For the hour I was there, he never came back. I don’t know if he was dead or hiding, but either way, that was the least of my concerns. At least it wasn’t me they shot at. Now I could try to brownnose up to him like, “Your brother’s kind of a dick, huh? What a weirdo. Stay out there in the woods, jerk-off!” I was trying to be on their team.
Then, I never confirmed if it was a joke or not, but they were in earshot of me. I guess they didn’t know that and the girls were changing back into their clothes and I heard one guy say, “What do you want to do with this fat kid when we fuck these chicks?” I yelled out the words “Thirty seconds” to the bathroom. “Thirty seconds!” Then I went and started the car and we got the fuck out of there. They didn’t come after us. I guess they were preoccupied, thank God.
It was a forty-five-minute drive back to Philly, and all three of us were teary-eyed. I was crying. They were yelling that I’m the worst bouncer and I knew it.
I know, I’m awful.
DANNY MCBRIDE—ACTOR, WRITER, PRODUCER
I went through a really bad breakup with a girl I’d been dating since college. She moved to Los Angeles with me. Then she started wearing slinkier clothes, and everything just went downhill really fast. When you move here as a young kid, you’re right out of film school, you’re twenty-one years old, and there are guys who are twenty-eight and have some real money, and you’re still living on $25 a week.
Marc
And you realize that you’re just there to provide them with new girlfriends.
Danny
Exactly. I can remember still today when I found out that it was over with. I was working at the Crocodile Café in Burbank, which is no longer there, and I went to the manager and just told him, “I don’t think I can do my shift today. I don’t know. My girlfriend just broke up with me.” I’m sitting there like, “Don’t cry,” and I start crying in front of this guy who doesn’t give a shit, and he’s just looking at me. He’s like, “All right, just get yourself together. Go take some time off.” He puts his hand up. I assume that he’s going in for a hug, but he wasn’t. He was going for a handshake, and I’m hugging him, crying, with my apron from Crocodile Café on.
I remember just walking back to my apartment with my apron wrapped up and my white polo shirt with my name tag. I’m just like, “Fuck LA. I hate this out here. This is the worst.” I hit rock bottom with that, definitely.
Something even worse happened with her, which was when I got back on my feet in Glendale, starting a new life with me and two of my other buddies. I got a job, I got things going. Then I get this phone call. One of my roommates answered the phone and it’s the ex. He was not supposed to give the phone to me. That was a solid rule, but he smiles. “Hey, the phone’s for you.” This had been about six months since we broke up. She is on the phone and she’s crying.
She’s like, “Danny, you got to come get me. The guy that I’m seeing just threw me down the stairs and beat me up. You got to come pick me up.” I don’t want to be with her, but I still am tortured over this. I’m like, “Okay, I’m all in.” I get my two roommates, and I’m like, “We got to go over there and kick this guy’s ass. We’re going to go save her.” We get the golf clubs out of my roommate’s car and we’re driving to Burbank. I remember “Satisfaction” was playing. We could have no hesitation. We have to pull up and smoke this fucking guy.
We roll up to where she’s at. We’re looking for this street. It’s in Burbank. We pull up, and she’s just standing there on the corner with this dude who’s six five. He’s a personal trainer. He’s this huge muscle-bound dude, and all of us just stay in the car. We’re just like, “Okay, come on. You can just come on in this car. Just get in here.” She goes to the car and he doesn’t let her in. He grabs her back, and so I’m in this weird position where it’s like, “Fuck, I guess I got to get out,” so I get out of the car and none of my roommates come out. They just hand me the golf club through the window, so I’m just standing there with the golf club. I’m just like, “Come on, man. We got to let her get into the car now, man.”
The guy just looks at me and he’s like, “What the hell are you going to do with that golf club, huh?” He comes up into my face. I’m like, “I can’t believe you’d hit a girl, man. What’s wrong with you?” He’s like, “What are you going to do with that golf club?” It’s this big challenge. He had challenged me, so I had to do something with it, so I fucking swing back and crack him in his knees as hard as I can and I just hit him with the shaft. It literally just breaks, and he’s just standing there looking at me. I’m holding just the handle of the golf club. Eventually, I just try to chase it with, “Aw man, how messed up are you that you would hit a girl.” Needless to say, that dude just fucking pounds on me. I’m getting the shit beat out of me. My roommates are still sitting in the car watching it all. The ex-girlfriend gets in there and she’s hitting him and finally I’m trying to get everyone in the car.
The dude just walks over to the passenger seat. My buddy is sitting there with the most useful weapon, which is a baseball bat. Just sitting there, shaking in the passenger seat. The guy just comes over, opens up the door, and just grabs the baseball bat out of his hand and then just starts going to town on my car, and it’s just like, Jesus Christ, this whole thing failed. So we get her in the car and get out of there. Then on the way home, it’s just like, “Who the fuck are you dating? What is this? What’s happened?”
We get back to the apartment. That’s when she tells us that this guy knows where we live and all this stuff, so we’re screwed. We found out that this guy has a criminal record and he’s coming for us. I’m trying to calm my roommates down. They’re pissed, like, “Why the fuck are you getting us involved with this shit?” I’m like, “It’s going to be fine. This guy’s not going to mess with us. He has his own deal with her. We were just picking her up.”
No bueno.
Next thing we know we look out our window, there are six SUVs circling the front of our place. We’re in this really weird apartment complex that was backed up to the LA River. Apparently they had been on a date before, so he knew where our house was from across the river. They’re trying to find out where we are.