Hilarity Ensues

by Tucker Max

  Tucker “There are moving floats? Like in a real parade?”

  Dan “Yeah. You know, it’s called the Knight PARADE for a reason.”

  Tucker “So this is basically the same as a Mardi Gras parade, with people riding the floats and throwing beads?”

  Dan “Yeah, pretty much.”

  Tucker “Why aren’t we on a float throwing beads?”

  Dan explains that Gasparilla is organized by these things called “krewes” that are ostensibly charities, but sound to me like drinking clubs for people who like to use charity to show everyone how much money they have. In other words, people who think they’re better’n me. He says that you have to be in a krewe to ride on a float, and that the memberships are very limited and strictly controlled and he’s hoping to get invited into one someday, and blah blah blah—I don’t care about your fucking problems, buddy.

  Tucker “I’m getting on a float, and I’m throwing beads at girls.”

  Dan “No, Tucker, that’s not possible.”

  Tucker “No, I don’t think YOU understand. I am Tucker Max. I am getting on a float. I’ll make sure to toss you with some beads when we come by.”

  No one is drunk enough to come with me. Fuck’em. They’ve given up on life. Not me. I’m not going to let these assholes keep me from my destiny. I’m going to throw beads at naked breasts.

  I find an alley behind the street that’s parallel to the parade, and start running down it, in the opposite direction of the parade. I’m jumping over trashcans, dodging feral cats … it takes fucking forever, but I finally come out the end. There it is: The staging area for the floats. There are like ten floats still waiting to go. It’s beautiful.

  But I’m just some drunk shithead dressed in scrubs. How the fuck am I going to get on the float? I think about it for a second, and then an obvious solution comes to me. I go straight up to the guy who looks like he’s in charge, and act like I own the place.

  Tucker “Hey man, I fell off my float and while I was busy getting up, the cops came by and wouldn’t let me catch up to it. Some bullshit about keeping the parade route clear of people—whatever, you know how they are at Gasparilla. They told me to just jump on another float. Can you help me out here?”

  Guy “Oh yeah, no problem man. Just hop on this one going out now.”

  He talked to someone who was in charge of that float, and he came right down and welcomed me.

  Guy “Hey man, welcome aboard. Here are some beads, help us throw these out.”

  I didn’t even have to yell “show me your tits” before girls in the crowd started lifting up their shirts for beads. This was more than enough entertainment to occupy me until the float got to the bleachers where my friends were standing. I got right in the front of the float, so they couldn’t miss me.

  Tucker “WHO’S NOT GETTING ON A FLOAT MOTHERFUCKER?!?!?!? WHERE YOU AT NOW BITCH?!?!??!”

  This was way before I started writing for a living, so up to that point in my life, I had never seen another grown man want, so completely, to live inside my skin. That changed when I saw the look on Dan’s face. Neither “shocked” nor “incredulous” is the right adjective. I think maybe “astonished” or “awestruck” is more accurate. The rest of my friends just shook their heads and sighed. They’ve seen this movie enough to not be thrown off by plot twists.

  Of course once I was past them, I got bored. Watching a bunch of semi-toothed corpulent rednecks fight for plastic trinkets can be fun, but there was no way it was going to hold my notoriously limited attention. I decide to play a game called “Hurt People With Beads.” The average spectator watched float after float pass by with costumed people softly tossing beads into a crowd eagerly jostling for another band of plastic balls. They were not prepared for my Beads of Death. Instead of just tossing them out, I started rifling them as hard as I could at everyone within range. The scoring for my game is simple: 1 point for every person who gets visibly pissed, 3 points for drawing blood, 5 points if you knock someone over. If you can knock someone out, that’s 100 points and game over. You are the King of the Parade.

  I had nearly pulled off a 5-point shot when I accidentally hit one of the parade organizers in the head. She got PISSED. 1 point!

  She ran up to the float:

  Organizer “If you do that again, we aren’t inviting you back next year!!”

  Tucker “Fuck you bitch, I wasn’t even invited THIS year!”

  I thought that was a pretty funny joke. But yeah, I was kicked off the float pretty quickly after that.

  It took a while, but I eventually linked back up with my all my friends. Jojo had a friend who’d set us up with a VIP table at a club in YBor City. I normally hate “bottle service” type clubs, but I was so drunk I’d forgotten most of what I hated. And one of the advantages of clubs like that is they attract the types of girls who think being in the VIP with bottle service is cool, and those girls tend to end the night with my penis in their mouth.

  Three girls ended up at our table. One was very hot, and obviously naughty, one was very attractive but somewhat reserved, and the third was OK—and of course she was the one completely into me, and the one who had quite obviously “called” me to her hotter friends. Great. Hot naughty girl announces to the table that she not only likes girls, but that she wants to hook up with a girl. In the VIP area. This can definitely be arranged. SlingBlade, who normally hates all women, is so drunk he agrees to escort this woman around the club while I focus on my girl.

  She tells me she is in college. It takes me about three seconds to realize that she not only has a mediocre face, but a mediocre intellect as well.

  Tucker “So, what are your plans for after graduation?”

  Girl “I’m majoring in pre-law. I hope to go to law school when I graduate.”

  Tucker “You’re going to fit in well at a low ranking law school.”

  Girl “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  Tucker “Exactly.”

  Even Credit got in on the action, hitting on the other quiet girl.

  Credit “Do you like my wife beater? It’s maroon instead of white.”

  QuietGirl “A wife-beater? That’s awful. You can’t describe clothes like that. What if I told you I was wearing a nigger-hanging shirt?”

  Tucker “Those exist? Where can I buy one of those nigger-hanging shirts?”

  QuietGirl “You can’t say that!”

  Tucker “We have a very annoying black friend, Jojo. He’s over there. Go talk to him for awhile, you’ll understand why I want one of those shirts.”

  At some point I have to go piss. This club has the type of bathrooms that are one at a time, and there’s a line for the men’s room. I am not a patient person. I test the women’s bathroom door. It’s open, and no one’s in there. Don’t mind if I do.

  I come out of the bathroom refreshed and ready to go back at it. There’s a girl waiting in line now, who looks at me with an expression like she just smelled piss somewhere it shouldn’t be.

  RandomBitch “You know, the sign on the door says ‘Women.’”

  Tucker “Well, then you shouldn’t go in there since you’re a ‘Cunt.’”

  From this point forward, I have only the haziest memories of what happened at the club. I do know I drank a lot. I seem to remember Hate being a creeper with girls. And though I would like to forget it, I ended up making out with the marginal girl in front of everyone.

  But not just making out. It was apparently like something off the cover of a really bad romance novel. I was rubbing her face, being all affectionate, kissing her like I was trying to lick all the icing off a cupcake—I don’t know. I’m sticking to the excuse that I have no memory. Writing this story, I emailed Credit to ask if he remembered this incident:

  “Oh yeah, I remember that kiss. I don’t know what you were saying to her, but she had her gut hanging out of a shirt that was two sizes too small, which made the kiss even more ridiculous. Hate, El Bingeroso, and I left the club before those girls, so I�
��m not sure why they left. I know that SlingBlade was talking to one of them until he got too drunk. Then he cut his hand on a broken bottle and was just sitting in the corner of the bar staring at it. I remember Jojo saying that he asked SlingBlade what happened with the girl and he was so catatonic he just lifted his hand to show the cut.”

  My next (relatively) clear memory is us out on the street, heading home. I was still hammered, SlingBlade was comatose, and Jojo was frustrated trying to babysit us and find a cab at the same time. So Jojo decides to leave me on a park bench with SlingBlade, telling me:

  Jojo “I’m going to find a cab. SIT HERE and DON’T move. I’ll bring the cab here and pick you two up once I get the cab.”

  Tucker “OK.”

  You probably think that I eventually got up and left. I didn’t. I sat there just like Jojo told me to, with absolutely no intention of leaving. Even despite the fact that Jojo was gone so long that I’d almost forgotten why I was even with SlingBlade on this park bench to begin with. At some point, a pick-up truck with two guys in the front seat pulled up. One of them leaned out and randomly yelled:

  Redneck “Hay, yew a docter?”

  I look around. Where the fuck is this doctor he’s yelling at?

  Redneck “HAY! Hay man—you thar—iz yew a doctor?”

  He’s talking to me? Why? Oh yeah—I have scrubs on!

  Tucker “Uh, yeah, maybe. Why?”

  Redneck “Can yew look at ma friend in the back thar, we thank he might be ded.”

  I walk over to the truck, and sure enough, there’s some dude lying in the bed, completely motionless.

  Tucker “OK, sure. Can you guys give me and my friend a ride to [El Bingeroso’s suburb]?”

  Redneck “Sure, hop on in.”

  I get SlingBlade into the truck, and then check the passed-out guy’s pulse. Well, I did what I assume is check his pulse; all I really did was imitate what they do on medical TV shows and put my fingers on his wrist. I thought I felt something, so I gave a very confident diagnosis.

  Tucker “He is alive. What happened?”

  I was totally bombed, but I will never forget his response as long as I live:

  Redneck “He tried ta roofie this girl’s drank, but he ended up dranking the beer hisself by accident.”

  I guess it was a long drive, because I passed out. I know this because I had the “WHAT THE FUCK??!?!” moment that comes when you wake up in the exposed bed of a pick-up truck while traveling 80 mph down an interstate at 5am, lying next to your best friend and a failed date rapist. I distinctly remember thinking to myself:

  “Tucker, your actual life choices have led to this.”

  Yes, apparently they have.

  PWJ’S BACHELOR PARTY — MONTREAL

  Occurred, April 2005

  The next bachelor party wasn’t for three years. It was for PWJ, the first of the group to get engaged to a girl he met after law school. By this point everyone had been in their jobs for a while and was making money (I was even starting to see success with writing; that started after the Gasparilla bachelor party). We could go somewhere cool and fun. For some reason, PWJ thought this meant we should go to Montreal.

  Though I love teasing Canadians, for the most part I like Canada. Great beer, everything’s cheap (or at least it was back then), the people are nice, and the girls tend to be attractive and slutty—the best mix of attributes. But of all cities to pick in Canada—Vancouver, Toronto, even Calgary or Ottawa—why pick Montreal?? The only bastion of French people in North America, and we’re going there on purpose?

  The only good part of the flight was when I was in line at customs, and the old guy in front of me was getting harassed about something trivial by the French-Canadian customs idiot. He said something about his papers not being in order and the old guy responded, “Yeah, well son, I didn’t need a visa when I landed at Okinawa, and I don’t see why I need one now.” It was awesome. I wanted to start chanting, “USA! USA!”

  Once in Montreal, I found out immediately why PWJ picked it: There were hot girls EVERYWHERE. Hot girls working at the airport. Hot girls driving buses. They have so many hot girls in Montreal, they let them do menial labor jobs: I saw hot girls WORKING ON ROAD CREWS. I’m not remotely kidding—I saw them with my own eyes. TWO of them. One was shoveling asphalt, the other was holding a sign. And they were both HOT.

  The first night in town was really tame because most of the guys didn’t show up until really late. The next night though, the official bachelor party night, was great.

  We started with dinner at some Japanese place. Because SlingBlade grew up poor, he’d never learned how to use chopsticks. We made fun of him as he cycled through all the various beginner chopstick mistakes. He eventually just went with the most rudimentary method: holding one in each hand like a shovel, and using them to awkwardly scoop the food into his mouth. After he FINALLY got the first piece of tempura fish into his mouth, he yelled across the restaurant:

  SlingBlade “BONZAI! I have mastered your choppity sticks!!”

  Tucker “Dude, that’s not even remotely the right way to use chopsticks. Look at me, the way I do it, with both sticks in one hand.”

  SlingBlade “Fuck them. They’re a conquered culture. I don’t need to learn their inferior ways. Get me a fork, and be quick about it!”

  One of my favorite parts of the weekend actually happened at dinner. Some guys didn’t really know PWJ’s fiancée, so he was explaining what was cool about her. PWJ is a total car nerd, and earlier that year bought a shitty, broken down 1965 Mustang that he had grandiose plans to restore. One of the things he mentioned about his fiancée was the fact that she loved classic cars, and would help him with his Mustang.

  Tucker “I still don’t know why you’re obsessed with that ridiculous penis car of yours.”

  PWJ “A classic car is not a penis car! It’s different. Look—”

  SlingBlade “Blah blah blah … shut up. It’s the same.”

  PWJ “No, it’s not, listen to me—”

  SlingBlade “PWJ, I can’t wait for the day your Mustang is all fixed up and you take it for your first drive. You’ll be cruising around, top down, wind sweeping through your receding hairline, beady eyes squinting against the sun, thinking about all the chicks you could pull with this if only you were single. Then, when you’re stopped at a red light, another old red Mustang will pull up. Sitting in it will be a 45-year-old guy, totally bald on top but with a salt and pepper pony tail pulled from his side hair, grey ’80s-era Oakleys with a red band keeping them on his head, Tommy Bahama shirt unable to hide the sweat stains on his copious paunch, one of those pine tree things hanging from his mirror. He will look over at you, smile, give a thumbs-up, and say, ‘Niiiiice car, man.’ With that, your little ‘this isn’t a penis car’ fantasy will come crashing into the reef of reality and unceremoniously sink. I can’t wait.”

  [The good news is that, as I write this in 2011, PWJ has sold his Mustang and no longer harbors any stupid penis car fantasies. Apparently, the reality of multiple children was the reef his fantasy sank on.]

  GoldenBoy had been to Montreal a few months before for the bachelor party of one of his undergrad “coke and hookers” UVa buddies, and so he knew the lay of land pretty well. He set us up at a strip club he said was amazing. We arrive, and from the outside, it looks about as shady as a non-ghetto strip club can look. Like something Larry Flynt would own—awful, gaudy neon (even for a strip club), tattered signs, trash all over the place. And perhaps worst of all, it had the most ridiculous strip club name I’ve ever seen in a Western nation. I think it was called “Club Super Sex.” We were very skeptical to say the least.

  Tucker “GoldenBoy, what the fuck? I thought we went over this in Vegas—the nasty hookers are for your UVa friends, not us. I don’t want to pay for a Canadian to suck my dick.”

  GoldenBoy “Trust me Tucker, this place is great.”

  SlingBlade “Not all Canadians suck dick … some of them just put it in their mou
ths and hold it there for awhile.”

  Yeah … he was right, I was wrong. Hot was everywhere. The strippers were hot. The bartenders were hot. The cocktail waitresses were hot. Even the fucking coat check girl was hot. And from what I could tell, it wasn’t just a front for a brothel. These girls were real human beings.

  Small problem: Most of them were French.

  Actually, that’s wrong. They were French-Canadian, which is even worse than real French. French-Canadians are so shitty, neither real Canadians nor real French want to claim them. Can you imagine getting rejected by BOTH of those groups? At that point, it’s time to find a rope and end it. I’ve had ugly fat girls turn me down before, and I’ve never felt as rejected as a French-Canadian.

  We all start making the basic French jokes everyone always makes, and then my asshole friends have to go and ruin the fun.

  Hate “Tucker, aren’t you part French-Canadian?”

  Tucker “Fuck off, Hate.”

  Credit “Wait, you told me about this once—what was your grandmother’s last name?”

  Tucker “The fact that I have a grandmother whose maiden name is Cormier is not relevant to this discussion.”

  Everyone laughs at me, of course.

  GoldenBoy “I don’t know Tucker, sounds like you’re one of them.”

  Tucker “No! My grandfather won her in a game of cards. It’s different.”