A Night on the (Velvet) Ropes
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"I don't think I'm supposed to do that," we stammer.

"Give me your damn band, girl," she says, ripping it off. It's our first brush with celebrity by proxy.

Back in the Bentley, the 53-year-old Rock is in a cheerful mood despite Tyson's defeat: "In one sense I'm sad. You could see he gave it everything he had and it just wasn't good enough. And so it's an inglorious ending to a long career. On the other hand, Tyson seems to accept this as his final chapter."

In the next second, he makes a sharp 180-degree maneuver with his mechanical boy toy. "An American car cannot make this turn," he says admiringly.

We pull up to the City Museum, where the first thing we see is a white Rolls-Royce Phantom. "That's Steve Francis's," says Newman, pleased. That means we'll find the NBA all-star inside, which we promptly do. "I am having a ball," says The Franchise, waving a cigar.

Unlike the H2O scene, this is fun. Chuck Brown, Washington's legendary "godfather of go-go," is onstage and has the entire crowd dancing. On the wall above the dance floor, Tyson's bout with Kevin McBride is replaying on a giant screen. Chuck gives a shout-out to Rock, who's standing at the edge of the stage watching the fight. Anwan "Big G" Glover, the go-go star who landed a role on HBO's "The Wire," jumps onstage after a very long swig from a bottle of Veuve Cliquot.

At 3 a.m. we visit the VIP room upstairs, where we discover the dregs (meatballs, cheese and empty champagne bottles) of what was probably a lavish buffet. We leave a few minutes later -- the festivities are over and the revelers spill out into the street. Rock leans into a new black Mercedes to greet Kenny Westray, founder of the We R One clothing line. World welterweight champion Zab Judah, sporting a diamond grill on his front teeth, comes over to say, "Rock Newman is the greatest [expletive] in the world!"

Everyone's got a second wind and a few friends are meeting at Zanzibar, so it's back to the waterfront. At 4 a.m. traffic is still bumper to bumper, although the crowd out on the street has thinned out. Turns out, Tyson and entourage went down there about 3 a.m. but couldn't talk their way through the roadblock, so they turned around and went back their hotel without setting foot in the club.

We hang out in Zanzibar's VIP balcony overlooking the Potomac long enough to order our first and only drink of the night: a Coca-Cola. Nobody in Rock's posse, including longtime friend Zena Benard and her 15-year-old son, Tyler, Rock's godson, has had a drop of alcohol the entire time. Their friends are no-shows, so we do the only logical thing: go for Greek diner food at the Georgetown Cafe on Wisconsin Avenue.

For the first time all night, Rock has to wait . . . for a table. A procession of tattoos, crop tops and stilettos shuffle by before an early breakfast of lamb shawarma, chicken tenders, waffles and gyros -- with OJ and coffee.

One customer walks by and says, "Hey, Rock! What happened, man?"

Newman shakes his head and says: "He ran out of gas."

It's already light when we leave the diner at 5:45 a.m. A new day. Tyson may have lost, but Rock's still got the Bentley for a few more days before going home to Las Vegas. Life is sweet.

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