The Red Sox are a game out of first with six games to go.
Few people in our scene care about sports, although Guadalcanal is a die-heard Yankees fan. They suck this year.
Last night I went to party with Grant at Stan’s and ran into Vickie, a skinny blonde with a stutter. I have one too and we discussed our speech difficulties. I moved a little closer to hear her better and she stammered, “I-I-I’m asexual.”
“Oh.”
“My friend Jessie thinks asexuality is a disease.” Vickie was wearing a tight white sweater and a half-inch of make-up
That’s stupid.” Vickie was a poetess. I loved her reading with distorted speech.
“I told him the same. I’m not that primitive.” I couldn’t tell Vickie that I’m attracted to androgynous women.
“You’re the same as all men. You’d fuck a hole in a tree.
Vickie walked away to speak with her friends. None of them were asexual.
“No luck.” Grant was always curious about my sex life. Queers were like that.
“We were just talking.”
“T-t-t-talking?”
Don’t make fun of our speech.”
Sorry, I was joking.”
It’s not a joke.”
So you got shoot down?”
“Yes.”
“Then let’s go to CBGBs.”
Who was playing didn’t matter. We all loved CBs and I had no problem with being shoot down, but when I left the party, Vickie broke from her friends and asked, “Can I go to CBGBs with you. I won’t h-h-hang on you.”
“No worries.” Just because she was asexual didn’t mean I couldn’t be a gentleman.
“Thanks, my friends are assholes.
“Sure, but I have other places to go first.”
On the way I stopped at One University Place, Mickey Ruskin’s new restaurant next to Washington Square. The front bar was packed with arty assholes. The line for the new pinball game was long, so I told Vickie, “Let’s go
“A greasy foreign meatball in a three-piece suit clutched her arm. He was drunk He was with friends. I had drunk heavy at the party and chopped on the guy’s forearm, freeing Vickie. Grant tried to calm the situation, but the meatball poked my chest and said, “Don’t get tough with me.”
His accent might have been French. I had taken it in grammar school at Our Lady of the Foothills. Grant motioned with his head for the door. Vickie was already on her way out. I should have left without a word, except I’m from the south Shore of Boston and said, “I don’t have time to waste of fools like you.”
“Fool? You call me a fool. Who are you?”
Normally I would have japped him now, but I wasn’t wearing my glasses and said, “This is America, not France. We don’t need your type here.”
“I’m not French. I am Spanish.”
Mickie came over to us. Two bouncers backed him up and he and asked, “What’s the problem here?”
“This foreigner is out of line, but we’re leaving.”
“Then leave.”
The three of us walked to CBGBs in silence. At least I was silent. Vickie vanished once I got us comped for entry. Her friends seemed the same as the ones left at the party, but they weren’t the same, just not different from the others.
Kim Davis whispered in my ear, “You came here with Vickie? You know what Alice thinks of her. She’s worried about you getting a disease.”
“Firstly Vickie’s asexual.”
“She is?” Kim’s regard for the scrawny blonde climbed a few steps.
“Yes, and cool out, I’m only sleeping with Alice no matter what she thinks.” It was a lie, but one she unlike Alice was willing to believe.
I ended up reading Karen Crystal’s palm.
“You suffer from incredible angst.” Her marriage with Hilly had been over nine years, but they were still partners in the bar. Her only job in the place is to stop us from smoking weed. “What make you think you can smoke in here? This isn’t no methadone clinic.”
Obviously she had never been to the dressing home, which seconded for a shooting gallery. Me, I wasn’t into skag. I liked my drink.