Sad Bastard

“Oh, there’s no goin’ back to that.

I’m so numb, can’t even react.

Didn’t say it’s not okay.

But we aren’t dealin’ the same way.”

- Start Choppin’ [Dinosaur, Jr.]

I sit across from Nora in our surprisingly livable Clemson apartment in an otherwise shitty duplex. It is owned by slum lords who are keeping it from burning down, but not much else until the football team finally wins a championship and the property value goes up enough to sell it off. It is located downtown and the rent is right for two kids who are already burning their future with student loans. It shares a parking lot with a defunct motel, also owned by the slum lords, that would kill as a set for a horror movie.

“So what’s it been, like three weeks since you guys broke up? Three weeks without sex?” Nora tosses her opening salvo at me. My best friend. Short, busty, blonde, the life of every room. Senior studying psychology. Favorite bands include Mates of State, Wye Oak, and Matt & Kim. Her radio show this semester is on Thursday nights, 9 pm to 11 pm. We both are seniors now and have garnered the primetime spots.

We have never been anything more than best friends. Dinosaur, Jr. plays on the stereo while we drink a couple of pre-game cocktails before meeting up with our radio station crew at Nick’s Tavern on the first Friday night of the new semester. A tradition.

“Uh, yeah, more like 3 or 4 months. The death rattle of our relationship was pretty sexless,” I offer up to her, never holding anything back, but also unsure why we’re zooming in on this part of the breakup.

I had recently gotten out of a five year relationship, one that started in high school and kept blinders on me to a lot of experimentation and normal college shenanigans up until Christmas. A long teary implosion to our relationship in the form of a parked car mutual breakup after opening a discounted “History of Gangster Films” book from her family during their Christmas gift exchange. I took the first two weeks single to loathe in my childhood bed, watching The Royal Tenenbaums and listening to Neil Young’s After the Gold Rush on repeat.

“Damn, you must be dying,” Nora suggests. “I’ve been too sad to be horny?” I say, unsure if it’s true. “Well, that’s depressing as fuck. With that energy, let’s head to Nick’s, sad boy,” Nora commands, knowing it is good for me.

****

The walk is cold, but short. I open the door at Nick’s to Nora, “m’lady?” I say while opening up the door with a hammy regal posture. “Why thank you my brave sexless knight,” she says while tapping me on the thigh as she walks in. A couple voices shout out to her “Noraaaaaa!”

Nick’s is old and run down, but it’s our spot. The radio station kids were the resident weirdos and outcasts of the college ecosystem. The bar is narrow, but extends back with booths lined against the wall. TV on the Radio’s Desperate Youths, Bloodthirsty Babes plays loudly over the speakers. There’s a television that will have sports on, but it’s always on silent and usually ignored.

My favorite bartender is working, Gabrielle. Sometimes Brielle. Usually Bri. Never Gabby. Favorite bands include Fleetwood Mac, Modest Mouse, and Jeff Buckley. I’ve suppressed a crush on her for years. 25, a marketing alumni who never left Clemson and settled into bartending at Nick’s. Cute, bookish looking, stylish glasses, beautiful brown hair that falls on her shoulders, but is usually tied up in a bun. She’s always been friendly to me and I had always stayed reserved around her, afraid to form a connection and growing inconvenient feelings. I walk up to order.

“A PBR?” she asks, sure of my answer. Entering my second semester as general manager of the campus radio station, I feel obligated to lubricate the vibe of my last few months being fearless leader to our island of misfit toys. “I’ll take a pitcher please,” I answer, making a bit more eye contact than usual. “Big spender, where’s home girl tonight?” she inquires.

“Abby? Came to a natural end,” I offer up with a half-hearted shrug unsure of how she will react.

There is a guarded, but interesting amount of intrigue in her face, “Natural end? Sounds a bit too emotionally mature. Sounds healthy, but maybe not enough catharsis.”

“I laid in my twin bed at my parent’s house and listened to After the Gold Rush 600 times while I stared at the ceiling. Cathartic enough?” I offer up self-deprecatingly, but unfortunately true.

“Damn, you win, the pitcher is on me,” she says as she pours PBR into a glass pitcher, slides it across the bar with a stack of cups, and gives me a wink.

****

Nora retires from her social rounds, beaming from her much-loved attention and settles down with her resident sad boy. She rests her hand above my knee and gets close to my ear as she helps herself to a glass, “c’mon, you know you want to fuck her.”

“Come again?” I genuinely request.

“You’d have to go down on me to make that happen,” Nora says dryly as she sips the foam from her pour, “Look at her, she shows more cleavage when she knows you’re coming in.”

“You’re usually right about everything,” I start as she nods her head in agreement, “but, no fucking way that’s true.”

“Oh, it’s true. You need to come to terms with you being an unavailable commodity that has just come on the market. You’re rusty, you need a sexual adventure sherpa,” she says to me with eye contact, smugly.

“Commodity? Like a piece of meat?” I push.

“Totes. A majorly discounted piece of meat who is sexy, in a sad way, and is also funny and kind. Enjoy it,” she says as she holds up her class for a cheers even though I haven’t poured myself one. I hold up my phantom glass to hers and accept my status as tainted meat.

****

It’s around 11:45 PM. The crowd has died down to a handful of regulars. The last album over the speakers ends and there’s a couple minutes of silence from the speakers as Bri washes a set of glasses. She dries her hands and I see her looking for something, pulling a CD out of deep storage under the bar and replacing one of the normal rotation favorites in the stereo.

The first lines of Tell Me Why ring out into the bar, Neil Young’s bastardly rough acoustic picking resulting in me instantly visualizing the popcorn texture from my childhood bedroom ceiling. I look over at Bri who is waiting for my glance. She is smiling, feigning malice. Her face softens and she mouths “sorry.”

****

It’s after midnight now and Nora has somehow become more energized being the center of our crowd as the night has progressed. I slip to the bar for one final beer.

Bri pulls the can out and wipes it quickly before handing it to me. “You playing the whole album, huh?” I ask her, partly in a plea for mercy, as Don’t Let It Bring You Down starts. “Depends. Was hoping I could see an emotional breakdown. I’m here for the entertainment and you nerds are being too well-behaved,” she says very lightly and I laugh. “All right, all right, it would be criminal to not get to When You Dance I Can Really Love,” I concede.

“My personal favorite,” she says. “Really? I think I’m in love,” I respond flippantly. “Good. What’s your deal anyway? You’ve come in here for three years and I think this is the most I’ve talked to you,” she asks firmly while she wipes the counter.

“You want to know the truth?” I say, feeling like I’ve broken through the bottom of wallowing and emerged out the other side with boldness. She nods in a condescending dismissive gesture. “I always felt something for you, but didn’t want to make a connection while I was with Abby. Even if nothing happened, I felt like I’d be cheating on her somehow,” I admit.

“Interesting,” she responds with the measured tone of a professor, “This one is on me, too.” I’m grateful, but I inquire, “you trying to sedate me from my agony?”

She smirks, dropping her guard a bit, “No, you seem more relaxed tonight than I’ve ever seen you. It looks good on you.” I respond with confusion, “Relaxed? In a good way? Or like I’m standing on the edge of a bridge and I’ve relaxed my body for the final impact?” She laughs out loud, the first time I’ve ever heard her laugh, “Dear lord, no, the good way. Jesus.”

“Just needed to check,” I say, smiling now and offering a shrug. “Good. Thanks for telling me the truth. Honesty is hot,” she imparts on me before resting her palm on the top of my hand for a second and telling me bye, “Come around more. I’d like to get to know you better before you graduate.”

Bri concedes that I’m not pushing any further tonight. She slips me a bar napkin with her number.

***

I return to the table, it’s only Nora waiting for me, the rest of our friends have cleared out. “Everyone headed out, they didn’t want to cock block you. I said I’d protect you. She invite you to split her in two, or can we go home now?” Nora puts bluntly, now ready to go home. “Negative, she did not ‘invite me to split her in two,’ so, yes, we can go home now. Thank you for asking,” I laugh.

It’s the same short walk back, but much colder now. She teases me for only wearing a hoodie in the middle of winter. She puts her arm around me to keep us warm as we walk proclaiming that, “someone needs to be the gentleman.”

***

We sit on our facing couches across from each other to warm up before going to bed. “She wants you, you know? You should have gone after her,” she says as her transformation from best friend to half-best friend, half-sex Sherpa begins.

“I know,” I say with defeat and it hangs.

“I know you know. Why didn’t you?” she says, nursing a bottle of water.

“I don’t know how. I’ve been in married man mode for the past five years.”

“You did well tonight considering you have the experience of a Mormon.”

“I think some Mormons have more than one wife?”

“Yeah, you certainly haven’t. Look, you need to rip the band aid off. You need to get laid.”

“OK, so I flirt with Bri at Nick’s until she can’t take it anymore and begs me to ‘split her in two?’”

“You need to build your confidence. Get your game up. Look, it’s too cold for me to pursue a booty call tonight, or for the foreseeable future. And you need to get some experience.”

“Why does it sound like we are acting out the setup to a porn scene?”

“You watch the set ups? I always skip to at least the oral. Also, is that why our WiFi has been so slow around 9 pm every night this week? You’re watching extended length emotionally-charged roommate porn?”

I defend my adult entertainment viewing choices. “The setup makes it grounded. And the setups aren’t always roommates. Neighbors, firefighter rescuing a…”

“Firefighter? For fuck’s sake. Come on, sad boy,” she says as she pulls me into her bedroom.