Elmoe the giant

I was once again sitting at the bar of some nameless club in some forgotten town, drinking beer, smoking a cigarette and staring at the bartender's ass; I thought she was nice looking, but too serious for my taste, though I supposed you'd have to be serious in order to remember a dozen or so orders and fill them in less than a minute. Mike, my buddy, had been dragging me to bars since the summer began, trying, unsuccessfully, to get me laid.

Mike wandered off in search of a date, and hadn't returned for quite some time. Normally I would have been worried‑‑I worry too much‑‑but the beer was making me feel good, and the music, though not quite to my liking, was rather soothing to the soul, and my soul, as so often I find, needed soothing.

A hard day at work pushing computers and software on naive customers had taken its toll on my weary mind. I was ready to just relax. I had no chance of meeting any women. Every time Mike dragged me to these bars, I never got lucky. But to tell you the truth, I was never really looking to get lucky despite my supposed lack of self this and self that. This always confused Mike, but I was never easily understood by any of my friends, especially Mike. He came to these places looking for one thing, and it wasn't the beer.

Mike eventually came back to the bar, took a seat next to me, grabbed my pack of cigarettes and lit one. He removed his shades (he had a habit of wearing them no matter what time of day or night it was), looked at me and smiled.

"Well," he said. "Where's my five bucks?"

"You're kidding," I asked. "You got laid?"

I said that too loud and received disgusted looks from two girls a few seats down from us. Mike just smiled some more, shook his head, then ordered two more beers.

One night, when nothing much was happening and the bars all seemed to be dead, Mike and I began a tradition of betting. We'd bet each other‑‑five bucks a shot‑‑that each of us would meet a girl and have sex of some sort before the night was through. I'd always loose the bets, and, I suppose since he felt sorry for me, instead of making me pay, he'd buy me beer. I never minded losing too much; I rather enjoyed sipping on free beer and thinking about all those little things that one tends to think about when left to himself in a crowded, noisy place.

"Which one was it?" I asked, looking aimlessly into the ever growing crowd. "She still here?"

"No, man. She had to go. I got her number, though."

"What did she look like?"

"Man, she was blonde. A true blonde," he said, licking his lips and stressing the word true.

Sometimes I envied Mike. But then I kind of felt sorry for him. He always had the girls, but he always seemed so damn lonely. He often got telephone numbers, but as often as he got them, he lost them just the same. I think he enjoyed the anonymity of one night stands.

"Hey man," Mike said. "It's your turn. If you get laid or somethin', I'll owe ya double."

"No thanks," I said, not knowing if he'd believe me. "I'm looking for something a little more substantial like a wife and kids. You know, marriage, rice, champagne, honeymoon. That kind of thing."

"Fuck that shit," he said, shaking his head and stroking his thin, blonde moustache. He often said that to me, no matter what the circumstances were; and he was always stroking his moustache‑‑a nervous habit, I suppose. I think that "Fuck that shit" was always his favorite expression. I'd have preferred something a little less harsh, but I usually just went along with his choice of language. I hoped, with my influence, he'd learn to speak better, but I gave up the crusade on proper language years ago.

Mike had too many "long term" relationships that failed miserably‑‑the girl would usually get pregnant or run off with some forty year old, married man‑‑so I didn't really blame him for doing the things he did. He wanted to enjoy what little that life afforded him, and if he wanted to go to bars and have uninhibited, no‑strings‑attached sex, not worrying about any sort of diseases, then I wasn't going to stop him.

He took another gulp of his beer, twisted in his seat toward the dance floor (I twisted with him to see who he was eyeing up next), eyed another girl, or so I suspected from the glimmer in his eyes, and walked over to her. I didn't see who he set his eyes on‑‑the crowd engulfed him--but knowing his taste, she was probably tall, brunette, and big busted. And of course she had to have legs up to her neck.

I ordered another beer, this time from a rather muscular, burly looking male bartender. The serious looking female bartender probably went on break; I pictured Mike dancing with the her, then taking her to his car and giving her one hell of a cocktail‑‑the alcohol was working its way to my brain.

I turned away from the dance floor. Watching men and women gyrating that close to one another always depressed me and made me feel very uncomfortable. And when I'm at a bar drinking, and if I get uncomfortable, I manage to drink whatever is in my hand very quickly. So my fresh bottle of beer didn't last long. I watched the bartender serve drinks for a while and tried to figure out how he was able to remember who ordered what. If I were a woman, I'd say his ass was just as cute as the other bartender's, but I'm not, so I won't.

I ordered another beer, then realized my bladder was signaling my brain that I had something urgent to attend to. I looked around for a sign saying REST ROOMS. Every bar I've ever been to had a sign that said REST ROOMS. Of course I found it on the opposite side of the club, past the dance floor and past a horde of people standing around each other, socializing, drinking, laughing and smoking.

I decided to chance it. I didn't want to give up my seat‑‑it was hard enough trying to find those seats. I left my beer and pack of cigarettes on the bar in front of my seat hoping that someone, if they wanted to sit, would get the hint. I made my way over to the rest room and was faced with a long line of drunk, beer‑swilling hogs; a very large beer‑swilling hog, almost giant‑like and obviously drunk, was pounding ferociously at the locked men's room door with one hand and cupping his crotch with the other.

"Let me in, I gotta go," he kept yelling. "I gotta go!"

The line began to dwindle. No one had the courage to wait behind this behemoth of a man. But I stood my ground with a few brave souls, not so much from courage, but from a painful necessity burning deep within our loins. Some little old man, also pretty skunked, came stumbling out of the bathroom, tossing a very creative collection of profanity and insults in the giant's general direction. Of course the giant ignored this; he was in too much pain and I'm sure he couldn't even begin to comprehend what the little man was saying.

The ten minute wait in line was worth it and I found my way back to my still empty seat. I was again minding my own business and drinking more beer while staring at the napkins in the napkin holder in front of me and flipping a cocktail straw between my fingers, when I heard someone sit down on the stool next to mine.

"No luck?" I asked, accidently flipping the cocktail straw between my legs and onto the floor. I assumed it was Mike and didn't bother looking up.

"Oh, I wouldn't say that," said a strange, seductive voice.

I turned and looked, embarrassed as hell, at the most incredible looking woman I'd ever seen. She was sitting on Mike's stool, her legs crossed and looking sexy; she was eyeing me with a rather wide, drunken, but a sure‑of‑herself kind of smile. My face must have turned a million shades of crimson, though in the poor light I'm sure she couldn't tell.

She was blonde, wore a short, red, low cut dress, dark stockings, and very high heels. By her glassy eyes I could tell she had quite a few drinks in her.

"Oh, pardon me," I said, avoiding her stare and focusing on her ankles that were just as seductively embarrassing for me. "I thought you were a friend. He's been looking for women all night. Getting lucky, too." I laughed nervously, then shut up after realizing I was saying more than I wanted to, and feeling like I was making a fool of myself all at the same time.

"And you're not?"

"Not?"

"Getting lucky," she reminded me.

"Oh‑‑well‑‑ I haven't really been looking," I said, trying to keep what little "cool" remained in me. I was, however, getting very nervous. I get that way with women, drunk or not. I could never talk to them, and looking one straight in the eye was, for me, one of those great feats of courage that took more nerve than I could ever muster.

"Oh," she replied. "That's too bad."

"Well, it's not that I'm not looking for any particular reason," I said, trying to regain my fumble. "It's just that I've‑‑well‑‑I've been‑‑sort of‑‑coming to these damn bars all summer, and Mike gets lucky, and I sit here and get drunk, which, in a way, is lucky since he buys the beer."

I was rambling, I knew it, but I continued to ramble. I ramble until I get nervous, then the words, instead of rolling smoothly from my tongue, sort of waddle and trip over it.

"It's just that women," I continued, "never seem to be attracted to me. I attract flies easier than I do people, especially women."

"Well," she said, her long blonde hair, smooth face, high cheekbones, relatively small nose, and red lips caught my eye all at once, "you attracted me."

"Oh." I said, taking some short, nervous sips from my beer.

"Do you dance?" she asked.

Now the nerves kicked in, and although it was warm, almost too warm what with that "ever growing" crowd, I was beginning to shake, though, at first, not too noticeably.

"Sorry, no," I began. "Never learned‑‑uh‑‑really. Well ‑‑uh‑‑sort of. What I mean is that, well, what I'm trying to say is that‑‑I never really learned‑‑um‑‑too well‑‑that is‑‑sort of."

By this time I was cringing at the sound of my own words. I was loosing control of my tongue, and soon, I felt, my bladder again as well. Mike would have thrown back in my face all those years of preaching about his horrible speech.

"Would you like to try? I'm sure I could teach you."

There was something oddly attractive about her. I had just noticed it for the first time since she sat beside me. I looked for a brief moment at her eyes. I could see, from what little light the bar emitted, that her eyes were a brilliant blue, at least I'm sure they would have been in the sunlight. There was something honest about them. But that could have been the glaze over both our eyes making me think that.

She was, by most standards, a "looker." She was beautiful, but what struck me as odd was that she talked so smoothly. I was the bumbling fool of incoherent syllables, and she seemed to be some great goddess of the true‑spoken word. She wasn't, in other words, nervous at all. That's when strange things occurred to me and my drunken imagination kicked in.

She seemed like a "pro" at what she was doing, like she picked up men all the time. I thought, for a moment, that she might have been a prostitute, but by the look of her, an expensive one. Then I thought she may have been a cop in search of a prospective client to bust. Paranoia, something that I've rarely experienced, accosted my emotions and I tried thinking of some excuse that would set me free from this dangerously exquisite creature.

"Well?" she asked, snapping me out of my daze.

I looked away from her again, staring at the beer I was absentmindedly rolling between my hands.

"I don't really like to dance. I‑‑well‑‑I usually just come here with Mike, my buddy, to drink‑‑uh‑‑um," I looked at my bottle trying to remember what it was that I was drinking, "beer."

Then I began looking around again, but the place was even more crowded than it had been. I couldn't see Mike, but I imagined him in the back seat of his Camaro with another catch getting a blow and a phone number.

"Come on," she said, "You'll like it. The music is good tonight and I can show you how to move."

She touched my hand, but before I could protest any further, she stood and pulled me gently towards the dance floor. The music was soothing and I felt like moving to it, at least my legs were wobbling to the beat. The alcohol seemed to strip away some of the inhibitions I had about publicly humiliating myself. She led and I followed, and we both danced. She showed me a few moves and before long I got the hang of it, but I was still unsure of myself as was she. We danced a few fast ones, then a slow dance and by that time we both had enough--I was never the physically fit type. She also seemed to be winded from our short tour of the dance floor, so I led her back to the bar where we sat and drank; she a whiskey sour and me another beer.

"Well, how was that? You did fine for someone who doesn't like dancing."

"Just beginners luck, really."

"Well, now. What else do you like to do?" She asked, smiling and looking me over carefully, and, from what I could make of her blurred expressions, approvingly. At least she liked my dancing, but that wasn't saying much.

I must admit. I'm not all that bad looking. At least I never thought so. I'm no "looker," mind you, but I'm not overweight. I work out at the spa every so often--two or three times a year--and my complexion has improved since high school, leaving few scars from the era of zits. I was just always plain looking, I suppose. I used to sport a beard that, I thought, made me look more distinguished, more intelligent, but had to cut it when I finally landed a job.

"Well, I like to play cards. I like to‑‑well‑‑drink‑‑ um‑‑beer." I showed her my bottle of Miller, smiling and pointing to it like they do in the commercials.

"What else do you like to do?" she asked, laughing at my attempt at a commercial personality.

"Well, I like music. . ."

"Tell me," she jumped in, "What kind of music? I just love music."

"Well," I said, a bit surprised at her enthusiasm, "you'll probably laugh, but I‑‑I like‑‑well‑‑I enjoy classical music." I waited for a reaction, and when I got nothing but a blank stare, I added, "And space music. You know, that New Age stuff that all the record stores like to hide in some dark recess between the rock and roll and the jazz."

She didn't laugh, rather she gave me an almost, but not quite, disappointed look.

"No rock and roll?" she asked with a look of hope.

"Well," I said, thinking about what rock and roll I used to listen to in my not‑so‑long‑ago youth. "I do have a passion for Jethro Tull."

"Really?" she said with some relief. "I like some of his stuff, too."

"You mean their stuff," I corrected her‑‑another one of my terrible habits. I was always correcting people, which, I'm sure, was one of the countless reasons that I've never gotten along with anybody for very long.

"Oh yeah, that's what I meant," she said a bit nervously (for the first time that evening), fidgeting with her purse strap. "I always thought that Jethro Tull was that odd guy who always raised his legs in the air while tooting on his clarinet."

"Flute."

I did it again.

"Oh yeah, flute."

"Look," I said, trying desperately to change the mood. Though the dancing seemed to loosen things up and make the mood of the evening lighter, we were still having trouble hitting it off. It was almost as though she was regretting being at the bar that evening. "Would you care for another drink or something?"

I figured I had nothing else to loose. I was already falling behind in the common interests section of our quickly fading relationship. I didn't think filling both our brains with more alcohol could hurt.

"Sure," she said a little more perky. "I'll have a rum and coke this time."

I told the bartender, he delivered the drinks as quickly and efficiently as he had been all night, and I paid for them. Nothing too extraordinary, but things seemed not to have been going right for me that particular evening. An earthquake could have hit and I wouldn't have been surprised. It was, however, turning out to be much more interesting than any of the other evenings that summer.

She grabbed the drink and took a sip. I watched as she pressed the glass to her "lipstuck" lips. Some of the red rubbed onto her glass, forming the shape of her lower lip, and at that moment I felt like grabbing her and doing obscene things to her face with my tongue. Then I knew what it was that attracted my friend to women and why he seemed to only want one thing from them. The beer, by that time, had been making me feel quite relaxed and allowing my imagination to wander in places that it would normally have avoided. I was, in all sense of the word, drunk, but composed enough not to do anything foolish, though nothing really seemed foolish to me at the time.

There was an uncomfortable pause between the two of us. It seemed to stretch into eternity. It was obvious that she, like me, was trying to grope for something to say. There must have been one thing that was common between both of us. Perhaps she was like Mike and wanted only one thing. I mean, isn't that why people come to bars like this? Isn't that why Mike kept dragging me to places like this, places with a lot of music, single women and booze? I tried not think about it. I just wanted to do one thing, and that was to drink. Still, she was very attractive and she seemed to like me.

I then began looking around me, still trying to think of something to say or do that would rekindle the quickly dying flame we momentarily shared and trying to not look as though I were too desperate lest I burn the whole damn forest down, when I saw, lurking over me, a giant. No, the giant; the one who had been pounding ferociously on the door to the men's room.

I was looking up into a very irate set of small, red eyes; he looked much larger up close. He was looking at me, there was no mistake. And his breath, even from his hulking distance from my face, I could smell was filled with the sour scent of onions, beer, and mustard. His dark moustache glistened and there was an amazing amount of crumbs stuck to it and the sides of his damp face. For the life of me I didn't know what he had been eating, nor did I really want to.

"Drink?" I offered, raising my beer and trying to impress him with my drunken but, I imagined, still charming smile.

He stood ominously over me, silent and cold as a bronze statue.

"Oh will you just leave me alone" said the blonde sitting next to me. Both the giant and I turned towards her; I with a curious, surprised look and he with his non‑ comprehending gawk; a look I was coming to know as the night went on.

"You're always following me. Can't you get it through your thick head that it's over? Have those muscles crowded your brain?"

I stifled a laugh, the giant kept gawking. His lips parted even more as though he may have been trying to say something, but all that came out was a small stream of saliva that dribbled onto his shirt. He was, after all, drunk. And fortunate for those with an ear for correct grammar and intelligent sentences, speechless. The blonde rolled her eyes in disgust then took another sip of her drink, watching the burly bartender's ass with some interest.

"Was dis jerk buggin' ya, Dorene?" He thundered, aiming his comment towards me; all good things, as I'm constantly reminded throughout life, must come to an end.

At that point he grabbed me with two, football sized hands--one on each of my arms--and hoisted me closer to his face, lifting me straight off my seat. My feet were dangling and my beer bottle had dropped to the ground with a thud; beer was foaming all over the floor. Normally I would have been frightened, I would have offered him anything or I probably would have passed out from sheer fear, but I could do nothing but stare into his small eyes and gag on his disgusting breath. And all I could think about was that I never even knew that woman's name until the moment that I was facing certain death. "Dorene" was her name. That's all I kept repeating in my mind.

"As a matter of fact," she said, standing up and jerking forcefully, but with little use, at one of his arms, "I was just getting to know him."

Fearing for my life, I tried to say something in my defense, but looking into his burning eyes, my mind forgot what my tongue was supposed to do, and some incoherent garbage just blurted out of me.

"Now put him down, Elmo, before I get really mad."

I could tell that Elmo was considering her threat, and for a moment I thought as though he might just shrug it off and use me for football practice, but I felt his clenching hands relax. Elmo looked at Dorene, then back to me, then he finally let me go. I missed the seat and crashed to the floor and into a puddle of beer.

Dorene stepped idly over me, she and her seductive ankles ignoring me as though I never existed. I looked up at the two of them and watched in horror the disgusting love scene between them unfold.

"I'm sorry, Elmo, but I needed to get away for a while. I do love you, though. Do you forgive me? Huh, babe?"

Elmo looked down at Dorene, smiled, showing his full set of brilliant white, straight‑as‑an‑arrow teeth, and hugged her. Then with such exhilaration, scooped her up and exclaimed, quite loudly, that he was in love with her and would one day have her baby.

I was confused by his remark and, I suppose, so was everyone else within earshot. But everyone, including the bouncers--something I noticed for the first time--chose to ignore him. Dorene, however, seemed oblivious to his unusual statement and began sucking on one of his earlobes and whispering things into his ear as the giant carried her out of the bar and into the night.

My lower lip, I was sure, was touching the floor; I thought, for a moment, that I was tasting dust. Mike returned once again, his dark shades covering his gleaming eyes. He lit a cigarette, looked down at me and smiled.

"Well," he asked. "Where's my five bucks?"