Finish Him!! Vol. 1: The Sweet Science
I literally don’t know why it’s taken me so long to get these stories out. They’re about fights. I love reading about fights. Lee Child (Jack Reacher) does great fight sequences. As does Mark Greaney (The Gray Man) and Nick Petrie (Peter Ash). Writing about our own bar fights is also highly enjoyable.
But this night.
Man, this night, well over a year ago…
We had 9 fights.
And that’s a lot of intricate writing to wrap my head around.
They all exist up there in the ol’ noggin, but contextualizing everything is pretty difficult.
To add some context, there were a few petty scuffles. A poking match. Full-on fights inside, then more fights featuring those fighters outside, but not against the same people they fought inside. Then two passers-by got into fights outside with the people we kicked out, and finally one guy volunteered to fight someone we didn’t let in but didn’t leave our stoop until he was arrested several hours later.
I’m the “make it make sense” guy and that is exactly why this night has been stuck in the drafts folder for so long.
I wrote about one of the fights, then deleted it because it just wasn’t good enough.
Then tried to finish them all at once. That was a month ago.
So, we’re going back to the piece-by-piece model. First up…
Hypoglycemia Dude
This is a fight warmup. It’s not one of the nine, but it might have been. On us.
Hypoglycemic people needs a boost of sugar to feel good and normal, however, there’s a weird line in the sand where hypoglycemia looks like public drunkenness.
We stopped the bachelor party at the door, telling them we wouldn’t let the friend in because he’s had too much.
They replied he just needs sugar.
“OK, well, there’s a gas station down the hill. Get him a Honey Bun or a candy bar, but he can’t come in the bar looking (wasted).”
“Dude, what the fuck? He has a serious medical condition!”
An overreaction if I’ve ever heard one, but go on.
“Just give him some sugar,” said someone in the group with the tone implying I had sugar, but was refusing to give it to their friend.
”Gas station, down there,” I pointed. “Candy bar, Honey Buns, Little Debbie, whatever. But he’s not coming in looking like that.”
”Fuck you guys, he’s just having an episode. Go inside and give him a doughnut!”
”What, in the Lord Almighty’s Name makes you think we have doughnuts?”
”GET HIM A FUCKING CANDY BAR THEN!”
“What do you think we do here?!?”
It really felt like I was about to fight four dudes over a baked good we definitely didn’t have.
Oh, yeah. The dive bar bakery. That totally exists.*
I held firm because there’s nothing in the bar that would help him other than a soda, which we offered. He remarked that it needed to be eaten, for some reason.
“What do you think we have that we’re not letting you have?”
”He needs a fuckin’ candy bar!”
Tensions are rising, but I chuckled after that last quip. He said it like Adam Sandler yelling at McDonald’s employees asking for a Happy Meal in Big Daddy.
Eventually, the group settled down and I let half of them inside. The others escorted HD to the nearest convenience store. No, it wasn’t the gas station. That closed because they spent too much time arguing with me. This little group had to trek an extra half mile to find an open store.
A long while later — 40 minutes or so — HD came back with a spring in his step. Oh, he was just fine and dandy, standing upright, walking, talking like a normal busybody.
I asked what set him right.
“Honey Bun.”
Fuck you, go inside.
*Anyone have $500,000 to start a Dive Bar Bakery?
