Off Season Post 3: Beer, Batman, and Beef Hearts

Welcome to another Off Season post and, as always, thank you for taking the time to read. I realize that we’re about 3 weeks into Post-Bachelor doldrums and I’ve been trying my best to keep the readers interested. Luckily, my first two posts seemed to go over well and I’ve received my usual, steady stream of emails, Facebook posts, and comments on the site, albeit, a little lighter than usual. Of course, since my last post the big announcement that Austin’s own Brad Womack will AGAIN take another shot at finding love or going on a journey to find love or connecting with someone in hopes of going on a journey to find love or finding love after going on a journey and finding a connection. Whatever, the dude is taking another shot at it. I’ll get to him eventually.

I know you’ve all been busy removing your Summer/Spring bedding, knick knacks, and home décor in exchange for your Fall/Winter gear in addition to rearranging your closets so that your sweaters and other seasonally appropriate weather attire are readily accessible.

See ya later linen, come on down cashmere. Sayanora Summer candles, welcome Winter potpourri. So long sandals, bring on the boots. Yes sir, the sweet sound of a crisp Fall breeze whooshing through the trees pales in comparison to the sound of fresh Fall air filling the vacuum of a hibernating Space Bag as pillows and comforters inhale the Fall air and come back to life. It’s the little things that make life grand.

I’m certain that you’ve also been wondering what the topic of this week’s blog would be. I could feel the tension in some sort of M. Night Shyamalan kind of way and I’ve been searching for inspiration this week. I could regale you with some more bad date stories or bore you with some good date stories. I could resurrect Stuff Chicks Like and spend the weekend watching Eat, Pray, Love or sipping pinot grigio at a local wine bar before getting my nails done and my hair did. I could watch the Real Housewives of Wherever and blog about how shallow, spoiled, and sculpted the women appear.

In fact, I spent most of this week wondering in various airplanes, taxis, and hotel rooms where and what I would be inspired to write about. The truth is that my internal musings were more reflective this week than in week’s past. I hope you enjoy my thoughts. With that, let’s get to it.

Sitting in a taxi on the way from a Houston airport to my swanky Downtown hotel—I have Hilton points—my phone rang and it was my old college roommate calling to suggest we play a practical joke on a mutual friend. That conversation is unimportant, but after that call, I was hit with my first inspiration of the week.

I recalled an email I got from a reader who wanted to know if I was “this funny all the time” and if “my friends were funny too.” The email, from somewhere in Michigan, asked if I was a practical joker or if I was “normal” during the day. I instantly pictured myself running for a phone booth, tearing open my shirt in order to reveal my cape and tights before writing the blog. Normal? What does that mean?

I thought about it and realized that my core group of friends—and my twin brother—are literally the funniest people I know. I’m scared that each one of them will start a blog. Here are a couple of stories about my college roommate, who we’ll call “Lenny” for purposes of anonymity.

Yes, you read that correctly, Some Guy from Austin has a twin brother. Yes, he’s identical. Yes, he lives in Austin too. Yes, I’m aware that Brad Womack also has a twin brother who lives in Austin. No, Brad is not my twin brother. No, I don’t know what he’s thinking or feeling all of the time. No, we never switched places, classes, or girlfriends. No, he doesn’t think I’m the least bit amusing. No, we don’t look exactly alike anymore but we did when we were children. In fact, there are pictures of us where neither of us can tell the difference between each other. Try that on for a weird feeling. That about handles most of the usual twin questions. Maybe I’ll write about it some day.

Cut to a twenty-something Some Guy in Austin before pearl snaps and boots were the norm. I was single, carefree, my hair looked good, and there was a sense that I could tackle anything that came my way. I was a college graduate and had just been promoted through no fault of my own to a really high paying sales position with the company I worked for straight out of college. I lived in a house in Northwest Austin with three roommates. We had four bedrooms, a hot tub, a big yard, and my share of the rent was $238.00 a month. I spent most of my paycheck on beer, shots, and women. I wasted the rest of it. I was riding that fine line in my life where I had more money and time than I did responsibility and I was well aware of it. I enjoyed every second of it. Truth be told, I enjoyed it a little too much.

Lenny was one of my roommates. A Midwesterner, his parents moved down here when a major company relocated to Austin. He was shorter than me, good looking, funny, and we made a great team. Every year we threw a Halloween party at the house and every year it got bigger and more ridiculous. A guy once showed completely naked except for a pair of black Chuck Taylor high tops with his head wrapped in an entire roll of Saran Wrap. The guy hung out—literally—by the keg all night and to this day, I still don’t know his identity. I eventually had to ask him to move across the room because some of the girls at the party did not want to refill their beers for fear of brushing up against his junk.

At any rate, the big party was in full swing one night and we were quickly running out of beer. Lenny, who spent a ridiculous amount of money to rent a realistic Batman costume that he literally had to be tied into, tapped me to run to the Party Barn in order to get another keg before the 1 a.m. cutoff for alcohol sales. I was dressed as Romeo. I had on poofy shorts, a poofy poet shirt, a beret looking thing, tights, and slippers. For some reason, the fact that we were dressed this way and would be riding in Lenny’s maroon, convertible Chrysler LeBaron with a white roof and white leather interior with the roof down and a keg of beer in the back seat did not deter us from getting in and heading for the beer barn.

For those of you unfamiliar with the Party Barn, it’s exactly what it sounds like. It’s a giant red barn with the doors open that you drive into, honk your horn, and the Party Barn Guy emerges in order to take your beer and wine order before taking your money, assembling the order, and sending you driving down the street. I love Texas. Before you judge, keep in mind that if that place existed in Louisiana, a person could also purchase fireworks and hard liquor.

We hopped in the LeBaron with Batman driving and Romeo riding shotgun. Despite the fact that the keg and the giant gray garbage can protruded out of the back seat like a fat guy in coach, our drive to the beer place was uneventful. Lenny pulled in and I reached over and honked the horn. After what seemed like a few minutes, I looked at my watch realizing that it was indeed an anachronism with respect to my Shakespearean garb. I made a mental note to take it off when I arrived home. It was getting pretty close to 1 a.m. and if the Beer Guy didn’t emerge, we’d be stuck at our rager with no beer. That means that the dance party we had planned couldn’t happen and all of the women at the party who were dressed up like slutty whatevers would go elsewhere. There was a lot at stake. Everyone knows when there’s a lot at stake it’s nice to have a superhero handy. Fortunately, we did.

Lenny put the LeBaron in park and jumped out of the car over the door. He almost tripped on his cape. “Batman needs a keg!” he announced loudly with his hands on his hips as he entered the secure glass office of Party Barn Headquarters in search of the Beer Guy. I told Lenny that speaking in third person was a nice touch and opined that Batman himself would have probably done something similar. He agreed.

The Beer Guy emerged . . . unamused. I sat there in the passenger seat laughing my romantic head off. “What light through yonder office breaks! It is the Party Barn and the beer guy is the sun!” I said in my best Shakespearean slur. The Beer Guy was still unamused but Batman was laughing. The guy exchanged our keg, tapped it on the spot, and set it in ice in the trash can and Lenny and I picked it up, put it in the back seat, and seatbelted it in for good measure. We were drunk. Before we paid, the Beer Guy actually checked our ID’s and the best part is that Lenny never took off his Batman mask. As far as the Guy knew, he was selling booze to Bruce Wayne. Classic. Refilled and ready to go, we got back in LeBat Mobile. “Stab it and steer, Batman,” I said and we pulled out at approximately 1:10 AM ready to rescue the party. Here comes the funny part.

Let me just say that I neither condone drinking and driving nor do I think it’s funny. However, we were foolish back then and were blessed with the good fortune of not hurting anyone or anything. With that said, Batman and Romeo were loaded. We had no business operating anything with moving parts—including the girls at the party--much less bursting into businesses and demanding booze in the third person. Driving down one of the main roads in Austin, we enjoyed the feel of the cool October air on our skin and laughed about Batman buying beer. Not paying attention, Lenny blew through a blinking red light and we both went silent. Simultaneously, blinking red and blue lights appeared behind us. “Oh, sh*t,” we both said as Lenny eased off the turbo booster on LeBat Mobile and pulled to the side of the road. Holy Jailhouse rape, Batman!

I can only imagine what the officer thought as he approached the LeBaron with a seatbelted, tapped and iced, full keg of beer in the back seat being transported to an undisclosed location by Batman and some guy in a poofy shirt and tights—I didn’t expect a cop to get the Shakespeare reference. I had visions of being thrown in the County Drunk Tank in my outfit and suddenly realized that I looked really gay. I mean, Batman would be fine. Perhaps I could be his jailhouse bi*ch and he would protect me. Before I could ask him if I could be his prison wife, the officer reached the car and we sat in silence, looking forward as he inspected us and the keg with his giant cop flashlight.

I realized that the next few moments were crucial as I began to rehearse my brother’s home phone number in my head. I would call him first and hope he answered to come bail us out. I wouldn’t tell my parents what happened but I would tell my boss just in case they sent some sort of notification out about these sorts of things. He’d understand and I wouldn’t lose my job. Wait, I’ll have to put this on every job application I fill out in the future. Spin, spin, spin, spin, my mind raced during those moments and dread began to fill my tights—perhaps it was urine, but it felt like dread.

“Where are you boys headed?” the cop asked. Not wanting Lenny to explain in the third person where Batman was headed, I spoke in my best trying to sound sober voice obviously unappreciative of the circumstances. “We just got a keg for a Halloween party and we’re headed back to the house now,” I offered.

“Do you have any idea why I pulled you over?” the officer asked Batman. I reasoned that it might have something to do with the 16 gallons of cold beer in the 50 gallon trash can in the back seat, but I appreciated the opportunity to answer the question. With both hands still on the wheel, Lenny looked over at me and smiled. “Uh oh,” I thought.

“No, officer, I don’t know why you pulled us over,” Lenny said with a smile. “I pulled you over because you ran that blinking red light back there at the intersection,” he said shining his flashlight back at the crime scene. Lenny, put the car in park, took off his seatbelt, and leaned out of the door in order to look backward at the intersection. He looked the officer right in the eye and through his Batman mask said, “Yea, but it was clearly between blinks.”

Complete silence filled the air as my eyes widened and I began to shake my head. I’d finally get to feel what it was like to be handcuffed. After about 10 seconds or an eternity—I’m not sure which—the officer looked at me, looked at Lenny, and looked at the keg. And then he began to laugh—hard. “How far did you say you live from here?” he asked. “Five blocks, do you want to follow us there?” I asked. The officer confirmed our addresses via our driver’s licenses, made us swear that we wouldn’t leave the house, and sent us on our way. Oh, and Lenny still never took off the Batman mask.

The last thing I remember that night was looking at my watch—I’d forgotten to take it off—and noting that it was well after five o’clock in the morning. I stumbled past the empty keg cups, picked up the Sir-Mix-A-Lot CD case from in front of the stereo, and knocked on Lenny’s door because I hadn’t seen him in a while. I opened the door and there was Lenny lying face down in his bed sans cape and Bat boots but with the rest of the Batman suit in tact. “You alright?” I asked. “Batman’s drunk,” he said. Drunk indeed.

Story number two:

After work one evening I had an even stronger desire to hit the town than I usually do. I hopped in my car and drove home expecting to get Lenny off the sofa and out of the house in order to scope some Betty’s and power some brews. Note: I no longer use the phrase “scope some Betty’s and power some brews;” however, back in those days, it was a big part of my vernacular. Unfortunately, when I arrived home, Lenny was not there.

At that time, Lenny was finishing up his final year in school and was still bartending to make ends meet. They rarely met. In fact, if both of his ends ran into each other on the street, they wouldn’t recognize each other. I called the restaurant and got him on the phone. He told me that he’d be getting out of work after 2 a.m. because he’d picked up the late shift. I was upset. Lenny was the Robin to my Batman, the Hardy to my Laurel, the ying to my yang; although we’re both heterosexual and never had occasion to touch each other’s ying or yang but there was this one time where we fell asleep and woke up in each other’s arms but we’re not supposed to discuss that anymore because it really didn’t mean anything and besides, a one time cuddle with a man doesn’t make a guy gay. I mean, if you ride a horse once, does that make you a cowboy? Annnnyyyyyyhoooo . . .

I was thirsty and ready to hit the town. I musked up and jumped in the car. While driving down to the bar where Lenny worked—after all, I reasoned that his inability to join me on the town warranted a few free beers—I began to laugh out loud because I was struck with a moment of brilliance. Yes, I was going to play a practical joke on Lenny and it would involve his prized maroon LeBaron with the white roof and white leather interior.

I detoured to a local grocery store and went to the deli counter. My plan was to cover Lenny’s car from bumper to bumper with some sort of lunch meat and then disclaim any knowledge of the act. My first choice was olive loaf. That’s the mystery meat with green olives peppered throughout it. I wonder who in the hell invented that and, better yet, how he talked anyone into selling it. At any rate, olive loaf was in the neighborhood of five or six bucks a pound—due to the labor costs involved in its preparation, I assumed—so I ditched that idea. I went with olive loaf’s lower rent, white trash cousin, baloney. If olive loaf lived in a mansion, baloney would live in a trailer. Baloney is basically a flat hot dog and its consistency would be perfect for my plan.

Next, I had to figure out how much baloney it would take to cover a maroon Chrysler LeBaron. I had to assume that the roof would be closed since it would be parked in a public lot. In case you’re wondering, the answer is about five pounds thinly sliced. After fending off the oddest looks from the guy behind the deli counter, I paid for the baloney and headed out to find Lenny’s car.

When I arrived at the restaurant, I parked, took my bag of baloney, and located the LeBaron. I covered the hood, the windshield, the roof, the side and rear windows, and the trunk with the baloney. There were a couple times during the prank when I actually had to stop because I was laughing so hard. Several people walked by and gave me odd looks. Baloney in place, I sat back and admired my work. I strongly considered waiting until 2 a.m. just to see the look on Lenny’s face when he left work with a sore back, sore feet, lime dried hands, smelling like a restaurant longing for a shower and his bed only to discover that his car had been wrapped in lunch meat. I’m actually laughing as I type this.

I composed myself so as not to tip Lenny off to the fact that I had just baloneied (yes, that’s now a verb) his car, and went into the restaurant for a few free beers. During that time, several of our friends also walked into the restaurant and I had to jump up from my bar stool in order to intercept them so they would not ruin the prank. “Hey, Lenny, you want a baloney sandwich?” one of our friends yelled across the bar as he entered. Lenny, smiled but was clearly confused. Whew, he had no idea.

After a few beers, I left the restaurant to head Downtown in order to meet some friends. Of course, I shared the baloney story and we all toasted to Lenny, the LeBaron, and Lunch meat. The next morning, despite my adamant denials, Lenny laughed with me about prank saying that when he emerged from the restaurant his car was covered with stray cats enjoying the baloney. We had a good laugh and he vowed to get me back.

Fast forward a few weeks later. It was mid-August in Austin, Texas and the city was in the midst of one of the worst droughts in fifty years. Temperatures had been above 100 degrees for over 30 days in a row and not so much as a drop of rain had fallen in months. My boss informed me that I’d be in Phoenix for two weeks for some training. I booked my flight and headed out of town. Trading Austin in August for Phoenix in August is a lot like trading the steam room for the sauna. I did manage to have a great time in Phoenix, but that’s an entirely different blog entry.

Upon my return, Lenny picked me up at the airport on a Friday evening and we went out carousing and carrying on as always. At one point in the evening he found himself literally being followed by some drunk girl from bar to bar. She’d apparently lost her friends and was really determined to hook up with Lenny. My brother was with us and we politely pulled Lenny aside and told him that he needed to ditch her because she was annoying us. Eventually, after she followed us to the third bar, Lenny got sick of her too. “Hey, do you like to dance?” he said. Her face lit up and she smiled from ear to ear. “Yes! I loooove to dance,” she said. Lenny looked at her and said, “Well, go dance then.” Look, I know that’s a bit mean, but man, was it funny. We all ended up feeling guilty about it, but we quickly recovered and drank the rest of the night away.

The next morning was Saturday. I slept until about 10 a.m. and awoke with an unusually bad hangover. It was all I could do to pull myself out of bed. I had to be at the dry cleaners before they closed at 2 p.m. in order to pick up the clean work shirts and pants I’d dropped off before my trip. I’d taken all of my other clothes on the trip and they needed to be cleaned.

I sipped Gatorade, took a cold shower, took a bunch of aspirin, and did anything else I could in order to summon up the energy to walk. At 1 p.m., I donned a baseball cap and some dark sunglasses and headed to my car which had been parked in the street, in the sun, for two weeks. I cranked it up and began to drive to the cleaners with the A/C on high praying that the car would cool down and sweating like a fat kid at the park. I basked in the misery of my hangover as my head throbbed and my stomach churned. “Get to the cleaners and then you can get home,” I said to myself. “It’s a ten minute trip.” And then, the smell hit me.

I was overcome by the foulest smell I’d experienced in my entire life. My mind searched for a solution as to where it was coming from. I rolled down the windows in order to see if the smell was outside. It wasn’t. I turned off the air conditioner in order to see if I had a mechanical issue. I did not. I opined that a squirrel had died in my engine and the air condition was now blowing the smell into my hungover face. I stopped the car in a parking lot, got out into the 100 degree heat and opened my hood. No squirrel. I got back in the car and proceeded—immersed in the smell—to the cleaners.

Luckily, this was the sole errand I had chosen to run this day. I took my dry cleaning, opened my car door (I had a two door), and popped the seat up in order to hang my clothes from the hook in the back seat. When I did, I noticed a small piece of white paper protruding from underneath my seat. I hung the clothes and pulled on the paper. I pulled out a softball sized object wrapped in butcher paper and taped with masking tape. I put it on the hood of the car and opened it. I literally gagged and dry heaved when I discovered a rotted, bloody, semi-cooked cow heart on the inside of that paper. I threw it in a nearby dumpster fighting back the urge to puke.

When I got back to my car, I looked under the seat again and found a handwritten note in Lenny’s handwriting that read, ala the Godfather, “DP sleeps with the beef hearts.” At least Luca Brasi was dead when they mailed Clemenza and Tessio the fish, I thought.

I discovered later that Lenny had lied in wait for the right moment to pay me back for the baloney caper. As soon as I left town, he found my spare car keys, went to a local butcher, purchased a cow heart, and stuck it under my seat where it sat for two weeks in the Texas heat. It took weeks before the smell subsided in my car. I have to admit, he won that exchange.

Well, there it is. In response to a reader’s inquiry some stories about my friends. Lenny and I are close to this day. I was just his best man in his wedding and I see him often when he visits Austin or I’m in Dallas. I could literally fill 100 pages with stories like these and I’m grateful every day to have a friend like him in my life. Pranks aside, he’s been a great friend to me for most of my adult life and I wouldn’t trade the gagging and puking I endured at the hands of a rotting beef heart for his friendship. Until next week, if you need me, I’ll be plotting my revenge. DP