“Hey Curtis! What do you think this chick will look like? He says she’s an auditor. Came into the store to take a look at the books… end of the beginning of the year kind of thing.”
“I bet she’s a big-titted thing. You know Tommy. At least when he is drunk his sight seems to only scan from shoulder to waist. Like his neck’s got a hitch or something. He’s an ugly motherfucker. I bet her tits look like a million dollars and her face like a bag of dogshit.”
I order another boilermaker and things are starting to get a bit swirly. I can’t believe he is doing this shit to me. The college girls are starting to arrive and all of the pool tables are filled up. There’s one with red hair that I swear keeps looking my way. She’s okay… a little like Sissy Spacek but with a better figure.
I go lay 50 cents down on the table just to be near her. See what she will do. I know this game. Shit! I know it better than anyone. Since Marla left me a year ago, I play it all the time. College girls, late at night at the bar, me dressed like a desk job. They think of the future. Plan on babies. Imagine fathers, houses, station wagons and swimming pools.
What she doesn’t know is I still live in the student section of town. Probably no further than three blocks from her. In an upstairs apartment I have rented since senior year. I keep fucking up. Eight years and I haven’t figured my way out of the place.
Still, she looks like Sissy Spacek with larger T&A, though. I linger long enough and she asks me will the big spender buy her a beer so I tell Curtis to ring up two Millers and put them on T’s tab. He’ll be here soon. She asks who T is?
“Just my sonofabitchin best friend who is out on a date tonight, and running late to be here, and I wanna kick his ass…”
“You like him that much?” she says.
“English major?” I ask.
“Slavic languages.”
I knew I was in for it. It never happens like this. It really doesn’t. First, I am waiting for Tommy. Now I am talking with a woman who knows more grammatical cases than any language should allow for. I was thinking of retracting my 50 cents and going back to the bar, but she grabs my elbow and says, “Don’t hold it against me.” How could I.
She goes with me to the crook and we talk about her. She tells me about how she grew up in suburban Detroit. How her father worked for GM. An engineer. She asked what my name was and told me hers was Emma, Emma Sadler.
I asked her would she go home with me, and she said no.
“It sounds like a great proposition, but I have made some promises for the night that I have to keep.”
Didn’t even sound like English. I was sure that it was some sort of Russian turn of phrase. Ways to turn a drunk man down without him having a clue what has happened.
I started to wondering about the promises bit. The slight Asian guy with perfect knowledge of geometry has run through the table and my 50 cents already. Is it him? What’s a promise anyway? Marla, didn’t know shit about promises. Came home telling me how his cock was like the cardboard inner-tube of a paper towel roll. That she thought we had an open relationship. That she didn’t do anything with it… yet.
I didn’t tell Emma any of this. Hell, it’s just Thursday night at a pool hall. What’s a boy to do?
Was playing: Asleep by
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