Zen and Sex (2 page)

“I shouldn’t go?”

“If you don’t go, it’ll look like it was just too painful for you to show up. Then she wins by default.”

“So, I should go?”

“If you go by yourself, then you are a total loser and you’ll have to suffer her sickly-sweet, forced, sympathetic smile every time she deigns to look at you during the speeches. ‘Oh, you poor thing, you’ve got nobody to love you. But don’t worry, there must be someone out there that’s perfect for you. Don’t give up hope.’ No, you can’t go alone dude, don’t even think about it.”

Knowing exactly where Mike was going with this, I finish off his thought process for him. “The only solution is for me to show up with a drop-dead, gorgeous babe who acts like she’s crazy about me.”

“Bingo.” Mike says with gusto. “Then,
she’ll
feel like the total loser.”

“Absolutely.”

“You’re not dating a drop dead, gorgeous chick, are you?” asks Mike, after a timely beat, pointing out the obvious.

“Haven’t met any I like,” I quip and then turn back to my laptop, not so subtly signaling an end to the conversation.

“You’ve got three weeks,” adds Mike, getting in the last word.

I didn’t hear Gloria enter the apartment, so she must have come in with Mike and gone to the bathroom or something because she appears again and, as usual, she drapes herself all over Mike like a lovesick puppy. Gloria spends so much time here that she may as well be a third roommate. She does seem to make Mike happy, though, and I’m happy for him, even if I don’t think that they’re well matched, which they’re not.

She may be gorgeous, (which, as we know is every man’s Achilles heel) but she doesn’t have too much going on upstairs, at least not on the same level as Mike and I’m sure, at some point, after all the physical stuff dies down, he’s going to notice. He’ll then probably feel less fulfilled, like there’s something missing and casually bring it up with me, over a beer (in jest, of course), in which case it will then be safe for me to point it out to him (also, in jest).

Until then, I’ll keep my opinions to myself and support him through this whole honeymoon phase, hoping it doesn’t last longer than my tolerance for sickly-sweet PDA in every room of the house.

“Is Martin coming with us?” she asks Mike as the proximity of her lips nibbles at his ear.

“Yeah, come with us, bro,” Mike says, turning to me, with genuine enthusiasm. “It’s karaoke night at Frankey’s.”

As I look at Mike and Gloria I suddenly realize that occasionally
they
share that look of love and maybe I should be taking their photograph… nah, that would be way too weird and besides, most times their intimate public moments are such a turn off that I just have to look away.

Truth be told, I think that Gloria is faking it with Mike. It’s like she is totally infatuated with him from morning to night, rubbing her hands and body all over him all of the friggin’ time like it was their very next date after they’ve just had sex for the first time or something, which is not natural.

Maybe somewhere in high school she picked up some tricks that this is how to become popular with boys and maybe swapped notes with the other hot chicks in school, slowly getting her technique down and refining it, ever since.

Because let’s face it, that shit works. I mean, us guys love that stuff: a super hot chick with an unbelievable bod, draped all over us, treating us like we were the penultimate masculine deity, turning them on with our mere presence. Can’t personally say I’ve had much of it myself but I’ve yet to see a guy turn down a foxy chick just because she treats him like a demi-god.

“Who are the photos?” asks Gloria, seeing the still-displayed photo on my laptop screen.

“Aren’t they cool?” enthuses Mike. “The way he catches people just at the right moment?”

“Yeah, but who are they, like, anyone we know?” asks Gloria, totally missing the point.

“Just some couples,” I add, hibernating the laptop. “It’s a project that I’m working on.”

“Tourists are always asking me to take their pictures. Asians, they’re always taking pictures, ever notice that?” Even as Gloria is talking, I’m looking at Mike to see what his reaction is: is he squirming inside, like me, or seriously considering her musings? I leave her hanging by not responding and let the silence open it up for Mike to respond.

“Come out for a beer, bro,” he asks, looking me straight in the eye. How can I say no? Then I remember the last time I was with them both in a bar, when they were mixing booze and PDAs (the heady mix was like watching cuddling and canoodling on steroids). So I say no.

“How are you going to meet someone if you never go out?” chimes in Gloria.

“What kind of woman is he going to meet in bars?” says Mike, coming to my defense.

“That’s where we met, moron.”

“Martin has higher standards,” jokes Mike.

“Dope,” says Gloria, giving him a playing slap on the shoulder.

When they both look at me, I realize that they are still waiting on some kind of response from me. “Who said I want to meet someone? I’m quite happy just the way I am, thank you very much.”

“Then why are you taking pictures of all these strange couples you don’t even know?” asks Gloria, who obviously, totally doesn’t get it. However, I am in no mood to educate her into the art and sophistication of modern thematic photography.

“I need to make a phone call,” I say, excusing myself to get some privacy and enjoy some personal space in my bedroom.

“We’re leaving in like, twenty minutes,” Mike calls after me, and by his tone, I know that he is letting me know that he is not going to accept any lame excuses from me for crying off the mid-week karaoke crunch at Frankey’s. Maybe I will meet someone special, who knows? So, I go change.

As far as sports bars go, Frankey’s isn’t the worst. Let me rephrase that: I don’t like sports bars, in general, but mid-week, Frankey’s loses the whole sports bar feel and does a fair job of passing itself off as a cozy neighborhood, hipster bar with softer lights and what sounds like eighties music. It’s probably an attempt to attract the ladies, which, judging by the numbers in here tonight, they’ve succeeded. The karaoke hasn’t started yet, thank heavens; I guess people haven’t drunk enough yet.

As for meeting someone amazing? Not going to happen. Why? I don’t want to be mean and single out Gloria but let’s just say that now that she has become a member of the team, well, the dynamic has shifted, if you know what I mean. Instead of being two hunter-gatherer males on the prowl, the three of us sit at a table, off to the side; me, playing the gooseberry to a horny couple that can’t keep their hands off of each other (and have no interest in mingling with anybody new, period). The only women I’m going to meet here are the ones who mistake the men’s restroom for the ladies’ when I’m taking a piss. And how often does that happen?

When me and Mike used to hang out here, you’d never catch us coming midweek for any of the hokey bullshit theme nights: karaoke crush, the open mic comedy/rap/poetry slam, Brazilian night, Coyote Ugly Tuesday, Fear Factor Wednesday or the sports trivia quiz bullshit with complimentary and half-price appetizers.

We’d come on weekend nights when the bar was full of serious drinkers and hardcore partiers who wouldn’t be caught dead at a mid-week poetry anything. We’d wear our best and most expensive, coolest shit…and we’d mean business. We’d sit at the bar because every guy worth his salt knows that bar seats are
the
best seats in the house for spotting and attracting talent. And attract them, we would. Okay, so most of the babes only came to the bar to order a drink but we could slip in a few zingers and one-liners while they waited to get served (what’s a hot chick like you…, etc.). Most nights, we killed.

“See anyone you like, Martin?” Gloria asks, scanning the bar.

“Not yet, Gloria. I’ll let you know,” I coolly respond.

“There’s a hottie,” spies Mike.

“The one with the weird hair?” asks Gloria, tracking his sight line. “You think she’s cute?”

“Sure,” answers Mike, now sounding uncertain so as not to incur her wrath.

“She doesn’t have any boobs and her ass is too fat,” comments Gloria with a distinct whiff of ‘how dare you think that someone else in this bar is as cute as I am.’ “Do
you
think she’s cute, Martin?”

“Yep. Cute as a button,” I answer, bored already but not afraid to stick it to her.

“Go ask her to dance,” suggests Gloria.

No one is dancing and I think they’re playing David Bowie’s, ‘Ground Control to Major Tom:’ good luck dancing to that weird little musical oddity.

 “No one is dancing, Gloria,” Mike says, stating the obvious, but not adding a duh, which I totally would have.

“I don’t hear you offering any great suggestions,” says Gloria, turning her attention back to Mike.

“Maybe he doesn’t need any help.”

“He’s just sitting there. Who’s going to come over and talk to him?”

“No one’s going to coming over and talk to him. It doesn’t work like that,” says Mike and only I can hear the sigh of frustration in his voice.

“Yeah, so he needs to get someone up to dance or something,” she responds, undefeated.

Okay, so this is getting weird. Don’t they care that I’m still here? Are they going to start arguing about who has the best mission impossible strategy for hooking me up with someone cute, as if I even need their help?

“Look,” I say, hoping to end the madness, “I came here to have a drink with you two but somehow it’s turning into some kind of weird game show where I’m the only contestant. Do you mind?”

“Fine. Stay miserable,” says Gloria, sounding miffed.

“Stay miserable?” I ask. Where exactly is she coming from?

“You’re love sick and broody,” she says, like a doctor giving a diagnosis. Love sick? Seriously? And who the heck uses the word ‘broody’ anymore: her Amish grandmother? But still, she goes on: “People who don’t get touched on a regular basis are depressed and are more likely to die of cancer and stuff. It was on TV.”

Oh, boy. When does the karaoke start?

“I can’t remember the last time you had sex,” she says and then turns to Mike and asks him. “Do you?”

Okay, out of respect to my long-standing friendship to my BFF, Mike, I’m not going to get into it with Gloria. No matter how big a pain in the ass she’s being, I’ve seen too many situations in the past where girlfriends totally messed up best bud friendships. I’m not saying it’s a conscious thing on their part but I’m not taking the bait and going down that dark road.

I don’t want to lose Mike over some dumb-ass bimbo who’s merely passing through, so I say nothing and just kinda look at Mike with a subtle, WTF, plea-full expression. I don’t know what he’s thinking and maybe he doesn’t want to blow his chance of getting laid tonight but for some reason, he ends up taking Gloria’s side.

“You
were
different when you were with Roxanne, Marty,” he says, as if he were some kind of objective observer, sharing his neutral opinion.

“I’ll be right back,” I say matter-of-factly, getting up, like it is the most normal and optimal timing to go to the bathroom. I am so pissed, I don’t care to take in their reactions as I leap up.

I don’t why Mike had to bring up Roxanne’s name like that, and especially in front of Gloria. He has barely mentioned her until now and that was only when we were having a beer together, in some dive bar, where nothing else was going on: no babes to be seen and no sports on TV. And even then, he said her name in a tentative way, as if he was testing the waters to see how I would react; either get depressed and clam up for the rest of the evening or go off on her like I hated her guts; spilling venom all over the place. When I got quiet and switched the topic to something else, he got the message and dropped the subject.

It’s such a cliché, having a broken heart. I hate it. Just the mention of her name makes me feel like shit. Worse still, I know the only way to forget her is to fall in love with someone else. Then I’ll magically forget about Roxanne. Until the new one breaks my heart and I’m back to where I started. Only the name will have changed. It’ll then be Kimberly or something. Maybe the trick is to fall in love with someone new and try to hang on to her long enough until I’m too old to give a shit. But then again, maybe the Buddha was right: pain and suffering are the only true constants in life.

2. The Come On

“Make sure we see lots of meat, okay? I want you to make those buns look
really
tasty. I should want to sink my teeth into those buns…like I couldn’t help myself. You got it?”

“Gotcha,” I respond, as the director of the photo shoot tells me how I need to capture the subjects in front of us. We’re trapped in a really hot and stuffy studio in the valley. Sweating, I adjust my lens and move closer to find the best angles and most favorable lighting.

“Okay, baby, give me all you’ve got,” I say in my slickest-tongue-of-the-West voice. “That’s it, sweetheart, give it to me, there you go. Lots of meat, that’s it, don’t be shy, baby, no holding back… sexy buns, give it to me, let’s see those sexy buns.” I give my best impression of a top fashion photographer. I look around at the small crew to see who, if anybody, finds me amusing (preferably a cute chick). Which they honestly should, because I’m talking to and taking photos of a plate of cheeseburger and fries. I’m taking shots for a fast food chain: a small chain new to L.A.

I do catch one crew guy (probably just a day player) expend a hint of energy on a faint smile but the rest of the gang are professionals who don’t have a sense of humor at work and most likely consider such antics to be juvenile and amateurish.

Some gigs can be a long drawn out bore but they don’t have to be if only some people would lighten up. Not today, I realize. Looking serious and intent upon impressing whoever hired them for the shoot (most crew are just hired for the duration of a project and then have to look for another job), they ignore me. I don’t blame them for trying to appear like all that they want to do is work. Freelancers depend upon repeat gigs and word-of-mouth.