Beverly Hillbilly Bikers Short Intermission: Searching For Mr. Good Bar

About three years ago I was hanging out with my friend Jen. She was quite a looker. Incredible red hair and blue eyes and, of course, killer bod. She was the hot one in my little clique; the one that all the men tried to talk to first (even if she was with a guy).

She was dating this DJ at a local club called the Guacamole Grill. It wasn't Hispanic or anything, just a little restaurant with a bar that, after the restaurant closed down, would turn into full time club with dance floor and DJ. It wasn't big really, but it could be packed sometimes.

Frankly, the guy she was dating was a loser with a capital "L". When she first introduced me to him, I thought she must have been kidding. He had a pot belly, was at least 10 years older than her, had long black wavy hair, but was actually bald on top so he wore a perpetual baseball cap to cover it. His clothes were dumpy. On top of all that, his only job was being a DJ at this club and taking on a few small parties like weddings where he made a pittance and spent it it all on his equipment.

Worse yet, when I first met him, he was actually seeing another woman, Jen knew and still went out with him. I think she was still experiencing post-familial separation rebellion, I hope. I remember telling her that she could find someone much better. You know me, I can't really keep from telling people how to live their own lives when mine is so damned wonderfully full of prospects (that's sarcasm if you don't recognize it). She did finally listen to me and it was another lesson to me to be careful what you ask for. The next one turned out to be an obsession freak.

But, that's another story.

Prior to her finally breaking it off with DJ boy, she asked me to go down to this little club with her to hang out. I didn't have anything better to do so I did.

First, let me say that the bouncer had a neck the size of Texas and arms like a gorilla with a high and tight hair cut. His black polo looked like it could break at the seams.

We got in the club free 'cause Jen had DJ "free passes" so that was cool. We bellied up to the bar and I ordered my one and only Zima for the night, then we stood around chatting for awhile. Eventually, DJ boy noticed us and waved us up to the little stage where we danced for about a half hour before going over to the bar for some water.

An extremely good-looking guy was standing next to us. He had dark hair and swarthy skin with brown eyes and chiseled lips. He was wearing black dress slacks and a butter yellow sports suit jacket over a black shirt. Very striking. He was standing next to me and started up a conversation. With me.

I was really kind of awestruck. We actually talked for about a half hour. He was a technician at a local hospital and said that he lived near by, but had only lived there for about a month. He bought me a soda and, after a few more minutes of conversation, asked me if I would like to dance.

I love to dance. It’s my favorite thing to go out and “do”. If a guy I like dances or even acts interested in it, that’s a huge plus on the “date-o-meter”. The club was hip-hop with some rock thrown in. We danced for three songs and then went back over to the bar where we chatted for about another fifteen minutes, he asked me for my phone number and he gave me his, asking about going out to dinner sometime soon. Of course, I said “yes”. Some more good music came on and he asked me to dance again.

He was a good dancer. We were doing a little salsa/hip-hop/swing dancing/dirty dancing. It was cool. We danced two songs and then another very sexy hip-hop song came on and we started getting into it. I was dancing with my back to the main bar floor and he was staring down my cleavage (I believe), neither of us looking around much. About a minute into the song, I felt a very cold, very big splash of liquid on my back.

I turned around ready to give somebody and earful about bringing their drink on the floor. When I turned, I found myself staring at some very large bosoms. The owner of which was about 5’10” and 300lbs. She was wearing a yellow knit shirt that barely stretched over her bulk. I remember it clearly since the next thing I heard was a very loud voice over the top of my head saying something like, “You bastard! How could you?”

I was like, “What the hell?” I backed up about two paces so I could actually see what was going on. The chic had big brown hair that was suffering from split ends. Her face reminded me of Petunia Pig with an upturned nose and fat jowls. Standing next to her trying to look tough was the requisite ultra skinny friend with bad hair and bad skin.

I heard the guy from behind me say something like, “We’re just friends.” I couldn’t tell if he was talking to me or to her, but I felt him take a hold of my arm. That seemed to be like waving a red flag in front of a bull as her eyes, like little beady laser beams, seemed to focus on that move. I felt the hair on the back of my neck go up and was thinking, “Holy shit! I’m going to get my ass kicked in a club called the Guacamole Grill by Queen Kong!”

Her eyes focused back on Mr. Good Bar and she proceeded to shout her outrage, “You son of a bitch. I just moved in with you and you are already scamming on other women! We were supposed to meet here and I find you dancing slutty with some ho’!”

That had me pissed for about two seconds. Then my saner mind took over. My grandpa always said if somebody was looking for a fight, you should first try to talk your way out of it. If the fight was inevitable, be the first to swing. If your opponent was twice your size with the reach of a Silverback Gorilla, find a bat.

Well, there was no bat in site, neither a beer bottle nor chair and the chic was blocking the way off the dance floor. Thus the more intelligent side of my brain told me that I’d only met this guy an hour ago and, no matter how good looking, there was no way I was getting my clock cleaned by Queen Kong on the dance floor of some shitty little club for him, so I started looking for a way to retreat and looking for Jen.

What sealed it for me were the next words out of the chic’s mouth, “Tomorrow, I’m moving all of my stuff out and you can have the key to your apartment back, asshole!”

Well, that was enough to make me decide that that evening’s entertainment was over and I should make a quick exit, “Well…ahem…I think this is between ya’ll, so, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll just go.” I started circumventing Queen Kong to the right; where her skinny sidekick was standing.

Mr. Good Bar took hold of my arm again and said, “Wait a second. Let me explain.” Again, red flag to an angry bull, Queen Kong’s nostrils flared and I took that as my cue to get the hell out of there.

“No. That’s alright,” I said, extracting my arm with a quick jerk, “this is your gig and I wouldn’t want to interfere or anything.” I scooted to the right again and started walking as quickly as I could off the dance floor.

For some reason, skinny, bad skin, bad hair, sidekick girl decided that she should follow me and lecture me on trying to break up people’s relationship. I was still pissed about the drink I was wearing and the chic was dogging my heels like a little yippy dog. I turned on her, “Yo! I don’t know you and you don’t know me. Let’s keep it that way. You go on back to your friend since it looks like she’s going to need somebody to move her stuff out tomorrow and we’ll just forget about this. Cool?”

I didn’t wait for an answer, but spun around and kept walking, looking for Jen and anything that resembled “safety”. Fortunately, Jen knew the bouncers so I was sure I’d get protected, but I HAD seen that King Kong movie where it takes a million tank rounds and ten planes to bring him down, so I was opting for security the whole way.

When I got over to Jen I said, “Never…ever…let me do that again.”

“What?” She hadn’t noticed a damn thing, too busy staring at creepy DJ guy.

So I pointed out the couple that was still having words on the floor with the skinny sidekick hovering near by and explained the little episode. Then I reached in my pocket, pulled out the number he’d written on a cocktail napkin, wadded it up and threw it on the bar. “Jen, just don’t leave me standing around by myself, okay?”

That had pretty much put a damper on my evening. I mean, it is one thing to think that a cute cool guy is trying to pick you up, but to find out that you are second runner up to next heavy weight champion of the “Thrilla’ in Manila” can dampen your ego some. I mean, what kind of taste DID this guy have in women and what the hell did that say bout me?

We’d gotten to the club kind of late so the evening was wrapping up about 30 minutes later. I was finishing sipping my soda and hoping Jen wouldn’t want to hang around all night waiting for creepy DJ guy to load up when my eyes lighted on Queen Kong making her way through the crowd towards us followed closely by skinny side-kick with extremely depressed looking Mr. Good Bar bringing up the rear. I almost choked on a piece of ice.

“Jen! Jen, dammit! Here they come.” I nudged her to make her look in the direction of soul train to hell.

“That’s who he’s living with? Da-a-a-amn!” That’s something coming from a good- looking chic dating a creepy DJ guy.

“Stop staring, dammit!” But it was too late. I could see that Queen Kong had noticed our position on the path to the door and she was giving me evil, Queen Kong, beady eye looks. Her skinny sidekick trying to emulate her but ended up just looking like a horrible fun house mirror image of the original.

I was standing near the bouncer so I got a little bit of my nerve back and decided to stare her down. Bravado at that late date, but it did salvage some of my pride. Mr. Good Bar, bringing up the rear by a good five paces off the last car in the train wreck, suddenly stopped in front of Jen and me and started rattling off some story as quick as his tongue could function, “Honestly, I really only met this girl a couple of weeks ago and she said she needed a place to stay so I let her move in with me. It’s strictly platonic. I’d really like to see you if I could and…”

At this point, whatever he was saying had lost interest for me as I noted out of the corner of my eye that Queen Kong had stopped and made a U turn by the door, sensing by her extra peripheral jungle sense that her entourage was incomplete. She started charging back in our general direction. Jen noted it too and, at the same time, we both reached out and gave him a shove towards the door, “Dude! I really don’t care what your story is. Just go on!” I was really irritated about the whole thing anyway and there was no way I was going to get between an angry gorilla and her chosen mate. I figured if it really was the case, he could extract himself out of the mess by himself.

He stumbled back a few paces and Queen Kong grabbed his hand and started dragging him out of the club. The look on his face was the mirror image of Faye Dunaway’s. The horror of his plight was setting in.

I nearly forgot, but yelled out as they were exiting the door, “Dude, lose my number. Please!”

They exited out the door while Jen and I stared after them. Until we let out a collective sigh, I had no idea we were both holding our breath. Then we both giggled. “Jesus! Can you believe the nerve of that guy? His humongous girlfriend was in the club the whole time looking for him and he was trying to pick me up. Dude must like to live dangerously.”

“Yeah,” Jen glanced at me from the corner of her eye, “I feel kind of sorry for him, though.”

She would.

“Whatever. I just hope she’s not in the parking lot waiting to kick my ass. All she’d have to do is knock me down and sit on me. The fight would be over.” Not that I have any particular prejudices against overweight people (lord knows I’ve struggled with my own), but I wasn’t really feeling very charitable towards her. She HAD thrown a glass of kamikaze on me (I could tell because I could still smell it on my shirt).

Jen didn’t say anything for a second and then, “I’ll have one of the bouncers walk us out.”

For once she was being practical.

Morals of the story?

1) There are all sorts of people that make up a couple. Don’t presume you know who will or won’t be a couple based on size or looks.

2) When you are having that first chat with Mr. Good Bar, make sure you ask him if he lives alone. If he has a roommate, is it a man or a woman? If he says it’s a woman, be sure to ask him if this roommate has any reason to believe that they are more than just roommates, but may be romantically involved. Such ideas might be inspired by things, like…oh…I don’t know….SLEEPING WITH HER!

3) If you are confronted by an opponent that is twice as big as you and you do not know karate, tae kwon do, have not been recently released by the Navy seals after a 10 year stint and constant training in the art of hand to hand combat with deadly force or have at least ten of your own friends with you, it is always better to retreat and live to fight another day.

4) The next time your friend says, “Hey, come with me and check out this club,” just say “NO!”