Hell or Hangover - Part 3
Saturday - April 18th - 10:03 AM to 4:13 PM
A final note from the author…
This will be the last Hell or Hangover preview.
If you haven’t read Part 1 or 2 - you’ll find it here and here.
If you’re reading this on your phone, computer, or tablet, do yourself a favor and hit up thegreatreader.com and send this to your Kindle.
If you’re still here, just buy the fucking book…
Saturday
April 18th, 2015
10:03 AM
I emerge from chrysalis with no wings to spread, just a dry mouth and a body temp of the sun. Leaning on an elbow, I assess the situation. The room is vaguely familiar but it definitely isn’t mine.
For one, it is clean.
For two, it smells fantastic.
That’s what’s familiar.
It smells like Kristen’s room. Very Sexy For Her, a scent by Victoria’s Secret, accosts every inch of throw pillow, drape, and couch cushion. I might not be a fragrance expert but whoever named that concoction was right on the money. It may be difficult to tease out this new relationship with the smell of Kristen everywhere. The same part of the brain that handles smells also manages emotions. There was little to no emotion involved on my end with Kristen. Admitting that makes me feel like a pig but isn’t that what all of us twenty-something-year-olds want? Sex for the kicks. No strings attached. Never too thirsty. You learn these things in your first class with Professor Lou.
I leave Marissa wrapped in the covers and head to the bathroom. Either the mirror is distorted or Marissa lives in a funhouse. Don’t blame the mirror, kid, you’ve seen this before. You’ve prepared for this, you puffy bastard. My face has doubled in size overnight. The bags holding up my eyes seem fragile, as if they were filled with beer.
Submerging my face into a sink full of cold water barely registers. It should reduce the swelling if nothing else. The once glorious waves of powder-induced thoughts now fade away before they begin. There is one errant thought that escapes through the fog. On any normal morning, with any other bed partner, I would groan on in my head about how sleeping with someone is overrated. Not the sex, of course, the actual sleeping. A cocoon of sweat, heat, and hair is brutal enough as is but when your first instinct is to flee, it becomes oppressive. This time I feel different. There is no overflowing dread.
Drying my face I notice the smell hasn’t skipped the hand towels. I’m still surprised I can smell anything after last night’s antics. There’s an odd feeling, the way the towel hangs from the rack with three little pom poms dangling from its edge, that I’ve been here before.
When I walk out, someone who looks a lot like Kristen is sitting up on the bed, checking her phone. My mind is so mangled it’s hard to process what is going on. What would have normally taken two seconds to figure out takes me a whopping ten. I leap back into the bathroom. I shut the door and turn on the lights and there it is, plain as day. Kristen’s bathroom in Kristen’s apartment.
“Lou?” I hear my name being called by whatever being that’s out there.
I turn the light off.
Where the mirror should be there’s only a black abyss. I have never been so frightened in my life. I have no idea how I got here. I say Bloody Mary three times. I start to see red writing on the mirror. It’s dripping. It says run. Which I do.
“Lou, what the fuck?”
“Hey…Kristen.”
“Are you okay?” she asks.
“Yea, why wouldn’t I be?”
This is not a drill. I walk towards Kristen with short steps wondering when the evil spirit is going to attack. I cover my dangling cock, a natural instinct for a naked man in the presence of what must be a demon. I stand on the opposite side of the bed, never breaking eye contact, and start feeling around for my phone. Kristen is naked herself but even her dime sized nipples don’t distract me. The phone is nowhere in the sheets and the ghost of Kristen present has this look on her face like she’s the scared one.
“Why are you being weird?” she asks.
“Hungover,” I say.
“What are you feeling around for?”
“Nothing? What do you mean?”
“Your phones on the charger. I plugged it in for you last night. You were pretty fucked up. How much did you drink?”
My phone is lying peacefully on her nightstand, charging, just like this spirit said. Aisle may have a point about Kristen. The blond apparition I’ve been sharing a makeshift womb with all night has no idea she’s passed an updated version of the door test. Another Professor Lou insight – if you leave your phone off the charger and she plugs it in for you in the middle of the night, you may have tripped on one of the three good ones. If not…you dump her, and you dump her, fast. Advice co-opted from A Bronx Tale should always be followed. This time it has fallen on deaf and drunk ears.
“Too much…clearly,” I say.
10:10 AM
I think about taking my phone and making a run for it, sans clothes. Running around naked in New York City might be frowned upon but not unheard of…
But I don’t.
It’s not the lack of clothes that make me stay but the confused look on Kristen’s face.
10:11 AM
I start to get dressed.
“You’re leaving already?” she asks.
She reaches out and touches my leg. Then moves her hand up a bit, and a bit more, until she has a handful of me.
Having a heart is all about action in the tiny moments that make or break your conscience. If my heart says no, my body should follow. It almost does. My hands push her away, my legs squirm, but one part of me does not follow suit. The part with the one-track mind. Going along with this farce infers there is more to this relationship than just sex. If only there was some magical spirit that would allow a cock to deflate in this type of an emergency. This (gasp!) is not the case. The billion years of cock evolution that got my genes to this point take over.
The room is dimly lit through cracks from a shaded window. Ghosts in the white sheets move, solemnly, slowly, rocking up and down like white waves. The whole thing is methodical. I feel like I’m taking stage direction. Put hand here. Slap ass now. Pump. Pump. Pump. It’s passionless. Our breath heats the room to a hellish degree. There is no hope for a finish. There is no hope here.
We stop. She walks to the bathroom. A woman doesn’t like it when you can’t finish. It means there is something defunct with them. In this case, that is not true. Kristen is a shining example of everything a man should want in a sex partner. It’s not you, it’s me, rings hollow but true.
Sitting gingerly on the bed, I take in the silence. A few moments alone, a few lifetimes alone, could cure me. I check my fully charged phone.
Aisle: Where’d Lou go?
VanNeece: Typical Lou ditch. Sick friend.
Aisle: We’re going to Finale if you want to meet us there.
I’d like to clear my good name in the group chat but it is clear, short of a burning building with me inside, I cannot seem to muster up a single care.
I look for a text or a call from Kristen last night, but our latest text conversation has been deleted and there are no calls in the log. What the fuck happened?
Last night is commonly referred to as a blackout–where space, time, and light melt into one incoherent, dark blob. You start at one place, the lights go out, and you end up somewhere else. These time travels are getting old.
Instead of planning my exit, I lie in bed, eyes closed. Distorted images of Marissa pass over a black canvas. Her long eyelashes flutter like crows, freckles spin, her hand in mine crushes into a thousand pieces.
I scroll to the M’s in my contact list, hoping, but to no avail. What is usually second nature to drunk me, acquiring a number, has mysteriously been evaded. Though drunk me deserves a good scolding, maybe a few spanks on the ass, I go with the guilt trip. I am extremely disappointed…no, not…not angry…just…disappointed.
With this tremendous opportunity wasted I close my eyes again. The momentary silence is mesmerizing. No cars, no sirens, no talking. A mini blessing bestowed upon my morning.
“What are you doing today?” I hear from the bathroom.
Why do I bother?
10:40 AM
“I had to leave ten minutes ago,” I reply.
She walks out of the bathroom in a robe, ashamed of her unsatisfactory nakedness. I feel ashamed to have made her feel that way. Her nakedness is a blessing to anyone she’ll give it to, except me.
“Can I ask you a question?” she says.
These six words, in this exact order, are the scariest in the English language. Personal questions suck, but questions from girls you used to hang out with and were just inside go far passed sucking.
“Sure,” I say.
“Did you mean what you said last night?”
What did I say?
“Depends on which part.”
“That you wanted to see me more,” she says.
“Well…we always have fun when we hangout.”
“Okay, text me later,” she says.
“I will.”
I won’t.
A sock is missing somewhere as I put my shoes on. I’ll have to leave it behind – this isn’t the fucking Marines.
10:52 AM
The PATH train is empty on the ride back to Hoboken and my eyes stare, unfocused and blank, at the empty seat in front of me. Click, click, click. My brain only responds to sounds. No clear thoughts are coming in. No thoughts at all. Just metal, people, metal people, flying by. I vaguely remember a request from Kimberly to check the state of her apartment due to her early flight, but I am too far gone for that. The PATH just keeps on clicking.
10:53 AM
Somehow, in my catatonic state, I remember how it started six months ago. Kristen was 99% perfect. Almost there, but not quite. I don’t even blame her for what happened. I should have been prepared for the other shoe to drop. When you are a single man your mind has the tendency to treat women like stocks. A market defines value and the dating market is no different. Some women are bears, both metaphorically and physically, and you short the shit out of them. I was bullish on Kristen. The bob. The bum. The boobs. The fun. All worth dumping your dating capital in. The dating market is always volatile. One day you’re infatuated, the next the stock plummets.
I would consider Kristen, in stock terms, to be a crash. Most crashes are precipitated by a speculative bubble and that’s what we were creating, twice a week, every week, for 10 weeks. It started too good to be true, as most bubbles do, then burst into a billion pieces with one sentence.
But before the burst, the beginning…
We met at McSwiggan’s, my favorite bar. It’s a dirty Irish pub that lives up to its name. It’s dark, dingy, and you can get lost in there if you aren’t careful. To this day I don’t know if sunlight has ever entered the place. Blinds shut, TVs on, drinks poured over and over and over. It is a place of wonder and magic.
It was a Tuesday of all nights. The worst night of the week. I had a particularly rough day at the office where I was forced to take part in not one but two whole meetings. You can’t imagine the horror. The only way to forget such a day is to park the car in the garage and head straight to the bar. Do not pass go. Do not collect $200.
I started off with a perfectly poured Guinness that had enough head to drown in and a neat Redbreast in lieu of my normal Jameson shot. I was feeling quite uppity after the two drinks. My pinky was out on the next round. High class drinks for a high class broad. With pinky extended I turned in my barstool to take a lap around the bar and by the grace of God, my finger wound up in the ear of a short young lady. I had inadvertently wet willy-ed the poor girl and I expected to have a drink thrown at me. I wondered if a pinky in the ear was considered sexual assault but even in my wildest porn searches I have yet to see the earhole used as an orifice. This rationale all happened in an instant. Before I could ask for forgiveness, the girl stuck her pointer finger in her mouth, wiggled it around to accumulate as much saliva as possible, and stuck the entire digit into my left ear.
I couldn’t have been more enamored with a meet-cute in my life. If I was a regular man with regular feelings I would have dreamed of telling our kids the story. For weeks it felt like this was an actual possibility. I felt the same spark, the same flood of life enter me like I had ten years prior. The ash of Arianna grew like a phoenix in the form of Kristen. A flying blonde bird. For a moment I thought I could finally put the ghost of Arianna to bed. She was no longer needed as a cornerstone in my brain. She had been replaced with a more mature version. An equally wild spirit that could hold a job. The spark was lit and the embers were stoked for eight weeks. Eight glorious weeks.
It had been the first time in years that Arianna failed to make it into my dreams. She no longer held a stranglehold on my subconscious. It was as if I was in some glorious detox. No tremens, no hurt, no pain, just utter release. It was all so easy, which should have set off alarm bells up and down the halls of my mind. Easy come, easy go, in the falsetto of Freddie Mercury should have been playing at full volume in my head. But Kristen played the dating game exquisitely. She was perfect in every way up until the tenth week.
First and foremost, she applied no pressure. This is absolutely crucial to the success of any modern relationship. If a man feels pressure early (or at all) the man will immediately run. Kristen knew this and acted accordingly. The first few weeks of text exchanges went something like this.
Kristen: Me and my friends are going out to “place x”…if you and your boys aren’t doing anything come meet us.
Me: Done and done.
There are a few glaring pluses to such an exchange, others more subtle. Professor Lou has an uncanny ability to sift through the details.
1. “If you aren’t doing anything.”
This verbiage immediately relieves the tension of any would-be relationship. It says she is not expecting anything from me. This is good. Expectations should always be at the lowest level when talking to a man-child.
2. “Me and my friends”
That is a line in the sand that makes it clear this is not a date. Phew. I don’t do dates. They are pressure-filled narcissistic tropes that distract from the question at hand – are we going to have sex tonight? I refuse to pay for sex. What else is a date if not upscale prostitution? As much as a woman wants to be independent she will always expect a man to pay. Never, ever forget this, fellas. If you agree to a date it is your wallet on the hook.
3. “You and your boys”
Now this, this is just diabolical. She knows exactly what she is doing here. If I can tell my boys that a girl I want to see has hot friends it kills two birds with one stone. The first bird is that I do not have to ditch my friends to hang out with this girl. It means that the myriad of shit I will get for abandoning them is avoided. The second bird is that the girl I want to see has transformed into the “cool girl.” She is now the girl who not only looks after my physical needs but the physical needs of my nearest and dearest. It cannot be overstated that a girl who attempts to get my friends laid is a keeper. That is of course until that tenth fucking week.
On the nights it was only us we started at a bar. This was non-negotiable. Start at a bar, on barstools, mixed in with a ton of other people on barstools. Never, and I mean never, sit at a high-top table. High-top table equals date and we were not dating. Only fucking. Only having fun.
Another plus about Kristen was her knowledge of the bedroom. The first night at McSwiggan’s we made out in a corner and she tugged on my junk for all of five seconds before abruptly leaving. In the midst of her junk grabbing, she slid my phone out of my pocket and put her number in with the eggplant emoji next to her name. It was just the right amount of teasing that can make a man kiss a woman’s feet for the rest of her life.
When we finally did fuck she did not disappoint. Her little body contorted into such extreme positions I thought she would snap. She never did. She was pliable and plowable in every way imaginable. Most importantly she knew how to take control. I admit this may be a kink of mine, but when a woman is on top she drives me mad. I’m not for being tied up and ball gagged but a woman who is willing to push you onto the couch and have her way with you is something so fantastic it is hard to find the words. Maybe this little pleasure of mine is an ego trip. This might sound nuts but men want to be wanted too. For every sick-fuck rapist getting jacked up on control there are nine guys who just want a woman to want them. You can call it an ego trip or an ego boost but women want the same fucking thing. We’re all just animals here. If I learned anything in SOC 2200 – Working Women, it’s that men and women aren’t so different.
Until they are.
Ten weeks. Eight of them perfect.
Then came week nine. It started like the previous eight. I texted Kristen on a Tuesday, our day now, and received a stunning response.
Me: Hey there, where are we going tonight? I can come to you this time.
Kristen: Hmm…
Me: Just let me know.
Kristen: How about we stay in and I cook dinner?
I gasped at my phone. A night in. Dinner. It was all too much too fast. I felt betrayed. Especially after offering to come to her neck of the woods. I was trapped and she knew it. I felt taken advantage of. There really was no way out of the date and not the fucking. I thought of all the blatant lies I could muster. I’m sick, my family dog died (we don’t have a dog), my sister was in a car accident (she doesn’t own a car), but I didn’t have the guts to pull the trigger. I acquiesced.
Me: Uh, yea sure, what time?
Kristen: Come over after work. Like 6-7?
Six-seven? In an instant I felt older than a retirement home. Six-seven at a bar…fine. Six-seven for a home-cooked meal is…old. Old, old, old, old, old.
Me: I’ll be there.
And just like that the pressure was dialed up ten degrees. There’s that analogy of turning the heat up on a frog in water so minutely that they don’t know until it’s too late. Most men are that frog. They don’t even realize they are in a relationship until it’s too late. Not me. Professor Lou knew exactly what was happening and began to plot his escape. In the meantime, I didn’t know what to wear.
What is a date night in? Do I dress up? Throw on a blazer? Or was it a comfy night in? Do I wear pajamas? I couldn’t tell what was worse for our relationship but either way I was on edge. Pajamas could mean we are too comfortable with each other. A blazer means not comfortable enough. This is what I hate about dating. The nerve of it all. The balls it has to make me second guess every decision instead of just having fun. If there is one thing dating is not, it is fun.
The trek to New York City was an internal battle. Every stop the PATH train made I mapped my escape. The train would stop, doors would open, and I could see a hole in the crowd only a pro running back could see. My vision of the defense was clear. Cut past the old lady with a cane, follow the block of two small children holding on to their father’s hands, use the woman with a shopping cart as my pulling guard, hop over the bum and…touchdown! Instead, I just stood there holding on to a bar as the doors closed. Five stops. Five opportunities to flee and I let each one go. Only an act of God or a suicidal maniac that decided today was the day to end it on the tracks could save me. Neither obliged.
I decided on jeans and a sweatshirt. Jeans to dress it up, sweatshirt to dress it down. Underneath the sweatshirt I had a collared polo shirt, just in case I was walking into a candlelit apartment and Kristen was wearing a dress.
She was actually wearing the exact same attire I had decided on. Jeans and a sweatshirt. It got me to thinking again, maybe she really was a keeper. She clearly was having the same inside freakout I was. Her makeup was lightly applied. No lipstick, a touch of blush, the eye paint was not showy or overdone.
“Thanks for doing this. I couldn’t handle another vicious Wednesday hangover. I have this important meeting tomorrow,” she said.
“Of course. I like staying in,” I lied.
“Do you like Italian food?”
“Love,” I said.
“Good, cause I ordered enough to feed a small village.”
My sigh of relief was almost audible. If she had cooked a meal for me that would have been cause for concern. Cooking for someone takes time, patience, effort, and love. The latter of which I wanted to avoid. We shared a delicious bottle of wine. I may be an unhinged maniac, but if a woman invites you to her house and offers dinner the least you can do is bring the booze.
When it came down to the question, the real question, the only question – are we fucking – I was concerned when she mentioned there would be none. She was on her period. That didn’t stop her from blowing my brains out. Everything about this woman screamed perfect.
But when it was time for me to leave she did the unthinkable.
“Why don’t you stay tonight.”
There is no question mark there. That’s because it wasn’t a question, it was a threat.
“Don’t you have an important meeting tomorrow?” I asked.
“Yea but you can sleep here…if you want.”
This was actual betrayal. I had done everything she asked. I had come over to her apartment, I had donned my date-ish attire, I had eaten her food, I had brought the wine, I had received a biblical blowjob but this…this was too far.
If you want.
She had thrown the ball into my court with no thoughts of my feelings or concerns. She knew what this question would do to us. She knew this meant either we were in a relationship or we weren’t. She knew we were at the pinnacle; she wanted it and I…I caved. I always cave.
“Of course, I want to,” I said.
I stayed over. I woke up to the morning breath and the breakfast and I watched her get ready and she kissed me goodbye and I felt old and I felt that we were in a relationship. It all happened so fast. So hauntingly fast.
Those ninth week texts transformed completely from the first eight weeks. That was the biggest turn-off of them all. It was like the Kristen I once knew got mounted by an evil succubus.
The texts were filled with solo plans like dinner on a Wednesday (literally the next day), a museum on a Friday night (what in the living fuck), a night in together again the following Tuesday. It was like a switch had flipped in her head. She went from being the cool girl to the annoying girlfriend in the time it took me to say “Of course, I want to.” I succumbed to each text out of a sense of guilt, not a sense of wanting. Each date was surprisingly fun but the cloud above the whole week hung close overhead. The cloud was the messy future. The future of dating, of meeting parents, of marriage, of mortgages, of kids, of life.
The moment of truth happened on a Sunday, the first day of the tenth week. Brunch. She wanted to do fucking brunch. I gagged when I read the text. I’m not much for hollandaise sauce or poached eggs or bellinis or anything involving brunch. Especially on a Sunday. Sundays are a personal day reserved for nursing hangovers and staring at my phone for untold hours. But there I found myself in khakis and a button-down shirt pretending to be a boyfriend. I despised myself. I couldn’t tell if she knew how put off I was by the whole experience. She should’ve guessed after my fourth Bloody Mary that I was doing anything to numb the pain. She even tried, and failed, to stop me from smoking a cigarette. Who was this person?
She couldn’t have noticed I was in anguish because she suggested we take a walk in the park after I paid our $180 bill. I wanted to cry but agreed. We sat on a bench and she took a selfie of us. My fake smile was strong. Hers was a genuine sharing of that perfect set of teeth. Then she said what she said and the facades came crumbling down as if a bomb had hit us. The speculative bubble popped. There was a run on the bank. Done. Caput.
“Can I post this?” she asked.
“What?”
“Can I post this picture on Instagram?”
“No,” I said.
“Why?”
“Because.”
“What? Are you embarrassed of us?” she asked.
“No, just don’t.”
“Why wouldn’t I want to put a picture up with the guy I’m dating?”
“We aren’t dating.”
“Then what was this last week?” she asked.
The conversation continued like this for an hour until I finally lost my cool. Parents and kids and old ladies were staring at us. They could never understand. Social media makes things official and we were far from official. The guts on this woman. The balls. The gall. We were just fuck buddies. Just good friends that banged twice a week, every week, for ten weeks until we didn’t.
12:07 PM
When my eyes crack open after an hour nap to see a fresh VanNeece glide a rolled-up bill across the windowsill, I feel I must join in. My choice to do this line and go to brunch is as much of a choice as breathing. It’s called FOMO. Fear of missing out. I’m riddled with the disease. It’s in every orifice and pore and organ and bone of my body. No amount of chemo or radiation could get rid of it. Holistic medicine would be useless. I’ve heard even lobotomies are ineffective.
How VanNeece got into my apartment I’ll never know. This is one of the many reasons why you should live in an apartment building with a doorman. Not only do they guard against marauding investment bankers, but if you happen to take a lady home, the pheromones that are kicked up when a door is held open by a man in a Sharper uniform is worth the extra thou on rent. Instead, I live on the fourth floor of a walk up that consists of three rooms: the bedroom, the bathroom, and the everything-else room. I cannot afford the extra thou.
The intruder does drive a hard bargain, though. He deserves every Wall Street dollar he earns. A line, a beer, and a shower are all it takes to push the effects of last night off at least another twelve hours. Rejuvenated and dressed, I plop my ass on my bed, spin my legs over and out the window like a gymnast on a horse. This is what is considered a workout now in my mid-twenties.
It’s a clear day, with a slight, fresh breeze blowing through my wet hair. I welcome the chill as my body temperature has possibly reached fever. The small, rusted fire escape is like the bottom of a large bird cage, swaying and shaking with even the slightest movements. There must be some type of code violation here, but who would I complain to? My landlord is a mystery.
Though my life is in danger with every step, I climb all the way to the roof. I have a view that photographers would kill for. Directly across the Hudson, Empire State Building and Freedom Tower in my periphery. The bright lights that held such promise last night now look like cardboard cutouts. It’s one big, fake mirage that reminds me of Marissa. I’ve looked through the M’s in my phone five times this morning and can’t tell if it’s me or the coke doing the searching.
The step with which I stub my cigarette out produces a loud bang. Much too loud to have come from my foot and the splayed butt underneath it. A quick scan of the terrace reveals nothing until the sound comes again, like a gong, beckoning me forth. I walk towards the skylight on the far end of the roof and peek in.
Brown hair. Yellow sundress. A face I cannot quite make out.
I wonder if I’m seeing things.
“You ready Lou?” VanNeece yells.
I walk towards the feeble ladder at the edge of the roof.
“Be down in a minute,” I reply.
Back to the skylight, peeking in once more, and nothing. No one.
The scene is all too similar to last night. One moment she’s there and the next…poof! Lou the professor and Marissa the magician – a match made for a carnival.
An urge to cannonball through the window rushes over me. I’ll make it, scratch-less. Just a couple steps back and one, two, three…jump…tuck the knees…hold the shins…crash land next to a stupefied, and smitten, Marissa…grab her neck…kiss her. Professor Lou, at your service, milady.
But that’s just the drugs talking. And, like last night, I hear my father’s voice over the substance’s obnoxiously loud presence. I proposed to your mother in seven days. When you know, you know. I try to ignore it, but it only gets louder. I imagine what Professor Lou would say if I told him that I think I’m in…love? I’m not sure what it is. Infatuation at the very least. There is something in my brain that is tugging me towards this woman. The target is set. Whether the aim is true is another matter. A timer begins to tick in my head.
Instead of swan diving through the window, I walk back down the fire escape.
“What are you doing up there?” VanNeece asks.
“Nothing. This stuff is good. Let me get another one.”
“Yeah, it’s from a new guy. Hurry.”
“A new guy?”
We do another one. My teeth are numb as if they have been cut from their roots.
It’s as if last night never ended. Like my night’s sleep was just a comma, a short stop before the run-on sentence of my life continues rambling on. There are heavy, fist-like, thumps in my chest, aches in my extremities – a heart attack or just the consequences of last night. There is no time to fiddle with explanations. The show must go on.
1:01 PM
Washington Street looks different in the daylight. A colorful mix of old and young in their spring regalia. The sun’s energy has infected the populace. The air is imbued with life again. The temperature has tiptoed above a measly fifty-two. It’s as if the dry, cracked, cold earth of winter has been drawn over with lip balm. The difference between the Washington Street from last night and now is alarming. Last night, on our trek to the PATH train, it seemed as if the only places that existed in this miniature city were bars – sucking people in and spitting them out, worse for wear. Now families line the sidewalks. Children hold onto their parents’ hands while skipping across the streets. Roving hordes of fresh moms push carriages, with infants sleeping peacefully or screaming as if the world were ending. Small boutiques, barber shops, and bakeries are all filled with a bubbling sect of Hobokenites, thawed out enough to smile.
“There’s Carey,” VanNeece says, pointing to a table on an outside patio. “And Aisle.”
Carey Bresnahan sits with legs crossed. Aisle holds his chin up with a fist. Are his legs crossed too? These poses ooze gossip. These two have gotten used to waiting for VanNeece and I over the years. Punctuality isn’t our strong suit.
Carey has been a staple in our lives since the fourth grade. This group – VanNeece, Aisle, Carey, and myself – have attended the same grade school, middle school, and high school. Somehow, we all ended up here after college. Hoboken, New Jersey. Staying friends with the same group of people for such a long time is quite the phenomenon. The only person missing to round out our unit is Brian McAndle.
We sit down, order drinks, and I mistakenly choose the man-mosa. A horrible concoction of orange juice, vodka, and Blue Moon beer all in one large glass. My taste buds are reasonably shot so it is not the taste I’m after, it is the result. There really are no other options. This life chose me, albeit through countless bad decisions, so I plod through my shitty cocktail, thinking about a gin and tonic on a balmy night in Spain with Marissa, all while trying to stay in conversation without puking on Carey, who sits across from me. I must find Marissa and this brunch is doing nothing to further that goal.
“How was your sister’s party?” she asks the table.
“Fun,” I say.
“It was horrible,” VanNeece chirps.
“It sucked,” Aisle says.
“Aright, aright, aright. Enough. It sucked. That’s why I left,” I say.
“Same,” Aisle and VanNeece say almost in unison.
“Where’d you guys go?” Carey asks them.
“We went to a club,” Aisle continues. “I don’t know where Louisa went. He just left.”
“Another Irish exit huh?” Carey asks. She looks at me, unsurprised by my previous night’s antics.
“I met a girl,” I say.
“What do you mean you met a girl?” Carey asks, genuinely confused. “I’ve heard I went back with a girl, I fucked a girl, I took a girl back to my place, I hooked up with a girl, I banged a girl…I have never heard I met a girl. What happened?”
“I just met a girl. Nothing to read into.”
Carey often takes an interest in my life. Hers has become mundane. She has been in a relationship for five years now and I personally could not imagine such a boring fate. Part of her inquisitions must be our difference in life choices. One can be envious of a life lived on the edge or one can feel bad, obligated to help in any way possible. If I were on the proverbial fence, I’d say Carey leans towards lawn number two. Or maybe she just enjoys the gossip. I assume a relationship can get quite stale while waiting on a ring. A ring that is supposed to satisfy you. A ring that will end all sadness in the world. A ring that injects sweetness back into a soured relationship.
“Really, nothing crazy,” I implore. “We were at this random bar and she disappeared out of thin air. One minute she was there and the next, nothing.”
I try and picture the night but only pockets of black spots appear, as if I were staring into the sun.
“Then…I ended up at Kristen’s,” I say.
The table laughs.
“Would you like another man-mosa, sir?”
The waiter stands over me like the grim reaper.
“Sure.”
“What was she like?” Carey pushes.
Carey’s eyes are big, and wide with curiosity, but they drop at the edges like a sad spaniel. Her cheeks are nonexistent. The skin and bone are one. Her nose, a pointed Roman, is something she has campaigned to change since high school. She has never gone through with it. By itself it would not be a beautiful nose but on her it is dignified. She sips on a bellini under the shadow of a derby hat. A scarf sits on her shoulders like the Pope’s. All that is missing is a ring to kiss.
“Same old Kristen I guess? She wants to start hanging out again.”
“Oh god,” Aisle rolls his eyes, “you idiot. Are you going to start hanging out with her again? Run her down the same road as last time. Build her up…let her down?”
“Really? Buttercup? Whyyy do you build me up?” I begin to sing.
“Build me up,” VanNeece echoes.
“Buttercup baby just to let me down.”
“Let me down.”
“Not Kristen! Not Kristen you morons. I don’t care about Kristen. The other girl. What was she like?” Carey breaks up the band.
“Oh, Marissa.”
“Marissa, huh?”
“Yes…Marissa. She’s Spanish.”
“Spanish. Sticking with your own kind, eh? Slick move.”
I wouldn’t expect Carey to understand the cultural differences between all the Spanish-speaking peoples. She can barely grasp the fact that I am anything but white. Even after a home cooked meal by my mother it didn’t register that we had anything but tacos and burritos. We had neither. The difference between a Cuban and a Spaniard is more in tune with the difference between a person from New Jersey and Alabama. I think her brain would melt if I tried to explain the inner workings of the different diasporas of Hispanic communities. Dominicans hate Puerto Ricans. Puerto Ricans hate Dominicans right back. Venezuelans and Colombians have their moments. Mexico and El Salvador are at each other’s necks. Everyone hates Cubans. Cubans hate Argentinians. There are more rivalries in the Hispanic community than SEC football.
“If she looks anything like your mom, you’re in business,” she continues.
“She’s a different type of Spanish. Spain, Spanish,” I reply to no one in particular.
Though I’ve squandered most of the good looks my mother has given me there’s still a small hope that I can reverse the damage at some later stage. Aisle smirks at me. We became friends in fourth grade too, bonding over our shared gift and curse of having good-looking moms.
This conversation only exacerbates my longing for bed. Last night’s disappointment is gaining on me like a hungry lion and I am just a bleeding, injured gazelle.
1:47 PM
But I don’t hightail it to bed. I have a girl to look for. I attempt to gather clues from the previous night and only come up with a yellow sun dress and a pair of arresting green eyes.
“Soooo…thoughts on Brian and Jen?” Carey switches the subject.
Until now, I had erased all memory of the news that Aisle dropped on me at the pregame last night. The fact that Brian and Jen are now Facebook official may be the true reason for my leglessness on the PATH train into the city. What else is there to do when receiving such painful information than to drink your thoughts away?
Unfortunately for this table, mine have come back with a vengeance.
“Fuck her,” I reply, no hesitation.
“Hot take, Lou. Tell us how ya’ really feel,” VanNeece says.
His cologne wafts off him as he turns his chair.
“How does he not see it? Does the poor bastard have eyes? Or ears? A nose? I can smell that girl from a mile away. Physically and metaphorically. We all know she’s doing something on the side. We’ve all been to her place of ‘business’ a few too many times, right? We’ve told him it’s not the best look. We’re all reliable sources considering we leave our houses and see what’s going on. Has he been back to High Noon since he met her? Or is ignorance now bliss? Put some blinders on like a race pony and pretend the place doesn’t exist or that his girl doesn’t work there? That’s what makes me more mad than anything,” I say.
“Madder,” Aisle corrects.
I rip him limb from limb with my eyes and continue.
“It’s not even that he’s with her or that she makes him look like a fool. The fact that he doesn’t leave his house is infuriating. He won’t even answer a text or a phone call unless he has a built-in excuse for why he can’t come. Here, look at this,” I say.
Texts don’t lie.
Me: Yo tryna go grab a beer?
Me: Any plans tonight?
“Those were two texts from last week. No response. Then I tell him about my sister’s party and…”
Me: Dude. Answer me. My sister’s having a going away party Friday. We’re gonna pregame at my apartment then go over there. Come.
Brian: Ahhhh…that sounds fun. I wish I could make it. I’m going to my parent’s house Friday though.
“And he left the group chat! Are we that awful to talk to?” I ask.
Out of breath but confident in my case to the jury I feel a tweet coming.
Girlfriends sound fun.
1:50 PM – April 18th – 2015
Sent.
On opposite day.
1:51 PM – April 18th – 2015
Sent.
“She really isn’t that bad,” I hear from above.
“Shut up Aisle,” I say.
“Seriously. The few times we’ve hung out with her and Brian it’s been fun. She’s always happy and knows the best bars. And she doesn’t strip, she bartends. She has your dream job and you still do not approve. The disrespect to her and her profession is appalling!”
Aisle smiles. His smarmy mug infuriates me.
“Aisle. Let me spell it out for you in plain chapter English. If your girlfriend knows all the best bars, it means she’s spending way too much time at bars. How does that not get through your peanut-sized brain?”
He clearly needs to re-take Lou 101.
“But you spend all your time at bars…what’s the difference?”
Aisle’s small frame conjures a mixture of contempt and sympathy. The transition frames he’s wearing are stuck in a gray middle phase. He makes a great point but I can’t let my fight for Brian end there. I will use every piece of propaganda at my disposal. I will lie, cheat, and steal to get my friend back. By any means necessary.
“Aisle, my son, haven’t you ever heard the saying ‘you’ll never meet your wife at a bar’?”
“No.”
Neither have I, I’m making this up on the fly.
“Well, Aisle, you’ll never meet your wife at a bar. And I’ll even do you one better. You’ll never meet your wife at a strip club bar. The longest lasting relationship that has come out of High Noon is someone leaving with herpes. God forbid my friend gets herpes. God forbid…” I trail off.
1:58 PM
Around me is an amphitheater of confusion. A shadowy phalanx of people in the foreground of a blaring sun. “All rise,” an ultimate judge has commanded, what is the verdict.
“Are you going to finish that?”
“Let’s go.”
“C’mon Lou what are you doing?”
Half a beer sits warm in front of me as my eyes adjust to life. I haven’t fainted, I just haven’t been here. I’m overwhelmed by the sheer amount of Marissa’s on Instagram. Where do I even begin? In the time it takes to slug down the dregs, the group is already walking down Washington Street.
We pass a few tempting specials on the way to Green Rock: five-dollar beers until 6 pm, 7 dollar well drinks until 5 pm, a pitcher for ten bucks. These specials would be highway robbery anywhere else. Green Rock is not known for its Saturday specials unless you count the number of females that end up attending. I’m surprised it is not advertised. You’d have to be a mute or a mutant to not end up in conversation with a halfway decent looking girl here.
But women, like all great things, require sacrifice. They are like living gods, but instead of the bull’s head or slaves’ hearts of yesteryear, you end up sacrificing…
“The fuckin’ Gamos. Someone already spilled onna’ fucking Gamos,” VanNeece says.
Ferragamo’s. Fine Italian leather shoes that VanNeece knew not to wear here.
“Remind me to stop frequenting this dump,” he adds.
VanNeece sacrifices another pair of designer shoes but I, on the other hand, seem to be sacrificing my sanity. I feel like I’ve ingested déjà vu. I’ve been here before but everyone in the bar has a ghost-like quality.
After sliding sideways through a slim front bar, already packed with eager drinkers, we make it to a square, open, back bar. Our unit stands around, waiting for someone to make the first move. I even see Carey cover her yawning mouth with a hand. The next decision can be insidiously costly or propel the day onward. I find that it has come down to me to make the decision.
Professor Lou walks up to the podium:
Men…
Women…
Students…
Soldiers.
Times like these come twice a week if you’re employed. The infrequency shall not dilute the importance.
For five days this week they have beaten you down. From nine to five, for forty hours, they have captured your soul and used it for their own greed. Even VanNeece, who enjoys work, would feel the intimacies of his soul being crushed daily if he had one.
But what is forty hours to a lifetime?
Hoo-ra!
My comrades, what is forty hours to a lifetime!?
Hoo-raaaaa!
Men…
Women…
Soldiers.
By the grace of the gods, we are bestowed with this holiest of days. This day shall not be taken lightly, or for granted, and through this day the gods shall speak through us. We, this day drinking crew, are at the precipice of something great and momentous.
No man can be a good day drinker who is not honest in his dealings: so pay your tabs and tip your bartenders and above all else drink your drinks! I believe, if nothing has been neglected, we, the day drinkers, can outlive and outshine our tyrannical bosses and managers! We shall drink in the clubs and we shall drink in the bars. We shall take shots, sip beers, and drink mixaronis. And…in God’s good time…the day drinkers, with all of their power and might, will step forth to the rescue and liberation of this great city.
Though half this speech is plagiarized and all of it is done in my head, it’s how I feel when I place our first drink order.
2:16 PM
“Ten pickle-back shots.”
“There are only four of us,” Aisle says, uninspired.
I hand my card to the bartender.
“Open or close it?”
This question comes as a surprise in the same way a deer is surprised that a car, again, is barreling down on him. Although the subject matter is a tad less serious than a Hamlet soliloquy, it still begs the question: to close or not to close?
The Professor’s pros and cons to closing one’s tab are very complex. But the answer is self-evident.
“Keep it open.”
This was never really a choice. What is an all-day drinking performance without a little skin in the game?
After taking three of the ten shots ordered I tug on VanNeece’s sleeve, almost unable to speak. He understands my nonverbal cue and slyly hands over the goods to reboot.
For every ten suspect bathrooms there is always one grand version. In New York this ratio is far smaller, because in the 70s and 80s the owners partook with the patrons. Green Rock’s main bathroom is as susceptible to intruders as they come. There are three urinals and one stall with a broken hinge. Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. But, if you continue past the men’s on your right and women’s on your left and push further into a dark hallway, further than you thought safe or possible, there is the metaphorical light at the end of the tunnel. Metaphorical only because there is no light, just a small iron door. Opening it reveals a haven equipped with a metal toilet, mirror, and sliding lock. The walls are brick and the cold emanates through the cracks. A refreshing change from the hot bodies packing into the bar like sausages. A restart and reboot.
After exiting my cave feeling a little more Cro-Magnon than usual, I somehow slip my way into a serious conversation about the New York Yankees with a random group of known associates. This group is dressed on the fratty side. Each has a pair of faded jeans, a backwards dad hat, and a Patagonia vest, though it is obvious they have never climbed higher than a few mansion floors. The only thing distinguishing one from the other is a different patterned button down and shade of boat shoe.
I view this group with equal parts reverence and disdain. It was a group of these exact types that introduced me to the joys of hard partying in the first place. It took me half a semester to remove the shackles of pressure to attain a 4.0 GPA. Though I never joined a frat, I did graduate with a middling 3.0, a bachelor’s in software engineering, and a master’s in alcoholism. I wonder if they hate themselves as much as I hate me.
3:01 PM
Half the reason I started smoking cigarettes was to avoid monotony. A bar can become mundane if you end up talking to the wrong crowd and those frat boys were boring me to tears.
The muffled sound of people and music from inside the bar sounds like covering your ears in the shower. Clusters of young men and women roam the streets. We are far from the uppity shops and families of four. The shuffle of wedges on gravel, the echoed clack of high-heeled shoes – these palpable sounds of promise fill my damaged ears. It’s a welcome change in scenery.
“Are you almost done with that?” Aisle asks, covering his nose with his shirt.
I raise my eyebrows.
“I hate smoke,” he says.
“Then why’d you come out here?” I ask.
“That girl from the other night texted me.”
I lean in to look at his phone but a pack of females walk by us into the bar. One in particular catches my attention. A tight dress, heels, and eye contact. I stub my cigarette out and follow them in. The text goes unread.
The music feels louder upon re-entry and the bar more packed than when I left it. The dancing has also escalated. Sweaty couples grind to the four on the floor with little regard for onlookers.
It doesn’t take long for the girl in the tight dress to take center stage. She dances with no one, gyrating her ass like a witch hovering over a cauldron. Twerking, the kids call it, but the word barely does the motion justice. It’s nothing like a twitch or jerk but a mesmerizing incantation.
She’s quickly surrounded by a herd of wild men, as drawn to the spell as I am. They silently bark and howl. Still, she dances, beautifully unfazed. Then the woman on the dancefloor is Marissa. Either Marissa really is endowed with superpowers, or my brain is melting. Marissa grabs my hand and pulls me to the dancefloor. This time some light grinding ensues with a little PDA I am not even ashamed of. No Guaguancò. No temptation. Just action. The yellow dress. The brown hair. It’s all there between my hands. Solid and real for a moment. Then it melts like memory. Marissa fades. The yellow dress and brown hair disintegrate into the floor of the bar. The girl is still twerking all alone. With no one, for everyone.
The music thumps, my heart pounds with it, and I am stuck, drunk, alive, and numb.
4:13 PM
On my fourth cigarette break I am seeing two cigarettes below my nose. No amount of the white stuff can get me back on the right track but damn if I haven’t tried. Mid puff I take a peek down Hudson Street. I see two yellow sundresses, two sets of brown hair. Two reasons I need to wrangle the crew out of this bar and follow that dress. The rational thought that Marissa would not be wearing the same dress two days in a row doesn’t reach my frontal cortex. She is here, in my neck of the woods, and I will track her down. She would probably say that sentence was creepy. It was creepy. But I am a man on a mission.
I stumble back into the bar and corral the crew. Informing them I have closed my tab is a sure-fire way to get their feet out the door. The bar is still hammering out ear-shattering top forty hits and the dancefloor is filled, but this is no time to stay. I have a girl to find.
“Where are we going?” Carey asks.
“I saw her take a right down Newark Street. I think there’s a tequila bar down that way,” I say.
“Who?” she asks, confused.
“Come on, let’s go,” I urge.
We walk down a block and take a right towards the water. No signs of a dress, so we all shuffle into the Tequila & Taco’s joint. From what I can remember, Marissa enjoyed tacos.
The vibe is quieter here and our raucous voices turn heads. It might be too early for some to be belligerent but not our group. Things were just starting to heat up and I reopen my tab for five tequila shots. Even with the salt and lime this shot goes down like acid.
I feign an excuse to go to the bathroom and take a look around the place. It is a squat room with low ceilings and bright Mexican colors splashed on the walls. Frida Kahlo’s painted eyebrow is resting above a table of ten. There’s a margarita pitcher in the middle, a smorgasbord of tacos around the edges, but no Marissa. The people at the table look at me as if I was shaking a change cup in their face.
The next two booths seem to be dates. Though these random people haven’t heeded my warnings on the pitfalls of dating, I walk past each one and turn back to see the hidden person on the opposite side of the booth. No Marissa. Thank god. If she were on a date I might collapse. I finally make it to the bathroom with nothing better to do than hit the little bag of white wonder. Maybe a little more will light the way. Maybe a little more will reveal Marissa. Maybe a little more…