A Beaten Man

Sometimes, a Guido will get into a fight, and his friends, loyal though they may be, can't be troubled to involve themselves. Maybe they're too busy talking to women. Or dancing. Perhaps they didn't know. Or they're pussies. It's much more likely, however, that the member of the party who has involved himself in a violent situation is considered the asshole of the group, and your typical pack of Guidos is never thrilled with potentially sacrificing their time and money by getting thrown out of the club on his account.

Unfortunately, I've got a couple of friends who align with the above designation all too well -- dicks who start problems with others, then expect the rest of us to jump in, save their asses and finish the job. For the vast majority of my friends, I'd immediately dive in and help without reservation, but there are a handful of guys I know for whom I'd be nothing more than an interested observer should they find themselves in the process of having the shit kicked out of them.

I'm hardly one to endorse one of my friends or acquaintances getting hurt in a bar fight, but if they choose to engage in behavior of the asinine variety, and are at fault -- ejected from the place -- my emotional state, in terms of sympathy for their plight, would likely fail to rise above the level of indifference. Do you really think I'm leaving a club just because some guy with a history of being a complete prick starts a brawl and gets tossed? Not hardly. He can sit outside and rot until I'm finished, and I couldn't possibly care less if I'm his ride home.

The first question a customer inevitably asks when he's finally resigned himself to defeat after being thrown out is this: "Can I go back in and get my friends?" Most of the time, Guidos will eventually leave as a group once one of their number has been escorted out, but occasionally this isn't the case.

"Fuck him," they'll say. "Let the motherfucker stay out there and freeze. We got bitches to grope."

In my case, when I'm out on the town and something happens, this sentiment would only arise within my conscious thoughts because the member of my party to be ejected is someone of whom I'm not particularly fond. However, when a Guido is getting his swerve on, you could choke out his mother and drag her to the sidewalk, and he'll continue right on gyrating until he needs another Red Bull.

On Friday night, we broke up a fight on the dance floor, and my involvement entailed hauling one of the combatants out the side door adjacent to the parking garage. Once things had settled a bit, he appealed to us to let him back in to get his friends, a request we couldn't grant due to the violent nature of the conflict. It would be several minutes before one of his friends would deign to check outside to see what had happened.

"Yo," said the friend, "is he allowed back in?"

"No," I replied. "He's done for tonight."

"Yo, Anthony, you're fucked up, man. What you gotta do dat shit fo'?"

"Yo, fuck dat," said Anthony. "Dat n----r hit me in da back of my head, yo!"

"Oh, whatever, n----r."

"Guys, enough. You have to make a decision. He's leaving. Decide if you're staying or going, 'cause I gotta shut this door and go back inside."

After some discussion, to which I wasn't privy due to concentration issues, it was decided that Anthony would wait in the car while his "friends" remained inside the club for the next few hours. It must've sucked for him, but I was getting the distinct impression that he was the douchebag of the group, and I don't think the guy handing him the car keys could possibly have cared less about his fight, or about his subsequent ejection from the club.

Around 3 AM, as the action in the club began to wind down, I removed the stanchions from the front of the VIP area and went out the side door to get some air. "Stan" was already out there, staring curiously at a white Lexus parked about fifty feet away, at the base of the garage.

"Far as I can tell, that car's been runnin' for over an hour, and I think there's a guy behind the wheel."

"Let's take a walk."

Peering through the passenger side window, I could see that the man behind the wheel of the car just happened to be none other than Anthony, the customer we had kicked out two hours earlier. His head was thrown back against the headrest, and his eyes were closed. From my vantage point, I couldn't tell if he was moving. Stan, however, could.

"Oh shit, yo!" he exclaimed, reverting, as he often does when particularly excited, into ghetto vernacular. "He feedin' the geese! Look! Dis' mothafucka feedin' the geese!"

"Huh?"

"He beatin' off, yo! Come 'round this side!"

Sure enough, our friend Anthony had been caught midstroke, rubbing one out behind the wheel of his friend's car while waiting for the rest of his group to come out of the club.

"Holy Christ is this guy a fucking idiot," I said, rapping on the window with my flashlight. "Hey! You okay in there, dude?"

Without missing a 'beat,' Anthony, his eyes remaining closed and his right hand still hard at work, gave me the thumbs-up with his left.

"Guess so."