Hot Pursuit

The great thing about running away from strippers, they're always wearing heels. If they get to a car though... well.. forget it.

I was working an overnight at a gas station nearby the King of Diamonds. The station was a larger sized hole-in-the-wall operation, though things look much nicer now. Kind of a neighborhood Kwik Trip, if you will, though at a noon, it's all construction workers. The people that come in after 10pm, they're a different shade of gray, if you know what I'm saying. Some smell of pot, some reek of alcohol, some look crazy and some are completely normal customers who just happened to stop in at the later hours.

It's about 2 in the morning, and I'm cleaning up shop. The floor is perpetually dirty, which is an irritation as far as I'm concerned, because I love a clean floor. I recall wondering to myself why they won't just re-tile the damned thing. The tile was at least 30 years old, and as it started an even off white color, years of wear had revealed to me that people are, in fact, sheep.

Generally, you don't sit in front of the register during the later hours (1 to 4), generally, you set a bell on the door... or lock the door, and perform your duties (you have to lock when working in the cooler). Again, it's about 2, but I've completed my duties, and I'm sitting down, reading a magazine. They sold dirty magazines there, lots of them, it's a popular trucker destination. But I wasn't reading a dirty magazine. Nope, not that I wouldn't have interest, I was 18. The reasoning was simple.

Nothing quite as embarrassing as reading playboy behind the counter of a gas station when a woman walks in. Any guy will look at it and say "Hey, did you read the part about the new (insert device here)" or "Did you see this months spread?" Any woman ignores the magazine... and that makes it... worse somehow. I'd rather be told it was deplorable. Anyway, the point is I'm not reading a porn, but it's a moot point anyhow.

Around 2 am, you get no end of drunk drivers. Some of them are smart enough to stay in the car, others are dumb enough to come inside. It was a good time for cops to be around, and there was a standing offer for a free cup of coffee/cappuccino for anyone that wanted to do a little drunk enforcement. There were no cops around that night.

Some guys have a lot of luck. Some with money, some with women, some with family, or health. The guy this story is about didn't seem to have much of any of this going on. This guy, drunk, cops a feel on a few of the girls, then tries to solicit sex, because you could get away with that at a few other clubs - at least, that's how the girls told it. He gets kicked out, but on his way out, he tells every girl he sees that he thinks she's a filthy whore, and that they'd be sorry (again, that's how they told it).

So this guy - I'll reiterate, he's drunk - drives down to the station, crossing to the handicap spot, and much to his dismay, a white cavalier with no less than 4 strippers pulls up in to an actual parking spot. He gets out of the car, trying to make it in to the station, but they catch him at the door. It doesn't take much bring him down his corpulent ass to the ground, as drunk as he was. Then they roll him farther in to the parking lot, away from the door.

Then they start kicking his ass.

I can't explain to you the sheer awesomeness of watching 4 women with stiletto heels kicking the shit out of this drunk, fat, balding guy. It was like watching a movie, I was in shock.

I knew a couple of the girls - they like to buy cigarettes before and after the shifts - so I ask "What's going on?"

"He touched me and called me a whore."

While normally I like to stay out of these matters, and leave them for the police, I know when my gut tells me something, that I should listen. Before this, I have to explain that everyone lies. It's a universal truth of the human condition. You do it, I do it, they do it, he did it. Everyone, there are no exceptions. But I thought about it for a minute.

Why would 4 strippers chase a drunk driver to a gas station to beat him up?

Not because he's drunk, because they're looking after their own. If it was something as simple as him being dirty, they could have found a bouncer (Jake was the bouncer at the King of Diamonds and used to work the midnights at that station. Ironically, strippers in and out of the station all night was how he got the job.) and had him do the job.

I decided for myself that I thought he was guilty. That and his cries of "I'm sorry, I didn't mean it" really didn't do much to fortify his innocence. So I let the beating go on for about 10 minutes. Then I called the cops.

The girls left, and the guy, too drunk to stand and too hurt to crawl, sprawled himself on the no parking zone of the front entrance. A beached whale who missed his opportunity to cede back in to the ocean. When the cops arrived, I gave my statement. He gave his. And he went to jail, for DWI, public intoxication, and also was ticked for parking in a handicap zone. When I was asked for a description of the girls, I couldn't say much.

"I dunno... there were four of them... I didn't think to get their plates. 3 Blondes... one looked like a redhead, but they were probably wigs, right? About 6'0" - but could have been 5'8", I saw some big heels. Big breasts."

"Anything else you could give us."

"Sorry, Sergeant, it all happened so fast."