“You don’t want to mess with me. I’m a… Karate Man.” (Dennis).
Super Power Tuesday. Flex em up mi gente. Is this the first Super Power Tuesday of October? I for one, am glad the month is just creeping along. Plastic skeletons are up all over the neighborhood and ghosts are hanging by ropes in doorways. Anyway, boys a ghouls, today is the day to flex your stance. That power pose that tells the world… and your self, that you are not to be messed with today.
Act 1. The names and locations have been changed to protect the innocent.
My buddy Dennis, (not his real name), is a combination smart ass, and badass. He was picked on as a kid, so he learned to make people laugh. That seemed to work out for him. He did the same routine in the Army. We’re a lot alike, that why we can hang.
Dennis likes white people. Dennis isn’t White. He one of those ethnically ambiguous types who is always mistaken for the enemy of the individual making the assumption. For example, Cubans think he’s Dominican. Dominicans think he’s Mexican and Mexicans think he’s Arab. Blacks think he’s White, but Whites never think he’s White. This is why we’re cool. When we are in mixed audiences there’s no problem.
But Dennis likes White people. White girls in particular. And they like him. Or so it seems.
When it’s my call, we hang out in the City. We never have problems until people start speaking Spanish to us. Like I say, he’s a smart ass.
“No speekee Spanish,” he’d say. And guess what. They’d look at me.
“No hablo,” I’d say, which was about all I knew at the time. I get the looks that say, “you should be speaking Spanish. Why don’t you speak Spanish. You just don’t want to speak Spanish.” Like all my life. I didn’t even know people spoke Spanish in Philly until I was a teenager. I wanted to learn Spanish in middle school. No way Jose. The only language on offer was French. Puerto Ricans don’t speak French.
Act 2. A Random Thursday.
It was one of those Thursday nights when neither Dennis or his sidekick, yours truly, had to work the following Friday, or the weekend, or even Monday.
Road trip.
Somewhere south of Delaware, near Maryland. On either side of the border. I don’t ask.
“I wanna take you to this cool place.” I knew what that meant. I’ve been to his “cool places” before.
“Is there a mechanical bull.?” I asked snidely.
“How did you know? Have you been there?” We both laughed. Smart-ass know smart-ass.
So we get there, and the place is huge. It was like one of those, three or four clubs in one type places. One of the places had bowling lanes. We didn’t go in, although it looked festive. This wasn’t a redneck bar. The world was represented there, like brown spots scattered on a white map. Like every progressive group of White kids have their “brown” friends? Or Asian, our South Asian. This was probably when Indian origin peeps were transitioning out of being called “Indian” to “South Asian,” and then, “Desi” might have come later. But the place was 80% White. This is not a big deal, if you’re White. Or if you’ve grown up around White people from childhood. There’s this weird kind of rhythm, or lack thereof about this herd when they are among their own and clearly in the majority.
If you know, you know.
We put some quarters on a pool table, ordered some beers and listened to music that was blanketing the room.
“Living on a Prayer.” “Don’t Stop Believing.” And whatever Hootie and the Blowfish were signing at the time. This was earlier in this century. There’s like a package of songs that clubs of this type play. They might even have played Outkast’s, “Hey Ya.”
Dennis let me break. “If I hear one ‘Yeee haaaw,’ I’m outta here.”
It wasn’t long before I hear, “Hey Denny!” In a cheerleader voice. And she comes over. Pink and blonde with a fruity drink, and a few friends. Both ladies, dudes, and Bubba.
Bubba is more of an attitude than a name. He wasn’t linebacker big, but he was the biggest guy out of Barbie’s small group, which by the way included a woman from Jamaica.
With the right pair of shoes, your boy can fake 6 feet in height. Bit I always wear sneakers. Dennis always wears boots. Not cowboy boots. Boots that give him a respectable, but not over imposing height. Maybe 6 1 to 6 1 and a half.
I get introduced to Barbie, and Barbie sings and dances out everybody’s name. They are like mono-syllabic names; Luke, Nick, Dawn, Deb, & Bubba. The Jamaica lass had a really pretty name that was Anglicized and shrunk down to something that could be grunted out between slurps. I wave at the group, and stare at Jamaican Gold a little bit too long. She catches on and smiles shyly. A little bit too long. Nobody seems to notice.
Barbie hugged Dennis like they had history. The way only a very satisfied woman can embrace a man… with the kind of undeniable abandon and lust that can be felt for miles. Everybody noticed. The girls were not surprised, but a few mmm, MMMs, slipped out. I wasn’t even surprised. I’d met at least a dozen girls through Dennis who looked just like Barbie.
He has a type.
The rendezvous was planned, but Dennis hadn’t said anything about meeting up with his, “friends” during the ride down. And I didn’t ask. I knew better.
Dennis is a hand-shaker and cheek-kisser, he wants to shake every guy’s hand, maybe slap their backs and say their name, so he doesn’t forget.
“Smiles. Smiles everyone.”
Act 3. Bubba.
Bubba wasn’t a bad looking guy. He looked kind of like an actor who would play a guy called Bubba, (not his real name. But if you saw him, you’d call him Bubba.) He had dark brown hair, beady eyes, a thick brow and a low, heavy jaw. That’s what gave him the Bubba look. He did some kind of vocational work. Hands on. Athletically muscular, but had consumed enough beer since junior high school to alter his athletic physique. He was actually shaped like a can of beer.
When Dennis offered his hand to man, Bubba pulled one of those quick-grab numbers and squeezed hard. Dennis groaned reflexively but caught himself. “What are you overcompensating for?” Dennis said, in a sarcastic tone. If anyone else heard it, they didn’t react.
Bubba couldn’t answer. He didn’t expect that response. “My bad,” he mumbled, and offered to buy the first pitchers.
Plastic pitchers of Bud Lite, with clear plastic cups for everybody. Yay.
I couldn’t drink that stuff. I went to the bar and to my delight, they had one of my favorite brewskis, Negro Modelo. Which is actually called Modelo Negra. However, the first time I ever had it, at an after-hours spot in Old City, Philly, the peeps I was drinking with referred to it as Negro Modelo, and that’s what I call it to this day.
Anyway, between air guitar, Nirvana and the way White girls dance when they’ve had too many fruity drinks, the night moved on.
It was apparent to this keen observer of humanity, that Bubba had taken an instant disliking to Dennis. Who the hell knows why? Back then, I would have fallen back on bigotry, jealousy, the White man’s burden. Bubba wasn’t Barbie’s type. Apparently she was not his type either. Between games of pool, dirty dancing and flirting Bubba was making some time with some cute gingers who’d shown up. Maybe it was their freckles.
Everybody has their type. Jamaica Gold was definitely my type. But that’s another story.
Act 4. Was it something I said?
Dennis doesn’t drink. He drives. So he’s having watered down Pepsi with lots of lemons all night, telling people it’s rum & coke.
The second beer is never as good as the first one. We never learn. So after my second Negra I’m drinking water, or the occasional cranberry juice. I tell the bartender I’m driving and my juice drinks are comped. She is tipped generously.
Our exit policy has always been to leave at least an hour before closing. I know this. I’m trying to get Gold’s digits… as if. Dennis is making plans, or so it seems, with Barbie, who’s stinkin’ drunk, and Bubba is fuming.
As we’re heading out Bubba pushes past me and pushes Dennis on the shoulder. Bubba is flexing his Lite Beer muscles. Bubble was not as heavy as he looked. Or as strong. I felt the bump, but recovered rather quickly.
We’re outside now and Bubba is mumbling.
“Mumble, mumble… kick your ass.” Or maybe it was “punk ass.” Or maybe it was “faggot ass.” Whatever it was.
“Bubba chill,” one of the mono-syllabic names ordered, weakly. I don’t think Bubba heard the voice. He was too busy flexing his beer muscles. Barbie never made it out the door. Maybe she was passed out, or dancing.
Bubba’s pointing at Dennis with one finger, and his other hand is clenched.
Dennis is somewhat perplexed. No security. No bouncers. We were already outside. There weren’t even any cops in the parking lot. They don’t usually show up until closing time.
Dennis, falls back on comedy.
“You don’t want to mess with me,” he says in an old kung-fu movie dub voice. And then he starts doing this crazy shit that looks like a cross between the Three Stooges, and a 12 year old who’d just watched Fists of Fury. “I’m a, (he paused, and made a move like an old men’s cologne commercial), “karate man,” he finished.
The audience, myself included, cracked up. Bubba was not amused. Comedy was a sign of weakness to Bubba, and bolstered by Dennis’s act, the big man came out swinging.
I don’t want to call it a trap, but Bubba fell into something. Dennis actually knows some shit. He’s no Bruce Lee, but he’d been training through the boy scouts, neighborhood dojos, in the military, and here and there and on his own. So much so that avoiding ass-kickings have become instinct.
“I trained myself in martial arts, as advertised.”
Bubba was drunk and angry and stumbling. On the ride back Dennis told he was trying to rope-a-dope Dude. Figured Bubba would get tired and wear himself out.
Here’s what nobody tells you about White Boys. If they can’t box you, they switch up to wrestling. This is why cats get tackled through windows. Dennis sensed it. This wasn’t his first Bubba.
Bubba came at my boy and Dennis put one of those boots right in that beer can chest. The solar plexus, to be exact. It was a jumping front kick. Bubba stumbled back a few inches. Wobbled. And collapsed. Beer muscles deflated. Beer can body, dented.
Nobody screamed.
Somebody said, “Damn.”
Bubba threw up.
I didn’t get Goldie’s digits, but I did check out her MySpace page.
We left the scene.
“Damn son, didn’t know you had those kinda skillz,” I said during the ride back. “I’m slightly impressed.”
“Don’t be,” Dennis laughed, “I was aiming for his nose. But these damn boots were too fuckin’ heavy.
Epilogue. Always a Crowd Pleaser.
Every few years when we get together, especially with friends, we tell that story.
“How bout that time you took me to Bum-fuck, Delaware, and you did your Mortal Combat thing with that big fuckin’ Sasquatch dude.”
“It was Maryland,” he corrects me.
By now it’s like a comedy routine. I say Bubba was like 6 foot 6, and built like Hulk Hogan, breathing fire and wearing white sheets, and then Dennis gets into story as we agree to tell it. It changes all the time. Even this rendition leaves out a few details.
It was just one of those, when you do dumb shit, dumb shit happens adventures.
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