Hell or Hangover - Part 2
Friday - April 17th - 8:30 PM to Blackout
A note from the author:
If you haven’t read Part 1 - you’ll find it here.
If you’re reading this on your phone, computer, or tablet, and you are losing your mind due to the significant amount of brain rot that occurs when doing so - hit up thegreatreader.com and send this bitch to your Kindle or print it out.
If you liked Part 1, and if you enjoy Part 2…buy the novel already! Hell or Hangover
8:30 PM
Aisle just so happens to be waiting for the bathroom. He stares at me as we walk out. I don’t know if he’s waiting for an explanation or trying to pretend that his puppylike ears weren’t perked or his guilting eyes weren’t burning a hole through the door. He disapproves of our filthy habits.
“Having fun Aisle?” I ask.
“No,” he says.
He brushes past me into the bathroom. The squeak of his jacket has the opposite of his desired effect. It’s almost impossible to hold back laughter.
“Fuck’s his problem?” VanNeece asks.
I shrug my shoulders.
We creep our way back to a corner of the loft, minds high and ready and focused on nothing at all. It would be best, at this point, to evade all conversation with people who are not on the same level. I don’t foresee us staying much longer and the sooner we leave the sooner the night can actually begin.
As we wait for Aisle, my phone vibrates.
Kristen: You like my snap?
Through all this activity I had almost forgot about the wonders of Kristen’s earlier gift. I can feel my hard on press against my thigh as if to remind me who’s in control here.
Me: My god woman.
Kristen: You like?
Me: Love.
Kristen: I’m actually in Hoboken and thought of you.
Me: I’m in the City.
Kristen: I’ll be back later. Am I going to see you?
Me: The odds have increased tremendously.
Kristen: Lol, that’s what I thought.
Me: Let me know when you’re back.
Kristen: Yes sir.
Aisle’s earlier outburst now seems unwarranted. How bad can I be to deserve such a gift? I let the guilt wash away, knowing in the morning it will return with a vengeance.
8:43 PM
I return to the party from the deep, dark recesses of Kristen World and realize my little unit has made a grave mistake. We are in conversation with none other than Christian Antelunes de Miguel. This is one of my sister’s employees who I hate to like. Or is it like to hate? I can’t tell the difference anymore.
“Cabo was pretty good pero, Puerto Escondido is the place to be,” Christian is in the middle of saying. “If you like surfing that is.”
“When did you start surfing?” Aisle asks while VanNeece chews on his own tongue.
“On a piece of wood, in Cuba, when I was seven,” Christian says.
“On a piece of wood, huh?” I ask.
“Si. It is actually better for learning pero you hab no…”
I have to stop listening. His accent, the Spanglish, the stories of adventure – I’ve seen it all and heard it all on his Instagram. He is one of those Insta-egos who take selfie videos that start with ‘Hey guys’ as if he is talking to a legion of fans just desperately waiting on their phones for another Christian post. He’s got about 100,000 followers and I am unfortunately one of them. I’ve never liked a post out of spite.
What he does for my sister is unknown. Is he an influencer? Does he travel the world purchasing stuff for Kim? I have no idea. In order to get him to stop talking about himself I dial up a few tequila shots from a flask I brought. I pour the piss warm liquid into red cups and pass them out like a doctor doling out medicine.
We take the shots and Christian kisses his teeth long enough to stop talking. Aisle’s face looks like it’s getting sucked in by his nose. VanNeece and I weather the storm with no hint at how awful the drink actually is. They don’t call yip a performance enhancer for nothing.
“Man, that is some sheet tequila,” Christian says.
He fakes a loogie on the floor.
“I bet if you pour that sheet on a Cadillac, it’ll look like a Honda in twenty-four hours. Man, I bet if you pour that sheet on a-a-a como se dice caniche, aaaa a poodle at dinner it’ll look like a sphynx cat by morning,” Christian says, laughing.
I laugh too. He’s got a point. My stomach is in choppy waters and it’s possible that this “sheet tequila” is doing a number on my enamel. I try and focus my attention on Christian himself. He’s got long hair that begins to curl at his shoulders. His cheek bones are a direct line from ear to chin, his top three buttons undone revealing hard pecs and perfectly manicured chest hair. He looks like he should be on the front cover of a shitty romance novel. In other words, he’s everything a woman wants.
“Jyou got anything better than this, my friend?” he asks.
“I think I can find something,” I say.
Though Christian is probably asking for some sniffles, I’ll do just about anything in order to avoid another story. It’s not that I’m bitter or anything. It’s just that every time I see a post of Christian in some far-off land like a Dumas-ian hero I lose a little piece of my soul, of which I don’t have much left.
I swear…I’m not bitter.
9:01 PM
My sights are now set on Kimberly’s liquor cabinet. It has yet to be ravaged, which is not all that shocking.
If there is any real reason to be rich, then Johnnie Walker Blue is that reason. The bottle is hiding in the back of the cabinet, but my sharp, bloodshot, eyes spot the gold. After pouring myself a hefty glass, I offer it to any takers. There are plenty of employees willing to take the whiskey with a vigor they didn’t display for the warm vodka. None of their conversations hold me for longer than a sip except for one lesbian couple.
From what I can tell, these two head up the kiln department. No surprise there. The more petite of the two takes the fine liquid down in one gulp and puts her glass out for seconds.
“Finally, some good shit.”
I oblige and offer her counterpart a glass as well.
“No, I’m sorry. I don’t drink,” she replies.
The small voice that comes out in no way matches the stiffness of her handshake. The sides of her head are shaved, her arms are covered in black ink, and her forearm strength leaves my hand cramped.
“Well, what do you do then?” I ask.
“Depends on what you got,” the sweet voice says.
Next thing I know, the lesbians and I are nose deep in dashes of white lines. I make a mental note to give these two high praise if my sister happens to ask but, as we exit the bathroom together, Kimberly’s disappointed face tells me that my recommendations won’t do them any good.
“What are you three up to?” she asks.
“Oh, nothing sis.” I wrap my hand around her shoulder, leading her away from her soon-to-be-ex-employees. “You enjoying the party?”
“I guess. Where’d you get that?” She points to Johnnie. “That’s Creag’s. You might not want to finish the whole thing. And don’t get too drunk, please. You need to make sure my apartment is presentable in the morning. My flight’s at 6 AM. You promised.”
The bottle is halfway empty. Enough for me to put it away and avoid Creag McCullough’s wrath. Creag makes my sister look small, which is no easy feat. If I remember correctly, on a drunken night in this very loft, his beard was measured to be bigger than my head.
“Yea, sure. Not too drunk. Clean the apartment. Right. How is Creag anyway? I haven’t seen him in months.”
“In the beginning it was easy. Almost refreshing. I had all this time for me, for my business. But the apartment doesn’t even smell like him anymore…”
Kimberly’s eyes begin to deceive her normally stoic nature. I can tell she’s been hitting the sauce tonight and I’m devilishly proud. A heart to heart is impending and inevitable. To her point, the apartment currently smells like alcohol and sweat.
“Well, that’s why you’re going out there, right? You guys can finally have some one-on-one time. How much longer is this job he’s working on anyway? I thought he would be back by summer.”
“That’s the problem. The job is being extended.”
“Extended as in…”
“It’s going to take another six months to a year,” she says.
“Ah.”
The things we do for love. Well, not we. But others.
She is holding it together, but a ball of emotion is unraveling behind her placid blue eyes. In my comatose state, a spasm of feeling even slaps at my tear ducts. An architect and a furniture designer. A match made in design heaven. Unfortunately, there are a couple hitches in this perfect gait. This job Creag has been on is in London, his ancestral home. Kimberly’s company is here, her newfound home. She’s taking a three-month long visit to keep the hope alive.
“Of course, I’m excited to see him. I just hope this isn’t his way of trying to convince me to move there. I don’t want to give him any false hope. I’m a city girl. A New York City girl,” Kimberly says.
“We were raised in the suburbs,” I reply.
“Fuck off.”
She laughs and punches me in the shoulder. I am sure it will leave a bruise.
“I’m a city girl now,” she continues. “You know I’ve lived in this place almost half as long as I lived at Mom and Dad’s?”
“Which makes you only a quarter full of shit,” I say.
She doesn’t laugh.
“I just don’t want to give him any false hope,” she says.
Her eyes start to water. She wipes away a stray tear and her finger gets caught pushing back a sweaty bang. I grab her head, pull it down on my shoulder, and squeeze, attempting to cut off any leftover circulation of tears I can’t handle.
“Don’t worry about all of that Kim. Just go and enjoy your time with the man you love. Who knows, maybe you’ll like London. Maybe you’ll hate it. But remember, it could always be worse. You could be stuck in an office for 40 hours a week like me.”
Usually, comparing my miserable existence to Kim’s brings a smile to her face. Knowing she’s the successful sibling stacks the chips neatly on her shoulder. But this time her eyes don’t light up in vain delight; they stay swollen with held back tears and follow me as I walk outside for a smoke.
9:16 PM
A film has built at the back of my tongue. This is due to the irresistible urge of puffing down back-to-back cigarettes. The wooden planks underfoot along with an Adirondack chair and a lantern hanging from the wall almost lull me into kicking my shoes off, but the sounds don’t match. Crashing waves are replaced by the weak and incessant beeps of horns. Wind rattles the high locked fence at the bottom of the set of stairs.
“Who has a deck in Manhattan?” I ask the cosmos.
“That’s exactly what I was thinking.”
For a second, I wonder if the sky has heard me; that God, in her Spanish accent, has answered my deep and philosophical question of deck necessity in Manhattan. In wonderment, I gaze up at the smog that has answered my prayers.
“What’s the purpose?” I ask. “Kim has beach chairs for Christ’s…I mean…for damn sakes. Who needs to lay out in Chelsea?”
“Definitely not Jesus,” the cosmos says.
Tracking the voice of the universe to ground level, I discover there is another smog admirer in my midst. Her back is toward me, head tilted toward the heavens, and I watch her dark brown hair move back and forth, skimming the straps of her sundress. Back and forth, forth and back; the wind is more confounded than me, having trouble choosing which way is more beautiful. My eyes follow the dress straps down, like two yellow brick roads leading me to the promised land. But her dress is waving too. There’s no body in sight, no ass to gawk at, no legs to mention. She’s enmeshed in a flowing yellow. Her dress and her hair are a moving synchronization, a flow state with the breeze, the shots, the yip.
“Hello?” she asks, still looking up.
After what must be minutes of spectating and simultaneously slobbering over the brown filter of cigarette number three, I remember to speak.
“What are you doing out here all alone?” I ask, popping in a piece of gum.
“‘Hello, Clarice’ would have made a better first impression,” she says. “Are you going to ask me if I want some candy next?”
She’s still gazing at the sky. Sounding like a speculative serial killer hasn’t scared her off.
“Sky,” she continues. “Why are you so creepy?”
“I’m not always this creepy,” I say.
She turns towards me. The confusion on her face makes it obvious that she was expecting a man in a strait jacket and a hockey mask.
“Just sometimes?” she asks.
Her lightly tanned skin lies under smattered freckles. They run from cheek to nose to cheek like a Jackson Pollock. Her eyes are the piercing green of an apple. She seems foreign, not in country but in time. Mary Magdalene and La Madonna in one. She does know of Jesus’ whereabouts after all.
I send up a silent prayer that the curtains match the drapes, which sounds odd in this asexual tone. I pray that the outside matches the inside. I’ve been tricked there before.
“It’s weather dependent,” I finally say.
“It depends on the weather?”
“Well…yeah. It happens every winter. My social skills get frozen up. It takes a while for them to thaw out. I’d say I’m melted down to here.”
I place my hand at my neck.
“What did it?”
“The alcohol,” I say.
Her laugh bursts from her as if even she hadn’t expected it. Her teeth shine between dark lips.
“I needed to get some air after whatever it was you poured in there,” she says.
“Ah! Warm vodka. My specialty. I can make you another if you want?”
“I’d rather jump into the river.”
“You think that was bad? You haven’t tried anything yet. Red Bull Vodka, Jägerbombs, Long Island Iced Tea, pick your poison,” I say.
She puts her finger in her mouth and pretends to gag, inducing a smorgasbord of disgusting thoughts. One in particular involves tossing her on top of the garbage cans at the bottom of the steps, bringing an entirely new and disastrous meaning to the term dirty thoughts. As my mind races away into its deviant abyss, she smiles, and all the pornographic images fade in comparison to reality.
“You would like what we drink where I am from,” she says.
“Where’s that?”
“I was born in New York but raised in Barcelona. So that makes me a triple citizen.”
“I only counted two there.”
“American. Spanish. Catalan.”
“Forgive me but, I don’t get it,” I admit.
“Barcelona is technically Spain but also part of Catalonia,” she says.
“I may have just gone cross eyed.”
“Poor American,” she laughs. “Catalonia is its own nationality.”
“Like Texas?” I ask.
“Like Texas,” she confirms.
I guide her back to the topic of drinks. Something relatable.
“Gin and tonics. Everyone drinks big gin and tonics,” she says. “And wine. We have some of the best wine that no one talks about but trust me, it is good. Rioja, Tempranillos, Garnacha…”
As she talks, her eyes come alive from their deep sockets. Her arms flail and her lips move with no effort. Her freckles dance.
“What’s Barcelona like?” I ask. “I’ve never been but my mother talks about it like it’s heaven on earth.”
“She’s been there?”
“Lived there for a little while. She was on the Exile Express. Havana to Spain, Spain to Union City,” I say.
“So jyou are Cuban?” she asks, loosening her accent.
“Half,” I say.
“And half gringo?” she laughs.
“Si…is it that noticeable?”
“¿Por qué no has estado en España?” she asks.
“Huh?”
“Oh no,” she says. “Don’t tell me you can’t speak Spanish…”
I shake my head. My face feels like it’s been slathered with hot sauce. The embarrassment of never taking my mother’s maiden tongue seriously has finally caught up with me. Hours, weeks, months, even years of learning would have been worth it to speak to this woman.
“Aye, no problema. I don’t mind English. It’s better for writing than speaking though.”
“You write?” I ask.
“Poquito,” she says, pinching her pointer and thumb.
“A little bit?”
“See! You’re getting it already.”
We laugh. Then pause.
“Want to get out of here?” I blurt.
“With you?”
I look around like John Travolta in Pulp Fiction.
“And go where?” she asks.
“Anywhere they serve gin.”
She smiles and glances inside.
I’ve secretly been waiting for the other shoe to drop since being hypnotized by the cobra-like movements of her hair and dress. Assuming she is single is nothing short of blasphemy. God forgive us sinners, now and at the hour of our death – which could come at any moment to my poor, pounding, heart.
Beautiful women are not the same species as me.
9:20 PM – April 17th – 2015
Sent.
“Huh, did you say something?” I ask.
“Beautiful women are the same species as you,” she says.
“Wait, what?”
“I said, phones and cigarettes are bad for you.”
Who knew a side effect of cocaine was faulty eardrums.
9:48 PM
Half an hour later our conversation is still stuck on the ill effects of cell phones, not cigarettes.
“Cigarettes aren’t that bad for you,” she says.
I find these words as encouraging as her speech on the wonders of Spain’s alcohol selection.
“The surgeon general says otherwise, but please enlighten me,” I say.
“Well, compared to your phone, the cigarette is almost nothing. That ball of energy in your pocket shooting whatever it shoots right into the place you don’t want anything shot and can’t be stubbed out,” she says.
She looks down at my junk as if she has x-ray vision. A terrifying thought even if I’m semi-erect already. Regardless of how committed I am to her cause, I take my phone from my side pocket and place it in the back.
“And those thumbs,” she continues. “Those poor thumbs. If there was any way to invest in orthopedics on the stock market I would do it.”
I note the possible investment while rubbing the base of my thumb.
“But the neck. The neck is the worst. Imagine your head is a bowling ball in the palm of your hand, slowly moving forward. That is what your poor little neck is trying to hold up every time you look down. Now imagine this with two bowling balls.”
She points to my head and the curled mess of hair on top of it.
This woman is cutting me to the core. I’m a creepy, two-headed freak who can’t speak Spanish. There is little reason for me to be alive and she definitely doesn’t want to leave here with the likes of me. But for some reason I can’t wipe the dumb smile off my face every time she speaks.
“And don’t get me started with how those things screw with our heads.”
“You mean from the radiation?” I ask.
“No, our minds. We sit and scroll for hours pretending we are doing something. We get lost in video after video of nothing and the worst part is that it tricks us into thinking we are actually being productive. Think about Twitter for instance. You take fifteen minutes writing a thought that goes into nowhere and just disappears. No one cares.”
“No one cares until you become famous and they want to use it against you,” I say.
“Exactly!” she laughs. “And then there’s Instagram. I actually feel bad for men who have Instagram.”
“Please, give me your sympathies. It is a rough life I’m living.”
“I’m serious,” she continues. “You have pictures of millions of hot women on your phone. Back in the day you’d have to buy a magazine or watch a movie to get a glimpse of such hotness. Or, you’d have to do something even crazier…talk to a real living girl that you find attractive. The horror!”
“Preach,” I say. I almost get on my knees and bow.
“It makes every man turn into a little fanboy,” she says.
I’m glad I didn’t bow.
“Liking pictures of girls you’ve never met,” she continues. “Gawking at women who are photoshopped, thinking that you have a chance with not one but all of them. And meanwhile there are girls out there, real girls, who a real man would kill for and her knight in shining armor has his eyes glazed over looking at the Kardashians.”
“I’d rather look at you then anyone on this thing,” I say. I chuck my phone over the banister into the pile of garbage bags.
“That’s how a woman wants to be talked to.”
I smile, lighting a cigarette. “Want one?” I ask.
“No, those are bad for you.”
We laugh again.
“But I do like the smell,” she says.
A lass after me own heart. I start down the stairs to retrieve my device.
“Don’t,” she says.
“What?”
“If you leave it there, I’ll leave with you,” she says.
“If I leave my phone in that pile of trash you’ll leave with me?”
“Was I not clear?” she asks.
“Done and done,” I say, laughing.
“I’m not joking. Leave it right there in the garbage. All night.”
I don’t know if I’m fascinated or terrified.
“I’m Lou by the way.”
“Marissa.”
Her hand is light and warm. Skin soft as a double L. That much Spanish I do know. Bella.
9:55 PM
“Marissa! There you are.”
A woman’s voice surprises us from the bottom of the stairs.
“I can’t bring you anywhere. You’re always disappearing. It’s my job to keep you safe in such a big bad city. You did it for me in Spain, now I’m returning the favor. Where have you been?”
The voice comes from a girl I can barely register as a human being. In Marissa’s light, everything else fails recognition.
“I’ve been out here. How is the party?” Marissa asks.
“Dead. I think Kim is asleep, and half her staff are arguing about the mayor. This guy Christian and I have been talking. We’re going out, do you want to come with us?”
Marissa turns to me: an odd mix of air and earth-like mist. A yellow, freckled mirage. She mouths to me the words leave it and smirks.
Plan A.
10:02 PM
I hold the door open for Marissa as we enter our first bar on Professor Lou’s New York City bar tour. Shame on me, I know.
“Why thank yjou,” she says, an errant j slipping into her y.
As the four of us take seats at an Irish Pub I order four Irish Car Bombs. Marissa looks at me like I have twelve heads, which would mean I now have ten more than she already thinks I have.
“What the hell is this?” she asks.
She’s looking at the shot of Jameson and Baileys the color of old milk and a half-filled pint glass of Guinness.
“You drop the shot in and then chug the whole thing. You have to do it fast or the Baileys will curdle,” I say.
“Curdle? What do you mean curdle?”
“Just chug it.”
She takes the entire concoction down in two seconds. As I’m still chugging, she’s wiping her upper lip with a napkin.
“I’m impressed and emasculated all at once,” I admit.
“That’s not so bad actually. Definitely better than your warm vodka at the party. My choice next.”
She orders four gin and tonics and I am thankful.
“They are like a mint for the stomach,” she says.
Her taste is impeccable. The drink feels like it’s cooling my insides. I lean over to check on Christian and the friend. I haven’t had a chance to ask her name and don’t foresee any effort being made on that front. Christian is telling a story, his accent and pecs out in full force. If I had my druthers, I would have chosen any other person on planet earth to accompany me on this double date. I run the very real risk of becoming the boring guy next to a person with two last names. Aisle or VanNeece would have been nice, but I have no idea where they are. I don’t care either. I try and think of something to say, anything to make me seem interesting, and come up empty.
“What do you want from life?” Marissa asks me.
An abrupt question. One I hadn’t really pondered in my twenty-five years on this planet. What do I want from life?
“Another gin,” I say. “You?”
She laughs. It’s an honest laugh though I can’t tell if it is at me or with me.
“When you were on the deck talking to God I noticed that you meant it. Pero, you don’t act like you mean anything that you do. In my country they would call you a jester,” she says.
“That’s what I’m here for…the laughs,” I say.
I hand her another gin, though she hasn’t finished her first, and her fingers touch my hand with the glass. For a moment she stares into my eyes, piercing through the twenty odd drinks I’ve built up around myself in defense. In any other situation I would lean in and kiss the girl, but I don’t move a muscle. What do I want from life? A frightening thought.
“I want serious,” she says.
“Okay, I’ll be serious. Let me think.”
“No, from life. That’s what I want. If you take everything serious, even fun, then you don’t miss anything.”
“You’re funny though.”
“I take joking dead serious.”
She picks up a knife and points it at me with a murderous stare. But she can’t hold it in and starts cracking up.
10:23 PM
On second thought, what I want from life is for Christian to cut the shit. On our walk to the next bar, he is droning on about his latest trip to Mexico again. “Puerto Escondido, a small little beach town that offers the biggest waves on the West Coast.” No one cares, bud. Except the two ladies are yucking it up. Marissa’s holding on to my arm as we walk and watching her laugh at another man’s stories makes me want to kill someone. Not her of course. Her laugh makes my stomach quiver. The way her neck gets taut and her mouth opens wide and her freckles spread and reach for her ears. I’d like to be the man that makes her laugh like this.
At Christian’s suggestion, we stop at a little taqueria the size of my apartment. I want to say fuck this place, but it does look cool. The shittier the wallpaper, the better the food and drink. Lou’s bar tour has turned into the Christian self-fellating show and somehow, I must get this train back on the track.
Christian runs off an order of drinks and tacos in Spanish but when the waiter asks him for a card to hold, Christian’s arms have taken the form of a T-Rex. My sister must pay a shit wage. I wonder if the Instagram version of Christian is just an illusion. He turns around to tap his pockets as if his wallet has grown legs and walked away. The evil part of me wants to leave him out to dry. I get giddy waiting for him to come up with an excuse. Even better would be to watch his card get declined. I am not ashamed to say I’ll do anything to make myself look better to Marissa. I wait a half a second and then realize I don’t want to taint this night. I can hear my father’s voice in my head, which never happens while I’m drinking. It says something along the lines of never doing something you will regret in the morning. I’ve already broken that rule fifty times tonight, but I stop the counter before it hits fifty-one and hand my card to the waiter. There’s another line from my father that pops into my booze-laden head. I try to ignore it but can’t. I proposed to your mother in seven days.
“Why are you paying?” Marissa whispers to me. “You paid at the last place.”
“It’s okay. I like paying.”
“I’ll pay at the next stop.”
“Absolutely not,” I say.
She throws me a sincere smile. “What do you do?” she asks.
“Nothing important.”
“No, I want to know, really.”
“You’re not gonna like this,” I warn her.
“A drug dealer?” she asks.
“Nope.”
“Wall Street?”
“Next.”
“A sex trafficker?”
“If I was only so lucky. But no.”
“Hmmmm…” she ponders.
“It’s worse than all of those combined,” I say.
“An arms dealer?”
“Close. I market phone apps.”
She feigns horror.
“How could you do such a thing?”
“It’s a family business. My dad is a partner and I guess I was born to warp the minds of our youth. But it pays enough to handle this sixty-seven dollar bill at this lovely little taqueria, so I’d say corrupting the world with our phone apps is officially worth it.”
“What kind of apps?” she asks.
“Let me see your phone, I’ll show you.”
“I don’t have a phone.”
“You…what?”
“I have a phone, but when I go out with friends I don’t bring it,” she says.
“I must admit, I’m shocked.”
“What’s shocking?”
“Now were both phoneless,” I say.
“What could go wrong?” she asks.
She smiles, then takes a little nip of her Mexican beer.
The word regal has never entered my mind but there it is, pasted on the inside of my forehead in neon lights. The marquee underneath reads “and intriguing.” Don’t fuck this up Lou.
11:13 PM
Somehow we’ve found ourselves in a place with a dancefloor but it feels like we are in an unfinished basement. The piping is visible above and there are little mounds of insulation spray that looks like mold. It feels like drinking in a war zone.
Another round of gin and tonics fuel our corner of the bar that shall remain nameless. No, seriously, the bar’s name is Nameless. Ironic isn’t it? I couldn’t be angrier that this is a place now associated with my bar tour, but Marissa’s friend was adamant that it was good.
Christian is off the deep end and has, for all intents and purposes, ditched his own date and is now drunkenly focused on mine. I don’t begrudge him. Marissa is not only drop dead gorgeous, she’s also fucking hilarious. She’s been stealing little glances over Christian’s hunched shoulder at me, winking, which keeps me off of suicide watch. It’s as if she’s entertaining this conversation to get in my head, which only intrigues me more.
Long ago, Professor Lou learned not to show any jealousy. It was around the time those eyes and bangs in the window at the liquor store were attached to a real person. So instead of grabbing Cristian by the arm and escorting him from the premises, I sit next to the friend who still, like this bar, remains nameless. The laidback tactic has always worked for me and, it seems now, is especially working with Christian so intent on embarrassing himself. My talent for hiding my inebriation levels will only increase my standing in Marissa’s eyes. The drunker he gets, the better I look. But somehow this thought doesn’t cure my dejected position. The friend and I sit on our stools, drinking our drinks, with nothing to say to one another. The bartenders wear overalls. So ironic.
Christian finally loses steam and has to go to the bathroom, thankfully leaving Marissa alone. The two had been speaking in Spanish and their staccato conversation felt like a rambling nightmare. Not learning my mother’s native tongue has really come full circle. Christian sneaks behind me and whispers in my ear. “You got any sheet left?”
“What shit?”
“The fucking jyip man. I know jyou hab it.”
The man’s eyes are crossed and his tongue is hanging out of his mouth like an overheated cow. Do I really need him yapping like a chihuahua sped up with a bump of blow?
“Here,” I oblige.
Anything to get him to leave.
A shady high five ensues, which is so obvious it hurts. This maneuver has yet to fail my compadres and I. For half the night, the half with Marissa, I completely forgot about the drug that was keeping me going. Turns out good conversation with a woman is more powerful than any narcotic on the market. And there are always her eyes, those freckles, that could keep a narcoleptic alert.
“Having fun?” Marissa asks.
“Not so much. Your friend isn’t as fun as you are,” I say.
“Poor Lou,” she pinches my cheek like a mother. “Pobrecito.”
“If I knew what that meant I would probably be offended.”
“It means ‘you poor thing,’” she says.
“Is that what I look like?”
“Well, that speech you made at your sister’s was poor. And the vodka was worse. And that girl who looked like she was made out of balloons was the worst of all. But to top it off you let me take a, como se dice, ear bashing from your friend.”
“Ear beating,” I laugh.
“Si, un ear beating,” she pretends to smash her ears. “But you do know how to run a good bar tour. I don’t know if you’re poor or awful, but you are fun. But maybe you’re something else or could be. Yo no sé.”
“Like what?” I ask.
A house song with a Spanish guitar and an off beat blasts from the speakers, exciting Marissa out of her examination of me. The song has the same rhythm of something my mother would listen to in the house, dancing by herself, while her husband sat in a recliner nodding his head off beat. Life with a gringo. Marissa grabs my hand and pulls me to the dancefloor.
She starts the dance by pushing me out to a safe distance, moving her hips, sundress swaying, feet close together, hands rising above her bare shoulders. She moves closer, inch by tortured inch, until her ass just barely brushes against my belt buckle then backs away with a devilish smile. Her eyes lit with a flirtatious joy. I’m not sure what this dance is or how to even keep the beat, but I try to mimic her moves. Dance apart, creep into one another, barely touch, move away. Each turn we take gets closer, quicker, the distance and time between touches becoming smaller and smaller. Every time we make contact I am afraid she is going to feel what can only be described as a polite boner poking her in the back. Is it not okay to show your appreciation for a woman you find attractive? I am too enamored with the sensualness of this ritual to answer that question.
As she works her way around me and then closer and closer and slower and slower I am filled with a rushing urge of need. I grab her hips, slide my hands down her thighs, as her ass gyrates on my belt buckle. If I was sober there’s a chance I wouldn’t have lasted even this long.
She turns around, wrapping her hands around my neck, and I have this Cro-Magnon like urge to carry her back to my cave those social science classes were supposed to have helped me crawl out of. But what did they teach me? By this point I would have had to ask one hundred questions of permission. Can I put my hand there? Is it okay if I smell the sweat dripping down your neck? Does it hurt when I grip your thigh like that?
Ignoring any and all rules, I lean in for a kiss. She cranes her neck as far back as it will go, like Neo dodging a bullet, to avoid my lips. She moves a dangling errant wet curl away from my forehead and pats my head like a little boy. I find the whole thing endearing if not the most embarrassing thing that has ever happened to me. At the change of the song, she leads my dejected body through the dead sea of people.
We sit down at the bar alone. Christian and the friend are still out on the dancefloor. In an attempt to avoid Marissa’s eyes, I watch them, baffled. Their dancing looks like two people humping with clothes on. It’s got a hint of soft-core porn without the smooth jazz. Filthy hip-hop lyrics scream from the speakers. Ya little stupid ass bitch, I ain’t fuckin with you!
For all of Christian’s bodily charm, the long hair, the delts, the jaw line, he moves like a big horny gorilla. His penis is probably the same size as that particular ape’s, which is the only proper explanation for his absurd Instagram persona. His dancing is anything but sexual, almost robotic, an agony of the body only. No soul.
“So jyou know Guaguancó?” she asks.
I turn to Marissa, still embarrassed, but her eyes are filled with green delight.
“No, what’s that?” I ask.
“The dancing we were doing. Not exactly, but close. It’s called Guaguancó. It’s a type of Cuban rumba. You’re telling me you don’t know Spanish or Guaguancó? Ay, dios mìo,” she laughs, smacking her forehead.
I start to gulp what must be my twelfth gin and tonic, trying to wipe away any and all memory of this night, when she presses my arm down, takes my drink, places it on the bar, and grabs my head. She puts her nose to mine. She stays there, our eyes staring into one another, her breath of gin and mint and heat soaking into my upper lip, noses just barely touching. There is something in that point of contact. Some urge deep inside to stay there yet go forward, to kiss the girl without touching lips.
She finally backs away.
“You see? That’s Guaguancó. Getting closer and closer. Teasing and taunting. Building it up. Delaying pleasure.”
Christian disturbs the moment by smacking me on the back while sliding the crackling bag back into my pocket. This trick is far less sketchy. No eye contact or an obvious exchange of goods but there is always anxious hesitation; did the bag make it into the pocket?
I’m not sure if it’s the exhaustion of the dance, the thirty plus drinks I’ve had or the denied kiss but I’m starting to feel a little woozy. I can consciously say I am in the middle of a gray out, where the night starts to come in and out of focus. There is only one remedy for this and that’s to hit the little bag that’s hopefully made it into my pocket.
“I’m going to the bathroom,” I announce out of my reverie. “I’ll be right back.”
“Hurry,” she says. “I want to dance more.”
I saddle up in a stall and check for the bag. It all hits me. The drinking. The yip. The noise. Marissa. I close my eyes and the black sways up and down like the ocean at night. It’s almost impossible to focus on one of the broken white tiles behind the toilet. The only way to power through this is another bump, which I find shaking at the end of my key.
This time it does nothing.
The alcohol has won this cat and mouse game.
Images of the stall begin to flash in and out in real time.
The sounds of flushing toilet stutter.
I take out my phone, which looks like three at the moment. I’m sorry this relationship has started off with a lie, Marissa. Please forgive me. I couldn’t just leave it there all alone in the trash. Me and this phone have been through so much together. What if I needed it? What if there was an emergency? What if I thought of something funny to tweet?
Hello?
11:44 PM – April 17th – 2015
Sent.
And then there I am, in the mirror. I’m washing my hands but can’t feel the water. My hair is out of control and my eyes look like two glazed donuts. I think the me in the mirror says ‘help’ but I haven’t moved my mouth. Blackout is impending. It’s fight or flight, buddy. Fight or flight.