Lemon Party

My brother gets his first real entry to the blogs. Sure, there a was a brief period where he wanted me to write up stories we created out of lego characters, but when he confessed to not reading either of them, EVEN THOUGH HE HAS PLENTY OF TIME IF HE STOPPED PLAYING VIDEO GAMES, that ended.

Either way, he enters the fold, this time as a fellow colleague and bouncer.

Well, he hasn’t “bounced” anyone yet. He does have a nice streak of IDs going. He’s up to five now.

This story, however, is about one of my IDs, and one of his ideas.

8:12 p.m.

My brother, or Sparrow as he wants to be dubbed, swiped a lemon from our manager’s fruit basket. Yogi Bear style. Why did he grab a lemon? I try not to ask anymore. And it’s not like our manager minded. He had other lemons. And limes.

Clad with a lemon that might as well be a weapon in his hands, Sparrow held it for a few moments. First thing he did was the obvious — fake throw it at me for laughs. Because I will flinch.

No, he is not tall. He’s almost a foot shorter. But he is martial arts trained, and that’s enough. I’ve sparred with him before. While I believe he’s sparred with me harder than any of his actual sparring parters or competitors, he could certainly do some damage should a fight ever happen. It’s a real, “I’m glad he’s on my team” vibe, despite me being the practice punching bag.

8:15 p.m.

The plan forms: he gives the lemon to someone with a fake ID. If they bite it, they get the ID back.

I reject this plan immediately.

There’s no quid pro quo in this fakery business. I don’t want your money, or to see any skin on some OnlyFans freebie. I want entertainment. I want to tie your ID to a balloon and set it free.

I want that cheesy dad joke kind of life. I don’t want a lawsuit.

So, we made a compromise. If either of us found a truly awful ID, we would give that person a lemon. As in, the person who sold them at fake gave them a real “lemon.”

10:32 p.m.

Dammit. This fake was actually better than most. Didn’t qualify for lemon status

She may have even made it past me had she not presented her card with her friend’s. Upon further inspection, I would’ve snagged it with some more time, but she was banking on the two of them being similar, and not the double take I had to do.

11:25: p.m.

Sparrow was in the patio corner playing a game on his phone. We were dead, so crowd control wasn’t of the utmost importance. Everyone inside was on some half-assed bullshit anyway.

A kid walks up, alone. Not a real red flag, just unusual for how objectively well put together he was. Like, he should be with friends. Lots of friends. He’d probably even get free drinks from girls instead of vice versa.

The well-coifed kid presented an ID so bad I knew it was fake while it was still obscured in his hand. Yikes.

I held it for a split second and said, “Sparrow, get me that lemon!”

Game or not, he immediately knew the gravity of the situation. His hand leapt off the phone and into a cargo pocket to retrieve said lemon.

“Boy, I sure feel sorry for you,” I said like a middle schooler with his first lines in a school play.

“Why,” said the Coif.

“Because whoever you bought this from gave you quite the … lemon!”

And I gave him the lemon, with a wide grin.

11:26 p.m.

The Coif wasn’t sure what to do with the lemon.

In fairness, neither were we.

He wasn’t getting the ID back. Even though he asked. A lot.

“Can I have it back?”

“No.”

“I beg you.”

“No.”

“But I want it back.”

“Got that, still no.”

“But I begged you.”

Saying you begged for something in a deadpan, blank-stare way doesn’t equate to actually begging for something.

“I just want my ID back and then I’ll go.”

“Not how this works. You’re leaving anyway.”

More blank stares.

11:27 p.m.

“I don’t want this,” said Coif, finally mentioning the lemon in his hand.

“But it’s yours,” said Sparrow.

“But I don’t want it.”

“Think of it as a trade,” I said.

“Yeah,” said Sparrow. “We got your ID, and you get this lemon.”

“Am I supposed to eat the lemon?”

Admittedly, this was unplanned. Well, unplanned after the first plan, so I guess it was more of a surprise that Coif inferred the lemon was for a certain purpose. We had to set things straight.

“No, you just have a lemon.”

“I haven’t eaten a lemon in like, 10 years.”

OK, oddly specific statement about your lemon habit. That’s coming from someone who enjoys lemons. More than oranges, too. And a candied lemon … fuggedaboutit. Delicious.

“So if I eat the lemon, I get my ID back, right?”

“No, if you eat the lemon … you’ll be a person who has eaten a lemon.”

Coif bites into the lemon. Into it. Through the rind. Full chunk. A solid bite. Of a lemon. Right there on the sidewalk.

Sparrow and I were in full amazement.

Coif spit the lemon chunk out and back into his hand. The one with the now-chomped lemon. Everything after the middle school dad joke has been extra meringue on this pie.

11:28 p.m.

Coif asked if he was good to go inside now. Keep in mind everything that’s happened up to this point, because now it’s going to get unusual.

“I ate the lemon, now I get to go inside and get my ID back.”

“No,” Sparrow got out before I could. “You’re just a weirdo who bit into lemon.”

And then he went right back into the “begging” portion. He finally settled on something, though.

“Just go inside and get me a beer and I’ll leave.”

Huh?

Me? Go inside and buy him a beer? How does that compute?

“I, what? No. Not how any of this works.”

“OK. I’m going to be back in 10 minutes and we can talk more about this.”

What the fuck is going on?

He started to walk away, almost forgetting he was holding two parts of a lemon. We told him to just set it on a table and we’d take care of it.

“No, I don’t want to litter.”

Sparrow grabbed the lemon(s) from him and he walked away.

11:38 p.m.

Jesus Christ, it’s Jason Bourne.

The Jason Bourne of apathetic persistence.

“I beg you, again.”

“Yeah, we already went through that.”

It was 10 minutes ON THE DOT. He left our view, too. It wasn’t like he was waiting in the weeds or behind a corner. He left, went … somewhere … only to arrive right back where he bit a lemon for the first time 10 years.

Did we just unlock some space-time continuum? Where this kid has to return to the exact spot he bites a lemon and where each year of non-lemon-eating time equals the amount of minutes he must boomerang back to? Someone call the Rick and Morty or Family Guy people. I’m sure this can be a cutaway.

“No, I think we’re all done here.”

“Oh, so I’m not getting it back? Like, no chance.”

I was dumbfounded. He sounded as if he legitimately did not understand this whole scenario wouldn’t work in his favor. Yeah, I’m sure he thought, “I’ll give him 10 minutes and he’ll change his mind. After all, I bit that lemon for him. They laughed. I think they liked it. He’ll probably buy me that beer, too.”

Pretty people hurt my brain sometimes. One of us has to feel something in there, I guess.

12:05 a.m.

I got another ID, third and final of the night.

Sparrow went outside and gave her a lemon.

She put it in her purse.

Sparrow then ran back into the bar to get a third lemon.

2:05 a.m.

Sparrow clocked out an hour earlier because we were so dead. While cleaning up, I asked the barback why he kept giving Sparrow lemons. The first one he snagged, and I don’t even know where we keep the whole lemons.

“Oh, your brother just said, ‘Jon needs a lemon,’ so I didn’t ask.”

There are drawbacks to being in a position of authority. I didn’t know leader of the lemon brigade was going to be one of them.