Your Crooked Neighbor: Part 2

Puke and Rally

For those who have never been, the bar known as Purr is a narrow, dark, expensive, loud, neon-lit, glossy photograph-filled calendar of gay centerfolds and their admirers. If it sounds like a terrible place to meet someone, that’s because it is. If it sounds like a great place to hope to meet someone, well, it’s that, too. I found Tim in the center of the room, a high traffic spot where two parallel lines for the bar bisect the narrow corridor that leads to the bathroom. Perhaps now is a good time to mention that your narrator is pretty short, and a deeply rooted lesson from high school gym class still held true for me: In a crowded space with athletic-types twice my size jockeying for attention and control, I found it best to avoid eye contact, to remove myself from the competition as best I could. Years ago my flirtation tactics got cross-wired with my survival instincts. Still, sometimes a man needs a night out, even if he’s only sightseeing.

Tim stood in a circle with a few familiar faces. I said hi to Danny and Trey and introduced myself to the two strangers they were talking to. The conversation quickly reverted to talk of some guy I didn’t know, a software programmer in town for a month, currently out somewhere else, maybe joining us later, but what an unreliable flake he was. I lost track and noticed another guy who stood sort of in our circle between Tim and me.

“Hi,” I said, shaking his hand.

His eyes lit up, and he gave me a practiced, drama-school smile. “Hey! I’m Tony.”

“How’s it going, Tony?”

“Great.” He sighed. “Today was so beautiful, right?”

“What did you do?”

His eyes opened wide. “Shopped.”

“Okay,” I said, trying to sound encouraging. “What did you get?”

“Two pairs of pleated pants, a velvet vest, and a suede jacket. Do you like to shop?”

“I hate it,” I said. “I go clothes shopping maybe once a year. Twice if I have to.” He looked at me with pity. “How do you know these guys?” I pointed to Tim and the others.

“I don’t.”

“Oh. You were just . . . okay.”

We talked for a painful minute or two. It turns out that in addition to a steady regimen of retail therapy, Tony was visiting from San Diego, and he was nineteen. He showed me his fake. I noticed my circle of friends had migrated towards the bar. I excused myself. “I thought that guy was a friend of yours,” I said to Tim.

“No, when you started talking to him we thought you knew him.”

Back among my friends I was still lost. The conversation had shifted from the programmer to programming itself. I felt disconnected, invisible, and I didn’t have the energy to make a go of trying harder. Though I’d been the one to end things with Thomas, I was still upset about it. Thomas had been warm and generous, and he loved me. I knew we weren’t right together, but it was still hard to adjust to the absence of what he provided. I noticed Tony in the lap of a white-haired, fifty-something and downed my drink. My friends announced they were heading towards the Cuff, but I called it a night and started for home.

I walked through the darkened, streetlamp-lit side streets trying to remember the last time I’d gotten excited about a guy. Really excited. I wondered why, at twenty-five, finding a partner was already so important to me, when most of my contemporaries were content to fuck around and explore without destination. I had close friends. I had a job, a good family, my writing. I was often too busy to relax. Still, this one need seemed to hang over all the others. It hollowed out my other accomplishments, diminishing their value, and I felt that I was letting it happen by not being stronger. 

Then I heard vomiting.

The sound of something loud, uncontrolled, and animal on a dark city street is enough to catch anyone’s breath. My hand went to my chest and I looked into the alley to see two men, one hunched over, hands to the wall, head down, the evening being coughed out of him. There was a man at his side, hand on his friend’s back. This one looked at me.

“He’s all right,” he said. “He was having a little too much fun.”

“I could call someone.”

“Honey, we could all call someone.” He slapped the pocket of his jeans, signaling his cell phone. “This is just a little exorcism.” With his hand still on his friend’s back he turned and looked at me. We were maybe twenty feet apart. “Wow, you have gorgeous eyes,” he said. He stood up fully and took a few steps towards me. He was good-looking – broad shoulders, sincere expression. There was an intelligence in his voice you don’t hear that often, a musical way of speaking. He looked right at me, all confidence. I tried to keep his gaze, but it took effort. Plus, the whole thing was a little surreal.

At the sound of shoes shuffling on gravel we looked to see that his friend was beginning to lower himself to the ground, about to sit in his own sick. “No, no, no!” my new friend said, and sprinted to him, ducking below an arm to keep him aloft.  “Listen,” he continued. “I’m a little preoccupied. What’s your number?”

“You serious?”

“No,” he said with heavy sarcasm. “Are you not interested? Is it because of my wing man here?”

I thought of Jack the Ripper. I thought of Glenn Close. I thought about the time I asked out a barista and wound up in his apartment looking at the Christmas cards he’d made with his still current boyfriend. “You seem a little busy,” I said.

“That’s why I think I should call you later.”

His name was Justin. His friend, Cory, had just been dumped. The plan was to get Cory home, put a movie and some coffee on, and stay until the threat of alcohol poisoning had passed. Cory signaled he was ready to resume the walk. Justin took an arm around his shoulders and made a final plea for my number. It felt safer to ask him for his. “I’d shake your hand,” he said, “but, you know.” He signaled Cory with a nod of his head. “So, you gonna call?”

I was flummoxed by his boldness. “Goodnight,” I said, too quickly.

“We’ll see,” he said.

Two days later I was IMing Jen from work. I told her the story.

“Are you going to call?”

“I haven’t decided yet.”

“You’re running out of time.”

“How much time do I have?”

“Two more days at most,” she wrote. “Then it’s booty call territory.”

I texted that afternoon. “I hope you’ve showered,” I wrote. He texted back, “Y? U R just going 2 get me dirty again.”

I stared at the message for a while trying to sync myself up with the sort of person who would receive such a text message. I didn’t know where this was going. I guess that’s the point. •

Your Crooked Neighbor returns next month with Part 3 with "Don't Tell Me How It Ends," when our anti-hero experiences a wild first date with Justin.

New to the series? Start here.