Today's Blind Items - Oh, We Are Going To Party

It was a chance thing. A coincidence. Are those two, the same thing? I think of chance being more magical than a coincidence. The magical does not necessarily have to be good however. Anyway, I had not seen this actor in about a decade at this point. Then, one Friday night we literally ran into each other in a Vegas hotel lobby. Hugs were exchanged and then he showed me that he is in massively better shape than me and proceeded to remind me of it for the next three hours. The smiles and hugs were genuine. We might not go looking for each other, but when we see each other we have that bond that can only be shared with a few other people from our past.

It was back in the day. He was a friend of a friend. It was midnight and we were on the grounds of a miniature golf course. The golf course was the site of a weekly contest. A handful of us would get together and drink beer and play golf for $20 a hole. That was a ton of money to me at the time. It was a ton of money to everyone who played except for the guy who brought the future actor. The guy who brought the actor was a friend of mine. Not a great friend, but a friend. He was always willing to gamble at anytime and anyplace. In the years since, I don't know what happened to him and the actor doesn't either. They lost touch years ago after the person that introduced us asked for money one too many times.

Anyway, there we were. Playing for more money than any of us wanted to play for. We did so because it made everyone treat it more seriously. We had fun, but everyone wanted to win. I usually ended up breaking even. I never won. Once or twice I ended up losing $40 or $60.  After we played, someone had the key to inside the building and we would drink more and play video games for free.

It was the third or fourth time the actor played that summer with us that a group of guys in a big pickup truck pulled into the parking lot. Confederate flag flying, they would have been more at home at a KKK rally. Did I mention our future actor is African American? And the friend that introduced us. There were two other guys besides myself who were also there and white. We had all been walking out to our cars when the group pulled in and started doing donuts in the parking lot which kept us from getting to our cars. Even if we could have managed to get to them, there was no way we could have driven off.

They stopped doing donuts and when they got out of the truck, there were 7 or 8 of them. I knew we were out numbered. Two of them had some tire chains. This whole scene was so unreal. Surreal? This stuff happened in movies, and not in a parking lot of a batting cage/golf course/video arcade place. It turns out this was not a random thing. The guy who introduced me to the future actor had won some bets from the guys and they were not good losers. They told me and the other two white guys we could leave. Nope. It doesn't work that way. None of us were going to leave our friends. I was just wondering how badly I was going to be beaten. Tire chains would probably leave a mark. I remember that I wanted one of the guys who didn't have a tire chain. I think we all did. When the guys from the truck came charging, the guys with the tire chains were left alone because we all went after the others. I fully expected to get a tire chain in the back or back of the head. It didn't happen. About five minutes into this melee, a police car pulled into the parking lot and turned on its lights and sirens.

The first thing the policeman saw were the guys holding the tire chains. He told them to put them down and to get down on their knees. He called for backup. There were no partners in cars at that time. Before his backup got there, he pretty much had the whole story. No one was going to get in trouble for the fight. There was barely any blood, and even if there had been, no one was going to get in trouble unless the chains had been used. The guy who introduced me to our actor did have a warrant out for his arrest though and ended up going to jail.

This posed a problem for the future A+ list mostly movie actor because the guy was his ride and he lived about an hour away from where we were. No worries. I took him back to my place. Even though he only lived an hour away, that world an hour away was integrated in name only. I guess that is why the bond never goes away. As much as he thought we might be friends, I don't think he expected me or the other guys to not only stick up for him but to fight for him. Then, to invite him to spend the night and what actually turned out to be three nights.

After that encounter in the parking lot, one thing that did happen is that the late night use of the facilities was off limits. No more gambling or free video games. Our actor, who is an Academy Award winner/nominee, I didn't see for several years afterwards. It was a one night thing we had planned on a Halloween night. After that, it was probably six years before we saw each other again. That night was just because of some mutual friends of his that he worked with on a television show and some mutual friends of me. The person in the middle was an actress and a movie premiere. It would not be until Vegas that we would see each other again and like he said, we definitely had a party. You can read about it tomorrow.