I walked down the sidewalk on my way home it was July 8th, 2007. I had just turned twenty-seven years old the night before and had been traveling on my own since I turned seventeen. I stopped celebrating my birthday after my first year of traveling around. Constantly making and losing new friends, I felt that it would just be easier to forget about it, plus I always wanted to be one of those really old men who don’t even remember how old they are.
The night before, I went to a local bar after work. It was the type of bar full of young college kids drinking away their parent’s hard earned money instead of learning something, but that’s what college is about, right? Regardless, I wouldn’t have normally gone to this place on a night like this, but it was close to home, it was open late and it had a good drink special, a dollar and fifty cents for all domestic bottled beers, two dollars and fifty cents for all imported beers. Because of its locality, I was a pseudo-regular. It was a Thursday night so it was obviously designated “college night”, obviously, because any other night would not make as much sense to go out and party.
I had gone to this bar with my buddy and roommate, Pepé. Pepé’s actual name was José Guadalupe Jimenez Posada Lopez. Pepé was from Oaxaca, Mexico. He had left his home because it sucked. It was hot and his family was poor and he didn’t want to raise a family where they would be forced to continue to be hot and poor, no matter how hard they worked. So instead he saved up as much money as he could and had himself smuggled across the US and Mexico border; he was smuggled through Nogales, Mexico. Out of coincidence, it was named after the same town where my mother’s family had come from in Spain.
It took Pepé several years and several close calls with several people who didn’t want to share their air or jobs with him. There were several times when Pepé was picked up for work, gave his all for twelve or more hours doing all kinds of shitty jobs that no more qualified and more holy American would do and then told to go fuck himself at the end of the day, going home more tired and more poor than he was before that day began.
Pepé was working construction and living in Union, New Jersey when he met me. I had decided to get up and move from my last location because I couldn’t deal with my roommate’s threats to call the cops on me every time that I came home drunk and threatened him with a knife. I wasn’t going to kill him. I didn’t have the heart to kill anything, but I did get a kick from making this poor guy squirm. He was a born-again Christian and had made it his duty in life to save my heathen soul. So when I would come how at night, he would be waiting for me and would start reading from the Bible. Now you tell me, how wasn’t I supposed to pull a knife out on him?
I had figured that scaring this guy would give him the hint to not bother me again, but it never worked and it always ended up with me on top of him with my knife to my poor roommate’s throat. I figured I should move out before one of us went too far and he ended up stabbed.
I was a man of limited cash funds and had been for most of my life. I have done just about everything that I have needed to do to survive and a little bit more to pay for some pleasures. For a while I had it good, I had it really good. I was growing a lot of pot out in a commune in Pennsylvania. That place was the greatest. I was treated like a king. We all ate, fucked, drank and partied very well.
I loved it.
Unfortunately, the entire place was extremely illegal. We had a basement full of weed and guns. I had grown a bit carried away and paranoid. But that was a good thing. It turned out that the Feds were on to me.
There was a rat living amongst the group at the commune. I had figured it out and used him to get me out of the situation with the help of two buddies, Adam Stockton and Chris Gomez. Long-story-short, Adam created a divergence and Chris took over my place. I got rid of the drugs and guns. Trust me, it was not very hard to get rid of drugs and guns in America.
So everything turned out well for all of us, but I was still very bitter. I understand that the things that I was doing were illegal; I’m not stupid. I just had a problem with the laws. Frank Zappa once said, “The United States is a nation of laws: badly written and randomly enforced.”
I agreed with Frank and I wasn’t going to abide to stupid laws made by assholes because they can’t help the fact that they have no idea what they are talking about. Unfortunately, they had the big guns and the strength in numbers.
The numbers is what scared me the most. Society seemed to work much like a swinging pendulum. At times it would be high to the right, at others high to the left, but only when the pendulum was stuck in the middle, would it be less dangerous. The world was swinging erratically and some serious change was upon us.
At the time that this story takes place I was working as a computer repairman. Many people own them and many people break them. I got my hands on a computer one day and broke it and fixed it until I had learned all I needed to know.
One day while out on a job, I saw a room for rent sign on the windowsill of a weathered yellow house. I knocked on the door and was greeted by a short, brown skinned Mexican wearing nothing more than cut of jeans and a mustache that Pancho Villa or Tom Selleck would be proud to have owned. On his right forearm he had a shitty tattoo of Our Lady of Guadalupe. One day, I asked him if he had a girl back home and Pepé pointed at his tattoo and told me, “Deez iz da only senorita from back home for me.” (Try rolling your R’s when you say that. It’ll sound better.)
Pepé was a little skeptical about me wanting to rent the room. He thought that I might work for the INS, but after spending an hour conversing in Spanish while we smoked a joint in the kitchen convinced Pepé that I was “preetee cool”.
So, that’s how Pepé and I ended up being roommates and friends and why we went to that particular bar together that night. We both were working late and got home after the liquor store had closed. We sat on the couch for ten minutes watching Telemundo when I came up with the idea to go to the bar. It wasn’t hard to convince Pepé to go out for a drink or two.
We went to the bar called “Larry’s”. Larry’s bar was a local dive before all the college kids started to go there because they would hardly get carded for any ID. Larry’s was owned by a man named Roger, who had inherited the bar from his father, also named Roger. Roger’s father, Roger Sr., had won the bar during a game of darts from a man named Kelly. Kelly built the bar a few years after arriving from Ireland, sometime after the Second World War. He never mentioned why he named the bar “Larry’s” and no one ever asked. Larry’s bartender was Roger Jr., who started working there when he was nine. Obviously, when Roger first started working there, everyone who went to Larry’s was older than him, so Roger never bothered asking for any ID.
Roger hadn’t even realized that the drinking age had changed from eighteen to twenty-one, years ago, so he never thought he might be doing something illegal when he started serving the younger college students. Roger was just happy for the business. Of course, Roger got caught one day and was forced to pay a hefty fine for something wrong that he was not aware even existed.
Pepé and I had become pseudo-regulars at Larry’s, because of its location, which was three blocks from our house. On this night, since it was “College Night”, Roger had hired a doorman to ensure that there would be no more underage drinking and hopefully no fine for Roger to have to pay. Pepé was allowed to walk right in because his manly moustache ensured the bouncer enough of his maturity. The bouncer did ask me for my ID. I had no choice but to comply with this meathead’s request. I was okay with it, knowing that later I’d get to bitch at Roger about him. When the bouncer checked my ID card, he noticed that it was my birthday so he congratulated me, “Hey man happy birthday. July seventh, two-thousand seven, you turn twenty-seven and you come to this shit-hole? I hope you’re lucky.”
“Thanks.” I told him as I took my card back to inspect it myself; indeed, it was my birthday. I thought that was pretty funny, funny enough to tell Pepé about it. Pepé saw it as a perfect reason to celebrate and to drink a lot more than otherwise needed to. But, I’d be lying if I said that I wasn’t happy to give in to my friend’s request.
I wish I could have a drink right now.
The bar was crowded with young men, wearing backward baseball caps and too much cologne, hovering over fine young girls, wearing revealing tops and too much makeup. Pepé was able to get to the bar quickly because of his small stature. He easily made his way through the crowd and in range for Roger to see him.
“Hey Pepé! What can I get you?” Roger had gone over to Pepé quickly. He hated the college kids, but needed to cater to them if he wanted to make money. Pepé told him that it was my birthday, so we needed to celebrate. Roger pulled out a bottle of “Gusano Rojo Mescal”. “No one else in this bar gets to drink from this bottle except for you and Johnny!” Roger needed to scream over the sounds of the North American college student mating calls.
“Tank jew Rogeh.” Pepé said in his stereotypical Mexican accent.
I had made my way to one of the booths at the back of the bar. Since there weren’t any vacant, I merely sat at the one with the most attractive women in it. The girls were confused since I didn’t say a word at first, I merely sat down and waited for Pepé. When Pepé arrived he said
“Hahlo” to the girls and sat down next to them. Eventually one girl would have the courage to speak to me.
“Um… We were sitting here already.” She said with a smug look on her face.
“And you feel free to keep doing that, but we need somewhere to drink, rest and celebrate. You see it happens to be my twenty-seventh birthday today according to my driver’s license and you girls seem nice enough to let us sit here while my buddy Pepé and I do some soul searching by getting to the bottom of this bottle here and eating that worm.” I smiled at them as Pepé poured me, then himself a shot. We touched glasses and took the shot. Pepé was unfazed but I began to turn red. “I need the salt and limes for this one Pepé. Sorry I don’t have your tolerance.” Pepé got up and came back a moment later with a small dish with salt and sliced lemons.
“We’re kind of expecting some more people.” One of the girls said to me.
“Congratulations must be exciting knowing more than three people.” I said as I poured Pepé and I another shot. This time I licked some salt before taking the shot and followed it by sucking on a lime. Pepé took his straight again.
“Could you guys please move?” The one girl asked again.
“Could you please shut the fuck up and enjoy yourself? It’s college night. Have some fun god damn it. Do you girls want some drinks? It doesn’t matter I’ll go get you some. Pepé, I’ll be right back.” I went over to the bar. When I got back to the booth, there were a couple of guys talking to the girl’s, one of the dudes was talking to Pepé. I put the drinks down on the table and began to speak to them.
“Hey guys, you must be some more people?”
There was a young guy with a tight shirt and spiky hair sitting where I had been sitting. He went to grab the bottle of mescal but was stopped by Pepé. “Dat’s not for jew, so don’t touch eat.”
“Fuck you wetback.” The guy said as he reached for the bottle again. That time I stopped him.
“Despite my friend’s accent, I think it was pretty easy to understand him when he said that this bottle is not for you, so don’t touch it.”
“Fuck you faggot.” He said to me as he stood up.”
“Pepé, please pour us another shot.” I asked my good friend Pepé and Pepé did. We both took the shot straight.
“I don’t want any problems here guy. I don’t like to fight. I don’t even like to get bothered. But so far, you have been very rude to my friend and me, and to be honest, there is only one thing that I can do about it.”
“No, you know what faggot? There ain’t shit you can do about it.” The guy puffed his chest out at me.
“There is, this.” I reached down and grabbed the guy by the balls. “You see this is a very simple request. First apologize to my friend Pepé, then to the ladies for making me do this in front of them and last to me because it’s my birthday and you were trying to grab my bottle.” The guy began to apologize, first to Pepé, then to the girls and finally to me. I don’t want to fight, but if you try anything stupid, I WILL crush your balls so that they never produce for you anymore over abundance of testosterone. You girls enjoy the drinks. I see two open spots at the bar where my friend and I will move to, just because we’re nice. Are we cool?” I squeezed a little harder.
“We’re cool.” The guy said as he sucked in some air trying to forget the pain I was inflicting on his nuts. I began to release my grip as I looked into the guy’s eyes, looking for any signs of bravery that he might have. I finally let go, grabbed my bottle and shot glasses and headed over to the bar. Pepé and I sat down on our stools.
Roger the bartender came over.
“Johnny, Happy Birthday my friend.” Roger said as he shook my hand. He was interrupted by a young man.
“Can I get three rum and cokes and a cosmopolitan?” The young man said as he waived a twenty-dollar bill.
Roger looked at him and sighed. “Give me a sec Johnny, let me take care of this prick.” Roger prepared the man’s drinks using the smallest and dirtiest glasses that he had behind the bar. The young man got his drinks and he handed Roger the money. Roger, as is customarily done by most bartenders, hands the change which consists mostly of singles back to the man. The young man puts a dollar down. I saw that and grabbed the young man by the arm.
“You interrupted our conversation, it wouldn’t be too polite if you only left one dollar.” I told him.
“Dude, look how shitty these drinks are.” The young man lifted the glasses up so I could see them. I looked down at them and couldn’t argue.
“Sorry man, you’re right.” I let go of him and turned back to Roger.
“How’s it going Larry?” I asked him, Roger that is.
The next hour was filled with pointless banter and endless interruptions by all the alcohol hungry students. I had meant to bitch to Roger about the bouncer but had quickly forgotten the whole thing. The crazy thing about mescal is that it is one of the few alcoholic drinks that is also a stimulant. Pepé and I had been drinking hard, but had not yet realized that we were well beyond drunk.
“Joh-nee, I’m going to pees. I’ll be back pronto.” Pepé told me as he stumbled his way to the bathroom. I decided to stare at something other than the shelves behind the bar so I turned around on the stool, to stare at the younger girls. I quickly saw one that caught my eye. She was a good-looking girl with chestnut colored hair; she wore tight blue jeans and a white fuzzy short sleeved tight sweater. I quickly stood up, grabbed my bottle and walked over to her. She was talking to some friends but I didn’t mind interrupting them. I stepped in front of her and began to speak.
“Hello bunny, my name is Johnny Redbone. What’s your name?” I asked her as I tried to only use words that I knew I could still pronounce at this state in which I found myself. She said something back to me, but I couldn’t understand her. It was pretty loud in the bar between the shitty jukebox music and the noisy drunken bastards laughing and yelling over stupid shit.
“You have nice teeth.” She said. I told her that my mother paid for a tall Greek man to straighten them out when I was a kid. She smiled at me. I don’t think she heard me. I grabbed her by her belt buckle and brought her closer to me.
“My name is Johnny Redbone and I think you’re hitting on me. I like your furry white sweater; it makes you look like a bunny. Are you a bunny?” I made her smile. “Is that a yes or a no? You have to be more direct with me bunny, I don’t like to waste time.”
“Are you trying to get into my pants?” She asked.
“You’re goddamn right I am. Is it working?”
“It is, so far.” She said as she smiled again.
“You’re goddamn right it is.” I smiled at her. She told me I had nice teeth again. The deal was set. She told me that she was in town visiting some of her girlfriends who go to the local college. She said she would ask her friends if she could bring me home with her. I said that was fine and that in the meantime I would look for my buddy, Pepé, to tell him that I was leaving.
I searched for Pepé, but couldn’t find him. It wasn’t a big bar, but Pepé wasn’t a tall man by far and this bar was full of North American hormonally enhanced grade A gargantuan humans. I quickly gave up and headed back towards “Bunny”. At this point, I realized that I was much drunker than I had thought. I stumbled for a second and felt a bit nauseous for a moment, after taking a deep breath, I felt ready to continue walking. I walked up to her and she told me to follow her. I could have asked her to go back to my place, but I have always preferred not taking women back to my home. I felt it best if they never found out where I lived.
“Bunny” tried to introduce me to her friends, but I couldn’t pay any attention. My mind was only set on one thing. At first I began to wonder if I could get her friends involved in what was about to occur, but my mind was not ready to work on a new plan. I was happy with how my birthday was turning out so far and was not going to push it. I hopped into the back seat of a late model blue Ford Explorer. Bunny sat next to me. Her friend drove and another sat shotgun. I placed her hand on my lap, just to let her know what this encounter was all about. After many turns and twists the SUV finally took us to our destination.
Once there, I was forced into having a semi-coherent conversation with “Bunny’s” other girlfriends; while this was occurring, I came to the realization that where I was about to spend the night was on a futon mattress on the living room floor with “Bunny”. I tried to speed up the process of taking “Bunny” to bed, but there was no room with a door to shut behind us, so we waited until all the others had gone to sleep. That’s when “Bunny” and I began to go at it on the mattress on the living room floor. After a couple of minutes, “Bunny” looks over and noticed that one of her friend’s doors was still open with the light on and told me to stop. I couldn’t care if all her friends were still walking around the living room, but I decided to be nice and listen to her.
So I got off her and rolled over on my back.
I woke up the next morning wondering where I was. I looked over to my right and saw a good-looking girl. I was happy to see that she was still good-looking in the morning, but I decided that it was time for me to leave. I got up and put my pants back on. I walked over towards the window and looked outside. I had no idea where I was, so I walked over to “Bunny” and woke her up.
“Hey, I have to leave. I’ve got to get to work.” I told her. It was true. I did need to get to work, eventually.
“Okay.” She said.
“No, you don’t understand. I don’t know where I am. I need you to take me back to the bar. I can get to work from there.”
“Okay, just give me a second.” She got up and went into the bathroom. I put my shirt and shoes back on. I waited for her in the kitchen. She came out dressed and ready to go. We both went downstairs and into her car, it was a Rav4 or something like that, some small Japanese piece of shit. The ride back was a bit awkward since we had very little to talk about. Luckily, in no time at all we arrived back in front of Larry’s.
“Should we exchange numbers?” She asked me.
“We could.”
“Are you going to call me?”
“Probably not.”
“I feel so used.” She said.
“Well then, you should be happy. Many people live long lives without ever being useful.” I said to her right before I gave her a kiss and stepped out of the car.
I told you this story for two reasons. One is so that you would know exactly why I was walking back home in a drunken stupor and why my mind was working the way it was on the day I made the decision that I did. The second reason that I told you that story is because I don’t know if anything like that will ever happen to me again.
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