It’s now 2 a.m. John has to be at his warehouse job in three hours. Unfazed, he sips a Budweiser, rambling on about his baby’s mama, who used to dance across the street at Club Blaze. Just as he’s getting to the nitty gritty, an unprovoked torrent of profanity blasts us from the opposite end of the bar, where a spindly, mean-looking son of a bitch with a cascading mullet glares at me over the shoulder of his squat, squinch-faced girlfriend. John and the bartender are suddenly tense. I’m not worried, though, because I know something they don’t. Mullet is hollering the lyrics to Guns N’ Roses kiss-off “Get in the Ring,” and when I yell back the next few lines, I’ve got myself a new best friend.
