Stolen Horses: From Spurs to Streams

I have been rather spontaneous and impulsive for most of my life. But now, I’m pretty chill as I have gotten older…or am I? Let me say that, just as Rick James said about cocaine…that firewater is a hell of a drink. That’s what the Native Americans called whiskey, and when Indians drink whiskey, they go wild. Seriously, they are genetically predisposed to become alcoholics and get into trouble when they drink whiskey…just like the Irish – which is one half of my bloodline coming from my father’s end.

My mother’s side is Russian, and my grandfather was Mikhail Dragunov, which means “Son of the Dragon”. He was also 6′ 4″ (195 cm) tall, and his strength was off the charts. He was without a doubt my hero, and I can only hope to be as good of a man as he was in life, although I have already failed many times over. He didn’t drink alcohol because two of his brothers died because of it, and the other was as wild as a man could be. Dmitriy Dragunov died in a car crash while playing chicken. Imagine jousting but in cars – they run straight at each other, and whoever dodges loses. Well, neither he nor the other guy lost, and they both died as winners! Hahahah! There was Andis, nicknamed Malen’kiy (Tiny) because he was a giant of a man and was 6′ 6″ (204 cm) tall and solid muscle, died from knife wounds in a bar fight, where he held his intestines in with one hand and beat the other guy’s head into the bumper of a truck with the other and killed ther guy. The last brother, Davit, actually outlived even my grandfather, but would go on drunken benders for months at a time, where he just never stopped drinking, and would wake up one day and not remember the last…good while. It’s so insane how he lived to be in his late 80s and drank the way he did. He once told me the story about waking up after tearing through a bender and said that he woke up and didn’t know where he was, but he was in bed and could smell food and that someone was in a kitchen cooking. He threw on his clothes and walked into the kitchen and saw that there was a woman in a gown cooking and that she had braces on her legs from Polio. He said he looked at her and asked, “Where the hell am I?” and she said, “You’re at home, Davit.” He said, “This isn’t my home and who in the hell are you?” She burst into tears and said, “I’M YOUR WIFE!” and he said, “You’re not my wife, lady, I’m already married!” Then he got into his truck and left. That is a true story, which his wife would confirm is true because she marked him up because of it. She was as hard as a coffin nail too, and it wasn’t the only time she had put him in the family gulag. That side of my family was as wild as you can imagine, and I could tell many stories that would make your jaw drop.

The other side of my family was Irish. Our family joke was always, “What is the difference between an Irish wedding and an Irish funeral?”…”One less alcoholic.” The Irish mottos are “We drink and we fight” and “We don’t always win, but we always fight.” Being half Russian and half Irish, you can become an alcoholic just by looking at a bottle of whiskey or vodka. In my younger years, I got carried away with drinking, as most young American men do, but I grew up and learned not to get too drunk – fewer prices to pay the next day, fewer things to regret. I can have a few drinks and relax, and I’m good…but I don’t drink whiskey when I do it…it just- makes me surley.

When I lived in Belgium, I had a group of friends – Martin, Marcus, Exush, and Tenns – who were all on the UN S.W.A.T. Team, so they were basically elite police, along with their wives (whose names I don’t remember). There was Torbin and Brock, along with his girlfriend from Denmark. Torbin was ungodly rich, as his parents owned a lumber mill. Brock was the biggest human I think I have ever seen and was of Danish Viking descent. We once took a photo of me holding both of my fists together and his single fist over the top of mine; only my pinky knuckles showed on each side, if that gives a bit of imagery to his vastness. His girlfriend, on the other hand, was a tiny little thing – super petite. I joked about him rolling over in bed in the middle of the night and her getting wedged in his ass crack, with him walking around unable to find her. Then there was Lieve, Freddy, and Tiggy, all from Belgium.

Tiggy was possibly the scariest man I have ever seen. He was Norse Viking, a solid 6′ 7″ (204 cm) tall, and had that long, slender, but still very jacked type of muscle. He had ruddy skin, long red hair, and a long red goatee that was always braided in different styles. He had piercing green eyes. His nickname was Tiggy because the right side of his body – the back of his neck and shoulder, down the outside of his arm, down his back and ribs, right butt cheek, and the outside of his leg down to the ankle – was tattooed like a tiger. All this guy needed was an axe and a shield. He was just flat-out dangerous and had a reputation as a scrapper who could tear people apart. Honestly, he scared the shit out of everyone who passed him. -OH! Tiggy had a friend who was a mortician and got arrested for necrophilia…who was NOT with us, by the way. Just thought I’d throw that in there for later. Aaaaaand then there’s little ol’ me from Texas. K’so, about once per month, we all got together in different locations because I had never been to Europe at the time, so every place was new to me; Amsterdam, Ghent, Berlin, Paris…often somewhere different, but usually Amsterdam for obvious reasons – because it is centrally located in Europe…not because of the hookers and drugs…Pffffff!

So, one night we were all together in Brussels, hitting different pubs, and I was pretty lit on whiskey. We stopped and got some food at this small pub; it was September and pretty damn nippy at that point. We all went inside, pushed some tables together, and sat down. I was sitting at the head of the table, and the waitress was looking at me in my cowboy gear, clearly curious. She came up to me first and, not knowing I spoke Dutch, asked in English what I would be having. I looked at my friends and said, “I got this,” then turned to her and said in a thick Texas accent, “Du Vrowin nookin in part op da tafle.” The Dutch pronunciation is “De vrouwen neuken een paard op de tafel,” which translates to “The women will fuck a horse on the table.” She wasn’t expecting that- actually, no one was. She tried to stifle a snicker, which caused her to blow a string of snot out of her nose and onto her lip. Everyone erupted in laughter, and she got so embarrassed that she went to the back and didn’t return. So we all got drinks, and I started drinking whiskey and telling jokes. Their jokes aren’t the same as the ones in America, so it was all new to them. I eventually started telling a string of gay jokes that they had never heard, and everyone was laughing. Suddenly, Brock spoke up and said, “You know I’m gay, right?” We all cracked up, but he wasn’t laughing. We all got quiet, waiting for the punchline, but there wasn’t one. Everyone was like, “Dude, you’re full of shit,” but his girlfriend said, “No, he goes both ways.” I was like, “Amigo, you are one of the biggest and most masculine men I have ever seen…why would you want to be with a guy?” And he said, “If Alexander the Great can fuck a man in the ass, so can I.” It got so quiet at our table for a second until I said, “I bet you have a little dick!” and the laughter began again. Whew- crisis avoided. But Tiggy didn’t like that shit at all for some reason, and he didn’t talk to Brock the rest of the night but would occasionally look at him like he wanted to fight. Looking back, I think it would have been cool to see them go outside and fight!…A Norse Viking vs. a Danish Viking- they would have destroyed half of the town, I’m sure. It could have been epic if not for my dick joke…oh well- lesson learned.

Ok, back to the story. We had just finished eating and walked out when a Mountie, or police officer on horseback, rode up, tied the horse to a post, and went inside to get some food. There I was, wearing my brown leather duster, boots, belt, and cowboy hat- the whole nine yards. It had to be done! I looked at Martin (one of the UN S.W.A.T. guys) and said, “If I mess up, do you guys have my back?” They said, “Of course!” No sooner did they say that, I unhitched the horse, jumped on its back, and… “Haaaa GIT!” My friends were all, “What the fuck?!?” and rolling with laughter as I rode the horse up and down the street. People were cheering and whistling while I held my hat in my hand and gave a “YeeeeHaaaw!” as I rode by.

Suddenly, the cop came out and began to run after me, with my friends all laughing as they followed. They were running down the street after me as I rode out of sight. But then I took a left, rode around the block, came up behind them, and passed them from behind! Everyone was laughing so hard, and a mob of people were also laughing and cheering as they followed to see what would happen, but not the officer, of course…he was super pissed! Just ahead was that famous statue of the little boy pissing into a fountain. I’m sure you know of it; it’s called Manneken Pis (the legend is that the city of Brussels was on fire, and the little boy pissed out the fire on all the buildings and saved the city). So I stopped there, tied the horse to the fence, and was pissing through the gate into the fountain when my friends and the police officer ran up…along with a crowd that was roaring with laughter. They saw me crossing streams (urinating together) with the statue, and they were cheering and laughing.

Lucky for me, my friends had already shown the patrol officer their badges and said it was a “training exercise.” What could he do? He was a horse patrol cop, and they were elite police. The cop yelled “Klootzak!” (asshole) at me, unhitched the horse, and tried to take it away, but it didn’t budge and nosed my shoulder, refusing to leave my side. You could hear the women in the crowd all say “Awwww…” in unison. Oh man, the officer got so mad at this point he was red in the face, which made my friends and the mob of people laugh even harder. The horse finally went with him, and my friends and I quickly left the area and headed to the hotel, laughing hysterically. By the time we got back to Antwerp the next day, everyone from our international group had already heard about it, and I was flooded with DMs. It’s just one of those rare events that couldn’t have gone more perfectly. And yeah…that fire water is a hell of a drink!