Chumpions

Bear with me for a moment as I establish the framework for the Grackle’s introduction into my life.

Last Wednesday Alan and I went to Le Treff’s for $0.75 well-drink night—without question the classiest night of the week in Waco, and the surest way to go blind before age thirty. We arrived early (8:45; things usually don’t get busy until 10:15ish), got drinks upstairs and found seats as far away as possible from the rowdy group planted at a table near the bar. There were about eight of them, half men and half women, all rotting away in the onset of their autumn years, already barking drunk and shouting obscenities like sailors at port. We sat a good fifty feet from them and so, as a collective, they were more or less a grumble. However, one woman was particularly loud at moments and (amidst the profusion of “Shit!” “Fuck!” “Cunts!” “Hell-Fuck’n-Yeah!” and everyone’s favorite, “Ah-goddam-shit-motha-fuck!”) managed to produce some real jewels.

The first involved her standing up quickly, sagging flesh spilling vulgarly out of the bottom of her “Don’t Mess With Texas” sweatshirt, and demanding that the comparably hideous woman across the table compare dick sizes with her. “Come on, slut, how big is it? Mine’s just a tiny little thing.” The episode devolved (yes, devolved) into her making declarations about how “damned big” her tits were and how they are now “all withered up like old fruit.” Made the lime in my gin-and-tonic look quite appetizing.

Alan eventually went for another drink and, while standing at the bar, overheard the conclusion of a conversation between the woman with the big tits and little dick and some woman in her early twenties at a neighboring table: “Yeah, honey,” she says, sweeping a hand over her used-up body, “this is what you’ve got to look forward to in thirty years.” If that didn’t put the fear of God into the young woman, I’m sure nothing will.

Shortly thereafter, the group stood up and trundled out of Le Treff’s; off to do whatever it is that drunken, uneducated boomers do at 10:00 on a Wednesday night.

ENTER THE GRACKLE.

After grabbing another drink, Alan and I sat down at the table where the boomers had sat and watched as all sorts of people began to filter in. After a few minutes we noticed a guy who had caught our attention the past week. He was well into his fifties and had then been wearing fashionable nut-hugger jeans he’d probably just bought for $90 at the Buckle and a gaudy, long-sleeved black dress shirt with a massive silver cross emblazoned on the back. This time he had on similar jeans and a t-shirt so tight it seemed to be cutting off circulation. It was bright, blood red and had one of those faint, henna-esque airbrush designs so en vogue currently with dumb, beefy philistines. The back of the shirt sported a black bird with outstretched wings, some bastardization of the creature on the Albanian flag.

After subsequently arguing over the best moniker for this champion, we settled upon The Grackle, in tribute to the shirt. Grackles, just for the record, are loud, filthy birds. You’ll often find them picking through the leavings of other carrion fowl on the side of the road. Which is fitting, as you’ll come to see, because that’s just what The Grackle does on the bar scene: picks at the diseased meat that none of the other drunken clam-scavengers will touch.

To get a better image of The Grackle firmly in mind, imagine seeing a hulking guy from across the room and thinking, “Surely not! No! Rodney Dangerfield, in this bar? I thought he was dead?” Then you walk closer and for an instant think you’re looking at Andre the Giant’s zombie. But no, he’s dead too, and you don’t believe in zombies. Yet that’s his face: Dangerfield’s rounded chin and bulbous tree-frog neck, Andre’s thick, Cro-Magnon brow and mongoloid forehead. Now, drop this 1980s nightmare mask onto the body of Schreck, and you should have a pretty good idea what the ladies of Le Treff’s have to contend with.

So The Grackle sauntered up to the bar with his buddy, some rough-looking trick about thirty years old, and started pounding $0.75 shots of pink tequila; you know, getting “tuned-in.” In a short time his eyes had taken on a half-open, utterly contented squint, and you could tell he was open for business.

Not long after he was flirting with two girls well under half his age. One was petite and fairly cute, the other (the one he gave most of his attention) was shaped like a spinning top. She had a narrow, angular face, low-hanging, devastated breasts, and a body which widened drastically at her waist (where pallid skin winked out from the gap between her jeans and too-short shirt) then thinned out again towards her feet. The Grackle bought the ladies drinks and managed to get an arm around each. The cute girl kissed him on the cheek and he seemed giddy. Then his left arm lowered on the other girl and, though I could not quite see, I knew he was fondling her loose buttocks, which, I could only imagine, hung like jowls inside her pants.

A while later, The Grackle and his buddy were buying round after round of Skittle shots for a group of about five girls. Now, Skittle shots, while not too expensive, were certainly not $0.75. I suppose one of the two had locked the old crosshairs on one of the ladies and was trying to get a taste of the rainbow.

Alan, needing to refresh his glass, happened to go to the bar at the same time as The Grackle. His friend was with him and was clearly the one paying for the evening. The buddy slaps his cash on the counter and The Grackle turns to Alan and says, “Hell man, he’s paying tonight. I’ve got four kids and two ex-wives to support.”Alan  got his drink but stuck around for another minute and The Grackle turned again to him and says, “Yeah, tonight I’m playing wingman for this guy,” he slapped his friend on the back. “And that’s cool, you know, don’t need to work to hard. Besides, when you’re fucking these girls in the ass, and they’re all bent over, it don’t matter what they look like.” He then turned back to his buddy and the ladies and began to explain that he was “a very important man at the telephone company.”

Later, I went to get another drink and had my own encounter with Schreck. He was in front of me, waving his hand like a jackass, trying to get the bartender’s attention. Thick hairs stood out of the back of his fat neck like fingers poking through wet sand. The bartender finally came over to him and The Grackle ordered seven shots of tequila. He turned to me and said, “Shit man, this guy’s just lining ‘em up. I’ve already had nineteen.” The bartender returned with the shots. The Grackle took one and downed it, dropped it on the table, and said to me, “Ah! I’m just living life like a motha’ fucker.”

The next half-hour went by Grackle-free. He was nowhere to be seen. Alan  and I went about people-watching as usual, although nothing of note happened. Finally, The Grackle reappeared, looking a little ill, but cheery as ever. He found the girls and his friend and resumed his role as “wingman.”

Then I got up to go to the restroom. I walked in, some guy I could not see following at my heals, and stood at the revolting trough urinal and began to break the seal. Then a voice came from the stall to my left, “Holy shit! I know you don’t want to hear this, man, but I gotta tell somebody. Some dude puked his guts out all over the wall! It’s fuckin’ nasty. Chunks everywhere. I mean, shit. You should see this.” I finished and then waited for him to step out and went in to see it. Yep. Awesome.

I thought about approaching The Grackle and applauding him.

Nothing more of consequence happened. Things clearly began to disintegrate with the group of girls and The Grackle seemed to be getting sleepy. Suffice to say the only person he “got behind” that night was his buddy, as he followed him out the door, empty-handed.