The Stories

I Got Lumped

Another story about drunken debauchery. Again, people, drinking is not good for you. It's sometimes funny, but generally not good. I guess I just feel the need to put that caveat before all the drinking stories. I was a part of this story and for a while I considered telling it in the third person, rather than the first person, thus using a false name for myself, but I decided to bite the bullet and admit that I was a part of all this ridiculousness.

There are so many facets to this story that it's gonna be hard to tell. This is the Boogie Nights of the great stories page, with intertwining plotlines and subtle nuances that somehow all come together in the end. I hope I do it justice.

The people involved in this story are named Dave (Leader), Luke (Missing), Lilah (Brat), Greg (Spanky), Yolan (Campy), Me, Ricky as the infamous Homeboy. I used to have these fake names up here for all the people, but I decided to get rid of them because it was confusing. I don't know if they are actually all gone, however, so if you run across one, then you know who I'm talking about.

OK, it was June of 2001. A friend of mine has a birthday in June, her name is Lilah. She decided on this particular year to have her birthday party at some club in the city (the city being New York City, for those of us who might live somewhere else). I have a couple of friends who recently got an apartment in the city and so we met up there before the clubbing since it wasn't really gonna get started until about 11pm. We met at like 8 and had been drinking since then. Since we were gonna take the subway to the club, everyone was pretty well off by the time we left.

So it's me, Dave, Luke, Ricky and Greg on our way to this club. All of us had had a few drinks. Some of us more than others. Ricky was particularly drunk already. We decided that since it was already kindof late that we would take a cab, rather than the subway to the club so we went to flag one down. Now, you can't legally get a cab in the city and put more than four passengers in it. It is rare to find a cabby willing to make this exception, so we were in a bit of a spot. But, Dave flagged one down and worked his magic on the cabby, and soon the five of us were in one cab on the way downtown. Ricky and Greg hadn't seen each other in a while and were catching up on the cab ride. Ricky apparently remembered one time when they had a freestyling contest or something to that effect. Soon a challenge was issued and Greg went off. He was rapping, pretty poorly, I might add, about how he was gonna kill people and beat people up and all this nonsense. He obviously wasn't freestyling and he was not in any kind of rhythm. Ricky was the only one enjoying this diatribe. The rest of us shot glances at this kid we hardly knew and knew that we would laugh at his expense later.

As the rap was coming to an end the cab had come close to Lincoln Center. That's on about 66th St. and I think we were on Broadway at the time. Anyway, it's a busy street, as streets are wont to be in New York City. Out of nowhere Ricky gets a scared look on his face and pauses. No one really noticed, but he was soon yelling to stop the cab for some reason. The cabby pulls over and Ricky kicks out the door, climbs over Greg and vaults into the street, where he immediately begins to vomit. Now, keep in mind, that we are on our way out to the place where we are going. Our night was just beginning, and already Ricky is throwing up. Now too much drinking has ended many a night out, but beginning a night in such a manner is a bit less common. Anyway, Ricky is on 66th and Broadway, in the street, staring at oncoming traffic, and vomiting his dinner. While one should immediately recognize the danger in this situation, one should also recognize the inherent hilarity. Believe you me, the hysterical nature of what was happening was not lost on any of us in the cab. Even the cab driver was laughing at Ricky.

Ricky eventually got control of himself and got back in the cab. He proceeded to open the window, just in case, but he was fine for the rest of the ride. We eventually got the club downtown and waited to file into the club. Now, I'm not much of a club kid and this night reminded me why. There is no one on earth more pretentious than the bouncer at a night club. We walked up to a gigantic guy and informed him that we were on the list for Lilah's party, assuming they would let us right in. No suck luck. Gigantic guy #1 pointed us in the direction of Gigantic guy #2, who looked a lot like Keith Hamilton, member of the New York Football Giants defense. Anyway, that's just an aside. GG#2 looked at the list, spotted our names and pointed us to the end of the line. The line wasn't very long, so we weren't really daunted by his point, figuring they just wanted to check everyone's IDs.

20 minutes later GG#1 informed us that there weren't enough girls in the club so they couldn't let us in until the ratio evened out. A note for you guys out there. Don't show up to a club with four other guys. Make friends with some girls and bring them with you. Anyway, we waited and waited with the gigantic bouncer just leering and thinking about how great he was for weilding all this power. Eventually he let two of us in. Not me, incidentally, but Ricky and Greg. After 30 minutes, he let me and Dave in. Leaving just Luke outside. I tried to tell bouncer extraordinaire, that I would wait outside until he could let both me and Luke into the club, but he literally pushed me inside where GG#2 was waiting to frisk me.

As soon as we got in we saw Lilah, who was all dolled up for her birthday. We had been in transit and waiting outside this club for about an hour now and the drinks we had earlier were starting to wear off. This is therefore not only the best moment, but the clearest moment of the night. Finding Lilah and wishing her happy birthday, saying hello to some other friends and acquaintances who were already there, and finding the all important place to be when in the club were done within the first few minutes. Lilah went outside and told the bouncer to let Luke in since he was the last person who wasn't there and it seemed as if the night were shaping up to be a lot better than it had been to that point. One could argue that the night went on to be either a lot better or a lot worse, but that is not for me to decide. I'll relay the story, you make your own decision.

As soon as they walked into the club Ricky and Greg were approached by some girls at a bachelorette party who wanted to dance with them. Both of them got really into it and were soon on either side of the bride to be with their shirts off and their hands on. The other girls also joined in the frenzy so by the time Dave and I entered the club what we saw was Ricky and Greg surrounded by girls and with their shirts waving around above their head (the guys, that is, not the girls which would be much better.)

Luke and I aren't really into the club scene and both of us were pretty pissed at having to wait and then pay for something that we figured would most likely suck. We immediately went to the bar. My night consisted of drinking red bull and vodkas and dancing on the floor. I love to dance, but clubs are generally pretty silly for the aforementioned pretentiousness. As this is such, I was generally dancing with myself the whole night and really enjoying myself at that. My night was generally boring compared to everyone else's. If not boring, then at the very least mundane.

Ricky's friend Yolan soon showed up and they spent much of the night drinking and such. At some point in the evening Greg left, but I didn't notice. I looked up at one point and Ricky was at the bar with Greg. I looked up some time later and Ricky was at the bar with Yolan. It was apparently a seamless transition. In any event, Ricky's erratic behavior was not done that evening.

Dave at one point walked up to Ricky and he again began freestyling. Now Ricky is not a generally gifted rapper, and his freestyle was really just drunken rambling with a downbeat. Dave was not interested in Ricky's rap, so he walked away while Ricky was mid flow. Ricky, however, was not daunted. He went up to some random guy who was standing behind Dave and continued his rap. Dave turned around to see what sort of trouble Ricky was getting into and saw Ricky, hands flailing in a hardcore manner and the look on the random guy's face of utter astonishment mixed with fear and confusion. Now imagine yourself in this situation. You're at a club minding your own business and some guy comes up to you rapping, very poorly, in your direction. He's not addressing you, he's just looking at you. He could very well be looking at the wall. Imagine how you would feel in such a situation and the face you are likely to make.

Ricky at another point in the evening was in the bathroom. He had apparently used the bathroom, but decided that his stay in the room was not finished. He planted himself near the sink and greeted everyone who went in and out of the bathroom. The clientele in such an establishment is an odd concoction of people, most of whom do not appreciate being interrupted by a drunken stranger especially in the bathroom. Dave again found him including himself in the lives of strangers and escorted Ricky out of the bathroom and back onto the dance floor.

These are just some of the things that Ricky did in the club. Undoubtedly there was more that happened, but unfortunately we were not with him the whole night and cannot relay the entirety of his evening. In any event, 3:30am approached and the club was going to close relatively soon. People started leaving, and Dave decided that we should do the same. Incidentally, Lilah had left nearly an hour ago, but we weren't really in the proper mindframe to have the sense to leave with her. Dave went about the task of rounding everyone up. The crew we would be leaving with was myself, Dave, Luke, Ricky and Yolan.

As the club was closing down the real estate on the dance floor became more and more available. At one point the only two people on the dance floor were me and some girl who was I believe also waiting for her friends to leave the club. We were on exact opposite sides of the dance floor completely content in the music we had been dancing to alone for hour on end. I was, therefore, easy to find, though I must admit I had had quite a few drinks at this point. Dave came up to me and said "We're going to leave as soon as I get everyone together, the only problem is that i can't find Luke."

Luke was, as you may have already guessed, missing. From 3:30 to 4:30 Dave was on a frantic search for Luke. He had visions of Luke lying somewhere in a sewer, lost in the city he had just recently moved into. When Dave originally came up to me, I offered to help find Luke. My intentions were good, but I just didn't have the gumption on that night. I circled the club once, caught sight of Dave and grabbed him. "Don't leave without me!" was my message. He promised not to. At least three more times in Dave's search for Luke I spotted him, grabbed him, and implored him to not leave without me. He was perturbed by Luke's lack of presence and was growing increasingly upset. He then yelled, "Dammit, Jerry, I won't leave without you, just get the fuck out of my face!" This was enough for me to get out of his face.

As it turns out, Luke had left a couple of hours earlier without telling anyone. He wasn't having much fun despite the several drinks he had had, so he left the club ina a bit of a stupor. No one is really sure of the route that Luke took home, but it is clear that at some point he got lost. Luke's last memory of that night is calling his girlfriend in Washington DC on his cellphone and telling her he was on 110th and Riverside, which is at least a mile from where he lives, on 106th and Amsterdam. Somehow Luke got home that night and fell asleep on his bed right about the time we were frantically searching the club for him. By we I mean Dave, who was the only one looking. I was dancing, Ricky and Yolan were up to no good elsewhere in the club.

Dave soon gave up. He rounded up the troops that he had, and the four of us left to get a cab. Upon leaving Ricky went up to every single bouncer to give them an elaborate handshake that none of them really knew. I doubt that Ricky knew the handshake either, but that's a bit irrelevant. Anyway, we were in the middle of a street and had to walk to the corner in order to reach an avenue and any chance of getting a cab. As we approched the corner, a thought popped into Ricky's head. No one is really sure what that thought was, but he soon spun and lit off down the street, back in the direction of the club. Dave had taken the responsibility of everyone's safety upon himself as it was clear to him that he was the only one in a proper state of mind to lead such an operation. Now keep in mind, he wasn't sober, he was just the least drunk.

Dave jogged down the street back to the club where he collected Ricky and guided him back to the corner. As we reached the corner Ricky spotted an SUV stopped at the red light. The SUV was full of some girls so Ricky decided it was time for him to bring the A game. He approached the window and macked his mack. The girls in the car were happy to listen for as long as the light was red. As soon as it turned green, however, they lit off, as anyone would when approached by a stranger at a red light. Ricky's response wasn't altogether positive to the girls leaving, so he expressed his dismay at their departure. "Fine! Fuck you then, you stupid bitches!"

Dave was a bit perturbed at Ricky's behavior. I was not completely aware of my surroundings, but even I could tell that Ricky was out of control. Yolan and he had been together for much of the night, so Yolan was the one who tried to calm him down. But then it happened. What transpired next was so surreal, so melodramatic, so sudden that I don't think I would believe it were it not for the other witnesses on the scene.

Roughly a minute after the SUV had passed I heard a voice out of nowhere say "Hey! What the fuck is wrong with you? Why were you talking to those girls that way?" I turned around while the events of the next 20 seconds took place in front of me in what can best be described as stop motion animation. The visions in front of me flashed in and out focus once every half second or so, and I was in no position to stop them.

Ricky turned to find two guys standing in front of him, wanting him to answer for his rudeness. Ricky was in the wrong in the first place and was in no position to defend himself even if he weren't. One of the guys wasn't really looking for an answer anyway. Ricky mouth was moving a mile a minute, while his mind was almost certainly on pause. He let out a string of jibberish that lasted for roughly 5 seconds while one of the guys reached back, closed his eyes, and swung. He connected squarely on Ricky's jaw who immediately fell backwards into a parked car. There was a moment of silence as Ricky, unconscious, slid down the car and in slow motion fell into the street. He laid there with what Dave describes as a wry smile on his face. It was actually a little strange to look at. It was as if all hea really wanted in life was to be lying there on the street.

Yolan did his best to diffuse the situation by stepping up and trying to reason with the guy. "Hey, hey, we don't have any beef. It's..." At that point the guy took a second swing. Yolan fell backwards into the same parked car and followed a similar path into the street. He landed more or less on top of Ricky.

Now I'm not a fighter. If matched against this particualr individual on any given night, I would most likely come out on the losing end. Even with all of my faculties, my chances against this fellow were not good. That being said, if I were in any other state of mind I'm fairly certain I would have come to the aid of my two unconscious friends and at the very least would have attempted some sort of physical retaliation. But this was not my night. The events before me were at one point crystal clear and at the next instant completely a blur. I registered all that had happened roughly 5 seconds after they actually happened and all that was running through my mind at that point was "Man, I hope he doesn't punch me." Just as that thought ran trough my head I looked up to see that same guy looking in my direction. He seemed intent on completing his present mission and I was next in line. Again, in another situation I may have stood up and tried to thwart his mission, but I was unable. The forced were aligned in my favor on that night, however. There was a second guy who accompanied Punchy on that night and he was concerned that the police were going to come around any minute. The last thing that guy wanted to do was be caught in a street brawl at 4:30am in the city. As it was there would not have been much of a brawl. The first guy was two punches away from leaving a heap of four people in the street next to a parked car, but I guess the second guy overestimated us.

"Dude, let's go. The cops are gonna come." Punchy hesitated for a minute and decided to defer his mission on this night and leave two of us standing. I was on my heals walking backwards hoping to avoid being punched. Dave was crouched next to the car concerned about his Ricky and Yolan on the ground.

At this point we must recognize our feeble effort to back up our friend. Ricky had no chance on that evening. The question wasn't really IF he would get us into trouble on that night, but rather WHEN. When Punchy he approached him the outcome was, in a sense, already decided. Punchy knew he was going to clock him and Ricky could not have done anything to stop it. As this is such, the rest of us should have been more prepared to come to his aid. As it was, only Yolan did anything to back up his friend. The only way to describe what myself and Dave did was to say that we bithced out. I won't make any bones about it. We left Ricky out in the cold. I guess there's not much we can do about it now except to laugh at his misfortune. He really had it coming anyway, although taht's no excuse.

So we're left with Ricky and Yolan on the ground. Soon after Yolan woke up and managed to pull himself up onto the parked car. He basically leaned there until we could procure a cab. Ricky was not quite as easy to deal with. He was out cold. We had to get a cab, though, and in order to do that we needed to get Ricky up. Dave and I decided that the only thing we could do was to pick him up. We then attempted to lift all that dead weight off of the street, but it was pretty tough. Half way up Ricky's weight got to us. We did our best, but we dropped him. His head cracked against the pavement with a bonk, but he still didn't wake up. We would have been stuck there all night had Ricky not woken up, but fortunately for us he soon did.

By fortunately, I really meant unfortunately. When Ricky woke up, he was now ready to fight. And he didn't care who the opponent was. Dave was closest to him when he woke up, so he attacked his foot. We soon calmed him down enough to have him stop attacking us and have hum just lean on the car. Now all we needed to do was get a cab. But Ricky didn't want to make anything easy for us that night. Every cab that slowed down would be attacked by Ricky. He would run up and start yelling and each cab would invariably drive away. Despite our attempts to calm him down, he just wasn't doing it. He scared away at least 4 cabs. Just when all hope was lost, we made a desparate decision.

Out of nowhere a guy in a Honda Civic stopped his car and asked us if we needed a ride. Any reservations that we may have had drove off with the last cab that left us out there. Without hesitation we accepted and piled into the car. Dave wanted to find out a bit about our driver. He inquired if our current chauffeur were an off duty cab driver or something to that effect, to which our driver replied "No, I'm a hustler." That was fine with us. The guy was actually really congenial and took us right to Dave's apartment, so that was great. Unfortunately, Ricky was still riled up. Yolan, who had also received a right hand to the jaw was incredulous. He could say nothing in the car ride other than, "Man, I got lumped. I can't believe that. I just got lumped." I've never heard the word lumped used so much within such a short period of time. But I guess it was true. He had just been lumped.

So we were about half way home and stopped at a traffic light in Columbus Circle, which is ironically enough on 59th and Brodway, just a few short blocks from where Ricky exited the cab on the way to the club earlier that night. Ricky decided that he wasn't through causing a disturbance. As we were stopped, Ricky opened the car door and ran out into the intersection. Columbus Circle is a huge interchange where roughly 5 different streets come together. Ricky was right out in the middle of this interchange just basically running around. Dave apologized profusely to the driver, who was still being quite congenial, and went to get Ricky.

Ricky was out in the street basically doing nothing. He was running and yelling and didn't seem to have any particular plan. As he was in the middle of his outing a cab passed by him. Ricky decided he was mad at the cab and made the decision to rear back and kick the moving cab as it drove by. Amazingly, he connected ride to the side of the car, which slowed down, but luckily kept going. Dave caught up with him soon after and did his best to lead Ricky back to the car. This plan of action was not working out, however. Dave then decided to carry Ricky back to the car. He picked him up from behind and carried him roughly half way across the street. Ricky then decided that he didn't want to be carried anymore. He had Dave in a headlock and wrestled him all the way back to the car. Dave slammed Ricky against the car, and somehow wrestled him in.

Now I experienced these events a little differently. I was still experiencing life one moment at a time. I looked up and noticed Ricky was gone. I looked up again and Dave was gone. I sat still for a while and then suddenly noticed Ricky's face slammed into the window and Dave struggling to cram him into the car. As I said earlier, the night was pretty surreal.

We finally reached the apartment, we somehow dragged Ricky up the stairs, and then we figured we were safe for the evening. We were wrong. Incidentally, when we got in the apartment we noticed Luke asleep on his bed. Dave was nonplussed about that. We threw Ricky on the couch where we figured he was safe, but he then proceeded to attack anyone who walked by through flailing his arms and legs at the oncomer. He then proceeded to kick over the coffee table with all the dvd's and things like that. Soon he was asleep and the night was over.

The next morning, and I use that term liberally, as it was actually about 1:30, I woke up. I was the first one up and my first instinct was to get a glass of water. I then proceeded to have several glasses of water on a chair in the living room. Coincidentally, Ricky was asleep on the couch in the same room. About 15 minutes after I sat down and turned on the TV, Ricky woke up. He didn't look good. His hair was frazzled, his head bruised, and his jaw a bit swollen. He looked at me and said "Wow, I had too much to drink." I could say nothing but, "Yeah, you did." Then he stopped for a minute, collected himself and looked at me quizzically. "You know, I feel like I got punched in the face."

I didn't have the heart to tell him. I thought about it, but I just couldn't do it. "Really? That's weird." I walked into Luke's room to find out where he had gone the previous night. As I walked in, so did Dave. We quickly told Luke what had happened. He chuckled and then Ricky walked in. He said it again. "Man, I feel like I got punched inthe face." At that point we had to tell him. "Yeah, that's because you did." As you may have guessed, he remembered nothing of the night before. We then proceeded to relay the entire story to him just as I've relayed it here. Yolan soon woke up and waxed on about how he had been lumped.

The only reasonable conclusion to this story is that the five of us, including Luke, who had now been found, went out to berakfast at a diner. We then proceeded to tell the story so much over the next couple of weeks that Ricky got mad every time we even brought it up. The subject now is a bit taboo, as we're not certain as to how Ricky will react, but seeing as how several months have passed, and Ricky isn't exactly internet savvy, I figured I would take the risk and post the story. I hope you enjoyed it.