I Can Never Finish What I Sta

So I drank. Anything that followed was a blur, quick successions of moments and offhand conversations with faces in places under circumstances I’d never recall or understand. Chatting up a fat girl in Soho, a round of shots with college kids in a sports bar that had blue and orange team logos across the walls. I remember a row of people wearing the same white shirt lined down each side of the bar - work friends. Coworkers. Co-everyone will know what you do tonight and talk about it in the break room so you’d better act right. Reserved fun, constrained recklessness, not a soul willing to let it all go and enjoy the night.

Challenge accepted.

One of them, a bulky prep Joe-Yale looking prick, almost gave me another black eye for putting the moves on his girl. He let me slide when I bought him a drink to apologize and I somehow convinced him I was gay. His name was something with an S and he played football, had these big burly shoulders and a scowl on his face that made it look like he wanted to punch anything he saw.

“You don’t look gay…” he said eyeing me close.

“Exactly, that’s why I can never get laid. You’d be surprised how picky we homosexuals are.”

“What’s with the black eye?”

“My ex boyfriend used to beat me.”

And he bought it, fucking wholesale. Kept asking me questions and buying me drinks all night. I even made the mistake of giving him my phone number, my real number, and he went on to text me for a whole week saying things like “Ray-Gay!” That’s what he called me because I told him my name was Ray. “Ray-Gay! party 2nite u shuld cum lots of homo duds.”

What a fuckin’ idiot, I would think, as I grabbed my coat and asked him for the address.