by Jason Bryan
Doug looks pissed. He probably understands that I wasn’t insulting him. Doug takes a couple of drinks. The rest of my beer is thrown into my throat.
“Well” Doug says, followed by a long pause. Doug is topping up his beer and filling my glass, perfect pours.
“Then I guess you do get it, it’s just another fucking rat race.”
“Only if you participate in it” I reply.
Dougie laughs. “What, just not date? Then what, keep picking up sluts for one nighters?”
Shaking my head followed by another long drink of my beer, I reply.
“No Doug. Here’s my theory. Think of people as people, not as men and women anymore. 50 years ago it was white and black, now its shades of grey. Any hot woman knows her value in the sexual economy and she can use it to find the best mate.”
Doug cuts in “-gold diggers.”
My outstretched hand palm down gives a see-saw motion.
“Not quite, but similar. They’re looking for someone to play the game with. Someone to follow the rules with, but they have the option put his balls in a jar under the new laws of modern relationships.”
Dougie doesn’t react. He just takes a sip of his beer.
“I get it though, it worked before where the man ran the show and the woman was passive and expected to breed. This was when religion and duty to family and community was hammered into people from a young age. The social contract was simple. The man brings home the money and he has autonomy, the woman has a role tied to the children and the home. There was very little autonomy outside of those walls. Now men no longer need to support women, while women no longer need to fall into the role of being mothers. Socially the stigma of being an unmarried mother is pretty close to nil.”
Dougie scoffs, “Oh man, yeah, single moms are such easy lays.”
“Hold on, I’m not finished. It’s good that women have their freedom and rights, but men need to adapt to this. Maybe if we change how we approach dating, we can guide the modern girl into wanting to assume that motherly, good wife role?”
“What the fuck are you talking about Dylen?”
“Modern life has changed everything and the woman is no longer expected to do anything, while the man is still expected to fill his role. I’m just saying that if a man takes the lead on showing her happiness, while clearly expressing his expectations of her, maybe our relationships will improve.”
Dougie nods.
“I’m glad women don’t have to be shelved and expected to breed, cook, and clean anymore. I’m not so sure that we, as men, have been able to adjust to this. We’re lead around by our dicks more than anything else now. I have no sense of duty to anything other than my own self-pleasuring. I’m not a leader or a real man, I’m just a dude who fucks a lot.”
I don’t know if I feel good or bad about that.
Dougie slaps the table. “You’re damn right Dylen. I’ve been thinking the same thing. What the fuck do I do anything for these days? If I try and find a woman I have the thought that everything is bullshit, man. If she finds someone that entertains her more or has more, she can leave me in financial ruin and just fuck off with him. If I don’t get married and I stick to how I live now, I’ll be 50 and getting dick zits fucking girls from the Roxy.” Dougie says with a tone of disgust.
“To dick zits!” I say, as I raise my glass.
“To dick zits now and forever.” Clink.
We chug back our drinks and pour another round of beers.
“You know my folks, they hint that I need to grow up. Grow into what? My mom is on her third husband and she’s miserable. My dad still works and lives in a basement suite. He lost the house in the fucken’ divorce, then his business went tits up due to taking six fucken months off to deal with it.” Dougie says, shaking his head slowly.
In my mind I know just how out of touch boomers are.
“I know for a fucking fact I ain’t ending up like either of them. Fuck that.” Dougie sighs, furious nodding on my part.
Another drink and an obsessive compulsive check of my phone. A couple messages but nobody that can’t wait.
“What’s the next step?” Dougie asks, not knowing if he expects me to reply. Apathy numbs, I’m unable to even shake my head.
“I think the only thing we’ve got left to try, is to just be honest with women in what we want.” I say in my most serious tone.
Dougie stares at me for longer than a few moments, and then sort of chuckles. “You’re kidding, right Dyl? You mean, come right out and tell a girl you’re looking for loyalty and eternal love? You go ahead and try that and you can text me when you want to do drinks when you utterly fail.”
“Dougie, I don’t think it’s-”
“You of all people” Dougie interrupts “Oh please, all of a sudden you’re so fucking wise and noble Dyl. First you have Claire, remember? She loved the shit out of you and you dumped her because you liked bigger tits.”
That rat fuck scumbag feeling hits me and my head tilts down a little.
“Oh then you just think shit is a big party for a couple of years, fuck her for a while and then what? She put so much time and effort into loving you and what I witnessed was you living the same old way you’ve always lived. You’ve spent so much time looking for something better, looking for your next big conquest to satisfy your selfish fucking ego.”
I stare at my beer.
“Dude-”
“Yeah there is no dude, Dyl, you try and flip this into some new age bullshit when all you’ve done is play shit to your advantage. You fall in love with a couple of girls, wig the fuck out on both of them, and I’m supposed to think you have the answers?”
“Naw.”
He shakes his head with a look of disgust.
“Naw.”
Dougie’s eyes stare through mine as he finishes his drink. Dougie lifts up the empty pitcher and waves it at the waitress. I can’t help but think I’ve done to girls what his last girlfriend did to him.
“Dougie, I know man, I know I’ve been doing it wrong. I’m trying to say we, as men who know what we want, we need to come up with an alternative. What we’ve been conditioned to do is to act like there’s no tomorrow.”
Dougie laughs. “Have you seen housing prices? You really think there is a tomorrow here? Come on man, I’ve known you for how many years?” Dougie raises his voice. “Now, all of a sudden, you change your tune to this pseudo-good guy fucking white knight who believes in love and being open and honest? Sounds like you’ve lost your balls along with your fucking mind bruh.”
I can’t dispute the mind part.
The waitress shows up with another pitcher, the look on her face indicates she’s heard our conversation heat up. She leaves the pitcher without pouring any drinks. Grabbing it out of alcoholic instinct, a shaky buzzed dickhead pours two horribly foamy drinks that spill all over the table.
“Fuck” Dougie lifts his cup in time for beer to run down his arm.
“Shit, sorry!”
“I’m drunk too, I wouldn’t pour any better,” Dougie says through a laugh.
“Doug, I’m trying to say we need a new model for the modern alpha male. Not the drunk asshole that fucks the most tail, but the man we can all respect. He who upholds society, someone with the wife he actually wants, the job he isn’t a slave to, and the respect the head of a family once had.”
Dougie’s bellowing laughter blows foam from his glass.
“Uh huh, haha, you’re so fucked in the head. Those days are long gone man, long fucking gone.”
I tilt my glass back and get a mouth full of foam.
“Yeah, they’re gone, but it’s not to say we can’t evolve into a healthier alternative. Would you want women to have to go back to being barefoot in the kitchen? I don’t. I like seeing a chick have her interests, career, and a well-rounded personality. I don’t want them thinking their only value is between their legs to us. What we’re liv-”
“Living in a time of extremes where you find either on
e or the other, yeah, heard it before man.” Dougie’s voice peters off at the end, his beer is half gone.
I nod.
“But what are we, Dougie? Think two women haven’t gone drinking together and asked each other what’s wrong with men?”
“Yeah, sure they have, but do you think for a second they have any idea of tradition or values these days? They want the kid for status and their own happiness, no deeper sense of purpose. Men, Dyl, men need to keep that deeper purpose alive.”
“I thought you said traditional love was dead?”
“It is for guys like us, Dyl.” Dougie nods slowly, “It is for guys like us.”
Leaning back, the plush leather seats cushion the hard blow to my psyche. Maybe he’s right that the time of the modern nuclear family is over. Lacking any savings, I have no culture, no traditions. I have faith in nothing. I spend my time just eeking out a living in this city and onto the next girl, next drink and next joint. Sure it’s fun, but it hardly feels like being a man.
“Doug, I don’t know man-” I spin my beer glass on the table. “I think we can still have it all. Men like us need to assert ourselves the way our grandparents did. We see a problem, solve it. If guys like us want a deeper connection to a woman, stop doing the same old, same old. I’m trying. I really am.”
I’m not lying to him. I hope I’m not lying to myself. Dougie pours another beer for himself, glassy eyed and wet lipped, we must be getting drunk.
Well, I’m just done thinking about this for tonight. Pfft.” Dougie grumbles.
We bump glasses and raise a drink in silence.
Dougie and I split the bill. We’re silent for a while and certainly mulling over our statements. He’s right. A lot of why I have had sex with so many women is for the perceived status of it. Remembering my first threesome, the girls came out to party with my friends a few weeks later. They got drunk, obviously, then bragged about how much fun it was. Being in my early 20s, my friends treated me like they were genuinely impressed. The girls were just out of high school, so slutty, and so horny. Being young, recalling how my dick just wanted to fuck any cute chick it could to prove that I was an attractive, successful man. What a bad joke. The people I knew who had the most sex back then, nearly all of them had kids and fell into poverty and dating raunchier women. Never did they end up dating some of the caliber of women that graced my life in years gone by. Dougie’s right, I think I fucked myself into this, and the only way to get unfucked might be to not fuck as much or as fast. Is it even possible to base a relationship on mutual adoration, values, traditions, and not just the fucking, status, or money? Whatever, if I think about it, I won’t have fun tonight. Dougie’s back from the shitter and we’re off to a Thursday night at the Roxy, the one bar where you can always count on younger women looking for older men.
11 Getting Friday on a Down
The sweet and shitty smell of the Roxy wafts out onto the street. If a creature was made of Tang and could take a dump, the smell in this bar would be its rotting feces. Self-important doormen hold the chump line waiting while the much shorter VIP line moves fluidly. A guy in the shiniest shirt ever seen is standing outside bumping fists with a bouncer, a smoke behind each ear.
“Why are we going here again, Dougie?” My commentary as we walk up to the VIP line.
Dougie barks back “Just shut up and enjoy the ride dude.”
Shrugging and smiling, I spot a few cute young chicks walking out of the bar. A petite girl stumbles and falls onto the sidewalk, making a pile of hot mess as her skirt flips up. A round of ‘Oooohs’ comes from the crowd lined up. She picks herself up, chin glowing with a little concrete rash and turns around to go back inside.
“No, get her out of here.” The doorman demands, grabbing her other friend.
“Fuck you! I need my coat! Tiny dick fucker!” the wasted girl replies, not even looking towards the club.
“Hey!” A voice shouts into my ear.
“Hey!” I turn around.
A bum with a long beard is standing facing the lineup.
“Anyone want to see how many pushups I can do?” Zero takers.
Dougie laughs, the wasted girl fell down on her ass as her friend is trying to put her in a cab.
The bum turns to Dougie, the biggest built guy in the whole lineup. “Buddy! How about a pushup race?”
“No thanks man.” Dougie replies without looking at him.
“Hey dude, come here, I’ll light your beard on fire for a dollar.” I hear called out from behind me.
“Sure!” The bum replies with a smile, stepping over to the lineup, leaning his face over the railing.
The punks behind us snicker, half the crowd has their smartphones out to record the upcoming show.
A flick of a bic, once, twice, a third time and a flame erupts from the metal cap. The bum closes his eyes and a barely-drinking age kid in gold chains and an affliction shirt lights his beard on fire. With a small spark, the matted hair belches out a stinking cloud of smoke as the rest of it catches ablaze. Coughing and slapping at the flames with the fire still burning, the bum saving himself by using his jacket to pat out the inferno raging on his face.
The doorman yells over “Get the fuck out of here! Now!”
A charred bum holds his hand out for the dollar.
The young guy and his friends howl with laughter, Dougie stares with a scowl at everyone in the lineup, and I shake my head in disbelief. The bum’s face is clearly burnt and his beard mangled, blackened and nearly all burnt off. The baby-faced tool throws a loonie on the ground.
“Fucking sick,” Dougie says under his breath.
“Wait- here dude,” My fingers fumble in front pockets for some cash.
The doorman steps over “I thought I told you ...” as a $20 slips from my fingers to the bum.
“Thanks man!” He says, snatching the money and high tailing it away from the bouncer.
“Don’t fucking do that shit again!” My hollering drunk voice makes a surprise guest appearance on Granville Street.
Who knows if he heard it, he’s probably going to blow that money on something worse for him than a little bit of a charcoal mug. Whatever.
Dougie smirks at me, “Did you really just give that guy twenty fucking bucks for that?”
I nod.
“Haha, first you’re talking about traditional love, and now you’re paying bums to stop letting people light their beards on fire for a dollar, what’s gotten into you?” He snickers.
My face explodes in goofy laugh.
The VIP line moves fast. With a check of my ID, and a shitty $10 cover, it’s time to engage the Roxy. A quick scan and it’s easily a casting call for d-bags and slutty Jersey Shore rejects. I shouldn’t be so arrogant, I’m no better than anyone here, drinking and looking for something warm and wet to bring home. Dougie squeezes in to get a couple of Jagerbombs and comes back with four.
“Might as well load up, you don’t want to get caught in that fucking line up,” as he nudges his head in the direction of the packed back bar.
We wander over to the dance floor and find a rare open table.
“Our lucky day!” I say loud enough that the girls next to us hear.
Dougie moves his chair and bumps into a girl’s chair on purpose.
“Oops.” He speaks through a smile at the chubbiest of the three. I’ve seen this tactic so many times before.
The music is all cheesedick, Bon Jovi streams through the speakers, followed by Journey. Young girls bump and grind strangers on the dance floor, trying to one up each other for attention. Dougie and I shoot back our Jagerbombs, he pushes the glasses to the side and moves over to say something to the chubby girl at the table beside us. She turns around and hands him her drink, he sips it, and pretends to choke on it, before laughing and saying its pretty good. The girl giggles and Dougie introduces himself. She says her name is Regina. That must have gone over well in school.
Dougie turns to me, “Bro, say hi to Regina and friends, I’l
l be right back with drinks.” With that he gets up on a drink run.
Sliding off my stool and walking over to the table of girls, I make eye contact with each one.
“Yeah, you guys shouldn’t be talking to my friend.”
Regina squints, “Uhh, why? He’s funny!”
“Yeah, I know, but he has some really messed up ideas of funny. He thinks two girls one cup is a romantic comedy.”
One of the brunette girls coughs and smiles.
“Did you just say, two girls, one cup?!”
I nod.
“My brother sent that to me last week, it’s so fucking gross!”
I smile.
“Do you hate your brother for it?” I ask, she pauses and replies. “Uhm, no, he’s my brother, of course not.”
I grin.
“What about ... if a lover sent you that?”
She frowns, “He’d have to be a pretty amazing lover.”
I think I can set Dougie up with this spinner.
“Well, you’ve just met my friend, if you’re lucky you’ll know by the end of tonight.”
Regina covers her mouth and laughs, the other two remain poker faced.
“I’m Dylen, good to meet you ... Regina right?” I offer my hand, Regina shakes it.
“I’m Shelby. Yes, named after the car.” She’s the skinny blonde who doesn’t like two girls, one cup.
“I’m Ash,” Spoken by the dirty blonde with the turquoise V-neck.
After the introductions, I manage to squeeze out the basics from the girls. Shelby has a family of car nuts, Ash is in Vancouver for the year, visiting family and working as a personal trainer. Regina knew these two since elementary school and loves Bon Jovi. Dougie comes up with a huge tray of shooters and drinks, when you need something to help you carry your liquor, you mean business. Little happy yellow shots litter the tray and are soon relieved of their fluid burdens. The night swirls and mashes together in music, lights, sounds, fluids, and bumping shoulders.
