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Our tale begins late Wednesday night (technically early
Thursday morning). Scott had a friend drive him in from NJ to
my place in Manhattan, and he got to my place a little after
midnight.
We went over our packing checklist and got some three dolla Chinee
foo from across the street and the hung out shooting the shit
with my roommate Victoria. Around 2:45am, we were still wide
awake and decided we should go out and grab a drink before settling
in for the night (that and the fact that Scott was getting my
roommate to talk about dirty stuff - I mean, c'mon, do you really
need to know your roommate's got a penchant for shaved nuts -
and I needed to get him outta there before I lost my mind. Hahaha).
Here
comes the story of the night (this is really long, but worth
it. Trust me): So after we left my apartment, we ended up walking
over to Max Fish and sat down in the back against the wall next
to the bathrooms. It's a little after 3am at this point and Scott
and I are sipping our drinks and shooting the shit about our
upcoming trip when suddenly, this white,
twenty-something,
wannabe thug in a hugely oversized hoded coat who's standing
near us while waiting in line for the bathroom busts out a magic
marker
and
attempts
to
discreetly
tag the freshly painted wall (with what is clearly the corniest
tag ever). After he'd finished, he looked over at us and realizing
that we'd seen him do it, he gave us a defiant, what-are-you-going-to-do-about-it,
tough-guy shrug before walking in the bathroom. Which in our
book is basically the equivalent of begging to be fucked
with.
So when he came out of the bathroom, Scott waved him over and said in a good-natured
tone "You know, I spent four hours today painting this place - if you're
going to write on it, you could at least have the courtesty to practice your
tag more
at home." It was just some light-hearted ball-busting and we expected the
guy to be like "Oh, shit" and bust our balls right back. But instead,
without missing a beat, he leaned over, got all up in Scott's face (keep in mind
that at 220, Scott had an easy 70lbs on this guy) and was like "What are
you trying to say, bitch?" Scott, not breaking his mellow tone, replied, "Oh,
was I unclear? I was saying that I think you're tag isn't very good." Again,
we waited for him to get the joke and tease us back but instead he got REALLY
ANGRY.
When
someone gets really angry for no apparent reason, the best way to
insight further anger is by staying (antagonizingly) calm. In the
spirit of this
maxim,
Scott
batted his eyelashes at the guy (whose name at some point we'd learned
was Tobias) and said "Before you go getting all angry at me
about my opinion, I want you to step back, take a good look at the
tag you wrote on the wall over there and ask yourself 'Tobias, is
this my personal best?'" I had no idea where Scott
was going with this and as soon as I heard the phrase "personal
best" I started cracking the fuck up which about sent Tobias
through the roof.
He stepped over in front of where I was sitting and got up in my face "What,
MOTHERFUCKER? You a fucking art critic too? You want to get in a fight over
this shit, MOTHERFUCKER?" So without standing up, I politely explained "No,
I don't want to fight. I just don't think you're tag is very good either. In
fact, I think it's the dumbest tag I've ever seen." At this point Tobias
questioned my ability to criticize his tag (I believe he sited me as not being "street" enough,
yo) so I decided to appeal to the crowd of onlookers that had begun to gather
when Tobias started raising his voice. I called over the nearest person and
asked what he thought of Tobias' tag. The guy, who'd clearly heard the whole
exchange (and clearly wanted to wind Tobias up further) said "Oh, man,
that the GAYEST tag I've ever seen. I mean, it's truly, truly terrible."
Then, much to Tobias' dismay, we started taking pictures of us giving his tag
the dreaded "thumbs down." Oooh! That's gotta sting. Tobias was beside
himself and spent the next five minutes standing in front of the bench we were
sitting on trying to get us to start a fight with him. Tobias
really wanted to fight, but only if we did something first. Scott, explained
that since neither of us were going to hit him, if he wasn't going to hit us,
he should just go away. Despite Scott's words, Tobias stood there for the next
five minutes (literally, FIVE MINUTES) sounding like a broken record: "C'mon,
hit me motherfucker. Come on, hit me. Hit me you, bald pussy. What about you,
blondie? C'mon hit me. Let's do this. Let's do this. Yo, for real, yo. Let's
do this. C'mon, hit me. Hit me..."
Towards the end, he mixed it up a little: "Yo, you're lucky it's just
me. How about if I call my crew up and get them to come down here?" Scott,
called his bluff "Tobias, it's 3:40am on a Wednesday. More than anything
else in the world, I would love for you to call your crew up. Go ahead, call
them up. And then when they get here, when you're "crew" is all here,
we can fight. How does that sound? Does that sound good to you?" The audience
that had gathered, laughed at this, and what little signs Tobias had earlier
shown of calming down and leaving us along immediately disappeared and he began
trying
to get us to punch him with a newfound fervor.
At this point, Scott realized that Tobias clearly wasn't going to go away on
his own accord, so in his loudest speaking voice (and keep in mind that as
a former opera singer, he can speak very loud) Scott said "EXCUSE
ME, COULD YOU PLEASE LEAVE ME ALONE. I JUST WANT TO SIT HERE AND ENJOY MY DRINK
AND YOU'RE IN MY
PERSONAL SPACE." Tobias kept leaning into Scott's face saying "C'mon
hit, me. C'mon!" etc. So again, Scott said "I'M ASKING YOU AGAIN
- PLEASE STOP BOTHERING ME. YOU'RE STANDING TOO CLOSE TO ME AND YOU'RE TRYING
TO PICK A FIGHT WITH ME AND YOU'RE MAKING ME UNCOMFORTABLE." Tobias didn't
stop. So Scott stands up and Tobias steps up to get close to his face again.
Seeing no other way, Scott turned his head to the sizeable crowd that had gathered
to watch the very small guy persist to berate the very big, bald guy, and asked
them "Does everyone here see what's been going on?" Before they could
answer, Scott quickly dipped down low for a second and exploded out of his
crouched position and with his outstreched arms sent an unsuspecting Tobias
sailing backwards, legs up in the air, several feet through the air.
Tobias landed square on his back, smacked his head on the floor and continued
to slide backwards with his legs up. He stopped just short of crashing into
the bar (which, no joke, was a good 15" from where he'd been standing
just a second earlier) and scrambled to his feet. In the sevearal moments that
Tobias stood there wild-eyed and quaking, staring at Scott across the distance
he'd just so uniquely traveled, torn between wanting to charge at Scott while
at the same time understanding that the guy he wanted to charge at was the
one that had just sent him hurtling through the air, the bouncer (that I guess
had been standing outside on the street the whole time) heard the commotion,
came running to the back, grabbed a hold of Tobias and positioned himself between
the two men. As soon as the bouncer got a firm hold on him, Tobias, who'd spent
the prior ten seconds in a state of non-action, started ferociously struggling
to get free so he could kick Scott's "fucking bald ass." After thirty
seconds of trying to calm Tobias down, the bouncer looking over Tobia's clearly
larger opponent and told him "If you don't calm the fuck down, I'm going
to let you go." Tobias immediately calmed down.
With Tobias under control, the bouncer walked over to Scott and told him that
he was going to have to leave. At this point, the whole back room chimed in
to tell the bouncer that it was the other guy that should be thrown out and
Tobias (with cheers from crowd) was ejected from the bar. The
bouncer, whose name was Jamal, came back in, and after hearing what had happened
from a few onlookers, apologized and bought Scott a beer. Oh, and here's the
best part:
Despite what this story would otherwise indicate, Tobias must actually have
a really good sense of humor. At one point during the five minutes he spent
trying to get us to hit him, he pointed at me and said "Fuck you." then
slowly turning to point at Scott said, "And fuck you." And then to
further illustrate his point, he took his lil' marker back out and wrote this
on the wall complete with arrows clarifying who he was directing "the
fucking" at. That shit ruled. THAT should be his new tag. Tobias, if you
ever read this, I'm sorry we gave you a hard time. Maybe we just caught you
on a bad night?
PS - The fact that I'm sorry doesn't change the fact that you're tag is GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!
Hahahahaha.
Thursday
Morning
Here's Scott and I at 10am on Thursday morning leaving my apartment
for the airport.
Bye-bye, winter!
2:08pm. Delicious airline lunch.
Sooo tasty.
We landed in sunny, warm Aruba at 4pm.
Excited.
Here's a "before" pic I took of Scott's pasty calves in the Aruba airport.
We scored a rental car and headed to check in to our...oh, wait, did
I forget to mention that our resort check-in date wasn't until Saturday
and we'd decided to party the first two nights and sleep in our rental
car? Hahah. Ok, so here's the story. Keep in mind, we went on this
trip because
my
Uncle
Bruce
had a week at a luxury resort that he wasn't going to be able to use.
That meant that we had a free place to stay from Saturday to Saturday.
When we went to buy plane tickets, we found out that if we flew in
on Thursday
(instead
of Friday or Saturday), our flights would be almost $600 cheaper. Considering
we were both trying to save money (neither of us were working at the
time), we decided that we take the cheaper Thursday flight and and
just sleep in the rental car until Saturday when we were able to check
into the
fancy resort.
We got some dinner and then walked around Orenjestad checking out the
scene. The town was pretty quiet and the only thing of interest we
saw was this, fat, sleeping tiger that was in a huge glass cage in
a public park.
After dinner, we drove out of town and checked out the resort that
we'd eventually be staying at. After driving around aimlessly for a
few (cranky) hours we decided to head back into Oranjestad. When we
got back into town, we spent a long time looking for a place to park.
We needed to find a really safe place to park the car (Keep in mind,
we didn't have a hotel to check into, so all of our luggage, everything
we'd brought with us was locked in the trunk and we couldn't risk a
break-in). After almost an hour of fruitless searching, while driving
on the busy main road that runs through the middle of downtown Oranjestad,
we noticed that people had parked their cars on the five-foot wide
cement island that separated that two lanes. At the very end of the
line of cars, there was a space that was just big enough to fit our
car into. After several failed parallel parking attempts, a frustrated
Scott got out of the car, and LIFTED THE BACK END OF THE CAR UP off
the road and onto the island. Viola! Instant safe parking.
After the parking situation was settled, we headed over to a tiny bar
sandwiched between the main drag and the water called "The Paddock."
Scott had scoped it out earlier in the night when we were walking around
town and said that he thought it might be a fun place at night. Here's
Scott posing with one of the raptors outside. Hahah.
We went inside around 10:30pm and managed to snag a table right before
the place started to fill up. From our seated vantage point, we spotted
a really cute local girl with a bunch of her friends and spent
the next few minutes watching the group and looking for an opening.
Mid-way through our planning, Scott left to pee and while I was sitting
there alone at
the table, I decided that I was just going to go over and try to talk
to the cute girl. Before I even got near her, I was ambushed by the
cute girl's gay friend Ramses. He introduced me to the cute girl, Alexandra,
and then asked me if I wanted to smoke some pot with him. I told
him "Sure, but can
we
wait
for my
friend
to get
back from the bathroom?" Ramsey's said "Oooooh! The big bald,
one? Oh, we can wait for him...mmmmmmhmmmmm." Hahaha.
So Scott got back from the bathroom and after being introduced to the
group we all went out to Ramses car. We figured that he'd drive us
around or something but he was like "Aruba was a Dutch colony - nobody
here cares if you smoke pot."
He then proceed to pull out a 14" glass pipe from under the driver's
seat. Hahaha.
Let's hear it for making new friends!
Yay, new friends! (Clockwise from Scott: Lorainne, me, Alexandra
and Inge).
Me, Rameses and Alexandra.
Me preparing to do my one impressive 80s dance move.
That's right. Jumping over my own leg. Awwww, yeah.
Yay, local girls!
Here's us with Scott and Eric, two guys that we met that were originally
from Boston. Eric, the guy in the JERK shirt, moved to Aruba for good
and is a lawyer there.
Ramses flirting with us.
While making friends with the local bartender (some Dutch guy whose
name I've since forgotten) we found out that this particular bar had
a...
...karaoke sound system! When he heard of our propensity to rock the
karaoke mic, he fired that bad boy up and came around from behind the
bar to sing with us.
So by this point in the night, we'd told everyone that we'd flown in without
a place to stay and that we planned on partying ALL NIGHT our first two days
and sleeping in the car for a few hours each morning. So when when the Paddock
had last call at 2am, the group (still clearly riding high from our Jersey-pride
fueled rendition of Bon Jovi's seminal hit "Livin' on A Prayer"),
was only
too
happy
to
indulge
the "crazy
New
Yorkers,"
and suggested we all head to an all night karaoke afterhours club. ("An
Arubian
all
night
karaoke
afterhours club." Is there a sweeter phrase in the world?)
By the way, as we were getting ready to leave the Paddock, the bartender put
a stack of plastic cups on the bar. When I inquired what they were for, our new
friend Inge explained that they were "to go" cups for your drinks. She mistook
my blank stare of disbelief and explained further, "You know, in case you're
not done with your drink - you pour it in one of those and then you have it with
you for the car ride to where ever you're going next." Me: "Um, but isn't it
illegal to drink and drive?" Inge: "I don't think so. Wait, maybe it's illegal
for the driver to be drinking, but it doesn't matter. Everyone does it anyway."
Me: "Isn't that dangerous?" Inge: "Not really, there are only a few roads and
the speed limit is 35mph everywhere - so even if you crash no one really ever
gets hurt." Um. Yeah. O-kaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay.
Scott,
Alexandra and I piled into Ramses car and headed for club ECHO (you
have to whisper it: ECHO!). When we got there, the place was closed.
Ramses explained that afterhours clubs in Aruba only open if they feel
like there will be enough people for them to have a good night. So
what you do is, hang out outside the place and wait for more people
to show up. When a large enough group has congregated, they open the
joint up. We were only outside for 10 minutes or so and VOILA, they
opened the place up.
We wasted no time busting out the karaoke mic.
Hahahahahahahaha.
Making more friends at the bar.
Get a load of this fuggin' guy. I love how Scott has a perfect lipstick
kiss-mark right in the middle of his forehead for pretty much the rest
of the night.
Hmmm, who could've done that?
Reminiscing about Boston.
This guy showed up late night and we were told that he was a police
captain. We were like "Oh shit, is he closing the place down?"
Turns out, he'd just gotten off and was there to have a few drinks
and sing. Awww, yeah.
Hahahaha. Wait, what time is it?
Oh! It's kissy time!
Er, yeah. Kissy time. (Big ups for my main man Scott. Talk about
"taking one" for the team.)
And to think, exactly twenty-four hours earlier we were in cold, wintery
NYC sitting in front of a moron who was begging one of us to punch
him. Sometimes the modern world amazes me.
Oh, did I forget to mention that the girls started doing body shots?
So right around this point (5:30am) my camera died, here's a recap
of the rest of our night: We got into Ramses car and he drove us (s
l o w l y) to Alexandra's apartment. On the way there, Scott fell asleep
in the front seat - when we got to Alexandra's, (it's totally daylight
now and she lives in a tiny little apt/house in this weird neighboorhood
of identical houses and there are roosters crowing) she and I got out
of the car and Ramses started to drive away with Scott. I was like
"Whoa! Where is he taking him? Aren't we staying here? " Alexandra
was like "You are. He's going back to Ramses; place." I was like "Oh,
no, no. We're a package deal." I chased down Ramses and hopped back
into his (moving) car, and told him Scott was coming with me. He got
pissed and he and Alexandra started speaking heatedly in Papiamentu (the
local language is a pidgin mix of Spanish, Dutch, French and English).
In the end, Ramses relented and Alex and I woke Scott and got him out
of the car. We got into Alex's apartment and immediately understood
the problem, there was only one bedroom and she shared with her female
roommate. Luckily, she wasn't home, so Scott crashed the fuck out on
the couch and I hopped in Alex's bed... (on
to the the next morning)
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