Just Another One-Night Stand
In October of 2006, I had a one-night stand. I'd met this boy a few months prior, and he'd been persistent in asking me to hang out, and he wore me down. I told myself we were just hanging out as friends. I wasn't interested in him as anything more than a friend, and I thought if we hung out he'd realize there was no there there, and back off. I should have known better, but now I'm getting ahead of myself.
We started the night at a bar that I'd never been to before and never went to again and can't even remember the name of. I do remember that I took a photograph of myself, as part of a thirty-day self-portrait project I was doing. This was before the term "selfie" came into existence, so I could pretend my narcissism was art. I remember that when I told the boy about this project, he offered to take the picture for me.
"No," I said, "it has to be a self-portrait. It has to be my gaze."
He shrugged and I set my camera where I wanted it and turned on the self-timer.
I like that photograph. It's black and white, a table's-eye view of the boy's cheap beer and my whiskey, of the overfull ashtray and my Zippo, and me. Me, wrapped in a haze of smoke; me, with my cigarette and my hat and my ever-present sneer and one leg thrown up onto the table. The photo is a little blurry, but in this beautiful way that makes my body is slightly transparent. You can see through me to the brick wall behind me. I look like a ghost, like I materialized out of a Tom Waits song. I titled the photograph Warm Beer and Cold Women.
The boy and I shot the shit, talked about Tom Waits. He had only ever heard Tom's newer, weirder stuff. He said he wanted to delve into the early years but didn't know where to start and I, of course, said: "I'll make you a mix." After a couple rounds, we decided to hop over to a different bar. When he found out I'd never been to Wolski's, he insisted we go there. So we did, and we drank, and we talked. I decided he was attractive in that sexy-ugly way I like. He looked good in the dim bar light, he looked good in his fedora. (This was before fedoras were the signature headwear of Nice Guys; back then it just meant you were probably a fan of Tom Waits or Humphrey Bogart.) He was attractive and sweet and I was getting tipsier by the minute but I still didn't want to sleep with him.
And yet more. More drinking, more talking. I did most of the talking, and the boy listened, rapt, to every word. Here's something you should know about who I was in those days: I was sort of half-Manic Pixie Dream Girl and half-Punk Rock Hellcat. That night, I was the perfect blend of both--with a little bit of Mae West thrown in for good measure. I had the right quips ready at the right times; one leg thrown up on the barstool next to mine as I blew smoke rings into the air. I had just the right amount of obscure music, film, and literature references. I recited poetry and waxed poetic about accordions. I cursed like a sailor and told dirty jokes, and halfway through the night he already knew I was a bisexual nude model and burlesque dancer who sometimes dabbled in full-service sex work, had at one time harbored a pretty nasty smack habit, and had a couple of abortions under my belt. I wasn't trying to impress him. I was just being myself; albeit a dialed-up-to-eleven version of myself. And being so blunt about bisexuality and prostitution, about hard drugs and abortion--that was self-protection. A lot of guys got scared off by those things, so mentioning them was a way to weed out the squares. But I didn't scare that boy away. Instead, I unwittingly seduced him.
When bar close came, he invited me over to his place.
"Because," he said, "I don't think you should be driving across town when you're this drunk."
He was right about that, but I knew that wasn't the real reason he wanted me to come over. I knew he wanted me. His desire was palpable, it floated off him in waves; people standing on the street outside the bar could feel it.
I said "Sure, okay."
I didn't want to, but it seemed almost inevitable. Like I was watching myself go home with him and was powerless to stop it. And I wasn't that into him, but I did like how into me he was. So I went home with him, and we had mediocre sex. He asked me to spend the night but I was beginning to feel disgusted with myself and the whole situation, so I left.
I got home a little before five a.m. My primary partner was awake, sitting on the couch, playing guitar. He was a night owl like me, so I knew he hadn't been waiting up, but I still felt horribly guilty. He had known I was out on a date, even if I hadn't thought of it as one.
"Did you sleep with him?" he asked when I walked in.
"Yeah," I said, and we both winced.
"Are you hungry?" he asked.
"Yeah," I said.
"Let's go get breakfast," he said.
We hopped in my car and drove to the diner. At the diner, we sat in the smoking section. (The passage of time is confusing to me when I write about moments like this. It was only eleven years ago, but seems longer. There are no smoking sections anywhere anymore, so when I write about smoking in bars and diners it feels like I'm describing an era long passed.) We watched the steam from our coffee mugs and the smoke from our cigarettes curl through the air between us. Watched the October sky lighten to paled turquoise over Brew City. My guilt and disgust faded after a few cups of coffee and a Greek omelette.
There was always something about sitting in a diner at daybreak after being up all night that made it easier to pretend like everything was going to be alright.
The above is an excerpt from issue #25 of Reckless Chants, which I am currently putting together. It will be 1/4 size, approximately 80 pages, with cardstock covers. It will feature personal essays on the music of Jason Molina (Songs: Ohia, Magnolia Electric Co.), Sylvia Plath, Brassai, my experience as Poet Laureate of Racine, cigarettes/quitting smoking, remembering and letting go, and much more, as well as short pieces about my day-to-day life and various other topics. I'm planning to have it completed by early November, latest, though if all goes according to plan it will be done in September. It's available for preorder in my Etsy shop, and the more preorders I get, the sooner I'll be able to print it.