Little Miss Perfidious and the Sad, Old, Pervert Hiding in the Corner

I sometimes forget my true love is the contents of the bottle, not those who pour it. But it is understandable that drunks fall in love with their bartender – after all, we’re drunks. She pours, chats; you watch and engage in witty repartee – it’s like liquid love letters. It is OK to have the hots for her — that is, the human “her”— but don’t cross that line into love, because once that line is crossed, you cannot return to the easy, alcohol-based relationship of before. You might even get barred from the premises.

I will not regale the reader with my numerous love-interest mistakes out of bars. No, wait, that’s just what the reader wants: tell us your sorrows, hold nothing back; bare your soul; reveal the deepest pains of your alcohol besotted heart, cries the insatiable demand for drama. I should be like Cyrano and leave tears on the pages, except this is paperless and my tears could fry the machine. Emotional suffering is grand so long as someone else is enduring it. Besides, it will help in my character development.

So here’s a horrible tale that should do the job: namely, my own. But first, to provide some context, allow me to point out the obvious; that emotions are fundamentally uncontrollable. They can be channeled, smothered, guided, twisted, manipulated, and more, but only after they manifest (not to mention all those good things, such as helpful and nurturing, but this isn’t that kind of story). They cannot be prevented in the first place. Hence, the logic, or illogic, of my situation— that of a stinking, old drunk — utterly failed to influence my passion for a girl less than half my age (28). Now stop right there! Please stop laughing. Ouch! This is my travail I am talking about, which is always the most important thing on the planet at any given moment, just because it is mine.

Neither higher degrees, nor wealth, nor the supposed wisdom of age prevent emotional absurdities. As I indicated, emotions were in charge, not logic. At any rate, because I don’t actually stink and I saw her just about every day, we became friends.

Shiny black hair, an infectious giggle, and a sweet grin— Little Miss Perfidious. She often invited me over to smoke bud, my craven weakness. Her place was always meticulously neat inside, with stacks of empty beer bottles and pizza boxes amidst the planter boxes outside. A true worker bee, she showed up at work every day, hungover or not, and she is, of course, an outrageous drunk. Short and skinny as a rail, she can just about consume her weight in beer in a single night. Her bladder must be the size of a football. Did I mention she has some serious anger issues, mostly directed at her father, who wasn’t there when she wanted him?

Wait, too much back story, get to the suffering part — we like to watch train wrecks even though we hate to admit it. But before we get to that, I should introduce some other actors to strut and fret in this tale told by an idiot: first, there’s Mr. Sneaky, not too bright intellectually, with a slightly protruding bicuspid that makes his grin a bit goofy; Rex, tall with an oafish body but an intelligent sort, an incidental player who nevertheless fulfilled a key role at a critical point — the roommate of Mr. Sneaky; Mutt, the old guy, a white haired, stoner pool shark, still in good shape for his age, solid like a fire-hydrant, who lusts after the Little Miss while pretending to be beyond that sort of thing; and, of course, Miss Worker Bee, around whom the drones always buzz. Also, appearing later in a minor role, Clueless Gregor; her yo-yo, boyfriend, tall, skinny, and easily duped at age 22, who happens to be in line to inherit a lot of money— he lives in a different town and shows up on her nights off. Then there’s me, Don Q., burdened with armor and sense of honor, both outdated.

Weird coincidence— that’s what it was—weird, but fortuitous, I suppose — that I came around the back corner of the tavern in the dark just in time to hear the the following three statements in rapid succession:

“Better not let Don find out about it,” from Rex;

“It’s none of his business,” from Mr. Sneaky, followed soon thereafter by:

“I love Don,” from the Little Miss.

Needless to say, the first statement stopped me in my tracks. (Lesson number nine: bar drinking buddies are not necessarily your friends.) Who wouldn’t stop? Of course, I just had to know what it was that I wasn’t supposed to find out. Unfortunately, I had an inkling when, immediately following her profession of love for me, she and Mr. Sneaky exchanged conspiratorial grins. Since my birthday was far off, I don’t think they were secretly planning to get me presents. But as I was about to announce my presence, they abruptly stood and headed over to her nearby apartment to smoke a bowl.

I suspect the reader has already guessed the secret— oh well— but the following morning, hoping to catch the Little Miss before she went to work (since her, “I love Don,” comment still had the upper hand in my brain), and also hoping against hope that my suspicions would be unfounded— but they weren’t — there was Mr. Sneaky leaving her place early in the morning.

No big deal, the reader says. Happens all the time. I should be glad I found out before it got worse. Did we have some sort of agreement precluding lying? It’s not as if I had any claim on her anyway— we were just friends. But what I couldn’t understand was, since I had no claim on her, why did it have to be such a secret? Tormented, drunken soul that I am, I couldn’t grasp the concept. You see, I understood it was her privilege to screw whoever she wanted, but I knew that to make a furtive secret of it would inevitably turn me into an unwilling audience for their charade, like some urchin, mocked and excluded, with nose pressed against the glass of a fine dining establishment.

Borrrrrrriinng, the reader yawns! Big deal. As the song goes, everybody plays the fool sometimes. Join the club. So I’m a sensitive drunk— what’s your point? My apologies to the reader, but more back story is required, in particular, regarding the (Friday) night previous to the conspiracy night (Saturday) because that’s when Don Q rescued his Dulcinea from one of her insanely drunk forays.

It’s a small town (lucky for her) and I could recognize her weaving stagger from a block away, but she was actually just across the street when I coincidentally exited a building downtown. She was muttering to herself that, “they ditched me,” apparently in reference to her mother and brother who were visiting for the weekend. She had told them she would be stepping outside for a few minutes but had been gone about a half hour, so they left and naturally enough took her purse and cell phone that she left with them, which led to a major crisis. Girls deprived of their cell phones is for them like being without water in an infinite desert: everything looks bleak in all directions.

We were halfway to her house when she abruptly reversed course to give her family another piece of her alleged mind, and I of necessity tagged along. At any rate, once back at the bar, she flipped her mother off, had one of her drama queen fits, pounded some more alcohol, and because it was last call, we left. But we weren’t out of the woods yet, because once outside we came across two guys— complete strangers — who were carousing in a manner typical at closing time, and as she swayed side to side on the sidewalk she slurred (and I quote), “You guysh are real. Come party at my houshe.”

What the fuck? You have got to be kidding me! (My thoughts exactly.) But, thinking fast, I pointed out we would need more beer, which meant a very long walk to the store, which also meant there was no way they would wind up “partying” at her house. My diversion worked; off we stumbled. Then a bit of luck set in: the two guys had another friend out ahead who was angrily overturning every container and planter along the street, but had been intercepted by a cop, who was threatening to arrest him unless every container was put back right, which was their problem, not ours, so we finally managed to weave back on track to her house.

At her house we smoked out, listened to music, and then she stood, throwing her arms wide as an invitation to dance, which was wonderful. (I had with difficulty gotten her to dance on a couple previous occasions.) It was fun, innocent, and sweet, perhaps the most pleasurable half hour I spent in a long time, and we weren’t even having sex. (Sorry about introducing that brief note of happiness in this lame-ass tragedy.)

But a complication eventually arose, namely my desire, but only a complication because, believe it or not, I, stinking drunk, wanted to make love, not hump a lump of drunken flesh, so I was in a quandary. Like it says in Macbeth, alcohol incites the desire but deprives the performance. I didn’t want to turn my heartthrob into my ho, so should I stay or should I go? Don Q cherished his Dulcinea, so I left.

“Why leave?” she demanded as she slammed and bolted the door. As it turned out, leaving dovetailed right into her anger issues about her daddy. Oops!

Ironically, all that she could remember of that rescue night was how angry she had been at her family and by extension, me – meaning I got no credit for anything, and she certainly didn’t remember the two guys she tried to pick up, our dancing, her angry, “Why leave?” remark, or slamming and locking the door. So what was for me a fond memory, for her simply did not exist. I suppose there is some humor in that detail, someday maybe I will be able to laugh about it.

I spent the following week pretending I didn’t know anything, which, through the miraculous powers of hindsight, I now realize was a huge mistake. I should have either let the cat out of the bag immediately or just disappeared for awhile, as if I had gone on a trip, and let it all blow over, but the juxtaposition of the events in 36 hours rattled me, plunging me into a surreal twilight zone. What was I supposed to think about a girl who says she loves me and goes to bed with another guy a few hours later, and then smirks at me days later, thinking I don’t know the secret? Better to tell me to just butt out. But I suspect the reader is less than sympathetic to my plight, because, when I asked some bartenders (who else?) for advice, I was basically told I could always find sympathy in the dictionary.

I spent the following week completely screwing things up by playing dumb to see just how far she would carry the charade, when I should have used that knowledge that they didn’t know I had, for either revenge or reconciliation, or, as I said, just disappeared for awhile.

As it turned out, I was bad at charades. It was horrible. I asked if she was still mad at me. She replied that she had never been mad at me, which was when I realized she had no memory of slamming and locking the door. If that wasn’t anger I’ll get a hat so I can eat it. Then Mr. Sneaky acted condescending toward me— that pretty much tore it! I was apparently a game to be played, mocked and deceived.

I was actually being phased out because what I hadn’t known the rescue night was that she had already been fooling with Mr. Sneaky, and I had been, in effect, doing what he should have been doing— namely escorting her safely home that Friday night. And in her alcohol addled memory we never even got close to making love, because that would have meant she was being untrue to her new, secret boyfriend, (or perhaps, god forbid, that she was a barslut!) and, of course, as she later insisted, she would never even consider sex with me, even if I was the last guy on the planet, because I am loathsomely old (perhaps that’s an exaggeration— but then again…), and a horrible person, or so I have been told. Hmmmm…. Did I mention that, when sober, she has a sensible head on her shoulders?

To cap it all off, next week re-entered her ex-ex-boyfriend, clueless Gregor. Then like a true Machievellian princess, she tried to pit clueless Gregor against me— did I mention her Italian heritage? This resulted in the truly absurd situation where Gregor went out of his way— into a different bar to which I had retreated — to tell me that I was, “a sad, old, pervert hiding in the corner”— as if I was some sort of a rival instead of being by then completely frozen out. Yet despite that provocation, I did not mention my crime was mere words, whereas Mr. Sneaky had done the deed itself. Should I have told him?

Tempest in a teapot? Sadly, my epic tragedy is something less than epic. I wish this story had a happy ending. Maybe I should embellish to make it happier; offer some dramatic rescue and rapprochement; a heroic comeback? Wait— this is about pain, re- and de- jection. People trade friends all the time, a process far from epic tragedy. Priorities shift, what was once fun becomes tiresome. I too late realized I had become a pest to Little Miss, and her method of getting rid of me was crude, but effective. I suppose I should be grateful I found out when I did, because the trajectory of events was not leading any place happy for me, but it still hurts to understand just how inconsequential I was to someone for whom I had genuine affection. I never did get a chance to ask Little Miss what she meant when she said she loved me that night! She wont talk to me anymore. But apparently her statement had no practical application, unless, of course, her love meant playing me for a fool.