It’s particularly refreshing that all reminiscences aren’t necessarily deep. Some are downright funny and juvenile as a matter of fact. Such is the following little tale of a night gone terribly awry.
I was in a conversation recently about a pre-storm event that involved a friend of mine, an ex-boss and three NOPD officers. I happen to know that these officers are no longer protecting and serving our fine city; I will reserve speculation for those who may be so inclined. I shall not pass judgment as I happen to know many fine men and women who wear the crescent badge in this city.
While the story from the young woman with whom I was chatting turned out much darker, my story was much lighter in tone…thankfully.
It was January 31, 2003...perhaps February 1st since drinking was involved and I’m most certain we were out late. At least I’m in the ballpark with the timeline, which is impressive since I’m also thinking that a large expense account and some shots were involved that evening.
A large convention was in town for my industry and I, along with numerous colleagues, were in attendance. To say that we attended is another way of saying that we spent a lot of time in the French Quarter bitching about work and drinking.
My group happened upon a former boss. He had been an executive VP in our company and reviled by most of those in his stead; past and present…including us.
One of my co-workers, we’ll call him Marc. Mainly because his name is indeed Marc. Young Marc and I engaged our former cage master…uh, boss, in industry conversation. It was a decent exchange of pleasantries and professional courtesy which amazed me since I knew how badly these two despised one another.
Finally, feeling that Marc was able to continue this pattern of peaceful decorum with, we’ll call our ex-boss Brian because his name is indeed Brian, I decided to move about the room and chat with other groups.
Mistake number one on this particular evening.
After about 20-minutes had passed, I looked over to Marc and Brian and noticed that the body language was decidedly tense. Okay, by tense I mean that Brian’s forehead looked like a topographical road map. You could see every vein in his face. I excused myself from conversation to investigate. It took all of about 5-seconds to confirm my suspicions as I rejoined the duo.
Five rapid fire, nonchalant, abases spewed forth alerting me that this was going nowhere good…quickly. Then, the ultimate “dis”. Brian pushed his index finger to Marc’s nose to punctuate a point. Note: Nothing good can EVER come from placing your finger to someone’s nose.
Then, our warm and fuzzy ex-boss put his hands around Marc’s neck and began to choke him. In retrospect, it was one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen. It was a most bizarre chokehold…almost like something out of a zombie movie, stilted and stiff.
Marc politely warned Brian. No need to document the verbiage, as it was not, in fact, polite at all now that I think about it. When the warning went unheeded Marc punctuated it with a lightening fast punch to the face.
Trust me, you haven’t lived life to its fullest until you see a 25 year old knock the shit out of a 49 year old who, by most accounts, truly deserved it. We all wanted to punch this guy at some point or another and Marc decided to singularly act on the desires of the collective, thus becoming our hero.
The bouncers sprang to action and immediately tossed the nonsense to Bourbon street where three police officers intervened. To borrow a term from a friend, many Bourbon street doormen are part carnival barker, part pimp, all asshole.
Since Marc was quite vocal, as opposed to Brian, and the large red spot on Brian’s face clearly illustrated that he was indeed assaulted, the cops restrained my friend.
At this point I remember wishing for a rescue helicopter to land immediately and whisk us away. As it were, a stark realization set in that I’m Marc’s boss. As Operations Manager, I visualized the terrible scene of me standing in front of the owner explaining this situation by saying “What ha-happened was”. Thus, I immediately called for our Chief Operating Officer, who was enjoying the “tray man” (Sonny) work his magic at Pat O’s. I asked for him to come and inject his indelible diplomacy to an explosive situation. He was on the scene in 2 minutes. There’s a reason he rose to the level of COO I suppose. Oh, he also had some crazy ass snappy suits and ties. Another requirement of a COO I suppose.
He was able to talk the cops into letting Marc go free on the condition that he get out of the Quarter immediately. The officers didn’t put it quite that nicely, but we heard the message loud and clear. Fair enough and better than a 25 year old who looked like a Backstreet Boy spending a night in OPP. He would have been an appetizing delicacy in OPP to be sure.
We informed young Marc of his good fortune and he was so elated that he availed himself of another opportunity to punch our asshole ex-boss in the face again. I reiterate, it was deserved and amusing to watch but an unfortunate turn of events for Marc.
The old lamp posts on Bourbon are quite lovely, unless your head happens to make contact with blunt force at the hands of three cops shoving you to the sludge filled sidewalks.
It was abundantly clear that Marc’s plush hotel room would be traded for a bologna sandwich and a community bench at OPP. A decidedly far cry from his room at the Ritz.
Being the good friends that we were we did what anyone would do under such duress. We decided to go grab a drink. C’mon! It’s OPP, we knew he wouldn’t be processed till the following morning…don’t judge us!
Marc’s last battle cry on his way to the patrol car was for us to tell no one…to keep this incident completely quiet. We gave him our assurances.
The following morning we were all set to meet with the owner of our company. We awoke to the reality that Marc was in jail, we all nursed a massive hangover and the space shuttle had exploded over Texas. A lovely Sunday morning indeed.
I received a call from, what is now my ex, asking how the evening had gone…it was an exchange of pleasantries and I assured that all was well; holding true to my promise to Marc. A few minutes later my cell rang again…it was my lady calling back.
There are certain moments in life where time seems to stand still, this was one of them. The first words from the other end of the phone were: “When were you going to tell me that Marc is in jail?” My reply? “Um, I wasn’t. We all promised him, I assured. Then I quizzed, how did YOU know?
When going to jail you are entitled to a phone call, however, speed dial has virtually erased the necessity to remember phone numbers any longer. The only phone number Marc could remember, for some bizarre reason, was my land line! Now that I think about it, I'm wondering WHY I had a land line...but I digress.
And so, the land line rang as Marc finally got his turn at the pay phone in OPP as fifty very unfriendly inmates taunted the boy who looked as though he should be with NSYNC rather than in OPP. Maybe that was their way of flirting.
This is the actual automated call that came through from a very sober and reality stricken Marc: “You have a collect call from an inmate at Orleans Parish Prison from Marc, Marc, Marc!!!” And said cover was forever broken. What I would GIVE to have an audio recording of that phone call!
After about 18 hours had passed a colleague of ours collected bail money and took a cab to OPP to retrieve our co-worker. We, in the meantime, read the Sunday paper and had lunch & Bloody Mary’s. Don’t judge us…we were stressed.
Marc came out about $600 lighter. Funny how cash disappears while in custody huh? He also adorned two very nasty cuts around his wrists in the shape of handcuffs from which he’d been dragged once he was out of public view. The scars, most likely, remain to this very day.
Don’t get me wrong, my co-worker DID break the law, but he availed himself of an opportunity to teach a loud mouthed, egotistical, ex-boss a lesson. I’m sure, in retrospect, Marc probably figures it was a small price to pay.
One thing’s for sure…it was one HELL of a night in the French Quarter.
