Wings of Desire

I don’t eat chicken wings.

I can’t blame vegetarianism (I have a natural proclivity for cheeseburgers), and PETA has no piece of my heart. (I’ve been known to wear fur — until it was trendy, of course — and all my best bags are leather.) I just think they’re gross. Something about gnawing on bones sodden with sticky, orange sauce doesn’t appeal to me. Shocking.

But I’d heard that the downtown Peanut’s Hip-Hop and Hot Wings night was awesome. So when jet-setting Jen Chen decided to head off on one of her international jaunts, I used the opportunity to check it out for the Night Ranger.

Each Sunday, a guest artist sets up an easel next to a guest DJ’s turntables, and the two — often towing cohorts — work their respective magic for the rest of the night. I knew that Memorial Day weekend’s installment had been packed, but that made sense. Having Monday off is like a free pass to get shitfaced. Would things be so exciting on a regular Sunday night?

I met Research Assistant Alexi a little after 9 p.m. and grabbed a tall table in the corner. While we waited for RA Nadia to show up, I went to the bar to grab a pitcher of beer, but I was stopped by a muscled, bald guy with a looooong beard.

“You’re cute,” he said matter-of-factly. He almost sounded surprised, so I glanced around and noticed that the scale of guys to girls was tipped way in my favor. Good news. I politely thanked him, spilled about a third of the pitcher on a bar stool (weak arms), and headed back to the table.

Alexi went to check out the bar’s second level, which was enjoying its “grand opening,” and reported back. “There’s free pool, which is always good. And there’s a model airplane on the ceiling. And a whole shelf of law books. Some guy’s up there reading them.” Reading law books? In a bar? We went upstairs to investigate but, sadly, discovered no aspiring attorneys. Instead, we found Clarence.

Clarence, working on his own odorous basket of wings, politely licked his fingers clean before he shook my hand, and we talked chicken parts. (He says the Peanut’s are the best in town.) A bartender, bouncer and sound mixer at the Hurricane for the past three and a half years, Clarence had taken the night off work specifically to come to the party. I’ve seen pretty scandalous activity at the Hurricane, and I’ve been there, like, twice. So I could just imagine the stories almost four years could supply. Expecting a predictably sexy account of some hot-and-heavy girl-on-girl action, I asked him to describe the craziest thing he’d seen happen there.

“I’ve seen some beautiful women breaking bottles over each other’s heads,” he began as we nodded our heads smugly. “And I saw a guy get stabbed in the throat and die in the street.” Huh. Clarence: 1; Annie: 0.

I started to make the trek back downstairs, tail between my legs, but not before Clarence introduced me to Eric, a self-proclaimed “Kansas hip-hopper,” who agreed that before Hip-Hop and Hot Wings, there was nothing to do on Sundays. When I casually mentioned that I was gathering comments for Night Ranger, I could practically feel the conversation go cold — like I was in one of those Dentyne Ice commercials where a guy with minty-fresh breath turns me to frost so he can hit on my girlfriend. Eric narrowed his eyes and slowly turned his head to look at me, all earlier signs of camaraderie vanishing.

“You’re not Jen Chen,” he said accusatorily. My jaw dropped, but I quickly recovered, explaining that Jen had gone on vacation and I was filling in. His skepticism remained. Enlisting the help of Nadia, who had joined the table after finishing off a shared plate of that Buffalo goodness (“Those wings are so big, they’re pornographic,” she said), I asked her to tell Eric where Jen had gone.

“Japan?” Eric yelled after Nadia answered. “You just told me she went to the Bahamas!” Um. No, I didn’t. And I’m beginning to wonder if you’re a stalker. He laughed, offered the punch line to an undeveloped joke (“A steering wheel that’s driving me nuts!”) and wandered off. Ms. Chen, consider yourself warned.

We looked to Nadia for an explanation but caught the eye of an older, mustachioed man instead. He looked a little, uh, out-of-place — like he belonged at a Toby Keith concert instead of a local hip-hop night — but he seemed to be really enjoying the open-mike portion of the evening, smiling and swaying to the thumping beats. I made my way over.

“Having fun?” I asked.

“Oh, yeah,” he said, his movin’ and groovin’ gaining momentum. “That’s Jamal up there rapping — I’ve known him since he was a kid.” He introduced himself — “Terry, but everybody calls me T.C.” — and pointed out Jamal’s mother, sitting near the bar. I asked what he thought of Jamal’s talents; I was pretty impressed with the performance so far.

“Jamal has the biggest cock I’ve ever seen,” T.C. said, guffawing. “And I’m so glad to see he’s back with girls.” Not exactly the talents I’d planned to discuss, but … also entertaining.

Around the time T.C. slung his large arm over my shoulders, I made a beeline for two women at the end of the bar, figuring it was bad form to talk exclusively to members of the opposite sex. There I met Anne and Julia, who were giggling and flirting with the bartenders. (Hey, if I have to talk to girls, I might as well make ’em girls to whom I can relate.) Julia left to go to the restroom, but Anne stuck around and made small talk. Small talk, that is, until she mentioned she was a car-calendar model.

“Like, car car calendars?” I asked. “As in, you in a bikini on the hood of a Porsche?”

“Ohmigod. You should totally do it with us,” she shrieked, clasping my hands in hers. “It’s so easy — I mean, all you have to do is, like, be hot, and they’ll pay you a hundred bucks. And no nudity. I asked.” Whew. That’s a relief.

“And you can do it while you’re high,” she continued, nodding. “They don’t really want you to be drunk, like, for obvious reasons, but being high isn’t a big deal.” Right. Obviously. When I mentioned I was also an Anne-with-an-e, I briefly worried she might shoot through the roof, but I think Anne’s just the excitable type. It was time to go home.

On our way out, Nadia laughed about hearing her friend Johann say, “Mediocre girls make me nauseous.” I’d had a great time that night, but — seriously — if I saw one more chicken wing, I was going to feel the same way.