Krash Khronicles - Black Saturday 1987

Krash Khronicles
BLACK SATURDAY
08/05/87

When I write these Khronicles these days, I usually have MTV videos on TV and a six-pack of beer and sometimes a cigar. Booze, smoke and rock-n-roll help to establish a mood. The ole brain starts to make unique associations between its various databases. Of course these periods are short, limited to seven or eight beers when the associations begin to become twisted and motor functions degrade, spelling and syntax go out the fuckin' window, an' the volume of usable writtings goes down to about ten percent.

The time has come to speak of BLACK SATURDAY, also known as the Bailie batchelor party. "Old Joe" Peterson was in charge, and he was up for it 'cause Chuck had been in charge of his a year earlier. As they say, paybacks are a bitch. My brother, Craig (know as JR in these parts), had been down from Pittsburgh for Joe's party and since it's impressive to import batchelors for such an event, Joe set the date so that JR could be here.

When I called JR to confirm the date of the big event, he said he had mixed it up with the date of his golf league's big tournment, and he was the president.

I picked JR up at Palm Beach International on Friday afternoon at four forty-five. We didn't have to wait for baggage and so we were on I-95 south traveling to Doors music by four fifty-five. I had picked the tape especially for JR ... Jim was singin' "welcome to the soft parade..everything must be this way." We didn't speak at first, but later we were singin' with Jim, as we did fifteen years ago.."This is the best part of the trip ... the part I really like."

At the office, the normal Friday afternoon dunk-it ball championships were in session. JR picked up on the game quickly. Greg Jones kept his distance 'cause he remembered only too well JR's Kamikaze style of walley-ball the year before. He didn't have to worry, cause JR remembered too. About seven, the dunk-it ball was at an end. It always ends soon after the beer supply is depleted. JR and I were on to Fort Lauderdale for the Rick Boswell surprise birthday party.

The party had been going on since five, and it wasn't a surprise anymore. Chuck showed up an' we helped the Bospeople finish the thing up. Bos was trying to move the whole fuckin' event to Roland's. JR and I decided to follow the crowd even though I'd been boycotting Roland's ever since his Valets did unsolicited bodywork on my new car.

Bos got Mitch to get him a table, an' about twelve of us got seats. I was next to the wife of one of Bos's more outrageous clients. She couldn't figure us out. Bailie, JR and I had gotten altogether too much attention when we showed at the birthday party. She inquired in fairly discreet terms, what rock I'd crawled out from under. I fixed her with a cold penetrating stare for a second, and then I began to Kackle. She asked nothing more.

The group broke up around eleven and JR an' I were on the road again, northbound this time. I was havin' too much fun, goin' up and down through the gears an' changin' lanes too much. About the same place on federal highway where I'd gotten my DUI three years earlier, we picked up a flashing bubblegum machine. I pulled into a minor lefthand turn lane, turned on the interior lights and waited. A cold calm took over, and the kackling stopped. It was a Fort Lauderdale cycle trooper. He looked tough like David Soul in the Dirty Harry movie. Even though it was pitch black, he was wearing mirror shades, and he never took them off during the whole incident.

We continued on to the Dollhouse, in a straight line, never topping fifty. Not much happenin' at the club. We had a few more beers and talked to Julie, and then gave it up for the night. Home, and another successful mission completed. JR got out and came over to my side of the car. He was leanin' over the hood, examining my Tivoli Gardens decal on the windshield when I closed the door and started towards the apartment.

JR had somehow had his beergut caught in the car door when I slammed it home. For some time he would be wearing a four inch long, purple-green-yellow, dog-bone shaped hickey that looked like Aunt Jemima herself put there.

Saturday. By four PM, Craig and I were sufficiently recooperated to transport ourselves to the office for the main event. Derek was there, getting some weekend work in and we could see that Old Joe had outdone hisself getting the place ready. There was BLACK crepe paper streamers, BLACK cups, BLACK popcorn and, oh yes, les we forget, a keg was cooling down, but where the Fuck was the tap?

While we were waitin' for ol d Joe to show with the tap , I introduced JR to "Broadsides", a computer wargame involving sailing ships. The keyboard controls are awkward to master at first, and there is a time delay built into the game for realism. JR is the USS Constitution, and he is taking a hell of a beating from the HMS Victory.

JR had spent six years in the US Navy, most of it on warships, "protecting America's and the free world's sealanes from communist aggression" as he liked to term it.

Joe and Jim show up with the tap, and we are off to the races. Cee and a friend of his mother's arrive. P2 (Phil Plaisted), Jeff and Greg filter in. Bobby Brandt, Tomo, Bosman, Dwight, and the peterson menfolk start to round the event out into a real ramapge.

We started a dunk-it game, but with fifteen players, it was out of control from the start. Jim thought things were goin' too slow, so he started some chug-a-lug challenges. The sum-bitch mustuv' been practicin' with that keg of his at home 'cause he kept winning everytime. I'd be half way through my cup, chokin', drippin' and sputtering 'an that quiet bastard be wipin' the foam off his lips.

We had the keg 'bout half empty when Boca Raton's finest turned up in the parking lot, lights flashing. They weren't after us though. You see, we have some free-lance pharmacists next door, the kind without occupational licenses. Now, the police stop their customers, having made a purchase, and inform them the products do not have FDA approval and might even be harmful. Being fine public servants, they go into great detail, sometimes for two or three hours. You'd be amazed how many of these customers aren't aware of the dangers. Holy Mother, some of them don't even know thex've been stopped'

A scene of great decadence evolves. On one side of the large plate glass office windows, in the dark of the night illuminated only by rotating red and blue beams, are two police cars, four officers and the poor consumer victim, bent over one of the cars (perhaps feeling the ill effects of the bootleg medication). On the other side (safe inside?), under 160 plus candlepower bright flourescents, stand, lean, and slump fifteen or so learing, slobbering, slurrin' lunatic revelers, engaged in a holy twentyth century ritual of manhood. Bailie has a stupid attack and goes outside to bullshit with the cops. Manhood rituals haven't changed that much I guess 'cause this kinda reminds me of an african boy goin' after a lion with a knife.

Chuck makes it back, proving to all that the Gods favor him this night, and Derek records the event on film. He shoots a series of group snapshots framed by the window with the police in the background.

Joe disappears and when he returns he is bearing a fearful talisman, a foam hamburger box with a reflective mylar balloon tied to it. Those of us who recognize it begin to tremble in fear, for we know its contents. There are some things mere mortals aren't meant to fuck with, and this was one of them. Joe slowly opened the box, eyes shinin' with an inhuman light. Two pickled eggs, one purplish red, one yellow with streaks of grey. Both had large bites missing. Both had been ancient beyond reckoning when those bites had been removed during a dunk-it game five weeks earlier. Joe and Cee each took an egg. Somebody began to chant quoting the Egyptian book of the dead. They faced each other, raised their cups, chugged their beers, and downed the eggs.

five seconds ... ten seconds...fifteen seconds pass..Joe an' Chuck bolt for the door. They both reach the door at the same time. There is a scuffle and a little blood.

The keg was floatin' in the melted ice by this time, so there was only one course of action, saddle up and head out. I put Wagner's "Flight of the Valkeries" on my radioshack cassette player and marched around the office with it to get everyone in the mood. The police had gone, so we were all able to slip away quietly (or at least what passed as quiet with this group, loud music, catcalls and burnin' rubber). JR and I were the last out of the building so I called the security service and told them to lock the front door. I waited thirty seconds and tried the door. Still open. I dialed again.

Hire the handicapped, I always say. The entity on the other end of the line eventually caught my drift and secured the door. By this time, everyone had a good lead on us, but we caught up with them at the entrance desk of the Dollhouse.

When we got inside, the only area big enough to seat us was the "champagne room". This "room" resembled a box seat at the track (no fun intended). It was "walled" off from the rest of the club by thirty-six inch high partitions and offered the advantages of being next to the stage and next to the dressing room entrance. We had our own private waiteress. The reason nobody sits in this area is that drinks cost exactly double. Good thing for us that we had a keg under our belts. I stood next to the entranceway and kept track of the waiteress, Rusty. Rusty had served us last year at Old Joe's demise also. I had known her for a couple of years now and remembered when she used to dance. Rusty is a very well proportioned four foot high redhead.

The first round of drinks came, and Derek started a tab. Derek handed me a fifty to break down. Rusty came back with a sheaf of fresh singles with the wrapper still on. DVP broke the wrapper and scattered the pack about the area. The idea was for ready cash to be available as the need arose. It seemed a capital scheme to me, so I distributed another fifty. I took rusty off to the side to arrange for Bailie's night in the spotlights.

JR looked down at the floor and spied a tenspot mixed in with all the singles. He told old Joe, and Joe put his foot over the ten. A few minutes later one of the dancers came by looking for a ten she had lost, and Joe was too embarrased to lift his foot. I knew his heart was in the right place 'cause later I saw him givin' the money back to her, and he was countin' it out and placin' it in her garter one dollar at a time.

All of a sudden Steffanie was standing in front of me, and she was wearing only a G-string.

I was dumstruck. She had nice breasts before, but now it was California cantaloupe season.

By the time the main event went down, I was totally whacked, and I don't remember a fuckin' thing about it. However, havin' seen the event many times before and with help from those who could remember I can be pretty sure it went down as follows.

The club DJ started callin' for Charlie, and this pissed Cee off cause he doesn't like being called Charlie. Eventually, he got up on stage and the show started. They sat Chuck down on a chair with his back to the stage, Steffanie, Julie, and the other three dancers come up behind him with champagne and glasses in a bucket. They each in turn dance in front of Cee as the DJ introduces them. At this point chuck is told to shut his eyes while the girls assume a 'star' pattern around him. When he opens his eyes, he finds himself staring first at ten buns and then at ten boobs, close range. Bailie was then encouraged to chug champagne with the girls. The girls, of course, could not finish their drinks and so, Bailie had to. Cee had to remove a garter belt with his teeth and then the girls proceeded to tear his shirt off and replace it with a Dollhouse Teeshirt.

At the end of the ceremony, Chuck had to dance with the girls. He went beyond the antics of most batchelors when he tried to climb the pole at the end of the runway. When he did that, the women abandoned him to his own devices.

How fickle the crowd. Bailie was urged off stage by everyone but the Vanderparty. Everybody started to fade away, and by the time JR and I left, only DVP, P2 and Bobby Brant were left. JR insisted on driving and we somehow made it home after several wrong turns. This was no mean feat as we ended up runnin' two quardhouses, and then tried to find one apartment in a complex of fifteen or so nearly identical buildings.

Sunday, two PM. Craig and I start movin' around. It was a slow start too. Heartbeat by heartbeat. After a few abortive attempts, we managed to turn the TV on (thank the gods for remote control). Bogart was goin' off the deep end in "The Caine Mutiny". It was time to get Craig to the airport. The trip to Palm Beach was mostly in silence, the music playin' low and mostly, ignored. The weather was drizzling rain, rare for this part of the planet, but suited to our current mood. I let JR off at the US Air terminal and limped home. I would not know it til Monday, but all had survived intact and would be back in fighting form in time to terrorize Cape Cod two weeks in the future. Black Saturday was over.