After the morning shift at work, I come home and change quickly, then drive back across town for a gathering at Pockets. The occasion is our buddy Roy’s 30th birthday, a big enough deal that his dad and stepmom are even driving down from Mansfield, as have some friends from up there. All told there’s about twenty of us, give or take, although most live here in C-bus.
Showing up around 6, I’m on the early side of the equation, as there’s just Roy, Mike Nelson, Maria, maybe one or two others at first. Our waiter is this funny black dude named Scoot. Maria and I decide to split a tab for simplicity’s sake, which might work out to my benefit considering she’s drinking Coors Light, I’m on the Captain and Coke express. So you’ve got a little bit of a pricing disparity there, which might work to my advantage, assuming I can keep up.
Then the masses steadily begin pouring in. Roy’s girlfriend Corina is here, naturally, it’s the first time I’ve met her. She’s a skinny blonde and seems friendly enough to me. She and whoever else might have planned this has a bunch of banners strung up and candles and glitter or whatever tossed everywhere and what not, to celebrate the occasion, but of course, being a guy, Roy seems to register about zilch of this. He’s just concerned with getting trashed, and does so in short order.
Even as I start to feel like drinking a ton is not really the strategy for me. I can generally handle it just fine, but am not trying to get annihilated, ever, and am not as successful when I do, don’t really enjoy it all that much. I like hanging out and participating and observing, remembering what actually happens. Plus, one of my calling cards so to speak is some zippy banter, the peppy wisecracks, an edge that is lost after about half a dozen drinks or so. Well, in reality, I get decent results if I make the connection with some girl earlier in the night, in which case subsequently drinking a bunch doesn’t seem to hurt too much, might in fact help somewhat. But not so much if drinking a ton and then trying to approach someone – some guys do better when obliterated, that whole “alcohol courage” thing, and that’s just not my forte, mostly because I feel not as quick-witted.
So like Mike and I start playing pool at some point and there’s this girl in a red OSU sweater checking me out, nearby, but I really don’t make anything happen with her, and I begin to suspect this is the culprit. I’m just not on top of my game conversationally. There are plenty of distractions, sure, but primarily it’s as though I can’t come with anything interesting or funny to say. And sadly enough, we will be here for quite some time still, there will be quite a few more drinks consumed. Nothing too crazy, however.
It’s an ongoing battle, not just with me but for everyone, I think, not to be so inwardly focused all the time. I mean here it is a friend’s 30th birthday party, and yet 90% of my notes or observations seem to revolve around myself. But what else do we often have to go on, aside from our own impressions of what’s happening, maybe with some scenery detail or the stray comment from someone else thrown in? This isn’t a novel here, where I can just concoct what’s going on in every character’s head. So onward with the personal observations it is.
I’m walking by Maria’s table at one point and she stops me, says, “Stacy’s here.” This is a relatively new twist to the dynamic still, and one I never expect. It throws me for a bit of a loop, same as the last time. So Stacy and I say hi to one another at some point and that’s about the extent of it. In fact now that she’s here, I make a concerted effort of trying to talk with any female I can, and if nothing else to be conversing with somebody else at all times. She keeps looking over, especially if I am talking to another chick.
She’s here with that Damon dude she’s dating now and while he’s a smidgen friendlier than the other day at the gas station, we are probably not going to be great pals anytime soon. Don’t get me wrong – she’s cool, he seems like an okay guy, and technically it was me dissing her instead of the other way around. I was bored and just stopped coming around, without any explanation to her whatsoever. I even start to feel bad, because it’s just the two of them sitting alone at this table for an eternity, it seems they don’t know anybody else here but Maria and me, nobody else drifts by to converse with them. They’ve gone as far as to dress up for the occasion, too – he’s wearing a freaking suit and tie, even, for some reason. But how chummy can I possibly be expected to act in this situation? What, like I’m going to drop in at the table and hang out for an extended stretch? The whole thing is just awkward. They look very lonely over there, but also very much in love. So that’s something, at least they have each other.
In more compelling and up to the minute news, Amber’s looking hot with her faux blonde hair and amazing, tight little body. She struts around trying to get everyone to notice her, and yet I think deep down she’s actually a really sweet girl, underneath that facade. Is this somebody you would trust in a relationship, however? That’s another question. Then again, people would surely say the same thing about me, though I am actually extremely trustworthy if you manage to pin me down with such.
Mike and I unexpectedly spend an eternity playing pool. Despite knowing him for a few years, we’ve never been close friends or anything, but I guess that could happen someday. We’re clowning around like old pals and have always gotten along fairly well, have similar personalities, et cetera, with the added dimension that we are now like disaster survivors or something, there are just about no guys left who still come around from the “old days” of three years or so ago. He keeps calling me Kurt Cobain, which is a remark I only hear when growing out a goattee (people refer to something like this as a “look” you are adopting, when in fact it’s usually just laziness) to go with a very bad need for a haircut, and telling people, “it’s the son of Kurt Cobain!” all night, or else, “he’s been resurrected!” and so on.
Roy is one of the other few old school guys, too, although of course he is spoken for at present. And extremely busy to boot. I’m actually really proud of this dude and consider him highly inspirational. He started his own cleaning company a while back, Royal Buckeye, and is now pulling in about $100K a year. It began with just him, running around like a total madman, but now he’s got some employees and it’s really blown up. Now he and Corina are set to move into this huge house together, off of Hayden Run, in between Hilliard and Dublin.
On the food front, Corina paid for everything, which translates as a five foot Italian sub, two big kettles of wings, veggie trays, chips and salsa. A little sustenance is surely not a bad idea at a time like this, provided you don’t go overboard and stuff yourself into catatonia. At one point we’re sitting at a table with Roy’s dad, who was quite the ladies man himself back in the day, probably still was right up to the moment he landed the stepmom here. It’s the four of us and also Maria, as we attempt to explain to them who Lisa is. Roy actually used to mess around with Lisa quite a bit himself before (or at the same time?) I started in with her, and brought her around, yet the parents don’t remember her.
“Big titties…BIG ol’ titties,” Roy says, holds his hands out from his chest to indicate the size.
“Huge,” I concur. But the dad and stepmom are still drawing a blank.
Roy’s drunk and doesn’t give a fuck, jokingly slurs, “I never licked them.”
“No, never,” I agree, and we both start cracking up. Roy, Alan, me, uh, that Barrett guy – these are but the known “associates” Lisa has had here, off the top of my head.
In other developments, I’m talking to Roy’s friends from the Mansfield area for a minute, Kim and Kelly. One graduated from Madison and the other Lexington. Maria says we’ve all met before, one time at a party at her old apartment, but none of us remember this. We do have quite a bit to chat about concerning that hellish landscape to the north, however.
The party starts breaking up, with plans to head back to Maria’s afterwards, at least for some of us. Considering that on our split tab she and I have nine rounds each and yet were only charged $37.50, it seems that Scoot has given us a maaaaaaaaaajor hookup. So we hand him $50. And others tip him handsomely as well, some even more so than us. I catch Maria giving Scoot her number, even though his girlfriend, who is a white girl from Wisconsin, has shown up and was chilling with us some. Then right as we’re walking out, hilariously enough, Harold calls, wondering about the party. I would say you’re a tad late, bro. I wind up crashing on the couch over there.
