9/06/02: Scenes from an Evening
Right as we leave, Jenny and I decide to pose for a "before" picture. We stand in the doorway of our friend’s house. She has very graciously let us crash with her tonight, but doesn’t feel like coming out with us because she is a boring, boring old lady. (Just kidding, dear.) Anyway, our friend takes a picture of us. I must say we look hot. For the record, I am wearing a red shirt trimmed with lace and little turquoise beads, along with my lucky denim skirt. It is much cuter than it might sound. Jenny is wearing a cute wrap shirt and black pants. On the way out, we agree that both of us have really fabulous asses. For the record, we really do.
9:30 pm.
Jenny and I arrive at the bar and meet up with Rachel and Kelly. There is that general hullabaloo that results whenever a lot of chicks meet each other, then we get some beers and sit down at a table. The bar is quiet. Too quiet. So quiet you can hear the horrifically bad DJ. ::shudder:: Rachel and Kelly say they like my website. That brings my readership to a grand total of six. If you count me.
10:30 pm.
There are some tables behind the bar and on a crazy nutty whim, we decide to go outside and sit at one of them for a bit. There’s a citronella candle in the middle of the table to keep away the nonexistent hoard of September mosquitoes. There are a lot of party people back here, most of them taking a break from the dance club that shares the premises with the bar. Rachel and Kelly are laughing at someone behind me, and I don’t give a rat’s ass if he knows we’re laughing at him, so I turn to look. He’s this short, stocky, would-be playah, all decked out in a striped shirt and non-matching pants, his hair spiked up in the back, like he’s Sonic the Hedgehog. He’s leaning against the wall, one knee bent, one foot against the wall – the pose George Michael had at the beginning of the “Faith” video. He is really the most ridiculous thing, standing there with a self-satisfied smirk, waiting for a very, very important call to come through on the cell phone strapped to his belt. We can barely take it. We watch him try to talk to some girls, and they make a face and walk away. We burst into loud laughter. We don’t care.
When he slinks off, we have nothing to laugh at. The candle is flickering so we pour some of the wax out on one of those ubiquitous club-flyer-postcards that are always on tables in the back yard of bars. We poke at the wax as it solidifies. We’re really partying now.
midnight.
When we’re cold, we go back inside and sit down at the bar to try to get a beer, but we can’t get the bartender’s attention. I try waving a tenner like it’s a red cape, to no avail.
“Hey guys,” I say. “What say I unleash the power of my breasts?”
“He’ll come over in, like, a second,” says Kelly.
I sit up straight, push my shoulders back, and tell the bartender who has immediately walked over that we’d like some hard lemonade.
Drinks in hand, the girlies and I go out to the dance floor. Boy, as dance floors go, this one is faboo. It’s maybe 10’ by 8’ and it’s bordered by mirrors, with different colored lights flashing everywhere, like we’re in some sort of hair-metal-video hell. The best part is the standard issue drunk girl dancing by herself, watching herself in the mirror. Well, at least she was dancing by herself. She has a friend now, some random guy. Really, every guy in the vicinity is watching her, probably because she’s dancing like a stripper. I mean that literally -- she must be, by profession, a stripper. She’s running her hand along her side and doing quick head tosses and arching her back and gyrating her butt. It’s kind of depressing, so of course it makes us laugh.
1:30 am.
We’ve danced enough. The goddamn DJ kept screwing up all the good songs. And anyway, it wasn’t as much fun once the Stripper left. So now we’re sitting outside, drinking and talking some more. We’re sitting at a big table and pretty soon, some random guy comes and sits with us, checking on his cell phone messages. He’s not bad looking but not that good looking either. He’s wearing a gold chain. Why would a guy do that? I don’t get it. Anyway, at that moment, we are discussing this girl we know who claims to be a virgin, but likes to take it up the ass. Yes, I wrote that, and yes, you read that. Anyway, I was saying that girls have no reason to be doing on account of we don’t have a prostate gland, and the guy stops checking his messages and says, “This is the best conversation ever. Tell me more about this.” His earnestness is sort of endearing.
Interlude #1:
Okay, so we tried dancing in the dance club with the message-checker and his evil cousin but god, it sucked. Now, Jenny and I are back out in the back yard, happily reclining under a fake coconut tree. The only good thing about going in that stupid, sleezy, superfluous dance club was that Jenny spied a familiar face, dancing in the crowd: her daughter's kindegarten teacher! Far too humorous! And then on the way out, she ran into her daughter's preschool teacher, who is now working as a cop. So now, on the garden chairs, looking up at the "coconuts," we are laughing about this, trying to decide if she should approach the kindergarten teacher on Monday and say, "Were you out dancing on Saturday night?"
2:30 am.
It's later on, and I'm wandering. Message-checker has a crush on Jenny and I got stuck talking to his creepy cousin. I decided, instead, to wander. I sit down with a table full of guys and say, "Hi." They say, "Hi." They are a little bewildered. I tell them that my friend is chatting with a guy and I thought I’d give the two of them some space, which they agree is very charitable of me. I notice that their candle is out, and one of them is bitching that he needs to light a cigarette, but they don’t have any lighters or matches. So I go to another table and borrow their candle. I light the guy's cigarette, then light a beer label on fire and use it to light their candle. Then I return the borrowed candle, and stay with those guys for a bit. It’s amusing. Just then, over the head of the guy I am talking to, who do I see, making a love connection, but our old friends Sonic the Hedgehog and the Dance Floor Stripper! Oh, it gives you such a warm feeling in the bottom of your heart. And it makes you laugh. I try to explain what’s so funny to the table of candle-lenders but it’s too funny so I give up. Jenny, dear? I think it’s way past time we left.
3:30 am.
We find another bar. This one has a band playing. I've been to this one before, but I'm not sure which one it is. The bartender who has a crush on Jenny gives us free beers. We go take a look at the band, and then immediately walk away. It's just not that fascinating to stare at them. Also, at that moment I'm feeling the need to go sit in the bathroom for a little while thinking things over. It’s not really worth going into.
Jenny would like to put something in here:
Loretta had run down to the bathroom for the umpteenth time that night. Since I know the staff, and some of the patrons are also staff, we decide to do a shot. The bartender asks what I want and I just want anything that will "go down easy". Maybe I should have rephrased, because I think I got "the look". Five shots are lined up, and I have no idea what I will be tossing down my throat. Never did ask what it was. We clink shot glasses, drink, and slam them all back down on the bar. All I can do is laugh, not sure at what. It's just one of those moods. After babbling with some random people at the bar, I become concerned that Loretta has fallen into the toilet. I then put on my cape, grab my lifeguard whistle, and run down to save her, all without tripping. Upon rescuing Loretta from the bathroom, and collecting myself as well, my cell phone rings. I think to myself, "Who would be calling me at 4 in the morning?" It is in fact a call coming from upstairs, in the very same establishment we were already in. (hoarse whisper: "The call is coming from inside the house!" - ed.) Irony at its best. Yes, the bar has my number, and I have their number stored in my cell phone for reasons I will not reveal on this site. I should have that number set to ring "La Cucaracha". No, any guys who call me should cause my phone to ring "La Cucaracha". Guys, cockroaches, what's the difference anyway?
Thank you, guest reporter Jenny. So, yes, the combination of a nice girl named Cassandra and my friend Jenny manage to rescue me from my drunken doldrums. When the other people leave the bathroom, Jenny and I take pictures of each other by the sinks -- an "after picture." Then we go back out in the bar. Jenny kind of wanders off in search of more beer, and I don't remember the exact sequence of events, but there's something about a man, here.
He appears, suddenly, and tells me he likes my shirt. He is very charismatic and only kind of cute but he has a way about him. He tells me his name and says he's the lead singer of the band who was just playing. I say, “Can I just call you Lead Singer?” He says I can call him anything I want to. He asks if I'm having a good night. I say, “Well, parts of it were good, parts of it not so good.” He says, “Oh, you need a hug.” And somehow then I am hugging this strange guy. It is a very nice feeling, if you must know. He says, “I give good hugs, don’t I?” I say to his shoulder, “Yes, you do.” He says, "My mother says that I give good hugs." Then Jenny reappears. I try to sit down on the stool, but it's crooked or something, or else the seat is slippery, because I keep falling off. They laugh at me. I tell them that I'm not drunk. Well, really, I'm just telling him, because Jenny has disappeared again. I say, "I'm not drunk," and Lead Singer says, "Yes you are, or else you wouldn't let me do this." He puts one finger on each of my shoulders and pushes the shoulders of my shirt over about half a millimeter. This does not reveal anything in particular. My response was due not so much to drunkeness as to bewilderment. "You got me there," I say. He's trying to talk me into coming to his band's show in a week or two. It occurs to me that this is an elaborate way to drum up an audience. But then he kisses me, a couple of times, quickly. Which is nice. Then he kind of wanders off, and Jenny reappears.
"See?" she says. "We don't even pay attention to the band, but still wherever you go, they come to you."
Just then, Gloria by U2 comes on the jukebox, which is one of those songs that sounds gorgeous when you're sober and absolutely heavenly when you're drunk. Jenny and I decide that the only appropriate way to honor the power and beauty of Gloria is to dance on a table. A bartender very kindly informs us that such an action is not really neccesary, as everyone knows how good the song is. In thanks for this, I sing to him, "If I had anything, anything at all, I'd give it to you." He thanks me very graciously, but insists that really, we need to get back down now, please.
Jenny and I agree: it is SO time to go.
Interlude #2:
Jenny and I decide to walk over to the diner for some breakfast. As we walk, these guys whistle at us. I pull up some as-yet-untapped reserves, gather my emotional and physical strength, and hock a lugey in their general direction. It is quite amusing. Devoted readers of this site may know I’ve done that before. Maybe that’s why I don’t have that many devoted readers. I don’t know.
4:30 am.
We’re at the diner, examining the menu. I’m trying to decide: French toast or pancakes? The eternal question. Also, I’m trying to keep my eyes open and my head off the table. Something keeping me awake is the evil menace radiating from the table across the aisle. What I really love is when jerks think that I don’t speak Spanish and don’t understand what they’re saying. Sadly, what I understood is not worth repeating here. I try telling them to callate their fucking bocas but that just makes them happy. They say, “You speak Spanish beautifully.” It sort of escalates from there. We just want them to leave us alone but they won’t, so the manager very deftly glides over and offers us a new table, which we take. I guess it would have been impolitic to kick them out.
Jenny goes to the bathroom and when she comes back, she asks me, “What does puta mean?” I feel a bit how my mother must have felt when a 5-year-old me asked her what “fuck” meant.
“You seriously don’t know?”
“No, but when I walked by them they were saying it over and over. What does it mean?”
“Well…” Puta is an all-purpose Spanish swear for women. It literally means slut or whore but it sort of also means bitch. After all, all us women are bitches. Didn’t you know that? – You didn’t? You must not have gotten the memo. Anyway, I tell Jenny what puta means and it’s the last straw.
We make a quick cell phone call to a friend of ours. Really, he’s a friend of Jenny’s with a crush on her. We start placing our bets on how long we think it’ll take him to get there. Jenny thinks less than a minute but I think that’s not physically possible, so maybe it’ll be, maximum, two minutes. As we’re deciding this, everyone in the diner breathes in at the same time. A big uniformed policeman has just come in, looking pissed off, eyes ranging the tables. He walks right over to us.
“Which ones are they?”
We say, “Hi Mark. They’re over there.” He stalks over in his big policeman boots, yells at them, comes back over, gives us both a kiss on the cheek, says goodnight, and stalks out. Jenny and I dissolve into giggles.
Oh, and I chose French toast. When you get down to it, I don’t think there’s really a contest.
Postlude:
It is some time in the morning. That is, it’s light out. I wake up in my clothes on a futon in the living room at my friend’s house. Jenny is still out cold. I hear water running in the kitchen. I have trouble keeping my eyes open but the water is like the sound of heaven and I can’t help following it. My friend’s roommate is in the kitchen. He says, “Hi, Loretta.” I blink at him, intelligently, I think. I try to tell him that I would please like a glass of water, as I am terribly, terribly thirsty. As that’s sort of complicated, I settle for croaking, “Water.” He says, “Would you like a glass of water?” I nod, blinking. He laughs and pours me a glass. I nod at him, take the water, and, still nodding at nothing in particular, sit down on the futon, whereupon the water disappears into my body. Then my head and the pillow mysteriously collide again.
It’s a good life.
For the record, some information was changed to protect the guilty, who need the protection a lot more than the innocent.
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