Sweetness doesn't often touch my face

The following story is as long and unpleasant as the following dog is cute:

(picture stolen from internet)

Chao took me to play poker at his coworker's house, and on the way home he declared that he wanted to get a beer. It was nearly one in the morning, so we just went to the bar next to my apartment. We got a couple beers and went out to the patio so that Chao could smoke a cigarette. We stood around talking for about five or ten minutes when the only other people out there called over and said, "You guys seem to have interesting stories, why don't you come sit with us." So we did.

They introduced themselves as Laverne and Shirley, and we talked about the housing market while we had two more beers. While Laverne was away from the table, Chao asked Shirley how she knew Laverne, and Shirley said that Laverne hosted the trivia night that she went to. Chao asked Shirley where that trivia event took place and Shirley listed off all of the trivia nights Laverne hosted, which seemed a clear sign that she was a little suspicious of us. Laverne, on the other hand, demonstrated absolutely no concern for her personal safety whatsoever.

So Laverne returns, Chao asks her about the trivia hosting thing. She says she makes $75 a night hosting trivia, and that otherwise she is an unemployed writer. At this point it occurred to me who she was, so I asked what her last name was and told her that I had seen her articles in one of the local weeklies. She said that she had quit the weekly and took a job as a travel writer with the local daily before learning that her editor at the new job was a nutcase, and the entire department was restaffed.

Last call was announced and we ordered one last beer. As we drank these last beers, Laverne started telling Chao about a Korean guy she used to date, and how wonderful Asians are, etc., while occasionally proclaiming to Shirley, "I think these guys should give us a ride home." Chao was obviously pretty uninterested, but I think he could tell that I liked the idea of hanging out with the legendary local journalist, so he agreed to take them home, at which point Laverne dashed into the nearby 7-11 and pickup up a half case of Tecate. Chao and I lagged behind a bit, and I said to Chao, "I think Laverne likes you," and he replied, "Yeah, I could get laid tonight for sure, but let's just have one beer and then leave." When Chao and I finally made it into the 7-11, Laverne was at the counter telling the Middle Eastern dude who works the overnight shift that he was the most handsome man that she had ever seen. Seriously.

She didn't have enough money to pay for both the Tecate and her American Spirits, so I covered the rest and we walked back over to the bar and got into Chao's car. She lived like ten blocks from the bar we were at, so we get there fast and she pops open her macbook and pulls up a youtube video for "this awesome Puscifer song." The house was overrun with dogs, and there was a cat in the mix there somewhere, and Chao immediately made a break for the back porch.

Ante up with your ass 'cause you ain't got a penny

Laverne and Shirley smoked a joint. I had a couple beers, told the girls about the Shellac show, and told Laverne that she looked like David Wain. Actually, I wanted to tell her that she looked like David Wain, but I took the coward's way out and told her that she reminded me of David Wain. She told me how much she loved Stella, and said that David Wain had made a movie recently. I asked her if she meant "Role Models." She said that she did, and that it was awesome. Shirley confirmed that it was, in fact, awesome.

I put on a Band of Horses song. A minute or so into the song Laverne shouts, "what the fuck is this?" I told her it was "Cigarettes, Wedding Bands" by Band of Horses and she said, "I like 'Funeral,' but all of their other songs suck. All of their songs suck except for 'Funeral.'" I stopped "Cigarettes, Wedding Bands," and put on "Funeral" instead.

Chao finally came back in the house, and I started to get pretty drunk. Laverne and I being the drunkest people there, it seems like we pretty much dominated the conversation from that point on, talking mostly about music and her writing. Earlier in the night she had mentioned that she was writing "a book," but when I began prodding her about it later on she was not very forthcoming. After she asserted that Alice in Chains was "pretty much the only band she even cared about," I told her that she could write her book about the rumored hideous last weeks of Layne Staley's life. She interpreted this as thinly veiled mockery, and called me a fucker.

Chao went back outside, and for several minutes I ramped up the sarcasm until it was to the point that every time I said anything, Laverne would get out of her chair, walk over and punch me five or six times. After a few rounds of this I told her that I wasn't being sarcastic, it was just this condition I had that made it sound that way. I got a case of the giggles because I didn't realize where I had taken it from until after I said it, and once I realized it, the whole sketch started playing in my head. Through my laughter I asked Laverne and Shirley if they, by the way, liked the Kids in the Hall. They both laughed, but I wasn't sure if it was polite laughter or uncomfortable laughter.

Chao came back inside. Shirley put on Richard Thompson doing "1952 Vincent Black Lightning," then told us about her job as a planner for the Parks Department. One of the dogs proceeded to chase Chao around the room, humping his leg every time he stopped moving. It was about 3:30 at this point, and Shirley left a few minutes later. Chao went back outside.

A girl could feel special on any suchlike

Laverne told me that she wanted Chao to leave. "No problem," I said, "I'll go get him and we'll get out of here." She told me that I was supposed to stay. Chao walked back in.

I told Chao that he didn't have to wait for me, I could walk home. He jumped at the chance to get the fuck out of there.

The minute Chao left, Laverne set her glasses down on the table, positioned a chair directly in front of mine and leaned into me. I gave her a hug. She said something like, "you and I should be together." It didn't make a lot of sense, but I think it was supposed to sound sexy or convey an invitation to molest her. In any case, we stopped hugging. She sat looking at me for a few seconds and disgustedly exclaimed, "give me my fucking glasses."

I handed the glasses to her and she put them on, stood up, walked over to the table and took them back off and set them down. She walked back over to me, sat down on my lap, took a long drink of wine (all of the beer was gone at this point, so we were now splitting a bottle of white wine), and kissed me.

We made out for a few minutes before she mentioned that we should get some "blow." I was all like, "yeah, that sounds rad." "Can you get some?" she asked. I told her I didn't know, but I could make some calls. For reasons known only to God and alcohol, I called Ezra, who groggily answered the phone only to hear, "Hey, do you know where I can get some coke?" He spent some time giving the query actual consideration, bless his heart, before informing me that I was fucking insane to be calling him at 4:30 in the morning looking for coke. He later told me that he was confused until he heard a girl's voice in the background, at which point he realized that I was with a prostitute, or more precisely, a "coke whore," eliminating his confusion.

While I was failing to get coke we had finished off the bottle of wine and the sun had started to rise. Laverne grabbed me by the hand and led me into the bedroom and said, "I want you to get into bed with me." So I got in bed with her. We kissed a little more and she stopped and said, "Your mouth tastes like shit." I agreed and asked her what she thought I should do about it. "I think you should fuck me," she answered.

In a sense too far gone from love.

Seeing no reason, at this point in the night, to break my remarkable streak of bad decisions... Thirty seconds later, the dog that had been humping Chao all night started licking my head.

I sat down on the floor next to the bed and tried to talk to her. I realized at this point that she was totally out of it, alternating between seemingly being asleep and giving me conflicting instructions about whether I should treat her body like a temple or a playground. I suddenly felt like the biggest asshole in the world.

I walked outside and picked a rose. I walked back inside and set the rose next to her on the bed and kissed her on the forehead. As I walked out of the room she said, "lock the fucking door on your way out."

Chao called me the next day. He told me how great he thought Laverne and Shirley were, and asked if we were going to go out with them again. I told him I thought it was unlikely, that I would guess that Laverne would be embarrassed by or guilty over the whole thing, especially considering that she lives with her boyfriend. He asked, "Why would she be embarrassed, it's not like anything happened?" "Yeah," I said, "I don't know." He told me that Laverne kept kicking him in the crotch, and that she tried to kiss him, but he was a gentleman. He is a gentleman.

I, as I have always maintained, am a fucker.

Yeah, its over now, but I can breathe somehow.