"I already paid for this one," hollers the man with the gray mustache. He's clutching a fresh longneck of Coors Light in his left hand. He slams his clenched right fist on the counter to get the bartender's attention. "I paid for it, I'm sure of it," he repeats.
I stroll past him cautiously, take a seat at the bar and survey the room. It's crowded and low-ceilinged and reeks of decades-old cigarette smoke, spilled hooch and human grease. My eyes burn. A neon red light casts a bordello glow on the bar.
"If I Could Turn Back Time" blasts from the jukebox the moment Gray Mustache pounds his fist. It's 9:30 p.m. on a freezing cold Sunday night at Big Kahuna's, a biker bar on Gandy Boulevard. Cheap motels, the dog track and a titty bar lurk nearby. A late-model Mustang and a couple of two-wheelers are parked outside. I know this style of joint, I think to myself, know how to behave, but there's a weird twist. Everybody in the bar bobs his or her head to the Cher tune. Cher? At a biker bar? What the hell is going on?
Gray Mustache turns to the fellow next to him and starts again:
"I already paid —
"All right, all right," counters the blonde bartender. The woman is built like a roller derby queen. She takes no shit. Gray Mustache probably runs this routine every night. The second verse of the Cher anthem kicks in, and I gaze across the room at a gal who looks like Scary Spice. She shakes her ass and lifts her arms over her head, revealing a flash of midriff. I try my best not to stare. This isn't the kind of setting where you want to get caught gawking at someone else's woman. Scary Spice plays a virtual bowling game with four other 20-somethings who look like they just finished a shift at the nearby Bennigan's or at one of the motels on Gandy.
I order a bottle of Bud and give the bartender $4 on a charge of $2.75. She smiles. I tip big at biker bars. "Turn Back Time" gives way to Patsy Cline: "Crazy, I'm crazy for feeling so lonely." Scary Spice slow dances/grinds with a dude in a backwards ball cap. Six people sit at a card table playing Texas Hold 'Em. Sunday is poker night at Kahuna's, I learn from a hand-scrawled sign. A flier on the bar announces: "Annual Spring Nike Bash! Sunday, April 1, 1-7 PM … Raffles … Wet-T-Shirt Contest."
"He doesn't have to," Gray Mustache says, yanking on the jacket of the man seated next to him. The other man nods reluctantly.
"Hello, I love you, won't you tell me your name," bellows Jim Morrison.
Gray Mustache hangs his head, takes another pull from his beer. "It doesn't matter," he concludes. Gnarls Barkley comes on after The Doors. "Does that make me crazy? Does that make me crazy?"
A blonde in a black leather coat walks in the door and makes her way to the empty barstool next to me. Deep furrows line a face that was probably pretty in 1988. She orders a white zin and is served from the bottom of a giant jug. There's a decent-sized rock on her left hand and a cast on the same wrist. I am waiting for her man, probably a hulk who married her back in '88, to arrive any moment.
He doesn't. Elton John's "Tiny Dancer" fills the room. A fellow with no hair on his head, glasses and a NASCAR bowling shirt braves her company. The music is too loud to catch his opening salvo, but it has something to do with her injury.
"The tendons on the left hand they come up, you see," he says with all the confidence of a seasoned surgeon. "The way that looks they must be damaged or something."
No Doubt's "Don't Speak" starts playing, and I wonder if the woman with the bad wrist is thinking the same thing. NASCAR man has a mug of Amber Bock in his hand. The woman orders a second white zin. This time it comes from a freshly uncorked bottle.
"I like wine, but I'm pretty much a beer guy," he says. "I have whiskey once in a while but not too often (ha, ha) because it makes me crazy (ha, ha)."
She laughs politely. Maybe NASCAR man has a chance. Or perhaps her biker husband will walk in and stomp him any second. Who knows?
Gray Mustache slams his hand on the counter again. "I think it's time for us to leave."
Sounds like good advice. I choke down the rest of my second Bud and make my way through the exit.
Big Kahuna's, 10515 Gandy Blvd., St. Petersburg, 727-576-7800.
Know a good bar? Have a favorite dive? Wade Tatangelo and Bar Tab will be barhopping Tampa Bay on a regular basis. Tell him where to go at wade@cln.com.
This article appears in Feb 21-27, 2007.