Labor Day Holiday

Three times we asked him for his name. He never gave us one. So for this tale he will be known as Gash, in reference to the gnarly looking head wound he was sporting. His face, clothes and hands were caking blood that was congealing while fresh blood was pouring over it. Every time he blinked or refused our help, his wound reopened.

Gash wasn’t having a great night.

What I wanted: a quiet evening over drinks, conversation with good people, maybe call it a night by 11.

What I got: what I could only imagine what Chicago’s south side looked like in the 70s.

Sitting at a table at The Hornet I watch the parade of holiday-weekend drinkers wander to and from the bars and clubs that line this small stretch along this very big road. Tonight I’m drinking with Matt – a gentleman who is aware, yet calm.  Drinking with him doesn’t bring any prerogative to try and chase tail or pull moves or grind against someone on a dance floor. Just conversation, and the occasional nod in the direction of flesh I would be best to check out.

The conversation is of Labor Day in Denver. The heat being on. The Taste of Colorado festival. Outside several police cruisers speed down Broadway, lights ablaze, towards a disaster-in-progress.

Labor Day, a national holiday that is dedicated to something few people can actually recall, brings out the crazies.

The previous Friday evening, First Friday of the month, the girlfriend and myself wander the Broadway shops and bars for various sales and happy hour specials. “We’ll only be here a sec,” she says as she walks into True Love, a store catering to the fetishization of female footwear.

First Friday sales means this store is packed, the line for the register is nearly out the door. First Friday also means I’m allowed to sip on complimentary pink champagne while I watch women of all shapes and ages try on shoes.

We are there long enough for me to drink three plastic cups of pink champagne. Ahead of us in line are two women, a mother-daughter pair, who proudly announce to the cashier that they are from Highlands Ranch. Between the two of them are about five pairs of shoes, one of which the daughter is attempting to wear out of the store while being rung up.

Their credit card is declined. “Can you split it between these two cards?” The mother asks.

Declined.

“We’re going to find an ATM, we’ll be right back,” the mother says as the daughter surrenders her new shoes.

Later, we see the pair climb into an SUV and scamper back to the suburbs.

I enjoy this stretch of establishments along Broadway, between 2nd and Alameda. Independent stores selling unique wares, vintage shops, award winning restaurants, dive bars, not-so-dive bars. All of them places that cater to those who live in the surrounding Baker, Speer, West Wash Park neighborhoods. I’ve lived in a variety of Denver neighborhoods, drank in even more of them. Every one has its own flavor and things one can expect of them. Whether it’d be the vagrants along the Colfax dives or the largely adolescent bliss of the Capitol Hill establishments; everywhere is what you make of it. As I’ve so astutely learned in my time here: it’s not the places, it is the people that give the personality.

Between cocktails five and six Gash walks by the enormous windows of The Hornet and the entire establishment can’t help buy notice the blood pouring through the fingers pressed against his wound.

Matt exits The Hornet, looking for Gash. I follow them. In front of the KeyBank Matt has managed to stop him and is trying to convince him to go to Denver Health.

“I’ll even drive you,” Matt offers. A brave offer considering he will have to explain the blood stains to the detailer.

“No, I can’t use my insurance, my boss will get mad at me.” Gash explains. His speech is slurred, likely from a combination of booze and the blow he sustained to his head. We can only imagine, from the way he is dressed, that he started and ended his evening at The Blue Ice.

“He wont get mad at you,” we attempt to explain, “that’s what insurance is for, getting your ass stitched up.” It’s maybe a three inch cut along the side of his forehead and face, but it leaked like a sieve. We turned him towards the darkened windows of the bank and let him look at himself.  Chances are Gash was violating his parole by drinking.  Denver Health usually meant cops.  If violence is assumed, BAC goes on records, Gash probably goes back to jail.

“That aint no shit,” he says. He’ll need at least four stitches in order to heal properly. Albeit, this is the same type of cut pro-wrestlers will inflict on themselves during hardcore matches. After the matches, however, these performers are butterflied shut by qualified medical technicians.  Also, the wrestlers get paid  a lot of money to do it.  Gash probably looked at the wrong girl, said the wrong thing, upset the wrong gentleman.  ”I’m going to go back there and eat that fucker’s head,” Gash tells us.

Matt and I try to suggest better ideas.

Gash would most likely hit the sack that night and wake up with his dirty pillowcase scabbed to his head. At this point, he would pray to have just a hangover. However, he will most likely have a hangover, an infection, and will probably be septic by the end of the weekend.

“I’ll be totally fine, totally fine.” He affirms and reaffirms to us.

Assuming, of course, he makes it home (“home” being “just a block that way” he tells us several times over). If he had a concussion, he’d likely wind up under the business end of a bus, or in conversation with a homeless man, or back at The Blue Ice.

“He is fine, Matt.” I say.

So we leave Gash on the corner. He makes his way further on up Broadway, parting crowds of people with his open head wound. All of them gasping, wondering, but never asking if he needed help.

You can follow D.T. Pennington on Twitter. @Courier_New

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