For those of you not familiar with Mike D., aka “ The Peach,” you should be. The guy is pretty much a legend in my extended network of friends, cohorts, and acquaintances. I have heard people in bars that have never actually met him, regale me in tales of his adventures and antics that they have heard secondhand from other people, kind of like a Sasquatch or a UFO. That, however, was the old Peach. Lately, he has been a kinder, gentler, more reserved individual. While I suppose this is good in the long run, it hasn’t made for many good stories as of late. That all changed this weekend.
Between Thursday and Friday night, Mike and I managed to beat the $1/$2 No-Limit game at the JCKC for around $700 bucks. This led us to an obvious decision —Let’s go to the beach and ass it up. We decided not to go out Friday night in Tally, and instead concentrate on getting up early and heading down to Destin early enough to interrupt Lex’s early morning bong rips. An absurdly long wait for a chicken sandwich at Hardees’s slowed our progress, but did not deter us from the mission. We arrived around 11:00 (Beach Time) and realized that working on our tans was probably not going to happen. It was already overcast, and appeared to be worsening by the minute.
If we couldn’t pound alcohol and scout for girls, the next logical step was to gamble, namely at the Ebro Greyhound Tack and Poker Room. It’s about a thirty minute ride over the bridge, and well worth the drive. I was unable persuade Lex to come along, but that was to be expected, as Lex really doesn’t like leaving his couch unless absolutely necessary. We arrived and were quickly seated at a new table and off we went. Peach lost $100 early when some stupid retiree caught a miracle Jack on the turn. I battled for about an hour more, before meeting an equally brutal fate. The details aren’t important, but needless to say, I wasn’t happy. While the ultra-competitive, stud card player in me wanted to re-buy and abuse this group of inferior humans, my drinking monster was slowly rearing his ugly head as I watched Mike sipping Miller Lite at the bar. I wanted to get drunk, and no amount of card-playing would change that.
On the way back to Destin, I pondered our options for the evening and decided that a night of drunken debauchery and skirt chasing at Baytown Wharf was probably our best bet. After all, two other Class A jackasses I know would be there, so what could possibly go wrong? Well for starters, Mike was having none of it. Still depressed from his bad beat at the card table, he proceeded to explain to me the litany of reasons why he would not be “going out and acting like an idiot” with the rest of us. I explained that for all of his excuses, the only reason I saw for him not wanting to go out was that he was “a big pussy” who “couldn’t see the larger picture.” He told me to “fuck off,” and refused to talk the rest of the ride home, but apparently my comments had ignited a fire in Little Peach.
We got back to Lex’s house and Mike got in the shower still in a rather surly mood. That shower proved to be more of Baptism than a bath. Peach came out of the bathroom like a man possessed. He cracked a beer and decided that he was in the mood for a shot. Not a fucking Lemon Drop or Jager Bomb mind you, but Absolute. Straight out of the bottle. I wasn’t really even ready to start drinking, but I decided to roll with it and before I knew it we were through the all of the vodka, beer, and tequila in the house. There seemed to be only one cure for our newfound lack of booze—Buy more of it. We made the quick journey to the local booze emporium and went with the logical choice: A half-gallon of Smirnoff and a king’s ransom of white grapefruit juice. We arrived back at the house and I walked upstairs to make my first of many Salty Dogs. There was a problem, though. While the grapefruit and I had made it upstairs, Peach and the vodka had not.
I walked downstairs and saw no sign of him, but overheard some sort of commotion coming from another condo, one unit over. I also noticed that most of the commotion was in Spanish. As I walked towards the building I began to make out several people on the front porch. It seems that Peach had found a group of Mexicans to drink with. (The company they work for owns the condo next door, and these guys were staying there while they worked in the area.) Mike was teaching them the great American art of shooting vodka and acting like an idiot. I immediately joined in, and it wasn’t long before I decided that I should shotgun a beer to give myself a little street credit, as a raging Peach is an extremely tough act to follow. Carlos, Miguel, and the rest of our new friends are amazed by the sheer violence and rage I use in downing the Bud Heavy. By number five, I amazed at the sudden urge to projectile vomit and pass out, but being the Frank the Tank does not allow for such moments of weakness. I press on.
At some point while Peach and I were trying to kill ourselves with grain alcohol, Lex got stoned enough to actually come downstairs and try to get us ready to leave. I was more than willing, but Peach was going to take a little more effort. As I was talking to Lex and introducing him to our new friends, I noticed Peach had fallen into the bushes behind me. I tried to get him up, but he was much too busy trying to make a “snow angel” in the hedges. This was a sign of things to come and should have, at the very least, caused us to rethink our decision to take Mike into public. Unfortunately, it did not, and off we went to the Florida panhandle’s best meat market, Baytown Wharf. For those of you not familiar with the place, it’s a disgustingly upscale collection of bars, restaurants, and gift shops that you only find in places like Destin, that always seem to attract hot girls from Alabama and points beyond. It’s kind of a home away from home.
We arrived at the complex around 11:00 and after a few minutes of driving around, finally manage to find a parking space. As we got out of the car, Alex and I noticed that Michael is now shirtless, shoeless, and is well on his way to taking his pants off, the reasons of which remain unclear to me at this point. We tried for the better half of ten minutes to explain to Mike why he had to put his shirt and shoes on, to little avail. Only after threatening to leave him alone in the parking lot, did he finally put his shirt back on. The fact that the shirt remained only half buttoned and soaked in spilled booze was of little consequence to us. The moral victory of getting Michael off the express route to jail was enough for us for the moment.
We had to walk across the parking lot and through the Resort complex to get to the bars. About halfway through, it came to our attention that Mike had fallen behind and was, once again, without a shirt or shoes. While peach going sans clothes was becoming almost normal, the fact that the shirt and shoes were now nowhere to be found left us a strategic decision: Go try to find his clothes and hope he would put them back on, or simply leave him there to fend for himself. I was leaning strongly toward the latter.
Alex was appalled by the suggestion that we just leave Peach there to fend for himself. I explained that as a former college roommate, lifelong friend, and jack-ass drunk, I alone was qualified to make this decision. As I put it to Alex, “There’s nothing we can do. He will either find his clothes and make it to the bar, or he will go to jail. It’s up to the Peach now.” Alex did not like this, and let me know by explaining what a bad friend I was. Normally, I would have been inclined to defend myself, but as I’ve already established, Alex is simply not qualified to properly deal with Mike when he has been competitively drinking. So I left. Just like that. Alex stood there stunned, and Mike just staggered around talking to himself.
There was a huge line outside Rum Runners, I decided on the spot that I was much too important to wait in line with the other peasants. (As much as I hate to admit it, this is how my mind actually works when I’ve had that much to drink.) I stumbled past the bouncer and muttered something about going in to close a tab. He started to protest, but my textbook “Don’t hassle me” dismissive wave of the hand sent him back to his command post. I made a bee-line for the bar, ordered a Salty Dog, and began to scan the bar for talent. I snickered at two guys in the middle of the dance floor that were grinding all over two random girls. Those two guys of course, turned out to be who I had come to find in the first place--Van and Keenan. After the perfunctory high fives and pseudo-hugs, they introduced me to several girls. They were all cute, and Van went so far as to tell me that he had fallen madly in love with one of them and that she might be the one. He had only known her two days and, I’m guessing here, had probably struggled to get her name right when introducing us, but love works in mysterious ways I guess.
I notice that Alex is blowing up my phone like a Jerusalem city bus, but my phone is on the fritz and I figured he needed to be challenged. I mean, there’s only like 6 bars here. Surely I can’t be that hard to spot in a crowd….Just as I suspected, he found me a few minutes later, chatting up some girls from Ohio. He apparently was very upset that I had left him and Mike back at the hotel, and that Mike was in fact MIA. He had lost him ten minutes prior in the hotel courtyard while trying to assist in a shoe-finding mission.
I then explained to Alex that it didn’t matter, and that Mike would find us when he wanted too. As if on cue, that awesome little fucker strolled in the front door like he owned the joint. I said something to Lex about being all-powerful and all-knowing and how awesome I was, but quickly moved back to the Ohio girls.
It turns out that they were all seniors at Ohio University in Athens, Ohio. One of them was actually from the same tiny town as my Uncle and his family. We namedrop a little bit, flirt a little more, and most importantly, we drink. These girls were awesome! All six of them were good looking and the not the least bit bitchy or pretentious. On top of that, they were all throwing back shots like Motley Crüe roadies. I start dancing with the girl I was hitting on all night (I think her name was Kristen, but I really have no idea for sure) and even manage to make out with her on the dance floor.
Around this time, someone tapped me on the shoulder. I turned to see the same bouncer I waived off earlier, only he could care less about me. Apparently, the bar staff had decided that he had had enough and it was time to go. I whispered to the girl next to Kristen (?) that we had been kicked out of much nicer places than this, and that we should head towards the Funky Blue’s Shack. They concurred, and off we went. (It should be noted that despite being INSANELY drunk, Peach had managed to hit it off with one of the Ohio girls.)
We get to the Blues Shack, and I head to the bar. The head bartender has become a good friend of mine as of late, and as we exchange hellos, he leans over and says, “Your friend over there is too drunk. He needs to go.” I look in the direction he is pointing (Not that I need to) and see Peach is being shown the exit by some gorilla with a shaved head and no neck. I am not happy at this point. One of the girls and I had really begun to hit it off, and getting kicked out of multiple bars is not very conducive to hooking up.
We leave and attempt to go to Hammerhead’s. They refuse to even let Mike in the front door. This is getting ridiculous. After telling the bouncers what meatheaded pieces of shit I think them to be, I spy Van and Keenan walking into a little late-night pizza joint with their two girls. Suddenly it dawns on me that if Mike eats something, maybe he can sober up enough to stop getting kicked out of everywhere we go. As I order us a slice at the counter, I am startled by a crashing sound that I am pretty sure has been produced by a member of my entourage. I am correct. Mike has slung a barstool across the restaurant, but manages to avoid law enforcement by quickly picking it up and slurring a very sincere apology.
The pizza seems to help sober us up slightly, but the long-term effect is marginal at best. The Ohio girls are back at Rumrunners, so I use our momentary burst of post-pizza sobriety to sneak Peach back into the bar. The girls are glad to see us, although I really can’t imagine why. For all my self-perceived charm, all I can really manage to do is order shots and make vague sexual innuendos to no one in particular. The strange thing is, the girls are not only amused, but actually decide to invite us to come back to their condo to “listen to music.” I love my life… I am barely able to admire how awesome the night is going when Lex brings reality crashing down on top of me. It seems the girl’s condo is all the way on the other side of Destin, which leaves us a choice of a $150 cab ride or a DUI. Obviously the cab should have been an easy choice, but our level of drunkenness has reached epic proportions, and I can’t even manage to turn my phone on, let alone figure out how to call a cab. The bar “staff” makes the decision easy for us, as once again Mike D. is ejected from the bar and warned not to return.
Normally, I would do everything in my power to go make it home with the girls. This is not a normal night. I am beyond drunk. Hallucination is a much more accurate description of how I am feeling. As we stagger towards the parking lot, Mike is confronted by two rent-a-cops. I’m fairly certain that they aim to take Mike to jail, but I am surprisingly quick with a retort.
“Guys…Give him a break. He’s getting married next week.” Mike is much too wasted to see what’s going on here, but that actually works to my advantage.
“I’m not getting married. You’re full of shit,” he yelled. The security guards, both of whom are married I presume, instantly change their tone. They start laughing their asses off and cheering him on. “Hell yeah man! Fight it as long as you can!” The more Mike protests, the more they believe I’m telling the truth. Apparently being married sucks as bad as I think it does.
I thank the hired goons for being so understanding and continue the trek to the parking lot. Alex, of all people, proceeds to talk shit to a stranger and nearly gets us into a fight. The details are rather foggy, but somehow, after threatening to put this guy’s face through a plate glass window, we shake hands and agree that a fight is not in anyone’s best interests. That’s me. The voice of reason.
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