A Thousand Tiny Failures : Memoirs of a Pickup Artist

by Tony D

  Lame dude. Lame.

  I’d been with her for eighteen months; my longest relationship in nine years. I hugged and kissed her for the last time and then she drove away.

  Just like that, she was gone.

  I did twenty pushups, cried again, got drunk and played video games, then threw up in the toilet and fell asleep. I repeated the process for about three days.

  I was sad about losing her, but at the same time…excited. I’d learned a lot by being in a longer relationship. I started going to parties again. I focused on my business and found more clients. I had a slow couple of months, so again, to make some extra money, I found yet another bussing job. It didn’t last long. During a coaching session I hit on the chef’s best-friend’s girlfriend. The next day at the restaurant, in the kitchen, from behind the counter, he confronted me over it. “My buddy is coming down here to kick your ass!”

  “Then your buddy…is an idiot.”

  “What did you call him?”

  I was done taking shit. I had enough money to live off for six months.

  I felt that warm, familiar glow, deep inside me—the one that loves the brave unknown, the Unicorn. It had its horn up Hitler’s ass. I undid my apron and placed it on the counter.

  “I quit,” I said. “Fuck this place.”

  The kitchen staff laughed in shock and stared at me.

  I walked out of the kitchen, through the restaurant and past the office. I leaned in and said to the manager, “Sorry man. I have to go. Mail me my last check.”

  “That’s it? You’re done?” He said, confused.

  “Yeah, I’m done.”

  “What are you gonna do?”

  I looked at his laptop, it was a pretty girls Facebook page.

  “I’m gonna do what I do.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I’m a writer.”

  “Hah. Ok man, you should stay. You’re our best busboy.”

  “There will be others.”

  “Yeah, there will. Damn. Good luck.”

  “See you around.”

  “Ok Sebastian.”

  I went outside and looked around at the people on the street, coming from work, from shopping, texting and blabbing on their cell phones. I was free to start again, with more experience, drive and wisdom. I thought about Esther, Eric, Mark, Olivia, Jeff, Victoria and all the women and friends I’d met. All of these shit-jobs and adventures. Yeah, I did something, and it worked. Now what?

  A pretty redhead walked by slowly, as if she had nowhere to be. She was a few feet ahead of me. Her butt-cheeks bounced like smiling baby cheeks. I followed her past a travel agency. On the sign were lists of cheap flights all around the worId: Montreal, Bangkok, Berlin, Rio, New York. We passed two dogs fucking in a park. A young girl, about sixteen, was eating an ice cream cone and crying while her boyfriend comforted her on a park bench. The redhead stopped to look into a store window at a mannequin wearing a long blue dress.

  Go for it man.

  I walked up to the girl and tapped her shoulder. She turned around.

  “Hi. My name’s Sebastian. I just thought you looked… nice.”

  She stared at me oddly, like she might blow her rape whistle. Then slowly, she eased up, her lips parted into a warm smile, she fixed her hair.

  “Hi Sebastian. I’m Jenny.”

  Epilogue

  The Four Thousand Islands, Laos, 2013 (Hardship)

  The river was calm as I swam, pushing our inner-tube into the great Mekong river. I watched Sasha’s cute, white, Ukrainian bum, and made a mental toast to my inner Unicorn.

  “How long have you been travelling?” She asked, looking back over her shoulder.

  I quit kicking at the water and looked at her. “Well, I started in Bangkok three months ago. I’ve been to Cambodia as well. Hey, watch where we’re going. You’re the Captain, remember?”

  She laughed. “Yes, I am the Captain. Three months! What do you do for work? That is an expensive trip.”

  I thought for a second.

  “It took me four years to figure out how to get here. I’m a life coach.”

  “Oh? That’s so cool!”

  “Yeah, I’m pretty awesome.”

  “You’re pretty young to be a life coach.”

  “Yeah. I’m thirty-four.”

  “Oh, you’re old!”

  She splashed me in the face, and I shook the inner-tube, threatening to flip her into the river.

  “No, I’m a bad swimmer!” She squealed.

  “The crocodiles will eat you.”

  “There are crocodiles?”

  “I don’t know… maybe?”

  I lifted myself onto the inner-tube. She turned over and I pulled her under my arm. We lay there, cuddling and absorbing the tropical sun. On one side of the distant shore was a herd of water buffalos, and near them several small, dark Laotian children playing near the shore. On the other side, where we came from, were rows of restaurants and bungalows.

  “I love Laos,” she said, adjusting her bikini. “It’s so beautiful here.”

  “Are you travelling alone?” I asked.

  “Yes. I am a translator. I work in China.”

  “Cool. How many languages do you speak?”

  “Four.”

  “Smart girl,” I said, closing my eyes and enjoying the heat. “What else do you do?”

  “I play bass guitar, but not very well. I love live music. Do you play?”

  The water was moving a little bit faster.

  “I play guitar, but I’m not in a band anymore. I’m a writer now. I’m working on my first novel. It’s almost done.”

  She smiled. “That’s so awesome. Are you going to write about me?”

  I squeezed her arm. “That depends on if I still know you tomorrow.”

  We floated in silence for awhile. I looked at her little nose, and her full mouth, her curly auburn hair. She had a cute little gap in her teeth. I leaned in slowly to kiss her, and she accepted it. We both laughed and went back to our meditations.

  The inner tube was moving a lot faster.

  “Hey,” I said. Looking to the shore. “Maybe we should push back to the bungalows.”

  She looked towards the shore. “Ok,” she said.

  I slid into the water and started swimming, but my efforts were futile. We continued heading downstream.

  “You’re going to have to help me,” I told her.

  She sat up. “Yes, but I’m not a very good swimmer.”

  “Get in the water. We have to do this now.”

  “Ok.”

  She fell into the water with a splash, and came up spitting water and laughing.

  “Don’t drown on me,” I said. “Now swim.”

  We tried to push the inner-tube, but the current was too strong. We moved sideways, but not forwards. I remember the locals telling me there was a waterfall about one kilometer down the river. I looked to the sun and saw it would be setting in about thirty minutes. Fuck. I was having too much fun with this girl. I forgot—Asia can kill you. We could drown, and nobody would know until they found our bodies, crushed and mangled, on the rocks. Monkeys would defecate on us, and eagles would peck out our eyes. Not a bad way to go.

  There was a small cluster of mini islands, barely big enough to stand on, which would be impossible anyway because they were covered in thick bamboo. I felt a surge of adrenaline. A feeling I was getting used to in Laos.

  “Sasha. See those islands? We’re going to have to swim for them, as hard as you can. You can’t stop swimming. You have to swim as hard as you’ve ever swam! I’m pushing the inner tube. You follow me, ok?”

  “Yes,” she said—her eyes wide.

  I shoved the inner-tube as far as I could towards the clusters. “Swim!” I yelled, and propelled myself forward with all my strength. The current was very strong. It was about twenty meters to the island and when I reached it, I grabbed onto a bamboo cluster and looked back for Sasha. She was just out of my reach, but almost there. I reached out
to her, and with a final stretch, she grabbed my hand. I pulled her up and she latched onto the bamboo. She was out of breath.

  “Good job! We’re alive!” I said.

  She coughed and rubbed the water from her eyes. She smiled at me.

  The sun was dipping below the horizon and the shore was two hundred meters away. I started crawling along the edge of the island and felt a piercing pain on my left knee. I groped along, underneath the surface. There were rocks almost as high as the surface, all sharp. I wondered how far they would extend towards the shore.

  Up the river I spotted a Laotian fisherman in a long-tail boat. I stood on the sharp rocks, waved at the fisherman and yelled, “So saday!”

  The fisherman waved back, started his motor and drove away.

  “What the fuck?”

  “What an asshole,” she agreed.

  I got back into the water with Sasha. “The sun will be down soon. We have to make it to the shore before that. Are you ok?”

  She smiled at me with her cute little gap. I knew she was scared because I was. But isn’t that what makes us feel alive? Fear? The uncertain? Conquering hardship? I leaned closer and kissed her, feeling her ass, her breasts against my chest.

  “Ready?” I asked. “Let’s go.”

  We began crawling towards the shore, one inch at a time, over the knife-sharp rocks, with nightfall approaching…

  And I smiled too.

  The End