To the Bride and Groom

Weddings are to drinkers what Friday nights are to high school football—game time. And when the groom is one of my friends, it’s like a state championship game in central Texas. This weekend featured just such an event. My boy Nick, who I mentioned in the Benitos story, married his fiancee Holly yesterday. And, god bless them, they made sure that none of us could see straight as it was happening.

Things got kick-started on Friday night with the rehearsal dinner. My fellow groomsmen and I were the first people to make it from the church to the restaurant, and we had been seated for all of five seconds when we placed our drink orders with the waitress. I had a gin & tonic in front of me before the grandparents were seated. Magnificent. My friend Finn’s wife had a dirty martini in her hand at the same time. I wasn’t kidding when I told him that he married up.

After dinner, most of the groomsmen and Nick headed over to his brother-in-law’s house, where we were staying for the night. We changed into casual clothes and prepared for a night on the town in McKeesport (yeah, back at it again) with beers and a shot of Crown Royal XR, which Nick had saved especially for this weekend. The stuff tastes like liquid gold. $150 well-spent, my friend.

Then we were off to Todd’s By the Bridge, which is my favorite watering hole in The Port. Hot shot girls, hotter bartenders (hi Lauren), and a young, diverse crowd (see “thugs in attendance”). And of course, pool tables. I think Nick’s idea of the perfect bar would be one where the pool tables themselves serve you the drinks. I was quickly recruited as his teammate, and though I wanted to protest—I could feel my drunk—I decided to man-up. This was Nick’s weekend, and if he wanted me to do a lap around the place in nothing but my Timbs I would have (hi Lauren). Our first opponents were of the “young and diverse” sort, and one was the scariest type of thug: a big fat white guy. I laugh when white people tense up around black guys, especially those on the thuggish side of things. For my money, the big fat white guy in the crew is always the most dangerous. Dave Chappelle said it best: “there's no telling what kind of crazy shit they've done to get them black dudes respect.”

One of his buddies was a skinnier white guy, with tattoos all over his arms and neck, and a t-shirt that said “No Snitching.” He didn’t really talk much, and didn’t play pool. He just sat at a table near where we were playing and stared at the girls on the dance floor. But even with all of that, I had a hard time finding him threatening, because he bared a striking resemblance to Freddy Prinze, Jr. It was kind of like seeing a dog dressed up in a Halloween costume. I sent TJ a text message about this, and he responded “Please punch him.” Yeah, I’m the jaded one.

We ran through the competition, winning 4 or 5 games straight. Around 1 am, Nick decided to call an audible: he wanted to go to Beamers.

Beamers, in a previous life, was another McKeesport restaurant/bar that some of my friends and I would hit up for cold alcoholic beverages. On a couple of occasions, my friend K-man’s rock band played there. Business, however, must not have been that great for them, because about two years ago they decided to change the format. It is now a strip club. And I cannot, for the life of me, understand how they are making any more money than they did in that previous life.

To say that the dancers were “subpar” is being polite. And since I’m an asshole, I’ll tell you that they were flat-out disappointing. A couple of them were cute, but still kind of average. And one was, well…let me put it this way: have you ever been to a strip club and prayed to yourself that a dancer didn’t take her clothes off? Neither had I before Friday. Chubby, pasty, unattractive, and missing teeth. And the ones that she did have were black. She spotted Brandon, one of the bride’s brothers, and I sitting at the bar, and made a beeline towards us. She got one word out before I blatantly turned around, got up, and walked away. I could feel the daggers that Brandon was staring as they lodged into my departing back. But I didn’t turn around. Sometimes it’s every man for himself.

It turns out that I know the shot girl at Beamers (her cousin is one of my best friends from high school; and even though she was by far the hottest female in that establishment, I breathed a deep sigh of relief when she said she was just a shot girl). She said that one of the dancers was new, and had been caught providing some fellaish in the private dance room earlier that night. I remembered seeing the dancer arguing with the manager, and I suddenly wished I’d listened to her side of the story. I can only hope it contained the reply “Well if I DON’T give the customers head, how are we ever going to get repeat business?”

The night then concluded with a stop at McDonalds. We ordered three sacks of food (not an embellishment) and feasted at Brandon’s. Now I can’t see a Mickey D’s sign without getting nauseous.

The nine of us each had our own “Supersize Me” moment of clarity the next morning. This meant that none of us could manage to eat anything before the ceremony. So when we climbed into the limousine bus that was stocked with champagne, beer, bourbon, and vodka, the communion wafer in each of our stomachs was left all alone to fight off the impending doom. I contemplated this as I chugged down an I.C. Light “hand grenade.” Ten minutes later I was right back to where I’d left off the night before. Forty-five minutes and a stop for six-packs and chips later, we arrived at the reception hall. That was, quite possibly, the hardest I have ever had to concentrate on not tripping. Escorting my assigned bridesmaid to the wedding party’s table felt roughly like walking a fishing line tightrope. To celebrate my triumphant arrival at the table, I told the waitress “Beam & Coke, and a Miller Lite.”

The rest of the night was, literally, a blur. I know I had about 6 or 7 deep, philosophical, meaningful conversations at that reception, but I have no idea what was said. What I remember are more Beam & Cokes, cigars, shots of Wild Turkey, and darkness. And a dance floor full of white women doing the Superman (if I could go back in time, I would videotape that). At the hotel we set up beer pong in my room. I awoke this morning to the smell of stale beer and a keg sitting in my hallway. I was actually more surprised that it wasn’t sitting next to my bed, with the tap spout in my mouth. Oh well. I guess that can wait until the night of my own wedding (hi Lauren).