Chapter 6 "Brass Monkey"

So I got to my house and proceeded to act like a little school girl. I tried on some outfits and started talking to myself in the mirror. Just trying to imagine what exactly I'd fill up the night with in conversation was fairly terrifying. My mind was swimming. Did Jaime want me as bad as I wanted her that whole time at work? I was definitely catching vibes from her. Or was I?

Dammit! I must keep this whole thing in perspective. I spent the day half drunk and I watched a dog mauling, and then watched a dog get mauled and somehow managed a date out of the whole deal. This was not your average day in this glorified cow-town.

I decided I could use a drink.

I lumbered over to my fridge in my robe and had a gander inside. The six month old jar of salsa was still there, right where I left it. The four month old pizza box was still there. There was an odd collection of condiment packages that I had never really noticed before. They were sitting on the bottom shelf in a kind of neat little pile. Ketchup, soy sauce, tartar, it was all there. I vaguely remembered stuffing them into my pockets when I was drunk once, although much unexplained phenomena in my life can be simply explained away because of alcohol, when the reality is much more complex. For instance, what type of establishment has both soy sauce AND tartar sauce? It will remain a mystery.

Ahhhh, but the crown jewel of my little fridge collection was about to meet his demise. The Keystone Ice tall boy! I opened it unceremoniously, and took a large gulp, then another. This hooch isn't too bad when it's really cold. I opened the freezer. There was about a half of a half pint of Skyy in there. I pulled it out along with some frozen orange juice concentrate. The O.J. was already open and had a spoon sticking out of it. I walked over to the sink and began to spoon concentrate into the impossibly small opening of the vodka bottle. I was patient, I took my time. Eventually I had quite a bit of the stuff in the Skyy bottle. Then, I screwed the cap back onto the bottle and shook vigorously.

"Mmmmmmm ... vodka slushy," I said to no one in particular.

After taking a nice belt off of that, I poured the rest into the wide mouth opening of the Keystone Ice tallboy. "Leaded!" I proclaimed. (As opposed to unleaded.)

Dear reader, I know you might be wincing after that last little action of mine, but I'll have you know that in Denver, Colorado, the poor man's Mike’s Hard Lemonade is the mixture of malt liquor and OJ at about a four to one ratio. It's called a "Brass Monkey" and it's gotten me through some tough times. It's actually quite refreshing. I'm not really sure what the Beastie Boys' version of the concoction is, maybe Thunderbird and OJ, but try it sometime when you have about 6 bucks and want to catch a buzz. Anyway, my current version is a little more hardcore, but what can you say? I'm hardcore, yo.

My brain farted. I had to call Dade's aunt! Man, if I had forgotten to do that little simple thing, I wouldn't be worthy of Dade's trust or friendship. I don't own a cell phone, I can't stand them, and the people who walk around with those little fucking ear buds and headsets are the worst.
Some bitch customer at my store the other day was wearing one of those pretentious little fruitcake devices and I almost wanted to slap the taste out of her mouth. First of all, she kept calling me from over the counter when I was working with another customer. All the while she kept on trying to make an appointment with someone else on the phone. Imagine how confusing this is! I kept ignoring her. She was an older lady in a grey business suit, if I had to guess she was a realtor. Some of the most impatient, stupid people I know are in real estate, making many times what I make. It's a mystery to me.

Anyhoo, I ignored her until I was done with the other customer and then I stared right at her. She started rattling off her order and I turned around and started walking towards the back of the deli.

"EXCUSE ME!" She was indignant. Man, was she pissed. I turned around and feigned ignorance.

"M'am?"

"Are you going to help me or what?!"

"Oh..." I chuckled. "I thought you were talking on the phone. My apologies, you see, I just can't tell sometimes with those fancy blu-tooth doodads if people are talking to me or to their phone!" I looked at her with some pity, as if I knew she was having a bad day. "I'm really sorry." She pulled the ear bud from her head and the transaction was normal from that point on.

I get annoyed with people that don’t realize that there are other lives going on around them. I’m beginning to notice this myopia of culture. Everyone is slowly becoming so self centered and self motivated. It’s hard to explain, but it annoys me to no end.

My phone, on the other hand, is bolted to the wall, rings with a bell and has an answering machine attached to it that uses those really tiny cassette tapes. My friends say I’m stuck in an era gone by. I have a pager instead of a cell phone, which is kind of an interesting story because the pager has worked for about nine years and I haven’t received a bill for the pager service in about five years. It might seem prehistoric, but there is some comfort to be had in my communications set up. I can disappear, without really disappearing.

I snapped up the blood or iodine smeared slip of paper with Dade’s aunt’s number on it and keyed it into my dinosaur of a phone. After awhile she picked up and was driving somewhere. She was screaming into her phone, and wind was rushing by and she didn’t know who the hell I was. The story that came out of my mouth must have been nearly incomprehensible. Eventually, I got the point across. Pick up Chloe. 3:45PM…Bam! Done.

Now, back to my drink and a shower. I thought I should knock the stink off one more time before spending time with Jaime. The water was steamy and blasted away at my lower back. It felt good. I sucked at the drink until it was gone and then smoked a cigarette. I didn't move for a long time, save for putting my hand to my mouth, either to drink or smoke. I was thinking. A smile or grimace would alternately shoot across my face as my mind wandered about memory after memory. I remembered my first girlfriend. Then the first one I had sex with, then the first one I had REGULAR sex with. I remembered Tara, my last girlfriend. A wave of sadness rolled over me, but for some reason it was one of the occasions that a smile flashed, but only for a moment.

You know, "the one that got away". We "got away" from each other. It's sad. She calls like once a year, and I can hear it in her voice. The passing interest, the sadness about how the older that you get, the less passion and love you tend to encounter. We fought and fucked like teenagers for three years. I know she hears it in my voice too. Time and circumstance can be a real barrier for honest conversation, ours anyway. We both miss each other, but we're too proud and too wrapped up in our own lives now that the conversation just serves to remind us how lonely we really are.

There was something about Jaime, though. She has that mystique about her that Tara once had. This girl works as a butcher, of all things. She plays in a punk band. She's drop dead gorgeous, at least I think so, beauty, is of course, subjective. Somehow she's single…maybe, and MAY like me...maybe. That's always the most important part isn't it? Once you find out that someone likes you, no matter how unattractive you might find them, you still find them a little more interesting than if they didn't like you. It's as if you want to know why, they would like you. If you could, you would ask them to give you a list of reasons that they choose you. Love is often a very egotistical game.

Oh yeah... Nelson's little card. The online swingers club, or whatever the fuck. I had kind of forgotten about it. I started on my shower ritual. It was usually the same every time. Shampoo, brush teeth, soap, rinse all at once. I had often thought that it would be a fun project to video people showering and drying off, and then setting it to music. Kind of like a music video or montage. Everyone has their own unique way of doing that act, it would be funny to see. It would be even funnier to see people do it quickly, as if they were late for work.

I was showering quickly now. I wanted to get done quick because I wanted to check out this internet thing before I left, but as I was walking out of the bathroom, the phone rang loud and satisfying.

"Dude!"

"Dade?"

"Dude?"

"Dade!

"DUDE!!" Dade sounded like he had a mouth full of cotton.

"WHAAAAT? Aren't you supposed to be enjoying a morphine drip or something?"

"You have to do me a solid, a fucking favor, man." he muffled.

"Oh no, man, what?"