In this blog’s formative days, I had the name of the bar in almost every story. That changed pretty quickly with directives from the top. I was told I can continue if I dropped the bar name (even though almost all of you know where I work) and wouldn’t do anything at the bar that would alert local media.

In other words — Don’t Make the News.

That’s a wide berth. Now, we haven’t made the news, but I got called out recently for not going full tilt when I have for lighter offenses.

And he was right to call me out

Holy Shit, I should’ve decked this dude within the first 10 minutes. I don’t punch people, but there are other ways to deal with unruly people.

In Comes a Storm

He was 5-foot-7, black, well dressed in black denim jeans, a designer tee, real black leather jacket, and some jewelry. It was 1 am, and this was his Saturday Night Fever best. He was also in a screaming match with a taller white guy in a college windbreaker pullover, baseball cap, and shorts. The sun set from a hot day, but the intermittent rain cooled the sidewalk, and later, the early morning air.

The duo was advanced by a small, slender woman in similar gear as the man dressed for the weather, Gray pullover, hair tied under a gray baseball cap, tennis shoes. Dressed more for a quick jog and a dog walk than a party-filled Saturday night.

I let the woman in, but before she reached inside, she sent a stare back to the two men.

I called out to them, “If you don’t stop yelling at each other, I won’t let you in.”

Pullover listened. He stopped engaging threw his hands up, turned toward me and walked. Designer stands where the conversation ended, staring as his opponent walked away. The rain-geared out pair continued inside. Designer came up ready for battle.

Some people want to yell to be heard. Some to feel more powerful. And others yell to be an asshole.

I hate to play my race card here because I don’t have the body type to pull it off. Years ago I was called Mowgli from the Jungle Book by my mom. Why? I would tan easily, had a mop top of hair (though it was occasionally in a bowl cut) and somewhat skinny. Ahhh, to be 4 years old again.

My mom and her brothers and sisters, cousins, etc. are tribal members of the Oneida Nation of Wisconsin. A lot of them also happen to be half Irish and a mix of Polish.

My dad’s family is 100% Polish. My last name loosely translates to Male Turnip Farmer.

As I grew older, I’d still get dark instead of burn, but right around those pesky growth spurt years did that all go away. At 18, I tried to gain some of it back. I had long curly hair, well tanned and mostly toned from college football practice. By 24, I was balding to the point of no return. So, as one can imagine, trying to claim any kind of Indian/NA/Indigenous heritage while being 34 years old, 6-8, pretty damn white, 300+ pounds, and bald, is a hard pill to swallow for the specific angry populace now yelling in my face about the history of race relations in the United States.

For him, this is now black vs white. Not right vs wrong, as it should always be. Suddenly, I’m the sounding board for all of our country’s ill will toward minorities.

He yells about being black in America and how that’s a crime. And you know what, sometimes it is that simple. I agreed with a lot of his points. Just not his current actions.

After a few shouts and points and spittle directed my way, while he was beyond the front entrance, I thought he’d tire himself out an, give up and go home. A few minutes of commotion later and three guys walked out on the patio. Two younger, one older. One of the younger was very tall, 6-6, but lanky like Manute Bol, except with vaulted dreads that cleared 7 feet. The elder was dressed head to toe in a red velvet sweatsuit.

I let the guy yell, weaving in and out of the entryway. Too close for comfort? Yes. A danger? No. He had done nothing to the degree of the person the week before, who was also of similar diminutive stature.

The Spartan Kick

If I don’t write about this now, nobody will put the context clues together, and I hate editing old stories for links.

A week prior to the racial verbal onslaught, a similar-built man came up with his friend who really looked he didn’t want to be in public, and a family member. He was jovial at first. Acted like he knew me, but that doesn’t mean I recognize you (foreshadowing).

Jorge Salchichas, who still doesn’t understand why he chose that pseudonym for himself, said, “that guy’s gonna be a problem later.”

And he was right.

Because at 1:45 am, while everyone is filtering out from the bar, he tries to steal my phone from my hands.

Damn this was an escalation. Apparently, he tried to use the ID of someone years ago. 5 years ago, his cousin said. That’s a long time grudge. He was almost 26 now. Let shit go.

His eyes flew from playful to imminent danger real fuckin fast. That’s when he charged us at the gate. I pushed him back. But not far enough. Because he was so short.

There’s a lot I can do being this size, but sometimes leverage isn’t with me. Against a smaller person, I’m pushing down as much as I’m pushing away. What should be a chest press becomes an incline pushup. I unwittingly gave him time and distance to spring back up for another charge.

That’s when I kicked him.

But not like a punter. Like Gerard Butler from 300.

I wear a US Size 18. And I wear composite toe boots to work. That shoe itself measures 15-inches and weighs 2 pounds. That sent him back. He charged again.

I kicked him again.

He swung on me. I thought he wouldn’t because there were other bar staff crowding the entrance, but they looked at him and let him pass, arms swinging wildly toward me. *We had a sidebar about this after. I turned to the side because drunk punches are no match for back fat.

After he was fully out, he said, “I’m going to come back and shoot up this bar.”

I dialed 911 and explained the events to dispatch, but without a visible weapon, no car would be sent. Awesome.

Another threat of violence came shortly after.

This time it was personal.

And…funny?

“Yeah, next time I see you I’m gonna … throw an egg at your bald ass head!”

They all piled in to a dark blue SUV without plates and ran two red lights. My head has gone eggless since.

Back to the Other Guy

Red sweatsuit saw this short man continue his rant and said to his buddies, “Mans looks like Kevin Hart.”

Nobody could unsee it.

They couldn’t un-hear it either, because he SOUNDED like Kevin hart, too.

And now this man WAS Kevin Hart.

Kevin Hart was calling me a racist. Not simply any old fashioned racist. A Nazi. A skinhead. A Grand Wizard of the KKK. A “white fuck” which seems like a deceleration akin to the egg toss kid.

Kevin Hart is becoming impatient, and he also sees the girl that walked in ahead of him straight ahead, but further in the bar. He stops yelling and darts toward her. I grab him. He struggles, but I throw him back outside.

There, he takes a swing at Michael Westen who promptly restrains him against the patio gate and attempts to get him to calm his ass down. At this point, we call the police. The time is 1:10 a.m. He’d been constantly yelling for 10 solid minutes.

About what?

His Version

Saturday was date night. He got dressed up to go out, first time in a little while. He met this girl — he didn’t say where — and they set a date. Saturday. After midnight. At a bar of not-so-sudden ill repute.

He was single, though not always. He spent six months in a tropic paradise and returned to the Midwest. Interesting choice, if it was one.

He served in Afghanistan. USMC.

Only to come home and face a new level of vitriol from the White Man.

The White Woman, however, she was a different story. Any time someone other than me tried to talk to him, he would soften. He’d call them “MaMa” to the woman, and “my guy” to other non-me males. Clearly, there was something implicit I couldn’t control from my large white guy presentation. Which is fine. I had my hands in my pockets while he was froth-mouthed screaming at me.

On his date, the particular white woman showed up with her cousin. For a kind of protection.

Odd, he thought. Was it because he was black? Or was he stranger danger? He shrugged it off at first. He even bought them all a round of shots. He and the cousin talked at the bar while ordering them.

They were getting along great.

Until three men jumped him “from out of nowhere.”

Beat him so badly he was gushing blood from the head.

He rose, got in their faces and fought two off while the third backed off.

The girl and his cousin soon left, but he wanted to identify why they had the men attack him. Why this date night turned south because he was a black man in the city trying to enjoy a first date with a nice white girl on a Saturday after midnight in a bar of ill repute.

“You know me, man! I’ve been coming to this bar for 10 years! 10 YEARS AND YOU DON’T EVEN KNOW MY NAME?”

I have been at this bar for 6 of the almost 8 it’s been open.

“Ok, I’m sorry I don’t know you. You also just said you were 4,000 miles away from here.”

“I don’t give a FUCK about that.”

This would be a theme.

“Well, what’s my name then? If I should know yours, shouldn’t know mine?”

“I don’t give a FUCK what your name is. Your name is racist white man.”

Michael Westen walked up behind him, arm raised in case anything happened, or for a first volley. In hindsight, I should’ve let him loose. Kevin Hart was looking for a fight. But he recognized enough about the situation to manipulate it. That’s why I pulled my would-be punches.

Even though this was after the rush in, and after Mr. Manager told him we called the police, Kevin Hart gained an acolyte.

In between diatribes, he, calm and collected, politely asked a girl to film the interaction. A minute or two later, around 1:13 am, I saw the camera flash in the doorway.

But the focus wasn’t on him.

It was on me.

Don’t make the news

Don’t make Facebook Live, Instagram Live, or WorldStar either.

The time to act, even though I threw him out and Westen pinned him to control the fists of rage, we didn’t tamp down the fire. We only made it larger.

This is where I really have to sound like an asshole. You have to go big enough to make them want to go home right there.

There doesn’t need to be blood. Or even bruises. But the message has to be clear. And on that night, I didn’t make it clear enough.

He got kicked out of another bar, but he was acting like my refusal was the worst act of malice ever befallen to him. I hadn’t ironed out my version of events until much later, after the cops finally showed up (more foreshadowing). Once I gathered all the source data, that’s when I realized I missed my chance to lay him out like he should have been.

My Version

Kevin Hart dressed up to go out on a Saturday night. Sure, it was raining, and the weather was rough but if you’re not driving, drinking isn’t a gave concern.

Kevin Hart sees the club is kinda dead. So he goes to another. It’s getting late and the designer tee and leather jacket aren’t working on anyone he wants it to work well on.

He sees a table with a woman, alone. She’s his type. He’s well dressed, plain spoken, had a drink in hand but not over-served. He makes his move. He noticed the woman isn’t particularly dressed like him. But it had been raining.

Sure, she had the raincoat on indoors, her hair was tied under a cap, and she didn’t have the same demeanor as the other people partying inside. But that’s because of the rain. It’s because of the weather. It’s because she knows what she wants and doesn’t need to dress up for it. She wants to be presented with an attractive offer. To be wooed.

Kevin Hart walk up, but before he gets the word out, she says the seat is taken. He offers to get her a shot. She declines. She’s waiting for someone at the bar. She doesn’t point, so there’s nobody to compare himself to. He thinks it’s a brush off, but again, she’s his type. So, he walks up to the bar and orders two shots. He noticed a guy wearing similar clothes already there. A rain cover, tennis shoes, workout shorts.

Oh, this must be the guy the girl is waiting for, must be family. Her cousin. This isn’t what you wear to bar on a Saturday night to pick up women, after all.

Kevin Hart offers to buy him a shot. They talk.

The “cousin” sees that he already bought the shots and accepts. They walk over to the table and the girl is not pleased. The “cousin” thinks he’s won a free shot. Kevin Hart thinks he has an in with a woman exactly his type. The woman wants to leave, but doesn’t convey that yet.

They all drink the shots.

The woman says thank you. The man says thank you. Kevin Hart wants to stay and chat. The woman wants to leave with her boyfriend to the next place, or better yet, home. Whichever is faster, yet safer than this table.

The man already settled the tab. Kevin Hart was looking to impress. He spent $20+ on these shots and he wanted to keep the party atmosphere alive, even if the party died out hours ago.

Kevin Hart wasn’t leaving.

The woman and man stood up to go.

Kevin Hart took this as an aggressive action and responded in kind. The argument started. The screaming started.

And Kevin Hart was bounced by the bar’s door staff who had nothing better to do because the big bar was almost empty and, like any over-zealous security staff, some action is better than no action.

Kevin Hart gets his ass thrown to the curb. The woman sees her chance and starts a brisk walk down the street. The man follows. Kevin Hart gets wind. The woman sees our bar as the place of refuge, but she wants the night to be over. At the gate she turns back and stares and says something I couldn’t hear before, “Just leave him alone and get inside, now.” But not shouting the now, pursing her lips like a woman who doesn’t want to make any more of a scene than there already is.

I thought Kevin Hart rushed in for the woman. No, he saw the root of his problems tonight, the taller white man accompanying the woman at the bar who couldn’t possibly be in a relationship with anyone.

He was well dressed for a night out.

It wasn’t working.

He is educated and plain spoken.

It wasn’t working.

He bought drinks for everyone.

It wasn’t working.

He just wanted to talk.

It wasn’t working.

It was 12:57 am, and he was about to go home alone.

Nothing was working for him.

They must be racist.

I worked on this theory a bit in the waning minutes between 1:13 am and 1:20 am and I got pretty far on it. Sure, he was still out there and yelling at anyone who’d listen. Yes, I was still being recorded. Yes, my boss was driving up watching the security footage thinking to himself why his big large security man was taking it on the chin.

I planned not to make it worse. The cops would be on their way, maybe, and he’d leave at the sight of them. He’d leave because the fight he wanted already happened even though he didn’t realize it yet. I thought he would go away because he did nothing other than throw a raging, yet mild tantrum.

I was wrong. But not because of anything I did.

I was wrong because

Alexis Bledel Said Some Racist Shit

After recently celebrating a birthday but not having the time to properly revel in it, Alexis Bledel was having a nice night on the town. She hopped from bar to bar until she landed at my doorstep.

Was Alexis Bledel drunk as a skunk? No. She walked fine. Talked fine. Looked as presentable as ever.

Once inside, that’s where things took a turn. Her friends plied her with shots and drinks, not once going to the bar herself. An hour later and she was removing herself from the bar, an act of unconscious self-preservation.

Almost.

While walking out, Alexis Bledel could sense that Kevin Hart was being too aggressive with me. And as a recent acquaintance, should have someone to stick up for (me).

I saw the gears turn in her head and quickly stepped up to her.

I told Alexis Bledel to leave it alone. We had it under control mostly and the cops would be on their way (hopefully). Her presence wasn’t needed.

She chirped to Kevin Hart. His ears perked up. That’s when I physically moved Alexis Bledel to the corner, a full 15 feet from where she was standing, turned her around so her back would be toward the bar, and told her to catch a ride home. She did not heed my warnings.

Kevin Hart moved off of me and the girl at the door stopped recording. It looked as if things were cooling down. Temperatures were still high, but maybe this would resolve itself.

Until Kevin Hart said something to the effect of, “that’s why I hate all white people.”

To which American Sweetheart Alexis Bledel said back to him, “yeah, I hate all black people, too.” In jest? Sounded like it. An overly blanketed statement borne from parroting the other outspoken drunk person on the sidewalk. What could be taken out of context from this?

Upon hearing this statement, Red Sweatsuit asked her to repeat.

That’s when Alexis Bledel turned, looked Red Sweatsuit in the eyes, and said stone-faced, “I hate all black people.”

Red Sweatsuit promptly threw a glancing blow to Alexis’ chin. Not strong enough to do any real damage, but necessary to shut her mouth that spoke it.

Kevin Hart, seeing this interaction, now has the fight he was looking for. No more Dwayne Johnson to hold him back, he used alcohol’s impact on motor function, gravity, and two firm hands on the chest to send Alexis Bledel flying down on the ground ass over teakettle.

Red Sweatsuit backed off, satisfied she learned her lesson.

She did not.

She rose to meet her pusher, only to stare at him, turn three steps to the right, and charge the old man in the sweatsuit, sending him into a car’s front bumper and next to the ground. I guess the old man was an easier target? Manute smokin’ a Bol saw this and defended his elder. Hart joined again and by god did Alexis Bledel deservedly get her ass kicked by a menagerie of characters from Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends.

More calls to the police. Calls for the ambulance. An EMT inside drinking ran out to help bandage Alexis with someone else’s plaid flannel shirt. A semi-literate and coherent group of friends and passersby picked her off the pavement. She was bleeding, eyes blacked, head gashed, dribbling drunk, and ineffectively bandaged like Robert DeNiro in The Deer Hunter. Russian Roulette may have been kinder.

The police finally showed up at 1:50 am. 40 minutes after the first call, 20 minutes after the calls for the fight. We cleared the bar. Sent the rainwear covered couple from before out the back and gave our statements.

Great response times, as usual.

Everyone gets their statement in. I go over all that happened before. Not what I thought happened. But what I heard and saw. Kevin Hart gave his account, but for the life of me can’t understand why he was still hanging outside. Alexis, bledeeling in the backseat of some SUV on the way to the emergency room, had been gone for at least 20 minutes by the time the ambulance came around 2 am.

I called over to the EMTs to explain the situation, that the person they’re on call for was no longer present, but they stood where they were, like I had the audacity to speak to them.

Kevin Hart said to them they should check his head for the injury he sustained while being jumped. Expect he wouldn’t stop moving his head for the EMT to get a good look (there was nothing there, he showed me earlier), so they left as quietly as they entered this story.

While small talking to the other staff, I caught wind of this juicy interaction:

“What’s your badge number?

Waits for answer

Gets answer

“THAT AIN’T A REAL NUMBER!”

One minute later, the cops are walking to me and the boss. They ask if we want him arrested if he steps on the property again. I say yes. We’ve had to do this before, with some threats to staff, it’s difficult to get everyone — cops, staff, offender — to be involved in the same location to have it stick.

The cops walk a few steps to see the video footage of the fight from the boss. The door open and Kevin Hart shouts back to them.

Walking to them. Ready for an argument. The same argument he had with me an hour prior.

It was 2:15 am, and I was done with this shit.

I’m not even sure all the toes inside his tiny ass shoes made it past the gate, but as soon as I saw it, all I could think was game over. I pointed down at the ground and said toward the officers at the door, “that’s our property line.”

And they paused, turned, and picked Kevin Hart up so fast his feet didn’t touch the ground until he was at the squad car door.

The next morning, Kevin Hart, the girl from the door, and a few others gathered outside the bar before we opened and tried to stage a Black Lives Matter rally against us.

Keep in mind, all of this because of a bad experience he suffered AT A DIFFERENT BAR and he would NOT shut up about it. I write a lot, but he said more words out loud in that one hour than I have in the last six months. He talked too much and he got arrested for it.

A few days later I stepped out of the shower and noticed two large bruises against my lower ribcage, In all the excitement I didn’t think his rush to the bar mattered much, and I wasn’t in pain the next morning. But he got an elbow in the right place at the right time and I responded by putting my hands in my pockets.

Oh fuck. Maybe that little shit who tried to steal my phone orchestrated the whole damn thing.