by Tucker Max
Tucker “Sippy, what the fuck? The Yuletide rolls around, and Ludacris comes to mind? Time to exchange presents, and you think about DMX! Little cousins coming over for Christmas? PUT ON SOME R. KELLY???”
Sippy “No, I name the discs based on—”
Tucker “QUIET ON THE BRIDGE! Torpedo room?”
Soylent [in the passenger seat] “Torpedo room here, Captain.”
Tucker “Open outer bay doors.”
Soylent [rolls down window] “Outer bay doors are open.”
Tucker [ejecting Stydie’s Christmas Mix CD] “FIRE!”
I flung the CD out Soylent’s window, watched it skip off the windshield of another car, and everyone cheered with the type of over-excitement only boredom can cause.
Soylent “Direct hit, Captain!”
Tucker “I AM THE GREATEST MAN ALIVE!!!”
This little game helped me tolerate the GWB traffic. The highlight was getting one of the CDs into someone’s open window. I think it was “Spring Jams.”
Most of his pitiful CD collection was gone when I came across “Gonna Get Her Back.” I put the CD in and the whole thing was hard punk, hate-the-world music.
Tucker “Sippy, how the hell is this shit going to help you get a girl back?”
Sippy “Well, uhhh, umm, it’s not ‘get her back’ as in ‘get back with her,’ it’s ‘get her back’ as in ‘hurt her because she tore my guts out.’ I made that when I drove back to Dayton after my ex-girlfriend dumped me.”
Tucker “Oh wow. You really are the ghost of Eric Harris.”
The George Washington Bridge brings you into the city at around 178th Street. That is the upper end of Harlem, which extends all the way down 110th Street, the top of Central Park. Jojo lived on the Upper East Side, around 93rd. Translation: We had a lot of poverty to drive through.
We took Broadway, one of the main streets through Manhattan. I quickly noticed that a lot of people were staring at us. I didn’t realize why, until I caught a reflection of the RV in a storefront window.
7 white guys in an RV, all the windows open, rap music blaring, drinking beers and yelling at passersby. How many times do you think anyone, black or white, has seen that on 165th and Broadway?
Even though I had tried to slow down, I was probably on beer 10 or so by the time we got into Harlem. I felt fine—this was probably my drinking peak as a human, when I could pound 10 beers and still smoke a DUI test (I’d done it before, but that’s a whole other story).
At least I thought I was fine. Somewhere around 150th and Broadway, we pulled up to a stoplight. Next to us was an off-duty ambulance.
Tucker “Hey everyone, watch this.”
I honked my horn and leaned out the window, screaming curses at the ambulance. It took a second before the EMT in the passenger seat glanced over. He immediately did a double take, then another one, and smacked the driver as he pointed to us.
With their attention fully in hand, I started rolling my fingers and then pointing forward. If you had crazy reckless friends in high school like I did, you know what that means:
It’s the universal sign for “Let’s street race.”
The driver’s eyes got wide, and the passenger started laughing, like he couldn’t believe it. I kept motioning forward, revving the engine, as Nils and Soylent caught on and leaned out the side windows.
Nils “YOU FUCKING PISSANTS, YOU WON’T RACE US! YOU COWARDS!!”
Soylent “COME ON, YOU PUSSIES! BE MEN! RACE US!!”
Both the ambulance driver and passenger were still laughing when the light turned green. I wasn’t kidding. I peeled the fuck out—literally peeled out an RV on 150th and Broadway, smoking the tires—and blew past that fucking ambulance, leaving them, and all the pedestrians, staring in disbelief as we sped off.
We beat an ambulance in a drag race!!! The RV erupted in cheers. I laid on the horn in celebration.
Tucker “GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY WAY!! I AM THE GREATEST MAN ALIVE!!”
Three blocks later we stopped at a red light, still high fiving and toasting our victory, when the ambulance caught up. It stopped right next to us, the guys intentionally motioned to me, looked me in the eye… then threw on their lights and siren and pulled through the red light, laughing as we sat there, stopped.
Tucker “YOU MOTHERFUCKERS!!”
I was about to pull through the light—a RED light at a major intersection—when Soylent grabbed my arm.
Soylent “Tucker… you have a full beer in your hand.”
I looked down. I did indeed have a red Solo cup, full of beer, in my hand. I had not only just drag-raced an ambulance through Harlem, in a 40 foot RV, I did it while I was still actively drinking.
Tucker “Perhaps I should wait for the light.”
I stopped revving the engine, handed the beer to Soylent, and proceeded calmly to Jojo’s apartment. It was noon. It would be my last good decision for 7 hours.
Rockwolf had been such an annoying fuck to that point, everyone was fed up. I would write about the stupid shit he said and did, but it wasn’t funny annoying, like Sippy, it was “drown this loser in the toilet” annoying. It came to a head when his phone kept ringing—I think it was Ambersnax calling him—and Soylent told him to turn it off. He wouldn’t, so Soylent calmly took his phone from him and threw it out his window. Rockwolf freaked. He implored me to pull over (I wouldn’t) and, too afraid Soylent would strangle him with the shower hose if confronted (he would), bitched at everyone else for letting Soylent throw his phone out the window. Everyone laughed and told him to shut up.
So what did he do? He jumped out of the RV. THROUGH THE WINDOW.
This is not the General Lee. This is a 40 ft. Winnebago. It has doors that open, that are used as exits. Apparently that was too convenient for Rockwolf. He felt that leaping out of the side window—while we were still moving (albeit slowly)—was the best way to get to the street to retrieve his piece of shit phone. After crawling under a car to retrieve it, he ran down the block to catch up, where we’d gotten caught at another red light, and climbed back into the RV (through the door). He was pretty quiet after that.
Parking in New York City is almost impossible when you have a car; with an RV, you’d have an easier time finding a Yankee fan who doesn’t breathe exclusively through his mouth. We circled the block about six times, until I finally just said fuck it and pulled the RV into a combo bus stop/fire hydrant space.
TheGinger “Tucker! We can’t park here! It says ‘No Parking ANYTIME’!”
Tucker “Fuck that. You can’t tow one of these things. We’re fine.”
We rolled into the corner bodega and bought every single 40 oz bottle of malt liquor they had, maybe 25 in all—they were only $2.39 apiece—and took them up to Jojo’s apartment. He lived in a 500 sq ft one-bedroom, which is palatial by Manhattan standards. It was on the 28th floor, and as soon as Soylent walked into the apartment, he was in love:
Soylent “Look at how high we are!”
He stuck his head out the window, saw a bunch of town houses below, and directly under our window were all of their backyards.
Soylent “Who lives there?”
Jojo “I don’t know. Someone with money, obviously, those are brownstones.”
Tucker “I bet they think they’re better’n you.”
Soylent “Those motherfuckers.”
He took one of the 40’s, held it out the window, then released his grip. I was watching the basketball game, only half paying attention, when all of a sudden I heard a faint smash, and Soylent and Jojo started cracking up laughing:
Soylent “DIRECT HIT!”
I got up to see, all the way down, a lawn chair askew and bent out of shape, with a huge wet circle around it.
Soylent “That is awesome!! I bet I can break that bench they have! Watch!”
After that, it got bad.
Soylent was throwing things out the window like the apartment was a ship taking on water. CD cases, cell phones, old wine bottles. Rockwolf saw
where this was going and stood WAY back from the window. After Soylent duct-taped a 40oz to a pot full of water and then jettisoned them out the window together, Jojo stopped him. Thank God it was cold and no one was outside. Dude would have killed someone.
We all watched basketball and got drunker, while Soylent—with nothing to do now—got bored and decided to take such a huge shit that he not only stopped up the toilet, he nearly cleared the apartment with the smell. Nils, who was heavily into the liquor at this point, decided that he would fix the toilet. The first thing he did was take the top of the tank off and drop it on the bathroom floor, smashing it into 20 pieces.
Nils “Whoops.”
Everyone started laughing. Nils, being a gentleman, peeled off three twenties from his roll, handed them to Jojo, and sat back down on the sofa. So much for his plumbing career.
Jojo “You’re not even going to clean it up? You break my toilet tank and just think you can pay me and that’s it?”
Nils “I gave you forty acres. You want a mule, too?”
We all laughed. Jojo just stood there staring at him. Nils peeled off another $20 and handed it to him.
As the afternoon progressed, we moved from “normal drunk” to “sorority formal drunk.” Once the 40’s were gone (mostly out the window), Nils broke open his bag of liquor. Did I not mention that? Nils had flown in from San Francisco and brought with him a duffel bag filled with ten bottles of top-shelf liquor. He flew them in instead of buying them in NYC, because he’d stolen them from a law firm event. Bombay Sapphire, Grey Goose, etc. He thought it would be a good idea to chug half a bottle of Jagermeister and then pour the rest on my head. I took umbrage and dumped my 40 on his head.
Jojo “MOTHERFUCKERS! I HAVE TO LIVE HERE.”
By that point, there was half an inch of alcohol, beer, broken glass, and porcelain on his floor. It looked like the Double Deuce after a hard Saturday night. It was time to go.
Tucker “Aren’t you coming with us to the party?”
Jojo “Nah man. I’m not riding around Harlem in an RV with a bunch of drunk-ass crazy white guys.”
Back down to the RV—which was still there, just like I fucking said it would be.
Tucker “WHO HAS THE KEYS?”
TheGinger “You do, Tucker.”
Tucker “Oh. Yeah. OUT OF THE WAY, THERE IS AN RV TO BE DRIVEN!”
Sippy “Dude, do you think you should be driving?”
Tucker “Do you think you deserve the sack attached to your body? No, but you have one anyway.”
TheGinger “What does that mean?”
Tucker “It means I need another beer. WHERE IS MY CO-PILOT! SOYLENT, MAN THE TORPEDO ROOM! AND SOMEONE GET ME A BEER!”
[WARNING: What is about to follow is a story about me driving an RV around Harlem while severely drunk. Drinking and driving is criminally dumb. Everyone knows that. I don’t have any legitimate excuse for what I did—I was stupid in my twenties, what do you want from me? Don’t get me wrong, this is a very funny story, but it’s funny only in retrospect, because no one got seriously hurt. That doesn’t mean, of course, it was not a VERY stupid decision on my part. It was, and I was wrong. Fortunately for your sake, sometimes the stupidest decisions make for the best stories.]
As soon as I got into the RV, I slammed it into reverse and ran over something very loud. TheGinger ran to the back of the RV and looked out the window.
TheGinger “Tucker, that was a New York Post dispenser!”
Tucker “Dissin’ Flava Flav when he’s da butta on ya toast! Fuck the New York Post!”
TheGinger “What about my deposit?”
Tucker “Fuck your deposit too! Stop being a bitch!”
I floored it and tore off down the street.
TheGinger “OH MY GOD! It’s stuck under the bumper! There are sparks everywhere! TUCKER, STOP! MY DEPOSIT!!!”
Tucker “Yeah, yeah, we’re all gonna fucking die. Get me another beer, you pussy.”
Casually, I check the rearview mirror. He was right: There really were sparks flying off the back of the RV.
Tucker “Check that out, it looks like the aurora borealis!”
Soylent “You really are drunk.”
Tucker “You don’t know me!”
WHAM!
New York City streets are narrow. RVs are wide. I learned this the hard way… by smashing the sideview mirror into a parked car. Soylent reached out the window and fixed the mirror on his side. I immediately overcorrected and clipped another car on my side.
Soylent “I think I’m going to start keeping count.”
Tucker “Only faggots and pussies count. Get me another beer.”
Driving through Harlem, someone decided that since they were open, it would make sense to throw a can out the window. It almost hit a pedestrian, who jumped in shock. Everyone laughed, and it started a throwing frenzy. Everything that wasn’t valuable was tossed out the window: ice, napkins, pillows, pot holders—you get the idea.
As we reached the FDR Drive, everything not valuable was gone. Nils became frustrated, tore the curtain rods off, and tossed them out the window. Everyone cheered as they bounced down the freeway behind us and cars swerved to avoid them. Encouraged by this, Nils decided that the interior wood paneling would make an excellent projectile and started ripping it off the walls.
Sippy “Nils, stop! You can’t throw the paneling out the window!”
Sippy pulled Nils away from the paneling. Nils looked at him with shock, then contempt, then grabbed Sippy in a bear hug and started pushing him out the window. If Sippy wasn’t going to let him have any more projectiles to throw at cars, then Sippy would become the projectile. TheGinger dove and grabbed Sippy. By the feet—because he was already half out the window—and held on for dear life. Everyone else rushed to pull Nils off Sippy and drag him back inside the RV.
TheGinger “Nils! What are you doing?”
Nils “Throwing stuff out the window.”
TheGinger “SIPPY IS NOT STUFF!!”
Nils “Oh… sorry Sippy.”
TheGinger saved the day by opening the trash bags and handing Nils empty beer cans to throw. Everyone quickly discovered that throwing beer cans out the window was A LOT of fun. We even made a game of it. I think we called it “Who can hit the most things with beer cans?”
TheGinger—who was so drunk at this point he either forgot his neuroticism about the RV or got caught up in the moment—was hanging out the left side window and launched a Solo cup of Guinness at a car. It was a perfect shot, going right in the open T-top of a red 280Z, sloshing thick, sticky beer all over the interior.
TheGinger leaned back in the RV laughing wildly to himself, just in time to see Nils lauch a full, unopened 22oz of Heineken—he switched to full bottles because we had thrown all the empties—out the passenger side of the RV, smashing right on the hood of a Jeep Grand Cherokee, leaving a HUGE dent.
I don’t know if you’ve ever wildly driven an RV on the FDR and thrown bottles at cars, but if you haven’t, I’ll tell you what happens: Most of the drivers get freaked out and try to avoid you. But some people get PISSED, and take the opposite approach. They come after you. The drivers of the 280Z and the Grand Cherokee were two of those people.
I was driving down the middle of the highway, the 280Z driver was this Hispanic guy, and he was on my left side, keeping even with me, screaming and yelling out his window, pointing at me to pull over. On the right side was the Grand Cherokee, driven by a very pissed-off black woman. She was screaming so loudly I could hear her clearly in the RV—and this is while driving like 40 mph. I am not sure what she was saying specifically, but the message was clear: She was losing her fucking mind.
From any objective perspective, we were unquestionably in the wrong. But I don’t live in some bullshit world of objective reality; I live in MY reality, and in that wonderful land of free beer and unlimited hot girls, we’d done nothing wrong. Of course, I was so drunk at that point, I was convinced of my own divinity, so the idea
that I would stop the RV to answer for my actions was unthinkable. I am Tucker Max! I’ve never done anything wrong in my life, I don’t give a fuck about these plebeians, I have a party to get to where my fans are waiting to worship me and reinforce my hubris, and I’m not stopping until I get there!
We informed the drivers of my intended course of action in two ways:
1. We flipped them off. Repeatedly and enthusiastically.
2. We threw more beers at their cars.
Because the two vehicles were essentially even with the RV on both sides and were going below the pace of traffic, there was a ton of empty road in front of us. The 280Z pulled way out ahead, got in our lane, STOPPED on the FDR, and the dude got out of his car, with his hand in his jacket pocket.
Sippy “Tucker, he has a gun!”
Tucker “He’s bluffing.”
I hit the brakes, swerved the RV into the lane he abandoned, and went around him. As we passed, I leaned out the window and flipped him off again.
Tucker “FUUUUUUUUUCK YOUUUUUUUUUUUUU!”
Everyone cheered. He just glared as we zoomed past, keeping his hand in his jacket.
Tucker “I TOLD YOU HE WAS BLUFFING!!!”
Still jacked up from andrenaline after smoking the red 280Z, I was high fiving Soylent and not paying attention to the road. When you have an on-ramp coming up fast, this can cause a problem.
Credit “Max, watch out, you need to get on the Cross Bronx.”
Tucker “I DON’T WANT TO GO TO THE BRONX!”
Credit “No, you idiot, the Cross Bronx Expressway takes you to New Jersey.”
Tucker “That doesn’t make sense!”
Credit “Just get on the ramp!”
Tucker “Which ramp??”
Credit “Left, the left one!”
Tucker “WHICH WAY’S LEFT?!?!?!”
I really said that. I was that drunk.
And of course, I went right, and of course, that was not only the wrong way, it dumped us right back into Harlem, where we immediately got lost. This was 2003, before everyone had a GPS in their phone. No one had ANY fucking idea where we were or what to do.