I was out late last night, celebrating the publication of my first two ebooks on Amazon Kindle. They’re both children’s books about me and my adopted cat Copper, and how we slowly bonded over a period of several months. The first is The Copper Courtship: A Cat and Human Love Story, and the second is Copper’s Corner: A Cat’s Life.
The thing about my cat Copper is, she had lived in a cage in an animal shelter for three years, and I can only imagine how stressful and horrific that must have been. So I brought her home, and she was really shy in the beginning, but eventually we became best friends.
So I was really excited about publishing these books. I had never thought that after studying Japanese and living in Japan, and later working for the United Nations and the South Korean government, that my first published books would be children’s books. But they were! I and was psyched, I really was.
So I celebrated late at a local bar in my neighborhood in Astoria, Queens, just drinking and chilling. The neighborhood is pretty young and trendy, and I feel like at 43 I’m a bit of an outlier.
The first place I tried to go to was Sweet Afton, on 34th Street just off 30th Avenue, which is just across the street from my where I live. I already had a bit of a buzz on when left my apartment, because I had had several whiskeys, and I also took a toke of some nice delivery weed, Purple Passion. An indica, I think it was.
So I pulled open the door to Sweet Afton and entered the vestibule, and there was a tall black guy, who I pegged as the bouncer, and a shorter white guy, who I figured was a customer he was talking to.
I started to walk past them into the bar when the black guy said, “excuse me, sir, have you been drinking tonight?”
Was he fucking kidding? It’s Friday night at 11PM, everybody and their brother has been drinking, and this is a freaking bar I’m trying to enter, to drink, you idiot.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“I’m asking if you’ve been drinking. Because you seem a little off-balance.”
At this point I was ready to knock this motherfucker out. Except that he was about 6’3”, 215, and I’m 5’9” and out of shape. Still, I was pissed at this guy.
“Dude, you have no right to ask me that,” I yelled at him. I was even more pissed because he was younger than me by a few years. “Have I been drinking, have I not, it’s none of your fucking business! This is a bar, that’s what people do here, they drink.”
“Well I don’t know if I can let you in sir.”
His millennial indecision was absolutely killing me. I just wanted to go in, drink, and look at some beautiful women. Or not. I’ll fucking go somewhere else if you don’t let me in, douchebag. I just don’t want to talk to you anymore.
So I told him just that. “Dude, this is a bar, and I’m here to drink, either let me in or don’t let me in!” I screamed.
“Ok, well, then, sir, you can go somewhere else.”
“Fine!” I yelled.
I smashed the vestibule door open, and I was out of there.
******
What a douchebag. I mean the fact that there’s even a bouncer in some shitty local bar in Queens pisses me off. But then to be such an indecisive, millennial bouncer loser, just killed me.
I walked out into the night, and I tried to collect myself. Great start to the evening, Charlie, I told myself, way to really celebrate.
I then assessed my options. I could go to Punch and Judy, a super-young, cheesy as hell dive bar down the block. Which didn’t sound very appealing. I walked by the place, and it looked packed as hell with youngsters, and the music was blasting. Um, no thank you.
My options were rapidly dwindling. There was Sek’end Sun, a lounge on Broadway that was OK. But it was a haul to get to, and it was cold outside. There was also Diamond Dogs, kind of a beer and whiskey pub-type place where I had never really had a good time. The whole place just felt so pretentious, but C-level pretentious, like hipsters who couldn’t make it in Manhattan or Brooklyn congregating for whiskey in a divey Queens bar.
But I didn’t want to give up, because I wanted, no needed, to be around people, and I sure as hell wasn’t up for trekking into Manhattan. So I took one more shot and tried WIlliam Hallet, on 30th Avenue between 36th and 37th Street. It’s a dark, bistro-type place with a decent-sized bar. I had a couple whiskeys, and I also had three shots of Tequila, with salt and lime, because why not, I’m a published author now, right? Let’s live a little.
The clientele at William Hallet was mostly the typical millennial crew, people who were in their 20’s and had moved to New York to make it. But there was no chance in hell they could afford to live in Manhattan or the nice neighborhoods of Brooklyn, so here they were, living in Queens, and hanging out at William Hallet on a Saturday night.
And her I was, at 43 a refugee from the Upper West Side of Manhattan, where I had grown up.
My career had taken some turns, and after some major early successes, including working at the United Nations, and working for the South Korean government, I found myself launching a media start up and website two years ago, trying to build a brand, and trying to make it on my own. Which was a challenge, that’s for sure. Hence the living in Astoria, instead of Manhattan or Brooklyn, or the suburbs or something like that.
So I was having a pretty good time at William Hallet, and it wasn’t too loud, and there were a few hotties here and there. At the far end of the bar were three lovely ladies in their 20’s hanging out, and they seemed to be having a good time. The one farthest from me was semi-cute, nothing special but I would have hooked up with her. The one in the middle was closer to the not-so-cute spectrum, so I probably would have taken a pass on her. And the one closest to me was of the heavy yet pretty variety. I definitely would have hooked up with her.
So that was the layout at William Hallet. I told myself not to stress too much about getting laid, just enjoy the eye candy and have some drinks, and congratulate yourself for publishing two ebooks.
Around 11 PM, two fairly cute women in their late 30’s or early 40’s entered the bar, and wow! They sat down next to me, just to my left! What do we have here? I felt as if the whole evening, as good as it was already, has just gotten three times better.
I listened to them talk to each other for a few minutes. From what I could tell they were both European, with very faint accents, but where in Europe I couldn’t tell.
They ordered chicken wings and plantains, and I watched them eat for a couple minutes.
Finally I couldn’t wait any longer, so I just turned to the cute brunette sitting next to me.
“That looks great, what is it?” I asked.
“Oh, yeah, this is barbecued wings and plantains. It’s really good. Would you like to try some?” she asked.
Wow. Would I like to try some? Goddamn right I would.
“Thanks so much,” I said as she put a wing and a plantain on my plate. I dug in. The wing was decent, the plantain nothing special, but I wasn’t gonna blow this one, she was too cute.
“Ummm,umm, these are delicious,” I said.
“So what’s your name?” I asked.
“It’s Georgeta,” she said.
“Cool, nice to meet you, Georgeta,” I said.
“I’m Charles.”
We shook hands. She was wearing a kind of plaid, workman’s type shirt with the sleeves rolled up, and if you didn’t pay attention or just observed her from afar you might think she was gay. But the way she looked at me when she talked to me, and the was she moved her body, I knew she was a passionate woman who loved men.
We talked a little bit more, and it turned out she was from Romania.
“Bucharest?” I asked.
“No, not Bucharest, in the mountains actually,” she said.
Now I have a graduate degree in international relations, and I’m fairly familiar with Romania and its role as a member of the Eastern Bloc during the cold war. It’s also the home of Dracula, who supposedly lived in Transylvania, a historical region in Romania’s Carpathian mountains.
So I had a choice to make here, given how cute she was, how horny I was, and my knowledge of Romania. Did I ask her when she immigrated to the US, and what life was like under the infamous brutal Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu, and how did she feel during the Romanian Revolution in 1989 when the armed forces captured Ceausescu and executed him and his wife by firing squad as the Berlin Wall fell?
But all of that felt a little heavy. So I took the safe route, and said:
“Isn’t Romania where Dracula was from?”
She smiled. “Yes Charles, he’s from Transylvania actually. But it’s all just kind of a myth.”
And so we launched into a five minute, marginally interesting conversation about the thirteen properties in Romania that Dracula supposedly owned, as well as his myth and his legend.
Eventually her friend jumped into the conversation. She was late 30’s, blond, kind of heavy, but also very sexy. Definitely European looking. It turned out her name was Adrianna, and she was from Poland. She seemed pretty cool, and I started to have fantasies of bringing both of them home with me for a menage a trois. I mean why not, I’m a published author, right?
********
Then they went back to talking to each other, and I ordered another Tequila. Pour salt on crevice between thumb and forefinger. Lick salt. Down the whole Tequila shot in one go. Apply lime to full mouth. Yum! I hadn’t had Tequila, or shots of any kind, in a long time, and it felt really good to get a quick buzz.
After a little while I started to get bored, and it was almost 1 a.m. I turned to Georgeta and pulled out my business card.
“This is my media startup, genxchronicle.com. We cover news, culture and lifestyle through a Generation X lens.”
“Wow, very cool, Charles. I love Gen X! I’m Gen X too.”
“Yeah, I just felt that Baby Boomers and Millennials get all the attention, and there should be a space where Gen X’ers can tell their stories,” I said.
“That’s an awesome idea,” she said. “Honestly, I get so tired of these millennials sometimes. I mean they’re so sensitive, and you have to tell them to do something like five times at work before they finally do it.”
“I totally feel you,” I said.
Then Adrianna spoke up. “What is Gen X?” she asked. “What ages?”
“Well, there’s no scientific definition, but it’s generally thought of as being born between 1965 and 1980,” I said.
“1981!” she yelled. “That’s when I was born. But I’m definitely Generation X, I can’t deal with these emotional, impulsive, entitled millennials either,” she said.
“Yeah, you’re right on the border, Adrianna, but we’ll happily claim you,” I said.
I gave each of them my business card, which I had just had printed about three weeks ago. It’s got a big X through the middle, and I think it looks pretty dope. They thanked me.
The two ladies called for their bill, and I started to think about my options. Georgeta was the one I really liked, and I would have loved to go home with her. She lived in Kew Gardens, Queens, which was pretty damn convenient to my home in Astoria.
But now Adrianna was looking kind of cute in her black stockings, with her buxom breasts sticking out. And she kept crossing her legs and giving me a view of her femaleness, which really turned me on.
So what do I do now? They’re already paying the bill, and things are moving so quickly, and I have a pretty strong buzz on too, so I’m not thinking too clearly.
“Where are you guys heading now?” I ask Georgeta.”
“Oh, we’re going to go to another bar or two, and then we’ll head home. We can’t stay out too late, though, because I have to work tomorrow.”
And there it was. She had to work tomorrow, which was a subtle way of letting me know she most definitely wasn’t coming home with me tonight.
“What about you Charles, what will you do?” she asked.
I played it cool. “I’ll probably have one more drink, and then head home.”
“Cool, well it was really nice meeting you Charles,” she said as she shook my hand.
“Yes, nice meeting you Charles,” Adrianna said, and we shook again.
“Ok, great. Well, you guys have my cards, I’d love to hear from you,” I said.
“Sure Charles, absolutely,” they both said, nearly in unison.
And then they were gone.
My head was spinning, and I tried to do a quick mental assessment of the situation. Had they just blown me off? Or were they really going to contact me?
And then it dawned on me, the idiot that I was, that I should have asked one of them for their numbers. Then I could have just texted them, and seen if they wanted to hang out sometime. Normally I definitely would have done this, but I realized I was so intoxicated by just publishing two books, and having my own dope business cards, that I just thought I could give them my card, and they’d be falling all over each other to contact me.
Um, reality check, dude, is what I told myself. Because the books were out, and the card looked cool, but I had a long way to go before I was actually somebody who could just drop their card on people and have those people contact them. I just wasn’t there yet.
Soon after they left, I asked for the check myself. $52, plus $10 tip, grand total of $62. Well, non-bestselling author, I asked myself, how does that feel?
But then you know what happened? I told myself screw it, times might be a little tough, but I accomplished something great today, so who cares about $62? If things went the way I hoped with my publishing career, I would have millions someday. Hopefully sooner rather than later. At least that was the dream.
I stumbled home along 30th Avenue, and made my way up to my one-bedroom walk-up on the third floor. I had another few drinks, and started watching a cheesy Amy Schumer movie with Goldie Hawn as her mother. The two women travel to Ecuador, and they get kidnapped, and lots of other silly stuff happens too.
Around 7 a.m. I was still up, and the movie was still on, but I decided I absolutely had to crash. So I turned off Netflix, went into the bedroom, lay down, and passed out.
All in all, it had been a good day. I had published books, I had talked to cute women, and I gave out my new business cards with the dope X.
That night, I slept the sleep of the just.
*******
