Intermission

I didn't want my fans (all three of you) to think that I had abandoned Larry again. I think I found out why I only posted three of the stories when I started this blog in 2006. I didn't complete the fourth story. There are quite a few stories in the series, but I wanted to read the whole cycle myself before continuing. So I'm going to need about a week to do that. I hope my readers will have patience while I work on my crap, I mean craft.

Third Date (Chapter Three)

This time I will post the entire story. A few months have passed and Larry's on a third date. Hilarity ensues. The female character is based on a challenge we set up in my writing group to write a story about the same character. We gave her four or five traits and left it at that. This reminds me that I can write a story that isn't 95% dialogue.

Third Date

“So what’s the deal?” she asked. I smiled, liking her tendency to get to the point.

“Friday night. You, me, Rent at the Fox. . .” I said, purposely trailing off.

“That sounds romantic,” she said and soon the conversation was over.

Romance is the thing that gives the woman those Meg Ryan feelings, while the man gets to discover if they really are ribbed for her pleasure. Smart men try to create situations that are perceived as romantic, and women allow them to get away with it through years of supermarket-checkout-line magazine advice.

I didn’t really care about the conventions of romance. All I knew was that a third date was in the books.

The woman who came up with the premise that the third date was the sex date didn’t do a lot of legwork. She probably did nothing more than calculate the average cost of three dates when compared to hiring a lady of the night. Then she justified the calculation to women by saying that three dates was plenty of time to get to know each other. Men have bought into this convention, and the perception has become reality. If a woman gives a man sex before the third date, she’s a slut and he’s a stud. If the third date passes without sex, both parties just move on.

At least that’s what I’ve done. My time and money are valuable.

The number three has excellent parallels in the sports world. You don’t believe that your football team is any good until they win three in a row. Once a team wins three championships, they’re considered a dynasty. The third year is often considered the ‘break out’ year for wide receivers. If a coach has two bad years, he’s getting fired in year three.

I haven’t been in the dating world for a while, so I had to re-familiarize myself with the rules. The third-date thing is more of a guideline than a rule, but it’s solid incentive assuming you can’t rush things a bit. Here are a few of my rules of dating.

Never talk about particulars about an ex-anything. If a woman says “The last guy did so-and-so and it really pissed me off,” try not to do so-and-so, even if that’s sleeping with her roommate who would be willing to offer a third-date exemption. In the early stages of dating, it’s best to pretend that you have no past, unless she asks. Then, if necessary, lie.

If your date refuses to open up on a particular subject, don’t press it. Nell, my two-date companion, still hasn’t let me know where she lives. We met for coffee on the first date and an inoffensive chain restaurant for the second. On the third date, we’re meeting at the Fox. She could be an alien for all I know.

There are signs that tell you whether to proceed. Body language is important. If your date recoils when your feet accidentally touch, and generally avoids body contact of any kind, a good-night kiss is out of the question.

Feel free to go for the extra base. In high school, when a place of your own isn’t a given and playing music while messing around in the back of your car is a romantic standard, girls allow you to progress one base at a time. In college, those rules no longer exist. It took me half a semester to figure that out.

After college, if the woman invites you to her place or vice versa, it’s time for bedroom gymnastics. This doesn’t mean that you get to stay the night. More than once I’ve been pushed out the door before I knew that I was done.

Nell’s not like that. She claims to be a touchy-feely person, but we’ve progressed no further than a lukewarm hug and an ineffectual peck on the lips. The mouth-closed kiss of today is no different than the peck on the cheek, circa 1986. Open your mouth and you’re getting somewhere.

On our first date we met for coffee. I generally despise coffee places. There should be a constitutional amendment against the four-dollar cup of coffee. I drink coffee for two reasons. Reason one is to warm up. Reason two is to get that familiar jolt of caffeine. If you need some kind of milk product in your coffee, you probably should drink something else. Nell ordered a “Decaf skinny white chocolate mocha” with professional flair. She said nothing with equal enthusiasm as we sat and sipped for the next hour.

On our second date we went to a low-key chain restaurant. It’s one of those new concoctions that combines solid but not spectacular food with locally brewed beer of similar quality. The choice of date location probably says something about the enthusiasm level of said date. At the same time, you don’t want to blow your wad, so to speak, on a date when the best you’re going to get is a lukewarm hug and kiss. I ordered a barbeque chicken pizza and an amber ale while Nell went with the chicken fried steak. She ordered a martini. Nell didn’t pass the three-sip mark by the time I paid the check two hours later. We talked about the military-industrial complex and Freud’s mother issues. Actually no, we talked about something. Let me get back to that later.

The third date is time to step things up. Phil, my divorced lawyer friend, purchased tickets to the local opening of the musical Rent a few months ago. He bought them thinking of reconciliation with his ex-wife. When the show date approached, he had a girlfriend instead. I told him of my situation and he agreed to help.

Phil also had a parking pass. I assumed that it was in the lot adjacent to the Fox Theatre, but it turned out to be a sketchy parking garage three blocks from my final destination.

As I waited in the Arcade near the ticket booth, I admired the dressed-to-impress crowd. Some patrons dressed like they were going to a wedding or a prom. A scattered few had on jeans, but for the most part this was a see and be seen evening. My phone rang. I should have turned off the ringer, but technically the date had yet to start.

“Talk,” I said.

“My man Larry,” Desmond replied. “I didn’t think I’d catch you. Aren’t you courting some pretty young thing?”

“I’m in pre-court mode, Des,” I said. He doesn’t love being called Des, but tolerates it from me.

“Listen, man, I know time is moolah, so here’s the pitch. I need some copy, stat.”

“Can’t help you,” I said, eyeing a pixyish brunette wearing the latest from Saran Wrap.

“Is this the same Larry Smith who practically begged me for work just six months ago?”

“It’s not in my time budget right now.”

“Come on, man, it’s quick cash. Fifty bucks for an hour’s work. Take that sweet thing you’re courting out for dessert or something.”

“You know I have this steady thing.”

“Steady things don’t last forever. You’re going to make me go to plan B, you bastard.”

“Knowing you, it’s just a phone call away.”

“It is, but you have talent. The rest of these chuckers shouldn’t be writing for reality TV.”

“I appreciate the offer,” I replied. You never want to alienate a possible source of income.

“You appreciate jack. When you’re balls deep later tonight, think of me.”

“Bye, Desmond.”

At 7:40 I saw her.

I met Nell online.

Eighteen months ago, I helped a friend with a start-up Internet venture. I didn’t do much but help rewrite some of the instructions. I steered clear of the personality portion of the site, including the essay questions designed to draw out the potential Ms. And Mr. Rights. The dating site started local but Don had a plan, and nine months later it was purchased by a huge corporation. He now owns one or two small Caribbean islands.

What Don did before leaving the mainland for good was grandfather me in with a lifetime subscription to the site. He even let me create three different profiles for different dating needs. At first I thought I’d be cute and target my victims, because when I first started I had the audacity to think that I was above meeting someone online. One profile was the strong, silent type who just wanted to cuddle while watching Sleepless in Seattle on the Oxygen network. The second was a slang-slinging player who just wanted to have fun and leave a good-looking corpse. Profile three I saved for something close, but not exactly, myself. I put the least effort into the third profile and it got the most responses. I guess even so-called desperate Internet chicks can smell bullshit.

Over the past six months I checked my site mail on a semi-regular basis. There were times when I’d actually scan someone’s profile before letting her down easy. At least three times I dismissed a girl for a misspelling or flagrant grammar foul without even looking at her picture. I met women at Starbucks, or on the way to get my mail, or in a pinch at Modern Drunkard. E-mail was just a barrier.

One night when in flagrante delicato with a friend with whom I have a mutual understanding, it hit me. I was lonely. The closest thing to intimacy I had felt in the last year was on a long weekend in Asheville with a girl whose last name I couldn’t recall. I had a surgical procedure and my reaction was to all but pay a neighbor who also happens to be a nurse to take care of me when a few kind words would have sufficed. I spent half my working hours hustling for clients who didn’t pay well. The one client that did pay me well had no contact save my weekly assignment. My lack of going through the motions in my work is a point of pride, but I could have gotten away with it lately. Even the smallest acknowledgement of going beyond expectations would have meant the world to me.

Jon Papelbon retired the side in order, which was somewhat of a disappointment because I had to finish quickly. Cindy liked to do it while watching her Red Sox in tense moments. She had the MLB Extra Innings package and invited me over once a week. Nothing beat the sheer joy of our initial encounters in the middle of an eight-game playoff winning streak that included an impossible rally from a 3-0 deficit to defeat the hated Yankees. That was in 2004. We were in such a groove that I mistook it for love for five seconds.

I think we both knew that after the Red Sox won the World Series that it never was going to be the same between us. We met up occasionally out of habit but that was about it. There was no relationship. It was a proxy, and even as that it failed.

I know most men would be satisfied with baseball, beer, and sex, not necessarily in that order. It sometimes bothered me that this situation was fine, that I didn’t want more out of my love life. Then I did something about it.

Nell showed up ten minutes late, looking somewhat wobbly on her medium-heel shoes. She looked good in a simple black dress that flowed gracefully to her knees. I didn’t get the feeling that she cared much for her appearance, but tonight she made an effort on her hair and makeup and it showed. There was a moment of tunnel vision when I saw her and no one else, which was good since the Arcade area was packed. When I approached there was a moment of hesitation followed by a lopsided smile. I didn’t know yet whether that was a good sign or a “oh shit, the white boy spotted me” smile.

It’s easy to make assumptions on the third date based on incomplete information. Falling in love with the tip of the iceberg is what a friend once told me. It was as if Nell just dropped out of the sky and landed on our first date from what I knew about her. In most dating circumstances that would have been fine. Unfortunately, what she told me and what appeared on her online profile were two different things.

Nell didn’t know this, but she was in the middle of a test. People lie like crazy when dating. There are many reasons for this. Some people lie as easily as they breathe. They’re not willing to admit unsavory details about themselves, so they elaborate or omit details as necessary.

I’m not about to tell Nell, for example, that six weeks ago I talked Nadia, my Ukrainian housekeeper, into baring her breasts for me on the premise that I hadn’t seen a pair in the flesh in a long time. Nadia was quite miffed at me after finding a pair of panties in my dryer the following week. Cindy must have left them after our previous encounter. She would never leave things at my place on purpose, but she’s careless.

I’m also not going to admit that eight weeks ago I had surgery to remove a cyst. The very professional Nadine took care of me in exchange for goods and services, the goods being dinner and the services including one good nurse/bad patient scenario a couple of weeks ago. Yeah, we went there.

What are Nell’s lies? On her profile she said that she drinks occasionally. On our second date I had two beers and she took two, maybe three sips of a vodka martini with an expression that told me that she would prefer to be gargling razor blades.

Nell claimed to be a sports fan, yet when I casually mentioned the Super Bowl in our conversation, she didn’t know who played in the game.

Let’s get one thing straight. I’m not one of those guys who need a girlfriend who’s a sports fan. I do not date to find someone to watch the game with on Sundays. It’s not that I’m turned off by a female sports fan. Women generally have more important things to do, like go three-deep in their shoe closet.

I gave her my best 40-watt smile and offered her my elbow. It was an informal gesture but it allowed for our first extended physical contact. With the heels she was almost exactly my height. The low-cut dress allowed me to gaze at her toned back and shoulders for the first time. Me likey.

We had a brief conversation on exercise on our second date. Nell somehow let it slip that she went to the gym before work three days a week. I returned with a poor volley, admitting that I went to my gym approximately three times in the past year. I’ve never known a woman to be overtly turned off by my gut.

“Nice gams,” I commented as we reached the top of two sets of red velvet stairs leading to the balcony level. She smiled and nodded. I was already sweating.

An usher led us to our seats. I do love the décor of the Fox, with the wispy clouds and blue sky above to the ornate light fixtures hanging a hundred feet above the stage. The set was designed to look like an industrial warehouse.

“These are great seats,” Nell said. Her voice was deep and strong, like an old Aretha Franklin song. In her profile Nell admitted to loving the old Motown sound. She later admitted to an occasional gig at a jazz club, something that was notoriously absent from her profile. Note to men: Do not joke about karaoke with a woman who in any way considers herself to be a serious musician.

We sat mainly silent and watched the scenery before the show started promptly at eight. It wasn’t very long into the show that I recalled one of the downfalls of the old movie house. The acoustics were terrible. We were in the first row of the second level of the balcony and half of the singing, as this was a musical, was unintelligible. I started to make a comment to my date but I saw that she was mouthing some of the words.

I wasn’t particularly moved by the tale of New York City artists, some afflicted with AIDS, suffering through a cold Christmas Eve followed by a whirlwind year in Act Two. Some of the songs were catchy but my inability to follow the words was too distracting. It was like going from an HD plasma screen at home to watching an old TV at your friend’s house after misplacing your glasses. Perhaps I’m an entertainment snob, but these tickets were sixty bucks a pop and my date refused to share the armrest with me. Even in adjacent seats we stayed a foot apart at all times.

During the intermission I waited 15 minutes to spend $9 on a bottle of water and a Bass Ale. Nell smiled when I brought back her drink but I saw a hint of sadness when she saw what was in my plastic cup. I immediately wished that it was Jack Daniels.

The rest of the show was fine. We even touched elbows for a minute. She didn’t say much, but she did notice when I sent a text message to Phil. At the last minute the girlfriend bailed and he sold his seats. We were in a fantasy football league and he decided to be a funny man and make me a trade offer in the middle of a date. The offer wasn’t bad, and I spent too much time formulating a response.

I hadn’t yet felt a clear signal from my Nubian princess as to whether she liked me. We spent a remarkable four hours talking on our first two dates, yet I didn’t have a feel for her and I bet that she felt the same about me. I don’t like talking about what I do for a living. In reality I don’t love what I do. There isn’t a sense of challenge or discovery in writing for other people.

I try not to talk about music or movies because my opinions tend to be snobbish. Nell told me that her most-watched DVD was How Stella Got Her Groove Back, and I instantly tried to change the subject. I also mentally noted that she listed The Color Purple as her favorite movie in the profile.

So what did we talk about? If I heard the transcript I’d probably be surprised. I think I mentioned a memorable middle-school trip to Puerto Vallarta. Nell told me about a failed attempt at a Theology degree, five years of working retail, and then an eventual degree in management from Kennesaw State. It was then that I unwisely mentioned the Owls’ 2004 national championship, albeit Division II, in basketball in 2004. She gave me the look that my friends give me when I spend ten minutes discussing why the Texans made a franchise-ruining move by not drafting Reggie Bush.

We impressed each other with witty sayings and reminisces about our college life, like how my history of the 60s teacher considered Lyndon Johnson to be America’s greatest President despite his failed attempts to champion the Civil Rights movement and the Vietnam War at the same time. Nell once stood up to a woman-hating philosophy professor so successfully that he offered to give her an A if she never returned to class.

I didn’t tell the story of how I slept with my Sociology teacher’s assistant, got the cheat sheet for the final exam, and pointedly did not look at her as I walked out of the classroom. I did tell her about how I fell in love with writing while in school, but I didn’t talk about my current frustration with the profession.

We walked to our separate cars and agreed to meet at Einstein’s as soon as we could. I got stuck in a terrific traffic jam of carbon dioxide inside the stuffy parking garage. When I parked in an abandoned pay lot Nell was in her 1990 Honda Accord, talking on her cell phone. I smiled at her. She frowned, turned away from me, dropped the phone where I couldn’t see it and opened her car door.

I got out of the car and walked around to meet her. The expression was no better.

“I have to go home,” she said.

“Is everything OK?” I asked, hoping that if they weren’t, that she wouldn’t tell me.

“Mostly. Listen, I had a good time. Can I get a raincheck on dinner?”

“Sure,” I said.

“I’m sorry,” she said, her mind obviously elsewhere. I was moderately pissed and the anger transformed into a harder good-night hug than necessary.

“You look disappointed,” she said before kissing me softly.

“I suppose I am,” I said.

“You know what they say. Good things come to those who wait.”

“I’m not patient.”

“Neither am I,” she said with a wink. “I’ll call you tomorrow.”

I barely had a chance to say good-night before she was in her car, pulling away. Once the Accord took a left out of the parking lot I had my cell phone out. The Red Sox were on the West Coast, and their game started a few minutes ago. The Angels always played them tough.

Not a Draft Dodger (Chapter 2), Part 2

Continued from the last line of part one...

I answer the door.

“Are you Mr. Smith?” asks the voice on the other side.

“Yeah, this is Mr. Smith,” I reply, walking outside the door and leaving it open a crack. The card game comes to an abrupt halt. “You’re late.”

“Shit happens,” she replies.

“Is it possible for you to come back later?”

“I’ve been on my feet for 18 hours. It’s now or never.”

I see the garters hanging from her too-short skirt that looks like nurse’s scrubs.

“Do I know you?”

“OK, I changed before I came over. I thought you were joking when you said you were having a party.”

“I didn’t really want to do this with company over, you know?”

“Why, don’t you want your friends to know about the cyst?”

I don’t move or speak.

“I’m going to fall asleep on the porch if you don’t let me in.”

I theatrically look over my shoulder and let out a world-weary sigh. “OK, let’s get this over with.”

“Call me Heather.”

I give her a look. “Heather?”

“Because you don’t want your friends to know that I’m your neighbor and that you make me dinner three nights a week.”

I open the door. “You know where to go.”

Only when she clears the threshold does she say the next thing. “You’re kind of cute. I might give you a discount.” Looking at the boys, she adds, “Do your friends want to watch?”

I feel dizzy. “Go to the bedroom,” I try to whisper.

Her cheeks flush. “I’ll be good, sir.” She bows her head, and walks as far away from the guys as possible, her three-inch black heels clacking on the hardwood floors.
“Heather” says hi to the boys, who all watch her wobble to my bedroom. She tries to look sexy but she probably hasn’t worn heels in months. I realize that I should explain myself, but one quick look at the table renders me speechless.

The walk past the table isn’t easy.

“Who is that?” Phil asks.

“Nurse,” I respond before my face turns completely red and I fast-walk into my bedroom, loudly slamming the door. There’s laughter and a round of applause on the other side.

“I think I have a hernia. Could she check that?” Brian asks. I don’t listen for any follow-ups.

When I get into the bedroom I see that Heather has found my stash. All of the necessary items are in a large zip-loc bag. I grab a long pillow and clutch it to my chest.

“Sorry about that,” I say sheepishly.

“Do these guys really not know what I’m doing here?” she responds.

“Actually, no.”

“Are these friends paid to be here?”

“It’s all about the TV. No one out there really likes me.”

“I’ll be gentle.”

I nod, reach on the top of the bedside cabinet for a towel and put it on top of the pillow. I put this combination on top of the bedspread, drop my shorts and underwear and lay down. I have to suck in my gut.

Time passes. I hear water running and know that it’s time for me to pull up my shorts and underpants. I change my boxer briefs and wipe my face with the towel before Heather comes out again.

“I think I can see myself out,” she says.

“I’ll see you later, Nadine.”

“Call me Heather,” she says with a smile.

My friends would call Nadine more homely than pretty. She has small almond-colored eyes, a pale complexion and sandy blonde hair with dark roots. The scrubs are a nice touch, though. She brushes past me and back out into the main room.

I limp out of the bedroom. All six faces are upon me. As I pause to think of something pithy to say, “Heather” stops at the door and has her final say.

“You’ll get the bill in the mail,” she says with a small smile before opening the door.

“Damn, Larry, even I usually get a kiss on the cheek at the end,” Phil says.

I walk back into the room. When I get to my chair I gently sink into the padded seat. I could use about four extra-strength Tylenol right now. Standing up is not an option.

The draft saves me. Paul Tagliabue strides up to the podium.

“With the third selection in the 2005 NFL Draft, the Tennessee Titans select. . .”

“Matt Leinart,” Phil says.

“Vince Young,” Desmond and I say at the same time. I look at Joseph, who gives me the thumbs-up sign.

“Vince Young, quarterback from the University of Texas,” Tagliabue says. Desmond gives me a high five. It didn’t hurt.

What can I say about Vince Young that hasn’t been said? College football has a funny system of determining a national champion. A computer decides which two teams play for the title game, and this year Deep Blue selected the University of Texas to play the University of Southern California. Vince Young was the star of the game, passing and running for more than 400 total yards, along with a dramatic fourth-down run that scored the winning points. It’s pretty much impossible to beat that as a college finale, so Mr. Young decided to give up his senior year of eligibility to try his luck in the NFL.

The controversy about the Young pick is this: The other top QB prospect is Matt Leinart, who coincidentally enough played for USC and lost to Texas in that great championship game. The offensive coordinator during Leinart’s first two years in college is now the Offensive Coordinator for the Tennessee Titans. If the Titans signed Leinart, he wouldn’t have to learn an entirely new offensive system. Learning an offensive system that has a playbook longer than the Yellow Pages is often the downfall of a great college QB.

Another slight detail to the story is that Young is black and Leinart is white. More importantly, Young ran as often as he passed in college. Running quarterbacks get chewed up and spit out by the faster, stronger, and meaner NFL. Running quarterbacks survive in the NFL by becoming passing quarterbacks. Many experts thought that Young couldn’t become a passing quarterback.

Even though I read three sports magazines a week and probably spend two to three hours a day browsing sports-related sites, I’ll take the side of professionals who scout players for a living. They can be wrong but they most certainly have more information and more on the line than I do.

“He’s a bust,” Brian says with an air of confidence.

“Two-time Rose Bowl MVP,” Phil replies.

“So was Ron Dayne,” Vince adds. To put it briefly, Ron Dayne was a great college running back who has been a bust in the NFL.

“That statement is so ridiculous,” I say.

“Vince Young. Is. A. Bust,” Brian repeats.

“How is he a bust?” I ask.

“He has that funky sidearm delivery.”

“Brett Favre throws sidearm sometimes,” Tom said. “Ben Roethlisberger, of course, has a perfect delivery.” Guess who’s the starting QB for the Super Bowl Champion Pittsburgh Steelers?

“Listen, you can argue all day about whether he has the skills to be a productive NFL quarterback. I could argue both sides quite convincingly, but that would bore the crap out of all of you,” I say, looking directly at Brian.

There’s a bit of laughter to that. I continue.

“None of these guys has set foot on a field during an NFL game. That’s a fact. Right now everyone’s statistics are a big fat zero. Are you a bust? Am I a bust? It’s really doubtful that either of us is going to play in the NFL, but it’s a certainty that none of the guys drafted today, including Vince Young, has done squat in the league yet. When they have, and played poorly for an extended period of time, then we can call them busts. You used the present tense. The present tense is not the tense for today. Today is all about the future tense. If you said that Vince Young will be a bust I would have sat here in stone silence because your statement had plenty of potential energy. Calling Vince Young a bust now is as useful as our Vince farting and calling it an alternative energy source.”

Brian turns pink and takes a long pull of his beer. “I’ll bet you a hundred bucks that Vince Young is a bust.”

I reach for my wallet. “Do you take traveler’s checks?”

“I’ll bet you that Vince Young is not drawing an NFL paycheck in five years. Is that specific enough for you?”

“I’ll take that action,” Phil says. Desmond hesitates. Vince is too busy looking at the Ace of Hearts to comment. I think he’s in love. Tom drops his American Express on the table. Everyone looks at Joseph. He shrugs. So predicting the future isn’t part of his special powers.

“Aw, fuck it. It’s my deal. Let’s play follow the bitch,” Brian finally says, the bet forgotten. Brian once lost a bet to me involving the performance of our fantasy football teams. He lost a case of beer. It was three years ago. Brian has since failed to pull the trigger on any bets.

Men who are gathered together far away from women have the collective confidence to call a card game named Follow the Queen, Follow the Bitch. The misogyny doubles when all the cards are of topless women. We have a good mix of married and single guys. I suppose deep down there is something wrong with the verbal sparring that goes on at this kind of event. There’s a group dysfunction that covers up the individual attitudes. I highly doubt that there is a group of women sitting around, playing cards with men displaying large, obviously fake penises, playing a game called Follow the Cock.

I lose the hand, and the next three. Vince pours me a Warsteiner. It tastes like it’s been sitting on the bottom of a liquor store cooler for three months.

“So what was up with that nurse?” Phil asks, continuing to look at his cards.

“I had a problem. She took care of it,” I reply.

“That’s what we call a slump-buster,” Desmond says.

“I liked the scrubs,” Tom says.

“When I first saw her, I didn’t think she was that pretty. She did have presence, and the outfit was fantastic,” Joseph adds.

“I’ve never had to pay for it,” Brian says.

“Pay for what?” Vince asks. He’s clearly paying more attention to his three of hearts. She has a nice smile.

“Pay to see this next card,” I say, raising the bet to fifty cents even though my cards are hideous.

The Jets take D’Brickashaw Ferguson, a left tackle out of the University of Virginia named after a character from the Thornbirds, next. The distraction is long enough for Tom to lean over and whisper to me.

“You’re my personal hero,” Tom says. “You have a girl come over in the middle of the NFL draft, and things are completed between picks. I want to be you in my next life.”

“I know you do,” I reply with a nod.

Somehow my bluff works, as Brian gets a Queen and I get a four on the next deal. The four is now a wild card, and seeing as I have another four face down, I have a minimum of three of a kind. This holds up and I win a modest pot. We play for three more hours and I win maybe two more. No one mentions the nurse.

Once the New York Giants draft Mathias Kiwauka, a defensive end whose motor, or effort, had been questioned prior to the draft, the first round is over and so is my party. A few of the guys dump their plates in the trash and pile beer bottles on my counter. I start to walk to the bathroom and decide that the nearby couch is a better idea.

Unfortunately, the couch didn’t currently face the TV. I get up and see Phil placing all the bottles into a large Hefty garbage bag.

“You didn’t have to do that,” I say.

“I wanted to bust your chops a bit with that nurse line.”

“It was timely.”

“If you don’t want to share your personal business with your closest friends, that’s your deal,” Phil says.

“Could you help me put the couch back in place?”

“Sure man, I can do that.”

The card table goes back in its closet. The couch ends up where it was yesterday afternoon.

“I cheated,” Phil says.

“At cards?” I reply. He’s standing so I’m standing. I hurt badly.

“On my wife. It was a client. More accurately, a friend of a client.”

“I thought she slept around on you.”

“She did after she found out. Hoo boy did she.”

“Why tell me this now?”

“It all comes out eventually, Larry.”

‘“I don’t like talking about personal stuff.”

“Listen, man, I’m better off now. The marriage was over for a while. I’m seeing someone now. I’m sure that she has at least one friend who’d give you a blowjob if you buy her dinner.”

“I’m not really hip to the dating scene right now,” I say. Phil’s face tells me that I need to say something more. “I met someone, but I don’t want to say anything until I know it’s going to work out.”

“I get it, man. I do. You never know how things are going to work out.”

“You sure don’t,” I say, convinced that Phil can see the pain I’m in.

“I’m going to go. I need to pick up the kids,” Phil says. I know for a fact that this is his weekend away from his daughters. They’re both young enough to not resent the fact that daddy moved out.

“Thanks for sticking around,” I say.

“No problemo,” Phil replies, offering me a solid handshake before walking out the door.

I wait five seconds after the door closes to limp into the bathroom. The child-proof bottle befuddles me for a minute before I pick out one circular white pill and dry-swallow. The bottle clearly says not to mix the medication with alcohol. I don’t plan on drinking any more alcohol today.

The bed beckons, but the there’s a knock on the door. I take my time.

“Howdy, stranger,” says the girl on the other end.

“For fuck’s sake, Nadine,” I say.

“What happened to Heather?” she asks incredulously.

“You tell me.” She’s wearing sweats and garden clogs and I doubt that the garters are still attached to her pale thighs.

She pushes me aside and heads straight for the couch.

“Is this draft shit still going on?” she asks, kicking off her shoes. “Is Trading Spaces on?”

“I certainly hope not,” I say with a sigh. The door is shut and triple-locked again. I slump into the chair opposite the couch.

“There’s room for two over here,” she says.

“You didn’t have to ham it up earlier.”

“That was the most fun I’ve had in weeks.”

“Did you really want my friends to think that you’re a prostitute?”

“I’m just glad that you have friends,” she says breezily. Her eyes narrow. “I see the Percoset haze approaching. If that’s chasing the half-dozen beers you drank in the past couple hours, you’re in for a long nap indeed.”

“I’m in pain.”

“I know you are,” she says in her softest, most empathetic voice. “The next packing can wait until you wake up.”

“Services instead of cash,” I mumble.

When I found out that I had a cyst in a very uncomfortable place, it wasn’t just a matter of getting it removed. After reading many, many accounts, I discovered that the wound takes as long as three months to heal. The very open and large wound had to be packed with gauze twice a day until it completely healed. Leaving the wound open decreased the odds of infection. The packing process hurts as much as it sounds. The doctor gave me a choice. Either I went to the doc’s office twice a day and had someone change the packing, or I had a “loved one” take care of it.

I didn’t have a loved one. I might not have a liked one. Nadine is one of my neighbors. I almost ran her over as I was returning from my cabin weekend with whatshername. We ran into each other at the mailbox one day and got to talking. She is a nurse. My brilliant idea for the year was to hire her to take care of my special needs. Being a freelancer, sometimes I have to barter services rather than paying in cash, which can be in short supply. We made a deal that was off the books, and for me, rather vague. To date the services I offered included dinners on nights when she wasn’t working, and the use of my massive TV. I’d even loaned her some space on my digital video recorder.

“It’s good that you’re going to pass out, so I don’t have to deal with you giving me shit for watching what I want on TV. Since I see you’re in no shape to service me I’m going to wear out your TV instead.”

I don’t know what the veiled sexual reference is about. Our relationship has been strictly professional to date. “It’s not what I thought it would be,” I say. It’s getting harder and harder to keep my eyes open.

“It never is, sugar,” she says in a bad fake Southern accent. Nadine is from Detroit.

I’m asleep before the annoying theme song from Trading Spaces can torment my dreams.

Not a Draft Dodger (Chapter 2), Part 1

Part one, as promised.

I confidently clicked the submit button. The interface took some getting used to, but once I had it figured out, posting was a breeze. All I really needed was a spell check and a View Source button so I could check my HTML. I spent two days researching my topic, a couple of hours writing, and that was that. It was relaxing to have one steady check, direct deposited into my savings account within 48 hours of each weekly post.

I looked up to see Nadia, my Ukranian housecleaner. She narrowed her clear blue eyes at me and turned away. I didn’t understand the look, because we’re generally friendly, even flirtatious at times.

“You are asshole,” she said in an accent that resembled that of Natasha from Rocky and Bullwinkle.

“If you show them again, I’ll double your tip,” I replied. I wasn’t going to get up because my ass had fallen asleep, and she’s six inches taller than me.

“Asshole,” she said. I wasn’t worried about her personal feelings reflecting on her job performance. She needed the work.

I sniffed, had a sip of raspberry flavored water, and started researching for next week’s blog.

The following morning, I wake up alone. The apartment is clean, as planned, but it’s someone else’s clean, like a burglar entered my place, and instead of stealing my baseball cards, took a mop to every surface of my place. It’s a strange morning, because for the first day in a while I don’t have any immediate responsibilities. I have nothing to do for 48 hours, and that’s unusual. There’s one appointment that I expect to complete soon. It’s not on my meticulously kept appointment book, copied onto a spreadsheet on my laptop. This one is off the books, and the someone involved is late.

Brian doesn’t appreciate it when I answer the door with a disappointed expression. I look over his shoulder and don’t see anyone else.

“Good to see you too,” he says after brushing past me to find the fridge. I inherited a ridiculously expensive stainless-steel Sub-Zero refrigerator from the previous tenant.

“I couldn’t commit to a girl with a gun to my head, but I’d marry your appliances,” Brian comments. He’s wearing a customized Peyton Manning jersey that has “Field General” on the name plate because on one NFL Network special Manning referred to himself as the ultimate field general. He opens a Heineken Light. I had long ago given up on ridiculing people’s beer decisions. Life was no longer too short to drink cheap beer. It was too short to comment on others’ cheapness.

“What, nothing for me?” I ask, trying to recover.

“Dude, all you had to do was ask,” he replies. Brian’s generally nice enough to ignore my moods.

I was kidding about drinking one of Brian’s beers. I take a Newcastle, perfectly cold and sweating with condensation, from the blue plastic cooler next to the dingy card table.

“You haven’t documented any travel in the past five months,” Brian asked in a quieter voice.

“There’s nothing to document,” I replied. At least now I knew why Brian showed up early.

“You don’t come to meetings anymore.”

“Why would I want to travel? There’s nothing I want to see that I haven’t already seen?”

“What about that weekend with Nicole? Didn’t you bang her in the Jacuzzi?” Brian asked. All a man ever wants to know about is how another man’s wang is performing.

“Brian, Jacuzzi loving isn’t as simple as you think. It involves silicone-based lube and a plan.” I smacked myself in the head. “Why am I telling you this? Right now, I don’t have the need to go back. I like the present.”

“Use it or lose it,” Brian said. That was his standby.

“I don’t need to go back to a cabin trip that was Peyton Manning in the playoffs.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Mediocre at best. Tell me, Brian, how often have you gone back for that game?”

Brian swallowed.

“Probably once or twice off the books, am I wrong? It wouldn’t do for the leader to break the rules.”

“It’s the same every God-damned time. Why can’t Harper just go to the outside?”

Brian referred to the Indianapolis Colt defensive back who stripped Jerome Bettis of the ball, seemed destined for a touchdown on the return, and inexplicably was tackled by the Pittsburgh Steeler quarterback, who was the last man between him and the end zone. Allegedly, Harper had been stabbed in the leg by his wife in a domestic dispute the night before, and that slowed him down enough to be brought down.

“See, the past is boring. It’s like watching the same movie again.”

“Tom still travels. He’s supposed to teach you. You’re supposed to find someone to teach,” Brian says.

“Tom has issues with his past. I can’t make the night I seduced the prom queen better than it was the first time. What’s the point? Bully for me for knowing how to do something that’s useless.”

“You have a rare talent, Larry,” Brian says. “Talented people generally are assholes about it.”

I stare at him. Brian taught Tom in a stand-up comedy class. Months later they met again and Brian offered to teach him something else. Tom learned, and when we met he taught me. It was supposed to be exciting and new. It was a pain in the ass.

“I see that you’ve redecorated,” Brian says, ready to move on.

I had. I moved the couch away from its traditional position in worship of my wall-mounted flat-screen 65-inch plasma TV. In its place I put my garage-sale card table. It even had gaudy giant fake playing cards adorned on the green felt top.

“This is,” I say, gesturing to the table and then to the uber TV, “where we play today.”

If it weren’t already on a weekend, I’d declare that the NFL Draft should be a national holiday. The entire country gets into a tizzy over the Super Bowl, and most of them only care about the commercials. The breaks during the game are often as tedious as the game itself.

The NFL Draft, on the other hand, is reserved for the die-hards. No casual fans of the league would watch a minute of it. How does it work? All college players three years after their high-school graduation are eligible. This arbitrary rule has withstood some serious legal challenges. Teams draft in opposite order of their finish from the previous year. The perpetually crappy Houston Texans have the first overall pick, while the Super Bowl Champion Pittsburgh Steelers select 32nd and last in every round.

There are seven rounds to the draft, with 32 teams picking per round. Other than free agency, there is no other way to add new talent to your team. With a few exceptions, all drafted rookies are in effect cheap labor for teams. Veterans make more than double a rookie’s salary, so some teams will have as many as a dozen first-year players on their 53-man roster. General managers are made and broken on this weekend.

While players from every round have contributed to Super Bowl-winning squads, the focus is on the first round. Each team gets 15 minutes to make their pick, and because of the intense spotlight, they generally take a lot of the time. In the 2005 draft the first round took almost six hours. If your team traded out of the first round, you might not see your team’s first new players for a third of a day.

That’s right. Seven rounds are completed over two days. The first three unfold on Saturday, with the rest playing out on Sunday. After that, teams line up the remaining players to fill out their rosters.

Oh yeah, this is a media event as well. One thousand press credentials were handed out for this year’s draft. More than three thousand fans will enter Radio City Music Hall to witness. Maybe one year I’ll make the trek to NYC for the event, but I think that it’s like most football games, in that you’ll probably have a lot more fun and spend a lot less money if you just watch it at home.

I don’t write as much as I used to on the NFL, but I contribute to the blogosphere. Six of my closest friends are coming over to play poker and watch the draft. Most likely the party will be over before the first round is complete. I agreed to host because last year I had six beers and at least four different kinds of hard liquor and ended up throwing up in a serving dish and all over my friend’s carpet. He is now divorced. Home-field advantage is critical in the NFL playoffs, but on draft day, it is a must.

The party will be a who’s who of NFL obsessives. We have Brian, who despite watching his Colts choke again in last year’s playoffs, remains confident that one day, Peyton Manning will hold the Lombardi Trophy. He wouldn’t talk to me for two weeks after Vanderjagt’s last-second field-goal attempt went so amazingly wide. Brian’s mood improved when the Colts signed Adam Vinatieri, the kicker from the Patriots who had kicked the winning field goal in all three of their Super Bowl victories.

Desmond enters a few minutes later, wearing a Michael Vick jersey. He has been an Atlanta Falcon fan since they wore those hideous silver pants. His family used to have season tickets when the team played at Fulton County Stadium, now a parking lot for the former Olympic stadium that now hosts the Atlanta Braves. He protests the new football stadium, the Georgia Dome, because it’s a domed stadium in one of the warmest NFL markets in America. His protests died when I found him a pair of tickets to last year’s season opener on Monday night. The Falcons won that game, exorcising the demons of an NFC Championship game defeat to the Philadelphia Eagles. The rest of the season was a rollercoaster ride and the team finished 8-8, out of the playoffs. Due to a couple of trades the team wasn’t due to make a selection until the middle of the second round, or seven hours after Desmond’s arrival.

Desmond also throws me some work from time to time.

After Desmond I will greet Vince, who cheers for the Chicago Bears. I promised Vince a mini keg of Warsteiner in exchange for him bringing chicken wings. The bulging tray of wings encased in aluminum foil is larger than Vince’s oversized head. I promise to put them in the oven later. Vince has never been to Chicago. He once admitted that he likes their black jerseys. The Bears wear navy blue, and have done so since they were founded.

Vince owns and runs an excellent sushi place. I met him at a networking gathering and helped him get his Web site off the ground. In exchange, I get all the wasabi I can eat. Having him make chicken wings was kind of like asking me to write a Chinese menu. He’s a nice guy and almost never notices when we make fun of him.

Phil is a lawyer but we still like him anyway. He is a Vikings fan but refuses to wear a jersey ever since the team traded Randy Moss to the Oakland Raiders last offseason. He’s divorced and seems to be doing fine despite spending most of his time taking care of his two daughters.

Joseph is from Kansas City but he’s been in Atlanta for nearly a decade and I reckon that one more Mike Vick-led playoff run will turn him into another Falcon fan. He just had his second novel published. The New York Times called it vapid. Joseph won’t talk much today but he somehow manages to get inside information on player movement days before the general public. I have to admit, though, that I’m afraid of his wife. He always has the poker face going, but if I were him, I’d have a permanent shit-eating grin on my face.

Tom is a fan of the Pittsburgh Steelers. He’s a native Pittsburgher but hasn’t lived there since he went to college. After I got over the Nicole weekend, he was a very helpful wingman. He’s a CPA but has a dangerous look that attracts the females looking for the bad boy. How do I prove that Tom is a life-long Steeler fan? He owns a Bubby Brister jersey. Most Steeler fans would go old school with someone like Franco Harris or Terry Bradshaw, or celebrate their recent success with a Troy Polamalu or Ben Roethlisberger. Until the Steelers won the Super Bowl less than three months ago, they hadn’t won a title since Tom was seven.

My one guest who hasn’t arrived yet is starting to worry me. She’s late.

Because the first round has so much dead time between picks, we decided to play poker to fill in the gaps. It’s an incredibly low-stakes game with a ten-dollar buy-in. Most people spend more on gas and beer than actual poker.

There’s no time in a man’s life when he feels completely mature. I’m the youngest guy in the room and I have no problem in following my cohorts’ lead in ogling the attractive nearly naked women on the playing cards we use. Vince loves playing no-peak games, which means you can’t look at your cards at first. This game is better suited for the kind of cards you buy at the grocery store.

“Penalty shot,” Phil says. Phil introduced the concept of the penalty shot in 1998 when he hosted a NFC Championship party. His Vikings hosted the Falcons and were huge favorites. When the mostly Atlanta crowd started getting out of hand, Phil started assigning penalty shots of pepper vodka to calm them down. It was not successful, and his Vikings lost in overtime.

Pepper vodka tastes like grain alcohol filtered through a dead yak’s ass. It gets you drunk in a hurry, which is bad when you’re trying to remember that a flush beats a straight and all you can see is a smiling topless woman. We’re in the midst of a long Texas Hold ‘Em game and I have a flush. Unfortunately the last two cards to come up give Phil a full house. I lose maybe a buck fifty on the game but it seems like more.

“I wasn’t going to raise until you raised,” Phil says in his somewhat smug manner. I have a comeback but he has a full bottle of Absolut Peppar.

“Nice one,” I mumble as I look at my dwindling stack of chips. The draft started fifteen minutes ago, at high noon mind you, but a lot of the suspense had ended. All offseason it seemed inevitable that the Houston Texans, who owned the number one overall pick, would draft Reggie Bush. Bush won the Heisman Trophy, given to the top college football player, last season and was getting hyped nearly as much as the latest Tom Cruise summer movie. Bush was fast, untacklable, and despite sharing time at running back at the University of Southern California, destined to be a star. The Texans insisted that they were considering another guy, but no one was buying it.

Joseph called me two hours before it was announced. “The Texans are taking Mario Williams,” he said. I didn’t ask about his source.

The night before the draft, the Texans signed the other guy. It was madness. After I researched the subject I saw that it wasn’t character or money that steered the Texans away from Bush. They actually just liked the other guy better. Mario Williams, the ‘other’ guy, was a defensive end from North Carolina State University. The team went 7-5 last year, so he couldn’t have been that good. He was one of those players who excelled at those drills that every player must perform for scouts. Let me give you an example. One of the benchmark measureables for an NFL draft prospect is his 40-yard dash time. Most plays in the NFL don’t go beyond a few yards, and straight-line speed is generally useless when the action tends to resemble a train wreck in slow motion. But guys like this formerly anonymous defensive end run fast and look great in shorts and end up with 26 million dollar signing bonuses. I nearly piss myself when I get a buck a word.

The New Orleans Saints are on the clock and from what we hear, the New York Jets are trying to trade up.

My stack grows as I slow-play my way back to respectability. I have to go all-in a couple of times, but we are down to the last three players in our mini-game and I think I might end up winning. Brian’s bluffs aren’t working and Phil keeps getting crap cards. Generally in a low-stakes game like ours, if you get good cards, you win.

The Saints predictably take Bush. Phil and I both have a pair of aces, but my Jack kicker beats his nine. My stack is nearly equal to his. There’s a knock on the door.

“Are those the strippers?” Phil asks. I start to sweat.

“I’ll get it,” I say, mucking my cards. I doubt that a suited seven and five will help my cause.

I answer the door.

To be continued. . .

Intro to Chapter 2

Here's a brief introduction to Not a Draft Dodger, the second "chapter" of this saga. In this story, Larry has a bunch of friends over for an NFL Draft party. It's late April, about four months after the first story. The characters introduced in the story are a weird combination of traits taken from friends of mine who attended a real draft party I hosted on this date in 2006 and two characters previously created in other stories.

Tom Novak is from the novel Infatuation I wrote while in college. I wondered how he was doing 12 years after the events from that story and brought him back. Joseph is from a novel I started writing probably ten years ago and abandoned. I haven't shared it with anyone. I decided to have them and Larry occupy the same universe.

I'll split this into two parts (the entire story's about 15 pages).

Weekend of My Discontent, the Finale

And you thought it would never end. Is there a happy ending for Larry and Nicole?

Fourth Quarter

I woke up four hours later, a full plate of cold cinnamon rolls next to my head. It took me three blinks to see the world properly. In only two blinks I found the remote. The Pittsburgh Steelers were leading the Indianapolis Colts 7-0 midway through the first quarter. The Steelers were the last team in the AFC to make the playoffs, and most people thought that the Colts, who were the top seed, were the favorites to go to the Super Bowl. They did not finish the regular season undefeated, as Brian predicted. After clinching home-field advantage throughout the playoffs, they rested some starters and lost a couple of meaningless games.

Sometimes when a team is on a roll and releases the foot from the gas pedal, so to speak, things go awry. The Colts had a spectacular gift for looking ordinary in the playoffs, a skill not unlike my ability to date crazy women who can’t hold their liquor.

Before I could hit the bathroom and crack open my second quart of Mango Electro Gatorade, the Steelers scored another touchdown. Surely the well-oiled Colts attack would begin their rally right away. This would be the year that Peyton Manning took the next step from whipping boy to champion. That Gatorade sure goes fast when you’re completely dehydrated.

I was midway through bottle number three when Nicole stumbled up the stairs. Dallas Clark had just scored on a 50-yard reception from Manning, cutting the lead to 21-10. My fingers and toes started to tingle, and not just because they had fallen asleep from my extended duty on the couch.

“Are you watching football?” Nicole asked.

“Want a cinnamon roll?” I asked, attempting a rarely successful diversion routine.

“Oh God yes,” she said. Nicole devoured three so quickly that I almost forgot to watch the game. The Steelers were giving me minor heart attacks by repeatedly going for it on 4th down. The clock crept past seven minutes remaining in the contest.

“Seriously, dude, football?” Nicole asked.

“Come on, it’s a close game,” I said, barely watching as the Steelers got into punt formation. Taking no chances, their punter put the ball through the end zone. The Colts got the ball back at the 20-yard line.

She gave me a look that negated all of my food and beverage goodwill. “Aren’t we supposed to be spending time together?”

It was a commercial break, so my attention was back on her. Some women look fantastic when they’re hung over. They are called actresses. Nicole looked like she hadn’t slept in 48 hours. The puffy, red eyes and tousled hair begged me to tread lightly.

“Isn’t this time together?” I asked semi-rhetorically, stretching my arms out.

“Romantic, this is not. You got me drunk, took advantage of me, got me drunk again, which was a nice touch, by the way, stretched out my favorite swim suit, took advantage of me again, then left me for dead on the floor in the bedroom while you watch a game. A game!”

“It’s the divisional playoffs!” I cried.

“Something you could have considered before taking me to a remote cabin for three days,” she said.

I’m not proud of what happened in the following sixty seconds.

The game came back on. My attention was completely riveted as Peyton Manning completed a long pass to Reggie Wayne. A classic finish was underway. You would have thought that I never suffered the wrath of a woman scorned.

Nicole grabbed the remote. I put the odds of her changing the channel to a chick flick around the same as Peyton Manning throwing a dumb interception in the clutch, which he did as I reached for the remote.

The play was interesting enough that Nicole paused, and in that second of doubt I took the remote back. I also tipped over the open container of Red Fusion Gatorade. It spilled onto her lap and all over the floor.

As Nicole ranted and raved I watched Troy Polamalu, the Steelers’ strong safety, run in front of the Colt receiver and grab the ball. He proceeded to roll over once, and as he got up, the ball bounced off his knee. It was quite clear that he had possession of the ball before losing it, but the play was sure to be reviewed. In the National Football League there’s a process called instant replay. The referee gets to see the play over and over again in a little booth to make sure that the call on the field is correct. NFL referees are part-time employees, so their training isn’t complete because the head linesman could be, for example, a principal.

I watched the replay another ten or twelve times, because the referee hadn’t made his mind up yet and the announcers weren’t speaking English. Nicole could have been beating me senseless with a poker from the fireplace, but I didn’t budge.

It was as obvious as my own mortal danger that the interception was the correct call and should stand. Naturally the referee moseyed back onto the field a minute later and overturned the call. I thought the Steelers’ lantern-jawed coach was going to self-destruct.

“That was a shit call,” Nicole said. As I turned to her, my mouth agape, she removed my shirt and started wiping the pleather couch with it. She could have set me on fire at this point.

I restrained a cry of surprise when the Colts scored again. Now it was 21-18, and there were four minutes left in a game. Four minutes in a professional football game is good for at least 15 minutes of real time. In the playoffs, with the increased commercial rates, it could be good as 30. And with the Colts using a two-point conversion to get the score within a field goal, overtime was a possibility. That’s what they call free football.

The Steelers didn’t do much with their opportunity to put the game away. When they punted I saw to my surprise that Nicole only wearing a pair of polka-dotted underpants. That wasn’t the detail that caught my eye. The prominent scar running down her left shoulder blade was ugly and dark, and it contrasted with her pale skin. Obviously Nicole didn’t expect me to turn from the game.

“You ruined my shirt, dude,” she said, turning to face me. “Mister Cut That Meat has the ball.”

Peyton Manning filmed a few funny commercials last year, in which he ‘cheered’ at people doing their normal jobs. One example was him at a butcher shop chanting “Cut that meat, cut that meat.” Imagine how empty our lives would be without commercials.

The tension would have to wait, as Manning threw a two-yard dump-off pass and the game reached the two-minute warning. No matter what’s happening in a game, there’s an automatic time out with two minute remaining. Yeah, like the last few minutes aren’t long enough as is.

Nicole wandered downstairs while the commercials ran. She returned wearing one of my t-shirts.

“I’m not through with you yet. I want to see how it ends,” she said.

The Steelers ferociously attacked Manning. On fourth down they sacked him inside the Colt 10-yard line. The game was effectively over. All the Steelers had to do was give the ball to their behemoth of a running back. Jerome Bettis was the feel-good story as this was his last of 13 years in the league. To make it more dramatic, he had yet to win a championship. Heck, the Steelers hadn’t won a title since I was one year old.

It was naturally time for another commercial break. I looked at Nicole, who was in the middle of trying to chug a quart of Gatorade in one sip. It was our last bottle.

“Some of that Ibuprofen would help your chances a lot,” she said after finishing her long pull. I walked to the kitchen and found the bottle. I opened it and started measuring it when I felt Nicole’s breath on my neck.

“Just give me the bottle,” she said in a raspy whisper. I have to admit, it kind of turned me on.

“Thanks,” she said with no gratitude at all. The child-proof container gave her trouble, so she used her mouth to open it. Then she tipped the bottle open in her mouth. I wasn’t turned on anymore. I’d estimate that she inhaled about twelve. This was the maximum-strength stuff, so she just took about 6000 milligrams, which is enough to knock out a Kentucky Derby winner. The game turned back on so I brushed past her and filled the near-permanent butt impression on the couch.

OK, back to live action. Like I said, the Steelers could just sit on the ball, but the Colts still had three timeouts. It made sense for the Steelers to try and score the game-clinching touchdown. After all, they had the NFL’s fifth-leading all-time rusher in the backfield.

So the quarterback predictably handed him the ball and he predictably pushed into the line.

But then things went horribly wrong.

“You’re still watching this game?” Nicole yelled in my ear. It might have been the loudest thing that she ever said in her life. I looked at her for a second. There was pain in her eyes. She looked weak, like a wounded animal. Her shoulders slumped and her normally pale skin was a deep pink. Last night she chose Patron over me and now I chose football over her.

I turned just in time to see a small (by football player standards) defensive back dive in and punch the ball out. He grabbed the ball and all of the sudden he raced the other way. It was a certain Colts touchdown, as he was surrounded by blue-clad teammates save the backpedaling Steeler quarterback. Somehow he tripped up the defender around midfield.

“One more chance for cut that meat,” Nicole said, sighing and turning to walk into the kitchen.

It was obvious that I should talk to her. Nicole sat down and opened her People magazine. Within seconds she had balled up her fists and pressed them against her temples. I took my last desperate shot.

“Is there anything that helps you when you have a hangover?”

She looked at me, the fire back in her eyes. “Yeah, solitude.”

“Gotcha,” I said. Did I move? Heck no. I secretly hoped that the game went into overtime to delay any further interactions.

After more infernal commercials, Manning pulled himself together enough to calmly lead his team down the field. He got his team inside the 30-yard line, well within range for a game-tying field goal. On second down he threw a perfect ball to the corner of the end zone but the Steelers’ defender knocked the ball away. On third down Manning rushed his throw and hit a random spot on the field. It was up to their kicker. I looked back at Nicole. Her head was on the kitchen table, pressing against a photo of Jake Gyllenhaal.

After two timeouts and countless commercials, the ball was snapped. The kicker made contact.

The ball sailed wide right. The last shot of the game was of Manning, looking like a guy who was chewing on a lemon and onion sandwich. Or perhaps some of my blackened fish.

And now, a word from some of our sponsors. . .

We didn’t speak on the ride home. Nicole was too hung over on our second evening to do much more than moan and watch bad TV. I made a beef tenderloin but the meal was wasted on us.

I listened to another CD from the Al Franken book while Nicole slept. The comedy could be labored at times, but maybe it was just because the discussion of the contested 2000 election brought back so many feelings of disbelief and despair. Even the upbeat musings of Brendan Benson didn’t seem to cheer her up. It was then I realized she was tired, and even though I contributed to the malaise of the weekend, the main reason for her mood was beyond my ken. I decided that that downbeat but pretty sounds of Death Cab for Cutie were appropriate for our final leg.

There’s nothing like songs of heartbreak and angst to make you think about the end of a vacation. I was looking forward to having my personal space back.

She turned down my offer to help her with her bags when we reached her condo. I didn’t even get out of the car. Nicole turned to me, wearing dark glasses, and said “Football is a big deal to you. So is getting laid. For the life of me, I can’t think of anything else.”

As she walked away I thought of that Colts kicker, who would have been best served by walking directly out of the stadium, taking a cab to the airport and flying somewhere, anywhere else.

Then I thought of Ben Gibbard’s words. “Cause you can’t have nothing at all when there was nothing there all along.” The weekend had limited upside. On the guy scale, having sex multiple times, watching football, and eating red meat had to be pretty high. Caring, and poorly at that, for a drunk then hung over woman, not so high on the scale. Life balances out that way.

I pulled out and headed for home. It was a distinct possibility that I would hug my Dell Inspiron after I put away my clothes. I had to pause one building before mine due to a woman struggling with a large box who was crossing the lot in front of me. Other than a quick glance to make sure that I wasn’t going to squash her, she didn’t look my way. The look on her face spoke of frustration and effort. I could relate.

Before I could think about helping her out, my phone rang. My cell was asleep all weekend, and I instructed it to wake up just in time for this call.

“Yello,” I said in a Homeresque voice.

“Larry Smith, I presume?” said the voice on the other end.

“Present and speaking.”

“Ah, good. I have some news for you, via your friend Joseph. The gig is yours.”

“Good news, man. What’s your name?”

“Call me Mo,” he replied.

I smiled all the way down the stairs to my ground-level unit. After throwing my bag in the bedroom, I paused. The girl in the parking lot had nice eyes. I was going to have to look out for her.

Weekend of My Discontent, Part 4

Welcome to the third quarter. . .

Third Quarter

The Broncos led the Patriots 24-6 when I passed out. Tom Brady’s perfect playoff record was in jeopardy. When I woke up the images on the TV were blurry. What wasn’t so blurry was the angry woman with bloodshot eyes and disheveled hair standing in front of me.

“Larry? Are you awake?”

“I am now,” I said. My mouth was like sandpaper.

“What are you doing up here?”

“I was watching TV, then I fell asleep.”

“Why didn’t you come downstairs?”

“I just fell asleep up here.”

“I see that you got the fire going,” she said, pointing to the smoldering piece of moist wood. The firestarters burned nicely but the wood did not catch.

“It wasn’t my best moment,” I replied. “What’s up?”

“You made dinner?” she asked, pointing at the blackened mess on my plate. It used to be fish before I left it on the grill for thirty minutes when it was done in ten.

“If you can call it that,” I replied.

“I have a headache.”

“I’m sorry.”

“You don’t understand, you bastard. It hurts!”

“I get it,” I replied, trying to escape not from her but her volume.

“The fuck you do. You sure shoved that Patron down my throat.”

“I did?”

“You brought it. You knew what happens to me when I drink it.”

“I’m the one you puked on, so it looks like we’re both losers.”

“Shut the fuck up. Get me some Ibuprofen and Gatorade.”

I turned and saw the blue digital clock on microwave. It was 2:13 in the morning.

“I doubt that anything’s open around here.”

“Come on, Larry. I feel like someone hit me with a sledgehammer.”

“I have some water.”

“I hate water.”

Nicole only drinks flavored water. I have a six-pack of the raspberry stuff in my fridge. When my friends come over they question my sexuality.

One hour later we were back in the Jacuzzi. The Patron bottle was long gone, possibly buried in a snowdrift. This time we carried the remains of a 12-pack of Bass that I purchased as a backup liquor option. Nicole gave me a look when I suggested a beer to solve her problem, but halfway into her first bottle she felt a lot better.

“You are so smart,” she whispered in my ear.

“Yes, I am very genius-esque,” I replied, feeling no pain. I might have been a bit smug as well since I didn’t have a hangover and Nicole’s was like a ticking time bomb.

“You’ve gone out of your way to make this weekend fun, and I appreciate that,” she said.

“You do?” I replied.

“Yeah, I really do. I mean, it’s not like we’re going to walk down the aisle together.”

I showed my composure by pretending to drink out of my empty beer bottle.

“Do you love me?” she asked more soberly than I thought possible.

“I’m very fond of you,” I responded.

She winced.

“What’s that look all about?” I asked. I was bold because I surmised that she would most likely forget this drunken speech later.

“I don’t think you really care about me.”

“That’s kind of unfair.”

“Prove me wrong.”

“Listen, Nicole, you’re a lot of fun. I’m not in love with you and I will never fall in love with you. I am very attracted to you and you must be somewhat attracted to me or we wouldn’t be here right now. What’s the harm in that?”

She sat motionless for about thirty seconds.

“Who did this to you?”

I didn’t pause. “You’re looking at him.”

She looked at me for a long time. Her eyes were bloodshot. I had seen eyes like that before. Dawn of the Dead.

“Do we have any more beer?”

We both finished another bottle before the heat of the water contrasting with the bitter cold of the outside air got to be too much. When I thought it was time, I got out of the Jacuzzi and walked to where Nicole sat. She looked at me with surprise. I indicated that she should stand up. When she did I picked her up out of the water and put her down next to me. I then opened the door, and when she started to walk in that direction I picked her up and carried her over the threshold.

Nicole kept most of her swimsuit on this time.

It’s amazing how passion can overcome being wet and cold. Once I had completed making my point, we quickly moved to the shower and huddled there to stay warm. It was nice, until I turned the water off and noticed that the towels were still wet from our previous Jacuzzi experience. Yikes.

I ran through the cabin like a steroid-crazed linebacker chasing the quarterback, searching for every washcloth and hand towel that I could find. It wasn’t much, but we were able to get from wet to damp. I saw the stacked washer-dryer unit in a closet across from the bathroom and dumped the towels and the sheets in the dryer. I knew that Nicole’s headache would return soon, with reinforcements, as we were down to our final two beers. We put on three layers of clothes each, grabbed the spare comforter in the closet and spooned on the bedroom floor. It felt like a coed high-school sleepover. We even kissed each other good-night.

On our first night together, when I snuck into her bed, Nicole asked me if I loved her. I didn’t say anything because I had known her for six hours at that point and she was Jim Morrison drunk. It was a sign.

I woke up a short period later soaked in my own sweat. Long-range planning was not my strong suit.

I saw Nicole curled up in a ball under the comforter. She looked cute and content. Her hair was all over her face and I liked that. I should have taken a picture. She opened her eyes and was not happy. Nicole started smacking my head with her forearm. I grabbed her wrist. That probably triggered something from her past, because she wriggled free and smacked me again, hard.

“May I help you?” I asked with the last sliver of my patience.

“My head,” she moaned.

I blinked twice and looked at the digital clock next to the bed. It was 8:02 in the morning. I miraculously didn’t have a hangover, but I could imagine that it would feel like a girl who does 100 arm curls every morning repeatedly pounding me on the back of my head.

“Am I supposed to be enjoying this?” I ask. I verified a spark of intelligence by moving away from her.

“Get me some goddamn Gatorade. Stat!” she yelled.

“How about I get you some water?” I think, stalling for time before her next period of glorious drunk sleep.

“Tastes like pond scum,” she said, rolling over.

I decided to venture outside for supplies, and get away from Seniorita Loca. While it was very cold outside, the roads were clear and I returned with a bag full of sausage biscuits and a gallon or so of Gatorade. I may have been immune to the aftereffects of alcohol, but I wasn’t taking any chances and my mouth was dry. As I predicted, Nicole was asleep on the floor. I checked the dryer and the towels inside were only slightly damp. I took that as good enough and put the sheets in, giving the dial a strong clockwise turn. The Apollo 13 used more power than this excuse for a dryer. I missed the giant ones from college that could comfortably hold three sorority girls and a ferret.

I went back upstairs and halfway through my second biscuit realized that I wasn’t really in the mood for excessive grease. Nicole would appreciate some cinnamon rolls, I thought. I remembered the one time she made cinnamon rolls for me. She burned them and tried to cover up her mistake with an inch of icing. I’m convinced that she gave me the more burned ones on purpose.

Weekend of My Discontent, Part 3

Please visit the intro or Part 1 to read from the top. Today's edition will cover the Second Quarter and Halftime sections of the story.

Second Quarter

There were four scheduled games that weekend, and Seahawks/Redskins was the lowest on my priority of games to see. The Redskins were the lowest ranked team in the playoffs, and they had to beat Tampa Bay on the road last week just to get the right to meet the Seattle Seahawks, the top team in the National Football Conference. In winning the Redskins registered the lowest offensive output for a playoff winner in history. I didn’t expect them to put up much of a fight in Seattle, even though the Seahawks hadn’t won a playoff game since 1984. I was five years old.

I had a choice. I could turn on the bedroom television and watch some of the game while pretending to unpack. I could also go upstairs and spend time with my “fiancé’”. My third option was to think ahead to the romantic prospects for the evening. A blazing fireplace along with a lovely meal cooked by myself seemed like a good idea. A little tequila mixed in wouldn’t hurt.

I changed into my hiking boots, determined to find the firewood pile. Before I got there I checked out the Jacuzzi out back. There was a convenient wall around the spa on two sides, just in case the urge to skinny-dip presented itself. I doubted that would happen. Nicole always found a way to remained at least partially clothed during out encounters. I thought it strange that she generally refused to take her top off during intimate moments because it was a little too obvious when she didn’t wear a bra.

The snow flying into my face was somewhat welcome as I climbed up the incline on the right side of the cabin. The wood pile was there. Most of the logs were coated in snow and all of them were wet in some way. I grabbed the driest four pieces from the middle of the pile and headed around to the front door.

Nicole seemed surprised at my return through the front door. She turned around to acknowledge my presence and then returned to watching her movie. I saw Kevin Costner slow dancing with a woman I couldn’t recognize. I quickly moved across Nicole’s line of sight and dumped the firewood on the floor. My hands and sweatshirt were a mess. I knew that I’d have to get one or two more loads of wood to keep the fire going into the night, if we chose to do so.

Nicole seemed attached to her chick flick, and I hadn’t reached the point in the relationship when I could just grab the remote, which is my male prerogative. I had another idea. It was two in the afternoon and neither of us had eaten lunch nor stocked up on provisions for our two-night stay in the woods. The snow was coming down pretty hard but I figured that the roads would be OK for a while.

“Do you want to go somewhere and get lunch?”

She grunted in return. Nicole’s either starving or looks at food like it were roadkill. With my limited data set I could not anticipate her moods.

“OK then. I’ll figure out where the grocery store is and get some food-like substance. If you have any special needs, speak now.”

She turned and looked at me for the first time in 30 minutes. It wasn’t the kind of look you’d expect from someone whose panties were still on the floor.

“Coffee and cinnamon rolls. Dark roast.”

“Gotcha,” I said, moving to grab my jacket. This is the part in the movie when the girl says something meaningful to the boy as he pauses at the door to go. The room was silent save for the strains of late 80s Whitney Houston.

When I dropped the groceries on the kitchen counter I saw that Nicole was already ahead of me. The Patron that I thought was hidden in my cooler was on the kitchen table. Nicole had about an inch of it in a glass tumbler. A quick gaze at the bottle told me that she was on round two. I tore through half a package of heat-and-serve rolls on the ride back, along with two brownies, so I wasn’t diving in without something in my ample stomach.

Nicole lazily flipped through an issue of People magazine.

“Sounds like you got a lot of stuff,” she said, not turning around.

“How does fish for dinner sound?”

“Sure,” she replied. Her ponytail twitched, which was acknowledgement enough.

“I didn’t think that you read People.”

“The more I drink, the more interesting it becomes.”

“Do you mind if I join you?”

“I only brought one.”

“I was talking about the tequila.”

“Go right ahead.”

People say that Patron is the sipping tequila. I poured myself a healthy dose, clinked Nicole’s glass and had a sip. My lips burned and my will to live temporarily plummeted, but ten seconds later the glow was nice.

I put my hand on hers. Nicole had long, slender fingers. There was a grace to her features. She looked at me, a gaze that only a slightly buzzed man could return. Her dark eyes were generally too intense for extended viewing. I needed to say something, something real. If there was a point to this weekend, I had to condense it into a single sentence, and fast. My audience was ready to change the channel.

“Thanks for coming with me,” I said. There must have been ten dozen more interesting things to say. Instead I went with the audible. At least I didn’t gesture my hands like a moron in the style of Peyton Manning. What I had done was suggest actual feeling between us. If such a thing existed, we were way too cool to acknowledge it.

“Thanks for asking me,” she said with a soft smile. She withdrew her hand.

I took another sip and immediately regretted it. A tumbler full of margarita mix would have been useful.

“Does it bother you that we don’t know anything about each other?” she asked. I saw pictures of Britney Spears and Kevin Federline.

Not really, I almost said. “Is there anything you’d like to know?”

“What’s with the hair?”

I immediately started talking without thinking. “When I turned 15, I discovered my first grey hair. Most boys of that age are discovering something else. I didn’t think it was that big of a deal because there was just one of them. By the time I was 17 it was about fifty-fifty and at 19 the brown was all but gone.”

“So it turned that way over time?”

“You’ve never had a grey hair?”

“To be honest, no.”

“Your hair is fantastic.”

“It’s almost white.”

“It’s natural.”

She blushed. “You’ve had grey hair so long that it’s no longer a big deal.”

“It never was a big deal.”

“What is a big deal to you?”

Football was my instant mental answer. “You being here is a nice start.”

“You always know what to say,” she replied, seeing me clearly for a moment. It passed.

We made no further physical contact until a couple of hours later, when I convinced her to join me in the Jacuzzi at sunset. That was all well and good, except that the Jacuzzi and entire backyard faced East. Besides, it was still snowing. Nicole put on a one-piece suit. I thought she could pull off a bikini, but that was my misogynistic side coming out. I had already taken the cover off and turned on the jets, so she went in as I quickly checked the TV for an update. The Redskins just missed a field goal and the Seahawks led 17-10. It was closer than I thought. I reluctantly turned off the television.

My mood shifted when Nicole offered me a shot. We drank like college students, played footsie and giggled until we were two prunes. I kissed her instead of trying to talk again and she proved that was a good idea by going along with it. Time passed without either of us knowing, and that was a rare blessing.

When we got out I had a moment of panic when I realized that the back door might be locked. They’d find us in the morning, looking like extras from Cocoon, with an empty bottle of Patron smashed against the wall.

I was nice enough to get her a towel. Once she was safe and warm I went back outside to put the top back on the Jacuzzi. Going from 105 degrees to 30 in ten seconds can be refreshing for a couple of moments, but the fun is over very soon.

Halftime Show

I finished wrestling the wet cover over the steaming tub when I heard what sounded like coughing. When I paused for a moment to grab a towel and remove my swim trunks, I heard the shower turn on. The sudden desire to be dry overrode my curiosity about the noise. The bathroom door was closed. When I opened the door I saw Nicole crouching over the toilet. She turned on the shower to muffle the sound.

“Let me take your swimsuit,” I said as I helped her up and into the shower.

“No,” she mumbled.

“You want to shower with your suit on?”

“Go away,” she said. Five seconds later she added “Please.”

I cleaned up the bathroom as best I could. Deciding that she needed privacy, I closed the bathroom door. I thought better. Why wouldn’t she want some company in the shower? If I could help get her cleaned up, then I would be her hero. I would be her Tom Brady in shining armor. Tom Brady is the quarterback of the New England Patriots, and he’s 9-0 in playoff games. Who wouldn’t want to be more like Tom?

I opened the door and saw her drop her suit on the floor. When I quickly opened the curtain she turned around like a pet caught rooting through the trash and pressed her back against the shower wall. The suddenness of her movements startled me.

“What the fuck!”

“Sorry,” I replied. “I thought you might need some help in cleaning up.”

“What part of fuck off don’t you understand,” she slurred loudly. She looked down, giggled, and mumbled “shrinkage.” Before curling into a fetal position, she threw up on me.

Between the two smallish bath towels I got her dry, into a t-shirt and into the bed. It was almost seven and I had doubts that she was going to wake up for a while. I put socks on her feet, wrapped her up in covers, made sure that she slept on her stomach and went upstairs to make my dinner.

I was still a bit drunk myself. When I turned on the TV I saw that the Denver/New England game was due to start in an hour. The evening had turned.

Weekend of My Discontent, Part 2

Here you go, kiddies. . .

First Quarter

The drive up was uneventful. I brought a book on CD but she got bored of Al Franken after Disc one. I knew she liked Ben Folds and played through most of his discography because I didn’t want to take a chance on anyone else.

I made a couple of stabs at conversation and they died quickly. She spent most of the drive looking out the window. Her hair was back in a pony tail. She’d catch me looking at her from time to time. Nicole’s main facial expression was a frown. Generally when someone is deep in thought, you don’t want to know what they’re thinking.

The background subtly shifted from flat Georgia to mountainous North Carolina. Her expression told me that she was a bit nervous about the weekend. We had never discussed exclusivity in the two months that we’d known each other. I envisioned the kind of weekend that a long-term couple has at home, only in a slightly more exotic locale. Asheville may be no Vegas, but the surroundings were pleasing to the eye. As I turned into the neighborhood bordering the development that included our cabin it started to snow. It had been at least two years since I had seen that kind of snow in Atlanta.

After a brief stopover at the main office, we found our cabin on Branch Lane. “Carl’s Cabin” read a small stenciled sign nailed to a tree with branches hanging over a small gravel area that was to be our parking lot. The cabin was, as the Web site promised, a log cabin with a slanted roof and a small archway leading to the door. I saw a large green plastic bin to the right of the house. The kind woman at the office told me that was to keep the bears out of the trash. How thoughtful.

“I should have grabbed that movie,” Nicole said as first saw the cabin, clearly underimpressed. Inside the main office was a small closet with a large selection of VHS and DVD movies. I could imagine being stuck in the cabin during a blizzard with the cable out and nothing but Pearl Harbor to watch. Either she had a misguided crush on Ben Affleck or Josh Hartnett or she was making a pretty good joke.

Her mood improved when I opened the door for her. I offered to carry her over the threshold. She turned around, grunted, and left me alone outside like a stand-up comedian whose first joke absolutely bombed. The modern kitchen to the right, almost as big as my entire condo, was a nice surprise. The ceiling literally was to the roof, coming to a point about eight feet over our heads.

“I’m going to turn the heat up,” she said. Nicole always knew where the thermostat was, and I secretly thought that the reason why she rarely stayed at my place was that I kept the temperature at 68 during the winter. I checked out the bathroom as she went around a corner. I started walking to the door on the opposite side of the room, most likely the deck, when she ambushed me.

Our bags were in the car, we hadn’t even ventured downstairs yet and she all but tackled me on the beige couch. It could have been leather, but I had my doubts. I bruised my knee.

“OK, I like it,” she said a few minutes later.

“Did you think that you were going to hate it?”

“Kind of.”

“Then why did you agree to come?”

“It was a nice gesture,” she started. My stern looked asked for more detail. “OK, the only way I could get out of working on Martin Luther King Jr. Day was if I told my boss that I was going out of town with my fiancé.”

“Excuse me?”

“At first I was going to say boyfriend who was very likely to propose, but that would take too long to say. So I took it to the next level.”

“Just for one day off work.”

“Actually three. I haven’t taken a full day off in months. I almost cried when you told me that we couldn’t get wireless access out here.”

She lied, and so did I. I inquired about the availability of a wireless Internet connection. It wasn’t that kind of cabin. While I get separation anxiety when I’m away from my machine, I planned ahead for three long days apart. It wasn’t like I picked a place without a television. That would be roughing it.

Besides, it was a moral imperative to be computer-free for the weekend. One night when I came over for a sleepover she brought the infernal machine. Telling me that she was just checking her e-mail while I got ready for bed, she proceeded to furiously type for the next three hours. She didn’t even wake me up in a special way to compensate. Nicole set the alarm for 4:30 the following morning so she could get her daily workout in before heading to the office.

I could see us hammering away on our dueling keyboards for three days, ten feet from an excellent view of the Appalachian Mountains.

“Do you want to see the rest of the place?”

“Where’s the wood?”

I could take that comment in at least seven inappropriate directions. Instead I followed her pointing finger to the fireplace.

“I guess it’s outside somewhere.”

“I saw a pack of fire-starters on the porch.”

“All foreplay and no finish,” I mumbled.

“What did you say?”

“Nothing. I’ll get the bags.”

Nicole had figured out the TV remote before I returned. Her bag was small but heavy. Mine was large and heavy. I packed enough clothes for a week.

I took the bags downstairs, but on the way I heard something that caught my attention. Nicole flipped fairly rapidly. I managed to hear a snippet that sounded like “the Seahawks and the Redskins, coming up next.”

Holy crap. I scheduled a romantic weekend during the NFL divisional playoffs.

Weekend of My Discontent, Part 1

Note to everyone: There are adult situations and language (shocking) in this story. If you are offended by such material, you're probably not really my friend.

The Weekend of My Discontent

Or, Chapter One of the Larry Smith Saga

By Zachary Thomas Law

“You’re out of your fucking mind,” I finally said. It had to be said. If you know the grating feeling of a child kicking the back of your chair at a movie, you understand the futility that morphs to rage when someone doesn’t understand the crystal clarity of your own opinions.

“Say bye bye to the ’72 Dolphins,” Brian said. He tore the wrapper on his Tecate into small pieces. In addition to that habit, he was a poor tipper.

“The Colts will not go undefeated,” I said. The Indianapolis Colts were the final undefeated team in the National Football League. At 9-0, deep-thinking sportswriters had already crowned them Best Team Ever. “No one’s ever gone undefeated in a 16-game schedule.”

“Not until this year,” Brian said.

“It’s the NFL. Either they’re going to face a team loaded for bear and give up, or they’re going to clinch home field advantage in the playoffs and rest their starters,” I replied. “The Colts are perennial playoff underachievers. This would be the sixth year in seven that they finished with at least ten wins. How many playoff wins do they have?”

“I wasn’t talking about playoffs, dickhead. I’m talking about regular season immortality.”

“It’s not going to happen. Tom, tell them it’s not going to happen.”

Tom held his bottle like Hamlet holding Yorick’s skull. He refused to let the bartender take it despite the fact that it had been empty for 30 minutes. “It’s not going to happen.”

“Oh no, don’t tell me that your Steelers are going to end it,” Brian replied. The Colts and Steelers would meet the following Monday night.

“No, they’ll probably beat the hell out of the Steelers,” Joseph said.

“Brian, I’ll bet you anything you want that the Colts won’t go undefeated.”

Brian looked at me. He was tired. “I’m 32. The Colts haven’t won the Super Bowl since two years before I was born. Give me that much.”

“I can’t give you a title. Peyton Manning’s going to have to take it for you. Do you think he has the stuff?”

Brian hesitated for a second. “I do.”

“Best of luck to you,” I replied.

“I’m out,” Tom said, pushing forward his bottle.

“It was good to see you,” I offered.

“I have a friend who’s expecting me in about 15 minutes,” Tom said, smiling because Brian and I did not need him to explain what kind of friend she was. He offered both of us his left hand. He’s not weird that way; he has some nerve damage in his right hand and prefers to lead with the stronger one.

He took three steps toward the door and paused. “Oh yeah, Larry. Joseph told me to tell you. He’ll let you know about the job. I don’t know what that means, but I assume that you do.”

I nodded. I did. Joseph had a line on some lucrative freelance work.

Joseph knew people, and the person he knew this time wanted to know me. This guy, still unknown by name, liked my work and wanted to pay me some real money to do it for him.

“I’m interested to see how it shakes out,” I replied.

“Brian, I’ll see you next Tuesday. Larry, you should really show up one of these weeks.”

I made the throat-slash gesture, but Brian wasn’t paying attention. He was looking elsewhere.

“CPA,” Brian said after dropping his empty bottle of Tecate on the bar.

“Excuse me?” I asked. My beer was still half full.

“The skirt,” Brian insisted.

“Dibs,” I said before turning around.

“I saw her first,” he said. Brian has a girlfriend which probably explains why he noticed her while I was busy saying good-bye to my friend. If I needed someone to join me at a bar with five minutes’ notice, Brian was my top choice. I had to overcome his Colts homerism. My vitriol against the Colts had nothing to do with the fact that his team had beaten my Titans five straight times.

I turned and saw the pixyish blonde in a black pinstriped suit leading a large group of what appeared to be her co-workers. The southwestern themed bar generally catered to broke college students. It might be the first time in years that the bartender saw a credit card that didn’t belong to someone’s dad.

“No way she’s a CPA,” I said. “Lawyer.”

“How the fuck do you know?” he replied.

“Good guess on CPA. The only people who still dress that well for work are CPAs and lawyers.” What I wear to work sometimes doesn’t include pants.

“How’s she a lawyer then?”

“Don’t most of them look tired?”

“I always look tired,” he said, refusing to concede.

“CPAs generally look tired closer to tax season. It’s October.”

“You have the gift,” Brian said, motioning to the bartender for another beer. Brian worked at an adult learning center and had no issues with coming to work hung over.

I turned to reply, but she stood next to my seat, leaning over the bar. The jacket of her suit was open, and I saw that two of the buttons on her cream satin blouse were unbuttoned. The smooth pale skin looked like the reflection of the full moon. I started to feel somewhat warmer. She ordered 12 tequila shots, something a CPA would never do without a company credit card. This stylish lawyer failed to notice my presence until one of her co-workers declined the shot. She offered it to me and my natural charm took over.

“I don’t take drinks from strangers,” I said. She pushed the glass into my bottle of Negro Modelo.

“Don’t be a pussy,” she said, in a strong voice. She didn’t look at me when she said it, which made it easy for me to figure out her strategy. Her 11 colleagues were all in a battle with her for partnerships, and any opportunity to score points was fair game. She probably passed the bar less than six months ago.

I wasn’t embarrassed by the gesture, since I knew none of these people and the only one potentially worth knowing gave me a quick ‘I was just kidding’ wink. I looked into her huge dark eyes and downed the shot.

“That’s what I’m talking about,” she said.

“How about a beer?” I suggested. I could walk the six blocks home but preferred to do it sober. Having company to pass the time was ideal.

“I’ll have a Corona,” she replied.

I introduced myself while the bartender filled our order.

She responded in kind, offering a pretty stiff handshake. At this point Brian was as good as a speck on the wall. I found out two weeks later how his night turned out. He went home with a hefty executive secretary and was too drunk to get it up.

“What’s with the pumps?” I asked innocently. She was close to my height, but I couldn’t really tell because of the shoes.

“The pumps? Oh, the shoes!” Nicole said, leaning closer to me. That was a good sign.

“Is that official lawyer-wear?” I asked.

“How did you know that I’m a lawyer?”

“I have the gift,” I said.

“I guess you do,” she replied, eyeing me curiously. It was like she was looking at me for the first time. I couldn’t match her hard gaze for long. I wouldn’t want to negotiate with her. “The shoes are only for special occasions. I used to wear them every day to work until I couldn’t even walk when I got home. Some people wear tennis shoes until they get into the office, but they don’t go with the outfit.”

Funny, eh? “They give you an edge.”

“I’m not exactly towering over the competition,” Nicole said, throwing her arm in the general direction of her colleagues. They were still clustered together like this was their first time in a bar.

“So what brings you here?” she asked.

I didn’t need to bring my friend, who at that moment had left for the bathroom and wouldn’t return, leaving me with the bill, into the conversation. “Just felt like a beer after work.”

“Do you always work until nine?”

“Only when I come in at noon. The boss is pretty flexible.”

“So what is it that you do?”

I told her.

“Impressive,” she replied, flashing a smile that I would not soon forget.

We chatted for the next hour and then some. She was 18 months out of law school. Nicole spent all of her work and free time with co-workers, which was fine when she was new to Atlanta but started to wear on her, especially when she became the go-to person to mediate office romances gone wrong. I told her that I could be her official Atlanta guide, and that I did not work for tequila shots. She smiled and laughed and I liked both.

The bar was called Modern Drunkard, and I caught it on Southwestern night. I went for the clientele, and because it was within walking distance of my condo. If I was in a slump, romantically speaking, I could come in on a college night and for less than ten bucks find a morally uncomplicated coed willing to make out with me in the alley. It was a college night but it was also the Tuesday before Thanksgiving. The crowd was different. I found myself in the company of an actual woman. She had tasted success, and didn’t need to make out with the likes of me to feel better about herself.

When she invited me back to her place, I looked at my watch and told her that it was all right because I had known her for all of 102 minutes. Between the three Coronas and the various shots that her co-workers passed her way, Nicole was a bit slurry. Considering that my moral compass allows me to pick up drunk girls on a school night, but only in the case of an emergency, I said yes. She didn’t need help walking but did slip on a crack on the sidewalk once. The shoes did look good on her.

I was a perfect gentleman, and not just because she passed out thirty seconds after I put her on the couch. I took off her shoes, considered taking off other things, then I sat down and promptly fell asleep on a chair opposite her prone form.

When I woke up in the middle of the night and made a wrong turn after leaving the bathroom, I wasn’t a gentleman. Despite being hung over and dehydrated, Nicole was an excellent hostess.

In our countless dates between then and now Nicole more or less avoided alcohol. I assumed that I met her on a bad day and left it at that. I wouldn’t characterize our conversations as deep and meaningful, but we enjoyed each others’ company.

She was, without a doubt, the most beautiful woman I’d dated in years.

I characterize this as a typical oughts relationship. We had seven heated dates in the first three weeks. Then she disappeared off the face of the earth and only after I had given up hope two weeks later did she call me back. Nicole didn’t explain the extended disappearance, which was OK because I took it for granted that we were allowed to see other people in the interim. We dated like fiends for the next couple of weeks. I think I even left some clothing at her place during this period. I asked her to the cabin right before I disappeared for two weeks.

Without the horrifically bad moments in our lives, would we appreciate the unexpected good ones? I sincerely doubt it. Then again, is it really necessary for us to suffer to become better, or at least more mature, people? There are times in life when the bad moments are well-deserved, and there are others that hit like a blindside blitz.

Yes, I’m big on the sports metaphors. I like sports as much as the next guy, and perhaps more. See, I’m one of those guys who analyze football statistics like they were the fourth quarter results for Google. And while grasping such potential lucrative knowledge might result, if nothing else, in my own private room in a nursing home, my understanding that Curtis Martin beat Shaun Alexander by one yard to win the 2004 NFL rushing title yields me nothing other than curious stares from my friends. I am a hit in the fantasy football world, though. Fantasy football is like Dungeons and Dragons for the 21st century.

I’ll admit that sometimes the actual games on TV bore me to tears. It’s the incessant punting, the overkill of repetitive commercials, the dearth of quality announcers, the 73 replays of the most mundane three-yard off-tackle run, all of it. One game in 10 is competitive.

This all changes in the glorious month of January, when the best of the best meet in the playoffs. That’s when it hits the most die-hard of football fans. When the playoffs begin there are only 11 games left in the season, and just two weeks into the party there are a mere three contests remaining. It’s true that when the stakes are higher, the interest peaks. Maybe that’s why I prefer dramas over comedies, but then again I’m allergic to laugh tracks.

January can be a tough time for a mixed relationship. When I mean mixed relationships I speak of the union of one football fanatic and one football apathetic.

The reason that most mixed relationships survive football season is that the games are confined to Sundays, with the rare exclusion of a Thursday night game and of course the Monday night contests that start at the average thirtysomething’s bedtime. Playoff games, on the other hand, are spread out during the entire weekend. Nicole never mentioned football, and if you don’t mention football for three months during football season, it means you’re not a fan.

I’m a fan. My name’s Larry. Yes, just like Larry Fitzgerald, the sensational receiver for the Arizona Cardinals who exceeded 100 catches in his sophomore season. It’s not short for Lawrence. It’s just Larry. I’m 28 years old, and on a good day my friends say I look like a young John Goodman. Unlike John Goodman, I have prematurely grey hair. I work but I don’t have a job. My life’s not complicated but I like to pretend that it is.

Our heroine in this tale is a fine lass named Nicole Bloom. On the first day of this so-called romantic vacation we will have been dating for 102 days.

It was an unspoken agreement that we not immerse each other in our personal lives. My dating life is private, and this probably has something to do with the female situation being rather fluid.

We didn’t talk for two weeks until she called the night before the trip. “We still going?” she asked. It was a legitimate question. I was on the verge of spending a romantic weekend with my laptop and a roaring fire. Part of me was disappointed that she called.

“I’ll pick you up at eight,” I replied.

“That early?”

I should have taken that as a sign. “Nine, then.”

Why Asheville? I’m not even sure anymore. I knew I wanted to pick a place that was a short drive away. We had yet to spend consecutive nights together and I thought that would be telling. From our first night together, I knew that Nicole was rather inhibition-free under the influence of tequila, and I had purchased a bottle of Patron just for the occasion.

Part II, aka First Quarter, will "drop" on January 16.