Chapter Fourteen
What did I say? What did I say about being an Indians fan? And being optimistic?
Jesus H. Christ on a cracker. What the HELL was I thinking, imagining this Jenny business could go well?
All right, so maybe it wasn’t a total disaster.
No. Bullshit. It was a disaster.
I pick her up at eight, right? We are going to go to TGI Friday’s, no place fancy, it’s just a first date, and all we want to do is have a few drinks, a bite to eat, get to know each other a little better. Then, if we hit it off, I had plans to take her to a movie, maybe an after-movie drink, maybe a smooch or two in the car or in front of her apartment, then who knows? I could call her next week, we could go out again…you know the drill. Blah and et cetera and on into the relationship, until Sully fucks it up or until the girl breaks it off for unexplained reasons, or until we hit it off and bells ring and fireworks explode and this is The Girl, and I pop the question and she accepts and we get married and have a house full of rug rats named Hadley and Brielle who will take dancing lessons and get straight A’s while their mother goes to medical school and I make Chief and…..
All right, all right. Out of all the scenes I’ve outlined, which one seems most likely to you?
Yeah, okay, whatever. But I can guarantee you the scene which took place tonight would not only never have occurred to you, it would never have occurred to me either, or I would never, NEVER have asked this broad out. And if you know me and know of my distinct habit of non-selectivity in the ass-chasing department…well, anyway. It ended badly, and if the guys at 19 ever hear about this, I am never hearing the ass-end of it, until they plant me. Let’s just hope to Christ we don’t get any trauma runs this month, or that, if we do, Jenny, may God bless and preserve her dear sweet ass, is not on duty over at Metro.
Anyway. I pick her up at eight, at her townhouse apartment, a nice little place in Broadview Heights (lovely name for a community, incidentally), and she comes out before I even get a chance to ring the doorbell.
“Hi,” I smile. (I am always very sharp with the smooth lines on a first date.)
“Hi,” she says. “Ready to go?”
“Ready if you are, gorgeous,” I smile. “Where to? Friday’s still sound good?”
“Terrific,” she smiles back, and I help her into the cab of my truck. As I do so, I notice a distinct note of something additional in her cologne. I am hoping it’s not tobacco smoke, but maybe it’s just a kind of general musky smell. Maybe her neighbor smokes and she was over there visiting. And alcohol. I think I can smell alcohol, too. Bourbon whisky, to be exact. Despite years of inhaling every kind of toxic gas and fume known, I still have a bloodhound’s nose. I really wish I didn’t. Stuff that other people can’t even smell will keep me awake nights. Derrico, the smartass, calls me “Dr. Lecter”. Anyway. Maybe Jenny had a drink after work or something, and that’s what I’m getting. I decide to ignore this and we head out.
We chat along the way, mostly about work, about our respective jobs, and I notice that Jenny is a lovely woman, in a young Debra Messing kind of way. Long, blonde hair, delicate features, creamy complexion. Not built badly, either. A fine armful of a girl, as Uncle Owen would say. Not beautiful, but lovely. Very pretty.
We are playing the radio, searching around the dial for something good, and a song by Mariah Carey is on the local Top 40 station. Now, Mariah Carey has a lovely voice, but I don’t like her choice of material, and I would probably rather have someone work on my bare ass with a tattoo needle for twelve hours than listen to an entire Mariah Carey CD. This, however, is not an appropriate observation for a first date, and so I just smiled silently.
“Mariah Carey! Oooh, I LOVE Mariah Carey!” said Jenny.
I continued to smile and kept my opinion to myself. It’s a wise man who keeps his mouth shut until after dessert, if you get me.
We continued on to Friday’s, which was, of course, crowded, even the night before Valentine’s Day, and gave my name so that we could get a table.
“Smoking or non?” asked the hostess.
Jenny jumped in, “Would we get a table faster if we sit in the smoking section?”
“Probably so,” said the hostess. “We’re pretty busy right now, so it might improve your chances.”
“Okay, we’ll go with that. Okay with you, John?”
It took me a second. I honestly do forget that I have a first name sometimes. By the time I recovered my wits, we had agreed to sit at the first available table, smoking or non.
Meantime, we sat at the bar, and I ordered my usual date drink, which is a Guinness. They have more bang than a beer and are considered a little less hardcore than whisky, and might even hold you until dinner. Plus there’s all that “Black 47”, “hard man“, U2 bullshit mystique involved there.
Jenny ordered quickly, “Manhattan, no cherry, and a twist, please. Rocks.”
“Wow,” I laughed. “I don’t think I’ve heard anyone order one of those since my Aunt Peg was living.”
Jenny laughed. “It’s kind of an old-fashioned drink.”
“No,” I said. “That would be an Old Fashioned.”
We chuckled at that, her probably more to be polite than because it was such a witty remark. We sipped our drinks and made some conversation about the weather, which was intensely slushy and nasty at the moment, and about the movies -- the usual first date stuff. As we finished our drinks, the bartender asked us if we would be having another, and I started to say that we were expecting our table any minute, but Jenny immediately said “Sure!” Not wanting to appear either a lightweight or a tightwad, I nodded. Usually I am careful not to drink too much on a first date, but Jenny didn’t seem too concerned about it, so I decided to lighten up a little.
We drank some more and talked some more, and the little electronic pager went off, telling us our table was ready, and so we found the hostess, who guided us to a table that was smack in the middle of the smoking section. I wasn’t too keen on this, but figured I’d just try to go along and have a good time rather than make a fuss.
As we sat down and were presented with menus, Jenny excused herself to the powder room and departed through the blue haze surrounding our table.
As I looked over the menu, a waitperson approached with two fresh drinks.
“Thanks,” I said, “but we didn’t order these.”
“The lady ordered them, sir,” he said.
Huh, I thought. I’ll be goddamned. Well, that’s fine. As long as we are having a good time, I reasoned….
Back to the table came Jenny. Jenny and her freshly lit cigarette.
“Um, hey,” I said. “I didn’t know you smoked.”
“Do you mind?” she smiled.
“Not as long as you don’t force me to smoke too,” I said. I knew it was a lame thing to say, but I figured we had got this far with the evening and were having an okay time, and everybody was happy, there was no need to be a jerk about it. I had seen and dealt with worse things. You have to give people a chance.
This is usually your first and worst mistake in this situation, though it is usually by no means the last one.
Jenny downed the remains of her original drink in one gulp. She then grabbed the fresh drink as if it were the cure for cancer and took three long swallows. She finished this off with a luxuriant puff on her cigarette, most of which went straight in my face.
I was rapidly becoming unimpressed.
“Would you like to order now?” I asked, in a tone that I hoped implied this was more a polite command than a request for information.
Jenny tossed back her long, blonde hair, took another sip of her drink and said brightly, “Oh, we don’t have to hurry on that, do we? What’s the hurry? We’re just getting to know each other. In jobs like we have, we so seldom get to relax -- let‘s not hurry.”
I don’t know what it was -- maybe the extra drink, maybe her using the same word three times in rapid succession, maybe the smoking -- but my “oh, shit” alarm was going off with a clang. This date was not going to end well, but God willing, it was going to send soon. I had every intention of feeding this broad, hauling her tipsy, nicotine-addicted ass home and calling it a night.
“Let’s get some food and talk about it more.”
“Sure!” she said. “C’n I have another drink?” She was already lifting her glass to summon the waiter.
Well, what could I do? I could have ended the date right there, I guess, but I didn’t want to be the bad guy, and I don’t like scenes. I’ve had my share of scenes with drunken babes being told they can’t do what they want to, and you may trust me, my brothers, when I say I have done your research for you and you aren’t missing anything. Like Jesus, I have suffered so you won’t have to, if only you will heed my word.
Anyway. I okayed the drink, compounded that with the mistake of ordering another for myself, to calm both the nerves and rising irritation that were beginning to make this night anything but fun, and made an utterly ineffectual attempt to steer both the conversation and the course of events toward at least an approximation of “normal” and “fun”, words one generally associates with voluntary social activities.
Looking back, I should have just called a cab, sent her inconsiderate ass wheeling home, and gone home to watch basketball and drink beer with Chester. I would have been better off, would have got my laundry done, and would have avoided the entire rest of the evening with Jenny. But then, I wouldn’t have anything to tell you, would I? You had damn well better appreciate this, dear readers, whoever you are.
Just as I was trying to persuade Jenny to order some food, she excused herself to the ladies’ room again. When she returned to the table some fifteen minutes later, I was aware that she was shitfaced drunk, totally plastered. She could barely walk. Her lip gloss, a too bright vinyl pink, was smeared, her hair, which had looked so soft and touchable earlier in the evening, was shellacked back with what appeared to be Gesso, and there was a raccoonish coat of fresh eyeliner ringing her once blue and now very red and blue eyes. She plopped herself down in the chair, which spun rakishly around, and all but bellowed, “HEY! Waiiiiterrrrrr! How about another drink for me an’ my friend here?” She then turned to me and said, in an exaggerated whisper, “You are my friend, aren’t you?” She followed it with a leering wink that reminded me of nothing so much as Bette Davis in her turn as “Baby Jane”.
I summoned my courage. Coward that I am, I took a gulp of Guinness first and savored my last few seconds as a non-hated non-“Bad Guy“.
“Jenny,” I said. “I think you had something more to drink when you left the table. Now, I think it would be a good idea if we ate something right now, and if you didn’t have any more drinks until after we have some food.”
“Oh, bullshit,” she said, with what I guess was supposed to be a dismissive wave of her hand, but which knocked the paraffin candle over onto the tablecloth, where it promptly ignited.
“Jesus everloving Christ,” I said, and grabbed the nearest thing I could find to smother the flames. It was, unfortunately, Jenny’s oversize purse. It did a fine job of smothering the small blaze on the tabletop, but the drawstring cinch at its top came open and the contents came tumbling out, including two packs of Camel filters and a pint bottle of Black Velvet with a very loose cap, which of course, came off. Whisky, cigarettes, lipstick, ragged Kleenex, stray earrings, a few tampons, a small address book and a roll of peppermint Life Savers tumbled to the floor out in a merciless cascade of embarrassment. I was almost glad for Jenny that she was so goddamn smashed. With a little luck she wouldn’t remember any of this.
“Could we please have our check?” I asked the waiter, who came rushing over with the manager?
“HAHAHAHAHAHA!” shrieked Jenny. “He’s a goddamn fireman and we started a goddamn fire! How fucking funny is THAT?”
Apparently, a hell of a lot funnier to her than to anyone else in the place. I gathered the drunken woman, her sodden purse, jacket and possessions and handed the waiter a fifty dollar bill.
Steering a woman in that condition toward the door of a place she does not wish to leave is no mean feat. I have carried people weighing three times Jenny’s weight across some treacherous paths, but I have had the advantage that they were either passed out from smoke inhalation or at the very least they wanted very much to get the hell out of there. No such luck here.
“HEY! Whaddya mean, we gotta leave? We were just getting’ started! What about dinner? Hah? Aren’t we gonna eat our goddamn dinner? I mean, what the FUCK?”
I did what I would do in any situation where a person objected to being carried away from a dangerous situation. I slung her over my shoulder and carried her out of the restaurant, away from the stunned and snickering patrons, a few of whom applauded, and to the relative safety of my truck.
With some difficulty, I managed to maneuver Jenny into an upright position in the passenger seat, and I climbed in and started the truck over her shrieked objections. But as I pulled out onto the road, she shut up for a few seconds, looked at me with bleary-eyed admiration, and said, “You just carried me out of there. Just fuckin' picked me up and carried me out of there. That is soooooo sexy, baby.” And to my horror, she began to hike up her skirt.
Fortunately or unfortunately, she didn’t get very far. Midway through this maneuver, she made a noise resembling the firing of a small steam boiler, and abruptly and thoroughly vomited -- all over herself, and all over the newly detailed upholstery of my truck.
Jesus Christ in garters. Up to now, I had been the picture of patient chivalry, but my truck! My freshly washed and newly detailed truck!
“Goddammit,” I shouted, “couldn’t you have at least rolled down the goddamn window?”
She did what all drunken women do as a matter of last recourse. She burst into tears.
“You didn’t h-h-h-h-have to yell at meeeeeeee,” Jenny began wailing.
“Oh, for the love of Jesus, shut UP,” I muttered, half to her, half to myself.
That was it. This tore it. This couldn’t have been a worse balls-up if I had planned it this way. But I was wrong.
As I floored the truck in hopes of getting this daffy broad home and the hell out of my truck, my sight and my future agenda, what should I spy in the rearview mirror but the flashing lights of a Broadview Heights zone car?
I pulled over and showed the cop my ID. They don’t take kindly to much deviation from the norm in beautiful suburban Broadview Heights, and if he had wanted me to take a Breathalyzer, he probably would have had me dead to rights. Still, the cop took one look at the sobbing and by now hiccupping, vomit-covered broad to my right, glanced at my firefighter’s union card, sniffed the air of the truck and must have figured I had enough problems. I didn’t mention Jenny’s job because I didn’t want to embarrass her, though I might have gone that far if it looked like a tie-breaker was needed. The cop let us go with a warning. He did the second worst thing he could have done, though, only exceeded by writing a brother a ticket: he snickered.
Oh, well. A Broadview Heights cop’s snickers didn’t cost me a couple of grand in fines and three mandatory days in the slam, so I guess I can forgive him that. I’ve certainly done my share of giggling and even downright guffawing in similar situations, so I just nodded as a thanks for the professional consideration, and he waved me on my way. I dragged Jenny up the steps to her door and fished her keys out of her purse, carried her inside and laid her down carefully on the bed, on her side to avoid choking. Just to show what a prince of a guy I am, I very thoughtfully dug in the broom closet for a bucket and left it on the floor beside her lovely head, lest she have need of an emesis basin during the night.
Christ, what a night. And when I got home, there were two messages: one from Grace, and one asking if I could go into work the next day and take a tour for a guy who had the flu.
Happy goddamn Valentine’s Day. Is it baseball season yet?
Jesus H. Christ on a cracker. What the HELL was I thinking, imagining this Jenny business could go well?
All right, so maybe it wasn’t a total disaster.
No. Bullshit. It was a disaster.
I pick her up at eight, right? We are going to go to TGI Friday’s, no place fancy, it’s just a first date, and all we want to do is have a few drinks, a bite to eat, get to know each other a little better. Then, if we hit it off, I had plans to take her to a movie, maybe an after-movie drink, maybe a smooch or two in the car or in front of her apartment, then who knows? I could call her next week, we could go out again…you know the drill. Blah and et cetera and on into the relationship, until Sully fucks it up or until the girl breaks it off for unexplained reasons, or until we hit it off and bells ring and fireworks explode and this is The Girl, and I pop the question and she accepts and we get married and have a house full of rug rats named Hadley and Brielle who will take dancing lessons and get straight A’s while their mother goes to medical school and I make Chief and…..
All right, all right. Out of all the scenes I’ve outlined, which one seems most likely to you?
Yeah, okay, whatever. But I can guarantee you the scene which took place tonight would not only never have occurred to you, it would never have occurred to me either, or I would never, NEVER have asked this broad out. And if you know me and know of my distinct habit of non-selectivity in the ass-chasing department…well, anyway. It ended badly, and if the guys at 19 ever hear about this, I am never hearing the ass-end of it, until they plant me. Let’s just hope to Christ we don’t get any trauma runs this month, or that, if we do, Jenny, may God bless and preserve her dear sweet ass, is not on duty over at Metro.
Anyway. I pick her up at eight, at her townhouse apartment, a nice little place in Broadview Heights (lovely name for a community, incidentally), and she comes out before I even get a chance to ring the doorbell.
“Hi,” I smile. (I am always very sharp with the smooth lines on a first date.)
“Hi,” she says. “Ready to go?”
“Ready if you are, gorgeous,” I smile. “Where to? Friday’s still sound good?”
“Terrific,” she smiles back, and I help her into the cab of my truck. As I do so, I notice a distinct note of something additional in her cologne. I am hoping it’s not tobacco smoke, but maybe it’s just a kind of general musky smell. Maybe her neighbor smokes and she was over there visiting. And alcohol. I think I can smell alcohol, too. Bourbon whisky, to be exact. Despite years of inhaling every kind of toxic gas and fume known, I still have a bloodhound’s nose. I really wish I didn’t. Stuff that other people can’t even smell will keep me awake nights. Derrico, the smartass, calls me “Dr. Lecter”. Anyway. Maybe Jenny had a drink after work or something, and that’s what I’m getting. I decide to ignore this and we head out.
We chat along the way, mostly about work, about our respective jobs, and I notice that Jenny is a lovely woman, in a young Debra Messing kind of way. Long, blonde hair, delicate features, creamy complexion. Not built badly, either. A fine armful of a girl, as Uncle Owen would say. Not beautiful, but lovely. Very pretty.
We are playing the radio, searching around the dial for something good, and a song by Mariah Carey is on the local Top 40 station. Now, Mariah Carey has a lovely voice, but I don’t like her choice of material, and I would probably rather have someone work on my bare ass with a tattoo needle for twelve hours than listen to an entire Mariah Carey CD. This, however, is not an appropriate observation for a first date, and so I just smiled silently.
“Mariah Carey! Oooh, I LOVE Mariah Carey!” said Jenny.
I continued to smile and kept my opinion to myself. It’s a wise man who keeps his mouth shut until after dessert, if you get me.
We continued on to Friday’s, which was, of course, crowded, even the night before Valentine’s Day, and gave my name so that we could get a table.
“Smoking or non?” asked the hostess.
Jenny jumped in, “Would we get a table faster if we sit in the smoking section?”
“Probably so,” said the hostess. “We’re pretty busy right now, so it might improve your chances.”
“Okay, we’ll go with that. Okay with you, John?”
It took me a second. I honestly do forget that I have a first name sometimes. By the time I recovered my wits, we had agreed to sit at the first available table, smoking or non.
Meantime, we sat at the bar, and I ordered my usual date drink, which is a Guinness. They have more bang than a beer and are considered a little less hardcore than whisky, and might even hold you until dinner. Plus there’s all that “Black 47”, “hard man“, U2 bullshit mystique involved there.
Jenny ordered quickly, “Manhattan, no cherry, and a twist, please. Rocks.”
“Wow,” I laughed. “I don’t think I’ve heard anyone order one of those since my Aunt Peg was living.”
Jenny laughed. “It’s kind of an old-fashioned drink.”
“No,” I said. “That would be an Old Fashioned.”
We chuckled at that, her probably more to be polite than because it was such a witty remark. We sipped our drinks and made some conversation about the weather, which was intensely slushy and nasty at the moment, and about the movies -- the usual first date stuff. As we finished our drinks, the bartender asked us if we would be having another, and I started to say that we were expecting our table any minute, but Jenny immediately said “Sure!” Not wanting to appear either a lightweight or a tightwad, I nodded. Usually I am careful not to drink too much on a first date, but Jenny didn’t seem too concerned about it, so I decided to lighten up a little.
We drank some more and talked some more, and the little electronic pager went off, telling us our table was ready, and so we found the hostess, who guided us to a table that was smack in the middle of the smoking section. I wasn’t too keen on this, but figured I’d just try to go along and have a good time rather than make a fuss.
As we sat down and were presented with menus, Jenny excused herself to the powder room and departed through the blue haze surrounding our table.
As I looked over the menu, a waitperson approached with two fresh drinks.
“Thanks,” I said, “but we didn’t order these.”
“The lady ordered them, sir,” he said.
Huh, I thought. I’ll be goddamned. Well, that’s fine. As long as we are having a good time, I reasoned….
Back to the table came Jenny. Jenny and her freshly lit cigarette.
“Um, hey,” I said. “I didn’t know you smoked.”
“Do you mind?” she smiled.
“Not as long as you don’t force me to smoke too,” I said. I knew it was a lame thing to say, but I figured we had got this far with the evening and were having an okay time, and everybody was happy, there was no need to be a jerk about it. I had seen and dealt with worse things. You have to give people a chance.
This is usually your first and worst mistake in this situation, though it is usually by no means the last one.
Jenny downed the remains of her original drink in one gulp. She then grabbed the fresh drink as if it were the cure for cancer and took three long swallows. She finished this off with a luxuriant puff on her cigarette, most of which went straight in my face.
I was rapidly becoming unimpressed.
“Would you like to order now?” I asked, in a tone that I hoped implied this was more a polite command than a request for information.
Jenny tossed back her long, blonde hair, took another sip of her drink and said brightly, “Oh, we don’t have to hurry on that, do we? What’s the hurry? We’re just getting to know each other. In jobs like we have, we so seldom get to relax -- let‘s not hurry.”
I don’t know what it was -- maybe the extra drink, maybe her using the same word three times in rapid succession, maybe the smoking -- but my “oh, shit” alarm was going off with a clang. This date was not going to end well, but God willing, it was going to send soon. I had every intention of feeding this broad, hauling her tipsy, nicotine-addicted ass home and calling it a night.
“Let’s get some food and talk about it more.”
“Sure!” she said. “C’n I have another drink?” She was already lifting her glass to summon the waiter.
Well, what could I do? I could have ended the date right there, I guess, but I didn’t want to be the bad guy, and I don’t like scenes. I’ve had my share of scenes with drunken babes being told they can’t do what they want to, and you may trust me, my brothers, when I say I have done your research for you and you aren’t missing anything. Like Jesus, I have suffered so you won’t have to, if only you will heed my word.
Anyway. I okayed the drink, compounded that with the mistake of ordering another for myself, to calm both the nerves and rising irritation that were beginning to make this night anything but fun, and made an utterly ineffectual attempt to steer both the conversation and the course of events toward at least an approximation of “normal” and “fun”, words one generally associates with voluntary social activities.
Looking back, I should have just called a cab, sent her inconsiderate ass wheeling home, and gone home to watch basketball and drink beer with Chester. I would have been better off, would have got my laundry done, and would have avoided the entire rest of the evening with Jenny. But then, I wouldn’t have anything to tell you, would I? You had damn well better appreciate this, dear readers, whoever you are.
Just as I was trying to persuade Jenny to order some food, she excused herself to the ladies’ room again. When she returned to the table some fifteen minutes later, I was aware that she was shitfaced drunk, totally plastered. She could barely walk. Her lip gloss, a too bright vinyl pink, was smeared, her hair, which had looked so soft and touchable earlier in the evening, was shellacked back with what appeared to be Gesso, and there was a raccoonish coat of fresh eyeliner ringing her once blue and now very red and blue eyes. She plopped herself down in the chair, which spun rakishly around, and all but bellowed, “HEY! Waiiiiterrrrrr! How about another drink for me an’ my friend here?” She then turned to me and said, in an exaggerated whisper, “You are my friend, aren’t you?” She followed it with a leering wink that reminded me of nothing so much as Bette Davis in her turn as “Baby Jane”.
I summoned my courage. Coward that I am, I took a gulp of Guinness first and savored my last few seconds as a non-hated non-“Bad Guy“.
“Jenny,” I said. “I think you had something more to drink when you left the table. Now, I think it would be a good idea if we ate something right now, and if you didn’t have any more drinks until after we have some food.”
“Oh, bullshit,” she said, with what I guess was supposed to be a dismissive wave of her hand, but which knocked the paraffin candle over onto the tablecloth, where it promptly ignited.
“Jesus everloving Christ,” I said, and grabbed the nearest thing I could find to smother the flames. It was, unfortunately, Jenny’s oversize purse. It did a fine job of smothering the small blaze on the tabletop, but the drawstring cinch at its top came open and the contents came tumbling out, including two packs of Camel filters and a pint bottle of Black Velvet with a very loose cap, which of course, came off. Whisky, cigarettes, lipstick, ragged Kleenex, stray earrings, a few tampons, a small address book and a roll of peppermint Life Savers tumbled to the floor out in a merciless cascade of embarrassment. I was almost glad for Jenny that she was so goddamn smashed. With a little luck she wouldn’t remember any of this.
“Could we please have our check?” I asked the waiter, who came rushing over with the manager?
“HAHAHAHAHAHA!” shrieked Jenny. “He’s a goddamn fireman and we started a goddamn fire! How fucking funny is THAT?”
Apparently, a hell of a lot funnier to her than to anyone else in the place. I gathered the drunken woman, her sodden purse, jacket and possessions and handed the waiter a fifty dollar bill.
Steering a woman in that condition toward the door of a place she does not wish to leave is no mean feat. I have carried people weighing three times Jenny’s weight across some treacherous paths, but I have had the advantage that they were either passed out from smoke inhalation or at the very least they wanted very much to get the hell out of there. No such luck here.
“HEY! Whaddya mean, we gotta leave? We were just getting’ started! What about dinner? Hah? Aren’t we gonna eat our goddamn dinner? I mean, what the FUCK?”
I did what I would do in any situation where a person objected to being carried away from a dangerous situation. I slung her over my shoulder and carried her out of the restaurant, away from the stunned and snickering patrons, a few of whom applauded, and to the relative safety of my truck.
With some difficulty, I managed to maneuver Jenny into an upright position in the passenger seat, and I climbed in and started the truck over her shrieked objections. But as I pulled out onto the road, she shut up for a few seconds, looked at me with bleary-eyed admiration, and said, “You just carried me out of there. Just fuckin' picked me up and carried me out of there. That is soooooo sexy, baby.” And to my horror, she began to hike up her skirt.
Fortunately or unfortunately, she didn’t get very far. Midway through this maneuver, she made a noise resembling the firing of a small steam boiler, and abruptly and thoroughly vomited -- all over herself, and all over the newly detailed upholstery of my truck.
Jesus Christ in garters. Up to now, I had been the picture of patient chivalry, but my truck! My freshly washed and newly detailed truck!
“Goddammit,” I shouted, “couldn’t you have at least rolled down the goddamn window?”
She did what all drunken women do as a matter of last recourse. She burst into tears.
“You didn’t h-h-h-h-have to yell at meeeeeeee,” Jenny began wailing.
“Oh, for the love of Jesus, shut UP,” I muttered, half to her, half to myself.
That was it. This tore it. This couldn’t have been a worse balls-up if I had planned it this way. But I was wrong.
As I floored the truck in hopes of getting this daffy broad home and the hell out of my truck, my sight and my future agenda, what should I spy in the rearview mirror but the flashing lights of a Broadview Heights zone car?
I pulled over and showed the cop my ID. They don’t take kindly to much deviation from the norm in beautiful suburban Broadview Heights, and if he had wanted me to take a Breathalyzer, he probably would have had me dead to rights. Still, the cop took one look at the sobbing and by now hiccupping, vomit-covered broad to my right, glanced at my firefighter’s union card, sniffed the air of the truck and must have figured I had enough problems. I didn’t mention Jenny’s job because I didn’t want to embarrass her, though I might have gone that far if it looked like a tie-breaker was needed. The cop let us go with a warning. He did the second worst thing he could have done, though, only exceeded by writing a brother a ticket: he snickered.
Oh, well. A Broadview Heights cop’s snickers didn’t cost me a couple of grand in fines and three mandatory days in the slam, so I guess I can forgive him that. I’ve certainly done my share of giggling and even downright guffawing in similar situations, so I just nodded as a thanks for the professional consideration, and he waved me on my way. I dragged Jenny up the steps to her door and fished her keys out of her purse, carried her inside and laid her down carefully on the bed, on her side to avoid choking. Just to show what a prince of a guy I am, I very thoughtfully dug in the broom closet for a bucket and left it on the floor beside her lovely head, lest she have need of an emesis basin during the night.
Christ, what a night. And when I got home, there were two messages: one from Grace, and one asking if I could go into work the next day and take a tour for a guy who had the flu.
Happy goddamn Valentine’s Day. Is it baseball season yet?
posted by CB | 9:06 PM
