by L. Shell Madden

Created on: June 04, 2008

Things I'll Go To Hell For - or Spending Time in a Biker Bar I was in the Bashful Bandit, a biker bar on Speedway in Tucson Arizona. This was a way back, before the Red & Whites took it over and made it a place I'd rather not be. I was waiting for a friend, drinking coffee and playing a little eight-ball; Nick had promised to beat my socks off, and I was warming up. The place was mostly quiet and pretty sparsely populated, there where two guys shooting pool a couple of tables over, two or three at the bar and one serious drinker at a table. I was on my second coffee, and just finishing my game, when the fellow at the table started talking sort of "at" me, and getting louder. I finished my game, racked another and headed for the bar and another coffee. The guy at the table lurched to his feet and started mouthing off, so I ignored him and went back to my game. Three shots into it, I had a foul-mouthed audience of one making high-school comments and teenage innuendos. I did the sensible thing and ignored him. Some people just don't get it Icy silence and no responses weren't working and the guy was starting to really screw with my game. I missed a perfectly simple shot and being annoyed with myself I swore, smacked my cue down with a bit more force than I intended, drained my coffee cup and headed for the bar. I wanted a beer. This guy was pissing me off and I know better than to engage anyone in a biker-bar. I just hoped Nick would show up before I opened my mouth and got into more trouble than I could handle, or had to go out to the parking lot to wait in my car (summer in Arizona, 110 degrees in the shade and there ain't no shade). As I passed Mouthy, he started to reach out for me, I side stepped just as one of the fellows shooting pool dropped his hand on Mouthy's shoulder. "Hey man, don't tease the Chica" he said, in a very quiet conversational voice. There was a bit of a scuffle and then the pool player's voice got just a little louder. "I said, don't tease the Chica, man. It makes you look like an asshole and it pisses her off." Okay, it is not good when a civilian is the cause of an altercation in a place like the Bandit, and it is really bad when that civilian is an unaccompanied woman. So I apologised to the barman, and headed back to the pool table to pick up my bag and clean up the table. I re-racked my cue, and turned back as a fresh coffee cup settled on the table next to my things. "You don't need to leave, he's gone" The other pool player was smiling at me over the cup. "wouldn't want you to think we're all like that" And he turned and went back to his game. Nick came in about 15 minutes later and I watched him talk to the barman for a minute, pick up two beers and head my way. He nodded to the two pool players, set the beers down, checked out the positioning on my game, learned back on the railing, took a sip of his beer and waited. "You gonna finish this one or do I get to clear the table as warm up?"That was it. Weeks later on another of my visits to Tucson, Nick and I were talking. He explained that generally I was safer in a biker-bar than any "wine-bar" in the "better" parts of town. Seems, as long as a woman buys her own drinks, minds her own business and doesn't "start" anything she's pretty much left alone. As Nick said, "They don't know who or how big your old man might be." And all of the biker chicks he knows have tempers and carry knives. This much I can attest to, I've met his wife.

Learn more about this author, L. Shell Madden.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.