That Time I Almost Had Sex With a Nazi

That Time I Almost Had Sex With a Nazi

                Okay, so she wasn’t a Nazi, technically.  Or at all, I hope, because I did kiss her, after all.  I met her on OkCupid and she said she was really into philosophy so I thought we’d hit it off, and we did.  She showed me a picture of one of her textbooks from college (yeah, she graduated, good for her), and it was just full of annotations.  There were probably two post-its for every page in the book.  I mean, this chick was hard core into philosophy.  Hot, right?  Intelligence is sexy.  I’m not one of those “sapio-sexuals” but  I can appreciate a woman who’s in to reading and shit like that.

                We went to the bar for a drink and I was struggling to keep up with her.  She ordered some salad or something to throw me off from her weight problem but she was really chugging her beer.  After forty-five minutes she was getting antsy.

                “You should finish your beer,” she said.  “Or I’m going to order another one.”

                I looked at my glass.  I had drunk maybe a quarter of it or so.

                “So what are you in to, besides philosophy and beer?” I jabbed.  I tried not to let on that I was going to finish my beer as fast as possible.

                She laughed and said, “I like watching videos of cats on the internet.”

                “Oh,” I said and closed my mouth, tilting my head to one side.  I thought that was pretty fucking lame but you can’t win them all.

                “Yeah,” she continued.  “I like animals more than I like people.”

                Red flag.  That’s a big fucking red flag right there.  If a woman ever says that to you, any person really, turn around and run in the opposite direction as fast you can.  I’m serious, anybody who tells you they like animals more than people is a dangerous nihilist and once they tell you, you should run for your fucking life.

                “You sound like a nihilist,” I told her, point blank.  It came off as a joke though, and she laughed.

                “I am,” she said, matter-of-fact.

                Second red flag.

                “Oh, so you’re into Nietzsche,” I said, stumbling over his name.  I tried to pronounce the “z” and the “s” even though you’re not supposed to do that.  She was laughing anyway.  Might as well expand upon the joke.

                So she laughed again and pronouncing the German philosopher’s name correctly said, “It’s Nietzsche.”

                “Right,” I said, and then thought to myself:  this girl thinks I’m dumb.

                “Well,” she began, “I like Nietzsche, but he’s a bit confusing.”

                She was right about that.  Nietzsche contradicts himself almost every other page, and I presume that’s because he was a scared little pussy, yet I digress.

                She continued: “My favorite philosopher is Heidegger.”

                “Wait,” I stopped her.  “Isn’t he a . . . isn’t he . . .”

                I couldn’t say it, but she did it for me.

                “A Nazi?”

                “Yeah.”

                “Well, yes.  He was a registered member of the Nazi party.”

                Third red flag.

                “You like . . .” I stammered.  “You – your favorite philosopher was a Nazi.”

                “Well that’s not something I like about him!” she waved her arm at me laughing, acting like I was stupid again.

                Well, shit, I thought.  Maybe I am stupid.  Maybe you can agree with a Nazi’s philosophy but disagree with his politics.

                I finished my beer and we left the bar.  Eventually, as we came up to her car she asked me, “So, what are we doing?”

                That’s a famous “Are we hooking up tonight” line.

                “Uh, I guess we can go back to my place,” I said.  She had told me earlier she lived with her folks.

                We stopped along the way because she wanted a bottle of wine.  I thought that was sort of lame but it’s not a red flag.  I had only seen three so far, and just a couple things I thought were lame.  There was no hurt in having her come over and chill, or so I thought at the time.

                We talked for hours in the garage about philosophy and I debated her on ethics.  At first she told me she just wasn’t in to ethics but later she tried to posit that they don’t exist.

                “Well, math doesn’t exist,” I said.  “Numbers don’t exist in reality but math is the most strict and real discipline there is.  Ya know, besides ethics.”

                “We’re not having sex tonight,” she said.

                I kicked my feet up on the table and said, “Okay.”

                I always pull that move.  Obviously, if a chick’s telling you she doesn’t want to have sex that night, there are two possible reasons.  She’s either shit testing you, or she just doesn’t want to put out on the first date, or whatever.  The answer is to always kick your feet up, put your hands behind your head like you’re relaxing and tell them you don’t care.

                She got disappointed immediately.

                “You know, this whole no ethics thing,” I began.  “Even if I can’t convince you through rationality, I mean, from a practical standpoint.  You’re just telling people how to hurt you.”

                She started crying, chugged the rest of her wine and ran out of the garage, out the front door.  She got in her car and drove away and I never saw her again.

                Fucking sore loser, I thought and smiled.  Then I grabbed my bong and took a moke snap and went to bed.

My Apologies From the Peanut Gallery

My Apologies From the Peanut Gallery

"My apologies from the peanut gallery," the monocled Planters' character whispered to me slyly. I was shifting a bag of trail mix in my effeminate hands, trying to determine if the peanut to chocolate ratio was suitable to my arbitrary whim of the moment. "But chocolate is really, really bad for you. It's loaded with sugar, a sort of indirect tax on your youth."
Indirect tax? I wondered. Chocolate?
He elaborated, as if knowing that I had more questions about his perplexing statement: "Sugar has a delayed effect, so as to deceive you into believing you can eat more without expanding your waistline. Expanding one's waistline leads to buying more pants, which means less money to be spent on facial creams that could otherwise preserve your youth. I, on the other hand, get straight to the point by providing you with the fats you need to know, quick and early, just how much of a gluttonous pig you truly are."
I looked over the aisles filled with candy, chips, prepackaged donuts, smut magazines, canned goods and microwavable noodles to see if anyone was within earshot. Satisfied that nobody could hear me, I engaged the monocled icon since I was truly at a loss. What should I do? Should I not eat anything?
After bending down to whisper to him, he cut me off before I started to ask.
"Shhh! Don't be so loud. We don't want anyone here to think you're nuts."

"But are you saying I shouldn't eat anything?" I whispered aloud. "You called me a gluttonous pig."
"Pigs will eat anything, that's why they are fed slop. You're very much like them since you're apparently just dandy with putting sugar into your body. Really, I and my brethren here are the superior choice to the trail mix. Less sugar, less gluttony. Gluttony is one of the seven deadly sins you know. Say, you aren't one of them, are you? You know that since September 11th happened we have to keep a lookout for atheists and Muslims. You're not one of the Muslims who run this place, are you?"
I glanced up at the man behind the counter at the front of the store. He frowned at me.
Frantically ducking down again to clarify things, in case the clerk (who inconveniently was wearing a turban) had overheard us, I said, perhaps a bit too loudly, "I don't think he's Muslim."
The monocled peanut didn't respond, but I noticed the clerk was still frowning at me.

Father’s Day and the Week After

Father’s Day and the Week After

1.

               It was Father’s Day and I had run out of old blues records to buy my old man.  There’s only one place in town you can get CD’s or vinyl from anymore.  My old man, being the horrible, bitter curmudgeon he was wouldn’t give me any clues or hints as to what to give him.  He always would say the same thing, whether it was Christmas, his birthday or Father’s Day.

               “I don’t want anything.”

               It was useless, but my mother and I would always ask him what he wanted and he never gave in.  He was happy making us believe that he was miserable.

               I did the only sensible thing and walked down to the yuppie grocery store.  They always had special deals for losers like me with mean Dads and sure enough, as soon as I walked in there was an end cap filled with scores of stacked bottles of Bulleit Rye and Bourbon.  I felt like I had died and gone to heaven before the promotional tags reminded me who the whiskey was for.  I thought maybe I’d snag a bottle for myself since the shit was marked down so low but I knew what the problem would be.  I’d give myself away.  I’m sure if anybody noticed me and knew who I was they’d think I was just taking advantage of the situation to give myself a discount on my alcoholism but I’d be able to tell them with a straight face that the booze was for my Pops.

               I was surprised when my father took up the challenge.  Maybe he was in a good mood, maybe he was sick of all my shitty behavior.  Maybe he wanted to put me in my place, show that snotty little twerp of a son he had what drinking was all about.  He probably figured he could drink me under the table and make me look silly in front of my mother.  Yeah, he’d show her who the real man of the house was.

               Of course, I was genuinely happy he was taking such a liking to his Father’s Day gift.  He almost immediately poured a shot as he began to create a marinade for some chicken he was going to barbeque for the three of us.

               I eyed the shot before looking back at the old man.  There was a twinkle in his eye.  It was easy to suppress any sort of greed or envy that could have overtaken me.  Something was up and I decided to be patient.  I cracked one of his beers and he didn’t mention it.

               My mother was out in the living room watching television, grading her student’s papers and drinking a glass of wine.  I occasionally went out there to entertain her and watch whatever internet video of cute animals she wanted me to see.  I had to keep up appearances if I was going to start sneaking some of her rum.

               He pretended not to notice as I reached up into the liquor cabinet to grab her booze.  He was even kind enough to take a trip to the bathroom to let me fetch a shot glass and pour a couple for myself.  I chased them with the beer.

               As was typical in my family, we didn’t eat until my mother was ready.  My dad didn’t hound her to take a break from work as he usually did.  He just kept pounding shots of the Rye I had given him.

               I kept pace with the rum, and he half-heartedly told me to quit stealing my mother’s liquor but I kept at it.  It was what he wanted.  He was going to show me.  He was going to drink me under the table.

               Something some people may not know is that Bulleit is 90 proof.  There’s a drastic difference between 90 proof liquor and 70.  Meyer’s Rum happens to be 70 proof.

               “It’s not a contest,” I warned him and took another shot of rum.

               “That rum belongs to your mother,” he said, loud enough for her to hear, swaying a bit.  “Put it back in the cabinet.”

               “Is he drinking my rum?” my Mom wailed from the couch.

               “No!” I shouted back.  “Dad’s drinking a lot of the whiskey I got him and he’s confused.  I’ve had one beer, that’s it.”

               She didn’t look at us, just kept watching Game of Thrones.  “Make him put it away!”

               “You heard her,” he said quietly, narrowing his eyes.

               I poured and pounded another shot.

               “You’re going to see,” he said and went back to stir the mashed potatoes on the stove.  “One day you’ll see you’re in way over your head.  You think you can keep behaving this way, but you’re wrong.”

               With his back still turned, I poured another and drank it.  He turned around to face me and I took a sip of his beer.  Half of my mother’s bottle of rum was gone.

               Not to be outdone, my father filled his giant, wide shot glass he had been using up to the brim with Rye.  He considered it carefully for a moment before taking entirely too long to gulp it down.

               Something in him stirred and I saw a look in my father’s eyes I had never seen before.  He was surprised he had lost.

               He ran to the bathroom and I put down my beer, knowing this was it.  My victory was not as glorious as I had predicted and suddenly I knew we weren’t going to be eating dinner together for Father’s Day.

               Mom threw a shit fit but you had to give the old man credit.  He didn’t puke, not once.  I begged him over and over again to just drink some water, told him we could induce vomiting and he’d be feeling better sooner rather than later.  He refused and just laid there on the bathroom floor for twelve hours.

               You shouldn’t be proud of drinking anybody under the table, it’s just poor sportsmanship.  Even if it’s your old man you should be a gracious winner.  I made sure he didn’t throw up and choke on it, kept checking on him all night and just chalked it up to my old man being out of practice.

               You win some, you lose some, I told myself, and I laughed the whole thing off after my father recovered.

2.

               Bill and J.D. came over one Friday while I was sitting by my lonesome in the garage, smoking cigarettes and drinking a 750 milliliter bottle of Wild Turkey 101.  Bill had a bottle of fireball and J.D. had a bottle of Cuervo.

               I don’t know what happened that night after the pizza arrived.  I woke up in my bed, so I had at least had the sense to find my way back to my room before I passed out on the couch or anything embarrassing like that.

               J.D. was sleeping on the couch when I came to and I asked him what went down.

               “Things didn’t go so well for Bill last night,” he said sadly.

               “Oh, no,” my face dropped.  “What happened?
               “He didn’t look good when he left.”

               I rushed over to his place and found the door unlocked.  I called his name but he didn’t answer and I made my way to his room.  He was lying in bed, dusted.  It was three in the afternoon.

               “Do you need anything?  Water, something to eat?”

               “No,” he muttered into his pillow and began snoring again.

               I checked back that night and he was still out like a light.  Sunday morning came and I headed over there.  He was bent over at the bathroom sink pouring water on his face.

               “I have alcohol poisoning.”

               “You going to be okay?” I asked.

               “I’m never drinking again.”

               “Aren’t you glad you know me?” I said and laughed, rubbing his back.  “I’m a doctor.  I healed you!”

               “Go away.”

3.

               I told him I didn’t want to go bike riding.  I told him I didn’t want to go to the store, but Dillon had a way of dragging me into situations.  We rode our bikes to the shopping center before he explained to me how important it was for us to get a few drinks at the bar.  I finally gave in.

               I smoked a few cigarettes in between a couple beers and a shot of Jameson.  Unbeknownst to me, Dillon had been taking shots every time I went out for a smoke.  By the time we got out of the place, it was closing down and Dillon had done his best to embarrass himself by hitting on all the waitresses and bartenders.  He was really down for the count.

               So naturally, when he asked for a cigarette, I felt like I’d be helping the guy out.  He could use something to even him out for the bike ride home.  He was swaying and I was reminded of my old man.

               I handed him the cigarette and winced as he ripped the filter off.  We shot the shit for awhile and just had a good time laughing and smoking.

               “Cigarettes are bad!” he exclaimed.

               “Yeah,” I said, searching his eyes with my own for signs of competency.  “So is alcohol.”

               “This is the last cigarette I ever smoke.”

               “Good,” I replied, nodding.

               Dillon wasn’t a smoker.  It was good he wasn’t going to go down that road, down the path of doom.  It’s one thing to slowly murder yourself, but it’s quite another to pay three dollars in taxes for every twenty cigarettes you buy.  That’s the sort of humiliation only the lowest sort of masochist will take.

               We talked a bit more and Dillon stomped his cigarette out on the concrete.

               “Give me another cigarette.”

               “Um,” I laughed nervously before complying.

               He ripped off the filter and lit up.  I put mine out and began smoking another.

               “Let’s ride,” he said after we had finished our second round of cigarettes.

               He held up the rear, following me along the sidewalk through the pitch black night.  It was a poor neighborhood, and there weren’t always street lights to help out drunk bastards like us.  I kept my wits about me and straightened out any wobble in my balance.

               Then I heard the crash.  Dillon cried out and soon I was on the phone asking Patrick to come pick up poor Dillon who was lying on the sidewalk, writhing in pain.  He had hit a wooden telephone pole.

               I found out the next day he had broken his wrist and fractured his shin.  I sighed after Patrick told me and I thought back over the past week.  My dad strung out on the bathroom floor, Bill telling me what an asshole I was before falling back asleep, the sound of aluminum slamming against wood and Dillon crying out into the lonely, unforgiving night.

               “Patrick,” I said.

               “Yeah?”

               “This is all my fault, isn’t it?”

               “Yeah, bro,” Patrick said, matter-of-fact.  “You’re fucking toxic.  I forgive you though.  I didn’t get sick and I have no broken bones.”

               I walked into the garage and grabbed my bottle.  I carried it back to the kitchen and poured the rest of the shit down the sink.

Candy

Candy

               There was this woman who worked over at Rite Aid and her name was, I shit you not, her name was Candy.  I couldn’t believe it the first time I overheard somebody calling her by that name and I did a double take.  She saw me all confused as I looked back and forth between her and her co-worker.  This Candy chick wasn’t wearing a name tag or anything so I just decided to roll with it.

               When it was time to check out I asked her if it was true or not and she confirmed the rumor.

               “What are you, from the 1950’s or something?” I asked.

               “40’s,” she chuckled.

               I moved on, grabbed my booze and headed out the door like the cuck I am.  Should’ve asked her out, just didn’t have the balls.

               Came back in another time when I was desperate to find a handle of Seagram’s 7 for $11.99 and saw her again.  She was wearing pink eye shadow.  It was ridiculous.  It didn’t match a single part of her work uniform and it looked atrocious.  She just kind of lazily put it on in these vague circles around her hazel eyes and the contrast was not flattering.

               Got in her line again because it was shorter after all and I had to get home quick to drink myself into oblivion, watching the Giants lose with losers like Aaron Hill and Gorkys Hernandez sucking up the joint.  There’s nothing worse than watching inept right-handed hitters wail at the ball and flub easy plays in the field while Madison Bumgarner sits on the bench laughing at the losers on his losing team fail miserably, claiming that his “dirt bike accident” left him “unable” to pitch and lose twenty games this season.

               I couldn’t help but comment on Candy’s pink eye shadow.

               “That cotton-candy eye shadow,” I said, pointing at her eyes, pantomiming an awkward motion through the air as I traced her inept attempt at makeup with my index finger.  She certainly had lovely eyes though.  They were vibrant.

               “Oh?” she said and laughed.  “You noticed?”

               “Yeah it really stands out,” I said, straightening up a bit.  “It’s tasteful.”

               She shook her head and looked down, biting her lip a little.  There was this look in her eye, I couldn’t quite place it.  Was that shame?  Was that arousal?  Was that discomfort?  I couldn’t tell.

               She sent me on my way and we didn’t say much more.

               I saw her outside the store once a few months later.  She walked by me toward the old Mexican restaurant and we passed each other.  I was walking on a narrow strip of sidewalk and so was she.  She was coming right for me.  It was that same look, the one I couldn’t figure out, but she was looking down – straight down, into the curb.  She was going to bump into me if I didn’t do something so I stepped off the curb, into the street, and some old hag in a Prius almost hit me.  Candy looked over at the situation from a sideways angle.  I almost got run over for this woman, so I’m glad she had the courtesy to even notice I was such a gentleman.  But she didn’t say anything and kept walking away.

               Another day she was crossing the street and I don’t know where the hell she was going.  I was going to get me some booze, goddamn it.  There’s only so much of Drew Stubbs and Justin Ruggiano a man can take.  Mark Melancon has no out pitch and it’s pretty horrible that the Giants aren’t even good enough for our expensive, ineffective closer to even be an issue, so it’s more Seagram’s 7 for me.

               So Candy was there crossing the street and I was with my two friends, Idiot Boy and the Clown.  I was getting booze and Idiot Boy needed some Gummy Bears and the Clown needed some cigarettes so we all thought we’d take a stroll down to Rite Aid.  Somebody said something about CVS and I barked something about how they’re the worst store of all time since they don’t sell cigarettes, and that’s why real, serious people shop at Rite Aid, or something to that effect.  And there was Candy, looking down at the ground with that expression on her face, that same one.  It was driving me fucking bonkers.

               Did she hate me? Did she hate me for hanging out with Idiot Boy and the Clown?  Did she hate that I wouldn’t talk to her, or that I didn’t have the balls to just ask her out?  I almost got hit by a fucking Prius for this broad, she should ask me out!

               She passed on in silence, her atrocious eye shadow sweeping past us like clouds drifting through the sky at sunset.

               “I’ll get you your booze,” Idiot Boy said.  “Go walk her home.”

               “Nah,” I replied, watching her walk awkwardly away.  “She’s not in to me.”

               “That’s not the worst thing in the world,” the Clown consoled me.  “Bitch can’t walk straight.  She’s also four foot nine.  How the fuck are you intimidated by someone who is legally a midget?”

               I wanted to sock the Clown in the face but thought better of it.

               “Give me a cigarette.”

               The Clown complied.  He’s my bitch after all.  I lit it up and watched her haphazardly walk toward the bus stop.  The girl couldn’t walk straight to save her life.

               “See what I mean?” the Clown said, pointing.

               “Shut up,” I pointed the lit cigarette at his face.  “You fucking back off about my future’s wife’s walk, Clown.  It’s just that I make women weak at the knees.”

               The Clown shut up real quick.

               Later on, I found a Pink Cadillac for sale, one that I thought matched her horrible eye shadow.  It was all the way down in Indio, California.  Idiot Boy and the Clown don’t know how to drive so I took the Greyhound Bus down there to pick it up and bought it off of some dipshit for five thousand dollars.

               I drove it home, drove it right up to that Rite Aid and parked sideways, half way in the handicap spot and half way in the regular spot to show all those yuppies who was boss.  I left my music blaring, my windows down.  I had picked up some pimp dice on the way up and they were hanging off my rear view mirror.  I strolled right into the store and there was Candy, all dolled up in her horrible eye shadow, all four foot nine inches of her.  I’ll tell you man, she looked like she was six foot one behind that register.  Those eyes man, she didn’t need no stinking eye shadow, but the pink made her all the more beautiful.  Candy had style, she had class.  That’s something most women don’t have.

               So I’ll tell you what I did, I strolled right up to that cash register and I said, “Hey.  Candy, Baby.”

               “Oh,” she said, smiling, looking down at her shoes.

               I said, “Don’t be shy, Candy.  I bought a pink Cadillac to match your eye shadow.  What do you say you take the rest of the day off and get in the car with me?  We’ll drive at to the coast and watch the sunset.”

               “That sounds terrific,” she said, finally looking up to smile at me.  “But you’ll have to wait.  I get off in a few hours.”

               “Candy, baby,” I said.  “I’ve got so much money you won’t need to work again.  Fuck independence, personal financial stability and dignity.  All we need is each other and our pink Cadillac and those beautiful eyes of yours.”

               “Okay, babe,” she said.  “What the hell.”

               And then with that, she hopped over the counter and took my hand.  She looked back at the horrible boss man of hers with the knee pads and told him she was never coming back.  We skipped and sang out into the parking lot and suddenly when I realized I shouldn’t have left my keys in the car I saw a couple of Mexicans driving away with my pink Cadillac.  I shouted at them and they laughed at me as they burned rubber and sped off into the distance.

               “I hate you!” Candy said, and I never saw her again.

               I walked back to Idiot Boy’s house and told him to give me his Gummy Bears.  He didn’t have any.  He ate them all the night before.  I called the Clown to ask him to come over and give me a few cigarettes but he didn’t pick up, the fuckin’ jerk.

               Oh, Candy baby.