New Orleans Cafe 2: Boy Buffet

Dan and I were both young and idealistic, which as you can imagine equates to a lot of time sitting around within two feet of a space heater, drinking cheap beer, and thinking we were on top of the world. I guess everyone does that--maybe the good ones never grow out of the idealism, and just sort of channel it away from 'what is art' and 'build-a-better-bong' into more productive and socially acceptable ways of dealing with the world, like, say, puppeteering.

But I think everyone agrees that no matter how much you flinch when you (if you) recall some of the words that came out of your mouth back then, you grew a lot, and in large part what you become later in life is due to those conversations and the people you have them with. I have Daniel-san to thank for my taste in literature (alternatively, you can choose to blame him). I would posit he has me to thank for much of his taste in music, and most likely brown liquor.

I wasn't seeing much of Becky, for some reason--sometimes I wonder if he, knowing our past together, and knowing her tendency to, uh, stray, was keeping her away from me. Come to think of it, that was probably a good idea.

Becky was every young guy's dream: a cute girl who liked sex, and lots of it. After a few months, though, she began to creep them out, as it became clear that she liked sex a lot more often than they did. There was something almost animal about it--maybe there always is, but you know those almost mechanical, reflexive orgasm movements that a lot of women have? That's cool, because you're doing it, but when you see it happen every day, at least once a day, for a couple of months, it's a little off-putting. Like you're in bed (or wherever) with a pretty little clockwork doll that's got a tooth missing on a gear somewhere inside. I don't know--I mean, I know we all make faces when we have sex, but there was something just bizarre about the look in here eyes--like she was focused down inside herself somewhere, and didn't give a fuck what was actually going on.

So the point is, Dan was a little relieved when she started standing him up with lame excuses. He was much more worried about WHO she was fucking, but it wasn't until several months later that he found out she was sleeping with none other than John.

John had returned to me, like a herpes outbreak, as he's done several times before and since. No matter what, we always remain friends, at times I suspect more out of habit than anything else. You put up with someone's shit for so long, you feel something's missing when you're not hearing about it. We've been like an old married couple since before we could legally drink.

It was rather odd, then, when John started missing the weekly Boone's Farm fests on the front porch. For those of you who were hatched at age 25 or so, with a checking account and no sense of irony at all, Boone's Farm wines are a fine selection of carbonated wine products that cost somewhere between a dollar fifty and two dollars a bottle--the downside being that you had to drink enough to give yourself heartburn in order to catch a buzz. But more on that later.

It took me about two weeks to mention to John that Becky had apparently ditched Dan, and had moved on to another part of what I began to think of as the boy buffet. Turns out, as I've said, that she was over in the baldheaded guy section.

By midsummer, we had a pretty good selection of single guys running around the place, if you were a woman who wasn't too picky about things like beercan sculptures, showers, or having sex around a roommate's sleep schedule. But once again, I'm getting ahead of myself.