Day Three: The Yellow Rose and The Arrest

I awoke the next day to PWJ coming back into the room around 10am. I recounted my shit-in-the-lobby story, and after he collected himself, he told us about his night:

PWJ "Yeah, thanks a lot Tucker, you fucking asshole."
Tucker "Hey, it's not fault that you are into manatees."
SlingBlade "Did she give a whale call when you were tubing her?"
PWJ "Fuck you."
Tucker "So, did you actually fuck her?"
PWJ "Yeah."
Tucker "I can't wait until one day The Manatee shows up with fat genius children with thimble heads and claims they're yours."
SlingBlade "WAIT--You fucked her? What about her promise ring?"
PWJ "She had a promise ring?"
SlingBlade "What a whore."

Of course, this sent us into eruptions of laughter. Apparently, The Manatee had told SlingBlade (but not PWJ) that she was nearly engaged to her boyfriend, who was out of town that weekend. It turns out SlingBlade is right for once: This one really is a cheating slut. PWJ went on,

PWJ "Now I know why she made me fuck her on the floor--her bed creaks and she didn't want her roommates to know she was cheating on her boyfriend."
SlingBlade "I hate women."
PWJ "You should have been there this morning when she dropped me off. She pulled up to the hotel and said, 'Thanks. It was nice to meet you.' I said, "Yes it was," got out and came up here. That was it."
Tucker "You mean you didn't take her to breakfast?"
PWJ "Fuck you."
SlingBlade "He can't afford it. He's on financial aid as it is."

I made SlingBlade call down to the front desk to get our toilet unclogged. About 30 minutes later, the door flung open and a woman who could have been Pootie Tang's mother started to scream at us:

Maid "Who kilt my toilet?"
SlingBlade "That was me. I'm sorry; I'll have a written apology to you in the morning."
Maid "Iz aight. At least it didn' flood the seelin so's da people down stairs'all 'Why da hell shit comin' down from ma seelin'?'"

She quickly and efficiently went to work, every few minutes yelling something barely intelligible out of the bathroom, "DAMN BOY, what'chu been eatin'? You be needin some Mylanta. Hehehehe."

We spent the day resting up, and eventually met up with the rest of the crew at Mermaid's apartment. We pre-partied there for a few hours, and went back out in Austin, except this time we went out on 4th street, which is less of a college crowd and more of a young professional crowd. We started at a place called Lavaca Street because they had table shuffleboard, and El Bingeroso is addicted to that game.

Dirty and I played El Bingeroso and Mermaid, and we spent the next 2 hours treating them like refugees. This absolutely incensed El Bingeroso. He is very proud of his ability at table shuffleboard, so me beating him was beyond the pale for his ego.

He started drinking...but not happy drinking. It was like he was trying to douse his anger with alcohol. Every game we won would make him drink faster. After 2 hours of losing, he was fuming mad and very drunk. Being a good friend, I was a gracious winner:

Tucker "I thought you were good at this game? You are a failure. Dirty and I aren't even trying anymore. Beating you is like teasing fat people; it's just too easy. You aren't even a man. Did Kristy forget to let you bring your sack with you on this trip?"
El Bing "FUCK YOU ASSHOLE. I'LL BEAT YOUR ASS."
Tucker "You can't even beat me at table shuffleboard. Do you have fucking palsy or something? Why can't you throw the puck straight? I'm shit-faced and I'm better than you. You are fucked up...you can't even out drink me."
El Bing "WHAT? YOU ARE THE WORST DRINKER I HAVE EVER SEEN. YOU DRINK LIKE A FUCKING SEVEN YEAR OLD." Then El Bingeroso made the bet that would cause a Butterfly Effect on both our lives, "MOTHERFUCKER, I'LL OUT DRINK YOU THREE-TO-ONE. ANYTHING! YOU PICK IT, I'LL DO THREE FOR EVERY ONE YOU DO, YOU FUCKING KINDERGARTEN DRINKER!"

I'd done it now...I'd finally pushed El Bingeroso too far. Almost immediately, Mermaid appeared with four shots of tequila. Mr. Tequila does not get along with Tucker. In fact, Mr. Tequila turns Tucker from normal-happy-drunk Tucker into violently-hurl-all-over-everything Tucker.

Tucker "I'd rather eat out a bull's ass than take a shot of tequila."
Mermaid [Sniff, sniff] "I smell a pussy."

I throw my shot back, and barely keep myself from throwing up. Isn't alcohol fun? This is one of the few times I can remember where someone successfully manipulated me into something.

El Bingeroso gets through the first three shots relatively easy. Mermaid shows up five minutes later with four more shots. El Bingeroso and I stare at each other. Even though we are holding it together, we both know that if we do these shots, it's over. I know I'm going to vomit, and he knows he's going to blackout and go into a drunken, violent rage. But come on, we're 24 year-old guys, do you really think either of us are going to back down?

I do my shot first because I figure that I have less to lose, as I am not engaged, nor do I even like myself very much. El Bingeroso does two of his shots. I run to the trash can and vomit my guts out.

Of course, El Bingeroso leads the rest of the bar in merciless taunts. I deserve it, as I have just vomited from two tequila shots (and the 15 or so beers I already had in my stomach). My only solace came when I saw El Bingeroso do his sixth and final tequila shot. It was like watching one of those NFL's Greatest Hits videos where they show the moment of impact in slow motion, and you can actually watch the receiver go from conscious to unconsciousness or see the quarterback's leg bones penetrate his sock as they compound fracture. I could see El Bingeroso go over the edge. His eyes started moving independently like a chameleon's, his knees buckled, and he had to catch himself on the table. His fate was sealed. He quickly recovered and stood up straight again, but I've been drinking with him enough to know the result of that little sequence: He's going to jail.

SlingBlade goes to the bar to get us a round of beers. While there, he starts up a conversation with an older lady who was sitting on a bar stool by herself with a poodle in her lap:

Woman "I wish I were young again, and full of piss and vinegar like you guys."
SlingBlade "We're just full of alcohol and Mexican food. You could do that."
Woman "Oh my! You are funny."

As SlingBlade chatted her up, he surreptitiously fed her dog beer. When she discovered this, it did not please her.

Woman "WHAT ARE YOU DOING! Oh my goodness, Pookie, are you OK?"
SlingBlade "Your dog has a drinking problem, you might want to look into that. Take him to doggie AA or something."
Woman "WHY DID YOU GIVE BEER TO MY DOG!"
SlingBlade "Your dog drank my beer. There is a difference."

The bartender stepped in.

Bartender "You and your friends are cut off."
SlingBlade "WHAT? I am 165 pounds of pure athleticism. I can recycle alcohol with impunity. Bring me more beer woman, and be quick about it."
Bartender "Don't make me call the police."

That was pretty much it for us. Mermaid took us to some other bar that was located in an alley, and before any of us even knew what was happening, El Bingeroso was tossing trash cans around, knocking over dumpsters and kicking doors down. He was in full-on El Bingeroso Destroy Mode. He's the type of drunk that makes you wonder why alcohol is classified as a depressant.

It was clear we had to get him off the street. While deciding what to do, we came across one of the numerous street musicians that swarm 6th street. Some guy was playing "Friends in Low Places" on his guitar, and next thing we know, El Bingeroso has his arm around him, crooning at the top of his lungs:

El Bing "CAUUUUSE I GOT FRIENDS IN LOW PLACES, WHERE THE WHISKEY DROWNS AND THE BEER CHASES...MY BLUES AWAY...AND TUCKER IS GAY..."

The guitar guy stops playing, and tries to help El Bingeroso out:

Guy "Man, you need to put that beer down, there are open container laws in Texas."
El Bing "YOU WANNA GO?"
Tucker "EL BINGEROSO, STOP IT--he's trying to help you."
El Bing "YOU WANNA FIGHT TOO? Come on jackass, gimme some more Garth before I kick your teeth in. I'LL DO IT!"
Guy "You need to get your friend away from me."

If I had a nickel for every time I've heard that said about me or my friends, I be driving a Bugatti.

While this went down, SlingBlade was making friends with one of the numerous homeless denizens of Austin. One beggar sparked this exchange:

Beggar "Hey man, do you like, have any change man?"
SlingBlade "Hahahhahahaha. He talks like you, El Bingeroso! I bet he was a promising law student once, before the huff-huff and all. Come here El Bingeroso, take a look into your future!"
Beggar "Do I get some change, man?"
SlingBlade "Tell you what--I will give you all my change if you give me that can of beer in your pocket."
Beggar "But...it's all I have. I live on the streets, man."
SlingBlade "IT ACCEPTS THE DEAL OR IT DOESN'T GET MY CHANGE."
Beggar "OK, man, OK. Here you go."
SlingBlade "Very nice. I don't have any change, but thanks for the beer."
Beggar "But...but...man, that beer was all I had. I live on the streets, man."
SlingBlade "And do you think that perhaps your poor negotiation skills had something to do with this? Hmmm?"
Beggar "No man, my ex-wife kicked me out man, I got nowhere to go."
SlingBlade "You said the magic words. Here's your beer back."
Beggar "How about some change?"
SlingBlade "Don't push it. You're lucky I haven't knocked out your tooth."

We decide to go to a strip club, The Yellow Rose. To this day, I still laugh recalling our thought process: El Bingeroso is too drunk and violent to walk around the streets, so let's take him to a place with naked women and large angry bouncers! Sounds great! It'll be all sunshine and kittens from there!

There are six of us, so we split into two cabs. Cab 1 is me, Mermaid and Dirty. Cab 2 is PWJ, SlingBlade and El Bingeroso. It's only like ten minutes to the Rose, and Cab 1 arrives with no problem. The three of us go inside, and immediately Mermaid says to me, "We are in Gomorrah."

If you go out a lot, you know that you can never try too hard to make a party; you just have to kinda see where the night takes you. You do that enough, and every now and then you stumble into one of those absolutely perfect situations, where it seems like everything just falls into place. It was that kind of night at the Yellow Rose.

It was a Sunday night, so the place was not crowded, but for some reason there were lots of dancers on shift. We were dressed well, had lots of cash on us, and all three of us have good game, so before we realized it there were about 5 or 6 girls hanging with us at our table.

Dirty assesses the situation, looks up at me, gives his devious smile and then pulls a classic Dirty maneuver, "Ladies, do you know who that guy is?" He points to me. "That is Tucker Max. He looks like a humble guy, but in reality he is one of the creators of, and the forth largest stock-holder in, Yahoo. I'm sure I don't need to tell you ladies what Yahoo is, do I?" Of course, two of them did require explanation, but the other four knew what it was, and one said she owned stock in Yahoo.

Now, obviously this is not even remotely true. I was dirt poor and didn't even own the car I drove. But Dirty went to the PT Barnum School of Marketing, and learned the most important lesson very well: The bigger the lie, the more likely people are to believe it.

I pretended to be unassuming and nonchalant as he kept talking me up. All six couldn't have been hooked more if we'd landed them with tackle and a line. The best part was the dancer who owned stock in Yahoo seemed to know a little bit about the stock market, and tested me by asking who the CEO was. I had worked for Fenwick & West that summer, and one of their main clients was Yahoo, so I knew quite a bit about them. The look on her face when I said, "Are you kidding? I helped hire Tim Koogle," was fucking priceless. I thought she might go down on me right there at the table.

Playing the part, I ordered bottle service for the table, and before we knew it, there was free lap dances and gratuitous groping all around. It was great. One of the strippers had done some porn before, so I asked her about something I had always wondered about:

Tucker "I understand how female porn stars are selected, but if you are guy, and you
don't have a huge cock or shoot 8-ropers, how do you get into the porn industry?"
Mermaid "Networking, dude, networking."
Stripper "I don't know. I just fucked whoever they told me to. It paid good."
Tucker "Well isn't that pleasant? I bet your parents are beaming with pride."

We had all six convinced to come back to our hotel with us, when all of the sudden Mermaid looks up at us and goes, "Where the fuck is El Bingeroso?"

In our eagerness to exploit strippers, we had totally forgotten about the other three. I checked my phone--4 missed calls, all from PWJ. I wondered what was vibrating in my pocket.

Mermaid grabbed my phone and went outside to make some calls. He came back five minutes later with a look of complete exasperation on his face, "Dudes--El Bingeroso is in jail. We need to get out of here."

Leaving the strippers and what should have been a night of carnal ecstasy that would have made Caligula blush, we return to Embassy Suites. PWJ fills us in on the story of Cab 2:

As soon as they got in the cab, PWJ and SlingBlade realized that El Bingeroso was in trouble. He was passed the Violent Drunk Stage, and was now barreling towards the Comatose Drunk Stage. In order to keep him awake, they asked him questions.

PWJ "So, El Bingeroso, how did you meet Kristy [his fiancée]?"
El Bingeroso "Dude, I met her in a bar, man. It was in college. I worked there."
PWJ "Was she in a sorority?"
El Bingeroso "Yeah man, I met her in a bar."
PWJ "I know this, you already told me that. What did you do on your first date? Something special?"
El Bingeroso "I met her in a bar, man. I met her in a bar."

It went on like this until he basically collapsed in SlingBlade's lap. About two minutes later, and only about 3 blocks from the strip club, El Bingeroso shoots upright and says, "We need to pull over!"

Assuming that he is going to throw up, the cab immediately pulls over into the parking lot of a convenient store. El Bingeroso gets out, stumbles around for a second, unzips his pants, drops them to his feet, and starts pissing. Right in the middle of the parking lot.

He is still weaving, and PWJ doesn't want him to piss on his pants, so he gets behind El Bingeroso, wraps his arms around his chest, and holds him up while he pisses.

Now picture this scene in your mind: It's Texas, midnight on a Sunday, and in the middle of a convenient store parking lot is a guy with his pants around his ankles, and another guy behind him with his arms wrapped around his chest. What would you think?

Me too. And that is exactly what the cop that drove by at that moment thought.

PWJ said all he heard was the screeching of tires before he looked up and saw a large Austin City Police officer hop out of his car and yell (in a good-ol-boy Texas accent):

"WHAT IN THE FUCK ARE YEW TWO DOIN'?!?"

SlingBlade tried to get out of the cab to explain, but the cop put his hand on his gun and barked, "GET BACK IN THE CAB!" SlingBlade immediately complied, because this is what a childhood of risk aversion does to a man.

PWJ stepped in front of El Bingeroso, "Officer, I'm sorry, please let me explain. My friend got very drunk tonight, and we pulled over because we thought he was going to vomit, but he started to pee, so I got behind him to hold him up. He is very drunk, he just needs to go back to the hotel and lay down."

The cop was the stereotypical idiot meathead Austin Cop, "So you think you can just piss here, right on the road, right here in this parking lot? There's a hospital two blocks away, we're trying to keep this neighborhood pristine, and you're over here pissing all over the place."

PWJ is money under pressure, and for once being the son of a domineering military officer paid off--he stayed calm, and after about 5 minutes of very lucid, reasoned and submissive explanation, he reassured the cop that everything was OK and got the situation under control. It looked like he was going to get El Bingeroso off the hook.

Then a second cop car pulled up, and the second cop pulled El Bingeroso aside and talked to him separately. PWJ said he looked over about 2 minutes later, saw El Bingeroso gesticulating wildly and pointing in the cops face, heard him yell something about "Mr. Plastic Badge," and then watched him get thrown on the hood of the cop car, hand-cuffed, and taken away, kicking the rear windows as it pulled off. This is when the phone calls started.

Now back to the hotel room. We decide to send PWJ and Mermaid to bail out El Bingeroso, and the rest of us go to sleep. It's about 3am at this point. I wake up at 8am, and PWJ, Mermaid and El Bingeroso still aren't in. I realize that my phone was turned off, so I turn it on, and see that I have 3 new messages. I listen to them, break down laughing, and wake up everyone else to listen to them also. Here they are, copied absolutely fucking verbatim off my voicemail:

Message # 1, 1:32am:
"Jackass, I am in jail...um, I am in, uh, jail dude. I am in Austin County Jail. Umm...you need to call me man. You need to fucking come bail me out. I'm in jail dude, it's not cool."

Message # 2, 2:44am:
"Hey dude man, I'm in jail. This is El Bingeroso. You need to come get me. Uhhh...PWJ called...it's not cool man. Come get me."

Message # 3, 7:48am:
"Tucker, this is El Bingeroso man. I'm at the police headquarters in Austin. And I just got out of jail. I don't know who posted bond, but you know, whatever. Like, uhhh, I'm looking for a ride, so hopefully I'll run into you guys, and uhh, get a ride. If I don't, have a good time in Dallas."

As El Bingeroso was making that last call, PWJ and Mermaid were waiting for him outside on the steps of the Austin County Courthouse. He finally made bail a few hours later:

El Bingeroso "PWJ, let me ask you one question: What did I do to get thrown in jail?"

They bring El Bingeroso to the hotel, and he is in bad shape. He looks like a Johnny Cash song. In addition to his rank smell and disgusting clothes, he has a huge shiner above his right eye.

Mermaid "El Bingeroso, dude, what's wrong with your eye? Did the cop hit you?"
El Bingeroso "Probably."
Mermaid "Why did he hit you?"
El Bingeroso "I said horrible things about his grandma in Spanish...apparently he spoke it."
Mermaid "What was going on? How did it happen?"
El Bingeroso "I was in a cell with all these Mexican guys, and you know, I was pissed, so I was organizing a prison riot with the bendejos, when all of the sudden the door opened and WHACK. It is not fun waking up on the floor of the drunk tank, covered in vomit and piss."
Mermaid "Are you OK?"
El Bingeroso "Yeah, I guess...Guys, seriously, how did I end up in jail?"

We recounted the entire night to him. He lost memory somewhere around the 6th tequila shot. After we finished telling him the story, he was quiet for second, then looked at us with the most pitiful expression I have ever seen on his face,

"Dude...I am not a good drunk."

Day Four: The Trip Home

This was not the end of El Bingeroso's problems. He made the catastrophic mistake of calling his fiancée while in the drunk tank, waking her up at 3am, and then calling her parents. Let me re-iterate: HE CALLED HER PARENTS FROM JAIL. He was in quite the shit storm of trouble with her, plus he had a drunk and disorderly charge to deal with, so he had to stay in Austin a few more days.

The other three of us decided to head back to Dallas, and then Durham. I believe I put it as such, "We might as well go back to Dallas; there is nothing left to do in Austin. What else could we do that would top the last two nights? Burn down the city? Kill the governor?"

As I am checking out of the Embassy Suites, the manager comes out of the office and asks to speak to me. "Mr. Max, were you the one who had, ahem, 'an accident,' in the lobby two nights ago?" I told her it was me indeed, and that I was sorry, that I was not accustomed to the effects of the drink and I would seek help as soon as I returned to Durham. She did not smile. "I have to inform you that you will no longer be able to stay at this, or any other Embassy Suites, ever again."

What?

"Sir, we have a national "Do not accommodate" database that your name has been added to. After your incident, we would prefer you not stay at any of our hotels again."

I was permanently banned from ALL Embassy Suites. Forever.

Well...I guess sometimes actions do have consequences.

When we got to Dallas, we checked back into the same Radisson, and slept until dinner time, then went out in Deep Ellum. This was the night that I met "My Cancer," but that story is for another time.

Fast forward to the next morning. I had been up all night when I walk into the hotel room at 8am and find vomit all over the floor. Apparently the Reuben sandwich SlingBlade ordered last night at the bar wasn't the best of ideas. He was in full-on SlingBlade time-to-go-to-the-ER mode. The kid has the constitution of a six year-old lupus victim, and after four nights of raucous drinking and corporeal abuse, his frail Bubble-boy immune system had shut down.

He crawled into the backseat of his eggplant purple Saturn, curled up into the fetal position and let out moans every few minutes, as PWJ and I drove back to Durham. We were somewhere in Arkansas when SlingBlade shot up and started hitting the back of my seat. I freaked out, swerved all over the road, but before I could get to the shoulder I heard it come loose,

"BLAAAAHHHHHH."

SlingBlade opened the door, leaned halfway out and just let loose, vomiting all over his own car. He eventually got out of the car and started vomiting again in the grass.

After a good solid five minute puke-session, he crawled back in the car and we took off. Not even a minute later, he starts slapping at his legs and yelling in pain. The idiot stepped in a red ant nest while vomiting, then tracked a bunch of them into the car. Before we knew it, all three of us where swatting angry red ants off of us. We had to pull off at the next exit.

SlingBlade found himself at some redneck roadside gas station in Arkansas, cleaning vomit and red ants out of his car...using newspaper, because this gas station didn't have a vacuum.

He nearly lost it, "This is pretty much the worst day of my life, and I have only been awake for three hours. I refuse to believe this is happening."

The rest of the trip was rather uneventful; while PWJ and I discussed all order of semantics and philosophy and other nerd topics, SlingBlade slept and moaned and cried. Somewhere around Chattanooga, he woke up, scribbled something on a scrap of paper, handed it to us, and passed back out. It read:

"Please kill me."

The Epilogue

Texas hasn't been the same since that October. Unfortunately, the Baby Dolls that I wrote about no longer exits. Dallas zoning laws have changed the club, and though it still stands, it's no longer the bastion of debauchery it once was.

A few weeks after we were on 6th street, Cheers Shot Bar caught fire from Flaming Dr. Peppers and though it was fine, the drink was banned after that in Austin. You can still get them at some bars, but officially they are illegal.

And much to my dismay, I have heard that The Shocker is now banned in Texas.

As far as I know, I am still banned from all Embassy Suites. I had forgotten about this until about two years later when I tried to register at an Embassy Suites in Atlanta. Lo and behold, my name was still in the database and "Tucker Max" was not allowed to register as a guest. A small price to pay for what is probably the funniest story of my life.

For the four Duke Law School friends who went on the trip, things were also never the same.

For El Bingeroso, it marked the last true balls-out drink-and-destroy weekend he had as a (nearly) single man. After waking up in the Austin City Jail covered in piss and vomit with a huge black eye, he really had to check himself, realize that he is engaged and in love and needs to stop acting like Colin Farrell. He married Kristy that next summer. He still drinks, sometimes to excess, but the El Bingeroso we saw that night is dead. He wasn't even like that during his bachelor party when we hired a bunch of strippers and a midget.

The reforms that El Bingeroso implemented began at the Duke Law Halloween Party. Before he left for the road trip, he had convinced Kristy to wear a French maid outfit to the party. He even bought it a month ahead of time he was so excited. Kristy was predictably unhappy about El Bingeroso's antics in Austin, and as his first public act of contrition, he wore her French maid outfit to the Halloween party, while she wore an orange prison jumpsuit. Quite the couple they were...and still are.

For SlingBlade and PWJ, pretty much nothing changed because they never grow as people. SlingBlade is still bitter, utterly lonely, risk-averse and continues to have issues with women. PWJ is still a bad person who is unable to resist any girl with big tits.

Much to our amusement, his dealings with The Manatee did not end that night. She never told PWJ her name or address, yet she knew his name, found out his address, and a few weeks later sent him a thank-you note, with no return address, along with a check for her share of the cab fare from 6th street to her apartment. The check was for $3.64. It was a Muppet Show check.

In true Chinese Zen flow of life style, from the ashes of El Bingeroso rose the phoenix that you know as Tucker Max. I'd done plenty of crazy and out of control shit in my life, but that was the first weekend I consciously took a voice recorder out with me, and that was the first weekend I ever really understood how truly insane and funny my life is. I returned to Durham with 10 pages of quotes and thought to myself, "This would make a great movie." It was the flap of the butterfly wings at the exact right place at the exact right time that eventually led to Hurricane Max. I didn't realize it then, and I fought it for another three years, but after that weekend my life arc was irreversibly redirected away from law and towards entertainment.