Night of the Stingray

I’m an innocent bystander

• Warren Zevon, Lawyers, Guns and Money

Ladies & Gentlemen of the Jury,

…where shall I begin?

I find Ray d’Grasso outside the club with his penny loafers toeing the gutter like a condemned man walking the plank. Inspired, he suddenly pivots, oblong & wobbly, to confront his accusers. Bouncers in STAFF shirts are standing guard, arms crossed in defiance of d’Grasso’s slander. D’Grasso is unrepentant. Shit, shit for brains, he says at a safe distance. He calls the bouncers balloon-animal gorillas. His blood pressure would crush a lesser man. When d’Grasso turns my way, I can see his spectacles are flecked with forehead sweat flicked by his fluttering eyelashes. The droplets against the lenses reflect the passing headlights of growling Italian sports cars. Vic!, d’Grasso says with a clenched-jaw whine. Where’s the Commodore? Vic, where is the fucking Commodore?

Welcome to Thursday night in Miami. This is the Night of the Stingray. 

Es Miami.

Miami is Miami. Bienvenidos. Es Miami porque Miami. You can prepare for the heat. You can prepare for the sweating and the rum and the mosquitos and the death-rally traffic patterns, but you cannot prepare for Miami. The traveler to Miami does not assume control over the night. The traveler to Miami must be willing to embrace the chaos. Willing to get bent by the chaos. The traveler must swim within the currents, not against them. When Miami happens, as Miami inevitably does, it is best to have legal counsel present. Someone like El Comodoro, Esquire.

My counselor leaves his gin & tonic behind when he responds to my beck & call. The doors of the club open, allowing reggaeton music to spill into the street with El Comodoro’s exit onto our stage. He immediately commands the scene with his ominous smile and imposing physique. What seems to be the problem?, El Comodoro inquires, oozing with devilish charisma. The glass-eating bouncers are humbled, bashful, smitten and they do not want to disappoint. But they simply have a job to do. The bouncers are pest control. They weed-out the unworthy. They remove the crittery shits who’ve violated the sacredness of this temple. And this particular offense is legitimate. There’s a cocktail waitress who stands as victim, witness & chief prosecutor. He fucking grabbed my tit!, she says of d’Grasso. 

It is a valid complaint. Absolutely. But “grabbed” implies intent. Was his offense premeditated? I saw the event play out. The bikini-wearing cocktail waitress was climbing atop the bar to pour shots of rotgut tequila into the open jaws of fraternity boys below when she slipped and d’Grasso caught her. Had she fallen at a different angle, d’Grasso’s presence might’ve been seen as heroic. But she fell as she fell, right into his hands. Were his rescuing hands exploitative?, or unintentionally inappropriate? Only d’Grasso & his god can speak to that. The cocktail waitress, however, knows what she felt. And she wants blood. She doesn’t want police; she wants justice. 

Who is really at fault here?, El Comodoro asks the gathered crowd. Is it my client?, or is it the system? I ask you, who is the offender when a stingray strikes the foot which has stepped upon its back? Is it the misplaced heavy foot or the defensive barb? Is it the action or the reaction that is the true offense? 

I am amused. Hours earlier, when I first told my old friend El Comodoro about my associate, I described Ray d’Grasso as a fascist gargoyle. He’s gluttonous. A narcissist. D’Grasso’s closest friends call him “Little Mussolini” for his hot temper and demanding nature. And short stature. He’s a minor league villain. D’Grasso is hyper-evolved, a diabolical engine crafted for these stupid times. For thousands generations, males of our species have possessed a hormonal reaction to women in distress: the smell of female tears lowers aggression. Except for d’Grasso. Ray d’Grasso has evolved away from any such empathy. The tears of women, children, or anything he has vanquished only excites him further. When I earlier explained this to El Comodoro, my counselor said to me, Vic, did you ever think d’Grasso is a monster because you made him one? And now El Comodoro is using the same argument against the staff of the Sandbar. 

The casually tossed aside cigarette is not without fault, but the dumpster fire’s fate was always assured. El Comodoro tells us, this fire only required a spark. It was the Sandbar, this very institution, which promoted Thursday nights as “Florida White Trash Night”. It was the Sandbar who paid a bounty to any college coed who was willing to strip down to bare necessities and fight in a ring of pudding. It was the Sandbar employee who was climbing the bar to pour liquid fuel down the guzzles of its patrons. Is not the Sandbar more at fault than the Stingray?, El Comodoro argues. 

I never wanted to come here. Give me a good rum bar on South Beach. A cigar and Atlantic breeze. The choice was made when my counselor presented d’Grasso with the option of seeing live pudding wrestling. El Comodoro said to d’Grasso, I don’t know what tickles your pickle, but have you ever seen two beautiful women fight to the death in a kiddie pool of vanilla pudding? To d’Grasso, there was no other option. Each match we watched would go the same: two mild-mannered competitors in a tub of pudding delicately slapping at each other until one notches a scratch deep enough to upset the other. Then the rage was triggered, helped along by the free shots offered to any combatant. The sheer brutality unleashed by the once-timid fighters was startling. I never need to see two women fight in dessert again. 

D’Grasso, however, ate that shit up, literally licking splashed pudding from his fingers. He was having the time of his life. 

Despite my warnings of his assholery, d’Grasso was welcomed to Coconut Grove as a conquering hero by my counselor, El Comodoro, and my tax accountant, Wags the Dog. They turned d’Grasso into the belle of the ball. At first, I thought this might be a worthwhile social experiment. Perhaps El Comodoro could pygmalion d’Grasso into a proper gentleman. Instead, their encouragement acted as psychological cocaine, amping the assholiness, cheerleading d’Grasso’s worst traits to new heights. 

Damn, killer!, El Comodoro said when they first met, delivering a playful punch at Ray d’Grasso’s pectoral. What do you bench? You must be a boxer. Hey Ray, what do they call you over in Tampa? They should call you “Stingray”, El Comodoro suggested. A cool guy chilling in the shallows, but don’t tread on me motherfucker!, El Comodoro said, don’t tread on the Stingray. 

Yes!, d’Grasso agreed. Emphatically parroting the lawyer, Ray d’Grasso said, don’t tread on me, motherfucker!, I will Steve Irwin you, bitch!, barb to the heart, motherfucker!

And with that, d’Grasso became Stingray. It is this new identity our counselor now draws upon to defend the accused. 

Is not the Sandbar more at fault than the Stingray?, El Comodoro posits to the growing crowd of street spectators. The bouncers, formerly preening, now mean business. Their manager, Boss-Level Boris, has arrived. Gossip out of the Hialeah Muscovy Society is during his youth, at a military camp in Vladivostok, Boris beat the borscht out of a rival cadet. A rival who happened to be Vladimir Putin’s nephew. When Putin found out, he shipped his nephew to a work camp in Siberia and named Boris as his nephew going forward. Boss-Level Boris’s presence tonight has elevated tensions, but you wouldn’t know it from El Comodoro’s composure. 

From out of the bar stumbles Wags the Dog. Sunglasses are worn against the neon brightness of the street lights. An unlit cigarette dangles from his mouth. One of his lanky arms is wrapped around the woman he’s named “Jellyfish” on account of the jelly shoes she wore to white trash night. Jellyfish clings to the slender torso of Wags the Dog as she watches with fascination the Stingray kangaroo court.

An hour ago, as a part of the Florida white trash festivities, Ray “the Stingray” d’Grasso, had taken off his shirt to do thirty-seven pushups on the sandy dance floor to be anointed “King of the Sandbar” and given a lifeguard chair as his throne. Wags the Dog then introduced him to Jellyfish. Wags had been promoting the Stingray to the crowd through fabulist lies, insisting, for example, d’Grasso was being deployed to Afghanistan tomorrow morning. When he introduced Jellyfish to the Stingray, Wags asked her, will you fuck my friend?, he is dying of cancer. Jellyfish was alarmed and said, I thought you said he was going to Iraq? Wags the Dog nodded at her drunkenly, yeah, and he’s got cancer which is why they are putting him on the front lines. Oh my god!, Jellyfish exclaimed and hugged the heroic martyr, Stingray. 

Twenty minutes after meeting Jellyfish, Stingray said to me, well, I guess I am getting married. I don’t know…, he said, she wants to do cocaine, do you think I can trust the ATM here? Wait, I said, asking for clarification, who’s this? Stingray’s finger pointed the way as he said, the Jellyfish. I watched as she entered into the men’s room with Wags the Dog. Stingray saw this too. Weird, he mumbled. Stingray’s eyes then spotted our legal counsel. Commodore!, he said, hey!, so Wags was telling me about Gold Rush. He said we should definitely go there next. El Comodoro smirked at the Stingray, saying, you have my attention, but if you want my interest, I’m going to need another gin & tonic. 

With that request, Stingray hurried to the bar for another round of drinks. Beside him, at the bar, a bikini-clad cocktail waitress stumbled while climbing. The rest is history. 

But is he really a monster? D’Grasso? The Stingray? Or is he only caught in the currents of Miami? 

Boris is unforgiving. The ornery Russian says Stingray will be banned for life from the nightclub and if we don’t leave now, the rest of us will be forbidden. It is anticlimactic for such a sentence. Especially when Wags the Dog has d’Grasso thinking their destiny is in Little Haiti at the Gold Rush gentlemen’s club. The two rogues commandeer someone else’s ride-share and disappear in a cloud of crushed seashell dust. Two minutes later, Jellyfish walks out of the club with a confused expression, head on a swivel. Stingray’s fiancé has been swept out to sea. 

El Comodoro calls it a night, claiming he wants to go home and make sweet love to his beautiful wife. As for me, my tide is going out. I ask the Jellyfish if she’d like a nightcap back at the airport Ramada.

And that, your honor, and ladies and gentlemen of the jury, and whomever else it may concern of the Circuit Court of South Florida, that sums up the entirety of my involvement on the night in question. You see, as Warren Zevon says in his song, Lawyers, Guns and Money, “I am an innocent bystander.” On the Night of the Stingray, I did not wade out any further than the Sandbar.