The Argument for Not Going Out

In my new, Kennette-free state, I suddenly get a lot of friends and lowlifes calling me to hang out. Being an ornery, people-hating sort, I typically prefer to stay in with my beer and my porn and my elaborate counterfeiting equipment. But when my man Rousseaux called me Friday night, I gave in, and before I'd barely taken off my tie from the day's work, we were on our way to Providence.

So we got to the bar and ordered some food and some drinks. And the waitresses were plenty hot and some of the girls standing around us even hotter. And Rousseaux started talking like some character in a Judd Apatow film, offering up his strategy for getting both of us laid. And as I haven't so much as kissed a girl in a couple months, I was eager to hear it.

Then, suddenly I see a manicured hand reach for one of my fries. I look up and see a girl, probably in her early 30s, smiling and munching food what I'm paying for.

"You're cute as a button," she says, and tweaks my motherfucking nose like I'm in the second grade, then walks off.

"Pretty girls are the only people in the world who can get away with that shit," I said to Rousseaux as I watched her disappear to the other side of the bar.

About an hour and four beers later, I'm starting to get the "trouble glow." Rousseaux wants to start minglin' and I swallow the last of my beer and alls of a sudden, I see the Fry Thief sitting down at our table.

"So where are you guys from?" she asks.

"You owe me, I'm guessing, like seventeen cents for that fry," I explain, only half-joking, as times are tight.

Rousseaux busts in with some crazy line about working for the space program and I'm sizing up this girl and trying to get a read on her. She's pretty and seemingly buzzed--like every other girl in the place mind you--although something doesn't seem quite right. But I'm about six beers deep and, as is my way, have to make the first of about eight trips to the men's room. So I excuse myself and leave her for Rousseaux to decode.

And as I get to the men's room door, I feel someone's arms around my waist. It's the Fry Thief.

"Dude, I'm going into the men's room."

"I wanna go in."

"That's yours over there," I said, pointing to the ladies room while nervously scanning this chick's hands for weapons.

So she shrugs her shoulders and moves away and I step in and shut the door and head for the urinal and I see the door moving open a teensy bit and her eyes looking in.

"Hellooooooo," she starts saying.

Now the booze glow is giving way to panic. Who is this nutty chick and what does she want from me? Then her head disappears and the door closes and I zip my fly and wash my hands and slowly open the door. No sign of her. I looked around then walked out, rejoining Rousseaux.

"That girl just tried to follow me into the men's room," I said.

"Huh? Like, to blow you?"

"I don't know, but she's fucking spooky," I said, my eyes detecting her on the other side of the bar now, waving to me and Rousseaux.

"She looks like she's by herself," Rousseaux offered. Still, I'd pretty much had my fill of crazy girl drama so we stationed ourselves closer to the door, deciding to finish our drinks and get outta dodge. As we shuffled out to Rousseaux's car, we hear high heels clunking on the pavement, getting closer.

"Hey, guys."

It's the Fry Thief.

"Does she have a gun?" I ask Rousseaux.

"Where are you guys heading?" she asks.

"Boston."

"Can I get a ride? I just need to get to Taunton."

Now this is where things get complicated. The male brain, saturated with more than a few beers, sees a pretty girl in tight jeans and a mouth that's glistening in the moist, foggy Providence evening air, and instantly wants to say, "Yes, you most certainly can. Anything to get that ass a bit closer to me." The rational, self-preserving side, however, knows that a cute girl who wants to jump into a car with two goofy looking dudes she doesn't know is either a mass murderer or an FBI agent. Still, it was hard to argue with that ass in those Seven jeans.

"Sure," Rousseaux says.

Alls of a sudden, we hear a voice from the door of the bar.

"Wendy!"

We look up and see some skeevy looking, clearly inebriated guy, probably in his mid-to-late fifties, stumbling toward us.

"Fuck," she says. "Can we get in the car? Can we get outta here?"

So the three of us jump in -- with me somehow ending up in the backseat with the girl -- and start up the car as the old dude draggles up to us.

"Are you going with them?" he bellows as Rousseaux starts the car. "Are you going with these guys?"

And before he can get to the car, Rousseaux peels off, and suddenly we're barrelling down I-95, Wendy in tow.

"Who the fuck was that?" Rousseaux asks.

"That was a friend of my uncle's," she says. "My uncle said it was okay to go with him."

Whatever the fuck that means. So the girl kinda siddles a bit closer to me and puts her arm around me and I've got a strange feeling of desire and terror that I actually found a bit soothing. Rousseaux's looking at us in the rear view and he and I exchange that infamous "what the fuck is going on here" glance.

Then her phone rings. And she starts shouting at whoever's on the line in a language that isn't English. It wasn't Spanish, either. German, maybe? Either way, I immediately figured that she was delivering her coded message to whomever was supposed to meet us at the pre-determined stop in Taunton and rob and shiv me and Rousseaux, so I said, "R, just head to Taunton center. Let her out there."

"I actually wanna go closer to Raynham," she tells us.

"Sorry, we can only go to the center. We have somewhere else to be."

"Where you goin'," she asks. "You guys got any coke? You wanna party?"

The answers, of course, were no and no. And as the things pouring out of her mouth were increasingly freaky and as we still weren't 100% certain she wasn't going to pull a gun and shoot us, Rousseaux stepped on the gas, and I gently retracted the hand I was oh-so-carefully moving closer to the curve of her derriere. We got to Taunton center and she got out of the car, but not before hitting us up for bus money.

And Rousseaux and I made a pact: No more giving rides to drunk chicks being chased by old skeevs. I think we can live with that.

So. Anyway. Next weekend, I'll be at my place, just watching some DVDs and shit. Do drop by.