Pole Dancing

This is a post about pole dancing.  It’s not the kind of pole you’re thinking about, and it certainly isn’t that kind of dancing.  I don’t even own a thong…anymore.  I may still have some Loverboy and Berlin CD’s around somewhere though.  No; this pole dancing post will revisit a night that I mentioned earlier that people wanted to hear more details about.  It involves my friend Paul (Pee Wee) and I being the first paying customers at our friends’ new bar.  I was also the first customer ever asked to leave that bar.  Unfortunately, both events happened on the same night.  First; a little back history.

It all started in the spring of 1985 when a friend from work (The State Line) named Rak was getting ready to open a bar with his best friend from college; Alton.  Rak and Alton had poured tons of effort and money into getting their little bar open, and years later their vision paid off when they sold it for a healthy profit and Rak retired to Key West.  Now he gets to enjoy the drinks and be one of the inebriated rather than serving them.  Alton stayed on with the new owners and is probably sleeping off a long night of work as I write this.  Aceitunas is a unique bar in that it is an indoor/outdoor beer garden.  Not so unique today, but for El Paso in 1985 it was very unique.  The beer garden wasn’t ready yet, but they wanted to get the doors open and start bringing in some revenue.  It was kind of a family affair.  The State Line had always been a big family and everybody worked and played together.  In fact, Danny; a waiter and Architecture student is the one who drew up most of the plans for the bar.  The bar was located in an old neighborhood grocery store that had been run by the same family for about 40 years.  It wasn’t very big and it became smaller on cold winter nights, especially when they had a band set up inside.  Getting to the bathroom from the front door, a distance of about 25 feet, could take 30 minutes and 2 beers on some nights.  Your best option was to head towards the bathroom about 15 minutes before you thought you had to go, that way you’d be in line for one of the 2 urinals before your bladder started to protest.  It was worse for the ladies; most of them just hung out in or around the bathroom.  Everyone was abuzz as opening night drew near and my friend Pee Wee and I were determined to be the first ones there.  Why?  I don’t know, bragging rights, lead poisoning from the improperly installed keg lines; we each had our reasons.

The day had arrived and Pee Wee and I worked quickly to get our jobs done so we could leave the Line by 3pm and be at Aceitunas at 4pm when they opened.  We showed up around 3:45pm and the door was already open.  We walked in to see Rak and Alton rushing around to get all of the last minute preparations finished.  Pee Wee and I helped get some tables set up and some last minute trash out to the dumpster.  We sat down with our first pitcher of beer and toasted our coup.  It’s right about here that I should tell you that “Aceituna” is Spanish for Olive.  The theme of the bar is that you got an olive in your beer.  A pitcher got several.  Kind of like a beer martini.  The first 4 or 5 glasses were great, but over time, beer and 75 green olives tend to make your stomach a little…..crotchety.

Pee Wee and I had been in Aceitunas for about 2 hours when we decided that we’d better get some food in our stomachs that wasn’t olives if we were going to make it until last call.  Little did I know then that this was just wishful thinking, but over-confidence got the best of me.  There was (still is) a great Mexican food restaurant right next to ‘Tunas called The Riviera.  Pee Wee’s family would buy and operated that restaurant years later, but on that night it was purely combo plate nirvana.  We ate our tacos, enchiladas, beans and rice (along with a couple more beers) and then headed back to Aceitunas.  By now there was a small crowd gathering, but it was still early; around 7:45pm.  We sat at the bar and passed the time with more pitchers of beer.  And olives.  By 9pm it became clear that we hadn’t been pacing ourselves as well as we’d thought.  “How’re you feeling?” Pee Wee asked me.  “Like a giant beer martini glass that somebody spilled a taco in, how ’bout you?”  “About the same”, he said.  It was then that we gathered all 74 of our combined brain cells and decided that what we needed to do to make it through the rest of the night was get a little fresh air, so we decided to go for a little jog down at the river.

Ever notice that you don’t see many joggers in cowboy boots?  There’s a reason for that.  Jogging in cowboy boots is like swimming in a parka; it should never be attempted unless there is professional supervision or a sizable cash award.  Regrettably, we had neither.  “Feeling better?”, I asked after the first 40 yards.  “A little”, Pee Wee huffed.  We made it about 150 yards when I realized that a stomach full of beer, olives, tacos, enchiladas, beans, rice, salsa and chips shouldn’t be jostled excessively.  Knowing my inability to evacuate the premises and get a gastro-intestinal do-over, I knew I was in trouble.  Nope, throwing up just wasn’t going to be an option.  I’m not sure if too much olive juice can cause your axons to mis-fire to the rhythm of Breaking The Law by Judas Priest, but it sure felt like it.  We made it back to the car and although my head did feel a little clearer, my stomach felt like the plot to Mission Impossible; muddled.

We got back to Aceitunas about 10:30pm and it had filled up nicely.  There were a few State Liners who had finished work that had shown up and the beer was flowing freely.  Pee Wee and I played catch-up, but we didn’t have far to go, really.  By 11:15 the toxic waste dump that was my stomach had turned my head into the long version of In-A-Godda-Da-Vida.  I felt like Charlie Sheen in Platoon.  It was right about then that Rak came up to me and asked; “How’s it going?”  “Great!” I yelled over the music.  “Hey, NukeDad”, he said, “I think we’re going to have to cut you off”.  I stood there looking at him in disbelief.  Moi?  “Aw c’mon, Rak! I’ve only had about 4 or 10 pitchers, I’m fine doin’!”  I managed.  It was then that I noticed Rak was moving in circles.  How did he expect me to have a conversation with him while he was moving around like that?  I thought if I locked both knees it would help him stay still.  “Naw, I think you should head home and get some rest, we’ll be open tomorrow.”  “But, Ex-NukeDad-Girlfriend will be soon here arriving, told her by me that I’d for her wait!” Great.  I’m talking like Yoda.  “I’ll tell her you were here, but I really think it’s time for you to go home.”  There he goes with those crazy circle moves again.  There was one of the ceiling posts directly between us, kinda off of my right shoulder.  A sane man would have held on to it to state his wobbly case; not I.  I instead stood there lock-kneed holding my beer in one hand and doing my best impression of an upside down pendulum.  “Dammit, Rak! I may have had a few tonight, but friends we are!  I and you!”  I couldn’t understand why he was moving closer, almost getting in my face; he wasn’t going to hit me was he?  BAM!  Right then my right shoulder slammed into the pole.  It was about 3 feet in front of me, so when I made contact with it with my locked knees, I ended up looking like the non-square side of an acute triangle.  I slowly looked up at Rak who was doing his best to stifle his laughter.  I slowly hugged the pole and shimmied my feet gently towards the pole so as not to draw attention to myself.  “Can you tell Pee Wee I need home a ride?” I sniffled.  “You got it.  Why don’t you stay here for a second and I’ll get him.  And, NukeDad?”  “Yes, Rak?”  “I wouldn’t let go of that pole until I get back, OK?” 

I think it goes without saying that I asked for the olives on the side from then on.  After a couple of months I would forgo them all together.  Many memories come to me when I think of Aceitunas; Mariachi night, the Scotch Club and the genesis of Big Word Wednesday, the mutant Koi in the beer garden stream that lived off of olives and cigarette butts.  Half-beer stage was our ingenious way of drinking the same amount of beer in twice the time, thinking that we were actually consuming less: “OK, just one more; but make it a half-beer, then I really need to go”, “That’s what you said 3 hours ago”.  Yep, lots of memories; but none as vivid or as cruel as my pole dancing debut.  If I had known in advance, I would have brought my thong and pasties.  At least then I could have earned cab fare home.