The Night Bobby OD’d & Almost Burned Down the Bar

Another true story from the rip-roaring 90s

Saturday Night Teaser

“Hello, Bobby?”

“What.”

“Front desk calling.”

“Who?”

“This is your wake up call...”

That was our running joke. Bobby was chronically late for his weekend shifts, and rather than fire him for it, as I did so many others, I accommodated him to the point of calling him at home minutes before he was supposed to be at his station and ready to go. A former high school football star and now neighborhood celebrity dance club bartender, Bobby was handsome, built, and a terrific draw.

Treating him special made me feel special. His immaturity and lack of professionalism mirrored my own. I wasn’t just tolerating his behavior, I was rewarding it. That arrangement worked great right up until the night it nearly led to catastrophe.

His chronic tardiness was actually the least of my worries. During several prior shifts I noticed that he almost passed out at his station. The culprit: GHB, chemical name gamma-hydroxybutyrate, a central nervous system depressant ingested by body builders and ravers — until combined with alcohol, when the relaxing euphoria could lurch into blackouts, respiratory collapse, and sometimes even death.

“Stop with the G,” I’d repeat to Bobby at the start and end of every shift, assuming he like so many others dosed water bottles with the poison.

“What are you talking about?” he’d smile, wink, and play ignorant, knowing that I knew while also knowing that nothing I said was enforceable.

As an enabler, hypocrite, and passive-aggressive mess I was your typical bar manager. Arguably I broke a few of those norms by running the business efficiently, and having a gut sense for when my staff was ripping me off. The 90s club scene in Chicago was by any stretch over-the-top. Overdoses I’d been handling for months, alongside rampant theft, police raids, brutal fights, public sex, broken plumbing, AWOL DJs, and every variety of nightclub disaster. I’d even been assaulted more than once, including taking a full pint glass to the side of the head that exploded across my face.

Crazy had long ago stopped feeling crazy and became just another Saturday night — which is why what happened next freaked me out.

Small business owners and managers develop a “spidey sense” for trouble. With hundreds of intoxicated patrons acting wild in the club on a Saturday night, I instinctively knew wherever trouble was brewing, often getting there before it even began, or right at the trigger point.

That’s why I saw the whole thing happen, as if in slow motion: Bobby was dancing between mixing drinks as he usually did, then doing a shot with his right hand, simultaneously hurling an open bottle of water into the air with another. The momentum sent its contents cascading in a broad arc across the dance floor, the tip of the fountain of course splashing right into the big screen projector mounted on the ceiling above the dance floor.

The resulting electrical fire was immediate as sparks flew, the device caught on fire, flames flickering into the combustible ceiling insulation, spreading fast. The dance floor was packed. Almost none of the patrons noticed, and of those who did they cheered as the flames took hold. Bobby didn’t notice, either, because when I glanced back at his bar seconds later he had vanished.

I rushed to his bar, looked behind it, and saw him crashed on the filthy rubber matting. The two other bartenders in the stations on either side of him were still flirting with customers and mixing drinks, nodding in my direction and already talking shit as if all this were my fault.

They were, of course, correct, but that didn’t help. The projector had short circuited, the porno playing on the opposite brick wall went dark, and the ceiling fire was spreading. Moment of truth: Do the professional thing and turn the house lights on and evacuate the bar, or do the far riskier, grievously irresponsible yet most fiscally hopeful thing and try to put the fire out ourselves, then act like nothing happened?

Bobby, regardless of his medical condition, would have to wait. I got onto the walkie-talkie and summoned the barback, Matt, a tall and lanky lad from Kansas or Oklahoma or wherever, and who at the time was downstairs in a cooler, hauling up another case of beer.

“Matt, do you copy?”

Crackle, crackle.

“Yes.”

“Stop what you’re doing, grab the step ladder and fire extinguisher from the back closet, plow your way through the dance floor, and meet me in front of Bobby’s bar ASAP!”

Crackle, crackle.

“What?”

Crackle, crackle.

“Go!”

Waiting for Fireman Matt and his ladder, I had a few seconds to see if Bobby was still alive, and if so, get him into the basement pronto.

“Tony,” I called out to the bartender on my right. “We need to get Bobby downstairs.”

“What about my regulars?” he asked, his nightly ring — or more accurately, the high percentage of which he stole — top of his mind.

“Does Bobby have a pulse?” I asked, considering this relevant at the time.

“I think he’s still breathing…” nodded Tony, who on-again off-again dated Bobby, so I couldn’t tell how he felt about that information.

“Barney,” I called out to the bartender on my left. “Can you cover all three stations?”

By the time Matt showed with the ladder and extinguisher, Tony was carrying Bobby on his shoulders across the dancefloor toward the basement door, patrons cheering. Given their on-again, off-again relationship, this was arguably the most affection Tony had shown him in months. It helped that both men were built like refrigerators.

Bobby taken care of, at least for now, my attention turned back to the major crisis at hand, the bar being on fire. Matt, a recent college graduate and arguably the most formally educated of the staff, performed a rapid and accurate situational assessment.

“Let me get this straight — ” he said, pointing to the burning projector and spreading flames.

“Yes,” I interrupted him. “Prop the ladder beneath the projector and climb up there. I’ll pass you the fire extinguisher, and then you blast-away.”

“You sure?”

“Go!”

By this point the smoke was thick, blending seamlessly with the fog machine output and the blurred vision of our patrons, who continued dancing as if nothing out of the ordinary was happening.

The next fifteen seconds were critical. Either Matt would put the fire out, or I’d have to pull the ripcord: house lights on, DJ off, club evacuated, 911 called. The owner would absolutely lose his shit, and I’d have more hell to pay than Bobby — assuming he survived the night.

“Nice work!” I shouted as Matt let the flame retardant foam loose, covering the projector and rapidly spritzing the surrounding ceiling. “A bit more to the right… That’s it… Up a bit… Over…”

“Shut up!” shouted Matt, sneering at me. “I got this!”

Sure enough, he did. The dance floor finally took notice and erupted in applause as the last of the flames was squelched, smoke pouring from the gaping wounds in the ceiling, the projector a smoldering husk.

I high-fived Matt as he leaped off the last rung of the ladder, folded it back up, and still carrying the now empty fire extinguisher, returned to the back closet to stow them away.

“Mookie!” shouted a patron. “You did it!”

“The show must go on,” I bowed, already headed downstairs to deal with Existential Problem of the Night Number Two: Bobby.

That’s My Money, Honey!

I found Bobby sprawled on the concrete basement floor, Terry our transgender coatcheck girl fanning him with a tattered copy of that week’s Gab magazine, the gay ghetto’s gossip rag.

“I think he’s still alive,” she said, shaking her head. “You boys never know when to stop. How many times have I told you that shit’s gonna kill ya?”

I checked his pulse to make sure, then licked one of my fingers and put it close to his mouth, feeling then timing his breathing.

“Didn’t I just tell you that I think he’s still alive?” snapped Terry, meaning it.

“You did, girl,” I nodded. “But as the manager I gotta double-check.”

“You go, boyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy,” she said, puckering her lips, filing her nails.

The bar not burned down, Bobby still alive, all was not back to being right with the world yet.

“Matt, do you copy?”

Crackle, crackle.

“What?”

“Bring me Bobby’s register drawer and tip jar, please.”

Crackle, crackle.

As I unlocked my office door — more like an unfinished storage room with a sheet of particle board padlocked to a frame of two-by-fours — I glanced over at a print-out someone had stuck to an adjacent mirror the day I got promoted to manager:

DOESN’T PLAY WELL WITH OTHERS

Matt arrived with the drawer and jar about the same time Bobby stood and shambled toward them, likely not a coincidence. The bills in both were soaked through with booze, sweat, water, and who knew what else.

“Chill, Bobby,” I said, trying to sit him down in a folding chair.

“Ack!” he replied, looking and sounding like Bill the Cat from Bloom County. “Ptptptpt!”

In retrospect, I became impressed by Bobby’s superhuman effort to claw his way out of a GHB overdose for one overriding purpose: making sure nobody touched his money. He had been bartending for only about ninety minutes before O.D.ing, giving me a snapshot of that moment in time. His register drawer contained $238, and his tip jar $745.

A few days later, just before one of his weekday shifts, Bobby showed up on time. I asked him to come down to the office before stocking his bar.

“Have a seat, Bobby,” I gestured.

“Want a bump of meth?” he asked, sensing trouble was brewing and trying to get on my good side.

“Let’s spend a few minutes discussing your performance from Saturday night,” I began.

“OK,” he said, blushing like a little girl despite his 27" biceps.

“You do G during your shift after I told you a million times not to do G during your shift.”

“Mookie, I — ”

“Then you toss a bottle of water in the air, which sets the big screen projector on fire.”

“Mookie, you — ”

“Which sets the ceiling of the bar on fire.”

Silence.

“Which almost burns the whole bar down.”

Silence.

“Then you O.D.”

Silence.

“Now if that wouldn’t be bad enough, I got to see what was in your drawer, and what was in your tip jar. And then I ran the register tape. Jesus.”

Pause.

“I know, I fucked up. I promise not to do any more G, alright?”

“You rang up about fifty bucks worth of drinks, Bobby,” I said, still stunned. “Had five times that in your drawer, and fifteen times that in your tip jar.”

“I know, I was fucked up. I promise, I’ll be good from now on, cool?”

“You’re fired, Bobby.”

“What?!”

“How can I do anything else but can your ass? You almost burned the joint down, overdosed, and ripped the place off. What could have been worse?”

If all that wouldn’t have been astonishing enough, the coup de grace shocker came next: Bobby started crying.

I gave him a tissue.

Managers never know how people are going to react when they’re fired. A skinny barback once tried to beat me up. Another disgruntled employee chased me around the bar with a fire extinguisher. But a Schwarzenegger-sized, Dudley Do-Right handsome bartender bursting into tears?

Now that was a surprise.