A Story ... Musing

A story for you, my friends ...

As I was leaving a bathroom in the very back of the building Wednesday evening, after puking up my toenails and then sitting on the bathroom floor, hoping I wouldn't do something stupid like faint at my desk, I realized that I had a new voicemail ... my friend Jesse, whom I met at a wedding in Sheridan and had been in Tennessee for the last week or so, was unexpectedly in Laramie.

Of course.

So ... Wednesday night was out. Luckily, he was going to be in town Thursday night as well, and since things were staying in their proper place when I woke up on Thursday, I decided it would be alright to go out after work, if only for a glass of water and to watch a bunch of guys in their mid-20s beat each other mercilessly at pool.

So that's what I did.

It was good to see Jesse, but they had all been loosening up for a few hours by the time I got there, and every time a pool game ended, they celebrated it with a shot and a chaser ... and I gathered that a lot of pool had already been played.

There was Jesse, of course; his best-friend-since-kindergarten, Cameron, who now lives in Laramie and works for an engineering firm; and there were Ed and Jeremy, who live in Butte (Montana) and, I gather, went to college with Cameron and were on their way to a concert at Red Rocks, and Laramie (and Cameron's house) was a convenient stopping-over place. So there they all were ...

The conversation was a little sparse, since I'm not in college anymore and I didn't grow up in either Colstrip (Montana) or Butte and therefore had nothing to contribute to the memories of the good ol' days ... I smiled and watched them play pool, refusing alcohol on the grounds that I was still recovering from a mysterious tummy bug.

Cameron was the farthest gone of the group. His words ran together so that his sentences sounded something like this: "Heyyyyyouremmmemberwhenwe ... when we ... well ... yourrremmember??"

And, indeed, they all remembered.

Cameron asked me if I lived in Laramie, and I said that I did. And then he asked if I was a student, and I said that no, I worked at the newspaper. I had worked there with someone who now worked at his company with her husband. Yeah, he said, that guy (the husband) creeps him out ... and he wanted to know how I liked working at the paper. I said it was fine, some days were better than others ... and the conversation moved on.

About ten minutes later, Cameron asked me if I lived in Laramie. I said that I did, hoping that would trigger some memory of our previous conversation.

It didn't.

He asked if I was a student, and I said no, I worked at the paper. He wanted to know how I liked that, and I told him it was fine ...

About fifteen minutes later, Cameron asked me if I lived in Laramie. I knew the drill by now and just answered the questions as they came up.

Toward the end of our stay at the bar, we left the pool table area and bellied up to the bar, where I ordered a diet soda, because they're free at bars, and I'd only had a glass of water before then.

"That'll be a dollar thirty-three," the girl sneered at me as she slid it across the bar toward me. It was too cheap to have any alcohol in it, but ... when the hell did they start charging for non-alocholic drinks for DDs?

Miss Congeniality came back and stood in front of me, waiting for the $20 bill that I was holding, just barely visible over the edge of the bar.

"When did you start charging for sodas for your designated drivers?" I asked.

She looked at Amber (who had brought me my water earlier when she ordered her own diet soda), then looked at me. "We don't ... for the first one," she said.

This girl had the verbal sneer down to an artform.

"Well, that's good," I said. "This is my first one."

She looked at Amber again. Because Amber looks soooo much like a bar soda thief.

"I had water earlier," I said. I articulated the word "wa-ter" and I arched only my left eyebrow for emphasis ...

"And I had the soda," Amber chipped in.

"And I'm driving this lot home," I added, pointing down the bar to four men who were now sloshing their drinks on the bar.

The Bartender of the Year rolled her eyes, looked hard at the guys with suspicion, and stomped over to her cash register.

"Everyone is the designated driver, huh?" she yelled at us.

Obviously. Because you let guys who have been taking shots and beer for the last six hours drive themselves home. They're obviously their own drivers ...

She punched some mysterious sequence of buttons on her machine, the stomped over toward the other end of the bar, pausing on her way to snap, "I just paid for your drink."

"Well, you really didn't have to, since it really is my first one ..." I faltered.

Nevermind. This girl wanted to be punchy. Fine. Whatever.

I did notice, however, that she didn't pay anything for the one or two Red Bulls that she guzzled in one breath each toward the end of the night. Huh ...

Jesse leaned over to me: "This girl gave us the Evil Eye when we asked for lime wedges to go with our tequila shots, like we'd asked her to heft the world around on her shoulders or something. And, man, when I asked for a glass of water with ice ... I don't know what she thought I really meant ... she hates us."

Well, that explained everything. Blame it on the lime wedges. Of course.

I was tempted to just take one sip of my soda and leave it on the bar after that, but I really, really wanted it, so I drank the whole thing. And I didn't tip. (Scandalous!)

So, I'm sitting there, and the guys have migrated to form a sort-of circle aroun the stools where Jesse and I had been sitting, with Cameron being the closest to me and using the back of my stool as a balance.

I thought.

I began to notice that a thumb was rubbing up and down my side. A fluke happening, I thought, so I shifted to the other side of the stool (these are big stools). And Cameron shifted his weight so that his hand had to go to the other side of the stool, too. And the eeky thumb back rub started back up. I straightened up now so that no part of my back was resting against the back of the stool ... and Cameron came around to sit in Jesse's now-vacated stool, right next to me.

And just as I was starting to panic because I didn't know what to do or how to turn down a very-drunk man, Jesse came along and poured a glass of water on Cameron's crotch. I don't know why. Maybe he noticed the thumby back rub, too.

The night was over after that.

I made sure that Cameron the Too Far Gone wasn't left to lead his equally impaired buddies to what he thought was his house but might turn out to be someone else's house ...

In the parking lot, as we were arranging the logistics of four grown men, Amber, me and my exercise ball (which is now deflated in my trunk), Cameron called "shotgun," which caused Amber to call "front middle," which caused me to almost hug her right there in the parking lot. Amber and I crammed them all into my car and drove them to (what I hope was) Cameron's house, where we politely refused to "come inside and party" with the fellas (did I mention that it was now 2 in the morning?).

I was supposed to have coffee with Jesse sometime Friday morning/afternoon, but he and Cameron left for Colstrip before I was out and about, so I missed out on that one. Ah, well ... another time, maybe. Sans the shots and beer.