All Dressed Up

After a Saturday afternoon of golf, in which I managed to get my cart stranded on a boulder, I found myself in the upstairs bar of an Irish pub in downtown Harrisburg with three friends; D.B., Luch, and the Weasel. This upstairs bar is used for the runoff of the downstairs bar when it’s crowded, which it definitely was on this night, with wall to wall fraternity types. I avoid these professors of brotherhood at all costs, not trusting anyone that has to make friends through sadistic rituals like sticking olives up their brother’s asses and charging a membership fee to do so. I pay my friends well just to be my friends; that’s how you earn loyalty.

We positioned ourselves at the small marble topped bar which allowed an advantageous view of every woman that entered or exited. I was dressed in a navy blue Gianluca Isaia three-button suit and pair of Salvatore Ferragamo Crocodile loafers which a current love interest had given me when her brother’s part time cross dressing habit became a full time obsession. According to the price tags still on the clothing when I received them the suit cost $2400 and the shoes $1500. I didn’t feel comfortable about the clothing at first; my style usually revolves around leather jackets, dark wrap around sunglasses, khakis, and Burmese Jungle boots. I was only able to ease into this glittery get up when my lady friend insisted that I looked like a shorter, heavier, balder, and less handsome version of Brad Pitt. We were to meet for drinks later at a Martini bar down the street and I knew she wouldn’t like the dirty Titleist baseball hat I was wearing with the suit but it was better she learn sooner than later that compromise is something I’m not good at.

“You look like an idiot in that suit,” Luch said.

“You look sharp,” the Weasel said.

“Thank you at least someone has taste in this place. You’ve always been a snappy dresser, Weasel. Look at that light blue J Crew sweater and those suede shoes, that’s top notch attire” I said. “Anyone that knows anything about fashion wouldn’t put down such fine clothing, Luch. Hell, I’ve seen you wear those crusty Wolverine shit kickers with a three piece suit on more than one occasion. Talk about a road kill fashion statement.”

“Whatever,” Luch said, taking a sip of his Coors light.

I blew a tangy cloud of smoke at him.

The cigar I chose for that evening was as $25 dollar Perdomo Edicion De Silvio double corona which was given to me by a slightly mad cigar enthusiast I met while vacationing in New Orleans in 1997, who I’ll call “Igor.” He has a vast walk in humidor and wine cellar in his heavily fortified estate, which I spent the greater part of my vacation in.

“Barkeep, do you have any Bowmore Celtic Heartland 1968 35 yr old Single Malt Scotch?” I asked.

“What?” she asked.

“Bourbon?”

“Makers Mark?”

“Right.”

The bartender, a voluptuous brunette with cleavage that was pushing the tensile strength of her lace bodice to limits meant only for industrial strength bungee cords, set my Makers Mark in front of me, leaning further forward than what seemed necessary. I would notice later she had a pouty lower lip that resembled Alfred Hitchcock’s in profile, large huckleberry eyes, and smelled piney, not like a floor cleaner but like the aroma of the Hawaiian Snow bud I’d smoked with the janitor of the building I work in one night while working late to make a deadline. I didn't make the deadline.

D.B leaned over and whispered in my ear, “I’d like to take one of those out, lay my head on it, and take a nap.”

“Yes, well Freud claimed that the breasts are the first "erotogenic" zones—”

“Shut up and just look, you can’t take your eyes off of them,” D.B. said.

“They are rather hypnotizing,” I said.

“D.B., if you don’t make it back from Iraq is it all right if I take your plane ticket to Atlantis on that trip you and your girlfriend are supposed to go on?” Luch asked, a crooked grin on his face.

“Can you believe he asked that?” D.B. asked.

“Actually I can. He’s a hedonistic beer guzzler who suffers from illusions of grandeur, a deep seeded fear of intimacy and an acute case of alektorophobia (fear of chickens) which was brought on by a bad mescal trip in Mexico. Of course he’d bed down your girlfriend if you weren’t to make it back. It’s his nature,” I said, puffing on my cigar.

D.B. slumped noticeably on his bar stool. He rubbed his shaved head and drank from his 22 ounce bottle of Yeungling.

My mouth, the single most deadly weapon I possess other than my brass knuckles belt buckle had once again done damage I couldn’t repair. I tried to save myself any way because if I’m not making things worse I really don’t know how to function. .

“I mean it’s his nature but I’ll kick his ass if he takes that ticket. I mean…he won’t need to take that ticket. You’re coming back,” I said.

We sat there at the bar silently, each of us thinking of what not coming back meant. In time we all focused on the television behind the bar and on some news program, in which the news anchor had a hair piece that resembled the rather furry spider I’d found in my boot one morning in Senegal, Africa while there visiting my brother.

“According to the University of Maryland’s Program of International Policy Attitudes in their new PIPA/Knowledge Networks poll,” the news anchor said. “‘Views about the decision to go to war are highly correlated with beliefs about prewar Iraq. Among those who say that going to war was the right decision, 73% believe that Iraq had WMD or a major program for developing them, and 75% believe that Iraq was providing substantial support to al Qaeda. Among those who say it was the wrong decision, only 29% believe that Iraq had WMD (10%) or a major program for developing them, and 33% believe that Iraq was providing substantial support to al Qaeda,’”

These results tended to mirror the results I’d stumbled upon in my informal study of American culture, based solely on informal encounters, and although many of them might be of an extreme nature and fueled by alcohol and drugs, I feel I touch upon a good cross section of America and am therefore qualified in a hands on fashion to verify such data.

“In addition,” the news anchor went on, “the CIA's Duelfer Report, a thorough $1 billion dollar investigation, concluded that Saddam Hussein didn’t support the terrorists of Al-Qaeda. They also concluded that Saddam Hussein had dismantled his WMD programs not long after the Gulf War and never tried to start the programs up again.”

“That’s bullshit,” Luch said.

I could see another political discussion brewing and on the same topic no less. People were still angry. There was no escaping the division of the American people or my need to antagonize.

“Bullshit? You heard what the CIA’s report concluded,” the Weasel said.

“Whatever,” Luch said. “There are things we know in the military that you don’t know.”

“Like what? How to make a life raft out of a three shopping bags and an empty milk jug? I can do that,” I said. “What I want to know is whether or not you really trust these people that you voted for. I bet you really don’t,” I said. “I’m going to run a hypothetical scenario by you. If the United States was under attack and the invaders were closing in, and your life was in jeopardy and you were given the choice to be in a fox hole with my brother and I, both liberals, knowing what we stand for or in a fox hole with George W. Bush and Dick Cheney in their prime, knowing what they stand for, who would you chose to fight beside you?”

“That’s not fair.”

“Exactly, it’s not fair that you subjected us to four more years of W,” the Weasel said.

“What can we expect from a president who lists his favorite book as My Pet Goat?” a little guy with a bushy beard at the end of the bar said.

“Don’t piss me off,” Luch warned.

There was no way this could end well. Luch had been out since 5:30 drinking. It was now after 9:00. His right eye, injured in fight ten years earlier, was drooping, which it does if he is tired, drunk, or irritated. I knew the half man half demon that is fueled by Coors Light and the constant draw of nicotine from Camel Light cigarettes was gnashing its horrible teeth and cursing madly just below the surface.

“Look at you and your fancy friends,” the guy said, looking at me.

“I’m not fancy; it’s just these damn clothes,” I said. “Grab hold of yourself my little bearded friend. The man seated beside me is a deranged lunatic that I just happen to call my friend. It doesn’t mean that we have anything in common, that we share the same views, or are even attracted to the same types of attributes in women. For God’s sake the man’s a tit freak.”

“I don’t think that tit comment was necessary,” the Weasel said, looking at the buxom bartender out of the corner of his eye, who was scowling.

“Right,” I said. “Big tits are great…the point is that you can’t judge someone by what they’re dressed in or the size of their cleavage…let me restate that, I think if you talk to my friend here you’ll find you agree on him with most issues. He just happens to be an ardent Bush supporter and although he’s wrong can’t we all just get along?”

“Not one of your better speeches,” D.B. said.

“Did you ever serve your country?” the guy asked Luch.

Luch’s eyes threatened to pop out of his face. I’ve quite frankly never seen anything like it. He stood, took a long drink of his glass of Coors Light (elixir of the bar Casanova) and set the glass back down purposefully.

“I’m in the service right now. I’m on active duty and am going to Iraq in January,” Luch yelled. “It’s people like you that don’t know anything about sacrificing for this country that always make the most noise.”

Luch threw his arms up in the air and the little guy with the beard hopped up on his stool and even then he was only about a foot taller than Luch.

“This isn’t going well,” the Weasel said.

A bouncer with a pony tail, wearing a tank top, and stone washed jeans, came running up the stairs, apparently alerted to the mayhem on the second floor by the busty bartender. Without asking a question he threw Luch into a headlock.

“Unhand him you fiend,” I cried, batting at the bouncer with my Titleist baseball hat.

The bartender pulled out a can of mace and aimed it in my direction. I went to duck behind the bar but caught sight of her breasts hanging out of her shirt which froze me in my tracks.

“Let me go,” Luch cried.

The bartender squirted the mace and luckily I had my baseball hat up near my face and was able to block the mace with it and then pull out of range. Several rather burly men rose from their tables around the bar and started closing in around me.

I ripped my brass knuckles belt buckle from my belt and clenched it in my fist. My suit pants fell down exposing my Betty Boop boxer shorts. The burly vigilantes that had surrounded me didn’t seem as much scared as confused and bewildered. I’m sure much of it had to do with my bizarre almost cartoonish presence and the contrast of my $2500 suit and $1500 dollar shoes.

As I turned in the middle of the room I had a moment or clarity, a brilliant flash of light with a realization wrapped in the middle. I looked down at my suit pants on the floor and suddenly felt nauseous. “Who the Hell was I trying to be?” I asked myself.

The clothing had only enhanced the nagging feeling that I would forever be an outsider no matter what I tried. According to the various volumes of psychological analysis I’ve read, the reason I need to keep moving at twice the speed recommended by most sane physicians is that I’m trying to outrun myself. It is what causes me to act out in inappropriate ways and to drown my numerous sorrows in varying amounts of alcohol and other substances. It’s not that I don’t like myself, self love is one of my favorite past times, it’s just that I can’t seem to find that elusive middle ground.

“Damn myself for being me,” I cried, which added confusion to the volatile situation.

I hiked my pants up and held them with my left hand. “Get back, you bastards,” I said, spinning madly in circles.

“Easy big guy,” D.B. said.

“Time to settle up, Weasel,” I said, tossing him my wallet. “Anyone that goes to touch any of my friends gets these knuckles across the snout.”

The Weasel stripped a one hundred dollar bill from my wallet and lured the breasty bartender across the bar with it. Vulnerable to the charms of a smirking Benjamin Franklin, she leaned further over the bar, her breasts restrained only by that thinnest layer of cotton/polyester blend. I and every other man in the bar forgot the situation at hand and stared but the Weasel was wise and didn’t look directly at them, thus not being captured by their spell.

“Ah ha,” the Weasel cried grabbing the mace from the bartender’s other hand.

The spell of the breasts broken the burly vigilantes slowly began to close in on me again.

“Back,” I cried.

The Weasel and I backed into one another and turned slowly in a circle warding off the would be assailants that surrounded us.

“Unhand my conservative friend,” I yelled to the bouncer. “On second thought make him take a vow to shed his GOP ways and then let him go.”

The bouncer growled and the Weasel held up the can of mace. The bouncer relented and let Luch go.

“You’re lucky,” Luch said, straightening out his jacket.

“Okay, on the count of three we’re out of here,” I said. “One, two, three.”

D.B., followed by Luch, the Weasel and then me bolted out the door, down the stairs and onto the street. We stood there panting.

“I left a $25 dollar cigar up there,” I said.

“Leave it,” D.B., said.

“You’ve got to be kidding,” I said.

I ran back up the stairs and grabbed my stogie, which was sitting in an ashtray on the bar. Those standing about were too surprised at my sudden appearance to react.

“Forgot my cigar,” I said, and ran back down the stairs and out onto the street.

“That was stupid,” Luch said. “And you ripped your suit coat.”

I looked at the shredded sleeve and without hesitating took out my key chain and opened the retractable scissors on my mini-Leatherman.

“What are you doing?” the Weasel asked.

“I’m cutting off the sleeves,” I said.

“Don’t do that,” Weasel pleaded. “I’ll sew it. I can wear it to school.”

“Stand back,” I said brandishing the scissors like a mini-saber. “You’re not going to stop me.”

I hacked away at my sleeves until I was left with the mangled torso of a navy blue Gianluca Isaia three-button suit coat. I slipped it back on. Somewhere an Italian tailor was weeping but I didn’t give a rat’s ass. I didn’t like what I was becoming, the suit, the shoes, the single malt bourbon, the uppity girlfriend, the expensive cigars…okay, I could quit everything else except the cigars.

“Come on you bastards; let’s find somewhere else to drown our sorrows.”

“Don’t you have to meet Ms. High Society?” Luch asked.

“Nah, that’s over,” I said, puffing on my cigar. “She’d never have me after what I did to this suit.”

“You’re a rebel without a cause,” the Weasel said.

“Causes are overrated, mere excuses to act up,” I said. “I don’t feel I need an excuse to act up. I act and let the consequences stack up as they may. It’s a hard way to go about it but my constitution won’t allow for any other scenario.”

I heard the wail of police sirens rapidly approaching.

“What do you say we get out of here?” the Weasel said.

I turned to talk to Luch but he was already running down the alley as was everyone else. I didn’t see the need to run; electing such a rapid plan of escape might have extinguished my cigar and scuffed my alligator shoes which I’d decided to give to my grandfather. I figured he could wear them to church.

I walked into the dimly lit alley way and into the shadows, only the glowing tip of my cigar was visible. As I walked I thought of how my life was like being locked in a dark, fully stocked wine cellar without a corkscrew. The fun of it was trying to get at that wine; the wine itself wasn’t the prize. I smiled, because I knew if it was easy none of it would be worth it.