My Problems Began After Midnight

Photo byBrooke CagleonUnsplash

I was a bar urchin for much of my 20s, crawling the dimly lit corners of nearby dive bars that became a second living room.

On some weekends, my buddies and I explored neon-lit, high-octane clubs, where you were sandwiched inside with beautiful young people. You had to scream if you were having a conversation and trying to flirt with someone. We didn’t last long with all that noise.

I’d vowed to stay in and watch Lost that Friday night. But suddenly, there was a knock at the door and I heard the door open. In those days, showing up at a friend’s house was more common. Tom came sauntering in. He was a huge man, a former college linebacker who was a kid at heart. He began working on me, “C'mon, Sean. Just come have one drink. This show sucks! Amanda and all her girlfriends will be there tonight. They are dying to meet you.”

“Not a chance, buddy. Let’s just hang out and watch the show tonight,” I said.

30 minutes later, I sat on a stool at the Green Iguana. It’s a local bar in Tampa that’s a small order of magnitude nicer than a dive bar — with burgers and fries that are deceptively good, and the music that’s equally awesome on most nights. A giant statue of a green iguana was plastered across the roof of the building.

Tom, myself, and a few other buddies were just mingling and playing darts. I was younger at the time, more handsome, and could handle more alcohol than should be legal.

I was flirting with one of Amanda’s friends and, somehow, had managed not to scare her off. We chatted for 90 minutes until things went south and “externalities” struck.

We’d just done a shot of Goldschlager as a group, which always sent a ring of fire down my throat.We were hellbent on making bad decisions that night.

Suddenly, I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned around to see a tall wiry blonde guy, who you wouldn’t think twice of if you passed him on the street.He was looming over me from behind.

“How can I help you, sir?” I said with a smile.

“I saw you making faces at me,” he said.

It was a weird take. My face scrunched up in confusion, “I’m sorry, I have no idea who you are?”

“Yeah — we’ll see.”

He backed up a few steps while keeping eye contact and not watching where he was going, leaning against the bar railing. Then, he spent the next 30 minutes glaring at me. One of the girls I was with went over to try to talk to him and chill the guy out.

The bartender shouts, “The bar is closing! Time to leave!”

Walking away from the bar, I noticed a shorter dark-haired man wearing a black collared shirt. He was staring at me from the main exit walkway out of the bar. Everyone was filing out and he just stood to the left of it as if he was also a bouncer.

He gave me the death ray with 100% of his life force between blinks. I tried not to notice it but it was hard not to.

We got closer, and just as I was about to exit, he stepped sideways into my path and said, “You talked smack to my buddy.”

Now, I’d love to sit here and say that I took the punch to the jaw, then slowly returned my face to eye contact, cocked a smile, and said, “OK. Now my turn.”

I’d also love to say I caught his fist in my hand, and he suddenly dropped to his knees as his hand crunched in my iron grip.

In reality — I never saw the punch coming. I fell backward and flew over one of the tables, breaking the chair behind it. It was like this little man had Jedi powers and sent me launching across the room.

I wasn’t concussed or disoriented. But as I stood up, all hell broke loose. My friends were fighting his friends. Fists were flying. The crowd was surging to the side as one guy tackled another guy. I saw drinks being thrown. The girls we were with were screaming bloody murder. Their screeching hurt more than the punch.

Eventually, it was broken up and we went our separate ways — but here’s the weirdest part of all.

Ten years later, I walked into T-Mobile to replace my phone. And who is working behind the counter? The same guy who’d sucker punched me. I was 100% sure.

I could tell he didn’t recognize me, which probably meant there’d been many incidents. That same angry dude looking for trouble that day gave me a genuine smile and said, “Welcome to T-Mobile! How can I help you?”

Part of me wanted to chime, “Oh, you are the guy who socked me in the face. Now you’re socking me with overages. Nice to meet you.”

But I avoided it.I gave him my name and he put me on the waitlist, and that was the extent of our interaction (another rep helped me).

I’ve realized there are some situations where “there’s no negotiating with terrorists” — in the figurative sense. Those guys were out to pick a fight that night. I’d seen incidents like that before, where young, disgruntled men go to a bar either with a plan — or they get grumpy when they realize they aren’t going home with a woman. And that’s when trouble starts.

Oddly enough, I eventually worked as a bouncer in the subsequent years. And noticed there’s always a strange energy in the air before a bar fight breaks out. You feel this aura of danger — when everyone is milling about and people are looking around. They seem like they’re just waiting for something to happen.

Stay tuned for that energy. It’s primal and within you.When you get dangerous vibes, get out.This is especially true if you are at a bar or event late at night. Fights lead to absolute chaos, and larger men slinging their body weight around can hurt you easily.

And to the men reading this especially — there are few situations where you should be initiating a fight with a stranger. It’s not cowardice to back down and leave. People get killed all the time in fights like this. Someone will go out to their car and get a weapon to finish the fight.

A brash friend of mine had a front tooth knocked out during one fight. It cost him thousands of dollars in medical expenses (getting an implant tooth). He didn’t deserve to be hit but he played a role in escalating the situation.

In other news, it feels like I checked off a bucket list item I never asked for: sucker-punched at a bar. My bar fight record remains 0–1 and I’m OK with that.

It goes back to the old adage that, “Nothing good happens after midnight.”

Choose love. Choose peace. Go home and see your family. And go easy on the booze.