Assholes Finish First (4 page)

The entire group looked at me like I had just dropped a steamer in their shrimp platter, except one girl who laughed, so I talked to her.

FunGirl “So you’re the bullhorn guys? I heard them planning your demise this morning in Tent City.”

Tucker
“I will crush their puny rebellion. Blood alone moves the wheels of history!”

As I housed their food and hit on the cute girl, SlingBlade tried to run interference before our inevitable eviction, but one bitchy girl was quite persistent:

BitchyGirl “Your friend brought a bullhorn to Campout? I mean, who does he think he is?”

SlingBlade “You must be lucky enough to not have met Tucker.”

BitchyGirl “Why is he drinking our wine? And eating my pâté?”

SlingBlade “He has what the DSM IV refers to as Narcissistic Pesonality Disorder. Also, I believe that he is out of beer.”

I think the fact that I was flirting with her friend actually pissed her off more than me drinking the wine and eating her goose liver. She was the type who would cockblock endangered pandas at the zoo.

BitchyGirl “Can I ask you a question?”

Tucker
“If you wonder whether you’re fat, you probably are.”

BitchyGirl “Uhh… no, what I wanted to ask—”

Tucker
“Yes, you could stand to lose a few pounds.”

BitchyGirl “And you don’t think you could stand to drink less?”

Tucker
“Daddy drinks because otherwise he can’t justify having sex with you.”

BitchyGirl “Have sex with you? HA! You wish!”

Tucker
“You can pretend you aren’t into me to keep up appearances, but you know you’re moist right now.”

BitchyGirl “UGH! I could not find you more unattractive. You’re slurring your speech, you have a shirt on that is two sizes too small, is covered in mustard stains and says
FRONT LOADER
on it, you reek of cheap beer and sex, and you clearly have a drinking problem.”

Tucker
“Drinking is a problem only if you’re
not
good at it. To me, everything you listed is proof that I am
very
good at it.”

BitchyGirl “You disgust me.”

Tucker
“I will not apologize for being awesome.”

At some point we found ourselves at the Porta Potties. SlingBlade went into one, but I had to wait because the other was occupied. He came out laughing.

SlingBlade “I just dropped a deuce that could sink the Titanic.”

Tucker [
I was so in shock, I put the bullhorn down
] “You took a dump in a Porta Potty? What is wrong with you?”

SlingBlade “Alcohol has made me impervious to your attempts at shaming.”

The guy in my Porta Potty came out. As I opened the door to go in, I recoiled in terror.

Tucker
“OHH! That is AWFUL!”

He started walking away, like everything was just fine and dandy.

Tucker
“Hey you, come back here. Do you know what you just did in that bathroom?”

Guy “Yeah… I uh… sorry about that, man.”

Tucker
“Come here and smell this.”

Guy “What?”

Tucker
“DO IT NOW!”

Thus is the power and authority of the bullhorn: The guy actually walked back to the Porta Potty and took a sniff.

Guy “Yeah, so?”

Tucker [
angry astonishment
]
“Yeah, so? That smell is not
[
air quotes
]
‘just went to the bathroom.’ That is felonious assault on a toilet. You have raped my olfactory senses. Apologize.”

Guy “What?”

Tucker
“APOLOGIZE RIGHT NOW!”

Guy “OK, fine… whatever… I’m sorry.”

Had we not been drinking for 24 hours straight, and had I not conquered an entire city the night before, I don’t think I would have tried this. But the bullhorn had emboldened me:

Tucker
“Now apologize to the toilet.”

Guy “Dude, what?”

Tucker
“Repeat after me: ‘I am very sorry and greatly embarrassed that my excretory system could produce such a smell. I promise to eat more bran to prevent such things in the future. ’”

Guy “Are you nuts?”

Tucker
“I SAID DO IT!”

I was pretty much joking with the guy and fully expected him either to walk off or punch me in the face. There was no legitimate reason to obey me. I was just some drunk idiot yelling at him with a bullhorn… but he gave in and basically said it. After he left, I stood there in mild shock.

Tucker “Did I really just use the bullhorn to make a dude apologize… to a Porta Potty… for taking a smelly dump?”

SlingBlade “That thing is too powerful. It’s like the One Ring that rules them all. After Campout, we have to find a volcano and throw it in.”

Tucker “Let’s make Hate do it. He hates the bullhorn, plus he’s short like a Hobbit.”

SlingBlade “Credit can go with him. He’s a Jew, like Gollum.”

We chilled the rest of the afternoon and evening, planning how we would fuck with Tent City again that night. But this time, the nerds had come prepared. They must have had spies watching us, because before we even got to the ridge to start our second assault on Tent City, they were standing there with a Duke cop. Still drunk on alcohol and the testosterone rush of the previous night, I decided to handle this the logical way, as I was Lord Tucker Max, Tent City Conqueror:

Tucker
“What’s the problem, Officer?”

DukeCop “You need to stop using the bullhorn.”

Tucker
“What? Why?”

DukeCop “The proper response to a lawful order is not ‘Why?’ ”

Tucker “But Officer, I don’t think you understand,” [
I hold it in front of his face as if he hadn’t seen it yet
] “I have a bullhorn.”

You know that look a cop gives you when he’s so confused that he doesn’t even know how to respond? If you don’t know that look, it means you haven’t had enough fun in your life. He gave me that look.

DukeCop “You have to stop using the bullhorn for the rest of Campout.”

Tucker “Officer, I can’t stop. I am the ruler of Tent City!”

It was at this point the cop realized I wasn’t crazy or stupid, just really drunk.

DukeCop “You’re not in charge, you’re not even on the Graduate Council. I am a law enforcement officer, and I am giving you a lawful command. You can obey it, or I can arrest you and confiscate the bullhorn.”

I was not prepared for this gambit. I turned to SlingBlade:

Tucker “What do we do?”

SlingBlade “Stop using the bullhorn.”

Tucker “Isn’t there some way around this?”

SlingBlade “I don’t know. I don’t take Criminal Procedure until next semester. But I don’t think so.”

Tucker “Does it matter that he’s a campus cop and not a real cop?”

SlingBlade “We’re on Duke’s campus. He also has a Taser. Taser beats bullhorn.”

Tucker “Shit.”

On Day 1, I subjugated all of Tent City. On Day 2, I was defeated by a single rent-a-cop.

To fuck with me, SlingBlade took the bullhorn from me and addressed Tent City:

SlingBlade
“You are safe to go back to sleep. Tucker has been bested and the bullhorn problem is taken care of. I repeat, the bullhorn problem has been taken care of.”

DukeCop “Hey! That means you too. NO ONE gets to use it again. If I have to come back, you’re all getting arrested.”

As I started to go back to my RV, head hung low in shame, I could faintly hear someone yell out from deep within Tent City:

“I guess the man got beat! WOOO!”

Motherfucker. Even ten years later, it still upsets me that my reign as conquerer lasted only a single night. I had so many people left to insult and piss off.

It’s OK, though, I got the last laugh. In the intervening years, my notoriety has made it so that all those people who were there, when they tell other people where they went to school, invariably have to answer this question, “You went to Duke? Did you know Tucker Max?”

I may have lost the battle, but I won the war.

T
HE
S
EX
S
TORIES
, P
ART
2

I had a section of stories in
I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell
called “The Sex Stories.” This is how I introduced them:

“The pen may be mightier than the sword, but I have found that the vagina is stronger than both. No matter what happens to me, no matter how many girls vomit on me or shit on me or screw me over, I keep hooking up with all kinds of women, seemingly without regard for the repercussions.”

Pretty much every word of that still holds true. Here are some more of my funnier short stories that revolve around hooking up:

W
HOREDENTIFICATION

Occurred—November 2002

One night out I get drunk and meet this girl. She seems only mildly into me, so I repeatedly tell her she shouldn’t flirt with me. Of course she takes the bait, I play even more coy, the whole time we’re drinking… you know how this ends:

With us eating each other’s faces at the bar, while everyone else gets disgusted and leaves.

The rest of the night is a standard drunk blur. I wake up in my bed, sticky and sore, with her next to me. She looked QUITE A BIT better last night. I am honestly baffled as to how a woman can put on 30 pounds in one night of sleep.

I make myself some cereal and realize I can’t remember her name at all (granted, it usually doesn’t matter to me, but for some reason at the time I really wanted to get her name right). I rack my brain and genius strikes: Check her purse.

I find it on the sofa in the living room. I pull out the wallet, casually look into the side pocket, see $80, consider stealing it, but don’t. I feel like taking her money AND her soul is not cool. One or the other.

I pull out her license. Her name is Stacey. Never would have guessed Stacey. Weight, 110? Yeah. During the Reagan administration. And goddamn, she kinda looks hot here. She’s the first person I’ve ever met who looks
better
in her driver’s license picture.

I put the wallet back in her purse and go back to eating my cereal and watching Springer. She eventually comes out of my room, looking like she got run over by the cum truck.

Tucker “Clearly
Sleeping Beauty
isn’t your favorite fairy tale.”

Stacey “You were funnier last night.”

Tucker “Well, Stacey, that is one of the main reasons people drink.”

Stacey “What? Who is Stacey?”

Tucker “Uhhh… that would be you. Stacey.”

Stacey “My name is NOT Stacey!”

Tucker “OK… and my name isn’t Tucker Max.”

Stacey “Uhhh… Yes, it is. You showed me your stupid fucking website last night, your name was all over it.”

Tucker “Well, Stacey is the name on your driver’s license.”

She looks at me with an expression that can only be described as “utter contempt.” She walks into my room and from next to my bed, picks up a completely different purse, one I had not seen, digs through it, finds her wallet, and throws a driver’s license at me. The name on the license is Jennifer, and the picture looks like the angry Yeti standing in front of me. I’m so confused.

Tucker “Well, who the fuck is Stacey?”

Jennifer “You tell me, asshole!”

I knew I shouldn’t say this. It was mean… but she is being such a bitch, I just couldn’t help it. Plus, she wasn’t very attractive.

Tucker “I don’t know, but her purse is on the sofa. Can you send her over? Because she’s a lot hotter than you.”

This might be why I always have to find new girls to fuck.

She dresses quickly. The whole situation is awkward and confusing, even for me. Well, confusing more than awkward, because I don’t actually give a fuck. But seriously, why is there another purse in my apartment, and whose driver’s license is it?

Oh my God.

I call TheRoommate. I hear his cell ringing in his bedroom. He answers in a groggy voice.

TheRoommate “What’s up?”

Tucker “Dude, did you hook up last night?”

TheRoommate “Yeah.”

Tucker “Oh shit! Dude, why did you do that to me? You NEVER bring girls home.”

I explain to him what happened, but instead of laughing, his first question shows how well he knows me:

TheRoommate “Did you take any money out of her purse?”

R
EDUCE
, R
ECYCLE
, R
EUSE

Occurred—January 2003

When I first moved to Chicago, it was to be a writer, so I refused to use my law degree to get a “real” job. I knew it would pay so much that it’d
make me complacent and drain my creative energy. If I was going to become a writer, I was going to do it full-time. Anything else was a distraction from my goal, and a compromise I was unwilling to make.

That’s great in theory, but in practice, not making any money means that at some point you can’t afford to buy food. That’s pretty bad. Then you don’t have enough to buy alcohol. That’s really bad. But when you don’t have enough money to even go to $1 beer night, it’s an emergency.

To solve this problem, I got a job with Princeton Review teaching the LSAT. The LSAT is the admissions test for law school, and is very difficult for most people. I on the other hand fucked that test so hard, Duke gave me an academic scholarship. Because of my high score, Princeton Review paid me $21 an hour to teach other people how to take it. I taught about 15 hours per week, which was barely enough to pay for my rent and beer, but I didn’t have to go to an office or really even have a boss, so it wasn’t a soulless job that sucked the life out of me, and it gave me time to write.