Tragedy struck three friends visiting UW-Madison Junior Lance Davies Saturday night, after the three boys from the University of Minnesota mistakenly assumed The Red Shed is a bar where one can have a decent time. Davies and his friends Mark Peters, Kale Donahue and Jack Foster were playing beer pong and pre-gaming at Davie's apartment at approximately 10:45 p.m. when Davies received a call from his girlfriend Sammy Jones.
""Sammy called, she was pretty upset because her guinea pig had just passed away and she asked me to come over,"" Davies said. I felt awful, so I told [the guys] to just enjoy the Saturday night without me.
Obviously in hindsight, if I had known that there was even a tiny chance that they would head over to The Red Shed, I would have stopped them.""
Donahue, the self-proclaimed ""leader"" of the three, was less understanding the following morning.
""Yeah, we were pre-gaming and he said he had to be with his girlfriend 'cause her pet died or some shit so we just said ‘that's fine bro, do what you gotta do, just point us in the right direction, tell us what bars to go to,"" Donahue said. I'll never forget what he told us. He said ‘pretty much every bar around here is great.' Guess he forgot to mention The Red Shed.""
At approximately 11:07 p.m., all four men departed Davie's residence. Davies walked towards his girlfriend's house and the three friends headed to the first bar they saw, The Red Shed, while chanting ""puss-eeyyy puss-eeyyy"" in unison at Davies.
In hindsight, it was when the boys first entered The Red Shed that their instincts should have told them something was wrong.
""When we got to the door there was a bouncer, two 45-year-old dudes playing darts in the back and a bartender that may or may not have been a woman. To be honest, we still don't really know what the sex of that bartender was,"" Donahue said. We just figured ‘hey, Madison's a liberal city, and it's early, so' ... I mean, we don't know Madison bars. We just thought the girls would arrive a little later.""
At that point his voice trailed off as he looked longingly at the horizon.
Unfortunately for Donahue and his two Minnesota friends, the ""girls"" never arrived. Nor did anyone else. The three boys spent the rest of the evening getting drunk with and chatting up the two men playing darts in the back: Ned ""Daredevil"" Simmons, a 46-year-old father of three and his buddy from work, 43-year-old Duff ""Beer Man"" McGribbons.
I tracked down Simmons while he was working at a construction site on Monday morning and asked him what he remembered from the encounter.
""Oh sure, these three young guys come in and just look like deer caught in the headlights, ya know?"" Simmons said. One of em, I think his name was Donahue, he comes over and he says to us, he says: ‘where are all the girls, why is this place so empty?' and I just thought to myself: ‘Boy are you lost?! This is The Red Shed this ain't no stinking party bar!'
Like I always tell my pal Duff, you only come to The Red Shed for two reasons: Either you work here or you're going through a divorce. I happen to be going through a divorce.""
