There are some moments when the stars align, when everything clicks, when the universe makes way for you like the Red Sea or four consecutive green lights on Denny Way in Seattle. There are some moments, however rare, when the perfect words drip from your chin instead of barbecue sauce, when your stride and gesticulation are snappy and confident, when your clothes fit you just right and you look good even under fluorescent lights. There are those fleeting moments when you’re every goddamn bit as cool as you imagine yourself to be. What follows is not one of those moments.
I was in my mid-20s, temporarily living, once again, in the town of my adolescence, Moses Lake, Washington (I was spending “a couple of months” there for over two years). I told everyone I met that I was from Seattle (which was true on a technicality—I’d lived in the Seattle area for the first 12 years of my life, and again from the ages of 21-23), and one of the best compliments I ever received was from some guy at the adjacent urinal in a local restaurant-cum-dance club who said to me over the sound of piss, “You’re not from here, are you?” Well, no. No, I’m not.
I tried to quit my job half a dozen times to move back to the city, though I had no other job prospects lined up, and was wisely talked out of it by my boss and friend, Yvonne. I stopped quitting when I fell hopelessly in love with a nice Christian girl who just couldn’t bring herself to date a devout atheist who smoked, drank, cursed, opined and over-analyzed. I spent a couple of years with the curse of Tantalus, spending every day so close to the water that would quench my thirst, only to have it recede when I made any move toward it. What follows is not that story.
I was bitter. I was stuck in a town where I didn’t want to be, I was perpetually rejected by the woman I loved, and the bar where I drank myself stupid with Jack Daniels every night stopped serving me doubles.
I pictured myself as a descendant of the Beats. I devoured books by Bukowski
“Working for the man” meant that I was an Area Manager at a department store, not some brooding, directionless anti-establishmentarian like in Clerks
And then I met Aimee. What follows is that story.
My buddy Josh and I were holding court in the corner booth of the lounge at Papa’s Casino one Saturday night when I first saw her. She came in like a 100-year storm. She was loud, she was brash, she was unsophisticated and confident. She had holes in her tight jeans, biker boots, a studded belt, and a black tank top that hugged her B-cups and showed off her tattoos. She had black hair, a pretty face, and a tiny, tight little body with curves that you’d want to drive a sports car around; but she had an attitude and demeanor that made it obvious that she didn’t give a fuck how anyone saw her. She drank beer in bottles, smoked whatever cigarettes were handed to her, cursed like a sailor and had a laugh that filled a room. This was a girl that appeared to live the fuck-all life of debauchery that I only read about in books. I wanted her right away.
Aimee had come to the bar with Ashley, who I’d met a few times before. Ashley was a friend of Josh’s and a co-worker at his magazine, the one for which I wrote. She was a genuinely good-natured soul, a free spirit, and the only lesbian I knew in MoHo. When she saw us, Ashley came and sat down at our booth. I hoped her hot little friend would, too. And, eventually she did.
Aimee and I were properly introduced, after which I made myself entirely forgettable by sitting back and quietly listening to their stories of drugs, sex and rock-n-roll—I had nothing to contribute, no stories of my own except for things like just barely getting a table of sweaters folded before a visit from the Regional Vice President, and no one wants to hear stories like that. I mean, no one.
So, I sat quietly with my whiskey and cigarettes—the ashtray blooming like a rose garden—putting on the “dark and mysterious” façade that I’d spent years cultivating like the sculpted beard I wore. Predictably, Aimee and I didn’t talk to each other at all; she directed her attention to those that were actually talking to her. I did toss out a few nonchalant, tepid compliments, which, as far as I could tell, landed on deaf ears. Before I knew it, the bar was closing down, bar tabs were paid, goodbyes were said, Ashley and Aimee left, and Josh and I headed out the door.
In the parking lot, I asked him about Aimee.
“Yeah, she’s cute, but she’s kind of a mess. And sorry, man, but she’s into girls.”
Most people, or any reasonably intelligent person at least, would have heard this as a deterrent. I did not. What I heard was, “Yeah, she’s
Over the next few weeks, I kept an eye out for Aimee at the bar. I was usually there every night anyway, but now I had to make sure I never missed a night, just in case she stopped in. And a few times, she did. I continued to hide my social awkwardness by maintaining my cool and aloof affectation, and I looked for any sign that she’d be interested in me while giving her absolutely no reason to be. Our relationship advanced from complete stranger to casual acquaintance, which I found encouraging. That’s progress.
Yeah, she’d been with girls, but in my mind, that didn’t mean the doors were closed to men, and it made her even more attractive. She told stories of taking bottles of vodka into the shower with her in the morning. Well, that’s cool, because I once got drunk on cheap port while re-reading On the Road
I really tried to find things in common with Aimee, to make it appear that I belonged in her world, or at least to paint my world in a hue as colorful as hers. I may not have lived a devil-may-care life, but I was an outlaw of the mind goddamnit.
All the groundwork I’d laid finally set the stage for the night Aimee and I would connect.
Josh and I were at the bar, and he was making progress with a sexy girl named Ginny that guys all over town would have killed him for. Aimee showed up and sat at our table, staying even after her friends left. And I was cool. I was smooth. I was witty. My jokes were funny, and my stories were interesting. I was smart but not pretentious, well-read but not nerdy, friendly but not eager, and flirty but not creepy. And I looked damn good in my brand new pair of dress pants and black tee shirt. (“I’m so indie, I wear slacks.”) I deftly walked the line between I-don’t-give-a-fuck and I-think-you’re-really-attractive. I oozed confidence, and I was winning.
I was congratulating myself about this when I was jolted out of my reverie by a tap on the shoulder.
“Doug, you with us buddy?” Josh asked.
“Oh, yeah, what’s up?”
“It’s after last call and we’re all going out to the sand dunes. You in?” he asked, apparently repeating himself.
“Wait, what?”
I looked around. Josh, Ginny and Aimee were all staring at me, waiting for my answer. Aimee’s face was filled with hopeful expectation.
A word about the sand dunes. Though Moses Lake is far inland, just south of the lake are 3,000 acres of sand dunes. It’s an unsupervised recreation area where you can camp without amenities, water-ski, fish, ride your ATV, do drugs, have orgies and, I imagine, bury bodies. Because the area is so big and undeveloped, you can do just about anything out there in the dark of night without repercussion. Underage kids go out there to get hammered and get naked, people of all ages go out there for drug deals and to get fucked up. After dark, it’s a haven for lechers, tweakers and other ne’er-do-wells. Needless to say, I’d never gone out there, and I was taken a little off guard.
“Let’s go,” Aimee encouraged me.
“Um, yeah, I’m in,” I answered without conviction. Ohshitohshitohshit, we’re going to the sand dunes!
I didn’t know what to expect, and suddenly thought I’d bitten off more than I could chew. I’d always wanted to collect experiences, good or bad, but I’d always just been a good guy. Now, we were all piling into Josh’s car in the middle of the night to head to the dunes where I was sure nothing wholesome could happen. I may be walking right into Caligula’s
On the other hand, Aimee clearly wanted me to go, which was a good sign. If I wanted something to happen, it was time to put my money where my mouth was and just go for broke. “Suck out all the marrow of life” and all that. I summoned my courage, regained my confident fuck-all demeanor and committed myself to going with the flow, wherever that would take me.
We stopped by a gas station and bought a half-rack of beer right at the stroke of 2 a.m., and headed south to the dunes. Josh knew exactly where he was going. Aimee sat close to me in the back seat, and The Strokes
The car finally rolled to a stop out in the middle of nowhere, at least a mile away from the nearest street light. We got out and passed around cans of Keystone Light. Josh turned up the radio and left the car doors open. He and Ginny walked toward the front of the car. Aimee grabbed my hand and pulled me to the rear.
I was terrified. I didn’t know what to do next. A lifetime of conditioning had made me a perfect gentleman, and now I was slugging cheap beers out of aluminum cans in the middle of the goddamn night with a sexy girl who might be a lesbian and, whatever the case may be, was in a whole other league than I. But I was committed. I was in too deep to back out. I had to man up.
So, naturally, I decided to stall.
I climbed up on the trunk of the car, and sat there looking super cool and natural, as if I did this kind of thing all the time. (Did what, exactly? I had no fucking clue what was happening.) Aimee stood in front of me, the moonlight on her pale face and a lascivious look in her eyes like the sexiest ghost a guy could imagine. I started making small talk, as if there was no rush toward the inevitable. Glancing back over the top of the car, I could see that Josh and Ginny had wasted no time before making out, their beers abandoned on the hood of the car. I looked back at Aimee, who was losing patience. She stepped between my knees, grabbed me around the neck pulled my mouth to hers.
Exactly three thoughts raced through my mind, maneuvering for position like skaters in a roller derby.
- Holy shit, I’m making out with Aimee!
- How cool am I now? Suck it, Miles Davis!
- Two couples making out in the dark by the lake is the equivalent of the fabled “lookout point” or “lover’s lane,” and seems really fucking cliché.
Aimee and I made out for a few minutes. It was hot, passionate, alternately rough and gentle, a little lecherous, and surprisingly, totally normal. I’d half expected a girl like Aimee to bite my lip off just to taste blood, but she wasn’t a siren. She was just a girl.
There are only a few things you can count on in this life. Benjamin Franklin famously said, “in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.” I would add, “and the look on a girl’s face after a first kiss.” I love that look; there’s nothing else quite like it. It’s a look of happiness with the tension of trying to keep from bursting at the seems and letting that happiness spill out all over the place. There’s a touch of bashfulness and a pinch of guilt with the knowledge that it can’t be taken back. And, underneath all of that, it’s a look that says, “What now? Where do we go from here?” There’s a purity, an honesty to that look that’s even better than sexual afterglow. At that moment, Aimee had that look. Now, not just sexy or rugged or bad-ass, now, with her face close to mine under a moonlit sky with radio music filling the air, now she looked beautiful.
If I could have seen my own face, I would probably have seen a similar expression, but with an added layer of self-congratulatory swagger. I’d played it cool all night, and everything had worked out perfectly so far. I was killing it! I was a fucking rock star!
“Dance with me,” she said, grabbing my hand and pulling me toward her. That took me by surprise, but I didn’t resist. I was squarely in the cool zone, and nothing could touch me now.
I slid off the back of the car, and at the exact moment when my feet touched the sand, the Universe said “fuck you” and decided to take me down a peg or two to remind me who I am. I lost my balance immediately and lurched forward, almost knocking Aimee down. Trying to correct, I veered left, careened right, staggered left, and stumbled right again, my arms flailing wildly in the air trying to steady myself; but a tag team of gravity and momentum were double-teaming me and sent me to the mat.
My left knee hit the ground first and the rest of my body followed like a felled tree, my face making contact last with a wump!, and my mouth and nose filled with sand a split second after I lost all the air in my lungs.
Coughing, sputtering and spitting sand, I tried to collect myself as Aimee ran up to me, and Josh and Ginny came around from the front of the car to see what all the commotion was about. I pulled myself to my feet, trying to catch my breath and limped back to the trunk of the car doubled over. In the fall, my knee had discovered the only rock sticking out of the sand within a hundred fucking yards. The leg of my new pants had three holes in the knee, a dark spot steadily growing around them. I felt the blood running down my leg, into my sock and pooling in my shoe, my heel sticking where the blood was busy coagulating.
“Holy shit, are you OK, man?” Josh asked.
Ginny stood by quietly. Aimee had her hand on my back, trying to attend to me while I tried to catch my breath and clear my mouth and nose of sand, but really there’s nothing you can do for someone in circumstances like these. It’s a nice gesture, but it’s as ineffectual as saying, “I support our troops.” While I could appreciate that she wasn’t just laughing at me and that she wanted to be helpful, this is exactly the kind of situation where you don’t want a lot of attention. You just want it to be over.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” I mumbled, trying to maintain the illusion that I had everything under control.
“We’d better go,” he said.
“Come on, let’s get you in the car,” Aimee told me gently. She took me by the hand, opened the door for me, and deposited me into the back seat. She walked around the back of the car and climbed in beside me as Josh and Ginny poured the unfinished beers out and put everything into the trunk.
I thought I heard Josh mumble “Fucking Doug,”as he and Ginny got in the front seat, but that might have been me thinking out loud.
Aimee held my hand as we drove back across the dunes to the road and headed toward the streetlights of MoHo. Josh kept the volume on the radio high to fill the awkward silence. I was the first to be dropped off. I didn’t invite Aimee to come in; I was too embarrassed. She gave my hand a squeeze before I let go of hers, climbed out of the car and hobbled my way toward the stairs up to my apartment. They were gone before I reached my front door.
Who’s cool now? I could hear Miles Davis say to me, Suck it, Doug.
This would not be my last opportunity to make a fool of myself in front of Aimee.
