Chapter 21 Incahoot's, 51st and Memorial

Incahoot's was at the time one of the most popular nightclubs in Tulsa. It was at the mall at 51st and Memorial. I lived in Bartlesville at the time and hated to go to Tulsa to go out, then drive home after drinking. The drive was a killer. This was before US 75 had been turned into 4 lane. I had a co-worker who suffered severe head injuries and his wife was decapitated in a head collision on one of the Verdigris River bridges. Nasty stuff. Anyway, I decided to apply for a job as a bouncer at the club so I could party for free and not drive home drunk. I got the job and worked Friday and Saturday nights. My partner at the door was a very affable former Marine. I can't remember his name but he was a great guy, and I trusted him implicitly. We were pretty much alike, clean cut, not into drugs; we'd rather have a beer than a line of coke. Line's of coke were readily available. There were usually parties after hours for the restaurant and club workers. I remember one at the newly opened and still under construction One Eton Square apartments. When the club closed we went on over and the host had a mirror in the bedroom with a mound of coke on it. People were lined up like it was a cafeteria waiting their turn. We looked at each other and headed for the door. It is funny how people are. I worked as a petroleum geologist by day and bounced on weekends. The patrons at the club treated you, the door men I mean, like we were invisible. I guess they felt we were below their station in life. I thought it was pretty funny since I probably earned more than 90% of the people who walked through the door. People I got to know and who got to know me were incredulous that I would work a job like that. Well, I did a lot of duck hunting on weekends during the winter anyway, so I just drove home at 3am had a few cups of coffee and went hunting. I'd come back home after lunch, sleep a few hours then drive back to Tulsa to the club, then go hunting Sunday morning again. The owner of the club was Lebanese; the manager was a nice guy about my age who had a very nice looking wife. I got to know her a year or so later when I lived at One Eton, she worked the bar at TGI Friday's. I can't say I got to know any of the other bouncers at the club, I met them, but most of them were meatheads. They caused more fights than the stopped apparently. One tall blond guy thought he was Larry Holmes. I think he spent more time down at the TPD station than at the club. I only got into one brawl. My skill was in talking the unruly patrons out of the club. I didn't threaten or bluster, I negotiated. The one exception was due to intervention by the dumb ass owner. A local who owned a gym in town, a former lineman for the Bengals, I was told, came in. I guess he was 'roided out or just a plain ass hole. Anyway he proceeds to go into the men's room and knocks all the toilet partitions down. He's hitting them like they're a blocking sled. The manager tells me to get him out of the club. Well, off I go to do it. I later find out that not one other bouncer in the club would have done it. I approach this guy on the dance floor and we have a quiet conversation. At first he isn't taking me seriously, but then agrees to leave. End of story. Not! He's walking out with his date, and the Owner; did I say he was a dumb ass? goes over to him to have the last word. I had followed him at a distance. Just as I approach he is at the grabs the owner by the shirt, did I mention the owner was a dumb ass? Shit it's no wonder the Lebanese blew the shit out of their own country. Anyway, Joe football cocks his arm ready to put his fist through the owner's face (yeah, the dumb ass owner). Without thinking I hit Joe Lineman with a shoulder tackle driving him into the wall. He grabs me by the hair. It is all I can do to hold his right arm against the wall. Luckily in the next instance, the bartenders, and DJ are on him too. We hold him against the wall and he is straining like he is on a Nautilus Peck Deck machine. I yell to slide him down the wall to the emergency exit. At the time I have his brother on my back pounding away on me until someone pulls him off. We get Mr. Dick Butkus wanna be to the door and I hit the latch bar and out on the sidewalk he goes. I slam the door and run to the front door and pull up a stainless steel rope stanchion and tell my fellow bouncer, who up till then was busy making time with a patron, to do the same. I said use it to hit the biggest guy you see come through the door. Luckily cooler heads prevailed and the got Mr. Roid Rage into a car that almost made it out of the parking lot before the police came. End of story. When I moved back to Tulsa, the Mr. Dumb Ass owner's wife who must have been in the back ground that night recognized me as a patron. She asked me if I wanted to come back to work for them. I declined. She remarked that I always prevented fights unlike the other bouncers. I like to think I also prevented her husband having to pay a very large oral and maxillary facial reconstruction surgery bill. My ego likes to think she wanted to get to know me better. Who knows, it wasn't long after that that the club changed names, several times and ultimately closed. We did have a lot of nice after hour's parties. I never kept in touch with any of the people there. Later when I lived at One Eton, I met the manager's wife. She remembered me from the club. I used to come in regularly on Friday for my version of a boiler maker, a Capt. Morgan's and a beer. She would set me up before I got to the bar stool. On numerous occasions I sat next to a guy that had more than a passing interest in her. They new each other pretty well, I'd wager. She was a sweet dish I have to say. I got more than my share of drinks on the house or two for one's. At the time I was dating my Future Ex # 2. I was driving a little red MGB convertible. I recall, after an evening of drinks going out to the car. We only had to drive to the apartment in the second row of buildings down from the clubhouse. As we drove by the glass windows at the front of the place, my Future Ex #2 turns in her seat, rises up on her knees and pulls up her top. All I could see were the mouths dropping open as the window side seats got a grand view of her perky 36 DD's as we drove by. We had been sitting at the bar all evening. I often wonder if more than a few of the guys got their wish by her little act. What surprised me was it was totally out of character for her. I sure surprised the shit out of me.