Baby Dick and Friends – Segment 1
We all have that one friend, or friends, that we skip trying to describe and instead tell others that “you just gotta meet him/her”.
Fuck that.
Sprinkled in from time to time, I’m going to generously douse each of you with stories centered around some of the most special, fascinating, one of a kind, ‘almost’ indescribable friends that have accompanied me during different times of my hectic life.
This edition – Jimmy P.
Simply and queerly put, Jimmy is, in many ways, my spirit animal. It’s said that the two greatest joys in life are getting pussy and revenge. Well, coming in third in a three way photo finish is getting black out drunk off of Vegas Bombs with Jimmy.
Three words to describe Jimmy? Italian. Degenerate. Alcoholic.
I had my first privilege of officially meeting him in mid April of 2016. Jimmy, two other friends, and myself rendezvous at Rivers Casino to take an extended four day weekend trip to the City of Brotherly Love (‘whatta bunch of faggots!’).
While ‘Bobby’ and ‘Master’ drive down together, Jimmy takes shotgun with me. No need for music for the next handful of hours – Jimmy’s like a talking pull string doll who’s string is being repetitively yanked to its limits with no breathers in between sets.
Now, instead of giving a play by play of the entire trip, which would actually be rather difficult since the two of ours memories, even when combined, are still going to have missing blotches scattered amongst, I’ll concentrate on the highlights centered around Jimmy. There’s four main acts that perfectly illustrate his drunken, free spirited personality, but I’ll still preface them with more of a description.
When I use the word degenerate to describe Jimmy, I mean it from my heart at face value – having lost the physical, mental, or moral qualities considered normal and desirable.
Jimmy, much like myself, often has no regard for money. Nearly the entire drive to Philadelphia was filled with him telling me about each of the times that he quickly ran a few hundred dollars up to five figures, and then dusted it all just as quick. At one point in time, he was on dinner break of a $1,100 tournament and couldn’t afford to eat. He waited until his buddies finished and asked for their left overs. A few summers ago he binked a slot machine out in Vegas for something like $25,000. He proudly told me that he’s gonna stay in Vegas, play the biggest cash games that he can get into, and either run it up or come home broke.
One of the most special characteristics about him though is that whatever money is in his pocket, whether a little or a lot, he won’t hesitate to spend his last dollar to get a round of shots – or shot. Some won’t go down without a fight – Jimmy doesn’t go down without having his liver backed up and needing to work two months of doubles to get caught up.
Our choice of drink – Vegas Bombs. At times, as is depicted, we lock arms (and eyes), scissor our forearms together, and chug. As if the alcohol itself isn’t enough of an influence on us, the two of us feed off of each other like a musician to the crowd. I don’t go to buffets unless I’m famished and I don’t agree to drink with Jimmy unless I’m prepared to be blacked out.
It’s a simple principle of life.
Some of our most memorable nights started and/or finished with us drinking Bombs at Rivers Casino. In fact, the only time I’ve ever been kicked out of there (since I first began this, it’s now doubled to twice) was when Jimmy and I were day drinking during a Penn State/Pitt football game (of course the first time I get kicked out was one of the only days I didn’t deserve to be).
On a different occasion, Jimmy was teetering very closely on being kicked out. He was advised by the floor inside of the poker room that if he tried ordering another drink, that he’d be escorted out. I forget his exact response, but it was a poorly constructed question inquiring about how much dick the floor worker sucks. As a back up plan, Jimmy heads out onto the gaming floor to order at one of the bars. Forty minutes later he comes bursting into the poker room like a marathon runner crossing the finish line, dripping in sweat, hands raised above his head, and chanting ‘BABY DICK!!! I HIT IT!!! BABY DICK..!!!’
As he approaches our table in the back of the room, I notice his shirt is perfectly ripped down the center as if he’s posing as an overweight, drunk, Hulk Hogan at a Halloween party.
‘BABY DICK!!! I HIT IT!!!…I HIT IT..’
He’s nearly in tears as he gasps in excitement. Reaching down onto the table, he snags my shot and makes quick work of the beer that’s sitting beside it. In a seconds notice, he transforms into a beer chugging Stone Cold Steve Austin as the beer runs down his chest and onto the floor.
“Jimmy, what the fuck did you hit?”
While he was waiting on his drink at the bar, he put a few dollars into the Keno machine and hit for about $5,000. Unable to control his excitement in the moment, he took his phone and spiked it, as he described it, ‘like Gronk’.
(I’ll do my best to post a short video of this.)
I could go on and on about drunk Jimmy stories, but some have to be saved for a potential sequel. Let’s get into the weekend that sparked our entire friendship and made each of the aforementioned experiences possible.
Blackout Botch #1 – Jimmy Stakes a Crackhead and a Beard Competitor
Just as alcohol is the catalyst in many of my stories, a joint is the catalyst in Jimmy’s. It’s nearly impossible for him to fight the urge of not having a smoke in his mouth. Hell, even on our way down, he refused to put his cigarette out at the gas pump.
(I understand this is commonly known to be a myth or highly unlikely, but on the same note, people still don’t want someone to break open a window on an airplane as its traveling in mid flight. Of course, Jimmy took this as a challenge and wanted to bet on whether or not the pump would ignite in flames as he creeped closer.)
As our first night progressed, Jimmy would often find himself taking a smoke break near the front entrance of the casino.
We all have our weaknesses that we struggle to resist. For both of us, one is restraining from saying hello to strangers while intoxicated (or in his case – intoxicated and/or high).
Jimmy engages in conversation with a crackhead and they begin discussing poker.
“You play any poker?”
“I play that 1-2 sometimes.”
“I’ll tell you what, I’m gonna stake you.”
This is the thing about him, he could have had $100 to his name, and he’d still come up with this amazing plan of giving $80 to an addict to go and gamble with. As expected, the money disappears quicker than the Yeyo inside of his crack pipe and he comes tapping on Jimmy’s shoulder asking for more. As the entire table glances up at the pan handler, they get their first glance of what death looks, and smells like.
Jimmy puts an end to his staking endeavors until the next day when he’s confronted with a better business offer. As per usual, Jimmy’s standing out front of our hotel smoking a joint when he spots two dudes lugging around majestically groomed beards. He’s overtaken with temptation.
“You guys got big beards!!!”
Turns out that they’re in town from Canada for a beard competition. They explain how they get rated in different categories such as style, length, etc, and that it’s an entry fee of $40.
“I wanna stake you. We’ll split the profits 50/50.”
Sadly, they explain how there isn’t any profits and that all of the proceeds go towards charity. This doesn’t register with Jimmy and he stares on with a blank expression as if he was a kindergartner who was just asked to solve a quadratic equation in front of the class.
“I wanna stake you anyways. Your beards are amazing and you’re gonna win.”
In the same breath, Jimmy increases his tax write offs to $120.
Blackout Botch #2 – Poker Night With Pablo
It’s strange. Becoming a ‘man’ is defined differently amongst cultures. In some, Land Diving grants you your passage into manhood, for The Mawe, it’s surviving bullet ant filled gloves, while others, you have to experience Sub-Incision (you should absolutely never, under any circumstances, go and look that term up).
In America (or Merica’ for short), I suppose this is defined in lots of different ways. I’m sure some would say it’s losing your virginity, or hitting eighteen or twenty-one years of age, while others would accolade you upon college graduation.
Even though it’s on a much smaller scale, I believe we all experience certain situations with our acquaintances that propel us to being *close* friends.
For Jimmy and me, this is that night.
The day starts with me heading to Sugarhouse Casino to make another Poker Night In America appearance. Sitting with a few legends of the game, I last twenty minutes before dusting off my $10,000 buy in and call it a day.
I text Jimmy to see if he wants to start drinking. He’s complexed.
“I thought you were gonna play on Poker Night??”
“I did. I’m busto. Let’s drink.”
We sit down at a 1-2 PLO game and begin ordering doubles.
(Yes, I’ll immediately go from a 25-50-100 NL game to booze cruising a 1-2 PLO with a $500 max buy in.)
Jimmy and I drink and grind for a few hours before he takes off to meet up with the rest of the crew. I stay behind for another hour or so until I join the clan at the notorious Paddy’s Pub.
With it being our last night in town, we’re determined to make it our best. I immediately suggest that we get shots started. After all, it’s almost 10pm and time to start taking it to the max. Master’s buddy who’s also in town, Matty, makes a comment causing all of us to question his own manhood.
“Hey guys, if we’re gonna be doing shots, we better drink some water first.”
A Coors Light can immediately comes pummeling down. Jimmy’s speechless. I’m speechless, but we’re each also very thirsty. We order our first round of Vegas Bombs, and for whatever reason, I drink a few Hoegaardens on the side. As midnight approaches, we’re amongst the only customers and the bartender announces last call (I suppose they close at 12).
Similar to me in the titty club in Vegas, Jimmy’s not happy and wants to continue drinking. He files an official complaint via a verbal outcry.
“What do you mean we have to leave???! We’re tourists spending hundreds of dollars and you wanna kick us out?? Baby Dick, lets do another shot.”
Bartender caving into his pity, gives us about another twenty minutes. We comfortably finish the rest of our drinks and continue on to the Bleu Martini – the same club that denied us access the night before. Walking up to the bouncers, we’re looked at the same way that you confusingly stare at the opposite sex walking into the wrong bathroom. We’re dressed like bums who just splurged getting half off prices at Goodwill.
Master’s in black sweatpants, his everyday, obnoxiously ugly, bright green Under Armor hoodie, and his covenant Pittsburgh Pirates hat. Bobby’s in sweatpants of his own and wearing another grey Under Armor top.
Continuing down the runway, next is Jimmy.
You guessed it – black sweatpants and a grey North Face zipper up. Walking closely behind, I strut in wearing tight black jeans and a plain White T. Capping off the entourage, Matty anchors us in a very respectable combo of blue jeans and a black collared American Eagle shirt.
I’m confident in saying that the only reason(s) that they let us in was because of one or two of the following:
- It was Sunday night so they weren’t nearly as busy as the night before.
- It’s Afropolitan Night.
I’m certain they fully expected us to walk in and walk out in in about a fourteen second span. Which, without the valiant speech of our new self declared leader, Jimmy, probably would have happened. It only takes us a handful of seconds to realize that not only are we the only white folk inside of the entire establishment, but we also account for each sweatpants, hoodie, and White T as well. The rest of the club looks like a Jos A Bank commercial that was crashed by classy Victoria Secret models showcasing top of the line sundresses.
Jimmy didn’t let us get this far to just turn around.
“We’re not fucking leaving, Master. Let’s just drink.”
He’s greeted with a tiny bit of resistance from the rest of us.
“Don’t be bitches.”
The clan abides.
We get a large table and begin ordering an abundance of martinis. I had never really had one before and didn’t realize that it was a drink and not a shot. Without hesitation, I send the entire glass gushing down my throat. It tastes good and I want more. Throughout the night, as Matty hits the wall, Jimmy and I alter taking his shots for him. Not long into our drinking rampage, Jimmy and I take off to go and make friends. Before heading out onto the dance floor, I take our empty tray of martini glasses and rest it upon my palm, elbow down, like a seasoned waiter celebrating my ten year anniversary on the job.
Steadily balancing the tray, I bob and weave amongst the crowd of ass grinders. Dropping my own ass in sync with the shaking bass, I repeatably raise my tray overtop of my head almost as if I was a power lifter competing in the Clean and Jerk during the Olympics. Impressively, I didn’t drop a single glass during my dancing charade.
I proudly return the filled tray to the main bar.
For the duration of the night, Jimmy and I hold random conversations with fellow partiers in between rounds of martinis. Nearing closing time, Master closes down the tab and covers it for the group. I’d imagine the total was somewhere around four digits. Thank you, Master.
Luckily, since it was a special night, the club had a photographer making his rounds to take pictures of each of its guests.
(The next morning, we check their website. Sure enough, there’s our joyous group photo. The same photo atop this page. I’m seated next to Jimmy with my low life out of control hair, glasses, and White T. As is often the case, Jimmy has a drink in his hand and ear to ear smile.)
Now, what’s about to happen is what truly cemented Jimmy and me as spirit animals.
Walking back to our hotel, Jimmy takes it upon himself to hop on Backpages and orders hookers. He promptly times it where they arrive just minutes after we get back to the hotel. As we’re standing in the lobby, we get a clear view of the massacred women getting out of the old beaten down Buick.
I don’t need to go into much detail as Jimmy summed it up perfectly with a single statement – “They look like they have bullet holes in them.”
So far in life, I’ve been lucky enough to be part of a generation that wasn’t forced to enter a military draft, and honestly speaking, I still wasn’t prepared to give my services.
Master gives Jimmy $200 and heads up to Bobby’s room along with Matty. If you’ve never dealt with the oldest profession in the book, you can’t just tell them to go away without paying. That’ll have Pablo banging on your hotel door. Why would they have your room number you might ask?? Because they get that information before coming to see you. Their pimp has to know where they’re heading so that they can look after them incase anything fishy happens.
Jimmy being my new best friend in the world, and the fact that we’re sharing a room together, I decide to stay with him to help handle the situation. Master tells Jimmy to just pay them the $200 and tell them to leave. Swell plan. If only everything in life happened how we all planned it then we’d be sitting here with no Baby Dick Tales to read.
We’re still not ready to sign a peace treaty, but we also don’t wanna drop an atomic bomb on these already bullet riddled whores, so we tell them to go to our room while we go to Master’s and reevaluate the war map.
It was almost as if we were the final four standing in an epic General Chaos battle. I had lightly scorched them with my flamethrower as Jimmy sprayed with his machine gun, but they had the code to unlimited medics. A true test of whits, intelligence, and courage.
As they’re standing outside knocking on mine and Jimmy’s room, we get nonstop calls from them. Fuck it. Let’s siege.
We meet them outside the room, unlock the door, and are now ready to star in this weeks episode of American Horror Story. I’ve once said that I only had standards for about three months in my life, and that it was hell. Albeit true, I do have a will to live.
Jimmy heads into the bathroom with his girl while I try and causally converse with Freddy Krueger. I figure if I can stall until Jimmy’s done, I can call in a hazmat team, get my bed disinfected, and then sleep on the floor. Staying true to her art, she continuously tries to ‘comfort’ me.
After ten minutes or so, Jimmy comes out of the bathroom, and as he often describes it – ‘…and see Baby Dick half naked running from the hooker! Nooooo leave me alone!!!!’
He’s not too far off from the truth. I was like a scared fighter in an MMA pentagon trying to work the clock until the round ended.
(Later on after everything was settled, Jimmy proudly tells me that he had to come out to grab a magnum condom because the one the girl had wouldn’t fit. He informed me of his enlarged penis and I told him that I was happy for him.)
Nut busted and cardio in, we’re each equally as ready to move on with the night. I cautiously hug my girl goodbye and send them off to return home from combat.
We begin to relax and bandage our battle wounds when we get another knock at the door.
It’s two more girls that had been sent into the front lines, but we hadn’t ordered more girls.
Not answering the door, they continue to knock more frantically and attempt to intimidate us by threatening to send Pablo after us.
“ANSWER THE DAMN DOOR OR WE’RE GETTING PABLO!!!”
“WE’RE GONNA SEND PABLO ON YO’ ASSES!!!”
Jimmy and I stare at each other with blank expressions. We don’t know if we should be scared, laugh, or just go to bed.
The knocking, and threats, continue to escalate.
They ‘call’ Pablo.
“Pablo these ma’ fuckas ain’t answering the door. Get yo’ baseball bat and get up here..”
Blah blah blah shit.
Nonetheless, with screaming whores outside, a potentially angered pimp, and not wanting to bring attention to our nights questionable decisions, we open the door, hand them a couple hundred dollars, and resolve the situation.
(Get educated with Baby Dick segment! Now that you all know how rub and tugs work thanks to What What Part 1, I’ll explain the oldest profession in the book just Incase you’re confused. Just to have a girl show up will cost you money. Now, whether it’s because she doesn’t look like she did in her pictures, not your type, or whatever reason, you can’t just send her on her way out without compensation. Unless, obviously, you’re fine with dealing with the Pablo’s of the world. For this specific situation, Pablo certainly sent in the extras as an additional hustle.)
The next day, each one of us take off to head in our different directions, besides Matty. He was so hungover that he laid in bed dying all day and rescheduled his flight. A few went onto Atlantic City, while I drove back to Pittsburgh alone with Jimmy in Master’s car.
I’ll end this trip with one final Jimmy moment.
While on their way home, Jimmy insisted on smoking a joint.
“Jimmy, you’re not smoking a joint in my car.”
“Why? We’re not gonna get pulled over. If we do, I’ll eat it.”
Sure enough, shortly down the road, blinking lights creep up behind them.
“…smells like weed in here. Do you two have any drugs on you.”
Jimmy -“I have one joint and two Xanax. It’s all prescription.”
Anyways, the cop let’s them go free of any tickets or charges. As they’re pulling onto the highway and off of the berm, Jimmy proudly pulls out a joint filter and exclaims “Look Master!! I ate it! Like a cocktail shrimp.”
Jimmy, keeping his word, ate the smoking joint in record time before the cop walked up to the car.