...been thrown out of MUCH nicer places than THIS!

This is the story of my first and ONLY bar brawl.

When I was in my 20's I lived in a student ghetto west of Boston, called Allston. These were my hard-drinking days (much as I joke about drinking now, my current habits are nowhere NEAR the levels I consumed then), just out of college, working shite jobs in retail, not really making enough money to own...oh, you know, extras, like furniture for instance. But at that stage in a person's life, towns like Allston are perfect. More bars per block than is really necessary, plenty of shops, public transportation, a few decent restaurants, diners, greasy breakfast joints. Not a pretty place, or particularly clean, and DEFINITELY not quiet, but okay for a dipsomaniac in her mid-20's, who didn't really care about getting her beauty sleep.

At this time, I used to do much of my boozing at an absolute DIVE called Gerlando's. The place no longer exists, but if it did, I would make the trip into Allston on a weekly basis, it was that amazing for people watching and hiding out from the big bad sun. I used to joke that it was the type of place that Starsky & Hutch would go in, looking for Huggy Bear. No windows, dark brown paneled walls, carpet...well, it wasn't a carpet, really. More of layer of "nicotine on a sinew base.*" A jukebox, pool table, darts, and a fascinating bunch of regulars. Some townies, some students, a few ex-cons...just about everybody had that gawdawful Massachusetts accent. You know the one I mean, "Don't listen to fucken Chaaahhhhlie, he's retaaaahhhhded.**"

One Sunday afternoon, I think it was St. Patrick's Day, I was there with my drunken pals, eating corned beef & cabbage, drinking copious amounts of cheap beer, playing pool, throwing darts, avoiding sunlight. Pretty much your normal Sunday for us started at noon (when the place opened) and ran until at least after dark, sometimes till last call. (I wasn't joking about avoiding the sun. Perhaps that's why I still look so young.) So by this time, we'd been at it for a good 5 hours when this shrew came in with her posse. I won't use her real name, let's call her... Roseanne. Yeah, Roseanne, because she was white trash and advertised it.

Anyway, to cut to the chase: She starts fucking with the pool line-up board, insulting my friends, insulting the bartender, stealing people's bar stools, and making a general nuisance of herself. Then, when I said something like, "Come on now, no one's having any fun with this..." she called me "a fucking ugly bitch."

I slammed my beer down on the bar, and the place went silent, like in an old western film.

"Pardon me?" says I. Even pissed out of my head, I'm polite. Let no fucker say otherwise.

SHE SAID IT AGAIN!

So I punched her.

That was it. One punch. She went flying into the jukebox, her boyfriend grabbed me and said, "don't hit her." I said, "Bit late, don't you think?"

And then we went to another bar for a while.

For months after that, the bouncers would joke that I was after their job, the bartenders called me "Golden Gloves" and I drank pretty much for free.

The irony is that I'm NOT a fucking ugly bitch. I'm actually okay on the eyes. But I have to say, Roseanne may have been cheap piece of trailer trash, but she really knew which buttons to push. She took one look at me and knew where my sensitive spots were. Wherever she is now, and I hope it's not prison, I would like to think she's using this power for good, and not evil.




*Thanks to the film "Withnail and I" for that very apt description.

**Adapted from something my friend Sara once heard in a Somerville baaahhh. Sorry I had to use your kid's name, it worked better with the accent, in print, than "my wife."