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.