Story Time #4
This is a pretty short story, but really bizarre. Canada, Convicts, and Crazy Shooters.
Back in high school, I was in a Dixie Land band that mainly catered to retired couples, jazz purists, and wieners. I'd have to say, we were the most "punk rock" of them all with our set of James Brown and Brian Setzer covers, we always shook it loose. It made a bit of money and we got to travel a bit, so it weighed out in the end.
We ended up playing at one the big Jazz festivals in Canada, Chilliwack to be precise, and this offered us an opportunity to see another country, play some jazz, and indulge our fermented curiosity in the lower drinking age limits. With the Chilliwack festival, you are shuttled around the premises by van and are put up with the various jazz aficionados or parents of the local performers. It's a pretty sweet deal. A hot meal every day, plus you get a ton of drink tickets from the promoters. You circulate around the venues and play quite a few times a day, under tents or on big stages, always landing on the partially deaf ears of the Herbert Hoover generation. They thought we were adorable.
After a performance, Randy, our tuba player and a large African-American man of monstrous proportions, thought it would be a great idea to explore the local clubs and bars since we were of legal age in Canada. Thinking this was a great idea, we decided to go with our housing host's son (we'll call him Teddy) to a club called Area 51.
After entering the club with a overly confident, "I'm legal now", type of bravado, we settled into a booth with a couple of Molson Canadians, surveying the scene:
Girls grinding other girls in bird cages, a lazer light show, smoke machines, two people having sex in a corner, five separate bars, and people packed like sardines on the dance floor.
This being our first official bar of schmoozing and drinking, we felt like we had arrived. THIS was a bar. This was THE bar. A bar that would of surely been stricken down by God himself in a more biblical time, the debauchery that intense. Just before we could let it all sink in, a black haired woman of Amazon proportions approached our booth, decked in leopard print and black leather. She looked at me and Teddy for a moment before setting her gaze upon Randy. She spoke slowly and in a deep timbre, never looking away from his face:
"You and your friends look like you need some shots."
And with a snap, she got a waitress there, ordering four "Crazy Shooters" of Jack Daniels Fireball, a drink I still have not found in the states. A Crazy Shooter, I came to find out, is about three shots in one, bigger than the average shooter. They arrived in seconds and without a inkling of common sense, we pounded these Crazy Shooters like it was nothing.
I had never had anything that intense.
This trumped Bacardi 151. This was Jack's FIREBALL. A cinnamon flavored whiskey with a much higher alcohol content than regular sour mash. This was like mixing Aftershock, Cinnamon Scope, and Everclear. We coughed and hacked like green wussies, Teddy having to excuse himself to go vomit. As he ran towards the bathroom, the Amazon grabbed Randy's hand, wrote her phone number on his palm, and spoke calmly and clearly:
"If you want to fuck, call me. I've never ridden a Black Stallion."
And with that, she left. We sat there speechless, wiping the tears from our eyes. Randy now had a mission.
We were later told that black people in Canada is a rarity and the women compete for their "affections". Randy said it himself, "Man, I feel like I'm the only black dude in this entire country. I've only seen one black dude and he was with a bunch of white guys, decked out in a cowboy hat lookin' like he just voted for Reagan."
Teddy returned, looking a little pale, only to be greeted by another Molson Canadian. We sat and drank, reflecting upon the candid offer that the woman gave Randy, amazed due to our sheltered high school ideals of mating and courting. As we sat there talking, a short white bearded man with a bandanna slid into our booth, calling over a waitress. We had no idea who this guy was.
"Hey, hey, come here. My friends and I want a couple of drinks, run a tab."
We looked at each other, sure that this guy had us confused for some other group. He turned to us with a wink and laid on a car salesman like charm. "Hey there, I'm Mike, you can call me Pirate Mike. You boys need some drinks, don't look like hardened drinkers, we'll get you some drinks. How you doing tonight?"
We introduced ourselves over a round of Midori Sours, explaining what Americans were doing in Chilliwack, talked about the Jazz Festival, and he recounted his story with a calm sincerity that still leaves me questioning the truth to this day.
"Well, I just recently broke out of prison near Toronto. Yep, a true Jailbird you got here. I shived the fuck out of a guard during yard duty and ran like the dickens towards the gates, firing that dead son of a bitch's gun back at the other guards, you know, keeping them at bay. Those fuckers have the worst aim, couldn't hit the broad side of a barn. Anyways, I managed to scale a security fence near the prison bus depot, slashed my arm up on the razor wire real bad. Once I unloaded that clip I ran like my life depended on it, because seriously, those fucking CO's would of popped me in the back the very first chance they got. I don't really want to disclose how I got to where I am, but I need to un-load a bit of money, and fast."
As he finished up his story, his grizzly looking arm reached into his pocket and laid down a stack of big billed Canadian currency on the table, telling us to buy rounds for people and drink like Pirate Mike would. "Because everyone knows a Pirate can drink like a mother fucker, you guys are pirates too. Pirate Mike has you taken care of." We ended up buying rounds for the entire club and staff, drinking like Vikings. The waitresses and bartenders loved our table because we tipped like Donald Trump. I had never seen so much money in one place and now that I think about it, I'm pretty sure Pirate Mike was trying to launder the money through other people, making us accomplices in some Toronto area robbery that I don't know about, nor care to. But boy howdy, were those drinks good.
After a few more Fireballs and countless Crazy Shooters, Pirate Mike insisted that he pay for our cab back to our house and he pay for Randy's condoms and separate cab ride to his Amazon Lover. All he asked was if the I-5 from Bellingham Washington went all the way south to Mexico. We replied with a shit housed "YES!"
At this point I remember little to nothing, except waking up on our host's couch with Randy stumbling in the front door, his pants un-buttoned and missing one shoe. Slurring his speech, he recounted the rest of his evening after our meeting with Pirate Mike.
"I gave her a call from the pay phone out back and took the cab to her house. I got in there and she has a bunch of kids, shes in her fifties! Anyways, man, she knew how to work it, if you know what I'm saying. But it was creepy 'cause I'm looking at this portrait of her husband and kids, I'm pretty sure she was married. She was a pro. I didn't even get to go, she just worked me like a whore and kicked me out of bed right after, giving me cab fare and saying it was nice. I didn't mind, man, it was sweet. Age man...like a fine wine, like a fine wine. It was cool though, man, she gave me some money for some doughnuts at Tom Horton's (the big Canadian doughnut chain, like Krispy Kreme) on the way home."
He then strutted into the bathroom to hose himself down, probably noticing for the first time since he left Amazon Woman's house that it burned to pee.
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After that night, Randy was nicknamed "The Graduate". We never did find out if Pirate Mike was telling the truth or if it was total bullshit. Although this guy did look pretty road worn and thrashed. I'll never know, but I'm putting Pirate Mike's money on it being the truth.
Back in high school, I was in a Dixie Land band that mainly catered to retired couples, jazz purists, and wieners. I'd have to say, we were the most "punk rock" of them all with our set of James Brown and Brian Setzer covers, we always shook it loose. It made a bit of money and we got to travel a bit, so it weighed out in the end.
We ended up playing at one the big Jazz festivals in Canada, Chilliwack to be precise, and this offered us an opportunity to see another country, play some jazz, and indulge our fermented curiosity in the lower drinking age limits. With the Chilliwack festival, you are shuttled around the premises by van and are put up with the various jazz aficionados or parents of the local performers. It's a pretty sweet deal. A hot meal every day, plus you get a ton of drink tickets from the promoters. You circulate around the venues and play quite a few times a day, under tents or on big stages, always landing on the partially deaf ears of the Herbert Hoover generation. They thought we were adorable.
After a performance, Randy, our tuba player and a large African-American man of monstrous proportions, thought it would be a great idea to explore the local clubs and bars since we were of legal age in Canada. Thinking this was a great idea, we decided to go with our housing host's son (we'll call him Teddy) to a club called Area 51.
After entering the club with a overly confident, "I'm legal now", type of bravado, we settled into a booth with a couple of Molson Canadians, surveying the scene:
Girls grinding other girls in bird cages, a lazer light show, smoke machines, two people having sex in a corner, five separate bars, and people packed like sardines on the dance floor.
This being our first official bar of schmoozing and drinking, we felt like we had arrived. THIS was a bar. This was THE bar. A bar that would of surely been stricken down by God himself in a more biblical time, the debauchery that intense. Just before we could let it all sink in, a black haired woman of Amazon proportions approached our booth, decked in leopard print and black leather. She looked at me and Teddy for a moment before setting her gaze upon Randy. She spoke slowly and in a deep timbre, never looking away from his face:
"You and your friends look like you need some shots."
And with a snap, she got a waitress there, ordering four "Crazy Shooters" of Jack Daniels Fireball, a drink I still have not found in the states. A Crazy Shooter, I came to find out, is about three shots in one, bigger than the average shooter. They arrived in seconds and without a inkling of common sense, we pounded these Crazy Shooters like it was nothing.
I had never had anything that intense.
This trumped Bacardi 151. This was Jack's FIREBALL. A cinnamon flavored whiskey with a much higher alcohol content than regular sour mash. This was like mixing Aftershock, Cinnamon Scope, and Everclear. We coughed and hacked like green wussies, Teddy having to excuse himself to go vomit. As he ran towards the bathroom, the Amazon grabbed Randy's hand, wrote her phone number on his palm, and spoke calmly and clearly:
"If you want to fuck, call me. I've never ridden a Black Stallion."
And with that, she left. We sat there speechless, wiping the tears from our eyes. Randy now had a mission.
We were later told that black people in Canada is a rarity and the women compete for their "affections". Randy said it himself, "Man, I feel like I'm the only black dude in this entire country. I've only seen one black dude and he was with a bunch of white guys, decked out in a cowboy hat lookin' like he just voted for Reagan."
Teddy returned, looking a little pale, only to be greeted by another Molson Canadian. We sat and drank, reflecting upon the candid offer that the woman gave Randy, amazed due to our sheltered high school ideals of mating and courting. As we sat there talking, a short white bearded man with a bandanna slid into our booth, calling over a waitress. We had no idea who this guy was.
"Hey, hey, come here. My friends and I want a couple of drinks, run a tab."
We looked at each other, sure that this guy had us confused for some other group. He turned to us with a wink and laid on a car salesman like charm. "Hey there, I'm Mike, you can call me Pirate Mike. You boys need some drinks, don't look like hardened drinkers, we'll get you some drinks. How you doing tonight?"
We introduced ourselves over a round of Midori Sours, explaining what Americans were doing in Chilliwack, talked about the Jazz Festival, and he recounted his story with a calm sincerity that still leaves me questioning the truth to this day.
"Well, I just recently broke out of prison near Toronto. Yep, a true Jailbird you got here. I shived the fuck out of a guard during yard duty and ran like the dickens towards the gates, firing that dead son of a bitch's gun back at the other guards, you know, keeping them at bay. Those fuckers have the worst aim, couldn't hit the broad side of a barn. Anyways, I managed to scale a security fence near the prison bus depot, slashed my arm up on the razor wire real bad. Once I unloaded that clip I ran like my life depended on it, because seriously, those fucking CO's would of popped me in the back the very first chance they got. I don't really want to disclose how I got to where I am, but I need to un-load a bit of money, and fast."
As he finished up his story, his grizzly looking arm reached into his pocket and laid down a stack of big billed Canadian currency on the table, telling us to buy rounds for people and drink like Pirate Mike would. "Because everyone knows a Pirate can drink like a mother fucker, you guys are pirates too. Pirate Mike has you taken care of." We ended up buying rounds for the entire club and staff, drinking like Vikings. The waitresses and bartenders loved our table because we tipped like Donald Trump. I had never seen so much money in one place and now that I think about it, I'm pretty sure Pirate Mike was trying to launder the money through other people, making us accomplices in some Toronto area robbery that I don't know about, nor care to. But boy howdy, were those drinks good.
After a few more Fireballs and countless Crazy Shooters, Pirate Mike insisted that he pay for our cab back to our house and he pay for Randy's condoms and separate cab ride to his Amazon Lover. All he asked was if the I-5 from Bellingham Washington went all the way south to Mexico. We replied with a shit housed "YES!"
At this point I remember little to nothing, except waking up on our host's couch with Randy stumbling in the front door, his pants un-buttoned and missing one shoe. Slurring his speech, he recounted the rest of his evening after our meeting with Pirate Mike.
"I gave her a call from the pay phone out back and took the cab to her house. I got in there and she has a bunch of kids, shes in her fifties! Anyways, man, she knew how to work it, if you know what I'm saying. But it was creepy 'cause I'm looking at this portrait of her husband and kids, I'm pretty sure she was married. She was a pro. I didn't even get to go, she just worked me like a whore and kicked me out of bed right after, giving me cab fare and saying it was nice. I didn't mind, man, it was sweet. Age man...like a fine wine, like a fine wine. It was cool though, man, she gave me some money for some doughnuts at Tom Horton's (the big Canadian doughnut chain, like Krispy Kreme) on the way home."
He then strutted into the bathroom to hose himself down, probably noticing for the first time since he left Amazon Woman's house that it burned to pee.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
After that night, Randy was nicknamed "The Graduate". We never did find out if Pirate Mike was telling the truth or if it was total bullshit. Although this guy did look pretty road worn and thrashed. I'll never know, but I'm putting Pirate Mike's money on it being the truth.