Chapters
How did I wind up here
A lonely Tuesday night
Work sucks
A bad seed
Job opening
A phone call from Joyce and a nice picnic
Cancer
Takes the job.
It’s my house, dawg
Romancing a stripper
A promotion
Hates the job
Break up
Blind Date
Funeral
Fight
Another fight
Free tickets to the strip club--Party
A new hope, kinda or maybe
The End
How did I wind up here
….on the ground of a porn store with two guys pointing guns at me?
A lonely Tuesday night
Alone, I sat at the bar somewhere on the Westside of Columbus, Ohio on the day after St Patrick’s Day 1998. I couldn’t party last night because I had to work. I really wanted to go out tonight after hearing some of the guys at work talk about how much fun they had and how they got laid. I went to the bar that they were talking about and I went inside. The place was totally dead. I came into this place to meet girls, but there were not any here. I thought that, even on a Tuesday night, the place would be packed with people and women. It was a nice place…clean…fairly new. A guy was putting down tables and chairs where a dance floor used to be. I don’t know why. It was early. There was some lonely truck driver dude slouched over looking down on his beer. Eric Clapton’s Unplugged was playing on the jukebox. The bar maid was kind of cute.
“You got I.D.?”
“Yeah, I’m 21.” I showed it to her.
“O.K. What do you want hon.” She said with a half-hearted smile.
“Uhm. Bud Light.”
I sipped on my beer then I looked over my left shoulder and I looked over my right shoulder, because I thought that a group of girls was going to come to a place that was playing a strange mix of classic rock and country on a Wednesday night. I drank the beer fast as hell and ordered another. I asked her for another beer and I asked her when it was going to get busy. She gave me a really strange look. She said “This is about it on a Wednesday. Everyone’s probably hung over.” The old drunk gave me a little bit of a dirty look. He didn’t want me to bring in a bunch of my friends and start playing that rap shit. I had to make something happen, because I was working a shitty job with even shittier hours. Twelve hour days, four days on and four days off. This was a good week where I had Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday off. I was not going to let turning twenty one go to waste, so I decided to just say “fuck it and drink”.
“Hey, it looks like it is just you and me. Let’s do a shot” I said
The other guy speaks up all of the sudden “Well, I’m here.”
“God damn it.” I thought to myself and then I told him. “Yeah, I know. You want a shot too?”
“Oh, shit no. I was doing tons of shots last night. I had so much fun. I’m taking it easy tonight.”
The bartender spoke up. “I can’t do shots. Who told you that I could do shots?”
“I don’t know. Nobody. I just heard some bartenders like to do shots while working.” I said
She kind of smiled a little bit and said “Yeah, I’m not really in the mood for shots or a crowd anyways. I just got news that my father has diabetes and he might lose his leg. He told me that he would still figure out a way to walk me down the aisle, someday.” My mood changed and I felt really sad for her. I said, “Well, I am sure he will be o.k. He will probably not lose his leg.” She started to fight back the tears
“Well, they already know that he has diabetes. He will have to take shots the rest of his life and he will probably lose his leg, so he is not o.k.”
“I am sorry.”
She calms down then gets sad again.
“He is going to the doctor again next week.”
“I hope it will be good news.”
“Well, we know he has diabetes.”
“Yeah, but I am talking about losing his leg.”
“Well, you do not lose your leg that quickly. It can take years.”
What did I say wrong? I was trying to be nice.
Why did I feel like I just lost an argument? I was sounding kind of dumb, so I thought, and I really didn’t want to do that. I mean she was gorgeous. She had this Midwestern, corn fed ass.
I sat there for an hour listening to her. I thought we were making a great connection. When the other barfly went to the restroom, I said out of the blue "So maybe we could go out sometime." She stopped and started looking around for an answer.
She said. "To do what?"
"Well, let’s go somewhere to get something to eat. How about the Spaghetti Warehouse?" That seemed like a good date place. The dating thing was new to me. My sex life had consisted of drunken sex with random girls. It’s just that, other than Becky, who I just talked to a lot and I don’t think I ever really asked her on a date, I had very little experience dating.
She said. "Oh, no. I can’t…."
"Well, we could go someplace else."
"I have a boyfriend too. Sorry, honey. And I am not supposed to date customers”
It was now closing time. I left the place.
I drove by a porn store and said “Fuck it” and went in. The place I went to had viewing booths and I was horny now. I went to the back where the booths were located. The place was dark. There were guys standing around and they were all staring at me. I could hear porn stars moaning loudly. I kept my head down and picked the closest booth. I sat down and I put $5 into the token machine. I pulled my pants down and sat down on the chair. I started getting into the movie and rubbing my dick when I heard some guy whispering something that I could not understand. I stopped masturbating. He was looking through the hole and he starts whispering again "Let me suck your cock". I pulled my pants up and went to another booth. I started the masturbation process again. A minute or two went by, when all of the sudden, a huge penis came through the hole in the wall. I jumped away from the big fucker and pulled my pants up at the same time. I left this place; but, there was still a problem. I was still horny.
I drove around for another half hour and found another porn store. After walking around for about twenty minutes, I finally picked a VHS video that I wanted. While walking to the counter to pay for it, I saw a gay guy working behind the counter smiling at me. I just put my head down and placed the video on the counter. I needed a $60 deposit, so if I didn’t bring it back, I basically bought it. The clerk settled for $55. After I got my tape, I walked out of the place as quickly as possible.
He said. “You have a great rest of your night, buddy.”
