Mistaken Identity

 

How is everyone doing on this fine fall day?  Hope this catches you in a good mood.  If I'm lucky enough, maybe this story will boost your mood.  I think it's hilarious... however I am 53 years old and still think farts are funny.

Let me set this up a little bit.  My friend JJ is Native American.  She works in retail and a lot of times gets to hear some stupid, insensitive shit regarding her ethnicity.  The other day, she posted about one such occasion on social media.  It proved that not only people are insensitive, they really don't think much before shit just goes falling out of their cake holes.  

JJ's brother Nate used to work for me years ago at the Million Dollar Cowboy Bar as a doorman.  Nate was awesome at snagging fake ID's, payed attention to what was going on and if there was a fight in the joint, I knew that Nate would be in there with me.  When you run a joint like that, you are lucky if you have a Nate or two on board.  Besides that, the Kascoli's are just top notch folks as far as I am considered.  Their ethnicity doesn't matter to me but it is pertinent to this story.

Here we go.  If you haven't been to the Million Dollar Cowboy Bar on a Friday or Saturday night during the summer time, you're really missing out.  Busiest joint on the block, normally good entertainment back in those days, and it is simply the best place in the world to "people watch".  Nice folks from all over the world show up, get blasted and make asses of themselves... it's a beautiful thing!

The front door ends up looking like a conveyor belt in a factory.  We are turning and burning them as fast as we can. The Doormen are busy working the front door and monitoring the crowd. The Barbacks are doing everything they can to keep the joint going.  The Bartenders and the Waitresses are knee deep in the weeds slinging whiskey and I am there to back them all up.  Once it gets this busy, it doesn't slow down until last call.  Its a hell of a thing to be a part of.  If you haven't worked in a bar, you'll just have to trust me on this.

Right smack-dab in the middle of the evening, a young gal comes up to me and says, "Hey, the big Hawaiian guy at the door told me to come talk to you.  The cigarette machine ate my money and didn't give me any smokes." No big deal.  It happens all of the time and it's just one of the small things I have to do to keep the joint afloat, but the word "Hawaiian" stuck in my head.  I thought for a second, "I have a Hawaiian working here?".  It didn't really matter.  I had a small first world problem that I had to fix so I set path towards the cigarette machine and noticed old Nate at the front door.  "It had to be him that she was talking about", I thought to myself.

For some dumb reason, things like this stuck in my head.  I thought I knew good and well that Nate was Navajo/Apache so I had to go ask.  Normally when I approached a doorman, we had a project to take on.  I walked up and asked Nate, "Hey, are you Hawaiian?"  Nate wrinkled up his forehead, chuckled and said, "No man.  I'm Navajo/Apache."  I nodded and said, "That's what I thought but some chick just said "The big Hawaiian guy told me to come talk to you... she was talking about you, I guess."  We laughed and went about the rest of the evening.

About an hour later, this cowboy comes walking up with a fresh rodeo check in his hands.  (We used to cash rodeo checks for rodeo cowboys and buy them a drink.)  The feller says, "Hey, are you Brice?"  I nod and before I can say anything, the guy says, "The nice Mexican feller at the front door sent me to you to get this check cashed."  I smiled, asked the cowboy what he was drinking and put my initials on the check.  After I got him squared away, I walked up to Nate and said, "Guess what?"  Nate looked at me and I said, "Your Mexican now!"  I told him the story... we had a laugh and again set course on the rest of the evening.

Like I said earlier, this is the type of shit that gets stuck in my head.  Through the course of the evening, the doormen change stations and move between the front door, the back door and the floor.  Each time Nate walked by I would think either "Hawaiian" or "Mexican"?  I mean, he kind of looked Hawaiian and he kind of looked Mexican.  He damned sure looked Native to me, but what in the hell do I know.  

Now here's where the whole thing starts getting wonky in my head.  I look at Nate and think, "I hired a ventriloquist, but he doesn't trick people with his voice... he does it with his ethnicity."  So its a game in my head now and I think of the John Candy movie "Who is Harry Crumb?"  John Candy is a private investigator and he tries to wear different costumes, portray himself as different people...  Ol Nate ain't trying to fool nobody, and I am getting a good laugh out of it all.  I know, I'm easy to entertain....

In my head, everything is all shits and giggles and in the mean time, everyone else is trying to do their job.  The joint is packed!  The music is loud.  Everyone is having a good time and I get just busy enough to stop the comedy playing out in my head until another young lady comes up to me.  She's cute, half cooked and says, "Excuse me, are you Brice?"  I said that I was and I shit you not.... she says, "Oh good, I put some money in the breath-a-lyzer machine and it didn't work.  The Samoan guy at the back stairs said you could help me out."  I laughed and said, "Samoan guy?  Shit, I thought he was French or some shit."  She kind of shook her head and looked at me with a "deer in the headlights" kind of look.  I said, "Give me a minute.  I'll go grab some coins and I'll meet you back down there."

What I wanted more than anything in the world was for this girl to walk up to Nate and say, "You're not Samoan... You're French?" And then I wanted Nate to reply, "Oui, Oui" or some shit.  That would have made my entire career in the bar business worthwhile!!!

I didn't get that.  I did get to walk by Nate with a handful of quarters and say, "Uh, do you know any French?"  He just looked at me and smiled.  I walked down the stairs, showed the girl how the breath-a-lyzer works and prove that she had too much fun.  On the way up the stairs I told Nate, "This chick thinks you're a Samoan.... I told her you were French."  He laughed, I laughed and now I had him set up for the rest of the time he worked for me.

Any time I needed Nate to help a customer, I would tell the customer, "Yeah, if you go up front and talk to the big Puerto Rican gentleman" or some other ridiculous shit, "he can help you out''.  I didn't know who would find the humor in that.  I mean, I knew I would and thought Nate might get a kick out of it too.  

One night a few months later, a young lady that I was not familiar with came up to me and said, "I put some money in the pool table and we didn't get all of the balls."  I thought, "here's my chance".  I said, "Oh man, I hate when that happens.  Go up front and speak to the big Filipino guy.  He will fix you up."

She looks at me dead in the eye and says, "You mean Nate?  He's not Filipino, he's Brazilian!"  I never laughed so hard in all of my life!  I don't know if I ever told Nate about that.  It took months for this to come full circle, but damned if it didn't finally do it!  

Nate, J.J, I love you guys and hope you appreciate the story.  You guys are the best!  Thanks for all of the good times and especially for being my friends.