Three stories of late-night Lincoln

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BY MICAH MERTES / Lincoln Journal Star

The bartenders shout last call. Then they shout it again. People finally start to get the idea, swigging the dregs of their drinks, easing toward the doors and spilling onto O Street. 

And that’s when Lincoln’s Jekyll goes Hyde. When our city transforms into a different creature altogether, one packed with countless little pockets of strange.

The people teem off the downtown sidewalks, each sector a microcosm of high heels, street musicians, alpha males, bike cops, taxis, beggars, spontaneous swinging fists, unceremonious foreplay and the occasional moment of romantic DRAMA.   

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The bar crowd fills the sidewalks of O Street between 14th and 15th Streets just after 1 a.m. Saturday morning. (Heidi Hoffman)

It’s 1 a.m.

“It really is kind of like a jungle out here,” says Juan Davila, 24, as a street musician pounds a tribal drum beat across the street. “There’s a certain demeanor with people in different areas. This area,” he points down the block, “there’s always all the fights in this area. And that area’s where you’ll find the dramatic emotional drinkers.”

Does Lincoln become a werewolf after 1 a.m.?

“Oh, yeah,” he says, “I think so. Lincoln’s usually pretty quiet. It’s a slow pace, a slow town. And when you come out here at this time, you get this different feel for the city.”

This is late-night Lincoln in three scenes.

At 1:30 a.m. Friday, Kevin Furnas and Andrew Lipbincott are arm wrestling on a newspaper stand at 14th and O streets. Furnas takes the first few rounds, so Lipbincott, presumably trying to get an edge in the contest, removes his shirt, revealing two nipple rings.

Furnas is not intimidated.

When they’re done, it’s not clear who’s the victor. Each claims triumph.

This isn’t all about fun and games. At 1:30 a.m., an arm-wrestling bout can also be about vigilante law and order.

“That guy was walking around, trying to challenge everybody else and trying to bully them,” Furnas says, “so I challenged him. And that guy couldn’t beat me on his best day. I deal with this all the time. I deal with guys twice that size.”

Furnas, 28, isn’t merely content with having a good time at the bars. He sees himself as the do-gooder of O Street, helping the weak and afflicted of downtown.

“It’s all about respect,” he says. “Respecting people and helping to make sure people are respected.”

Sometimes this means challenging an “intimidator” to an arm-wrestling contest. Other times it means giving a homeless woman who identified herself as Gina a ride across town. 

Gina, who’s been sitting on a corner all night with a sign that reads “Sick and tired of being sick and tired,” comes up and asks Furnas for a ride.

Furnas: “What do you need? Do you need food?”

Gina: “I need everything.”

Furnas: “You need help. What is it I can help you with tonight? What would make a difference in your life tonight?”

Gina: “If I could get a ride to 14th and D.”

Furnas: “What’s at 14th and D?”

Gina: “A person that …”

Furnas: “What is it I can do to help you tonight?”

Gina: “Just to go there.”

By the time their 20-minute conversation ends, downtown O has died down.

The night continues for some with after-parties or late-night Wal-Mart excursions or fast food drive-through runs or early-early-morning breakfasts.

Around 2 a.m. Sunday, four high-schoolers sit in a booth at Village Inn, 111 S. 29th St. They just came from downtown, where, says Northeast High School senior Jess Shepherd, 18, they were “trying to pick up some guys” and some 25-year-old guy obliged with inappropriate grabbing.

“Yeah,” says LaTasha Ackman, 17, “that was weird.”

Being a high schooler in Lincoln isn’t great, they say. You don’t have a lot of options, especially at this time of day.

Getting late-night meals at V.I. is one of the few solid pastimes if you have a schedule like Ackman.

“You see certain people only at night because we sleep all day,” she says. “Like, my day is I get up at like 4 in the afternoon, take a shower, get ready and go out and stay up until like 4 (in the morning), sleep for 12 hours and start over.”

But now that school has started, “that’s kind of messing me up.”

One of Ackman’s V.I. tablemates, named Ty, said he usually goes to Super Saver at 27th and Pine Lake when he has nothing else to do.

“I go there and ride the little carts around at 3 in the morning,” he says. “I got kicked out one time. The manager came out and started yelling at me.”

Ackman interrupts: “Dude, what kind of scooter?”

Ty: “The handicap ones.”

Ackman: “See, that’s mean. I have two uncles that are handicapped. What if he was there and he needed it?”

Ty: “At 3 o’clock in the morning?”

Their food arrives. They spend the next hour quoting “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” — “It’s bat country!” — and talking about piercings, pornography and unfortunate incidents involving pepper spray.

Other tables eavesdrop.

Across the restaurant, a middle-aged man sits alone in a booth. He couldn’t be in sharper contrast to the table of rambunctious teens if he tried.

Jim Koudelka lives in this alternate dimension of Lincoln, but he’s more a detached observer than a melodramatic participant.

He’s a self-employed music teacher and works weird hours, sometimes not finishing up until after 10 p.m. His itinerary after that involves going to Barnes and Noble ’til 11, then finishing his day at Village Inn. He likes to just sit and read the paper, pay his bills, drink coffee, quietly observe the personalities of the different tables.

“There are really two kinds of people who come to Village Inn at this time of night,” Koudelka says. “I would say the majority are partyers just coming from the bars. And then there are a lot of lonely people here at night that sit alone and just stare aimlessly.”

He stops for a beat, pondering his next words.

“And really,” he laughs, “I hope I’m not one of them.”

Reach Micah Mertes at 473-7395 or mmertes@journalstar.com.