We got back to the kitchen and slid back into prep mode and I resolved to think hard about the opportunity, possibly even calling my parents and letting them know I was going to go cook on a fucking Pirate ship. That would have to wait however, real work commenced and we got to it. We had hundreds of platters and a few thousand sandwiches to make. We got to work slicing meats and cheeses, making platters, cutting fruit…balls to the wall…and it was even hotter than the day before. We had been liberally raiding the walk-in cooler all weekend and this day was no different. In that heat though no one was getting drunk. You really were burning and sweating off the alcohol before it ever really hit your system. It didn’t change the fact we all had been drinking since 8am, which wasn’t an issue until our delivery plans hit a snag.
Between Omar, Karen, and Scooter this team had covered almost every conceivable issue that could have, or did, go wrong that weekend. The one thing they didn’t do was increase the amount of drivers for the second night when we had twice as many parties. At 6pm we were looking around for someone else to load up the platters and we realized there WAS no one else. We were running dangerously close to deadline and there were literally no cars left to deliver this food, except one but that was a terrible idea.
“Jim, you have to drive.” Said Omar.
That was the terrible idea.
Let’s recall it’s 6pm and I’ve more or less been drinking since around 8am. I’m sure my BAL was nil but that wasn’t the only problem.
At the time I was driving around in my prized, blue 1990 Jeep Wrangler. It was in a bit of a transitional phase as Jules might say. It was legally…illegal. It was missing both the state inspection and license tag decals. The rear view mirror was duck taped to the dashboard. The tailgate door was wedged shut after having been backed into a tree. All of the roll bar pads were gone and the soft top had been destroyed in some wind storms outside of Denver so it was gone too. There wasn’t a passenger seat or backseat…just a driver’s seat, center console and a steering wheel, pedals and shifts. Simple. Elegant. Spartan.
And, again, illegal as fuck. But Omar was insistent.
“You’ll have this official ‘Festevents Catering Vehicle’ sign in your windshield. The ships are on the dock in Freemason so you’ll have to drive through crowds and you’ll have a police escort. It’s no problem.”
“You’re on fucking crack Omar.”
“JUST FUCKING PUT THE PLATTERS IN YOUR CAR AND DRIVE JIM!”
So I pulled up and we loaded about 30 combined fruit, veggie, meat, and cheese, sandwich, crackers…just piled it in and Jason hopped in to help me load unload. We pulled out of the lot and about 30 seconds later we were at the entrance to the public access road to the dock and the cops looked at the giant yellow tag taped in my window and waved me in. Then another cop who was in his cruiser pulled out in front of me and started clearing the way like a running back. We had the music blaring, Jason was standing in the jeep holding the platters which were piled almost to the roll bars and we were definitely feeling the beer we’d been consuming now that we were just driving around in the warm air of the sunset and not grinding away in the hot kitchen.
We dropped off platters at one ship, got back in, drove through the crowd a little longer, enjoying the once in a lifetime experience when we pulled around a corner and into view of a wedding on one of the ships and I realized how LOUD I had been playing the music and cut it off. It wasn’t our stop but it was beautiful. We finished dropping platters off and the host of the last ship said we could hang out a bit for the fireworks. We had just brought him some extra beer and ice and we were going to break down the rest of his party after the show anyway so we stayed. I had an Amstel Light…a welcome change from the bud and bud light we had been living off of for two days, and we all talked and enjoyed the salty summer breeze as the fireworks kicked in and burst into view above us. Music, laughing, talking…thousands of people enjoying themselves surrounded by, or on, these majestic ships.
After the last of the fireworks had faded we gathered up our things and went back to the Jeep, parked so illegally but encased in this bubble of invincibility that is the “designated catering vehicle” and took off back to base camp. Omar immediately dispatched us to help unload some tables and kegs from two parties on a pair of ships further down the harbor. The weather was starting to pick up and the girls he had working the event wanted to leave.
So…sure, we’ll go drive into the nasty weather to pick up your party supplies Omar…and we did. We got to the dock and had to drive about 200 yards down an elevated road over the harbor to get to the loading dock that ran between the ships, all of this was really off-shore, surrounded by water on all sides. The girls working the parties had gathered what they could, tablecloths, boxes of cups, liquor, etc but were screaming that they were getting out of there. I guess the wind had picked up considerably in the few minutes since we had been there but it had been getting scary for them for a while. Jason and I ran up the stairs of the ship to the main deck in front of the cabins, broke down the folding tables and grabbled the keg bucket which, we noted, was only half killed and still heavy as hell. We heaved it down and threw it into the back of the jeep and went running up the stairs of the next ship to get the stuff from their party.
All the while the wind was REALLY ramping up and starting to howl and Jason and I are thinking we need to get the hell out of Dodge. It’s not raining…but splashes of water are coming down here and there and I’m thinking its ocean water getting kicked up onto us. We get the last of the equipment loaded into the jeep just as the wind gets pissed. All the while the sailors of the ships had been actually, literally, battening down the hatches, securing things, scrambling around and getting yelled at and making sure the ships were ready for whatever was coming. Sounds of Russian (or whatever language that was) filled the air.
Suddenly the squall became insane and we had to crouch behind the jeep and grab the bumper to avoid being swept away. There was debris in the air everywhere…things big and small just flying…signs, branches…a 55 gallon drum flew by like the cow from Twister. Jason and I were laughing our asses off. I looked up and remembered the keg right above our heads and reached up and found the tap handle, put it in my mouth and reached up and started pumping with my other hand…this was good beer. Cold, delicious, and being consumed on a dock from behind a jeep while God unleashed his holy judgement on these ships beside us. Best beer ever.
Jason burst into even more laughter. I handed him the tap and we basically did Hurricane keg hits until the wind started to subside. It had been super intense and then ebbed off entirely somehow but we stood up and yelled, and the sailors on the ships hollered back. I held up the tap and they cheered us on as I stood on the jeep and did a hand stand on the keg with my legs on the roll bar. We waved to them and told them to come down and a few did.
We had a few cups leftover so we had an impromptu party. These guys were great, at first just a few came down but soon it was about a dozen. Then I noticed one guy had poured out a gallon of milk and asked Jason to fill it with beer…in Russian, so it might as well have been sign language but we got the gist and got to work fulfilling the request when suddenly we were getting yelled at by the Captains of the ships to get out of there. We waved good bye, I scooped up a sign that had blown off one of the ships as a souvenir and we took off back for home.
When we pulled into basecamp parking lot everyone was out there yelling at us. “We thought you were dead! We’ve been calling the police looking for you, where have you been!” It was then they explained that the wind we had been caught up in was a waterspout that had ripped through Norfolk Harbor with the storm. Basically an ocean tornado had passed within a couple hundred yards of where we were on the dock and then landed right in the heart of Town Point Park. It tore up a bunch of tents and trees, took a right on Waterside Dr. and kept going. Just seeing the sights. Everyone who had been running from the party we showed up to knew where we were when it hit and they had been scared shitless for us. They didn’t laugh when we told them we were doing keg stands during the storm.
It had been an amazing night so far. I went to take a piss and as I was walking in one of the servers, K, was walking out and said “Hold on a second…” and she grabbed me, closed the door and kissed me. We were instantly making out hard and as I pressed her against the wall I could feel her hips rise up against me. “Mmm…we’ll get back to that later.” She said as she slid past me and back out the door, leaving me stunned and wondering what the hell was going on. As usual.
We finished cleaning up the kitchen and had a few more beers, getting ready to come back the next day and do it all over again. We had a healthy discussion about the pro’s and con’s of working on a sailboat in the Caribbean. Then we decided to go to Crazy Charlies, a bar near campus for another drink. We got there and K and I had one shot and decided to go back to my place. We said our good-bye’s, left, got into my jeep, and she didn’t even blink when she realized she had to sit on the bare metal floorboard. The girl was a trooper. I pulled out onto 42nd St, behind another car at the red light when I heard someone talking to me. I looked up and a cop was next to me telling me I didn’t have my headlights on. I said “Thanks Officer!” and suddenly the cops lights went on.
Shit. I had been changing beer kegs all day and was covered in beer. Even if I hadn’t been drinking I was going to jail. And she would never believe I hadn’t been drinking. We went through the process…
Cop, “Have you been drinking?”
Me, “I had one beer inside.”
Cop, “Will you submit to a breathalyzer?”
Me, “Nope.”
Cop, “Step out of the vehicle please.”
The usual shit.
K had gone back inside and told everyone what was happening and one of the bartenders came out and moved my jeep out of the street and into the Charlie’s parking lot. Because I was refusing the breathalyzer I had to be arrested on that at the minimum, plus the suspicion of DUI so I was definitely going to jail. I was taken downtown, booked and dumped into the general population. Lovely. Sorry K.
I spent the night in the city jail and sometime the next day Scooter came and bailed me out. He made it a point to tell me he had to wait until he was done at work, especially since they were a man down. Rubbing salt in the wound has always been one of Scoot’s specialties. I felt horrible as I sat on the couch at home that Sunday night. I’d have to get a lawyer, I was certainly going to lose my license for a year just for refusing the breathalyzer, and then like a bolt from the blue it hit me.
I missed my opportunity to cook on a pirate ship because I was in jail. Drunk. Like a pirate. Argh.