An angel descends, or, at least, stoops
The problem with me is that I am a man, rather than a man and a woman somehow separated by divine forces, ever eager to rejoin and form one perfect being. That’s what everybody else at the bar is doing. But when the jock-half of humanity remerges with the cheerleader-half, or the he-dorks find the she-dorks, everything makes sense. But where the heck is Ms. Asshole?
We may not know the answer to that question, but I did meet a woman at the bar the other night who was such a jerk to everyone that she took the heat off me for once. That was very nice.
I was sitting there talking to some stranger, a rather pseudo-ingenuous young chap with a rumpled velvet blazer with — wait for it — Rilke sticking out of the pocket. I expected that “Letters to a Young Poet” would not be in bound form, but rather addressed to him with postmarks and everything. In other words, kind of a pompous ass; but in his defense, he really was that way, and not simply posing.
He was complaining to me about his girlfriend, who left him a year ago, or whatever, and I was drinking. In came the perpetually unattainable Jillian, followed by a mousy friend. Of course, it turns out that my initial impression would need to be revised very shortly, for she was neither mousy nor could be truly said to be anyone’s friend.
Jillian kissed me on the cheek and introduced me to this woman, named Kim. They rushed off to the bathroom. As you know, ladies always go in a group to the bathroom. Men just wrote this off as a quirk of female socialization, until recently we discovered it is because they are all doing lines all the time.
I took this as an opportunity to ignore the sad poet and join my Moroccan buddies. We discussed how badly Moustapha’s pool game was going against an unknown collegiate interloper. Yusef explained that this was because Moustapha sucks. In other words, bonding, bonding, bonding.
Mere moments later, Jillian rushed up to me. “Please help me,” she said, “Kim is talking to that poet guy.”
“Is he bothering her?”
“No — I think she’s making him depressed. Intercede, before she breaks him.”
Apparently I am now Officer Friendly. Solving other people’s bar-oriented problems is not really my style, but I went over and eavesdropped on them a bit. They were talking about music, and about how he’s a musician. Isn’t that what guys who say they are musicians want women in bars to talk about? I reported this back to Jillian. “I think it’s safe,” I told her. “They are ‘flirting.’”
Moments later, she rushed up to me again. “You had better do something.” I looked over and saw Kim wildly gesticulating as the poet rushed out the front door. She’s yelling, “Who cares about your music if you never record anything anyway?” I sat down in the booth, next to her.
“What’s the topic of conversation here?” I asked. “Is it music, or abuse?”
She established that it kept changing, and that she was open to suggestions. She was talking extremely fast and kept knocking into me. It was that wonderful late-night coked-out drunk girl, an angel of this and every season. We began to talk about her career as a grantwriter — “Whoring yourself so other people can get the money” was her label — when the sad poet plopped down across from us.
“Look,” he said to her, “I don’t think you quite understood why you ought to sleep with me. Let me try to explain it again.”
She shrieked at him, “Why should I sleep with you? You’re pathetic! You’re nowhere! You’re so stuck in your adolescent limbo you can’t even button your shirt properly! If you were as smart as you say you are you’d already have left!”
“All right,” he said, with steely determination, “I don’t have to take this from you.” And he’s gone.
I watched her with admiration. “What are you drinking?” I asked, and, upon knowing, rose to get more of it.
When my transaction was complete, she was down at the other end of the bar, with Moustapha and Yusef. Yusef was crying, “I don’t want any trouble!” in an endless refrain of self-preservation. I held her drink in the air and called for her to come away and claim it. She was starting riots everywhere she went. Not passively, not as a woman men wanted to talk to, but actively, as a woman who wanted to hurt everybody. She was very drunk, very aggressive, very self-satisfied, and very relentless in puncturing the self-satisfaction of others, but nonetheless oddly charming — in short, much like me on a bad night.
We sat down together and resumed our conversation — or rather, I resumed listening to her and silently admiring her egotism. Every so often, the sad poet would return, attempt to make his case again, get shot down in new and exciting ways, and leave with great “closing lines,” only to come back and do it again a few minutes later. Plus ten for persistence, plus twenty for style, minus a million for not having a clue. Also, it seemed she liked me better.
Towards the end, things got pretty ugly. Kim shortly told him, “You’re going to be wanking over me for the next ten years.” The bar, at least in my imagination, was hushed. It was like the grand championship dozens competition on an alternate Arsenio Hall Show. Except only one side sent a contestant.
The poet finally threw in the towel, saying to me — to me, not her — that he was not ashamed of what he had done, that he was proud of himself, that he knew he had been witty and charming, and that he knew she liked him. He went home, or at least left, and Kim and I made out for a while, and as dawn rose she went off to her boyfriend. We need more law and order in the bar.
by Jack, December 21, 2003 7:42 PM | More from Drinking & Women
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You are just looking for your girl-asshole missing half. Don't imagine yourself so different.
It also seems to me that you prefer the left-over trash of other guys. I say that in a serious, nonjudging way. Left-over trash is fairly literal.
You are just looking for your girl-asshole missing half.
I believe I was making that very point.
Whether I've found her depends on whether or not you're a girl.