I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell Read online

ElephantLegs “Well I’m about to finish school, but I’ve been doing some modeling, and I’ll probably do that full time when I graduate.” SlingBlade “You’re a model? Right, and the red ‘S’ on my chest means that I’m Superman.” [Did I mention that he was wearing a Superman shirt…to a bar?]

  ElephantLegs “I model!”

  SlingBlade “I might believe you were a model if you didn’t have such fat legs. Oh wait—have you been in a Lane Bryant catalog? That kind of modeling?”

  ElephantLegs “NO!!”

  Tucker “In her defense, do you realize how much money plus-sized models can make? It’s shocking.”

  ElephantLegs “I DON’T PLUS-SIZE MODEL!! I’ll have you know that Ford signed me to a contract just last week!”

  SlingBlade “Whatever. You did that on your back.”

  One great thing about SlingBlade’s attitude was that he was truly great at unintentionally playing “The Bad Guy.” When you are picking up girls, sometimes having an asshole friend can actually work towards your advantage. Though this girl was all pissed off and huffy at SlingBlade, it made her more into me. Not only is it easy to be the good guy when a Bad Guy is there, but that little exchange made her really want to fuck me, just to prove that the Bad Guy was wrong and that she was desirable.

  But there is a limit to what a girl will endure before she gets pissed and leaves. I talked to her for a while longer, solidified my position, and then took SlingBlade around to try and get him in with another girl. And of course if I can trade up too, that’s always a plus.

  The next group of girls we talked to were really cute, and one seemed into SlingBlade.

  Girl “I totally recognize you from somewhere.”

  SlingBlade “Perhaps we go to the same comic book store.”

  He said that sarcastically, but she didn’t get the joke.

  Girl “No, no, that isn’t it. I think I saw you riding a bicycle the other day, over in Ballston.”

  SlingBlade “Are you fucking stupid?”

  Girl “What?”

  SlingBlade “Yeah, I was riding my bike to the porn store. I take my bike there so no one will recognize me.”

  Girl “I have to go find my friends.”

  I get us in with another pair of really cute girls. Things were going great for me…sadly SlingBlade’s girl was not quite up to the task:

  Girl “I am hoping to get my masters in psych after I get my B.A.”

  SlingBlade “It takes someone very smart to get a psych degree.”

  Girl “I’m smart.”

  SlingBlade “The smartest thing to ever come out of your mouth is a penis.”

  Girl “I’m NOT STUPID!”

  SlingBlade “IT STOPS TALKING TO ITS INTELLECTUAL SUPERIOR OR IT GETS THE HOSE.”

  She turns and walks away.

  SlingBlade grabs his nipples like Buffalo Bill in Silence of the Lambs, “I’D FUCK ME!!”

  Tucker “Dude, do you realize that when you insult one girl, you aren’t just fucking it up with her, you are polluting her entire group of friends? See those girls that she’s sitting with? Now as far as that group is concerned, we might as well be lepers.”

  SlingBlade “Did you hear the nonsensical prattle spewing from her pie-hole?”

  Tucker “Dude, I am your best friend. Help me out here.”

  SlingBlade “Best friend? I can’t begin to elucidate my hatred for you.”

  Tucker “That’s the funny thing: I really am your best friend, but if I died tomorrow, you wouldn’t come to my funeral.”

  SlingBlade “I don’t know. Maybe…if nothing good was on TV.”

  I try one more time to get him set up with another girl, but that ends before I can even get them both drinks. As I am ordering, he yells out:

  “FELLATIO WON’T FILL THE HOLE IN YOUR SOUL!!”

  That pretty much sealed his fate with all the other girls at the bar, so we head back to ElephantLegs. In a stroke of luck, this time she’s with some other girl. OtherGirl is very pretty, has a great body, and seems sweet, so she and SlingBlade get along well enough that when the bar closes, the four of us decide to go to IHOP together. As we are walking out, I pull SlingBlade aside:

  Tucker “Dude, be cool, this one likes you and wants to hook up. Just be yourself and everything will be fine. She seems like a good girl.” SlingBlade “Yeah, I think so. And if she doesn’t find my unique blend of caustic wit and political satire amusing, I’ll just pull out the ‘B’ game: potty humor and thinly veiled masturbation references.”

  I should have just pushed him into traffic right then to save us all time, but what can I say, I’m a loyal friend.

  We get to IHOP and there are about thirty people, mostly black and Hispanic, waiting in line. SlingBlade storms in front of them, yelling: “There are white people who need to eat, make some room, white people need a table, outta the way.”

  It was obviously a joke, and most people got it and laughed. The Alexandria city cop working the door did not.

  Cop “If your attitude doesn’t improve, you are going to sort it out in the tank.”

  SlingBlade “OK, Mr. Plastic Badge. So, which section of the police academy entrance did you fail, hmm? Perhaps it was the hospitality portion.”

  Tucker “Dude—he’s a real cop.”

  SlingBlade “Oh…we’ll be leaving now.”

  We take the girls across the street to Denny’s. I guess they have lower standards for seating drunk idiots than IHOP because they give us a table immediately. SlingBlade goes to the bathroom and when he gets back he tells the table:

  “Dude, taking antibiotics and then drinking beer is a bad idea. I just let loose a symphony of bowel movements, each in different pitches and melodies. It was like a poop xylophone in there.”

  I think this is hilarious, while the girls do not. Some people just don’t get good potty humor. After we order, SlingBlade and OtherGirl start getting to know each other.

  OtherGirl “So what do you do in your free time?”

  SlingBlade “Cut up Guatemalan hookers and bury them in shallow graves by the interstate.”

  OtherGirl “What was your family like?”

  SlingBlade “My dad was so mean, he’d give my sisters and me ten dollars on Christmas Eve, steal it back from us that night when we were sleeping, and then beat us on Christmas Day because we lost it.”

  She was a nice girl, but wasn’t getting the jokes. Sensing the night slip away, I tried to shift the focus by talking about ElephantLegs’ ex-boyfriend. He was a complete tool, and I figured this sort of gossip would be more OtherGirl’s intellectual speed.

  ElephantLegs “Yeah, he was 26, and I was 20 when we met. We met at a Macaroni Grill my friends and I were eating at, in [a very rural college town].”

  SlingBlade “He is an assistant manager at a Macaroni Grill? In that city? HAHAHAHAH. This one sounds like a winner. Was he a townie?

  Did he have a goatee and drive a rusted-out Firebird?”

  ElephantLegs “No, he was a really good guy. He was cool.”

  SlingBlade “He sounds like the type of guy who would profess his love for a girl in spray paint across a highway overpass. I bet his busy schedule includes screaming into his pillow and crying himself to sleep, because his life sucks.”

  SlingBlade decides that his food is taking too long and that he can do better than the current line cook, so he leaves the table and goes into the kitchen. There is no one in there, so he messes with the griddle, flipping knobs and switches until it turns on. The female cook comes around the corner, she sees him, stops and stares at him in astonishment for a few seconds as he pours some pancake mix on the griddle. He sees her, and she questioningly shrugs her shoulders at him, to which he replies:

  “I’m hungry. I’m gonna make me some flapjacks.”

  She didn’t think it was funny, and we had to leave our second restaurant of the night.

  The girls drove their own car, and in the parking lot we tried to figure out what to do. OtherGirl came up with a go
od idea:

  OtherGirl “You know… I have a hot tub at my place. What would you two say if I asked you back there?”

  SlingBlade “Heeellllloooo staph infection.”

  Tucker “He has health insurance. We’ll follow you.”

  In the car, SlingBlade looked about as happy as a Mormon getting a lap dance.

  Tucker “‘Hello staph infection?’ What the fuck is wrong with you?”

  SlingBlade “Why do so many women disgust me?”

  Tucker “Because you are fucked up and can’t get over your ex. Are you gonna hook up or what? That girl seemed into you.”

  SlingBlade “Yeah, I guess. She seems nice. I don’t know.”

  We go back to their place and there are already a bunch of people at the house; apparently one of the other roommates was having a party that night. OtherGirl mixes us a few drinks, and we sit around and talk awhile before ElephantLegs and I get into the hot tub and start making out. A few minutes later, I hear him screaming from inside:

  SlingBlade “Oh you don’t want to hook up with me? What, my fetid, hoppy beer breath bothering you? Oh yeah, Daddy drinks too much!”

  SlingBlade comes out to the deck:

  SlingBlade “I am leaving.”

  Tucker “Why? What happened?”

  SlingBlade “I’m going home to get my gun so I can kill everyone here.”

  He storms off before I can put my shorts on (ElephantLegs had them off in the hot tub) and catch him. I find OtherGirl:

  Tucker “What the fuck happened? Why did he leave?”

  OtherGirl “I don’t know—your friend is weird.”

  Tucker “There has to be a reason. He wouldn’t just storm out.”

  OtherGirl “Well, I think he got mad when he tried to kiss me.”

  Tucker “What happened?”

  OtherGirl “I backed away.”

  Tucker “WHAT? Why would you invite him back here if you didn’t like him?”

  OtherGirl “I don’t know. I thought I did, I just didn’t feel like it.”

  I could not believe that this bitch flirted with him all night—and she was FLIRTING—and then dissed him AT HER PLACE, AFTER SHE INVITED HIM BACK THERE. It’s not like she had to fuck him, but to deny even a kiss after all that is really bad. Especially for him; it’s not like this guy has lots of self-esteem with women to begin with.

  He wouldn’t pick up his cell, so I just go back to the hot tub and ElephantLegs, who after 20 beers looked surprisingly good in a bathing suit. We get pretty hot and move inside to finish off, when she drops a bomb on me:

  ElephantLegs “I’m not sure if we can hook up. Let me ask my friend.” Tucker “What do you mean?”

  ElephantLegs “Well—I don’t live here. I am visiting from Ohio. All those bedrooms belong to her roommates. I’ll see if she’ll let us use her room.”

  No fucking way. NO FUCKING WAY.

  Of course OtherGirl says no. OK, fine, I can understand not wanting other people to fuck in your bed. So I go through the other options. ElephantLegs wouldn’t hook up on the patio, “Someone might see us,” or on the sofa bed we had to sleep on, “There are other people passed out in the living room. What if they wake up?”

  In a last ditch attempt to save the night, I make what I think is a very reasonable suggestion: ElephantLegs takes OtherGirl’s car, and the two of us go to SlingBlade’s place and hook up. He has an extra bed.

  Do you want to guess what Princess CockBlock told her friend? “No.”

  I was furious. OtherGirl had taken what could have been a great night, and totally ruined it, for no fucking reason other than her whim. That’s OK bitch: I got summin’ for you.

  The next morning I woke up early, went into the bathroom and locked the door. I took off the lid of the toilet tank and dropped a gargantuan shit, right in the tank. I have hit many home runs in my life, but this was my first upper-decker.

  Then I took a Sharpie marker I found in her house and wrote on the underside of the lid:

  “This is for [SlingBlade]. Whore.”

  I put the top back on the tank and used about half a roll of toilet paper to wipe my ass, putting all of it in the bowl. As I expected, the toilet clogged when I flushed it, spilling shit water all over her bathroom floor.

  I immediately get a taxi back to SlingBlade’s, stopping to say goodbye to ElephantLegs on my way out. I am laughing hysterically.

  ElephantLegs “What’s so funny?”

  Tucker “Tell your friend I’m NOT sorry. She’ll understand.”

  I take the taxi back to SlingBlade’s, laughing the whole way, and walk into his place at like 7am, still giddy. I find him sitting in his chair in front of the TV, soaking wet, fists clenched up in rage and a look of exasperated anger on his face the likes of which I’ve never seen.

  Tucker “Dude—what’s wrong?”

  He points out the window to his car. The front and rear windshields are completely out, and the hood and roof have massive dents in them.

  Tucker “OH MY GOD! What happened to your car?”

  SlingBlade “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  Tucker “Why are you all wet?”

  SlingBlade “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  Tucker “Have you been sitting here all night?”

  SlingBlade “I DON’T WANT TO TALK ABOUT IT. God obviously hates me. HATES ME. Nothing ever goes right. ALL I WANT IS PEACE AND QUIET AND A SMALL LIFE WITH MY NINTENDO AND COMIC BOOKS. IS THAT SO MUCH TO ASK???”

  After a few hours he calmed down, and I found out what happened:

  It was raining heavily on the interstate as he drove home. He was cruising along in the right lane, still mired in self-loathing over his rejection, not noticing that he was riding in the blind spot of a truck. He noticed too late that the truck was swerving from the left lane across his lane in order to make it onto an off-ramp. SlingBlade had to swerve violently to avoid the truck careening across his lane, and since he was going fast and it was slick, he ended up driving right into a road sign at about 60 miles an hour.

  It impacted on his bumper, smashed into the hood of his car leaving a huge dent, then somersaulted and crashed into the roof—popping both the front and rear windshields out—before flying off behind him. The truck kept driving, never having seen what it did. In his own words:

  SlingBlade “After the sign destroyed my car, I slammed on the brakes and stopped. Once my heart rate dropped below 200, I was able to pry my fingers off the steering wheel and thank all major and minor deities that I was still alive. I had to kick the front and rear windshields fully out, because they were both cracked and falling in. Once I regained enough of my motor control to drive, I pulled off, and realized that even though they saved my life, the gods were still mocking me…and every drop of rain that hit my face through the gaping hole where my windshield used to be was proof of this.”

  Tucker [not even holding back my laugher] “That SUCKS.”

  SlingBlade “Yes it does. Welcome to every day of my life.”

  Tucker “Hold on now dude—fate may fuck with you, but I fuck with fate right back.”

  I filled him in on my upper-decker. He told me I was a bad person, but it was one of the few times I’ve ever seen him crack a genuinely warm smile, even if it was wet and fleeting.

  “I Prefer Vaginally-Challenged”

  SlingBlade and I interned at the same law firm during the summer after our second year. There is one night that summer in particular that really exemplifies our friendship and explains SlingBlade as a person:

  We lived a bit south of San Francisco and were driving into the city for a party. On the way there, a cop in front of us, not in any hurry and with no lights or siren on, ran a stop sign. SlingBlade flipped out. Even though he hangs out with me, SlingBlade is a very moral and righteous person. To him you are either right or you are wrong, and this cop was wrong. He started honking, flashing his brights at him and motioning for the cop to pull over.

  Tucker “What are you doing?
That’s a cop!!”

  SlingBlade “I AM GOING TO CITE HIM! HE RAN THAT STOP SIGN!”

  Tucker “What the fuck? Are you crazy?”

  SlingBlade “Give me your cell; I am calling 911.”

  Thankfully he would not take his hands off the wheel long enough to wrestle the phone away from me, I calmed him down, and we got to the party. It was a launch party for a company called Eveo.com at a clubish-type place, Ruby Skye. Almost as soon as we got there, two girls dressed in clubbing outfits and smeared with makeup came up to me:

  Girl 1 “Holy shit—I totally recognize you.”

  Tucker “I’m not your baby’s daddy.”

  She giggles a little and gives me a coquettish smile.

  Tucker “Just kidding. So how do you think you know me?”

  Girl 1 “You’re that guy with the website, with the date application on it?” [This was a big deal to me at the time because it was back when my site got no traffic, and I only had the Date Application on it.]

  SlingBlade “Oh dear God. What kind of whores are these?”

  Tucker “Stop it dude—anyways, yes ladies you are correct, I am that guy.”

  Girl 1 “YAY! I knew it! What do I win?”

  SlingBlade “An incurable case of Hepatitis C and years of emotional pain.”

  Tucker “STOP IT.”