We Told Tom About the Hot Waitresses, and They Didn't Disappoint...

Part 9: We Drank Heavily and Smoked Tons of Weed We Bought From the Hottie at the Fotomat...

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The house in Miramar was in an older, blue-collar neighborhood. Everyone owned their homes and had been there a while. Moose and I were the only young outliers renting, and at first, everyone's antenna went up. It took a while, but we won them over with our unique sense of humor and Boston accents.

During the week, we spent eight hours a day at my father's shop in Hialeah, spreading fabric on cutting tables with guys who didn't speak English. It made for some long, tedious days, but it paid the rent, and put fuel in our motorcycles. Oh, and we could afford beer, blackberry brandy, cigarettes, and weed, too. Our survival kit.

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There was one kid working on the other side of the building we became friendly with.

Steve was a 20-year-old Cuban kid, born and raised in Hialeah, and he was determined to introduce Moose and me to Cuban culture. He was five-six, rail thin, with dark, medium-length wavy hair and a wannabe mustache. He wore thick, slightly tinted black-framed glasses that sat low enough that you could see the totality of his thick eyebrows. He talked fast, using his hands in a chopping motion. He took us to Cuban restaurants for lunch in his car, where he made food recommendations. Moose and I thoroughly enjoyed the Cuban cuisine.

At one place, we tried a unique Cuban coffee, Café Cubano, also known as Cuban espresso. It’s a type of espresso that’s made by adding sugar to the coffee grounds before it’s brewed, resulting in a sweet and incredibly strong coffee that's traditionally served in small shot glasses called tacitas.

Despite being served in a shot glass, Café Cubano contained an incredible amount of caffeine and sugar. 

Steve pointed out several Cuban businessmen standing at the coffee bar, who, according to him, downed five, six, as many as seven shots a day during lunch. He said he watched one guy down a dozen in under an hour. 

We watched as a businessman dressed in an all-white suit, white shoes, and a white fedora that shaded him from the hot Florida sun did just that. Steve said he was a bad dude and well-connected, which we interpreted as meaning a drug dealer. 

I remember Moose and I drinking our first Café Cubano and not liking it, but Steve made us drink a second and then a third. After three, we definitely felt the caffeine buzz, which, to us, was very similar to the jolt we got from the speed Tom shared with us in Fort Lauderdale.

The weekend couldn't have come soon enough. Moose and I decided to head to Lauderdale and hang out on the strip, drink blackberry brandy, and smoke weed like we had done almost every other Saturday night since we arrived in South Florida. Once we parked the bikes, we started partying…

An hour or so later, we heard the tinny sound of Tom's two-stroke Kawasaki. He shut it off and backed it in next to mine like he had done the previous Saturday night.

We were happy to see him and him us. He wasted little time pulling out the bag of pills and offering us some speed. He was a speed freak both on and off the bike.

After we had a good speed buzz, we decided to head over to our favorite bar, The Legs Boutique in Dania.

We parked the bikes out front and went in and grabbed a table. We told Tom about the hot waitresses, and they didn't disappoint. After consuming a lot of draft beer served in frosted mugs, we were pretty drunk, so we decided to head back to Lauderdale sometime around midnight. We weren’t done yet…

The strip was packed, traffic heavy, and at a standstill. The three of us were lined up side by side, occupying two lanes. Moose took out a pack of cigarettes, Tom grabbed a smoke, and so did I, but no one could find matches. 

By the time I pulled a book of matches out of my jacket pocket, traffic had moved, and there was a huge gap between us and the next car. We were oblivious to it, still fumbling with the matches and trying to get our cigarettes lit.

Then horns started blowing, and two cops ran over to see what the problem was. We were the problem…

The Cops motioned for us to pull over and then asked for our licenses and registrations. Fortunately, we all had Florida licenses and plates, and at least Moose and I couldn't be recognized as northerners, which might've got us in a lot of trouble with the Florida cops.

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Most bikes back then had small compartments under their seats, next to the battery, perfect for storing paperwork. I unlatched my seat, lifted it, and, under the watchful eyes of one of the cops, reached for my registration. Once I had it, I held it up so he could see it. After a light breeze hit it, most of it blew away, and only a small part remained between my thumb and forefinger. It had become saturated with battery acid and deteriorated.

I immediately started laughing. "Just like King Rootin Tootin!" I said.

The cop asked, "What?" 

I was still laughing, "You know when the mummy of King Rootin Tootin in The Three Stooges disintegrated, but it was actually his wife, Queen Hatsi Tatsi. King Rootin Tootin was a midget!"

The cop thought I was nuts, and maybe he was right, but I had grown up watching The Three Stooges, and I saw the similarity between what happened to King Rootin Tootin and my registration. 

He looked at the three of us, shook his head from side to side, and said, "Just get back on your bikes and get out of here before I write all three of you guys tickets!” He had had enough of us…

We were about to leave the strip until Moose pointed to the Howard Johnson's restaurant on our right. Tom and I nodded okay, and we pulled in and parked the bikes. We were drunk, high, and speeding on amphetamines, and we thought eating would sober us up before calling it a night and heading back to Miramar. 

I remember ordering a Big Jumbo, my favorite burger on the menu. It came with fries and cole slaw, and I was really looking forward to it. After our waitress placed it in front of me, I took one bite and immediately felt sick. I got up, threw a ten on the table, ran out of the restaurant, and puked in the bushes.

I laid down next to my bike, wrapping one arm around the double kickstand, and passed out on the ground…

Moose and Tom came out forty-five minutes later, and all Moose said was, "C'mon, Vin. Get up, we're leavin’…”

I jumped up off the ground, put on my helmet, and started the bike with one drunken kick. Then, the three of us headed back to Miramar. I could barely see ten feet in front of me, so I just followed Moose’s taillight.

I had become my own worst enemy, and the people I chose to hang out with weren't helping either…

Looking back, I was trying desperately to put out the emotional fires burning deep inside me, trying to extinguish them with alcohol. But it didn't matter how much I drank; the embers never burnt out, and the fire always reignited…

We were "Riders On The Storm," but we hadn't realized it yet, the storm was us…

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To be continued…

*All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental…