Sloppy Seconds: The Tucker Max Leftovers (38 page)

That is probably the closest I’ll ever come to flying a jet or doing a night aircraft carrier landing, and it was fucking thrilling. I can only imagine what it’s like flying a real jet. No wonder pilots are so arrogant. If I did that for a living, you’d have a hard time convincing me I wasn’t a minor deity.

At Chevy’s family house in Nantucket, his mom put the four of us in the guest house behind the main house. This “guest” house was loaded with antiques and knickknacks; it looked like a fucking Restoration Hardware or something. Chevy’s mom is very nice, but a total uppity society woman, very prim and proper. So of course, I can’t help myself:

Tucker “You have a very nice guest house, Mrs. Chevy.”

Mrs. Chevy “Thank you, Tucker.”

Tucker “It must have taken your family forever to steal all this stuff.”

Mrs. Chevy “Excuse me?”

Minus Mom, we went out drinking in Nantucket. Let me give you some advice: If you haven’t ever been there, do not go. It fucking sucks. Wait, I am being hasty. There are some people who should go to Nantucket:

• If you are a wanna-be Kennedy with your perfectly windswept hair and Revos you never take off because you spent the day clamming in the North Face vest you also never take off because you are just so fucking authentic New England, then you will love Nantucket.
  
• If you are pompous douche who inherited his money from Mommy and Daddy, and have no personality and no motivation to actually do anything with your life except be a sheep in your pink polo shirts, drink over-priced appletinis and hit on ugly girls because they are also sheep from rich families, then Nantucket is for you.
  
• Or if you are just old and rich and white and only want to be around other old rich white people, then Nantucket is heaven.
  

Here is a perfect example of what the island is like: Around 1:15am the first night we all headed to some late-night eatery. Chevy is a total prick, even worse than me, and he mouthed off to some typical Nantucket shitbird. Nothing big, just stupid drunk talk that we all ignore. This one guy, PoppedCollar, decided that he was not going to let Chevy get away with talking shit to him. But instead of confronting Chevy himself, like a man would do if he had a problem, he went and got three of his friends, all bigger than him. These three friends got up in Chevy’s face, but get this: PoppedCollar stood outside watching! He basically hired someone else to fight his fight! What a pussy. These are the “men” that hang out in Nantucket. I was next to Dallas, one of Chevy’s friends that I’d just met that weekend. Dallas is from Mississippi, played football at an SEC school, and is a total Southern guy, the type of guy who dips while he drinks. Awesome. I grabbed him:

Tucker “Dallas, we need to go help Chevy.”

He kinda looked at me, and then looked at PoppedCollar, “No, hold on.” He walked over to PoppedCollar.

Dallas “Let me ask you a question. Those yur friends in thar?”

PoppedCollar [acting like he is tough] “Yeah.”

Dallas “Let me ask you another question: Do yew know howta fight?”

The way Dallas said it, even I was intimidated. You ever met one of those guys who, in a totally calm and composed way, can scare the shit out of you? Like an MMA fighter, or the fat Kardashian sister who married Lamar Odom? Dallas is like that. When he is serious, you can feel the violence behind his calm. PoppedCollar’s tough guy image dropped immediately.

PoppedCollar “Uh…no, not really.”

Dallas [totally playing up his southern accent] “Have yew ever fawght someone from tha south bafour?”

PoppedCollar “Uhhhh…”

Dallas “Well, I’m an amacheur boxer, and I train for UFC-style fightin’, and if a faight starts, I ken promise yew that I’m comin fer yew. Not yer buddies—YEW. Considerin’ our backgrawnds, and my steel-toed boots, yew sure yew still wanna dew this?”

PoppedCollar “Uhhhh, no, I guess not.”

Dallas “Well then go tell yer boys to back off, and we’ll go our separate ways.”

PoppedCollar “OK.”

PoppedCollar walked right in there, pulled his boys away from Chevy and left.

Dallas [waves to them as they walk off] “Have a nice naight, y’all.”

The next day, we went deep-sea fishing off the island. It was awesome. I caught like eight bluefish. Of course, the highlight of everyone else’s day was another incident. I kept fucking up my casts, so the captain of the boat stood next to me to see what I was doing, and he said I didn’t have my hands properly situated on the line. So he took my hand to reposition it, and then exclaimed:

Captain “Well damn there’s the problem—look at your tiny hands. You can’t even reach the line properly. Here, use the light tackle pole, that’s small enough for you.”

Thanks, asshole, I’m definitely not going to get shit for this for the rest of the weekend or anything.

We went to dinner that night with Chevy’s parents, and like everything on Nantucket, it was pretty boring, unless you think it’s just HILARIOUS that Dallas got the waiter to bring me a lobster fork for my entree. The only good part—to me—was when Chevy’s mom got drunk and we goaded her into telling us stories about Chevy.

Mrs. Chevy “Oh you boys don’t even know what a handful Chevy is. He just sits around all day, scratching himself so much you’d think our house was overrun with crabs.”

Chevy “MOM!”

Mrs. Chevy “I don’t have many stories about things he’s done that you guys don’t know. Besides, he doesn’t tell me the real bad things, I just pay the bail bondsman and don’t ask questions.”

Tucker “He has to have done something he hasn’t told us about.”

Mrs. Chevy “Well…OH! Did he ever tell you about the summer he spent in Maui tagging whales?”

The whole table lost it, mainly because she didn’t get the joke—she was actually talking about working with marine wildlife, not fucking fat girls.

All the guys kinda looked at me, expecting me to drop some hilariously subtle quip. If you are a football fan, you know how even though a great defensive back can catch anything not thrown to him, when the pass comes right at him he will freeze and drop it? Yep.

Tucker “Uhhh…CHEVY FUCKS FAT GIRLS!”

Great job, Tucker.

We went out drinking after dinner, and waded back into the sea of fucksticks that is the Nantucket social scene. I start talking to one girl, and somehow the discussion of penis size comes up.

Girl “Size doesn’t matter in guys.”

Tucker “I hear that a lot, but it’s always in a consoling tone. I’m not buying it.”

Girl “Really, it’s not a big deal.”

Tucker “Whatever, it’s alright, I’ve found a way to get around it.”

Girl [kinda suspicious of what I’m going to say, but still interested] “Oh, what’s that?”

Tucker “Well, I always slide a ball point pen in the girl’s pussy first, because the vagina will naturally constrict to fit the size of whatever is put in it. Then, when I put my dick in, it feels huge in comparison.”

I was obviously kidding, and thought that was hilarious, but she was offended. And so were her friends. They sucked. Seriously, one of them looked like Snaggle Tooth from
Star Wars
, and the rest were rejects from the
Village of the Damned
. The best part: THEY HAD ATTITUDE! Nothing is more obnoxious than ugly rich girls who think they are hot. Thank you, but I’d rather pull my dick out by the root than talk to girls like that.

I think it all ended with this exchange, where one of the girls was bitching about some doucher ex-boyfriend of hers:

Girl [blah blah blah, my ex boyfriend sucked, blah blah blah, he is the worst person ever, etc, etc.]

Tucker “I’m sorry, hold on a minute. You dated this guy for like two years, right?”

Girl “Yeah.”

Tucker “And in that time, you supported him and loved him and fucked him and did all this shit for him, right?”

Girl “Yeah.”

Tucker “So if he sucks as much as you keep saying, and you STILL did all that stuff for him—doesn’t that mean you suck more?”

She didn’t want to talk to me after that.

I went to the bar to get another drink, and finally, like 45 minutes later, when the asshole bartender deigned to serve me, he informed me that they were out of vodka. OUT of vodka. What the fuck does that even mean in a bar, out of vodka?

I’d had enough. Enough of the dipshits, enough of the pompous idiots, enough of fighting off these tools to get into overcrowded places that sucked ass, I was just fed up. I walked out of the bar and into the street, looking around for some place that didn’t suck.

Down the street, I saw a big crowd, and started walking in that direction. As I got closer, the girls out front looked a bit young, and then they started to look way too young, and then I was just weirded out, because there were clearly children hanging out at like 11:30 at night. What was going on?

Then I saw a kid with a blue lightning bolt painted on his forehead, dressed in a cape and holding a broomstick…holy shit, it was Friday, July 15th…this was a release party for the sixth Harry Potter book. This wasn’t a bar; it was a bookstore. There were at least 100 kids of various ages and their parents hanging out here.

At this point, I had a decision to make. I could:

A. Leave immediately and go find a bar

B. Hang out and mess with the Harry Potter fans, or

C. Put on a cape, grab a wand and join them in pretending that we’re wizards so we can vainly attempt to escape from the soul-crushing reality of our lives.

I stood and thought about it: What was going to maximize my utility tonight? There was only about an hour more of drinking left because this island sucked. I was not very drunk and wouldn’t get to a good level in only an hour, so that was pretty much a sunk cost. There were not many girls on this island and the ones that were there sucked, plus the chances of finding one I liked that I could also pick up, all in the span of just an hour, were not great. And to be honest, I was going to buy a copy of the new Harry Potter book anyway…

Fuck it, Harry Potter it is.

I got in line and bought my ticket at like 11:40, then stood outside under the huge tent with everyone else, waiting for the books to be passed out. As I looked around, I saw all kinds of people, not just little kids and parents. There were teenagers, young adults, old people, just about every demographic was represented, and tons of little kids. I started to get nervous. Like all grown men in the post-“To Catch A Predator” world, I am deathly afraid of even talking to little children.

So I kinda stood off to the side and covered my face with my hand. I looked ridiculous, so of course this little kid came up to me. She was dressed like Hermione. She couldn’t have been more than 8, but her parents weren’t anywhere that I could see.

Kid “What are you doing?”

Tucker “Where are your parents?”

Kid “Over there talking to Snape. Are you excited about the book?”

Tucker “Beyond ecstatic. I can barely contain my emotions.”

Kid “I can’t wait to find out what happens! They say someone dies, I wonder who it’ll be.”

Tucker “Didn’t you hear? It’s Ron that dies in this one.”

A look of complete horror enveloped her face and her eyes started welling up with tears.

Tucker “NO NO NO—I’m just kidding. Totally kidding, please don’t cry, Ron doesn’t die, I’m just kidding.”

She stopped her tears and her face went back to normal. I couldn’t help myself:

Tucker “It’s actually Hermione that dies.”

She turned and ran off in tears. Oh well, she had to learn at some point that guys are assholes and will take advantage of female naiveté whenever possible. Better now, before she reaches puberty and starts dating. I immediately moved to the other side of the tent and got in line. I didn’t want to deal with her irate parents and I wanted to avoid being approached by any more unsupervised, underage girls. I have to deal with that shit enough in my regular life.

With like three minutes until they released the book, this nerd in front of me was getting all kinds of giddy. He was probably 23 or so, and had the typical huge nerd backpack that contained his every single possession. He kept turning left and right, hitting me with his backpack. It went on this for five minutes, constantly bumping into me, and not once recognizing it or moving or apologizing. Well, if he won’t stop, then I’ll stop him. I reached down (he was short) and grabbed his backpack, holding him still.

Nerd “HEY!! WHAT THE!!! HEY!!”

The nerd started flailing around like a turtle on its back. He was flailing his arms around and trying everything he could to reach me, but kept failing because his backpack was too unwieldy for him and he was an uncoordinated dork.

Tucker “Calm down. You need to stop hitting me with your backpack.” Nerd “HEY! GET OFF ME YOU SNOTTY-FACED HEAP OF PARROT DROPPINGS!”

I HATE dorks that quote Monty Python, so I decided to teach him a simple lesson: This was real life, not a delightful British comedy. I swept his legs, and he immediately crashed to the ground. I kinda laughed at him, thinking that this will shut him up. I mean come on, this kid was like 130 pounds, including his backpack. I could strangle him with a bread tie. If he tried to fight me, I’d hit him so hard he’d have to walk toward the light to ask Jesus what just happened.

But he struggled back to his feet, and got in my face, kinda chest bumping me in the process. I grabbed his shirt in a rage:

Tucker “DO YOU ACTUALLY WANT TO FIGHT ME? ARE YOU FUCKING INSANE? I SHIT BIGGER THAN YOU!”

Two “adults” got between us, and we both kinda looked at each other, realizing that everyone within earshot was now staring at us…and that we had become
those
guys…who started a fight…at a Harry Potter book party.

Oh man.

Someone working there handed me my book—a minute early I think—and I slinked off. I’m pretty sure even the little kids were making fun of me.

I got back to the house before everyone else, sat on the couch, and started reading. For real—it was 12:30am on a summer Saturday night in Nantucket, and I was reading Harry Potter, alone.

Everyone else stumbled in around 1:30am. Chevy and Dallas took one look at me, and of course went nuts: