They're both trying to figure out if I'm
a womanizer. Before they talked to me though, they were
sure I was one.
My sister had half-jokingly called me that
two days ago. She loves me but has told me before, with
love in her smile, "You're exactly the kind of guy I hate."
And when I told Brian (p.k.a. MY OLDEST AND DEAREST DOWNSTAIRS
NEIGHBOR), he agreed; I am a womanizer.
These were both fun debates. And I shook
their confidences.
"First off, I am not a womanizer, because
womanizer's win." I said, vehemently. "And I never
win, I just try hard; harder than those around me." I
actually said that last. But I wish I'd started off with
that point.
"Secondly, I rarely, RARELY have
sex with any of these women…because, Three: I don't lie
or manipulate, and, to me, you must scheme, lie,
and win, to earn the title. I'm not a womanizer, just
a harmless butt sniffing dog."
My sister said, "You have the same attitude
though." And I realized, she's right; if I was better
looking, I would have become a womanizer.
All these accusation were brought about
by the pattern that has evolved during my hiatus in Tampa;
I don't have an apartment, or a car, so I have slept in
a different woman's bed every night's bed.
My sister still finds my actions mildly
scandalous, although, even though I wanted it to, nothing
sexual happened on any of those three nights. That sucks.
It makes me feel a little impotent. But to Brian and my
sister I am Marquis De Sade.
Last night it was a very beautiful girl.
Again, the mention of her name in Tampa society illicits
crazy stories and warnings. But it's the same thing that
follows everyone else's name around here. It follows mine
like a stray dog I accidentally paid too much attention
to. This place is just too small. I can't wait to live
in a city where I can spout off about a girl I'm interested
in and not a god damned friend of mine will have a clue
who I'm talking about. Every new woman I meet in Tampa;
they've wigged out on a boyfriend, cheated a roommate
out of money, something. Every face that is utterly fresh
for me to wake up to has been gazed upon in morning light
by several of my friends; guaranteed. Every time. I need
to move.
But, so last night at The Castle, I was
running off at the mouth to this new pretty girl about
this cycle, all the local shit talking, all the Tampa
gossip and negativity. Those fucking assholes. But instead
of getting on the tip with me and relating, all my talk
just made her paranoid.
"Well, what have you heard about me?" She
asked. The club was especially dark where her and I sat
in the low slung velvet couch, next to Brian's DJ booth,
but I could see her face very well and hear her voice,
because Brian always keep the levels reasonable.
"What I'm trying to say is that we should
all ignore the shit talking." I rebutted.
"Yeah, me too. I agree." She said. "But
what did you hear about me? C'mon."
"No, if I tell you, then you get all defensive
and…if you're a good person you shouldn't even worry…I
don't want to propagate the bullshit."
"Well then, just tell me who said
it then." She commanded. But I didn't relent and she wasn't
happy.
"Well, if you've heard I have an STD, that's
not true." She said. I liked her more for saying that,
since Melissa Howard, the Tampa girl from Real World New
Orleans, once told a gaggle of fine women the same about
me. "But if you've heard that I date a lot of guys," she
added. "That's true." She smiled after that and looked
very pretty, though I'd made her nervous.
Still, somehow she stuck with me the entire
evening, until the club closed at 3 a.m. When the lights
came on I asked her, "You wouldn't happen to have a couch
I could crash on, do you?"
"Yeah," she said. "Actually, I need to
wake up early for work." She works at Starbuck's coffee
at an outdoor strip mall downtown. "So I was gonna sleep
at Starbuck's. You can come with me."
When we reached the strip mall, she had
the key and she gave me the tour of all the boring back
rooms as we looked for a place to sleep. This Starbuck's
didn't have couches, only soft, comfy chairs. But I can't
sleep sitting up. And the entire front of the store was
a window. We swam around inside, in the dark, for anyone
to see if they cared to squint and press their faces to
the glass. This made me uncomfortable.
During the tour, she pointed out a desk
upstairs where she said she'd made it with a co-worker,
and several other uncomfortable areas she thought might
work for us. But in the end we couldn't find a place any
more suitable for sleeping than the big, regal chairs.
We gave ourselves to the chairs and sat in quiet night,
where even a corporate coffee shop can seem cool at 3:45
a.m. when you're with a pretty 22-year old woman.
"We should just get a motel." She said.
"I'll pay for it."
I lit up inside. "Yeah, that sounds adventurous."
I nodded eagerly, remembering the last time I'd stayed
in an American hotel, with my ex-girlfriend, at Disney
World, in 1995. We fought the whole time. I stopped nodding.
"Are you serious?" I asked her.
She nodded affirmative and we re-arranged
the chairs as they had been before we'd tried to make
them into sleeping apparati. She locked up Starbuck's,
it would be boring again in the morning. We walked into
the street.
As she drove, I knew there was no way I
could really let her pay for a hotel, and I knew that
the closest thing to fit in my wallet would be some rat
pad on Nebraska Avenue. Nebraska's ubiquitous, black,
transvestite hookers strolled with weird, bad outfits,
staring at the nice car in which this girl drove me around,
looking for a hotel. I thought of all the wonderful, happy,
hookers of Costa Rica. I'd never seen more beauty.
As we pulled into the first hotel, I asked
her, "So, why can't we stay at your place."
"Well, I live with my parents," she admitted.
"We could stay there, and sneak out in the morning. I've
done that plenty…"
I pondered that option as I walked inside
the small glass aquarium at the front of the hotel, to
find out the price of a room for two. Inside the aquarium
was fly paper, a dirty ashtray with cigar butts, and must.
It was a hotel for crackheads and whores. I rang the front
desk buzzer and looked at the clock: 4:06 a.m.
And Indian fellow in long-sleeve, button-dwon
shirt, and tight white, Fruit-of-the-Loom's came out,
rubbing his eyes, and told me the price was $45-a-night.
"Whoa!" I accidentally yelled out, into
the tiny sound-holes cut in the glass partitian between
me and the inkeeper. I walked back to her nice car and
told her the price as I shut her door and sealed us in.
"Fuck that," She said, passing a large black transvestite
as she drove on to the next place, which was also too
expensive, just like the next place, and the next. Every
hotel on skuzzy Nebraska cost at least twice as much as
a beautiful Costa Rican hooker.
By 4:30 a.m., I was sure that she was tired,
and that her zeal for the moment was zapped. I expected
her to drop me off to stay at my sister's, and drive on
to sleep, alone, in her own quiet bed. Instead, once more,
she invited me to sneak into her parent's house…
I'm too busy to
finish this entry. Tomorrow I leave for New Orleans, where
I'll be living for a few months (in the fall I teach English
in Spain). But until then I'm trying to send my book out
to publishers and send some stories to journals and stuff.
I need to start working on making this a career so I don't
have to work at restaurants anymore. So, I can't finish
this entry right now. Besides, there's not much point
in finishing this one since nothing ended up happening.
We slept in my friend Jack's bed on opposite sides of
the mattress.