I was sitting at the console, doing sound for a funk band. I became aware of women in the space behind me. A certain hushed drunken tone of voice. I didn't even have to turn around. One of them was daring her friend to approach me.
At one time I might have thought, I hope she's hot. Nowadays I'm more like: please, let this be interesting.
And there she is beside me. She points at the console and yells in my ear: "What would happen if I pressed one of these buttons?"
I leaned over and said, "I would go get a bouncer, and he would throw you down the stairs."
I wasn't sure if she heard me. "It's my birthday," she yelled.
I looked at the ceiling. "Imagine the odds." It's amateur night tonight, all right.
"So do you have something here that I can move?" she said. She wiggled her fingers over the soundboard.
"Yeah, probably."
"What can I move?"
"Move your ass," I said. "I'm trying to work here."
She looked at me. "You're an asshole," she said.
A revelation. I raised my eyebrows and tried not to burst out laughing.
I have this notion that even if you don't have a sense of humour, you should at least be able to recognize one. But perhaps I'm being overly optimistic.
She added, "I was just trying to help."
"Do I look like I need help?"
"I don't like you," she said. She started to walk away.
I gave her a big smile. "Happy birthday."
The band launched into "Soul Power" by James Brown. I just kept on smiling.
Papa don't take no mess.
~~
A guy offered to sell me some coke, which I politely declined. I had spent forty minutes shovelling snow that afternoon and had no interest in shovelling some more up my nose. It made me stop and think: What is this, the Marquee Club?
At the end of the night a woman was hitting on me. Being the kind of guy who goes where the night takes him, I wound up back at her place.
Despite the fact that she was obviously drunk, and she lived in the South End. What makes me go against my own principles? Curiosity, I suppose.
Back in her room, she said, "Do you do coke at all?" and before I knew it, she was lining up some blow on the night-stand.
Christ. To each their own and everything, but with the possible exception of gay guys on Ecstasy, nothing is more annoying than drunk chicks on coke. They just never shut up. Blahblahblahblahblahblah. I can't deal with it.
I did not want to permit that substance to go up that pert little nose. So I grabbed her and I threw her on the bed and straddled her and pinned her down with my knees.
She smiled a little and wriggled and went "Mmmm." Almost as if I were some kind of passionate lover-man.
When in fact, my thinking went more like this: "Oh shit. How am I gonna get out of this one. Shit. Where's my jacket? Over there in the corner. Shit."
Seeing as I had her right where I wanted her, I took her shirt off. Well, why not. We rolled around for a while. I think it took her mind off the powder on the night-stand, but nothing took my mind off the fact that I had to get out of there.
"Well, I think I'm gonna take off," I said. Hat... scarf... boots. Jesus I'd better not forget anything.
She was all over me like a monkey, trying to keep me from leaving. "Stay with me," she said, "stay with me." Over and over.
I felt like it was some kind of horror movie, with zombies getting all up in my face: "Stay with us, Philip... FORR-EVVV-ERRRR!!!"
She followed me across her room and through her apartment and out into the hallway. "Stay with me, I just want you to stay with me." Trying to stick her tongue in my mouth.
Normally, with everything on this site, I assume an audience that includes the person I'm writing about. For the most part I try to be respectful of people's dignity. But for some reason, in this case I'm not too concerned. This woman was making a fool of herself.
In the hallway I said, "There's no way you're getting on this elevator with me."
She held the door open until finally the elevator made a high-pitched beeping sound. She squeezed in and the door closed and I punched the button for the lobby.
"Why don't you want to stay with me?"
I said, "I think you're being a little too clingy."
If you really want to piss a woman off, tell her she's being clingy. Even though she's followed me out of her place and into the elevator, no way would she ever be clingy.
[I've also said "I think you're a little drunk" and had women look me straight in the eye and insist they are not drunk. "You think I'm just doing this because I'm drunk? Is that what you think?" Yes--and tomorrow you won't acknowledge anything you did because you were drunk. I do not believe anything a drunk person says, ever.]
"I'm not clingy," she said as she followed me across the lobby. "Don't call me clingy. It's not like I want to spend the rest of my life with you forever and ever. I just want you to stay with me tonight."
I stopped for a moment at the front door.
"The next eight hours could very well be the rest of my life."
Then I stepped outside into the -30 weather.
And that, my friends, is bachelor logic.
~~
On the long walk back from the South End, I cut up Ahern beside Citadel Hill--part of Halifax's notorious "Fruit Loop."
Almost right away an SUV slowed down and stopped at the curb beside me. Oh, here we go. I kept on walking and finally the SUV pulled away. I get cruised by gay men pretty much every night on this strip and it doesn't even register with me anymore.
One little car was pretty persistent tonight, though. He pulled up beside me, I kept walking, then he drove forward a little bit to keep pace with me.
Finally I stopped. The car was beside me on the road, on the other side of a snowbank. A plume of smoke chuffed out of the tailpipe. The interior of the car was pitch-dark.
"Hey, man," I said. "'Sup." I felt just like GeekSlut.
I heard a click as the automatic locks unlocked.
I climbed over the snowbank and opened the passenger door. "I'm freezing my face off," I said. "Don't suppose you'd mind giving a straight guy a lift."
I heard a little chuckle from inside the car. "Sure, I don't mind giving a straight guy a lift."
I got in. The driver was a classy, middle-aged homo smoking a narrow brown cigarette. We started chatting as we headed up Agricola Street. I thought, this is fun.
"So do you know all these guys in these other cars?" I said.
I was totally curious. Not like, curious curious, but... you know.
"Oh, I don't come around here too often," he said. "I'm from Dartmouth. Every once in a while I come out, see what cocks are flopping around."
"So strangers just get in your car, and then...?"
"Oh, just go somewhere. I like to suck a big dick," he said.
The guy had a good sense of humour on him. (I said, "Just go straight here at the lights," and he said "Straight, that's the last way I'd wanna go.") I really enjoyed chatting with him. He let me out at my street and I wished him good luck.
I walked home thinking, man... I related better to that gay guy than I did to that straight chick. Imagine if I were gay. Just drive around, sober, pick people up, everyone knows what they're doing, everyone knows the score. It seems more efficient and somehow classier than playing head games with coked-out bar stars.
I guess it's a bit of a problem that I'm basically repulsed by every penis other than my own.
So I got home in out of the cold and logged onto my computer. An attractive stranger messaged me and before long she was sending me pictures of herself in her underwear. Yummy. Ladies: this is approved procedure.
We wound up chatting into the wee hours and things got heated and finally she gave me her address... and once more I headed out into the sub-zero weather, in order to go to this woman's house to "see what happens."
Being straight is not so bad after all.
I knew her address before I knew her real name. Does that make me a bad person? If so, then it's worth it.
It's a relief to know I'll be going someplace warm when I die.