The Encounter

PART III

She glided through the double doors as if she were on wheels. I wasn't sure what was more beautiful: her or the way she presented herself. Her hair was just past shoulder length and blueberry black though it wasn't natural. She stood of average height, was in her early 20's, a slim figure, a weak tan and wore a light blue full-bodied dress. She entered with others though I was so mesmerized by her aura, I couldn't even take note of their number or genders.
For a moment, as she looked around the room, our eyes met. I flushed extremely red and turned away. Joel must have noticed because he was grinning at me and glancing at her.
"What's the plan then?" He asked.
"What do you mean?" I responded, even though i was pretty sure i knew what he was going to say.

"How are we gonna make them come back with us," he said, gesturing at the black haired beauty and what seemed to be three other young ladies that came in with her. This wasn't going to end well. I had no intentions of interacting with this girl. Not one like her. I shoot for well below what i consider to be my class and my class was around the same level as a barrel of rotten fish.

"We'll figure that out over a couple more frothies," I said, raising my beer. Joel's face showed a lot of enthusiasm. I looked at him and wondered why he was the way he was. By no means was he ugly, he was probably slightly more attractive than me. He had brown hair and eyes and a perfect set of teeth with next to no acne. He was only 24 and he was built like i brick shit house. If he wasn't such a complete and utter cunt, he could easily find a willing tart to go home with him. But, somewhere in his up bringing, he was taught to hate women. Probably his mother, though she seemed nice to me. Hating women can be a successful means of coercing them into doing your sly bidding, but its all about execution. Joel's methods were about as witty and calculated as a meat cleaver.

I glanced around the room again, trying to locate her; to no avail. I felt a barely measurable fright in my stomach at the knowledge that maybe she had just past through and i would never see her again. Not that it mattered if i did, i wouldn't do anything. I just wanted to stare at her for a bit and hopefully not be seen, lest i be regarded as a creep. After the stomach shock subsided, i realized there was another organ in there trying to tell me something.

"I gotta do a piss, be right back," I told Joel as i got up and made my way for the toilets. I scanned for her as I moved. No sign. As I walked through the restaurant area, i noticed the place was starting to liven up a bit and more young hipsters were gathered. I went to make my way around the corner into where the male and female toilets were located when i bumped shoulders fairly hard with someone slightly shorter than me. My heart skipped a beat upon the realization it was her. We both turned to each other with apologetic looks on our faces. Her face... Her eyes were the most exquisite tone of green i had ever seen. If i could ever marry someone based solely on their looks, this was the girl.

"I'm so so sorry," she said in an understated kind of shriek. Her voice sounded like a much younger girls but it was wrapped in a very warm vibe. Her arms outstretch in front of her to brush my shirt back to a relatively similar position.

"Um..." I stammered as i was completely thrown out of my comfort zone. I wasn't even drunk! Somehow i managed to find words just before the delay got awkward.

"That's okay. I'm sorry, i should have been paying more attention. Are you alright?" Wow, that was considerably smooth considering how incredibly nervous I was.

"Oh i'm fine, i'm a tough girl. It's definitely my fault, i was in a bit of a rush. My friends are waiting for me to get them a drink,"

"Are you sure?" I responded, trying to get chatty but crashing and burning like an airplane missing a wing.

"What? Am i sure they're waiting or am i sure i'm ok?" she replied jest-fully, with a slight but ever so dazzling smile. It caught me off guard. I just laughed weakly and smiled back. She sensed I wasn't going to say much else and continued with "yeah, definitely." 

Then that three second pause ensued in which i had a window to say something. To be a fucking man. Of course, i didn't take it. The universe basically threw my dream girl at me and all i had to do was reach out and take her. But i didn't.

"Alright, have a good night anyways," I said, turning back towards the toilet. She smiled and turned away also and i let the pain reach my face. I silently cursed myself, what the fuck was my problem? I was definitely punishing my liver tonight!

The Visionary

PART II

It occurred to me as we made the short stumble towards Trinity that i hadn't actually eaten anything since mid-day yesterday and that was only some shitty re-heated chicken wrap from the take away place near my work. I had a choice. I could either over compensate for my lack of nourishment through excessive alcohol consumption or i could make what would be largely considered the correct choice and purchase some kind of sustenance from the in house restaurant in Trinity. I made a decision i don't usually make and opted for food.
"I'm really fucking hungry bro," i told Joel as we walked abreast towards the bar.
"We'll go halves in chips and gravy and have em in the smokers area then aye?" he replied. This sounded good to me so we agreed on it.

We sat and ate our chips. Joel was abnormally quiet. He just sat across from me at the bar, his shoulder to me as he surveyed what he typically referred to as 'prey' moving around the building. Tonight was fairly dead, though it was only 7:15 and it usually didn't pick up on Thirsty Thursdays until about 10:00. My favorite three days: Thursday  Friday and Saturday. They were days when my unnatural habits didn't seem so different from everyone else. Days where I could blend in with the rest of the world; as if i were a vampire on Halloween. My drinking level was obviously larger than anyone really knew and here at this bar on this night, my dysfunction could slip right under the radar.
Of course, we both had a generic beer in front of us with our dinner. It tasted terrible with the clashing flavors of the chips and gravy, but i didn't really care. The food kept me alive and the beer kept me sane enough to stay alive. I surveyed the rest of the bar myself. A few older couples, some old men laughing around a keg table, a few children playing while their parents ate. A pretty normal kind of scene. Clearly, if i was going to have any fun before the decay of society arrived, i was going to have to get fuck-eyed.
"Shot?" I questioned Joel, who had now returned his gaze to the behind of one of the lady bar tenders as she bent over to get him another beer.
"Sweetheart, could you grab us two Jagerbombs while you're there?" He asked without confirmation. She turned back to acknowledge him, smiled weakly and moved across to where the spirits were kept. I caught a faint glimmer of disdain on her face when she thought it was concealed. I don't think she liked Joel, but i couldn't blame her. He was a sleaze, he always had been. He viewed women as achievements; things he must collect as often as possible in order to validate his existence  That was something I liked about him. He completed me in a sick and twisted way. I always followed along with his misogynistic mannerisms, but deep down i thought quite the contrary. If anything, i considered the fairer sex to be above me. More important, more valid in such a broken down society. It killed me to see them so willingly sacrifice their own Majesty the way they do.
"Lets do it then," Joel said to me as he lifted the recently placed plastic shots over the glass of Red Bull, ready to drop. I followed and we did a Jagerbomb. Not a drink i particularly enjoy, but it picks me up at the same time as blacking me out so i do it anyway. I swung around on the bar stool in shock as the pungent taste of the hard liquor resonated in my mouth. I shook my head a few times comically and my eyes fell to the back door of the bar. That's when i saw her...

The Beginning

PART I

I woke slowly, my eyes adjusting to the dullness of the sun trickling through my broken lounge room blinds. That moment of confusion seemed to pass much slower than usual as I questioned where I was and pondered why my mouth tasted like nuclear waste. I lifted my head and glanced around at the chaos of the room. Among the rubbish (nearly all of which consisting of empty beer bottles) I pieced together the embarrassingly simple truth of where I was. I was at home.
That's what I called it. The box where i dwell on this earth waiting to die. It had been years now since I had really lost the will to stop myself from doing any number of self-destructive activities. What was really the point? Being sober just bored me so much I felt the only escape from my soul relentlessly begging me to stop and do something proactive was to drown its feeble cries. Then there was also my 9-to-5 that I felt inescapable from, like spiraling a black hole. It payed my habits and paradoxically fueled my pain. We were codependent.
This particular morning however, I did not have to visit my second box out in the real world. Today, i could spend several hours developing deep anxiety about having to return to my employers midst until the fear was so great, i would crack open a fresh bottle of jagermeister and do drinking stunts alone by my cheap strobe light i found on eBay. Ahhh the joys of being an over achieving alcoholic.
I got up slowly from the couch, feeling my head spin ever so slightly as it always did after these lone benders. A shower was what I needed, that would get me right to face the world. After ten minutes of sitting on the porcelain floor with the borderline boiling liquid seeping down my body, I decided it was time to do it. To address some of this shit inside of me that always won in the end. Every few weeks I would try and every time i failed, it got longer between attempts. Maybe i would just finish the beer in the fridge and then i could stop for a week?
I was pondering this when my mobile telephone rang obnoxiously. This was not a trivial Facebook notification informing me some asshole liked my hate status from my blind drunk brain last night, nor was it a message from my boss informing me that i was actually meant to work today and I had simply forgotten today was Wednesday not Thursday. This was a phone call from one of the few actual friends I had remaining. Joel Lavings. So, intrigued,  i picked up the vibrating plastic object and pressed the green light on the screen.
"Hello," I said sheepishly, realizing my voice had yet been used today.
"Hey man, what ya doin?" Joel's enthusiastic voice made me want to punch him.
"Uhhh... Just had a shower and was about to have my morning coffee and smoke," I answered.
"You mean afternoon right? You do realize its like fuckin' 3 pm you daft cunt!" Joel was one of those close friends that no matter how vulgar, vile and offensive they were, you just brush it off like froth on a beer.
"Shit, really?" I said, taking the phone down from my head to inspect the time. He was right. Usually, my somewhat alcohol damaged brain is incapable of sleeping very late in the day and this was a real moment for me. An amazing feat that I haven't been able to do since high school!
"Yeah dickhead," I heard his voice from the phone i still hadn't returned to my head as i was busily having a silent celebration of sorts. I felt like i dickhead immediately after that.
"Well fuck, I'm up. Whats the go?" I said.
"Well, it's Thursday night bro. Lets go out to Trinity and slay some sluts!" He exclaimed with excitement. I was excited somewhat more that i did indeed have the day right. Joel wanted me to go to Trinity, one of the only local pubs worth going to in the small town of Scottsdale. It usually always sucked but we didn't have much choice and every single time we would think to ourselves 'Tonight will be different' but it rarely was.
"Ummm... I think I work early..." I paused "But fuck, kicks the shit out of sitting round here all day. I'll get ready. Head round when you want."
"Aight, catchya cunt," he replied, and the phone fell silent. I was shattered that my attempt at sobriety had already been thwarted. There was always next time though. I lived only around the block from Trinity so my house was the ideal meeting point. I would have to clean the pad just in case either one of us actually managed to return home with something that resembled a woman. That seldom happened however. The only thing i ever returned with was a lighter wallet, a shit load less brain cells and almost always less dignity. Joel didn't get much either, but he was so persistent he never spent long between sexual interactions. For every twenty times maybe he would come home with someone. For me, maybe every fifty. Though i didn't complain. I had no real skills or anything that would remotely interest a woman. I could juggle VERY averagely and if you got me really drunk, you might get to see my attempts at ollying a skateboard. I was very average and kept to myself most of the time in front of the television trying to figure out exactly how I ended up in this rut. More to the point, how to get out of it.
I went to my closet and selected denim jeans and a deep red T-Shirt, not really giving it to much thought as i slapped it all on. I wasn't on the prowl tonight. The thought of interacting with a woman right now scared the fucking shit out of me. Like her very gaze could pierce the crippling mess inside of my soul. There was no way i wanted anyone to see the ugliness in there and tonight, i didn't feel confident enough to dismiss this ridiculous thought.
Joel let himself in.
"You look like a dickhead," he said affectionately as he brushed my shoulders and looked me up and down like a mother does for her son. I pushed his arms away.
"Fuck off, i'm ready. Lets ditch this Popsicle stand and go find some adventures," I said in a monotone voice, just balancing on a knifes edge between sarcasm and enthusiasm. I was good at acting out bits and pieces of the shit that i knew from this world. How to be a friend, soccer coach, surfer, cunt, electrician ect. I hadn't picked what i was tonight. My mixed emotions about the triumph of sleeping in and my sobriety vowel i failed in five minutes just had my personality sitting as a stagnant mess.
But tonight would at least be interesting. The alcohol and brisk cold air of the inner city would awaken the party animal inside and i would accelerate into something else entirely. Something i hated being less. Something that had more life in it than I did. Something that knew what it wanted...