When a billionaire comes to town

“Some guy who said he’s in an Asian clan is here. He just tipped someone $1,000.”

That is a text I received about three weekends ago. A number of things about this text intrigued me: What is an Asian clan? Who got tipped $1,000? How do I get tipped that much? Why is he here?

It turns out my friend is an idiot who has never heard of Wu-Tang clan. It also turns out this man was not Ghostface Killah (as he purported to be), but hey, for $1,000, you can be whoever the hell you want. A billionaire had come to Charlottesville, and this wasn’t even him, just one of his friends.

The actual billionaire is a self-made man, and he’s made quite the reputation for himself among the people who work and frequent the Corner bars, more so because of the way he was able to get others to act, than the way he acted himself.

At first, I only heard about him through rumors. His exorbitant tips to bartenders, his bribing of young women to take shots with him ($100 for a Patron shot? Yes please…). Well, actually his bribing of young women to do a lot of things with him. I heard a rumor he paid a girl $900 to make out with him, and she did. Maybe $500 to slap an ass.

The rumors are endless, and while some have been confirmed, most are probably just that – rumors. But the thought still remained: how many people actually were okay with doing the things asked of them, or how many were just pressured to relent because of the cash appeal?

And then, I actually met the guy. He came into the bar with his crew at 11am and promptly started drinking, buying vodka shots for themselves and girls at the bar. Servers would go up and take (water) shots with him, flirting with him and his friends, in the hopes that they, too, could get a fucking grand as a tip.

Hell, I tried, too. If I hadn’t been working upstairs, I would have been down there schmoozing and flirting my way to fifteen-hundred dollars. But, alas, it wasn’t meant to be. I was upstairs, and the billionaire and his crew didn’t go upstairs for anybody apparently.

And while it was all fun and games for a bit, it quickly turned into something a lot less entertaining. They felt as if they could do anything, say anything, and in a way they could. We kept smiles on our faces, to keep smiles on their faces, so our wallets would benefit from it all when it came time to close them out. But, it was hard to keep on smiling.

Here are some examples of things they said:

“Can I get you guys anything?” “You can get me some of your clit juice.”

“If you send me a picture of yourself, I’ll go wherever you want.”

“I’d like to see how you taste.”

Pair this with their confidence to touch whomever they wanted, however they wanted to and their bravado quickly lost its charm.

They left to go be drunk elsewhere and, like most things in hindsight, a lot of us found it funnier than it actually was, totally worth the amount they tipped everyone. The ones who weren’t so amused were the ones who dealt with them the most.

Many girls had to block his number on their phones because of the aggressive number and manner of his texts. Girls who weren’t even serving him would be constantly pulled aside by them, heckled, harassed, asked for hugs, and generally made uncomfortable. He made multiple women cry.

And then, they came back. On Monday, the billionaire was back and I witnessed the lengths we all go to for money.

The servers were cutthroat with him, sidling up to him, letting him place their arm around them, all vying for his money. And one got lucky! He loved the attention she gave him, and he tipped her $1000 on a $8 drink. He tipped the bartender working that night $50 for a $200ish tab because she wasn’t paying him the attention he wanted, and that’s fine – it’s his prerogative. But damn.

And when he left again this time, I couldn’t help but feel dirty. Though I hadn’t really interacted with him at all, I wanted to. I wanted to smile and bat my eyes and be a thousand dollars richer. A $1000? That is a life-changing amount of money for probably every student here – except the ones from New York and Connecticut, maybe.

So what would you do? And before you answer, don’t compare yourself to the other girls, or say “I would never put up with that,” think about the service industry, about how every server is told the client is always right, how the role demands a certain level of subordination, and hopefully, when you’re ready to answer, you have something to say about the man who asked these things of these women, and the incentives he gave.