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When I was 23 I lived in Savannah, Georgia in 1973, I grew up in Florida but was stationed there in the Army when I was discharged the year before and decided to stay because Savannah was a fun place. My drinking partner was a Polish guy from Chicago named Johnny Dostal that I met in the Army, he lived with his wife in the next apartment building. I used to like to hangout with Johnny because he was huge guy about twice my size and we were both into music. He told me one day he would introduce me to his identical twin brother but he was currently in Vietnam.
At the time I was just out of the Army a couple of months and was usually out partying every night. One morning about 10:00, while suffering with a hangover, I hear pounding at my apartment door. When I open the door there stands all 300 pounds of Johnny Dostal with his identical twin brother Jimmy Dostal both wearing gold jump suits. He just got off the plane from Vietnam that morning and they wanted to go out and celebrate.
We go over to the local "Dew Drop Inn", real name, and each of us order 6 boiler-makers apiece, that a shot and a draft beer. We knock out the drinks in about an hour and were wasted, I went in the mens room and soon as I open the door, there is Jimmy Dostal trying to punch the towel rack off the wall and his hand is bleeding. I immediately throw-up on the bathroom floor. We knew the barmaid since it was our local hangout, she comes in and yells get the hell out.
We go down the street to a redneck country bar, there is nobody in the place. I go over to the jukebox and I'm leaning on the machine to checkout the songs when the Dostal Brothers come over and pick me up and throw me onto the dance floor, both of them fall down and land on a wood railing that runs around the edge of the dance floor and the railing breaks. The bartender yells at us to get the hell out.
We go across the street to a neighborhood bar, I'm on the barstool about ten seconds when the bartender yells, get the hell out, I don't even know what we did. We jump back in Jimmy's Monte Carlo and head down to the tourist area River Street which runs along the riverfront. At a red light, Jimmy the driver is turning around talking to his brother and doesn't realize he took his foot off the brake, and we roll into the back of an ambulance. The ambulance driver, who's wearing a white coat, gets out and comes back and tells us to wait. He said we damaged the ambulance and he radioed for the police, we don't even see a mark on the ambulance since we were barely moving. We know we can't face the cops, so we jump back in our Monte Carlo and whip around the ambulance and takeoff. They turn on their lights and siren and start chasing us up the street, we get a couple of blocks ahead and turn down a side street and park between cars. At first they go right on by, but then they come back around and turn up our street and pull up alongside. The ambulance guy in the white coat jumps out and comes up to Johnny's window and said, don't move, the police are on the way. Johnny graps him by the arm and takes off like he's going to drag the guy, he starts yelling and Johnny lets the guy go and we head back home.
The next day Johnny tells me a Savannah detective comes out to his apartment, I guess they got his plate number. Anyway, they look at his car and the cop said, I don't see any damage and doesn't even make a report. All is well.
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