I recently found myself on a 6-day trip to the Dominican Republic. I was flying with a good friend of mine and it’s usually trouble when we get together. The last time we were on a long trip together, we got so drunk I had to be reminded of doing donuts in our rental car in the middle of an intersection in a driving blizzard… In Canada.
We checked into our all-inclusive resort near Santo Domingo and headed to the bar. After a little research, we discovered there was a casino down the street with shuttle service that would come pick us up. I asked the lady on the phone if they had live poker and they did. I immediately knew I wouldn’t be seeing much of my crew for the rest of the trip.
We made our way to the casino and I bought in and found my seat at the poker table. For 2 years during flight training and the time following, poker was my only form of income. I ran a game in college and got really good at it. I never drink while playing poker. I used to and realized it often cost me a lot of money. Had it not been for this simple fact, the trip could have gone completely different.
I quickly established myself as someone not to fuck with at the poker table. I bought in for around $200US and cashed out just over $1000 4 hours later. This was repeated the next 2 nights. The level of play was just horrible. Tuesday night, the casino hosted a tournament. I finished 2nd out of 42. I should have finished first. I was far better than anyone there. The final hand came down like this. The blinds were 10,000/20,000 and I was on the button, also the small blind. I was the small stack by about 50,000 and had about 300K in front of me. I looked down at KJ in the pocket and raised it to 80,000. My opponent called. The flop was King, Ace, Jack, giving me 2 pair. My opponent made a minimum bet of 20,000 and I moved all in. He immediately called and turned over A9. The turn was a blank, helping neither one of us, and the river was a 9, giving him a better 2 pair and winning him the tournament. I congratulated my opponent, collected my winnings, posed for a couple of pictures and was even asked for my autograph… Twice! Regardless of my second place finish, we needed to celebrate!
Panchito had been driving us back and forth from the hotel to the casino the last few nights. This trip would be different. We found Panchito at the casino bar drinking a Presidente, the national beer of the DR, and told him we needed a strip club, now, if not sooner. He downed his cerveza and we headed for the door. We jumped in the van and headed west, out of town. We soon rolled up to this joint and it had the appearance of a compound. It had a high wall around it with a small gate big enough for a single person. The wall had a huge pink heart on a black background. It was about 2:30 in the morning.
We walked through the gate into a large courtyard with an unoccupied pool. It reminded me of one of those places that MTV would film from at spring break. There was a bar by the pool and some sort of implements nearby, probably some sort of sexual device, which I was not yet privy to. Immediately to my left were 2 guys making out with a couple of hookers. I gave them a hello that went unreturned and made my way toward the door. We passed a set of steps that led upstairs to 3 “bedrooms.” The bar was small, hot and had a faint smell of mildew. We didn’t receive the warm welcome that I had grown accustomed to upon entering places of this sort. The walls were lined with about 8 girls that had obviously had a busy night. To the left was a stripper pole that wasn’t being used. That was about to change, if I had anything to do with it! We ordered Presidentes, Patron shots and a girl for each of us, even one for the flight attendant. 3 girls reluctantly made their way over and sat next to us. We took some shots and attempted small talk with the hookers. I was quickly getting bored. I dared our flight attendant to start dancing on the pole and she jumped up there like it was her fucking job. You should’ve seen the shit she was doing to that pole.
Our arrival had drawn the attention of the local constabulary and before I knew it, there were 8 cops, not one of them over 22, standing in the doorway, doing their best not to gawk at our flight attendant, who was now vigorously dry humping the pole. I started BS-ing with the cops and asked the “chief” if I could rent his handcuffs for a little while. He agreed after he assured me he had the key. I hid the handcuffs in the waistband of my shorts and sexily danced toward my flight attendant while slowly unbuttoning my shirt. She grabbed me and pulled me onstage. Before she knew what the fuck was going on, she had been handcuffed securely to the pole. In the meantime, I stepped outside for a smoke and low and behold, what did I find? A shiny red motorcycle with "POLICIA NACIONAL" written prominently on the gas tank!
I stood outside the bar, smoking my cigarette and contemplating my next move. I nervously looked back at the door of the bar and all of the cops had made their way inside to watch the action. I could hear several of them hollering. It was now or never. Fuck it! You only live once. I straddled the bike, put my beer in the handlebars and flipped on the starter. I pulled out the kick-start and to my surprise it fired right up!! I slipped it into gear, let out the clutch and… Fuck! Stalled it. I pulled the clutch again, kicked it, let out the clutch, slowly this time, and I was off!! I sped down the road about a quarter mile, shifting gears, to the first break in the median. I turned around and sped back toward the bar. By this time, the whole squad and half the girls were outside flagging me down. Fuck ‘em! I flew passed them to the next break in the median and turned around again, back toward the bar. This was awesome! I hadn’t been on a bike in years! By this time, 4 of the cops were in the middle of the boulevard, forming a human roadblock. The gig was up. I was caught. I slowed the bike and pulled back into the parking lot; ready to receive whatever punishment they were going to deliver. The chief grabbed the handlebars and in Spanish, said, “What the hell are you doing? It’s almost out of gas!” Almost out of gas, I thought!? Holy shit! I thought I was going to jail for sure. “Here buddy, here’s $10, go buy some gas and let me take it for another spin.” He agreed. After a couple more laps, I came back and bullshitted with the guys for 15 minutes or so. I met the cops, one of which was named Carlos Santana. “Here, Carlos Santana. Hold my beer while I go for another spin.” I grabbed one of the girls, threw her on the back and we rode off.
No comments:
Post a Comment