Tuesday morning the rest of the mining crew of Aren and Erik had to run on home. Jesse and I drove them to the airport in rapid City so that they could pick up their rental car. The boys had to drive to Denver to catch their respective flights. Aren’s brother Lars was supposed to come to Deadwood from Denver for the rally, and could also give them a ride back down, but he was a weenie and never showed (Lars, you’re not really a weenie, please don’t hurt me!).
After seeing my friends off, Jesse and I drove back to Sturgis to melt in the sun and take in the custom bike building world championships. The bikes were intricate and impressive. My two personal favorites were the steam punk cafe racer bikes. I like brass. There was also a gigantic bike that no rear axle. Weird.
The plan was to peruse downtown and then head out to the Full Throttle Saloon to see Sebastion Bach and Cinderella headbang away. Jenny and her posse were going to join us from One Eyed Jack’s. Rad.
Both Jesse and I wilted in the heat. Jesse decided not to go to the show and left me in Sturgis. I swung by One Eyed Jack’s to gather up Jenny et al and had some cola and about seven glasses of water. Jenny had to do her books so I hung out at the end of one of the bars and stared off into space slurping on my water. After about twenty minutes a haggard young(?) bartender came up to me. After studying me for a moment she took a long drag on her cigarette and said, “You can feel free to join the rest of us if you like. We are all here to have fun, after all.”
My zen-like, heatstroke trance was broken. I explained my drained state and asked for more water. Jenny was taking forever. The bartender that took over her station sucked at life. While deeply engrossed in inane conversation with two dudes the rest of her clientele went thirsty and ignored. They started clanging their empty beer bottles together making a racket in an attempt to get her attention. She didn’t notice. They left. Looking good in a bikini will only get you so far, but if you don’t have people buying beer from you then you aren’t going to make the $1000 in tips the other bartenders rake in.
I guess evening time is when everyone decides to start doing body shots. Body shots might be hot if it was two attractive people involved and one of them didn’t disinfect their bellies with rubbing alcohol afterwards. Instead what I witnessed was fat, old, gross, graybeards slobbering all over the tight stomachs of petite twenty-one year olds. The girls would put on their best fake smile, lay down on the bar top, fill their belly button with whipped cream, and stick a plastic shot glass to it. The girls probably could have put a shot of maple syrup in the glass and the customers wouldn’t even have noticed by that point; this was the closest they had been to a young woman in forty years!
After being made acutely aware of my surroundings by the spectacle before me I began to regain some stamina and felt my second wind coming. The girls behind the bar where I was sitting were hula-hooping. If there is one thing I am sure of it is that I can hula-hoop for days on end. I felt re-energized, so I informed my haggard bartender that I was in fact a better hula-hooper than everyone in this bar! She said, “you’re on,” and pulled me behind the bar were I was to face off against their best. She was tiny, tan, and smiley. All she had on were a pair of neon orange booty shorts and a Jack Daniels bandanna tied around her chest as a “shirt”. I crushed her.
I am a man. I do not have girlish hips. They do not sway, rock, or hubba hubba like lady hips do. I beat this seductress the only way I know how: by pelvic thrusting the shit out of that hula-hoop. Anyone who has been to a party at my friend Geno’s house knows about my amazing perpetual pelvic thrusting hula-hoop domination. Now this young lady knew it too. To add to her embarrassment was the indignity of her hula-hoop yanking that Jack Daniels bandanna off he chest like it was caught in a wheat thresher. It appears that I may have won twice.
Jenny was finally through doing the days books and we sat so she could eat for the first time since 6am. Three different reality TV shows had managed to interview her while I was hula-hooping. There were about twenty reality TV shows being filmed on every corner at Sturgis. Jenny’s sister, who also bartends at One Eyed, had no more voice and ditched u s to recover. Her other friends she traveled with ditched us too. We didn’t make it to the Sebastion Bach show and instead wandered Sturgis very slowly. Every fifteen seconds there was another request from some gentleman for a picture of Marilyn Monroe. We’d stop, and she would put on a tired smile, *click*. Then we’d walk twenty more feet, “Hey, Marilyn, how about a photo?” She was wearing her work attire.
I had no ride home. This meant that I was the luckiest boy in the whole wide world! Jenny put me on the back of her V-Star motorcycle and gave me a ride to the canyon. We’d pull up at a stoplight where there would be all these old guys on their $50,000 choppers with nothing but a little tractor seat where they sat all alone looking tough and mean. Meanwhile, I am on the back of a Japanese v-twin gabbing on to the hottest chick in town. Big, tough, biker man was instantly jealous and I was beaming like an idiot. It was in this moment that I realized that men have been doing it all wrong for 80 years–the girls should do the driving!
The drive out to the canyon was chilly and Jenny did not have much on. I literally gave her the shirt off my back for the return ride back to Sturgis. Jenny, if you’re reading this, send my shirt to me anytime you’d like. I look really good in that one, you know.
Wednesday was… did we do anything on Wednesday? Uhh… We went to the Rec center pool, puttered around Deadwood, and went to The Saloon No. 10 where we got a late dinner with our tiny friend Robyn at “The Social Club” upstairs. As we sat at the bar munching on flatbread pizza-type things Jesse’s cousin Troy brought over a disgusting bottle of white zinfandel and asked if we wanted it. No we did not. He opened it anyway.
Apparently there were two tables outside who were trying to outdo each other by purchasing more worse and worse drinks for the other table. The white zinfandel had won the contest and no one wanted it. Somehow the three of us ended up with it. I don’t drink, Robyn was done drinking as she was “fuckered”, so that left Jesse as the champ stuck with an entire bottle of sugary headache.
She sat starring at the sip of migraine poured into the glass before her with a disgusted raised lip. A suave gentleman with perfect young-gray hair in an expensive suit made the mistake of coming to the bar and striking up a conversation with us. He incredulously asked Jesse if she was drinking that entire bottle herself. This gave us the opportunity to try and get rid of some of this liquid garbage.
Jesse tried the hard sell, “This is a lovely bottle of Black Pine Vinyards white zinfadel.” She stroked the bottle. “Would you like to try a glass?”
He wasn’t biting. After a couple of jokes he returned to his table behind us. I then just grabbed the bottle and got a couple of glasses from the bartender and walked over to the man and his guests and plopped the whole setup in front of them. The man, named Pete, is the gaming director at Cadillac Jack’s, a casino down the road. His two guests happened to be Penthouse Pets; Ms. January: Jenna Rose, and Ms. June: Alexis Ford. Jenna loved the wine–then again, she is only 21 and probably likes anything that has alcohol in it.
The Penthouse Pets raved over Jesse’s wild big hair and caressed it while I tried to be hilarious and memorable. I had never met Penthouse models before, I figured my best bet was to treat them like normal people.
Pete was entertained by us and told us to swing by Cadillac Jack’s and he would buy us drinks. We agreed. Downstairs the cover band was at it again and they played Nickelback, again. Gross.
Thursday Jesse and I made a noon-time stop at Cadillac Jack’s to take Pete up on his offer but we saw him leaving in his Mercedes just as we were getting out of the car. Some other time then. we went inside the casino anyway to see what was going on. Inside sat our two new pornographic friends from the evening before. They were at a table signing photographs so we strolled on up and shot the breeze with them. I asked how the rest of their evening went and they thanked us again for the wine. They really liked it and were genuinely grateful that we gave it to them. Go figure. They each signed a photo for me.
Jenna wrote:
“Houston, you are so fuckin’ SEXY! 😉 / P.S thanks 4 the wine! 😉 / XOXO, / -Jenna Rose”
Alexis wrote:
“Houston / Blow a big load for me / Thanks for the wine at Saloon 10 / *heart sign* Alexis Ford”
Penthouse Pets are hilarious, who knew?
We headed back to our usual joint, The Saloon No. 10, where Jesse’s beautiful cousins Micheala and Charlie were signing their rally posters for charity. I had them sign my poster as follows:
“Erik, Aren, Dave & Lars are weak little girly men who are not man enough to stay for all of Rally! Houston is so much better!
*heart sign* Micheala and Charlie”
I am in love.
Inside we had some drinks with Wild Bill Hickock. Our friend Travis is literally the face of Deadwood. He plays the legendary lawman Wild Bill Hickcock in all the reinactments around town and gets paid to be shot in the back of the head twice a day. Rally is Travis’ week off and he has shaved off his required mustache for the first time in a long time. Travis has been invited backstage to that evening’s Jakyl show at the Full Throttle because he was featured on the Full Throttle’s reality TV show earlier in the week. I am jealous, but will be seeing Jakyl too! Or so I thought.
Jesse couldn’t make the show so I drove out to Sturgis to pick up Jenny, her sister, and anyone else who wants to go see a band that has chainsaw solos in their songs. I didn’t know where the ladies were staying so I had to wait to hear from them as to where to pick them up. Hours passed. I played a lot of solitaire on my phone. I got a text reply that just said, “11 miles.” What the hell does that mean?
Later I receive a text that says, “in the shops.” Que?
I wander Sturgis looking through the shops trying to find the prettiest needle in the haystack. I lose this game. By the time my frustration go the better of me it was midnight and I went back to the canyon. I missed Jakyl *sad face*.
The next morning I get a flood of texts from Jenny. She was already at the Full throttle the entire time and didn’t need the ride. So lame! The previous evening’s confusion started to make a whole lot of sense as I got a plethora of communique that had been digitally sent fourteen hours before, but the series of tubes that guide our lives decided not to pass them on to me until it was far too late.
That afternoon Jesse, Travis, and I went driving deep into the Black Hills. We grabbed burgers at the 100 year old Moonshine Gulch Saloon in Rochford. We dirt roaded to Hill City for drinks and a great southern rock cover band. We then headed back North and were stopped by an insane hail storm. The hail pounded the car for half an hour with stones the size of quarters. Motorcyclists were cowering under trees as several inches of hail covered the ground in places. I put my hand out the window. That was stupid; it hurt a lot.
After the hail moved on we continued our return to Deadwood for a second lunch at The Saloon No. 10. We made plans for going into Sturgis that night to whoop it up and gathered Jesse’s friend Lori who works the casino cage at The 10. The four of us made a go of it and moseyed into the Loud American Bar where we saw an awesome bad named “Judd Hoos”. The lead singer had pipes. The lead guitarist, who I am pretty sure was 15, shredded. Good times.
A swing through One Eyed Jack’s meant Travis was now to the point where he could belt the lyrics to every hair band song that blared on the loudspeaker. Behind one of the bars stood this plump middle-aged bartender who seemed totally out of place among the young skin that were the regular employees. There is a reason for this. It is because she is sofa king awesome!
These geezers would come behind the bar and she would just humilate and abuse them. They’ed get smart and she would put them in had cuffs and dunk them in the jockey box full of ice water and beer. She had the strength to pick these dudes up like t’weren’t no thang. She would rip their shirts off and paint effete and humiliating things on their chests. She would squirt whip cream on her boobs and set shots in her cleavage and wouldn’t let them have their shot until she was satisfied. I want this woman as part of my posse wherever I go from now on!
We returned to The Dungeon Bar when I heard from Jenny and her sister so I left Jesse, Travis, and Lori to go gather the temptresses. I found them in a vendor tent purchasing special insoles for their tired feet. We walked a few blocks and met up with the others at Easyriders Saloon and got a late dinner. The dinner of champions; fried pickles, fried cheese curds, and cheesecake (when I got back to Seattle my mother’s first comment to me when I saw her was, “you look like you’ve lost weight.” I don’t know how I do it).
The drive back to Deadwood to offload Travis and Lori was hilarious. Travis was completely overserved and was just being randy. He kept telling me to drift the corners so he could innocently fall into Lori’s cleavage. I heard no words from Lori the entire drive, just belly laughs. As we came into Deadwood I got pulled over by South Dakota’s finest. The breaklight was out. This was Jesse’s car so it was Jesse’s fault we got pulled over. Officer friendly had me leave my car and sit in his passenger seat while he wrote me a warning. I think he and his partner were very disappointed in me. They pulled us over and smelled booze just pour out of the car when I rolled down the window and they probably though, “jackpot.” Sorry to rain on your parade, fellas, but I am a designated driver doing the right thing driving my intoxicated friends home.
That night back at the lodge the Thunder, wind and lightning was intense and I slept hard.
The trip is close to recounted. Until next time!
