It’s been a rainy May and the fog that lifts from the pier clouds the tops of buildings, making a thick mist that make it look like the sky is falling. It’s about 11:30 at night and I just got out of work. Luckily the rain is light and the bus is rounding the bend to pick up passengers. Tonight my cousin is turning 20 and she’s having a party at some club in Wicker Park. At first I wasn’t going to go, it was too late and working on my feet for 9 hours straight, answering the most remedial of questions for the most aggravating of tourist has a way of draining motivation. But then I remember its for family and I haven’t taken you out in awhile. This will be a good chance for you to meet the younger half of my family, not to mention the club is giving my cousin a few free bottles for her birthday, although if she is truly my kin those bottles are empty by now. I text you and ask you to get ready, expediently. When I reach your building I call and you tell me to go the bar and take two shots and you’ll meet me in the lobby after. I smile like a fool and agree. I walk to Georges, It’s lit in a way that reflects the deepest part of the human condition, the accidental perfection our words and actions have in apathy. The Bartender is inattentive, and what’s worse she’s inattentive with a smile. That hollow, bobbing, idiot smile that people have when they are oblivious to the needs of other. I repeat my order; ‘Jameson and Coke.’ She fiddles around making the drink, unsure and without any pride. A good bartender is attentive and takes prideful in the drink. She is neither she is a bad bartender, she will get no tip. There is a generosity outside of bars on the weekends. A roar of lifted spirits, I ask a stranger for a cigarette to which he obliges. It’s stopped raining, the post-spring air floats around me and its like that first small laugh after a cry. A sign that things will press on, as they have too.
I wait outside your building for 10 and a half minutes. I peer into the lobby from the outside and watch as the digital monitors track which floor the elevator is currently on. 28,13,5. No 17th floor visits, you aren’t ready yet. Just has the true nature of my impatience begins to manifest you step out of the elevator. The 15 minutes you made me wait is nothing compared to the eons of beauty that rest on your face. All made up and tall. A new curl in your hair, I’m happy you exist, I‘m happy I‘m part of your existence. You tell me a cab would only take 8 minutes. That’s all the info I need to began wildly waving toward traffic hoping a taxi sees my beacon. We wrangle one. I ask him does he know where Geisha Lounge is, I cant understand the words under his accent, but I’m sure whatever series of grunts and coos he muttered meant ‘No’. I scan my phone for the text message my cousin sent me with the address. I find it and I tell the cabby, making sure to emphasize the ’West’ in ’West Milwaukee.’ Any other accidental direction on the axis would prove fatal for my modest budget. He says he’s taking the highway, its bordering on 12:30 and the roads should be clear so I don’t object. If there is one thing I’ve learned from taking cabs in Chicago its not to fall asleep in the backseat. However, if there are two things I’ve learned from taking cabs, its that there are about 4 ways to get to any single destination. The roads of Chicago stretch out and mingle often. Laid out like the flaky rules in a child’s imagined game. One second you could be in a completely new pocket of the city, full of foreign sights and new possibility only to turn the corner and find your favorite McDonalds and that club your friend dragged you to last August. On the ride there I notice a dullness in your smile, the placid one you wear when you’re annoyed by me. I’m not sure what I did, and I’m paying for the cab and probably the majority of the drinks tonight, so I deduce the source of your contention can’t be me and if it is, all will soon be absolved after I open the door for you and cart you into the bar. As we pull up to Geisha Lounge I notice the hand you placed on my knee is a different hand. It’s limp like a dead fish, not the usual warm loving death grip. We get out the cab. You go first and I trail you to the door, the bouncer looks you up and down, as amazed as any man would be, then asks for ID. Everything checks out then he says the cover is 20 bucks. The strings of the violin in my head pluck and you turn around with that pseudo embarrassed face. I’m outraged that Geisha has the outward audacity to charge anything over 7 dollars, I tell the bouncer that I’m there for my cousins party, he says he didn’t have a list but if I could get her out here to talk to him he’d let me in for 10 dollars. Still a steep price, but I agree, as I take out my phone to make the call the bouncer notices my shoes and says I can’t get in with sneakers. I look at him right in his big fat head, the fat rolls on the back of his head resembling hotdogs and a snicker and say ‘Rad.’ sarcastically. My cousin answers and I try to tell her they wont let me in, but its no use. She can’t hear me over the music. It never fails, no matter how loud an event is people will always call and people will always answer their phones. As if the satellites in space that bounce our calls have special noise canceling waves that activate when there’s too much background feedback. We both yell in our phones, but its no use, it’s like trying to tell a secret across the grand canyon. You look at me, that same smile. The one that conveys your beauty and your disdain for me equally and elegantly. You ask; ‘What now?’. We are in the heart of Wicker and if we can’t find a good time in the Heart of Wicker at 1 a.m we aren’t the adventures we think we are. We head to evil olive. You don’t make me hold your hand, I consider grabbing yours but then I get a text from my cousins friend at the party. She asks where I’m at and why couldn’t I get in. The tall pretty one I’ve known all my life. She’s pretty cool and is way over do for a humping. But I love you, way more than a potential hump. I’ve loved before, and it is possible I could love after. But this is the closet I’ve ever got to perfect. If love is art, you and I are a Salvador Dali painting, while the other have been Andy Warhol. Fun but at the end of the day just a can of soup. Uncooked soup. We get to Evil Olive and the bouncer scenario plays out this time my shoes are okay and the cover is only five. You walk in before me and the bouncer tells me I'm with the ‘baddest girl in the club’ I say almost without thought; ‘Yeah, you get over her quick.’ He laughs and asks to search my bag. I open my messenger bag and its just my folded up work clothes. The khakis and the staff shirt remind how much I really ain’t cut out for a 9 to 5. How much working dead in jobs makes me want to do better in school. I think about how in a week it’ll be June 3rd. My paycheck comes in June 3rd. I think about my hard earned money, I think about how I promised we’d get real high and get oriental massages. I’ve never taken a girl to get a massage, I’ve never even taken a girl to the movies. I'm new to this stand up guy routine, but I don't hate it. He’s done checking my bag and I walk in.
We make a B-Line to the bar and immediately I notice a girl with half her head shaved. The other half is the sort of auburn blonde color. She has nice lips and her make up is right. She’s sexy, like a catfish fillet to a homeless man. She’s no you, by any stretch, but still worthy of a hump down. She walks up a stair case to what I assume is a VIP section. I kiss you on the cheek and give it that extra second of contact, my way of writing you a poem without all the hassle of rhyming and sounding cliché. Transferring Shakespeare through kisses is hard but I think sometimes I nail it with you. I order us two shots, then two more, then you get two more, then I slap down my last 20 and get us two more. Four shots in under 10 minutes, hardly a record but still impressive. We share a dance, the goofy bouncing kind, not the booty grinding kind. It’s close to comfortable, and that’s a incredible. It may have been the first time I’ve ever had fun dancing in public. A good dance should be all knowing but never judging. We got close that night.
We have a cigarette outside and the generosity of the night and the club is alive in the air. We strike up a conversation with some Greek guys, he says I’m lucky to have you. I say I know, you look at me but I can’t look back, its awkward and embarrassing and too much mushiness makes me tired. He says he likes my hair and that you’re lucky to have me, you say that I’m ‘Pretty great.’ The Greek guys say they’ll buy us drinks but what they really mean is they’ll buy you drinks and begrudgingly get me some. Perks of not being outwardly possessive, besides I’m not threatened by these guys, they haven’t what it might take to pull you away from me, not like anyone could if I didn’t let them. My cousins tall, busty friend texts me. Telling me she’s waiting outside at Geisha, I say I’ll be there in a minute. I have no intention of bringing you. I’ll devise a plan to slink away. I good at that.
