When last we spoke (or I wrote and you read), I permitted myself to partake in some Benadryl to help with my cat allergy, and I considered the Benadryl-influenced results to be pretty satisfactory, so WATCH OUT, I'M DOING IT AGAIN. Also, to be fair, this post will be narrative in approach, so if'n you ain't like that much none, go'on and git outta hurr.
After a work week that resembled the Hatch plot of the second season of Lost and paying $1.00 to get into Richmond rather that skirting around the insidious Powhite Parkway, I found myself at the home of a certain nefarious character who has truly been at the root of some of the most embarrasing moments of my entire life. His reputation as a scurrilous personality is only preceded by his abnormally large head, so large in fact that hats cannot contain it, so if everyone's head were his size New Era and every mom and pop haberdashery in the country would be out of a job, which would be a true system shock to the American infrastructure and G Unit. If you guessed Quinn Ramsey, congratulations. If you guessed former North Carolina Senator Jesse Helms, well, he hasn't been returning my Facebook wall posts lately. But you were close!
Yes, Quinn Ramsey. Tales of him smack of the apocryphal but they are so solid Wikipedia won't even claim "citation needed." Once again for Friday night he had assembled a motley retinue of vagrants and vagabonds. What follows is a whirlwind two evening introduction to what seems to be what people do AFTER they punch in 4 8 15 16 23 42 at work.
Friday evening our merry band of ne'er do wells found ourselves first at Buddy's, an establishment where we sought sustenance for the evening. When my number was up, I asked the waitress what came on the indigenous club sandwich. She may have considered this an attempt at being jovial, but I was serious and too famished for any sort of extended repartee. I merely wanted to know if the sandwich came with any sort of unwritten condiments or fixings that in my opinion would've made the creation undesirable and I would've been dismantling that meal like the 1998 or 2004 Florida Marlins, take your pick. And I hate doing that any looking like some ungrateful jackass. UGH I CAN'T BUHLIEVE THEY PUT THIS SHIT ON THIS SANDWICH...GOD. WELL I AIN'T TIPPIN' NONE MUCH. My query still left her perplexed but she concluded it would be cute to call me "Mr. No Surprises." Here's a surprise miss, my drink's empty.
Anyway.
The time between Buddy's and the next stop at the Metro Grill (maybe?) may or may not have been taken up by us not playing Guitar Hero for what was probably not an hour and a half.
I've written about bars. I tried to write about bars. I wasn't content with the work I did in attempting to sum up the experience, but thankfully our escapades have enabled me to retrofit my old post with some new insights.
Bars are about as loud as one's face inside of a fighter jet's thruster. The worst part about it, for me personally, is that everyone seems to be able to hear everyone else. Are my ears damaged from seeing too many crappy bands like Clockcleaner? If so, I guess I'll need to start listening to more Maroon 5. Really though, no one appears to have a problem but me. I have to scream and constantly cup my ear to make out sentences, looking like Joey D. Vieira's character in The Patriot. iMDB that one for your homework.
I had long since decided that I would be unable to converse with any of the young ladies Quinn had intended for us to meet, so I decided to focus on the ESPN ticker to see if the Detroit Tigers had won or lost. Mind that four persons were squeezed into a booth that reminded me more of a pew than anything else, so I sat straight back waiting for something with a little more kick than grape juice. My position in the booth caused my right leg to stick out, and soon enough, some drunk Jimmy Buffett fan stepped on my foot. My train of thought was as such...
I can't hear in here.
Neither can he, look at him, he's so drunk he thought Hawaiian print would be decent to wear out.
I've already yelped in fake pain. What now? Oh God, he's trying to talk to me.
I can't understand him.
I'll yell back.
Nothing. Like a tennis ball against a brick wall.
Okay. I'll...tell him MY LEG IS FAKE!
"HEY DUDE IT'S COOL MY LEG IS FAKE. I'VE GOT A FAKE LEG! SEE? TOTALLY MADE OF WOOD!"
His response was something like "AGRGHRHRGRGHHGGR OKAY!"
Of course, all the dudes we were with found this hilarious. All the ladies didn't get it because they were sitting on the other side of the booth.
We tried to explain it to them: "ARGRHRGRH HAHAHAHAHAHAH SWQDAFSGF OKAY!? HAHAHAHAHAHA!"
They sat stone-faced.
The rest of my time spent at this bar is unremarkable, save for the accusation by some gentleman that I was using the bathroom for something other than bowel movements. I promptly replied in my best football stadium voice "AM NOT!" Then we left.
I have absolutely no idea what's going on or where we are, I'm just following Quinn's lead, which I stupidly did in college for two years. We were apparently following these girls we met up with to another establishment, though I couldn't see them for the lights. I was busy trying to avoid the runaway freight train that was a scene girl flying down the street on a bike. In perfect cinematic timing, she hit a bump in the sidewalk and slammed into the ground. We tried to assist her but she started yelling at us, as did another scene girl from across the way. I responded with numeric assignments to the biggest words she was using per sentence, concluding with "WELL THAT WORD'S GOT SEVEN LETTERS IN IT, SO WAY TO USE ONE OF THE BIG ONES!"
Continuing on we approached the venerable Three Monkeys, where a slight line kept us from crashing the gates yet again. Perhaps in this moment is where I found Richmond to be called the "Fist City" by some...
Everyone else in our cadre easily passed through the door, but I guess the bouncer had a relapse of illiteracy as he decided to inspect my ID in the time it takes the College of Cardinals to elect a new Pope.
As I stood there, a very inebriated gentleman who resembled an unholy union between Kevin Federline and the guy on the cover of the first Arctic Monkeys album was standing beside the bouncer, smoking what looked like a stick of ash. He shot something derogatory my way and I looked at him so he did it again.
I asked him: "What's wrong with being nice?"
He responded: "Well who the fuck (he said this in italtics) wants to be nice?"
I responded: "I do."
The guy growls back at me and the bouncer still intently stares at my ID like it's written in Cyrillic. Talk about agony. I get a few more cusses thrown my way and some smoke blown on my person. Then he propositions me to some old-fashioned fisticuffs right there on West Main., which I promptly decline, asserting some sort of Quaker religious alignment and fluidly snatching my ID from the bouncer and gliding in the door like Deion Sanders might, if Deion Sanders were white. That rhymed nurrrrrrrrrr. Fist City indeed.
Once inside, the jet engines are roaring and I can't hear a damn thing. I find my quarry and relocate, and though it would hit me like a ton of bricks later (man, what great masonry imagery I've got going on here in this parenthetical moment of self-aggrandizing glory), I started to realize that everyone I was with who was male was a couple of sheets to the wind, while everyone I was with who was female was stone sober. It would come in this evening-defining moment.
One of the young ladies in our party found it appropriate at this point in the evening to make judgments about my physical appearance. Culled from my patchwork memory, it went something like this...
"You're gorgeous."
"WHAT? I CAN'T HEAR YOU IT'S REALLY LOUD!"
"I SAID THAT I THINK YOU'RE GORGEOUS!"
"OH THANKS THAT'S REALLY NICE OF YOU TO SAY."
Then, less than five minutes later...
"YOU'RE GAY."
"WHAT? IT'S REALLY LOUD."
" I SAID THAT YOU'RE GAY. YOU HAVE A GAY WAVE."
"Oh."
Then they left.
Soon I found myself stumbling around side streets in the Fan looking for Quinn's house. With orientation skills I didn't know I had, I finally found my destination.
But that was only Friday, and Lennon had a lost weekend...
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