A Swig o' Grog fer Ye, Matey?
As the Pirate Craze Sails the High Seas, Md. Tavern Indulges Lubbers' Inner Rogues

By Steve Hendrix
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, May 26, 2007

It's not because he works in a pirate-themed restaurant that "One-Eyed" Mike Couey acts, dresses and talks like a pirate.

It's the other away around.

The lithe 26-year-old with the flashing black eyes -- er, eye -- sought a job as a waiter at the Piratz Tavern in Silver Spring because it was clearly the right gig for someone who has been sporting eye patches and puffy sleeves, on his own time, since he was 13. For Couey, the swashbuckling persona is not something he assumes for work hours; it's his everyday lifestyle.

"It's become part of who I am," Couey said during a break at the tavern on a recent Saturday evening. He wore baggy black pants, a sky-blue sash and the requisite full-bodied sleeves. "When I walked in, I was wearing a full-length steel sword. They hired me on the spot."

In fact, Couey wasn't particularly unusual when he went job-hunting in period-perfect seagoing attire. The tavern, which opened in September, has tapped into a deep pool of hard-core aspiring pirates, both workers and patrons.

The popularity of the "Pirates of the Caribbean" movies, the third of which opened this week, is only one sign that pirates aren't just for Halloween anymore.

In the Washington area, there are at least two groups -- Merrick's Privateers and the Pirate Brethren -- that spend the occasional weekend wearing tricorn hats and banging cutlasses. In many cases, such pretend plunderers have the same strict standards as Civil War reenactment groups, scouring historical accounts and period literature for clues about how real pirates dressed, talked and fought.

The current interest in all things Jolly Roger ranges from "Got Grog" bumper stickers to annual pirate festivals in Baltimore, Seattle, New Orleans and other port cities. There is a "Complete Idiot's Guide to Pirates," a skull-and-crossbones Hello Kitty doll and a yearly International Talk Like a Pirate Day (Sept. 19).

"I had no idea this huge pirate community was even out there," Piratz Tavern owner Tracy Koudry said over the noise from the captain's table by the bar. Between the arrrgh-matey shtick of the "crew" and the grog-fueled antics of regulars with bandannas and plastic daggers, it sounded more like a West Indian frigate than a suburban cafe. People "started applying before we even opened. There's something about the danger, sexiness and freedom of pirates that people are really into right now."

At a time when the only genuine pirates are hijacking freighters off Somalia or bootlegging DVDs in Beijing, many of the stylized, old-fashioned version are flocking to the storefront restaurant on Georgia Avenue where a half-dozen Jolly Roger flags flap over the sidewalk.

"A lot of people came out of the woodwork when the Piratz Tavern opened," said bartender Charon Henning, wearing high black boots and a shimmering green peasant blouse with grinning black skulls. "I heard about it from a belly dancer I know. There aren't that many chances for us to get paid to play dress-up. And pirates are big."

Henning is a veteran of Renaissance festivals who not only brandishes swords but swallows them (and she has been known to pull them out with an olive on the tip).

Jeff Hunt, a barrel-chested waiter known as Thud (from his days as a nightclub bouncer), sports a seaman's pigtail and makes his own wooden broadswords.

Kassy Freely is a waiter at another restaurant but goes to the tavern on her nights off to sing bawdy chanteys with other members of a reenactors group known as the Pirates of the Drunken Ferret.

"Aye, right now is a great time to be a pirate," said Couey (for whom every day is talk like a pirate day). But he is quick to point out that he was swashbuckling before swashbuckling was cool -- or at least before it was so heavily marketed. "My mother always told me I was born in the wrong century."

The Santa Rosa, Calif., native grew up an avid surfer in a family of navy seaman. He started playing serious pirate games in middle school, and his love of backyard swordplay grew into a passion for fencing and then sword choreography that he pursued in college.

"That's how I lost me eye," he said, pointing to the patch.

Yes, the patch is real. And yes, he lost it in a sword fight. Almost a year ago, during the opening of the previous installment of the "Pirates of the Caribbean" series, Couey and another pirate were hired to perform promotional sword battles at Arundel Mills mall near Annapolis. The routine was carefully choreographed, and they had performed it dozens of times when his exhausted partner surprised him with an accidental lunge.

"It sliced me left eye right in half," he said, with something like pride. "I was back performing the act within two weeks."

Couey did acknowledge, when pressed, the seriousness of the injury. But he also relishes the pirate cred it gave him.

"Absolute prestige," he said with a grin, getting up to deliver a steak to a table on the back patio. "I'm hailed by pirates near and far."

It was just after sunset when Couey and the others ushered the patrons who weren't in the middle of their paella or salmagundi stew out for a little sideshow in the back alley. With the colorful headquarters of the Discovery Channel glowing behind him, Hunt, 29, took a break from his waiter's duties long enough to spit some fire. The diners, some with napkins in hand, stood back as the burly lubber filled his cheeks with lantern fuel, held a small torch to his lips and spewed a 10-foot, 650-degree tongue of flame across the alley.

"Oh, my God," said customer Andrea Halverson of Bethesda, who had taken an extra step back. "These guys are really into it. Everyone here seems to legitimately believe they are a pirate."

Hunt, who also teaches sword fighting at Renaissance fairs in Maryland and Texas, said that for him, the best thing about the pirate's life is dazzling the kids who are there during the early dinner hours. And, of course, the clothes.

"To me, these are much more comfortable than jeans and a T-shirt," he said, fingering the blowsy lime-colored pantaloons and the open-chested cotton tunic. "Even if I'm just hanging out at home alone, it's going to be the silly green pants."

By the end of the evening, after waitress Erica Love had filled the alley for a fire-spinning display, most of the dinner customers had gone and the action settled into the backroom bar. That was where Henning could be found sliding a 19 1/2 -inch chrome blade down her esophagus.

"Huzzah! Huzzah!" called a man with a black bandanna on his head when she pulled it out with a flourish. A tanker was slammed onto a table.

So far, the tavern has only had to call 911 once to report a fainting customer.

For Couey, the end of the shift doesn't mean a return to his nonpirate self. The roguish grin and the vaguely cockney tones are as strong as they were five hours earlier.

Thin as a marlinespike and with a lissome, almost mincing manner (the elaborate bow he bestowed on departing customers reached almost to the floor), Couey was the image of Johnny Depp's flamboyant Captain Jack Sparrow. In fact, he was perfecting his pirate mannerisms long before the Disney movies hit the screen, but he admires Sparrow's dashing style.

"The essence of his pirate is to be always seeking the horizon," Couey said, scanning the room with his eye. "That's for me, to be as carefree as possible and go after my dreams, no matter what the cost."

Staff writer David A. Fahrenthold contributed to this report.