Ian MacAllen

Charles and I intended a relatively modest night of heavy drinking. We called over to Polly and then Kelly and told them to expect to have some fun with us, and they agreed they would, and the four of us met up at the bar at the corner. The bar was crowded. It’s a neighborhood bar, and in the shadow of Manhattan, predicting whether or not other people will stay local or cross the river is an impossible task. We were pleased to not be drinking alone, but not so pleased that obtaining a drink was difficult.

I stepped outside the bar to call around to our other friends because our modest night of heavy drinking seemed to be taking a turn for the serious. No one was answering. They all had better things to do apparently. But before I returned to the bar, a girl, Joan, started talking to me. I’m not sure what we talked about, but none of it was interesting. The interesting part was that I was talking to a girl. I thought about telling her my name was Jack but Polly and Charles had recently threatened to call me out on this. Indeed, several nights before while in the same bar, a woman with a big gap in her teeth and a not very attractive face came up to us and I told her my name was Jack because I didn’t want to see her again, and Charles, in his high moral tone, informs her that my name is not Jack at all. So instead of telling Joan that my name was Jack I tell her my real name.

She finishes smoking a cigarette and we go inside the bar and I have another drink and Polly and Kelly and Charles want to hear about the girl I was talking to. We drink more. We’re all boarding the train to shitfacedville. I’m on the express train, they’re on the local.

Joan is leaving the bar. She has found me in the crowd to tell me she is leaving with her friends. She is with a girl and an old man. The girl looks like a Tyrannosaurus Rex. The man is at least twice my age and French. I know he is old because he is gray and balding a little bit and his wrinkles, and that he is French because of his accent. I mention that I enjoy French fine wine and French cheese and the best fucking bread in the world, and he agrees that the French are good at that. The Frenchman invites me to his apartment to eat cheese and bread and drink wine. Joan wants me to come. She gives me her number. She says, come with me.

I say that I am here with my friends. Bring them too, she suggests. I need to talk to them, I say. She and T-Rex and the Frenchman leave the bar. I want to have an adventure with them, but I’m afraid. I worry they want to chop me up and throw me in the Hudson River. I worry that the Frenchman is the one that wants to love me. In a moment of clarity I understand why sometimes women hesitate in going home with a strange man and I wonder how anyone ever has the sex.

I consult Charles and Polly and Kelly. They think eating cheese and bread and drinking wine is a wonderful idea. They must be more drunk than I thought. I still think I am going to be chopped up into pieces and hurled like chum into the Hudson River. Maybe I am more drunk than I thought. I drink another beer to be sure.

Alright, I agree, we should go, all of us go, and they agree. I leave the bar, and Joan and her entourage have left. I call her. I say that we are going to come if it is still alright to do so, and Joan says, yes, very enthusiastically and for a moment I wonder if maybe I will get laid tonight. I fret that I have no rubbers.

We buy a six pack from the bar, package goods, to take with us. The girls want to take a cab even though the apartment is only a few blocks away. They are wearing heals, so we take a cab. We pull up to the apartment. I call Joan again and she answers and I say we are downstairs. We are in the quiet neighborhood where the old people live. We are a disturbance.

We wait on the stoop. We are waiting a long time. How long is the appropriate amount of time to wait? I think the appropriate amount of time increases with the likelihood of having the sex. Kelly opens a beer. She is tired of waiting, and apparently we are all more drunk then I thought we were because we are all drinking a beer on the front steps. We worry that we are not on the right street. I worry that we are all about to be chum in the Hudson River.

Finally we hear someone coming down the stairs of the building and Joan comes to the door. We hurry up the stairs into the Frenchman’s apartment. The apartment is crowded with things, objects, items, evidence of someone dwelling here a longtime, a lifetime. The apartment is older. The appliances are austere. There are books everywhere. I think this is what an apartment in post war France might have looked like. T-Rex is drinking wine. She offers us some. The Frenchman tells us to eat some cheese and some bread. I choose the wine instead.

The Frenchman takes a liking to Polly. He is flirting with her, at least as well as an old man flirts with a young thing. He compliments her coat and she is his friend forever because of it. I am talking to Joan. This is why we are here, for Joan to fall in love with me. The Frenchman puts on some French music and Joan and I dance. We are not dancing like at a club, but like we are fancy people at a ball or a wedding or a prom.

You are very good dancer, she says. No I am not. I know that I am not. No, I think you are a good dancer she says.

Perhaps she only thinks this because we are slow dancing. When I dance to club music I do the Soft Shoulder. The Soft Shoulder is a popular dance that I invented that involves rolling your shoulders while minimally moving your feet. The Soft Shoulder does not require moving to the beat. It does not require music at all, actually. The Soft Shoulder is not the dance of a skilled dancer.

I think you are a great dancer, Joan says again and I accept the compliment hoping she is saying these things because she is falling in love with me and not because she is a moron who can’t recognize that I have no sense of rhythm or beat. She is a musician, so if she cannot recognize that I am absolutely not moving to the beat, she probably needs to find a new career path.

Charles talks with T-Rex while drinking wine. He is not drunk enough to find anything she says interesting, particularly after she explains that she is married. He is losing interest in this adventure.

We have a conversation with the Frenchman. We comment on the artwork hanging around the wall, which is somehow related to French socialism. The Frenchman begins explaining history to us. He says something about fascism. He is a communist, I think, but its hard to know for sure. I go back to dancing with Joan to the commie-French music.

The Frenchman has lured Polly and Kelly into the living room. He is showing off his apartment to them. The living room is divided by an overflowing bookshelf, and they are lost in this five hundred square foot apartment behind piles of papers and copies socialist propaganda. He shows the girls pictures of his wife. She had cancer, he explains to them. He has pictures of his dead wife everywhere. Polly says that she is very pretty.

The Frenchman says: She is not pretty, she is dead. We don’t hear this exchange because of the French music; Polly will tell me about this later. All I know is that she has left the living room with a mix of fear and disgust on her face. She is ready to leaving, pulling her jacket tightly around her and I worry something horrible has happened. I worry that the Frenchman has tried to molest the two girls. I wonder for a moment if we are going to have to beat up an old French socialist.

The Frenchman whispers to Joan: I have done a bad thing. Now I really worry that he has tried to molest my friends.

Charles has occupied himself this whole time by hurling a glass of red wine around the inside of the shower. The walls and tub and curtain are all stained deep red. Again, I don’t know this has happened.

He and Polly and Kelly are going to leave because Polly insists she has to go to bed, but now I think its because the Frenchman tried to molest her. I want to stay because I want to find out if Joan has fallen in love with me yet. Perhaps she has. Charles tells me to stay. I am still concerned about ending up in the Hudson River.

I dance with Joan again and the Frenchman dances with T-Rex. We are in the living room and there isn’t much space, but feeling Joan’s body against mine is nice. But then T-Rex wants leave. She was to work in the morning, has to drive home, has to go to sleep.

I don’t want the party to breakup. If the party is ending, I will have to confront whether Joan has fallen in love with me. I don’t like confrontation. I rather she hurl herself at me, which she isn’t doing just yet. The Frenchman says we should party more. I agree, because I want the girls to stay to put off the inevitable, the moment between two people where they decide if they are going to become lovers. The girls insist that they are leaving. The Frenchman offers to party with me. I don’t want to stay and party alone with the Frenchman, especially since I still think he has tried to molest Polly. I can advocate continuing the party on the chance the girls decide to stay, but risk partying alone with the Frenchman, so I decide I need to leave too.

I follow T-Rex out of the apartment, but Joan is still inside. Now that we have ditched the Frenchman I wonder if maybe I can make something happen with Joan. I still have T-Rex to contend with, but they are girls, and can communicate things to each other when necessary, things like leave us alone so that the boy can make a move. This does not happen. Instead T-Rex and I make conversation, force conversation while waiting for Joan. I am still hoping to have the sex with Joan, so even though I could simply walk home I stay there with T-Rex making awkward conversation. She is not interesting and I feel sorry for her husband, but realize it probably doesn’t matter because he will cheat on her soon.

Joan finally emerges from the apartment. Now I think there must be a moment here when I can separate out Joan from T-Rex. No. They are going together in the same car, which is parked across the street and now the bars are closed and there is no place left to party except the Frenchman’s apartment. He comes to the window to watch us leave. He waves to us, and calls down from the window. I wish he would leave us alone.

The girls offer to drive me home. I don’t want them to know where I live, but now Charles and Polly and Kelly have run away and I will have to walk by myself. I agree to go in the car with the girls.

T-Rex is too drunk to drive. Not too drunk for the empty city streets where we are the only people out. But she certainly is too drunk for the freeways. They are from the suburbs. They will have to drive on the freeway. We head across town. I make them drop me off at the deli next to the subway because Charles and Polly are there ordering sandwiches, and this way they won’t know where I live.

Joan tells me to call her. I will, and we will go on a nothing date, and nothing will happen. Later she will tell me something that I have already figured out, that she and the Frenchman were lovers once, some time ago. I assume their affair occurred after his wife died, but he is French, so you never really can tell. I leave the car and they drive away drunk enough to kill someone, but they don’t.

I meet up with Charles and Polly. Charles tells me about throwing wine in the Frenchman’s shower. Polly tells me about the Frenchman’s dead wife. We eat deli meat sandwiches.