by H. T. Night
“Yes, life-changing talk,” Annie said. “It would be more than sex.”
I waited for her to tell me how.
“But that cannot happen, Tommy. You have made it extremely clear that you don’t want to sleep with me and we had a long conversation about Maya. Okay, I think this might be the drunkest I have been since college. When I stand up, will I fall down?”
“I didn’t say I didn’t want to sleep with you. Look at you. You’re gorgeous. Your body is an amusement park.”
“An amusement park?”
“You have a lot going on. A guy could spend all day just examining your body.”
“Thanks, I think. So, what are you saying? Did you change your mind about this being an actual date?”
I looked at her and I felt horny and I knew she was a sure thing. No one would know. What happened here stayed here? Right? She was a sensual woman and my mind and body were at war with each other. Wisdom versus lust.
But… I was not ready.
I’d never thought that could ever be possible with me and sex, to not be ready for the offering of a beautiful woman, and one whom I liked very much, despite only knowing her for a few hours. But I was not ready to be that close to someone. To share myself with someone like that. Those parts of me still belonged to Maya.
Before Maya, I had looked at sex as a game. A challenge. And even, yes, dick that I was, a conquest. I wanted as much of it with as many women who would sleep with me. Then Maya happened. She halted me in my tracks. I looked at sex differently. She taught me that it was an expression of love. I then looked at sex like a gift to be shared and cared enough to give the woman pleasure before I took mine. An offering of my physical self to the one I loved. Maya. It was a liberating, freeing feeling to be that vulnerable in someone’s presence. And to be that vulnerable made me feel stronger than I had ever been. The more tender I was with my lover, Maya, the stronger I was in the ring.
Annie cleared her throat. “Well?” she asked. “Is this a date or not?”
I looked at Annie and I knew she wanted me. I knew that I needed to come straight out and make sure this didn’t go any further.
I smiled at Annie and said, “Under different circumstances, we could have dated. But where I’m at is a harsh reality of loss and the place I’m at in my head is like the devil’s playground for pain and suffering. I know it wouldn’t be good for anyone if we slept together. I can’t have that kind of intimacy for a while. I’m sorry. May I please say that if things were different, you are the kind of woman who should be cherished slowly and tenderly, and loved for herself, not to fill a hole in a broken heart?”
Annie looked at me and had tears in her eyes. “That’s beautiful.”
“Well, I’m not trying to say anything beautiful. I’m telling you what’s in my heart. The raw truth. God, you’re beautiful, Annie. You’re funny, smart, sweet, and such a joy to talk to. You take companionship to this intimate level of no head games and no pretense. In another time, another place, had I not known what I did with Maya, I would be in you and saying your name right now, with a damn catch in my throat that you exist.”
“Damn, you’re intense. Such a turn-on. It’s like you’re alive. And, it’s probably the nicest rejection of my whole life. You have something wild inside of you.”
She had no idea how wild I was. I was a freaking werewolf, for goodness sake. I need to throw some ice on this situation.
“Okay, moving on, my friend,” I said firmly, “what can two extremely drunk friends do in Las Vegas who only have a few hours left to spend with each other?”
“With the likelihood they will never see each other again,” she added.
“I hope we do,” I said. “When all of this is a gentler memory of my loss, I will remember that you were a breath of fresh air in Sin City. And that you listened and cared. And laughed and just about cried, too.”
“Well, if you ever want to fly out to Connecticut, be sure to look me up.”
“I don’t see that ever happening,” I said, as drunk and honest as I could be. “Because you would know me too well to start a relationship. Having all of this prior knowledge would give you a huge advantage in the relationship. Especially since you’ve seen me at my worst.”
“Then this is our only night together,” she said, more than a little sadly. “Well, you have been real honest, so I guess it’s my turn. And I’m going to lay my soul naked since we will never see each other after tonight.”
Huh? What could she possibly say to me? I shook my head. “What is it, Annie?”
“I’m sick,” she said.
“Sick? How sick?” I asked.
“I have stage-four esophageal cancer.”
My heart crested and fell to a deep sadness. “I’m sorry. I have no idea what that means. Only that it must be bad.”
“It means I was told four weeks ago that I had six weeks to live.”
“You look great,” I said. I had no idea what to say. Of course, I meet the only girl who captivates me in Vegas and she’s dying of cancer.
“Can I ask you a question?” I asked.
“Sure, you have been real honest. I’ll try to be.”
“Why did you even tell me? This night easily could have gone by and I wouldn’t have known that about you.”
“I just wanted to be honest with someone who was honest back with me. Like I said, I have a hard time trusting people. I trust you, Tommy. I trust you with everything.”
“Thank you,” I said, humbled by her pain.
Man, this was bad timing.
“I need a change of scenery,” I said.
“Let’s hit it,” she said and grabbed her purse.
Chapter Nine
Outside, it was still hot, even at this hour.
I looked up in the sky and suddenly realized that there was going to be a full moon tonight. I panicked. I was going to have to figure out something fast about where I was going to be when I turned.
She grabbed my hand. “You don’t look so well.”
“I’m peachy. You’re the one who’s sick.”
“Don’t pity me,” she said. “I know how I am dying, and approximately when. Most people don’t have that luxury.”
“Don’t pity me either,” I said.
“I do.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re lost, Tommy. You want to be found but you want to find yourself. You don’t want anyone else to find you.”
“I’d say that’s accurate.” I paused and when she took my hand, I let her and didn’t pull away. It only felt like a friend caring about me. It was different than anything I had known.
“So, what do you want to do now?” I asked.
“First of all, you look like you need to sit down.”
“I’m fine,” I lied. In truth, everything was royally spinning. Suddenly, without warning, I hit the deck. I just collapsed on the hot sidewalk… hard. And pulled her down with me.
“Are you okay?” Annie asked, picking herself up off of me.
“Think so. Despite trying to keep it together, I have been spending more time lying on sidewalks than upright.”
“Look,” she said. “Your elbows.”
I examined them and I indeed had two skinned-up elbows. I was dumb and had apparently taken off my leather coat.
Fuck! My leather coat! I’d left it back at the restaurant. “I need to go back. I left my jacket there in the restaurant.”
“I thought that there was something different about you.”
“Okay, I’m going back. You can come with me if you like.”
“I’ll come.”
So, two drunk people made their way back to the same restaurant we had left just moments ago. One would think that would be easy enough.
But it wasn’t. Not for two extremely drunk individuals who could barely see straight and held each other’s hands to keep from falling down. It took us almost twenty minutes to find the restaurant. We walked through an entrance we didn’t even know existed.
A side door.
I was completely turned around when I entered the Italian restaurant. I wasn’t exactly being quiet. I was talking out loud. Much louder than I thought I was. People were staring at me and an older woman even shushed me.
In my sloppy drunkenness, I asked the hostess who’d seated us earlier if she’d seen my leather jacket. The hostess said she had it in the kitchen and went to the back of the restaurant and grabbed it for me. I turned around and I was alone. Annie was gone.
My heart hammering, I went out the entrance I had just come into and she was outside the door smoking a cigarette.
“Don’t do that! Don’t ever do that!” I said.
“What?” she asked.
“Be gone suddenly.”
She shook her head. “I am not touching that one with a ten-foot pole.”
I put on my jacket.
“Very nice, though you will be sweltering,” Annie said. “What city are we in again?”
“I think we’re in Albuquerque,” I said.
She laughed. “Albuquerque wouldn’t know what hit it if they had all of the wedding chapels and fake Elvises running around.” She paused. “You smoke?”
“Cigarettes?” I asked.
“Yeah, cigarettes.”
“Only when I’m this drunk,” I said.
“Would you like a cigarette?”
“Sure.” She handed me the cigarette, then lit it for me from her cherry. I took a drag to get the cigarette started.
“That’s a good-looking jacket,” Annie said to me.
“It wasn’t cheap, you know.”
“Just say thank you when someone gives you a compliment,” she suggested.
I nodded. And right then, I realized the difference between Annie and me. Ironically, just coming out of the Italian restaurant, we were Lady and the Tramp.
“What are you smiling at?” she asked.
“You. Me. The vindictive universe that throws two people in each other’s path who are perfect, but at the wrong time.”
“Yeah, it’s a bitch,” she said, bringing herself down to my level. She was that good at meshing herself with me, lady that she was.
We were standing on Las Vegas Boulevard in front of the restaurant. I saw a giant planter and decided to take a seat on it. I needed to be still for a second.
I looked ahead and saw a group of men that looked like they were in their late twenties. I didn’t get the sense that any of them were immortals. They were just acting too stupid. There were a couple of women in front of them scurrying along, trying to get away from them. They were being loud and acting extremely juvenile. Each of them was holding a drink that looked like the Seattle Space Needle. Each Space Needle was filled with beer. Apparently, the Space Needle drinks came in every color under the rainbow because each dude had a different color to show his individualism. I found that to be interesting. It was the only thing interesting about these guys, that they were carrying neon-colored drinks. That, and they were all acting like fools.
“Hey, watch where you’re going,” one of the bigger guys said to one of the littler guys as he pushed his buddy into the two women who were trying to avoid them and were minding their own business.
Oh, hell no. Not on my watch!
My watch was constant. If I saw it happening, I considered it my watch. I also thought that everything happened for a reason at the time it happened. Even Maya, though I was still trying to figure out what the universe wanted me to learn by punishing me so severely.
So, destiny called me to some duty in the situation ahead of us. The fact that I was out there drunk and smoking, and the fact that these guys were out here being drunk and stupid, too, was like God was trying to bring us together to either save the world or duke it out on the streets of Vegas. I guessed the universe had the latter in its plans for me.
The truth was, I loved a good confrontation. Confrontations led to fights. That’s where I came in. Joyfully. A rowdy, fisticuffs-loving denizen of Earth—that was me.
I stepped up. I was drunk and my testosterone was about to shift into overdrive. “Hey, dick,” I said to the guy who had pushed his friend. “You need to watch where you’re pushing your friend.”
“Who are you? The neighborhood watch?” the guy said to me with a sneer on his face.
“If you knock your friend into people one more time, I’m going to make you wish your mama raised you with better manners.”
“Who do you think you are, Superman?” And I heard that song about Superman playing from inside a club. Funny how that happens sometimes, that my life has a soundtrack.
This guy was a meathead from the word “go.” He had blond hair like Josiah, but his was a buzz cut. He was a tool. A tad taller and heavier than me. Just the way I liked it. I appeared to be the underdog.
“Hey, dude, no one cares what you think,” the guy said, trying to sound cool around his buddies. He was about to see how uncool he would become in front of them.
“Look, apologize, and then go on your merry way. It’s the classy thing to do,” I said.
“The only thing I’m sorry about is I’m going to have to take out my earring to kick your ass.”
Oh, he bit, hook, line, and sinker. “You have an earring? I can’t see it.”
“My ears are big right now. I have cauliflower ear.”
“Cauliflower ear?” There were only three sports where people ended up with cauliflower ear. Wrestling, boxing, and mixed martial arts. This boy might be tougher than I thought. “You talk too much,” I said. “And you were rude to the ladies by pushing your friend into them. Are you going to say sorry to the women or not?”
“Try not,” he said.
“Well, then…”
“Well, then… what?” he asked.
“Well, then take out your fucking George Michael earring and let’s roll. If you want to go, let’s go.”
By go, I meant fighting.
“I’m just saying,” the dumbass whined, “my ear hurts and if we get into a fight, it might damage my ear or something. Permanently.”
I stared at this guy. He had a lot of sense for a guy who had pushed his buddy into complete strangers. The ladies were still watching what was going to transpire from the sidelines. They were a ways away but I could see them. “Just apologize for doing something stupid to the ladies and everybody can go on with their lives.”
“Buddy. Go away,” the guy said. “I’m not saying shit to nobody. The only person who will be sorry is you,” he said to me.
“Say sorry, Danny,” one of his friends told him, sizing me up at the same time. “This guy will obviously not shut up until you do. He is seriously killing my buzz.”
“Yeah, Danny Boy, it’s like you have sense one minute and then in the same moment, you say something so asinine that you lose all the credit you earned. I don’t know if I should kick your ass or give you a life lesson.”
“How about I teach you a lesson?” Danny stepped around, eager to fight. At first, I was all in with that recommendation. But the longer this panned out, the more I felt sorry for him. He didn’t know who I was. He didn’t know I was a professional MMA fighter and that I was undefeated. He was just trying to save face with his buddies.
“Step out of the way, Annie,” I said and she did as she was told.
I needed to know what I was dealing with here and not be distracted by her. “Are you a guy who is training at an MMA gym and you think you can take on any average Joe?”
“You admit you’re an average Joe,” Danny laughed. “Does that mean you have a tiny, little average dick?”
“I think it’s fair to say we can leave our dicks out of this discussion. I don’t fight with my dick. Or, are you going to go all dueling banjos on me, right off the bat?”
“I’m a college wrestler, dipshit. Get prepared to go to hit the hard cement like a champ. I’m going to ground and pound your annoying ass until you are hamburger cooking on the grill that is the Strip of Las Vegas.”
“Ground and po
und? How cute that you know a phrase for something in mixed martial arts, just so you can show off in the street.” Oh my God! Could I have asked for anything better? This guy thought he was going to pounce on me because he was a college wrestler. Well, I had been state champ in high school. I didn’t wrestle after, only because I decided to become an MMA fighter. While this guy was still learning arm bars and cradles, I was learning how to rip a man’s head off and feed it to him for dinner. I know that didn’t make any sense. I was also extremely drunk. If you ripped someone’s head off, they no longer had the capacity to eat.
“I’m going to ask you one more time to apologize to the ladies and you and I can avoid a fight.” I was serious. I honestly didn’t want to fight this guy. “You cannot walk down the street pushing random people, especially women.”
“Shut the hell up, you scared piece of shit. Live with your fear.”
“I just might be scared of you,” I said. Giving him more confidence. “Or I might be scared for you. But that’s neither here nor there,” I continued. “You know the right thing to do is to say sorry. We all do stupid shit, but when we cross the line and we affect perfect strangers with our actions, there needs to be a protocol. That protocol is to be sorry, to be humble and apologize when you make a mistake. Don’t be that douchebag who doesn’t recognize that. When you leave this Earth, leave it with some respect for the other inhabitants of the planet.” Pretty good speech for a drunk guy. At least, I thought so.
“Tommy,” Annie said. “It’s okay, let’s just get out of here. No one is hurt.”
“Not yet. I’m not leaving until this guy apologizes. He can’t walk down the street pushing people just for the sake of compensating for his small dick.”
“Man, you say a lot of shit for someone who is by himself.” Danny wasn’t sure how to come at me. He had separated himself from his friends. I think he had done that in hopes that I would join him in his imaginary ring that he created in his drunk mind on the sidewalk.
“I don’t need anyone to stand with me.” I paused and then said, “You obviously do? Your strength comes in numbers. I know a lot about that. It’s the way of the wolf. Are you a wolf?”