The Thing That Is Not

I have never been able to justify spending $100 just to get a hard on when they already cum so cheap. No one ever entered a strip club looking to be saved but seeking the dark transcendent “Yes.” It’s so easy to say at the wad exchange.

My ”date”: the guy whose great idea this night out was in the first place, I had been brushing my teeth, on my way to bed when El Generalissimo calls up, has my roommate bring me the phone, promises to pay for everything all night long. I already know it sounds too good to be true, but like a horror movie whose plot choices I can’t control, the words “okay Azzari, I’ll be right over” fall into the receiver like an act of utter madness.

Red Flag #1: he can’t get us into the Palomino (why hadn’t I guessed he’d already been 86’d.) So he covers my entry fee and first drink at Crazy Horse II.

Red Flag #2 at the CH 2? He fucking disappears on me.

Hustlers on the pool table work me for a pitcher, holding me responsible for the bet made by my prodigal Guatemalan prince-ling hiding out in the DJ’s booth near the dressing rooms, bragging about how he’s a DJ at the college station.

A couple of low key dancers talk to me and I attempt to put on my best “please invest in my:

HipnessCoolnessTogethernessSexinessCredibilityDesirabilitySustainabilityFertilityBuyitbuyitbuyit.”

But I can’t. So they don’t. Not the bouncers. Not the pool table hustlers. Not the well dressed men in the booths. Not the dancers. Not for a minute.

I dress for the part that got cut from this script. People like me always wind up patsies for the depraved future foreign service martyrs or their alternate suicides.

The walk home is six miles. When it’s over the sun will be rising. There will be dried blood in my nose. I will have to go to work in three hours. And still this will taste better then still waiting for the promise to come true.