Guys' Night Out

I am looking sharp, wearing a black collared shirt and blue jeans. My face is shaved, my hair is cut and gelled, and I am ready for anything that happens tonight.

Out with my friends, a Coke in my left hand, a cue in my right, rested on my foot. I have owned the table for the past few games, and I am waiting for my next shot. Aside from myself, there are three of my friends circling the pool table, discussing the week’s events and the women scattered about the pool hall. A petite, early twenty-something blonde from across the floor comes up to me and speaks.

“Hi, I’m new in town, and my new roomies and I were looking for some cute guys to party with after we get outta here. (Giggle Giggle)”

I divert my eyes for a second to look over her left shoulder. One of her friends waves at us. There are five of them in total, three brunettes, and two blondes. They are all in their early twenties, and all extremely hot. I wave them over.

“Why don’t you and your friends come and play pool with us for a while?”

She smiles at me, “That sounds good to me! (Giggle)” she says. The nine of us play pool until closing time, and then go back to the girls’ rented house for a while.

Things like this never happen to me.

More likely is a scenario in which, in a last minute effort to get out of my apartment for a few hours, I call fifteen or sixteen of my friends. I do this knowing full well that out of the people that I call, only two or three of them will want to leave their homes for a game or two of pool.

We get to the dive bar that I hate, but my friends love. One of my friends is wearing a faded t-shirt, torn blue jeans, and a hat that looks as if it hadn’t been washed since he received it as a birthday present in junior high school. Another wears a brownish-bluish hoodie over a stained, formerly white, t-shirt. The hoodie is smattered with paint from art projects and grease from working on his car.

After a number of times trying to look decent for these outings, and seeing my friends look as if they were homeless, I have become complacent and given up. I am wearing a pair of camouflage shorts, decade old sneakers, and a black hat to cover my uncut, uncombed hair. My face hasn’t been shaved in four or five days, and my shirt has the words ‘This Is What Cool Looks Like’ printed across it.

After snatching defeat from the jaws of victory on the pool table, I take a seat on a bench a few feet away and await my next embarrassing game. My friends taunt me, and I blame the loss on the leaning, poorly maintained table.

After a few minutes of watching my friends play, I notice one of my friends actually talking to a woman. She isn’t the cute little blonde that I was hoping for. Instead, she is in her late thirties, her hair is gray and thinning. She is missing a few teeth, and bears a striking resemblance to someone I once saw on a Discovery Channel special about methamphetamines.

My turn to play finally comes up, so I stand and start walking to the table to put my quarters in. Joe stands next to me and bumps me with his elbow.

“Dude, she thinks you’re hot!” Joe says, laughing.

“Great…” I say in disgust. I take one of my rings and hurriedly move it over to my left ring finger.

“Alright Joe, let’s hurry up and play, I wouldn’t want to keep my wife waiting!” I say as loud as is reasonably possible, making sure she notices.

I sit down and wait for Joe to break, she comes and sits next to me. I pull my hat down and scoot away from her. She turns to me and tries to start a conversation.

“So, what’s your name?”

I try to keep the answers as short as possible. “Jake.”

“How come I don’t see you in here more often?” She asks, obviously flirting with me.

I hurry a response that I vaguely remember in an attempt to get her to leave me alone.

“(Blah blah blah) wife (blah blah blah) two kids (blah blah blah blah). (Blah blah blah blah, blah blah) happily married (blah blah). (Blah blah blah, blah blah blah) seven years.”

She inches closer to me, gives me a two-toothed grin, and puts her hand on my knee as she says, “Your wife isn’t here, is she?”

Trying to be as nice as possible, I get up and walk into the restroom, praying that she is gone by the time that I get out. Stalling for time, I splash water on my face in an attempt to get the circus-freak-attracting pheromone off.

Ten minutes later, I finally emerge from the restroom to find a friend from work had joined our party. Justin was an odd character that I had only hung out with once or twice. He said his hellos, and went about his business with the group of guys he came to meet.

I sit down again. Apparently not getting the clue, the crack head sits next to me again. She leans over and whispers in my ear, “You know what I like to do to guys?”

Before she could get another word out, I say, “Hey, you see my friend over there?” I point in Justin’s direction.
She looks at me, confused, “Yeah, what about him?”

“That dude thinks you’re hot! You should go talk to him!”

Finally getting the clue, she takes leave. The party animals that my friends are, they decide to head home.

“Guys, it’s only midnight!”

“I got things to do in the morning, man. I gotta run.”

“He’s my ride, sorry Jake.”

The next evening, I get a call from Justin.

“Jake, whatcha doin’ tonight?”

“I’m just gonna kick it at home tonight.”

“Dude, that chick that was hanging out with you guys was a freak!”

“You’re telling me!”

“Man, she didn’t get outta here ‘till noon today!”

Not fully grasping what he is saying, I continue the conversation. “She wouldn’t stop trying to hit on - wait, what did you say?”

“She didn’t leave here ‘till noon! She made me breakfast this morning and everything!”

In shock, I eek out, “Tell me you didn’t…”

He did.

He then proceeds to tell me the whole story. After ten or twelve too many drinks, he took the poster child for drug rehab centers back to his place for, what I will henceforth describe as, ‘relations’.

“Dude, she does this thing with her tongue-“

“Man, I don’t want to know! You should probably see a doctor and get tested, and then a shrink and get tested!”

I’m not sure what I find more disturbing, the fact that he actually had relations with the girl, or the fact that he is bragging about it.

“Jake ya gotta take what you can when you can. Anyway, we stayed up ‘till about four this morning and-“

“Justin, I think I’m gonna puke.”

I hang up the phone and run into the bathroom. I still get nauseous when I think about Justin, the side show, and their ‘relations’.