Lonesome City Nights

Mike Boyd Williams

I was hungover. Again. Unexpectedly. (?)

I had been chasing a girl that I liked for about a week, and I was none too pleased with the results. Ex boyfriends were popping up and a purposeful kind of ambiguity was made plain on her part. I was torn between a genuine fondness and attraction that compelled me to try and win her over and a gut-level feeling that we weren't compatible, that things would never work out, and that I should stop trying for the sake of trying.

So I tried my best.

But sometimes I feel like I must come off as a jealous and demanding lover for always wanting to know what's in people's hearts. And apparently she didn't want a relationship. Or didn't know if she did. Or didn't know how. You get the picture.

So last night in a painful and (drunkenly) truthful moment we broke it off.

So. Today.

I go in to work around eleven, talk shop to some coworkers, wait around for catered lunch to be delivered, then steal a bunch of random party favors that are destined for the dumpster and make off home. I plan to take said party favors and create a festive environment at Dolores Park that day for no better reason than diversion. What occasion necessitates a fiesta? Every one.

At my apartment, after work, I get low. Loneliness combined with the sinking self-pitying feeling that I may just be a total f***ing alcoholic addict codependent jerk starts to bring me down. I lie in bed and read short stories from the New Yorker magazine published before '55. I get sadder when I consider that one of the stories is about a 25 year old creative writer who is supporting his parents and sister and whose life is crushing down on him. Dammit. I'm 26.

I get a text to go to the park. Party, party favors from work included. I decide to get off my miserable ass and go make it happen. I fill my backpack with party favors, gas up my moped, and embark to the park.

Two blocks from my house my engine blows up. No moped no mo'.

No girl (lonely.) No moped (stranded.) No easy way to facilitate the park party that I had promised (loser.) I wheel my useless bike back to my garage and walk my ass to the muni stop.

I ride for 20 minutes on a packed bus, burdened with bags full of leis and balloons and a giant festive carpet mat. Nonplussed.

At the park. Leis all around, Chinese light saber fights, and rocket balloons make for a rockin' good time. Then I see the girl...

Wistfulness. An urge to reconnect. Fought down by sparks and pbrs.

On to the next party: burritos and Speed Racer at a friend of a friend's house. Riding double dumb-and-dumber style on the back of a buddy's moped. Killing time. Feeling useless and used up.

Text.

Rollerskating costume party! Be there in an hour! Your girl will be there!

Well. Not my girl no more. f*** it. I ride home on a loaner 'ped and throw on some ghoulish black face paint. I assemble a half-assed ghost-like costume out of rags and old pieces of lace. I race to the location of the party and seeing no-one I know I realize plans must have changed without me.

Text. Suddenly we're going to a dance club in the Tenderloin. Costume no longer required nor expected.

I avoid clubs. I eschew hooking-up meat markets. I hate stares from strangers; they're either pointlessly hostile or vacantly interested and in either case I know that somebody's going to get hurt that night and I'll be damned if it's gonna be me.

f*** it. I'm in costume and I'm damn well gonna have fun. I walk into the club facing open stares and questioning glances. There is a guy and gal working the door. They seem to be intrigued by my costume.

Straight off I meet a beautiful young girl in the entrance of the club that also likes my costume and wants to know my name. "Are you in a band or are you just dressed up for Halloween?" she asks. "Just dressed up with nowhere to go" I reply, lamely. She's from San Diego and she's so damn cute in a strictly shallow way and her name is Adriana. She hugs me and tells me her name with her lips close to my ear before she leaves and I don't follow her out.

I exit the club and I drink sparks and tall-boys outside with my friends in the gang. We talk small about mopeds and girls and hide our naked drinks from passing cars, afraid they might be cops. There are no paper bags allowed in the Tenderloin.

Last call is announced from inside the club. We're drunk and uncertain of our plans. The guy and girl that were working the door approach me and invite me back to their apartment with promises of cocaine and wine. I dodge the invitation but give them my number. They live in the Marina. They leave in a cab.

A fight ensues. A drunk white kid running down the street is kicking moving cars until he is jumped by a car full of Philipinos. My friends and I break it up. The drunk kid hugs a chain link fence right next to us, staring at the pavement and breathing in short choking breaths while blood streams out of his mouth and nose. Suddenly he turns his attention on us, a blind animosity in his drunken, swimming eyes. We threaten and shove him away until he takes off down the street, only to be beaten up moments later by some black kids whose truck he had kicked.

I get a text from the guy and girl who had been working the door of the club. Side note: the guy is a young gay black man and the girl is a redhead with soft and cautious eyes. I decide to take the road less traveled and accept their invitation. I bid my gang farewell and ride to the apartment in the Marina.

A classy affair with dark wood paneling and high ceilings. They offer me coke and wine as promised and I accept. Twenty awkward minutes on their roof, overlooking the financial district and disinterestedly learning about each others careers. From over their deck I watch the distant cars like strands of party lights blinking continuously in a pointless loop.

We retire back downstairs. The gay boy asks me if I want to go back to his place to do more blow and I decline. He leaves.  The redhead and I spend a few silent moments on the couch before she announces she is going to bed. I ask her, politely, why they had asked me over in the first place. She tells me she is new to the city and wants to make new friends. I am wearing face paint that drips in dark circles down my eyes. I tell her goodnight and leave the apartment. I am strangely disappointed that she didn't ask me to stay. Was she too shy? Why am I even thinking about this? Am I so lonely in this warm city that I want to sleep with strangers?

It was probably all the gay boy's idea.

I get on the loaner moped and ride back to my house. It takes twenty minutes. Plenty of time to reflect on the events that had transpired. Plenty of time to second-guess my decisions and reactions. It's perhaps time for another change.

It's 5 AM now. I'm going to bed.