TXTNLY

Sky’s Place was a special bar in my college town. It was special because it was in the basement lounge of a sleazy 70’s era motel. It was special because the carpet and walls were still the unique shade of maroon-red that was so familiar to the dark side of the disco era. It was special because it didn’t even have its own restrooms and you were forced to stumble through the brightly lit reception area a half dozen times a night. It was also special because it was the easiest bar in town to get into and every freshman that would fit was there. The doors were naugahyde, and  the windows were frosted by 20 years of dust and cigarette smoke.  There was an old jukebox that had Motley Crue, Skid Row, Guns N’ Roses, any probably more; but who knew because only those three were ever played.

After a few months of burning tuition one $4 pitcher at a time, I had gotten to know the staff pretty well. One night that they were down a man, they asked me to fill in at the door. After finding out that staff drinks for half price, I could not have been more up for the job. I think it’s safe to say that the staff were usually the drunkest people in the bar each night. On the nights that we weren’t, it was because Sky was around. Sky was a big dude. NFL big. About 6′9″ and 350 lbs. And seriously, NFL big. He played for Detroit and Buffalo in the pro’s. You tried not to piss him off.

Fortunately, Sky didn’t hang out too late and the staff would be able to resume festivities in short order. We were well known for running a late-night, so we took comfort in knowing that there would plenty of play time after the boss man left.

There are many stories I could tell about Sky’s, but sadly this one focuses on the events that brought an end to its’ era. It occurred at the end of January, 1999. The Falcons were in the Super Bowl, and Sky had tickets. He left us in charge of the bar, but seemed to be a bit hesitant.

It was just a regular weekend night. The staff had a pretty solid buzz working before the first customer walked through the door. Skid Row, The Crue, and GnR were playing their standard rotation on the jukebox. Most of the employees could be found huddled around the Adult PhotoHunt game at the end of the bar. One of the bartenders was showing off a new trick to light cigarettes for bar patrons. It was simple enough, you peel one match back from the matchbook and wrap it back around so that the head was on the striking surface. With a quick flick of the thumb and forefinger, the matchbook would slide across the bar, coming to rest with a single match standing up aflame. We were pushing cigarettes on hot girls all night long vying for a chance to show off our new trick.

The night wore on, and everyones’ intoxication levels reached new highs as Sky was guaranteed not to show up. 2AM (closing time) came and went, and the naugahyde doors just barely slowed the influx of drinkers. One regular patron was especially drunk and attempting to broker deals to make his drinking future more lucrative. As the time neared 4AM, we were confident that he wouldn’t remember any of this the next day, so we were willing to negotiate. The final agreement was that he would strip down to his boxers and dance the ‘Dirty Bird’ 25 laps around the bar, and in return he could drink for free for the rest of his life. We volunteered to keep count. For those of you that aren’t familiar with the Dirty Bird, it basically consists of flapping your arms and high stepping around a lot. Add blinding drunkeness, subtract everything but underwear, and you’ve got quite a spectacle for the crowd.

4AM found us with a full bar, Skid Row blasting ‘Youth Gone Wild’ at deafening volume, and a pale undergrad stumbling the Dirty Bird in laps around the crowd. We needed a finale. You could feel it in the air. Thankfully, the guy that taught us the matchbook trick, Zach,  had something else up his sleeve.  So, he grabbed a handle of Golden Grain, tossed the cap in the trash, and emptied its contents along the length of the bar. As Zach stepped back, we all knew what would come next. He took a matchbook, folded one back, and motioned for the stragglers to get clear of the bar.

As the matchbook sailed through the air, time slowed to a crawl. The only set of eyes that weren’t locked onto that match belonged to the dirty bird dancer, who was on his 40th or 50th lap. We didn’t know. We had stopped counting almost as soon as he started. As the dancer crossed in front of the naugahyde doors, they burst open; and through them poured what seemed like 20 police officers in riot gear. They didn’t even have time to finish screaming, ‘POLICE!’, before the bar erupted into flames. The situation instantly dissolved into mayhem. Underage kids started a rush for the door, dirty dancer just stopped and stood in underwear and awe. Flames licked the ceiling, and Skid Row wasn’t showing any signs of letting up.

Fight or Flight engaged itself, and I reacted accordingly. I ran like hell. I fled for the kitchen, and jumped into the ice maker. I spent about an hour in that ice maker. I could still hear the mumblings of the police and the bar staff just outside the kitchen. The only thing to punctuate my time in the icemaker was occasionally being pelted in the face as it ejected freshly made ice cubes. Still, it seemed like a pretty good alternative to jail. When I finally cracked the door on the ice maker, all the lights were off. I slunk out of the kitchen and through the doors to freedom.

It was a month or so before I ran into one of the other bartenders. Essentially, he said that Sky was pretty unhappy with the stack of fines awaiting him when he returned from the Super Bowl. He shut the doors of Sky’s Place right then and there. He did have one other bar in town, and I knew that I wasn’t welcome there. In fact, I pretty much spent the rest of my college career avoiding Sky. Fortunately, there was no shortage of drinking holes in my college town; so it never negatively impacted my habit. Much in the same way that Travis knew that he had to be the one to shoot Old Yeller, I took some solace in knowing that I was part of the ‘closing crew’ for Sky’s Place. To abuse the cliche, it was better to see Sky’s Place go out with a bang than to watch it slowly die at the hands of a fickle college drinking crowd.