El Vaquero

For those of you who may not not know, El Vaquero is Spanish for "The Cowboy". We had one of them walk into 1762 one sticky summer night in the not so distant past. This particular El Vaquero donned a black cowboy hat, dark shades (in the middle of the night), a button down Western-style shirt, jeans that were so tight he spoke a full octave higher, and RIDICULOUSLY pointy black cowboy boots that were, as Jon put it, "Right outta Texas".

As soon as he "John Wayne" sauntered into 1762, I could see a rather large chip on his shoulder. He looked around at everyone, sneered, and took a seat at the vacant end of the bar, closest to the front door. He ordered a "Heiney-Keen" from Shelley, and raised his voice unnecessarily as he did so. Shelley served him his cerveza, and came back down to the "regular's" end of the bar. A moment or two later he starts La-La-La'ing something that I could not understand. Obviously he wants attention. Maybe his momma took him off the teat too young. Shelley goes down there, assuages whatever it was that put a hair in the caboose of El Vaquero.

A few minutes later, El Vaquero starts to raise his voice again, looks around the bar to make sure he is getting the attention he so craves. We all looked at him with that blank stare that is intended to let you know what we really think of you.

Obviously there was a language barrier here. Ellie happened to be in the bar with Hector that night, so we had no shortage of Spanish speaking translators. Ellie offered to translate for the misplaced cowpoke, and this seemed to calm him for uno momento.

When I look back down his way, he is holding Shelley's hand. Kinda tight. Not letting go. She's playing it cool. Finally, El Vaquero lets go. Again, he starts mouthing off again, this time to Ellie. I see Hector, who is shooting pool, look over and patiently process what is going on, and what may need to be done. Jon goes over, tries to talk to the guy, gives him a smoke, and genuinely tries to disarm a heated situation. Hector goes over to El Vaquero next and lets him know that if he continues to be loud and disrespectful with Ellie, that he will have a problem at 1762.

El Vaquero had all of us a little "raised up", as we could not predict what the intentions of this patron might be. Discreetly, I went to the back door and retrieved a fire extinguisher that was mounted on the wall. Nice weight to it. Not so heavy that it was unwieldy, but heavy enough to knock a rude El Vaquero out.

A little time goes by. Tension is in the air. Jon and a few other regulars are smoking by the back door. I watch El Vaquero rise from his stool and start walking very quickly toward the group near the back door. I scooped up my firefighting apparatus and quietly followed him.


El Vaquero starts to reach out and grab for Jon, who's back is turned at this point. I raise the extinguisher, thoughts of Arnold Schwarzenegger saying "I extinguished him" running through my mind, and begin to lunge forward at the back of El Vaquero's cranium. In a split second I hear him say to Jon, "Cigaretto". Lock up the Brakes! I snatched back on the fire extinguisher less than a foot from my intended target. He was asking Jon for another cigarette! I whisked around, extinguisher at my side thinking, "Man, that was close".

El Vaquero smoked that cigaretto, had one more Heineken and left, not knowing how close he had come to being "extinguished". But I think he got the message. Haven't seen him back since.

The Bird's Nest

A while back when I was living out in Ronkonkoma, there were not too many bars that my friends and I could drink in when we were sixteen. Go figure.

We did find this one spot, called the Bird's Nest right next to the Ronkonkoma train station. Now that I look back at it with my 40 yr old mindset, the location was perfect. The average 9-5er could get off the train at the Ronkonkoma Station, walk across the street, have a few pops and get a look at some bare-breasted "lovelies". Oh, did I forget to mention that it was a topless joint?

As far as the dancers go, the bulk of them were white trash with bad teeth and worse asses. The bouncer was ridiculously large. Not fat. Tall, with rippling muscles that were accentuated through the filthy sleeveless t-shirt and leather vest that he wore.

The barmaids were retired dancers that were just too old to make tips based upon their ass-ets anymore. They were an especially acerbic group. Embittered with harsh voices that came from years of smoking filter-less cigarettes. Their mouths would be crinkled and purple at the edges from so many hours of sucking, mostly cigarettes, but many times from sucking other things out in the backseats of patrons cars.

This is going back a ways. Circa 1983 or so. So you could still smoke in the bars. As a matter of fact, it was encouraged. I didn't smoke at the time, neither did any of my compadres. The overwhelming smells in this railroad shanty were those of smoke predominantly, but a strong mix of sweat and perfume was a close second. These smells were capped off with that sweet-sour smell of stale beer.

On this particular Friday night, (a hot, humid and steamy night I might add which really served to enhance the conflagration of bad aromas), the bar was packed. Lots of 9-5ers, but a good number of local bad-asses. It took forever to get up to the ramshackle bar to order a beer. As bad luck would have it, as we were ordering our drinks a group that had been seated at the bar, got up to leave. We scooted into the vacant barstools like it was a game of musical chairs.

As the night progresses we are drinking and tipping the dancers, who are shaking their golf ball dimpled asses on a ledge (read: extremely narrow stage) behind the bar. We're tipping not because they were semi-clad goddesses, but because the bouncer would have forced us to give up our seats to tipping customers.

While I am drinking my bottle of "What's the cheapest beer you sell here?", a dancer is having an argument with an intoxicated 9-5er standing over my left shoulder. Apparently she had flashed him a little more than the industry standard and he didn't tip her enough. This gets the attention of the sea hag behind the bar. She has some words for the guy, who has a "fuck you" kind of attitude.

You could see a little spark of life come into the old crone barmaids previously dead eyes. This she liked. This she relished. This asshole was representative of every guy who didn't tip her when she danced, who tried to slide a digit where it did not belong, of every guy who ever wronged her in her entire miserable existence. She summoned KONG.

Of course, his name wasn't Kong, though it could have been. Kong moved in quickly, belying his 6ft 5 frame. This was going to be better than any show the dancing gargoyles could provide.

Barmaid says with a hiss to Kong, "This guy blah blah blah."

Kong grunts, picks up a glass from the bar and bites into it. Really. Bites into it, chews a few times and spits the shards of glass at the drunk 9-5 guy. This didn't seem to faze the brass-balled commuter in the least, much to the amazement of Kong and the Sea Hag. In fact he starts in again. Now Kong is seething and decides to unleash some Hellfire in this guy's direction, er, my direction as well. Kong picks up a can of Aquanet hairspray that belonged to one of the dancers. The hairspray back then was in an aerosol can, providing a nice stream of shellac for those big-hair-do's of the era. Kong then retrieves his flip top Zippo from his leather vest pocket and deftly strikes it as he dispenses the VERY flammable hairspray. A fireball erupts from behind the bar. Quickly I ducked to my right. I could feel the heat of the fireball as it continued on into the direction of 9-5er. That was enough for him, for me, and for the Bird's Nest. He forked over whatever it was that he owed the girl, me and my friends gave up our barstools and bolted for the exit. Ah, the good old days.