Many years ago, as some of you may remember, there was an unfortunate situation in Rhode Island involving the band "Great White", some pyrotechnics, and a bar full of people. Given my inherent goofiness, I'll forgo making light of that topic as it would be wildly inappropriate. Luckily this isn't really about that.
The thing happened with the fire, and that was awful, so there was some speculation as to whether the band would continue their tour. The next gig they were scheduled to play was at a favorite hangout of mine in Oklahoma City called the Classic Rock Cafe. That bar is now closed, which isn't my fault as far as I know. I was not aware of the fact that Great White was supposed to play there until I showed up with a group of friends for a run-of-the-mill night out, and the marquis out front gave it away.
"Holy crap" I said eloquently, "Great White is supposed to play here tomorrow!"
"Holy crap!" said everybody. Then we all forgot about it and commenced ordering drinks.
"Everybody" included the following folk:
Me, (colloquially referred to as Gorilla, Lurch, High-Tower, Grape-Ape, Bjorn, or Too-Tall depending on some factor or another that I've never figured out), Taco, Pierre (P), Grump, and Jim. Jim hadn't been around long enough to acquire a nickname.
Grump put away a few beers and became increasingly excited about rounds of shots. Tequila happened a few times. It was at this point that one of us happened to notice that there was some commotion outside.
There was a little deck on the side of the bar facing the street, and the marquis. We piled out onto the deck, and found to our delight that a news crew had set up and was getting ready to shoot a story with the marquis in the back-drop about the situation regarding the Great White tour. "Will the Great White be continuing their tour.... etc. etc... " was what I imagined the story would sound like.
A reporter with too much makeup and a scarf was checking her hair and getting her microphone situated, cameramen fiddled with tripods and lights, and the driver of the van helped as best he could by standing nearby smoking a cigarette. I quickly realized that the backdrop of the shot included not only the marquis, but the deck of the Classic Rock Cafe as well. That's where we were.
That gave me an idea. I turned to Pierre and pitched it to him.
"Dude" I said. "Let's stage a fight in the backdrop of the camera shot!"
"Alright" said Pierre.
I was thinking about how to go about staging said fight when I noticed P had begun reaching back behind him for something. I was impressed, he didn't even look... he just reached back and closed his hand, so I figured he'd found it. Then I noticed that hand coming towards me, and I figured he wanted to show me whatever it was he had there, so I leaned in to get a better look.
That hand was getting awful close, and I watched it, dumfounded. Had P forgotten that I no longer wore glasses? Now, I used to wear glasses, but it had been a while and I certainly didn't have them on at the time, so I wondered quietly to myself as to why he'd think I needed such a close look at what he had there. Surely I wasn't so near-sighted as that.
He punched me square in the mouth. Stars appeared briefly, which soon morphed into penguins in sombreros.
I reeled around like a lopsided dreidel for a minute, then collected what little wits I had about me and did the only gentlemanly thing I could think to do, which was to administer a bear-paw to the side of P's head as if he'd come between me and my cubs.
He hit the deck like mortars were incoming, but popped back up as if he'd packed his wallet full of bouncy balls. Next thing I knew we were scrapping like school-yard kids over a botched game of tiddly-winks.
Then, suddenly, we weren't scrapping anymore and I found myself sitting inside around the table with a bottom lip bigger than if I'd stuffed an entire pack of Big-League Chew in there. P was holding his ear, rather tenderly. We ordered more shots.
Later that night, it became obvious that we should probably go home or die trying. The waitstaff brought us coffee on the house, which tells you something right there.
Cell phones existed, but none of us had one. There was a period of time when not everybody had one... that's how long ago this story took place. Grump saved the day. He walked past Taco, who was hitting shamelessly on the oldest woman I've ever seen in my entire life, and blatantly stole some lady's phone that she'd left sitting on the bar. He called my girlfriend to come and pick us up and slipped the phone back to that lady as smoothly as a career ninja.
She showed up and we piled into her car, I had blood all over my shirt and looked like I was trying to smuggle a baseball in my lip. None of us could walk particularly well.
Jim called the trunk, which made the rest of us jealous because the trunk is by far the best place to sleep on a 30 minute car ride. We stopped at Whataburger and Grumps pants fell down while he was ordering. He didn't pull them up, he just shuffled around with his tray full of burgers and got twenty five little cups of ketchup from the condiment pumps like nothing was the matter.
Then ten or fifteen years passed and I forgot about the entire story until a few days ago when I turned on the radio and that song by the Great White came on, "Once Bitten, Twice Shy", and I simultaneously realized that not only did I have a tale to tell pertaining (vaguely) to that band, but the song isn't even very good.
I have no idea if the news crew had the cameras rolling when Pierre punched me in the mouth, but I sure like to think they were. Maybe it's the romantic in me that still believes... somewhere, deep in the archives of some reporter's closet, is that footage.
It'll resurface when I run for president.
