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Sean & John Get Pulled Over...

Sunday, 04 September 2011 03:00

WARNING: This story may have been embellished slightly.

By Warren Peece

Sean is the guy with the tattoos and a loud Peter Griffin sense of humor. He got into sport belching when he was in junior college back in the Reagan era, but hasn't done much of that lately; certainly not in the last few weeks, anyway. He loves women but hates marriage. He's not very good at it. He has a child or two that he hasn't met.

John is Sean's friend. He's a quiet guy, except during hockey season, and looks like he may have played football in high school. He has two kids, both of whom he knows well. They live with him and the family dog, a slobbery Mastiff named Slap Shot, in a double-wide outside of Faribault....

On July 30, Sean and John were busy erecting the venue for tomorrow's Waseca Triathlon. They were zipping around in Mark Bongers' golf cart; John was laying timing mats and doing laptop stuff; Sean was stringing pennant line, zip-tying banners and constructing bike racks.

At 10 pm, their work was finished and both men complained of excessive thirst, the kind that only copious quantities of weak-ass, urine-yellow American lager can slake.

The race venue is only a few blocks from The Boathouse, an atmospheric bar/restaurant on the south shore of Clear Lake. The burgers and wings aren't much to write home about but the beer is cold and you can get breakfast at any time during business hours, which, to the chagrin of Sean and John, did not extend beyond 10 PM.

Sean was getting the shakes and worried that the DTs would be next. John had an idea.

Moments later the fellas were heading for downtown Waseca in their boss' golf cart, a vintage Cushman.

Taking the back streets (2nd Avenue NW west to 2nd Street), they arrived in the rear parking lot at The Boxcar at 10:40. The guys discovered this particular watering hole in 2009, the first year of the Waseca 1/3 and Sprint Triathlons, and have made a point of returning each year.

Like most small town bars, the Boxcar was dark, smoky and smelled of stale beer, B.O. and fryer grease. Orbison's "Only the Lonely" poured from the Seeburg in the corner. Sean's and John's kind of place.

"Gimme a Curz Light, Darlin'," Sean said in the direction of Myrt, the bartenderess. A sturdy woman in her fifties, Myrtle Kammeltowski had multiple tattoos, hair a blazing shade of red not found in nature, and wore a black Harley Davidson wife-beater t-shirt and disturbingly tight jeans. Her make-up appeared to have been applied with a trowel and a Salem dangled precariously from her lower lip. She'd been the night manager here since she dropped out of beauty school in '81.

"You, too?" she asked John.

"Yup."

She pulled two frothy shells of Coors Light and placed them in front of the men. She snatched a five-spot off the pile of bills that Sean had placed on the bar a moment earlier. She returned seconds later with a single, which she dropped onto the stack.

"You plannin' to burp tonight?" Myrt asked through a sly grin. She had obviously enjoyed Sean's 2010 esophageal performance.

"We'll see," Sean replied with a wink.

Over the next few hours, Sean, John and Myrt talked about Bluejay hockey, bikes (the kind with motors), the slumping Twins, tattoos and how any sandwich can be enhanced by the addition of bacon. Important stuff like that. Myrt flirted with John, hoping that he'd go home with her at 2 AM. Sean crashed at her place last year.

At 1:30, Myrt belched malodorously at Sean. The tattooed man's nostrils flared. He turned from the fetor, noticing the empty space where his stack of cash used to be. There were only a dozen or so patrons in the place and every one of them was as drunk as he was.

Smiling diabolically, Sean and John nodded at each other. Sean dropped off his stool, turned and gazed into the smoky expanse.

Amid thunderous applause, the two men stumbled out of The Boxcar. The countless Coors Lights and the half dozen pickled eggs that Sean had consumed over the last three hours had created a serious buildup of esophageal gas. Every impaired patron in the barroom had miraculously managed to stand at attention, some even placing a hand in the area of their respective hearts, as Sean expertly burped out the Star Spangled Banner.

It was beautiful. The man has a gift.

On 2nd Avenue heading east, John tried to keep the Cushman between the sidewalks. It wasn't easy. The cart swerved drunkenly, an extension of its driver's impairment. Luckily, there was no traffic at this time of night. Morning, actually.

A moment later, that changed. Alcohol-induced hypersensitivity to sound and light caused Sean and John to groan in unison, then cover their ears with their hands and shut their eyes. Somehow, John had managed to hit the brakes before he performed these gesticulations.

Twin gumball machines twirled, sending out curvy waves of blue and yellow light. And the police siren's admonishing wail filled the sultry night.

"You boys been drinkin'?" Officer Gunderson asked, his tone seething with stern cop-liness.

Sean burped loudly. It's smell answered the patrolman's question.

"Get our of the vee-hickle; both of you."

Gunderson instructed the drunkards to count backwards from 85.

By the time Sean had reached 79 (John got stuck on 82), the patrolman noticed the words "Final Stretch" stenciled on the front of the Cushman.

"Hey, are you the boys that put on that tryatherlon?" Gunderson's tone had changed. A 180. He stuffed his ticket book in his back pocket.

"Yes sir," John managed before he vomited.

"Let's get you back to the park."

Followed by Gunderson's prowler, Sean slowly drove his sick friend back to Clear Lake Park.

"Get some sleep, boys," Gunderson said as the inebriates crawled into their tent next to the transition area. "See ya tomorrah at six."

"You working the race, Oraficer?" Sean slurred.

"Yep. I got Deerfield and 18."

Sean became pensive. "The 24 mile mark on the bike course?"

"That's the one. I controlled that intersection last year, too."

"Sounds like you enjoy helping us put on the race." John was already snoring.

"Sure do. It's sure-as-hell more fun than writing tickets and busting drunks," Gunderson smiled. "And I get time and a half."