barney Fife. After they release suction she chats for a minute then turns to us, “Let’s go,” she says with a smile. We all get in the car and navigate slowly between the Chevy and Ford pickups, back onto a paved road and head to our hotel. Crisis averted. To this day I have no memory of an explanation being offered. Kev?

The night is still very, very young. We have more to come. More drinking. More danger. More bad behavior. Oh, and sex.

To be continued….