<-July 2
I fly home, change, try to call Cori (he’d left a message on my machine), stop at state liquor store to buy a bottle of Seagram’s gin and Jose Cuervo tequila, have a bite at McD’s, then head over to Clif’s place. Rolling into his parking lot with my loud ass muffler, I breeze past Jen and her preppy new boyfriend, standing on the patio, along with a couple other dudes. Once inside, there’s some gruff acting Latino guy trying to impress this chesty brunette, and I continue right on into the living room. Here there’s about 3-4 nice looking girls chilling, along with a handful more guys. But no Clif that I can see. This big guy named Mike introduces himself to me, however.
“He call it a night already?” I gasp, considering it’s only 9:30.
“No, no,” Mike grins, “he’s up in the bathroom.”
I stroll back into the kitchen, pour myself a glass of gin on the rocks, then root around in the fridge for something to add to it. Finally settle upon some orange juice, right before Clif strolls back onto the scene, literally just about crashing into me before realizing I was even here. At which point we both start laughing.
“Some dude told me you were upstairs, I’m like, damn, did he cash his chips in already?“
“Naw, man,” Clif says.
I follow him back onto the patio, where he’s already fired up his grill and his smoker. Also, someone has deposited a MASSIVE ice chest out here, filled to the rim not only with cheap domestic canned beer, but also bottled Corona and Dos Equis – I’m guessing we can thank the Latino connection for that last part, if not all of it. Then big, tall and burly Mike is out here, making one hilarious comment after another, halfway drunk and beady eyed as a result, though seeing all anyway behind his spectacles, as his drunk roommates Hunter and Rick sit/stand nearby smiling. All three are well-dressed guys but by no means stuffed shirts – Hunter with his slightly longish black hair and quiet drunk expression, Rick sitting there smiling for the most part, his own hair cut short and dyed blonde on top. Meanwhile I sit next to Jen, who is cuddling against her sickeningly preppy boyfriend, with his perfectly parted hair, and she has nothing to say to me now, too cool I guess. Clif stands out here, too, occasionally manning the grill, fairly wasted already and with his pant cuffs rolled up for some reason, like high waders.
The early part of this year was a little bit choppy for me, although this was to be expected after more than a year and a half with Jill. Much of the reason that a long term relationship throws you for a loop – apart from the sadness over the breakup – is that you kind of forget how to act in social settings, alone, particularly if trying to make something happen with someone new. Things began to turn the corner somewhat in March, with Chrissy and Connie, although it’s only within the past couple of months that I’ve really felt like I’m kind of back in the groove again. And one of the major epiphanies I’ve had, odd as it sounds, in that fling with Stacy and this recent run with Heather, is to try and ramp up the obnoxiousness a little bit, back to where I used to be. That seems to work better.
Or maybe obnoxious isn’t the right word. But whatever the case, you have to get off this dead center, where you think you’re going to just dress nice and be polite and sit there and think anyone will ever be impressed by this. Though politeness seems a basic human courtesy and beyond that a “common sense” good policy, it’s actually a death trap. This was especially true of that whole thing with Stacy, where you think doing what the girl wants to do all the time, deferring to her, will make her happy, and therefore lead to a more harmonious and productive relationship or whatever. But if what she wants to do is boring as hell, then nobody wins. You’re better off just saying, screw that, I’m not doing anything I don’t want to do from now on. Sorry. You might think it’s a dick move, but I’m actually doing both of us a favor.
This concept is tested almost right away tonight, one of these inflection points you can maybe interpret either way. On one hand you can argue that saying yes/no in certain situations is incredibly stupid…but on the other, if you’re just simply doing what you want, you can always be sure it’s at least partially correct and defensible for that reason alone. Within certain decent boundaries, of course. I’m not talking about shooting up the post office or running after people with a butcher knife or whatever. Plus sometimes it certainly feels like life is throwing you these tests, and the tests themselves are signposts that you are on the right track.
Anyway, it turns out the chesty brunette who looks like a hot secretary, this is Mike’s girlfriend. She pokes her head out the door at one point and says she wants to go get cigarettes, asks those of us on the patio, “can somebody come with me?” Why her man himself is out of the picture on this concept is a fair enough question to ask, though I think he’s maybe on the brink of being incapacitated.
“I’m not going anywhere,” Clif tells her.
“But I need someone to walk with me,” she pleads, at which point Clif reiterates the famous Chris Tucker Rush Hour line, questioning if she did not hear the words coming out of his mouth. To a hearty round of laughter.
“Well, who’s gonna come with me, then?” she questions.
Now Clif turns my way, and says, “Jay Dog?”
Anyone who thinks I’m a moron for turning this down, I get it. And that might certainly be true. But in the moment all I can think is, you know what, I don’t feel like it. This woman is already spoken for, her boyfriend’s right here, nothing’s going to happen anyway, I just got to this party, I just sat down in this chair. Your natural response is to think, ooh, a quiet walk alone with a nice looking girl, this could be my ticket! But I believe you have to fight that, if it’s truly not something you’re feeling, if it doesn’t seem to make any sense right now.
“I’m not getting out of my chair until this drink runs out,” I crack.
So she grabs Hunter instead, and they take off. He’d had a couple of hearty, hearty shots of Cuervo Anejo by this point, and doesn’t give a fuck about much of anything. But then, yeah, Mike’s standing here anyway, watching them walk off, as he muses, “my woman’s leaving with another man…” He then makes a joke about getting some action earlier in Clif’s bed, with one of the cats; Clif responds with his own wisecrack, that this was the most action his bed has seen in quite a while, then.
But in truth, there’s plenty of action elsewhere, to keep us entertained. Particularly back inside the house, where I find myself sitting on a couch mere inches away from this hot little brunette. Struck by a burst of inspiration, she sits up in an instant, then starts fiddling with Clif’s stereo, throws on some rap CD and starts gyrating to it in the middle of the room. Then Amy, who is a nice looking, sandy haired, younger chick, joins her, while I sit there sipping my drink and enjoying the show. As are others, scattered around the scene, including a bunch of people out on the patio still, who can seem them through the sliding glass doors.
These two girls climb up on top of Clif’s kitchen table, with more of these provocative dances, then begin rubbing up against one another. Grinding their asses and crotches and chests together in this fashion, they have most spectators spellbound, guys and girls both. And though the table is wobbling a little bit and looks as though it might collapse, this isn’t what brings the spectacle to an abrupt close. Rather, it’s some young Chris kid, with spiky black hair, wearing a red and white hockey jersey, who works for Clif at Schlotzky’s, I know. He shouts out this really stupid comment, ripping on the girls’ dance moves, and they suddenly become self-conscious about the whole thing, show’s over.
When Hunter returns with Mike’s girl, a very serious, academic discussion breaks out about these tequilas in the kitchen, as we attempt to determine the superior option. At Rick’s behest, a few of us conduct a taste test between the 1800 and the Anejo. Jen’s man (Dave?) had just moments earlier, while sipping away on his MIller Lite or whatever, remarked that he wanted a shot, yet now declines to participate. Meanwhile, we stand around debating what to get into from here, whether to stick around and play a game, or maybe head out elsewhere. My suggestion concerning Naked Twister falls a little flat.
“Uh, there’s a lot of dudes in here,” Clif notes with a grimace, “I’m not bumping up against some dude.”
“Is there a pen and some paper around here?” Mike’s hot secretary wonders, as four of them have agreed to start up a game of gin rummy. Unable to find any, she wipes the dry erase board, hanging by Clif’s phone, clear of messages, and they use this to keep score. Which is especially funny to me as I stand looking at this Seagram’s bottle on the counter, idly sipping my drink, and spot this quote on the bottle about its “mellowing process.” Ah yes, the mellowing process, ’tis indeed exquisite when it comes to this gin. And then I spot a yellow legal pad and red pen lying right beside it, snatch these up and begin writing down that quote:
Extra dry because of Seagram’s exclusive & original mellowing process, it reads.
Lord knows I’m feeling quite mellow by now myself. But then I stand there and continue jotting down some more notes, which is something I often don’t even bother to hide at this point. If you are committed to your craft, then this is what it takes. Although Mike’s girlfriend does spot me over here, and questions, “you taking notes?” I smile and respond that I’m drawing a picture of her.
Then I drift out to the gravel patio, have a seat in one of the white plastic lawn chairs. Earlier, during the little go-go dancer performance, in stark contrast to Chris’s idiotic comment, I had shouted, “shake it for me, Amy! You got it!” and I think it’s okay to conclude she appreciated this a little more. At any rate we hang out talking for a little while, as Mike and the Latino guy in the San Diego Padres ballcap and Chris and some others chat nearby. Then someone happens by Clif’s grill and is curious enough to lift the lid, at which point a thick cloud of smoke bellows outward. Only when it parts can we see two lonely little hamburger patties nestled atop an open flame.
“Hey Clif!” Mike hollers toward the house, “your charcoal’s done!”
A very drunk Clif Davis, host of the hour, staggers outside, muttering his trademark, “huh?” Spatula in hand, though it’s not exactly well-lit out here, he nonetheless scoops up one burger, gives it a triple backflip, catches that patty midair on his spatula, and slams the other side down on the grill. Then repeats this process with the other burger.
“How do you do that?” one kid marvels, “I though you said you were fucked up.”
“I am,” Clif tells him.
“Yeah, but see,” Mike explains, grabs the spatula from Clif for a prop as he pontificates, “if a guy knows what he’s doing cooking, it doesn’t matter how fucked up he is, he can still function when it comes to his food.” Mike then staggers toward the grill, straightens up long enough to flip a burger, then stumbles back away from it, acting as though he’s going to fall over for emphasis.
After this charming little demonstration has concluded, we drift into our separate conversations again. Watching that gruff Latino dude standing by himself now in the middle, Amy’s whispering to me, wondering, “can he speak English?” I tell her I’m not sure, but will find out.
“Hey man, what’s up?” I call out to him.
“Nothing here in Ohio,” he says, scrowling, “this is the most boring fuckin state I’ve ever been in.”
“Oh, guess so,” Amy chuckles, to me, as that question has now been answered.
“Well, at least we stand out,” I joke, “out of fifty states we’re the most boring, instead of being somewhere in the middle.”
This cat is not impressed, however. He stands here smoking a cigarette, looking tough with his shaved head underneath that hat, his designer sports apparel, the shark tattoo on his neck. It didn’t take a genius to figure this out (why else after all would anyone be wearing a Padres cap?), but he explains that he recently arrived here from San Diego. Is living nearby in this complex and that Clif, quite naturally, wasted no time in striking up an acquaintance. Still, as he goes about boasting of his hometown and everywhere else he’s been, I can sense a worldly, jaded quality to him. Maybe he hasn’t seen and done everything he’s claimed to, but I would bank on a great deal of it being true.
“People around here are stupid. They don’t fool me,” he says, “I see everything. I have eyes everywhere. No one’s pulling the sheep over my eyes.”
“Sheep over your eyes? What? How’d we get into bestiality?” Chris cracks.
“Hey, animals never talk back,” Amy points out with a laugh.
Mike raises his hand and says, “I’m from Hilliard, okay?” and at this comment alone, everyone’s laughing their asses off. Or at least most of us are, and then he tacks on, “the most excting thing we had to do there was cow tipping.”
“See, that’s what I’m saying,” the Latino observes, with a trace of arrogance, “people from Ohio are stupid.”
“Huh, were you saying something?” I wonder aloud.
He looks at me with a condescending smirk and says, “my point exactly.”
Ah, but then, five minutes later, this guy is unexpectedly singing my praises. There is an unmistakeable sense of danger emanating from him, although once again you wouldn’t need clairvoyance to pick up on that. So it’s not exactly a tremendous surprise when talk suddenly turns to fights, bar fights, scrapping in general. I’d made some comment about, “if you have three friends you can trust, that’s a beautiful thing,” and the next thing I know, he’s announcing that if he had to pick one person at this party to be on his side in a fight, he’d go with me.
“You’re too skeptical,” he says to Chris, nodding his head at me as he adds, “but he’s ready, he’s like, okay, let’s go.“
I wind up chatting with this guy for a little more, after Amy has long since tired of it and drifted elsewhere. I don’t know, he’s at least interesting. So he’s 32 years old – and I think he might have said his name was Mike as well – while Chris is just 19, though this age difference doesn’t prevent the two of them by arguing about this verdict, who would pick who in a fight. Then another Latino male emerges from the shadows, cracks open a Dos Equis, joins in the conversation. Turns out his name’s Dan and they are brothers. Then San Diego here tries to impress us with some fancy trick hooking two Coronas together by their caps, and deftly pulling them apart to open both. But it takes him a few tries and he spills beer everywhere, even when it does work.
By now things are threatening to break up. I’m inside again, with Clif, Jen, and her dude, although the only female in this equation remains on some high horse tonight. She admittedly looks great, skinny, tanned, her brown hair cut fashionalby short, just off the shoulders and parted down the middle, in a black blouse, a red & purple flowered skirt creeping suggestively up her thighs. Yet she won’t make eye contact with me or the others, all she does is offer a haughty smile and share a knowing smirk with her boyfriend. Like when I’m ripping on Clif’s empty fishtank, which he’s had up and running since about February, though it has remained devoid of life forms all this time. And he responds by suggesting he might throw me in there by the end of the night – she rolls her eyes at this and smirks over at the boyfriend again. But at least they leave right after this.
I feel pretty decent about my showing tonight, though – and it turns out we are just getting started. Yet even my excessive note-taking has some definite limits, will run into a brick wall on far more nights than not. As we shall see later, during the back half of this very long epic, where I never bother filling in the blanks and have forgotten most of them at this late date. You are mighty impressed with yourself on the ten or twenty nights a year where you actually manage to capture most of went down; but then in the next instant, thinking about the other three hundred plus just makes you sad, that you hadn’t written down more. So I’m not sure how else to expand upon the remainder here, except present my thinly sketched notes:
Maria and Jen M stop by; blonde Erin in red dress; couch, bowl, Clif’s “you just had to” comment; you looked around one minute and this apartment was packed, then suddenly everyone was gone, with no goodbyes – it turns out a bunch of them had drifted next door, where some kindly neighbors were accepting all comers for their own party; the Latino duo mentions going to Spuds’, invites us, but our remaining posse heads to Polo’s instead; All Star pimp girl; more Amy; Clay busting my mouth; Clay’s smug comment later about “wait till 26,” that the wheels are going to fall off on my mad energy at that time; I start cracking up, sincerely doubt it’s going to happen like that; black girl; back to Maria’s house; Jen M gives me a ride back to my car, declines offer to “continue this conversation elsewhere”; I drive the short distance back to Maria’s, crash on couch; Tommy Ryan Clay & girls split.
Concerning what else was happening in Columbus on this day, I read somewhere that residents of the Clintonville area Northmoor neighborhood are sent letters informing them that they will have to chip in $1750 per household for some fancy new streetlights. Understandably, more than a few residents are up in arms about this. But that’s all I’ve got for now.
