Bahamas Drunken Moron

A few weeks back Hayley and I decided to take 1 last vacation before the baby showed up. A last hurrah, if you will. So off to the Bahamas we went for a 5-day mini vacation in the sun. And while the entire trip was full of great memories of sun, sand, fishing, snorkeling, relaxing, there was 1 particular hour that really capped it all off quite nicely. One of those great “dude, you gotta hear what this retard did” stories. It’s late afternoon, sunny, and a little bit cool, so we decide to stroll down to the pool deck and hang out in the lounge chairs for awhile until it’s time for dinner (late reservation that night). There’s really no one down there so it’s rather peaceful…to start. We’ve got a small group of ~3 girls and 1 dude near us just chilling out relaxing by the pool. At some point the 2 dudes drinking at the pool bar decide they need to get their attention. I’m not sure if there is history b/t the groups, but it appears likely. Especially when our main character, we’ll call him John, yells from the bar at one of the girls “Hey, sorry I called you a bitch!” Needless to say, their requests that the ladies come have a drink in the pool with them fall on deaf ears. Another 5 minutes of harassment and they all get up and leave. The time eventually comes for me to refresh my own adult beverage. And naturally John and his less-drunk buddy are now on the non-pool side of the bar, raising my odds of getting sucked into their game of shots, cat-calls, and yelling. All things I’m normally down for, except when on vacation with my pregnant wife in a foreign country with questionable legal and medical systems. Fortunately I escape, drink in hand, with just the not-surprising knowledge that John isn’t there to get a girl, or a guy, and just wanted to get f**ked up. That was his actual response when the bartender suggested he back off on the shots cause if he got too drunk he wouldn’t be able to score any girls. Classy guy, that John. I’m sure everyone knows how the next 60 minutes go. John is really happy and trying to get all the employees to do shots with him. And degrading the ones that won’t. The staff just laughs at the stupid college kid making an ass out of himself. But that magical tipping point is reached and it rapidly descends into anger and stumbling around getting combative. The polite tux-wearing staff come outside and try to talk him into going to his room. His buddy tries to talk him into just heading to his room. John response? Telling them to ‘step to him’, while staggering around. Several attempts at sitting on lounge chairs end in him flipping the chair over and crashing to the deck. So now at this point people are watching from their balconies. Hayley and I are keeping an eye on this to judge when it’s time to just get up and leave before we’re on the wrong end on the developments. Hayley is also concerned about having to do some doctor shit on this moron when he falls and cracks his head open on the pool deck. At this point Miguel comes strolling out to the pool area. Miguel’s dressed in dark kacki and just has that look in his eye. You know he’s the closer. Part of you hopes John realizes that and just walks away; part of you hopes John asks Miguel to step to him. When John’s buddy puts his hands in the air and leaves, it’s a pretty good sign you know how it’s going to end. Some talking later and Miguel heads off to get a wheel chair to roll John out of there. Seems he’s having a little bit of trouble staying upright enough to walk. Shockingly, he does get in the chair and appears ready to just call it a day. But at the last second, as they were about to leave the pool area, he hits the brake and starts mouthing off to Miguel. When he loudly tells Miguel that he’ll kill him, Miguel calmly tells him, “You do what you have to do.” (One of my favorite parts of the entire exchange. It was delivered just like in a bad action movie immediately preceding the hero busting up some guy.) Apparently what John had to do was jump out of the chair, stumble a few feet away and continue to shit-talk Miguel. Now, I didn’t hear exactly what he said, but he found Miguel’s trigger. And that didn’t end well for John. He dodged the first punch, but that second right hook landed. And before the rest of the staff could get in and pull Miguel off he’d landed another head shot and a half-dozen solid kidney shots. Of course John isn’t done. No one tends to him, so he drags himself up off of the pool deck…and proceeds to stumble into the pool. At which point Hayley, and an EMT we befriended during this exchange, anxiously pray that he surfaces. He does, resumes lobbing profanity-laced taunts at the staff, and wanders across the pool to the far side. Now, that side of the pool had a dozen concrete lounge chairs rising a couple inches above the water. Just high enough to keep your body out of the body for some in-pool sun bathing. But the important part is that they’re made out of pool-deck material. So cement, covered in ceramic tile. Jutting above the surface of the water. So in yet another scene that appeared ripped from a bad movie, John drags himself out of the pool, stands just long enough to yell something at Miguel, then takes that one fateful misstep over the edge of the pool. We all just watch as he falls face-first into one of the slabs of tiled cement. And yeah, it makes that sickening, slapping a waterbed sound in real life. Luckily for John he landed face-first, instead of back-of-the-head style, so all he got was a busted-up face. He bled pretty good and likely suffered a broken orbital bone. Given what just happened to him, he didn’t look that bad as they wheeled him out in the now-acceptable wheelchair. But he still looked like a dude that was about to go to a Bahamas hospital to have his face stitched up and x-rayed before going to visit a Bahamas jail. I was chatting with one of the tux-wearing staff as they wheeled him out and asked if he’d been a problem before that afternoon. Turns out he’d been causing trouble the night before and almost got knocked the f**k out. See, you never know when seemingly harmless hotel worker you’re barking at and taunting is also an amateur boxer trying to make ends meet. Miguel looked pretty proficient in throwing hands; an amateur boxer would have needed just 1 quick shot to end John’s night. And with that, we were free to resume reading on the now-vacant pool deck. Cause we still had a few hours to kill off until it was dinner time. And surprisingly there wasn’t any line at the bar, so my pina colada runs were even quicker. Good times.