Postin’ Up

TGI fucking F. This was the longest week EVER. (Put your seatbelt on for some of my unmitigated whining.) First, after last weekend’s stellar 3-day bender, 9 a.m. Monday felt like I had just walked into a de-tox program. That feeling continued through Friday. Everyday I felt hung over, shaky, uneasy, headachey, and sleepy. (Being my job is to read all day, sleepy is probably the worst feeling I can get at work.) The only cool part of the week came when, after having a horde of awful manuscripts to proof, I was assigned to proof a biography about Jimi Hendrix. But, even that led to shittyness, when, as I was filling out the memo to route to the editor, I wrote under comments “This book ROCKS”, my boss rolled up behind me and blasted me for “not being professional.” I tried to defend myself, claiming I wasn’t making a joke; that this book literally rocks, hard. She took the pen out of my hand, crossed out my rocking reference, shook her head in disgust, and, as she pirouetted away, informed me to “grow up”. Awesome. I love my job. Well, tonight I feel on verge of passing out so I’m going to finish reading Germinal and post this absurd story I wrote for some fucker who was supposed to pay me for it but never did. It’s a fake story I made up about a tight-ass guy going on a date with a fucking-idiot girl (the “fucking” is definitely needed in the adjective, as “idiot girl” would not aptly describe this girl correctly.) The sad part is, while the part about meeting on the internet is fiction, the girl is sorta like this girl I dated in high school and the guy is sorta like me. So, in a way, it’s sorta not completely fiction. Well…YOU MAKE THE CALL…

We were to meet at 7 PM and she was late. We were to meet at the Silk Road Palace on the West Side and it was already 7:45.

I found her on Craig’s List.

She seemed normal enough. All the buzzwords I yearned for in an internet woman were there: fun, intelligent, young.

Later I would learn that by fun she meant it’s fun to listen to her incessant chatter, and by intelligent she meant possessing an inordinate knowledge of pop culture icons and celebrity personalities. But by young, she did mean young. And young is what I was looking for. The 19-24 preference was preferable.

I sit, intent on studying my chopsticks, to keep from again attracting the waitress’s attention.

It doesn’t work.

“Sir,” the waitress addresses me for the third time, “is date arriving soon? It Thursday and Thursday very busy.” She refills my wine glass, again and repeats, “Very busy.”

“Yes,” I defend her. Again. “She’s probably just running late. I know she’ll be here very soon.”

But I do not know this.

All I actually know is:

“Robert – Letz meet @ this plce called The Palace…me and my girlz love goin

there…free wine! and they arent strct w/ ids…its on Amsterdam between btw 81

and 82…i’ll be wearing fendi sunglasses. See u, ~N”

What she knows of me is:

“Dear Nicole,

I anticipate enjoying a splendid evening in your company. I am a bit unfamiliar with the West Side, so I will arrive early and secure us a table. Please look for me, I will be wearing a rather conspicuous yellow tie; also, I have blonde highlighted hair, somewhat angular features, stand about 5’11 (although hopefully that is a superlative detail, being I will be sitting by the time you arrive!) and weigh 153 pounds. From what I have gathered from searching the Silk Road Palace on the internet, it’s a small, but intimate bistro, so it should not be a problem for you to spot me. Also, on a side note, I have been craving Chinese, so fabulous choice!! I am excited for tonight. Ciao, Robert.”

“Okay,” the waitress says with an exhale. This time she says it with a hint of sympathy. “How bout you tell me what she look like so I look for her.”

Ka-boom.

At the office, coworkers often criticize me for talking too fast. What they don’t know is I think even faster. When I become nervous, or blank on questions I wish I had an answer to, I panic. I panic hardcore. My brain is like one of those stock tickers sped up to a thousand miles an hour. Thoughts blur past me in strings of haphazard words like a passing subway.

I try remembering the description in her listing.

“Athletic build,” I exasperate. “Um…five foot four. Err…” the phrase “mad hottttt” comes to mind. I load the phrase, as if a torpedo, onto my lips. My tongue begins to shape the alien phrase.

I am about to tell the waitress to look for the “mad hot” date.

Abort! Abort!

I catch myself.

“…and she’s 19, very good looking. You can’t miss her,” I exclaim. “Really very, very good looking.”

Embarrassment temporarily aborted, I reassure myself.

The waitress’s sympathy evaporates as she grumbles: “I keep eye for her,” then pirouettes to the next table.

I feel like a cancer in this restaurant. Across from me is a mirror reflecting my scrunched up face. It looks like an equal mix of frustration and sadness. My mouth and cheeks are tense and drawing angry creases across my wrinkle-free face. My eyes are squinty like they’re gathering tears (even though they aren’t) as my eyebrows arch upward like twin tilde marks.

My face is the cyst that is ruining other couples’ Night Out.

In an attempt to relax, I take a long swig of wine; a swig so powerful I forget what I’m doing here, and when I return the glass to table there she is, sitting.

I know it’s her immediately.

She has long brunette hair that glimmers streaks of blonde highlights and constellations of cosmetic sparkles. The sparkles continue over her long eyelashes, inky long eyelashes that fall over big brown eyes when she blinks, which is often. Her face is full, but certainly not overweight or even chubby. I would have guessed she was 120 pounds: not anorexic looking yet not sloppy, which were the two extremes I was accustomed to after four recent years of college.

Her hand rests on the table; on the index finger of that hand is a shinny, red Ringpop. I hadn’t seen a Ringpop since I could recite the names and ranks of entire G.I. Joe platoons.

I had to admit she was beautiful and worth the waiting, worth the embarrassment.

“Hi,” she says perfunctory, without looking at me. Her hand is hailing the waitress who beelines to our table.

“You like appetizer,” the waitress asks.

“Actually Audrey,” Nicole says with notable confidence, “You can start by bringing me some wine like usual. Oh, and say hi to The Mister for me, will ya?”

“ID,” the waitress, whom I’m apprehensive to refer to as Audrey, says flippantly with her palm extended.

Nicole looks at the waitress, then looks at me, holding my glance and snickering as if the waitress has said something that only her and I could possibly be sophisticated enough to find funny.

I feel both awkward and privileged.

“Yeah,” Nicole mutters, “I’ll get you my damn ID”

When a laminated New Jersey driver’s license materializes from the depths of a black handbag with a big silver “N” on the front, she mumbles: “Here you go. Again.”

The waitress takes the ID, scampers off and disappears behind the kitchen’s swinging doors.

“God,” she says. “They’re such tight asses here with IDs after they get pinched. It was probably those stupid NYU kids last Friday actin’ a fool and shit.”

“Yeah,” I concur to appease. “They asked for two forms of picture ID from me, too.”

“Have you drunk a lot yet? Do I have some catching to do?”

She emits a forced cackle when she says this. I don’t like the idea of time measured in consumed drinks but I play along telling her I had a few.

“Isn’t this place off the hook? God, me and my girls have gotten to the point where the owner comes out is totally like WTF, girls. And we’re all like WTF yourself.”

“Like what?”

“Like WTF, as in What The Fuck. You don’t talk on AIM?”

“Oh. Yeah, I mean I do, but I never heard anyone use these terms in, you know, conversation.”

“That reminds me, I’ll BRB, I gotta go hit up the bathroom.”

While Nicole is gone, the waitress comes back and sets onto the table a water glass brimming with wine and next to it Nicole’s ID. Her ID claims she’s Karla McDouggal and I wonder if her name is really even Nicole. Plenty of people list fake names on internet dating services, especially free ones.

“Orders,” the waitress demands abruptly.

Moo Shu Pork, Eight Delicious Diced Chicken, Sweet & Sour Shrimps, comes to me in a flash. Chicken, Rice, Noodles, But what does she want? Soup, Eggroll, but she’s in the bathroom. Sweet and sour, sour and sweet, the waitress is angry and she wants a fucking order. Now. With snow peers, just, with ginsing, order, with lemon, two goddamn, with cashew nuts, entrées.

“The General Chow,” I yell way too loud. “General Chow chicken for us both.”

The waitress whisks our menus away from the table and vanishes.

When Nicole returns from the bathroom, I tell her what I ordered for us. I once read in Maxim that you can turn women on by ordering for them.

“Well that is fucking fabulous,” Nicole contends, “because the General Chow chicken might be the only dish on the menu I can’t eat. That I would never eat. So fantastic Robert, way to pick a winner.”

“I’m – I’m really sorry. I just – ”

“Whatevs, I guess I’ll just have to take advantage of the free wine, which reminds me,” she leans across the table as if what she’s going to tell me is very important and secretive. “I brought my emergency flask with me and I hit it in the bathroom. You want a taste.”

“Oh. No thanks. Really, I’m fine with just drinking wine ever since – ”

“Shut up,” she says and claws for my empty glass across the table. “I’m doing this for you anyway. I specifically said in that classified that I was going to show you a good time. My shrink said it’s good for me to help people.”

The way she said it was convincing enough. We all need a little help, right? She slides the glass, filled even higher than her water glass full of wine, back to me. She bends over to put the ID and flask back into her handbag.

She holds her wine glass up and offers Cheers.

My glass is too full to lift without spilling so, to save myself from looking like an idiot, I lean over and slurp the alcohol off the lip of the glass. The potency of the drink hits me. Hard. It’s like burning Novocain.

I raise my glass allowing her glass to peck mine with a clank.

“You know who you look like,” she says, tilting her head as if admiring an abstract painting. “You look like Chad from the boy band Together.”

“Who?”

“Umm…Together. Like who hasn’t heard of Together? The quintet pioneered by an MTV spoof combining boyish good looks with bubble gum charm. The venture was originally launched as a made-for-TV movie, winning great success with fans both young and old, the boy band parody eventually went on to release a soundtrack that spawned the heart-throb franchise formally known as Together.”

I stared at her with befuddled disbelief.

“And you,” she continued. “You would be Chad, the shy one in the group. While not as cute as Jason or rebellious as Mickey, Chad is like my third favorite. So that’s, like, super good for you. LOL”

And so it went.

It could have went for hours, or it could have went for minutes. I don’t know. I don’t know because after I was told I looked like Chad from Together the rest of the night’s details become hazy. The rest of the night’s details become hazy because at this point in the night the rohypnol she had me drink were circulating in my bloodstream and narcotizing my neurons.

I know this because the next day, after I passed out on the table and she took out my wallet, found my driver’s license, saw my address, sent me home in a yellow taxi, and may or may not have stolen 15 dollars (I’d like to give her the benefit of the doubt), she wrote me.

She wrote me an E-Mail, which I printed out several times and taped to my mirror to remind me everyday that:

Chad,

We were a madz cutie ;) I had a good time!!11 letzz do it again, k? sorry i put a roofie in ur drink…me and ma girlz do it to each all the time…itz mad funny!! call me whenev,

~N