A large neon-green-and-pink palm tree—San Mateo’s slice of Las Vegas—greeted us at the hotel like a beacon. “I wouldn’t even ask for their autograph,” I said. “What do I care?”
“Whose autograph would you get?” Mif asked.
“Jimmy Stewart, Jack Klugman, Elvis Presley, and Muhammad Ali.”
“Little late for Elvis Presley,” Billy said. “You could have asked him while he was on the toilet.”
“Jack Klugman?” Cap said. “What the hell?”
“I love The Odd Couple,” I said. “Whose autograph would you get?”
“Jim Beam and Joe Coors,” Cap said, putting an end to the conversation.
We split up and went to the door in pairs. The unwritten rule was each guy was on his own. If you didn’t get in, you went back to the car and waited in the parking lot. You didn’t leave, especially if you drove. This night, we didn’t have to worry. We knew the bouncer. If you slipped him five bucks, he looked the other way. Cap hated paying the guy, but he hated the alternative worse.
The Lanai interior was koa wood tables, a faux thatched roof, and wooden masks and other tiki décor on the walls. The coup de grace, however, was a massive beach mural, a scene of an exotic island paradise with palm trees and the ocean lapping onto a sandy beach with Tahitian women wearing coconut bras and grass skirts. The mural hung over a 1,700-gallon fish tank. Tacky. Las Vegas. It got worse. The lighting on the mural changed from sunrise to sunset over the course of an hour. We used that mural to tell tiki time, saying things like, “Spent four days at the Lanai last night.”
Once inside, we regrouped and sat in bamboo chairs around koa wood tables in the back along the perimeter wall. It didn’t matter who you sat with. For that night, they became your platoon, your squad, and you spilled inane insults at the guys sitting at the table next to you.
Mickey, Ed, and Scotty sat at a table beside us. Our butts hadn’t even hit the seat when the waitress slapped down coasters on the tables and asked what she could get us.
“Have you seen Frank tonight?” Mif asked. “He’s singing at the Circle Star.”
“Not tonight,” she said with bored indifference.
We didn’t need a menu of the various tiki drinks. We always ordered the biggest, strongest drink on the menu, the Double Sidewinder’s Fang. The drink came in a large fishbowl—fruit juices and rums. I imagine the drink was meant to be shared, but we each ordered our own. Being high school students, and poor, we also snuck in bottles of rum. Not the airplane bottles, which would have been easy to conceal. Scotty got fifths from the liquor store, and we refilled our glasses beneath the table as we drank, eventually reaching the point of saturation, almost pure alcohol, with the expected result.
Ed, Mickey, and Scotty had already been at the Lanai for a while, and Mickey was trashed, barely able to sit up.
I drank my Fang slowly. On a few occasions, Billy offered me the bottle of rum, but each time, I shook my head. “I have to work in the morning, and I can’t function when I’m hungover.”
A tiki day later, Scotty showed up at our table. “We got to get Mickey out of here,” he said. “He’s going to puke.”
“We’ll catch you later,” Cap said.
“Mickey drove,” Scotty said. “I’m going to drive him and Ed home and drop off his truck, but I’m going to need you to follow us and give me a lift home.”
I had driven that night. “That’s all the way in South City,” I said.
Scotty shrugged. “Don’t leave me hanging.”
Another of the unwritten man codes. It didn’t matter that Scotty and Ed had let Mickey trash himself, though Mickey was driving. I would pay the price. Besides, Scotty was our alcohol source.
It was bullshit, but I acquiesced.
Cap stayed at the Lanai. The rest of us exited. I stepped into the bathroom before leaving. After turning from the urinal, I stopped. There stood Frank Sinatra dressed in a tuxedo, fixing his hair. He caught me staring and put a finger to his lips. Then he winked, and just before slipping out the door, he said, “No one will believe you.”
“Son of a bitch,” I said softly.
When I reached my Pinto, I contemplated telling the others, but Frank was right. No one would ever believe me.
We followed Scotty driving Mickey’s white work truck with his father’s business logo on the doors. Mickey sat propped in the middle between Scotty and Ed. We dropped Ed at his home, which was just a few miles from the warmth and comfort of my own bed, then pushed on to South City. I didn’t know where Mickey lived, but Mif did. We pulled down his street just as Scotty pulled into the driveway and parked the work truck. Mif got out and helped Scotty get Mickey to the front door. Once there, they hesitated.