Jared and I didn’t know what exactly we were doing here, so we decided to go into one of the first bars we saw on the right, a medium-sized bar with a pool table in the back area. The front area near the windows was spacious and full of two-person tables. We ordered a couple of beers. My favorite was Blue Moon with the little orange slice in it, and Jared ordered a Corona. Not long after our arrival, we made our way back to the pool table. We weren’t here to chat. We were here to have fun!

Neither of us was exceptional at pool, but we started playing against each other until we got bored. Before much time passed, a couple of guys ended up back where we were and challenged us to a game of doubles. Despite not being the greatest, we beat them, so we decided to stay and keep playing. Within a few minutes, another pair wandered in from outside and challenged us. Surprisingly, we beat them too! I think our idea was that we were going to run the table as long as we could and then leave and continue exploring the Ybor strip after someone finally beat us.

A third duo broke off from the endless streams of foot traffic just outside and challenged us. This was not a typical night for me. Anywhere else I would’ve gotten beaten by now, but somehow we were still in control of the pool table. It was good sportsmanship too. No one took anything too seriously.

It was unusual how groups of two kept coming back to where we were at nearly equal intervals. When one pair left, another one would come back a few minutes later. The unlimited mix of people from the crowds outside kept churning out new challengers to keep us busy during our first visit to Ybor City. Who was next?

Our next challengers showed up right on queue, but these fellas were a bit different. They were a couple of younger, beefy-looking guys, both wearing baseball caps.

“We’re cooks, man!”

“We’re cooks!” they said as they announced their arrival to an unseen audience.

“Hey! I’m a cook too!” I said to them as I approached them with what seemed like a universal language that we all spoke.

“Hell yeah! We all cooks up in here!” one of them said.

Based on their personalities, one of them I nicknamed “The Kingpin.” He had very short brown hair and carried himself and spoke like a boss. The other one I nicknamed “The Enforcer.” He had medium-length reddish-blonde hair and looked slightly more built than The Kingpin and like he was the enforcer on the hockey team used to folding people up on the ice when they got out of line.

“Whatchy’all doin’ here?” asked The Kingpin.

“We’re just playing some pool and hanging out. We don’t know this place very well. This is our first time here,” I said.

“Yeah, we’re 19, but we know the bartender,” said The Kingpin.

“You guys want to play us in some doubles?” Jared asked.

They agreed.

Where are y’all from?” The Enforcer asked?

“We’re from Wisconsin,” I replied.

“We’re from Brandon,” The Kingpin said.

“Brandon? I’ve been to Brandon before! My father’s old girlfriend lived there. We visited several times” I said.

Jared and I had just gone there recently to see “Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones” as well where the audience started a riot when Yoda started flipping on Count Dooku.

It was another victory for Jared and I on the pool table. After chatting and playing a game of doubles, we all seemed pretty comfortable around each other.

“Y’all wanna hang out with us? We know the strip,” The Kingpin said.

“Sure, man!” I said enthusiastically.

“GIVE this man a CIGARETTE!” The Kingpin said.

The Enforcer reached into his pocket, pulled out a pack of cigarettes, and gave me one, which I lit since it was back when people could smoke in the bars.

The four of us started walking towards the front of the bar to go outside back onto the strip.

“If we get into it out there on the strip, y’all got our backs?” The Kingpin turned around to ask.

“If you’re part of my group, yeah, I got your back,” I said.

“GIVE this man a CIGARETTE!” The Kingpin said again.

“Uh, I already have one…” I said while trying not to appear rude.

I didn’t know who these guys were or what their story was, but it was refreshing compared to the usual threats and everything. Perhaps Jared and I met our Florida counterparts. They definitely seemed like they knew about the street life and weren’t necessarily villains. Antiheroes at the very least.

The four of us walked down the strip in between the loud and intoxicated masses.

“Man, you look way different than everyone else with that thing you’re wearing,” The Enforcer said to me.

I was wearing a brown long sleeve pullover. Most people were wearing bright clothes that were also more suitable to a warm climate. Florida and Wisconsin didn’t necessarily mix very well. Places like Illinois, Iowa, or Minnesota were pretty similar to Wisconsin in some aspects, but Florida was totally different. I’m sure I looked like I was from out of town. Those two would stand out also if they were suddenly transported to Wisconsin.

The atmosphere above and around us was full of excitement with a dab of danger and mystery.

“Go up to someone and just bump into them,” Jared said to The Enforcer.

“Man, are you crazy! This is Florida! People got guns and knives here!” I said.

Apparently Jared hadn’t had as many difficult situations as I had in this state.

Our two “tour guides” led us into a dark, two-level club that was mostly empty. The four of us went up to the second level. A few of their friends met up with them, a small group of some girls and a couple of guys, and we just hung out listening to the music while looking over the balcony.

Jared was throwing ice cubes at people down on the first level from a drink he ordered.

“Are you trying to get a fight started?” I asked.

There was no way of knowing what kind of stuff these folks in Ybor were on. It’s never wise to mess with strangers, but especially not here.

“If they play some electronic music, I’m gonna have to go down there and dance,” I said.

There was a small dance floor in the middle of the place on the first level.

Almost as soon as I said that, the DJ started playing electronic music.

“Awwwww, man!” I said as I headed down to the first level.

There was a small group of about five people on the dance floor, and strangely, as soon as I got on, they all walked off in a line while looking at me. It was dark with strobe lights flashing around. Being the only person on the dance floor, it was time to fly or crash. That other group put me on the spot by leaving me alone.

I guess by now I had just enough drinks in me that I was able to go with the flow. I had never heard this song before, but it was like I was one with the music. I instinctively knew where it was going and adjusted my rhythms to follow it. When there was a pause, I didn’t have to think about stopping, I just did it in-sync with the music. The music at times was awe-inspiring with its unique arrangement of high pitched sounds that sent emotions from the bottom of my feet out the top of my head as I spun around and looked up at the ceiling with strobe lights brushing past my face. People were watching me.

“How does he know what’s going to happen next?” I thought I heard someone say, or something similar.

The music picked back up and I did a couple of spin moves where I spun while crouching with my free leg sticking straight out. I heard a girl say, “WOOO!” but I didn’t want to spoil the moment by doing something stupid and landing on my face, so I gradually eased off the dance floor as gracefully as possible.

I went back to the second level of the club and met back up with my group.

“We’re gonna go to another spot. Y’all wanna come with us?” The Kingpin asked.

We agreed to go with them, our new allies.

We went off the strip to what looked like a jumbo garage big enough to fit several cars in it. The rest of the group went off into an enclosed section of the garage to “Observe some snow in July,” but I didn’t feel like it, so I layed on top of the hood and windshield of the only car that was in there and waited.

“Your guy alright?” I heard The Enforcer ask Jared.

“Yeah, he’s just chillin’,” Jared said.

Jared knew me as well as anybody.

When they were all done, about ten minutes later, they invited us to go to a party at one of the girl’s houses.

“We can ride with y’all so y’all know how to get there,” The Kingpin suggested.

We left the strip completely and went back to 3rd Street to find my car. I wasn’t sure exactly where I parked, but I wasn’t seeing my car anywhere. We wandered up and down the street several times over several blocks, but the car wasn’t anywhere.

“Maybe we should go back to Ybor and start over,” I said.

“If we go back to the strip, there’s no way we’re gonna find it,” The Enforcer said.

It was hot and everyone started breaking into a sweat. I took off my brown pullover and carried it with me. A couple of the other guys peeled down a layer too. This was very frustrating! Did my car get stolen, or was I just too drunk to remember?

We started getting into some seriously dark areas. Suddenly, a car drove up next to us, stopped for a couple of seconds, started driving again, and then stopped and someone yelled something out the passenger side window that I couldn’t hear.

“What? You have a gun?? You better have a gun!” The Kingpin said and started walking straight towards the car on the street with absolutely no fear.

What was happening didn’t fully register yet, but The Enforcer turned towards me.

“Yo! He’s about to get into it!!” he said.

Then everything snapped into place inside my head. I promised these guys before we left the bar that I would have their backs if anything went down. So Jared, The Enforcer, and I joined The Kingpin in walking towards the car. It was the craziest thing ever, because it is almost a certainty that at least someone in the car was armed, yet here are four guys walking in the dark straight up on a car, unarmed. The person on the passenger side yelled an obscenity, and the driver took off. We put everything on the line with that move, but to look weak at that moment could’ve cost us just as much if not more.

After walking around for at least a half hour and getting rolled up on by some hooligans, we decided to order a taxi, despite how expensive it would be.

The taxi eventually came. We went through Brandon first so we could let our new friends off first. We went the rest of the way back to Lakeland and the fare was at least $75. At least we made it home. We could think about what happened to my car the next day.

Mid-morning the next day, Jared called our friends from Brandon to let them know what happened to us. I told our next door neighbor Jimmy about what happened in Ybor. About 30 minutes later I heard Jimmy talking to someone else outside.

“He went to Ybor and couldn’t find his car. Stupid mutha*****!” he said.

I later went out to confront Jimmy about what he said.

“Nah. I didn’t mean it like that,” he said.

I wasn’t going to argue too hard with the neighborhood king, but I just wanted to let him know.

Jared and I rode in his car back to Tampa. It was much easier to perform a search on wheels. We eventually found my car, but not where we expected. I thought I parked on 3rd Street, but actually I parked on 13th Street, and somehow the 1 got rubbed off the street sign. At least we found it and it wasn’t stolen!

Jared and I prepared to get onto the interstate to head back to Lakeland in our separate  vehicles. While we were stopped at a stoplight across from the entrance ramp, strangely, I saw the first model car I ever had, a white Subaru station wagon, come out from under the bridge in front of me on the left, and immediately following it was a blue Toyota Tercel just like the one I was currently driving turn onto the entrance ramp we were trying to get on. That was strange, almost like it was some kind of sign or message. How was it going to happen at that exact moment when we shouldn’t have even been there, or we wouldn’t have been there if someone didn’t rub the 1 off of the street sign and we found my car the previous night? It’s also interesting how everything worked out perfectly for us to meet our two allies at the bar, and they were with us at just the right moment to scare off what could’ve been a potential drive-by, knowing how wild, dangerous, and unpredictable Tampa can be. The reason for everything isn’t always known, but it makes sense why things happen the way they do when you think about it and have time to reflect.