| | | Editor's Note: When we got to work today, we found another e-mail from that bartending, skateboarding buddy of ours in California. We decided to pass it along again. A word of warning: always wear a helmet.
Chapter 18
... in which our hero takes on a track-and-field icon and comes away with Jeannie Buss
As a bartender, I won't hesitate to draw the line when I think someone's had too much to drink. But how much is too much to eat?
I had to make that call this week. And my life hangs in the balance.
At around 11 p.m. last Tuesday a guy sits down and orders a bottle of Tahitian Springs Mineral Water and one Nachos Caliente Xtreme with drizzled Mole Sauce and Lake Superior White Fish. Then he orders another. And then he orders another.
By the time I take the fourth order of Nachos from the kitchen, Luis Camara, the chef, is looking out the window at me wondering who the hell can put away four orders? I can see Luis is beginning to think maybe his food does taste good after all.
I put the plate down in front of the patron. He thanks me and just keeps shoveling. He goes from one plate right to the next. His fork never stops.
Here's where I have to decide: Am I a dude with a code of ethics? Or should I not intervene if this dude's bent on killing himself by overeating nachos? Maybe the more ecological thing is to just let Nature take its course and let him explode.
"See that African-American dude over there eating the White Fish Nachos?" I tell Stu Getzler. He's the manager. My boss. He sets policy. Kind of like George Bush does. "That dude's going to leave you hosing down the furniture one way or another."
Stu looks at me like I'm stupid, which is pretty much the way he always looks at me.
|  | | C.J. Hunter, in less lean times, at the 2000 U.S. Olympic Track and Field Trials. |
"You spend so much of your time kite-skiing or snowboarding and all the rest of that nonsense, after 20 concussions you have no idea when you're looking at a real athlete," he says.
"I'm not looking at any 'real athlete,' " I tell Stu. "That nacho freak is just skin-and-bones. He looks like he couldn't weigh over 130. Not a muscle visible."
"You're looking at C.J. Hunter," Stu tells me with his you're-really-stupid look. "He's the shot-putter. Could have won a gold medal. Married to Marion Jones."
"That is no shot-putter," I say.
I tell Stu I've seen pictures of C.J. Hunter. That dude is the size of a mountain. This dude at the bar is the size of a mound of cigarette butts you see people dump out of their car ashtrays on the ground next to where they're parked.
Stu says, "He used to be as big as Mount Whitney. But he just retired. So he stopped taking all those steroids. No more nandrolone."
I figure Stu is trying to screw with me. He likes to make me look like a jerk. Because he thinks I spend too much time doing all these crazy things on my board, I look like a jerk to him. I'd say he's jealous.
But it turns out Stu isn't kidding. It is C.J. Hunter. At least, the dude nods when I ask him if that's his name. He's eating so fast he doesn't have time to put down his fork and talk. Sauce is flying everywhere.
"I'm gonna get back to it, man," he manages to tell me.
"Back to what?" I ask.
"Back to the Olympics," he says, stoking it in. "I'm going to be a gold-medal shot-putter."
"I thought you retired," I say.
"Only because I had to," he says.
He explains that he realized he'd never win a medal as a steroid competitor. So the only hope he has is to quit, get off steroids, wait out his ban and then come back without taking any steroids.
"Kind of like coming back under an assumed name," he says.
I say it sounds to me like he's finally doing it the right way. Then I say I hope he won't take this as me getting too personal, but does he really find Luis' nachos this savory? You know me, the word "limit" isn't in my vocabulary -- but I didn't realize Luis could be so on his game.
"I kind of had some weight falloff when I stopped the steroids," C.J. says, explaining that the point of the nachos is they'll fatten him back up quickly. "Besides," he adds, "my strength is a little down, too. A fork is too heavy for me to lift. But I can lift a corn chip. If I stick to my non-steroid workout schedule, I'll be able to lift a fork and a knife in about six weeks. Next stop, opening ceremonies."
I bring him another plate and tell him I admire someone who can put themselves through a lot of anything, Luis' nachos included. He tells me the only problem with turning off the steroids is occasional mood swings.
The next thing that happens I would definitely call a mood swing. A cute brunette has taken a stool next to C.J. Actually, she's someone I would have been paying some prime attention to if she hadn't been sitting next to C.J., who was offering his personal cry for help. Anyway, all of a sudden C.J. swivels toward her and somehow opens his mouth wide and locks his jaws on the top of her head.
She's shocked more than hurt. He's not biting or breaking any skin. He's just kind of got a grip on her.
"What are you doing? What's going on?" she's saying.
Of course, she doesn't have a clue that this is C.J. Hunter, and he's doing his best to make the next Olympic team and maybe in the middle of a slight training setback. She's just freaked.
"Save it, dude," I say to C.J. "She is not a nacho."
It's getting a little weird because maybe C.J. has turned into a pipe cleaner, but he's still tall. Tall enough to be clamped onto the top of this woman's head. Then he starts backing off his stool, and taking this lady with him, because she's attached to her head and her head is stuck in his mouth.
Stu Getzler has come over with the old fast walk. I explain that C.J. has mistaken the young woman for a chunk of Lake Superior White Fish.
"That's Jeannie Buss," he hollers at C.J., "and you better spit her out if you know what's good for you."
"Yes. Please," she says.
I won't say it was dangerous. Of course, people believe I have a pretty high threshold for measuring that. I will say it was tense for a while. Stu Getzler's answer is to run off and call the police. I know maybe we can't wait that long. I mean, C.J. is going for the gold.
"Dude," I say. "She's a lady, not a nacho."
We're in a standoff with everyone's heart thumping.
"C.J." I whisper to him. "What about Marion? Your old lady? How's it gonna look in the papers?"
This gets his attention. But he won't let go of Jeannie Buss's head, until I motion Luis over. Luis brings a fresh, steaming dish of Nachos.
I take it and tell Luis to back away. Then I go up close to C.J. and kind of let the aroma waft up to his nostrils.
"Smell this, dude. Hot chips ... the melted cheese ... pico de gallo. ..."
It does the trick. C.J. lets Jeannie go free and turns his jaws onto the nachos.
Jeannie wobbles back to the bar. She doesn't look worse for the wear, especially once she brushes her hair and has a few sips of the martini I make her. Her hair smells full of perfume, and she looks up at me after she has the drink and there is a look in her eyes, a look I recognize from when I've gotten through a hard trick or a dangerous run and come out OK.
"You saved my life, Wheeler," she says, and I realize I am looking deep into her eyes and still smelling her perfume and that she is beautiful.
"I only did what any dude would do," I say.
"You're wrong, Wheeler," she says. "You took action. You didn't sit around and watch things play out like some men I know do. You are a real man."
We're still looking at each other in this altered-states kind of way, when I catch Stu Getzler motioning me over from the side.
"You know who her boyfriend is? Do you know who she's in here waiting for?" Stu Getzler says to me. Now he's giving me his even-I-can't-believe-how-stupid-you-can-be-sometimes look.
"I'm afraid I don't know," I say. "Maybe I've been a little too busy working on my street luge, boss-dude. You're acting like her boyfriend is some mafia guy or something."
"You wish he was a mafia guy," Stu says. Now he starts to laugh. "Her boyfriend is Phil Jackson, the Lakers' coach."
Suddenly he cuts off his laughter and he can't take the fear from his eyes. "Wheeler," he says, "you're a dead man."
Next Week: In chapter 19 -- Crouching Jackson, Hidden Wheeler.
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