Years ago, my wife--my girlfriend at the time--a group of about four or five friends and I all decided to meet up at the Tiburon Tavern. It was fairly close to our home and most of our group worked for the evil retail music store corporation located a few blocks away. For those who have never been, Tiburon is on a small stretch of State Street where there are two or three restaurants a few blocks away and even those close fairly early, there is another bar, Don's John, for which I have a story for another time...not a kid friendly one either, but how many of my stories are actually kid friendly? *side note...poo-poo, pee-pee, ca-ca, tyrannosaurus-bitch-fuck...there you go*
The air outside was simply chilling, but inside the bar, it was scorching hot and the dimly lit dark room was packed at 9:00 PM, which is generally a quiet time for most bars, but the Tiburon exists outside of the supposed laws of time and space. What matters is that the bar was packed and my friends and I were lucky to secure two small tables where we intended to camp out for the entirety of the evening.
I was in charge of buying pints for half of the group, and I shuffled my way politely around the mass of highly intoxicated older folk who gathered near the bar. Guns and Roses blared through the sound system and the bartender skated back and forth like lightning, beads of sweat trickling down the man's face as he frantically poured drink after drink. Thankfully, most of the lingerers near the bar had drink in hand and were merrily shouting at one another, and I succeeded in catching the bartender's eye to place my order. Moments later, I had my four beers and took two of them to the table, and turned to grab the other two.
Just as my fingers felt the cold wet surface of the glass, I noticed a woman on my left, who I assumed was waiting to place her own order. The reason that she caught my eye was because she was easily 6' 5", had braided pigtails and easily outweighed me. In fact, the woman made me look puny in comparison. Not being one to stare, especially at someone who could easily piledrive me into the floor, I noticed that the woman was behaving in an odd manner. I grabbed my final two beers and slowly made my way around the woman, who was staring, but not at me, instead she was staring through me; I did not exist in her world.
I handed the beers to my friends, not even really seeing them, as we all watched the woman blink rapidly several times before passing out where she stood as if she were narcoleptic. She feel straight back like a monstrous telephone pole, clipping our table with one of her arms before landing with a thud on the sticky barroom floor. The two beers rose from the corner of the table in their best imitation of Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslett as the table up ended itself and began to plummet the the ground. "I'll never let go, Guinness. I promise," I thought, as I somehow managed to save both pints from crashing to the floor to douse the woman, who was looking around attempting to discern exactly what the fuck had just happened.
My friends and I, eyes fixated on the woman, righted the tables and cautiously sat back down, as she proceeded to pull herself up...none of her group offered to help her, instead opting to stare drunkenly at her. She shook the cobwebs from her head, grabbed her beer, which waited patiently at the bar, and continued drinking as if nothing had happened. THAT was hardcore, and we were completely blown away by this. Clearly bad juju had descended upon Tiburon Tavern that night, since it was only about 9:15 in the evening and the night had honestly just begun.
The music was loudly alternating between classics such as the Eagles "Take It Easy" and some of metal's best, such as Metallica's "Enter Sandman" and AC/DC's "Highway to Hell," which was where the bar was apparently speeding towards that night. Old patrons and new then proceeded to get into altercations, drunks from Don's John were pouring in, and finally around midnight, the bartender, who I believe was Irish, had reached the breaking point.
We were sitting at the table, fairly inebriated ourselves, but definitely on edge and nervous from all of the chaos, when we heard a shrill whistle. The not-very-tall bartender then jumped onto the bar and yelled, "THAT IS IT TOBEY! I HAVE HAD IT WITH YOUR SHITE! GET THE FUCK OUT!" He glanced around the bar for a moment, and exclaimed, "Actually...the lot of yeh! Everyone...OUT! We're closed!" Amazingly, all fighting stopped, people chugged their drinks and one by one we all sulked out of the bar wearing the expression of puppy that had just piddled on the floor. Even the brawlers had ceased there brawling, opting to head home in shame.
We decided to call it quits and went home. Fun and games at the Tiburon Tavern.
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