Okay, so here I am, standing in front of Mike (who is naked) and his girlfriend (who, unfortunately, is also naked--and not supposed to be there), having sex at 2:00 in the morning on my couch while blaring Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon.
Just as I'm about to go ballistic, I notice some motion out of the corner of my eye. There are two guys sitting at my kitchen table playing quarters. They are so drunk that I think they honestly had no idea that I was there, let alone that two people were having sex on a couch, with the lights on, twenty feet away from them.
I struggled with how to handle this. In the interest of not letting this situation grow out of control I had let about six too many incidents go by without doing anything, and as a result the situation had, indeed, grown out of control.
I opted to pretend like nothing was wrong.
"Hi Mike," I said. "How's it going?"
"Ah, okay," he said, still frozen still.
His girlfriend stood on her hands and knees, head down, staying frozen in position as well. The two dudes at the kitchen table finally were catching on to what is going on.
"Did your girlfriend catch the ferry?" I asked.
She shot her head up and gave me a look that indicated she would kill me if she could get out from under Mike.
"Oh, hey there," I said. "What are you doing here?"
"Ah...she missed the boat," Mike replied, trying to reach for his clothes without withdrawing from his pissed off partner.
"I'm going to set the alarm for 6:00 am--that's about four hours from now," I said, sitting down with the two quarter players. "I bet you guys want to get an early start--seeing that you really haven't gotten anything done yet."
"Sure," Mike said, throwing his shirt across his girlfriend's back. "That would be cool."
One of the quarter players finally connected the dots on the situation.
"Dude," he yelled. "You are totally fucking her, man!"
"Well, he was," I replied. "Now he seems to have suddenly developed a little performance anxiety."
Mike grabbed a blanket off the couch, covering he and his girlfriend. They then proceeded to get dressed underneath the cover.
The next morning I got up, as promised, at six. I made some coffee for my guests and decided to play Pink Floyd again to wake them up. They managed to get up, exchange some pleasantries, drink some coffee, and head out to the site. I went back to bed.
When I woke up, I headed down to the monument grounds to check on their progress. Nothing was set up and there was no sign of the crew or their truck. I went down to Frosty's to see if theye were there and found a phone message, marked urgent, to call the manager at the Roundhouse Bar.
"I just wanted to make sure that it is okay to extend your guys' tab through today," the manager asked.
"What guys and what tab," I replied.
"Those sound guys I saw you with yesterday...their comp tab from last night...they want to open it today for Bloody Marys."
"I'll be right over."
I found the crew, already drunk, sitting at the Roundhouse. It seems they called over to Frosty's the night before to get an okay to purchase dinner at the Roundhouse and one of my bartenders, knowing they were okay to comp food, figured it was okay. Their bill included $32 worth of rotissiere chicken, and $275 of beer and shots.
"Eric, buddy," Mike said. "Just take it out of our check--no problem."
"Listen up 'buddy'," I yelled. "At this point, there is no check. It is noon--you have been here two days, the fireworks start in ten hours, and you haven't done a fucking thing. That sound system had better be set up and tested before six o'clock, or you can forget about getting paid."
The contract specified that I had to give them a check after they cleaned up late that night. I figured that I might be able to turn things around by threatening to not pay them. At this point, if they left, so be it.
Despite their condition, they managed to gather themselves together, stumble into their truck, and head to the monument. They had six hours to get it together.
Coming tomorrow: The grand conclusion.
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