Fight Night Massacre

My boss also named Dave and I were talking about moving experiences when we were recently moving and he asked me, "So how much are you gonna miss the place?"

As I'd been repeating my mantra to everyone, "I'm not gonna miss this place at all." Knowing damn right well, I'm probably lying. But I think he knew that.

"Aww c'mon Dave, you're starting to clear stuff out, memories are coming up and hitting you over the head, everywhere you look you think of something about the kids growing up or maybe some party you guys had there..."

Well I don't know how many actual "parties" we had, but I do know of one we didn't have or lets just say, we weren't supposed to have.

June 7, 2002..(I looked it up)

It was supposed to be a quiet Saturday evening. I don't know if anyone else had anything to do, but I had on my schedule a quiet late spring night of a Subway grinder, a Skyy Blue and working on a story after having little time to do so during the week.

However something was going to try to disrupt that plan. I could hear some whispering downstairs and at least 3 "You ask him's".

Finally my son Bri (then 16) comes upstairs and says, "Uh Dave, uh you know the Lennox Lewis-Tyson fight is on tonight on Pay Per View?"

Something I was indeed aware of.

"Um," he continues, "Can we order it, its $24.95? We'll pay for part of it."

Usually an empty promise, but either way those Pay Per View fight things are priceless. They go on at 8 pm with 4 hours worth of preliminary fights or known in the fight business as "Tomato Can" bouts with punching bag fighters known as "Tomatoes", followed by the Main Event at midnight if you're awake which can possibly last less than 1 round and you've kind of wasted your money.

Still I was kind of curious over the outcome of the fight and figured if I could stay awake, it might be fun to watch it.

"Ok." I told Bri.

"Oh good. Uh Dave, uh, can we order food?"

"Ok, pizza?"

"Yeah, that sounds good." he answered, "Oh, uh Dave, can Uncle Mike come over?"

Ahh here we go! PEOPLE are coming! I get it now, they're trying to organize a party piece by piece. My brother in law Mike was probably looking to come over because his favorite Tomato fighter, Polish fighter Andrew Golata was in the tomato can fights.

"Just him!" I tell Bri, "I'm not having a house full of people here. There's not gonna be a party."

"Ok." he seems satisfied with that and he goes off to order the Pay Per View.

Mike arrives around 7 and walks in with a 24 pack of beer shouting 'GO GOLATA! HAHA!"

"Golata is a Polish tomato." I tell him and go back upstairs to work on my story. A few minutes later, Bri comes up the stairs and said, "Uh Dave, can Auston (his friend) come over?" I roll my eyes and said, "Yeah I guess so." It just so happens, that he has a case of beer with him too.

How about that?

I'm trying to type my story and can hear Mike becoming his usual loud self downstairs just as the tomato can fights start. A few seconds later, Bri comes back up the stairs and says, "Uh Dave, um, Mark and Melonie (two more friends) just happened to be in the neighborhood and stopped over, do you mind if they come in?"

With another case of beer and another half a liquor store, I presume.

"Bri" I tell him, "This is starting to look like a party."

"No, its not really a party." he answers.

"Then what is it?" I asked.

"Just the fights." he replies. The food arrives, about 6 pizza's for an army.

Mark, of Mark and Melonie boasts the fact that he is not only a huge Mike Tyson fan but claims like many around here in Connecticut to have been neighbors with Tyson.

You can hear him all the way upstairs trying to talk up Tyson and getting in arguments with everyone about how Tyson was gonna wipe out Lewis and what not. He knew why too.

"TYSON HAS AN 18" NECK." You can hear him yelling.

I could hear Bri say to him, "That doesn't mean anything, Dave has at least a 17" neck, he's not gonna win the championship."

"NO HE DOESN'T..." "YES HE DOES..." etc etc...

A few minutes later they're all on the way upstairs with a tape measure to talk me down to my underwear and compare my pre fight measurements with those of the great, albeit retarded, Mike Tyson.

In order to get this over with and try to get back to my story, I get up and let them start measuring me while they matched me up with the Tyson ones in the paper that day.

While this is going on I asked Bri, "Where's your mother?" Figuring maybe she could start to control the flow of traffic in the house and upstairs to make stupid requests. What was I thinking?

"Oh, she's doing Southern Comfort shots downstairs." he replies calmly.

"Christ." I said, "How many is she on?"

"I think she did seven in a row."

So much for traffic flow...

"Uh Dave, by the way..."

"What?"

"Matt (yet more friends) and a friend of his dropped by, can they have something to eat?"

I get up and go downstairs and see the house is now full of people and a couple I've never seen before necking on the couch.

I go to the kitchen and see Doodle (my wife) getting ready to slam another SoCo shot.

She sees me and hugs me, "Hi sweetheart, look all of our FRIENDS came over."

I looked around and said, "These aren't anyone's friends. After all, why would they be HERE on a Saturday night?"

The Golota fight was starting in the next room which was Mike's signal to get more obnoxious than usual. Suddenly, I smell something familiar.

I walk in the other room and the smell of someone smoking...you know...smoking...was in the air.

"Who's getting high?" I asked.

"Uh, no one." Bri replies.

"C'mon Bri, I know what it smells like, I'm not an idiot."

"No one's getting high Dave."

I go outside and there's Mark smoking with some other kid.

"Put it out or get out." I tell him.

"Ok, ok.."

Soon, as usual, the cops are coming down the road toward here, but they didn't stop or stay. They must not have liked what we were having.

I went back upstairs to work on my story when Doodle yells up the stairs all hammered, "David...David...you didn't drink too much did you?"

I hadn't had anything to drink at all, I just shook my head and pretended not to hear her.

Ahh trivia time...

More drunk kids and Bri come up the stairs and want my input on boxing.

"Uh Dave" Bri starts, "Who's the best heavyweight you ever saw?"

"Ali, I guess." I replied.

"Oh, yeah, uh huh, umm...Dave, do you think the fights should be 15 rounds or 12?"

As he is asking the questions, my 6th sense kicks in that he is up to something and I think I hear it.

Another car full of kids and the beer they are currently in possession of are being snuck into my house and Bri is trying to distract me by pretending to care about what I think about boxing.

Well that was it. I was going to abandon any attempt at finishing my story and now I had to go down and referee the action in my living room and kitchen.

As I get down the stairs, Auston's girlfriend Theresa arrives and gives me a hug hello.

Doodle, slumped in a chair holding a 3/4 empty fifth of SoCo, sees this, and slurs, "Some slut is touching my husband. I think I'm supposed to do something about that, but I don't know what."

"Doodle" I tell her, "Its little Theresa. Theresa is here."

"Oh, sorry I called you a slut Theresa, maybe something to drink will make me stop saying things like that." She abandons the shot glass method and resorts to the bottle and paperbag system.

I look at the clock and see its getting closer to midnight and the main event. I grabbed something to eat and a beer and got ready for the fight.

Melonie, who I guess wants to be bisexual when she finally grows up, sat next to Theresa, who she just met and drunkenly hits on her.

"Damn that would be better than Pay Per View!" Bri pipes up.

"You're disgusting Brian!" Doodle chimes in to Bri smashed from the other room.

"That's the first thing you said that made sense all night." I told her.

"No its not!" she replied, "I stopped making sense years ago."

The fight gets ready to start and Mark comes to the set and says, "Lewis won't last one round." Bri looks at him and says, "Spoken like a man who is just getting over the shock of watching his woman hit on another woman."

Bri and Mark shove each other a few times and Mike yells, "SIDDOWN YOU TWO QUEERS."

Doodle meanders over to the couch with her bottle and sits next to her brother and says, "Are the Yankees on now?"

"Yeah Bernie Williams homered." I tell her.

"YEAH GO BERNIE!" she replies with the bottle in the air.

From the start of the fight, there is no question Tyson is finished. The more Tyson was finished, the more you could see Mark fade into oblivion. It sucks when you realize your childhood heroes are old and washed up.

That calls for something to drink.

Bri and I celebrate the Lewis victory by laughing at Mark and clanging beer bottles.

Doodle was now sound asleep on the couch and I threw potato chips at her but she never woke up. Mike said to me, "You want to take her up to bed."

"Nah, leave her there." I reply.

A few seconds later, Chris (my other son) comes up the driveway and hits the back Mike's van. Backs out and drives the car on the lawn.

"Did he hit my van?" Mike asked.

"Yeah it'll be alright though." I replied looking out the window.

"Why's that?" he asked

"Because its not my problem! G'night!"

I went up to bed. The next morning I got up and Bri was up at the same time. As we got down the stairs, there were bodies everywhere including on the porch and in the yard. Broken glass on the floor, pizza boxes, empties, potato chips and garbage everywhere. The car was still on the front lawn and Mike's van had a nice dent in the bumper.

Doodle was asleep upside down with her head hanging off the couch and Mike was out cold in a chair.

"We'll clean this up today Dave." Bri said.

We went out to the porch and I looked at a kid still asleep there and asked Bri, "Who's this kid?"

"I have no idea." Bri replied.

We went in the kitchen and found the coffee pot thru the mess and made a pot for us. "Boy" I said, "its a good thing we didn't have a party last night."

"Yeah," he answered, "What a mess THAT would've been."

(*We don't condone underage drinking...then or now!*)

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