Part II: Things Get 'Ugly'

By 6:15 p.m. we had the crew assembled and ready to roll to a local steakhouse. Cap had decreed there would be no tequila shots that evening, so naturally Hoz and Rac had a glass of Patron sitting in front of him before the waitress even walked up. Cap’s dad already had a buzz going and me, Rac and Hoz were getting there. Everyone else was just getting started.

By the end of dinner, the maitre 'd had cleared patrons away from all tables near our 13-man crew. We were simply that obnoxious and rowdy. Cap’s dad had actually gone over to a table of nice people next to us at one point, apologized for the noise, explained it was his son’s bachelor party and that Cap was never going to get laid again. He also informed our entire group that Cap’s childhood nickname, one his parents still occasionally used, was Kooky. I already knew this, but needless to say, it was a prized nugget of information among my compadres and was to be used wickedly throughout the evening.


We returned to the house for after-dinner cocktails and cigars, and wrapped those up just as the limo arrived. Folks, this sucker was a bad mammajamma. I introduced myself to the driver – shout out to Andre – and explained that I would be the only coherent person he’d be dealing with for the rest of the night. The boys piled in with at least four bottles of liquor; I was the last one to embark, and got daps all around for my vehicular selection. I plugged in the iPod and off we went.

(Quick aside: I had never met Cap’s future father-in-law – FFIL for short – until that night, and he seemed like a quiet, intelligent guy. I could tell right away he was NOT going to have a good time with our crowd, but was being a trouper. When “Ain’t No Fun” came on over the speakers, he looked at me with awe and said, “This song is AWFUL!” I just grinned and said, "Bit- er, girls love it! I bet even your daughter has danc- errrr ...")

First spot on the agenda was Coyote Ugly downtown. I’d never been to one, but I figured it was the closest thing we were gonna get to a strip club. It did not disappoint. Loud, rowdy, overflowing with people.

Andre gets us in cover-free, and my two Irish homies meet us inside. I introduced them to Hoz and Rac and set up the friendly competition. Fire announced he’d already killed a handle of Captain Morgan that day, so he was warmed up. The bartop was packed with dancing girls, and there were at least two bachelorette parties in the house. Hands down, the hottest chick was a bartender in a black sports bra, black booty shorts and black chaps, with a black cowboy hat to boot. She got up on the bar and all our conversations stopped mid-word. We lovingly began calling her Chaps.

Drinks in hand, we commenced to ogling, talking shit and doing assorted other testosterone-fueled social activities. Someone noted that one of the chicks on the bar wearing a skirt was not wearing any draws; someone else noted she was the ugliest chick standing on the bar. Hey, you win some, you lose some.

At one point, a slinky little redhead in chaps presses up against me and says, “For $20, you can have me. For $40, you can have both of us.” I look behind her and she’s got a flawless 5’10 blond in tight jeans massaging Fire’s shoulders. My first thought was, damn, the recession’s even hitting the prostitution industry. $40?

I decided to clarify. “Excuse me?” was the most brilliant thing I could come up with. “The chair,” she says. Now, I don’t know what “the chair” is. I don’t even know if she’s even talking about an actual chair or just using a code word like “tsetse fly.” But my brain did the math: $40 + two hot chicks + chair = where the hell is Cap? I find him in the crowd, hand Redhead a fifty and point him out: “He’s the bachelor.”

I rally the troops just in time to see Blondie and Redhead walk up to Cap and grab his hand. They lead him over to an elevated barber-style chair on one side of the bar and sit him down in it. They yank the front of his shirt over his head, take his belt off and cinch it around his throat like a leash.

Here is where I should pause and mention that Cap is not much of a drinker. At least, not like me and Defi are. He’s got a touchy stomach; not just for alcohol, but in general. And in the limo, he’d been sipping a Capncoke when something – read as: Hoz’s viciously foul intestinal gas – hit him wrong and he hiccupped some bile. It wasn’t a full-blown yakking, but enough to let me know his stomach was not on board with the bachelor party vibe. Thus, I was planning on taking it easy on him in the booze department.

Except Blondie and Redhead didn’t know this. So when I saw Blondie yank his head back with the belt and Redhead pour some Jager straight down his throat, there was gonna be problems. While the crew and other patrons roared their approval, I headed to the bar and asked for a glass of ice water. The bartender looked at me disdainfully and said, “We don’t serve water here.” I’d forgotten that was part of the bar’s gimmick.

I turned back in time to see the girls dancing around and on Cap before yanking his head back and depositing more Jager in his gullet. I turned to my boy Buck and said, “He’s gonna blow all over that blond and traumatize her for life.” Buck demurred; he figured with boobs in his face and the slice of lime they’d stuck in his mouth, Cap would be OK.

Then Blondie stood with her feet on the arms of the chair, reached up to grab the rafters and began to spin the chair. I actually cringed.

To his credit, Cap actually made it off the chair and down back amongst the normal folks before letting go. He also made a wise decision – or just got plain lucky – and put most of it on the shoulder of Frank Diggy instead of on other patrons. I shouted my way through the crowd with Cap in tow and got him to the stall in the men’s room where we cleaned him up. Frank came in moments later and we got him looking fairly clean, too; thank God he was wearing a dark shirt.

I asked Cap why he asked the girls to douse him with Jager. He said they gave him a choice of Jager or tequila and it seemed the safer choice. Hard to argue.

I figured that meant it was time to head to the next spot. We head back out into the bar where Hoz tells me some chick mistook him for Ryan Reynolds. No, really.

I call Andre and tell him to pull the limo around and gather the crew. Cap’s dad is hammered by now and FFIL isn’t looking very happy at all. It’s midnight and I start getting everyone into the limo. FFIL says he’s not going; he’d planned to have his wife pick him up at that spot. Whatever. We left him on the corner of Erie and Orleans and rolled.