jenn

 This is a little piece that I plan on reading at open mic on the roof tomorrow.  I don't know if I have posted it before, but hoping to get some comment or criticism from the dawgs.

So I’m sitting there at the Ten Cat having a most pleasant time, the beer in front of me is almost empty, and once I finish that I will be ordering my tenth, the keystone beer, the acme of the evening, only a wave of the finger away.  

 

What an inopportune time for Jenn to say, "I'd like to go home now." 

 

Why the hell should she want to go home?  The bar is full.  Her man is brilliantly holding forth with amazing tales of his triumphs punctuated with rapier like thrusts of wit here and there.  Everybody is clearly enthralled. 

 

"Go where?" I reply, playing for time and noticing that the barmaid is now at the far end of the bar pulling off the caps from PBRs for some newly-arrived pool players.  She won't even be in this vicinity for a couple minutes at least.  So we have time to talk this out, a couple minutes to get things straight.

 

"Home.  I’d like to go home.  Now.," she repeats, just a little sharply.  And who would've thought that little Jenn would have the strength to slam my hand to the bar, just missing, I might add, my quarter-full pint of Daisy Cutter?

 

“Very well then Jenn,” I reply smoothly.  You know what I’m thinking is that what we’ll do is, I’ll just have this tenth beer, it’s a nice round even number, don’t you think?  And then we can go straight home.” 

 

“That’s your eleventh beer that you’re finishing right now,” she says with such intensity, that I think that maybe she could be right.  But she tends to exaggerate, and I’m pretty sure it’s just been nine.

 

Anyway the important thing is that one more beer, tenth or twelfth, or whatever, is the beer that is necessary to achieve the zenith of the evening.  If you think about it I’ve already had 9 pints at 6 bucks apiece and that comes to 54 bucks so it would be foolish not to spend 6 lousy bucks more to put a shining cap on the investment.  See how well I can do the math?  There is nothing wrong with me me. 

 

But this argument is a little too complex, a little too mathematically oriented for Jenn in the snit she’s in, to understand.  So I simplify it for her. “I’ll just have one more,” I say with impeccable logic.

 

Which seems to go right over Jenn’s head, and she even ups the ante as she replies, “Call me a cab.”

 

Maybe a little humor, you know I have that rapier wit thing going so I might as well use it. “You’re a cab.” I reply with a sly look that says, I know it’s corny, so that means I’m being ironic, and should a guy who’s capable of this subtle, self-aware humor, this fine display of legerdemain forego the crowning beer of the night?

 

Legerdemain, such a fine word.  And not only is it a fine word, but due to its polysyllabic nature, it would not be an easy word for one who has had too many to pronounce without slurring, which okay, maybe I do a little bit, but it’s just to be ironic.

 

But then it occurs to me that I am not sure what exactly the word means.  I was thinking it meant kind of like fancy footwork, like tap dancing, only with words, clearly agile and not the least bit encumbered in mind or body.  But then after that only slightly slurred pronouncement, a little sour taste hits my tongue, and it occurs to me that it could also mean bullshit.

 

But Jenn apparently doesn’t notice.  “I. Am.  Not. A. Cab.”  She says, pronouncing each word slowly and precisely.  Has my irony, like all my finely carefully crafted arguments, flown right over her pretty little head? 

 

Okay this will take a little time to explain to her.  Meanwhile the barmaid has completed her transaction with the pool players and is now moving in her maddening meandering way to our end of the bar.  Decisively I down the remaining quarter of my Daisy Cutter.  While I am explaining my little ironic joke to Jenn I will surely be able to unobtrusively raise my finger to the barmaid, and the whole thing will be a fait accompli.  I will have a full beer, and we couldn’t possibly leave until I finished it.

 

“What I meant dear was-“ I commence my explanation, but she quickly cuts me off. 

 

“I know what you meant dear.  I get the lame joke dear, but maybe your timing is a little off dear.  You know how you sometimes lose track of time dear,” she begins.  Dear me, all those dears, I know where this is going, the unfortunate tuna salad incident. 

 

Women, well they can’t help it, they are the gatherers of the tribe you know.  Empty space in the fridge is something they abhor and they have to fill it up, so that when the hunter returns with two six packs of Old Milwaukee, which he was able to get at a bargain basement price because the liquor store was dumping the brand, and which is best served very well chilled, and throws open the refrigerator door, he finds a full house.

 

Compromises have to be made.  The game is already in the third inning, so three-four cans should do it.  And you know, that square blue container is just about two cans long on each side.  What could it hurt for it to sit on the kitchen table for an hour or two? 

 

Who ever expects extra innings, or a rain delay, and especially who expects both?  And who expects that when making tuna salad, something which even I know can go bad quickly, the gatherer wouldn’t use a transparent rather than an opaque blue container, so that the hunter could see what was inside and maybe choose something else to displace to make room for the Old Milwaukee?    

 

Anyway in the excitement of the thrilling extra-inning victory, and the celebratory beers that that required, and the nap that ensued, perhaps that blue container remained on the kitchen table too long, which it wouldn’t have had I known it contained tuna salad, which I would have known had it been in a proper transparent container.  

 

And you know, she’s always talking about losing weight, and just a couple days after the unpleasantness she was fit as a fiddle.  So I don’t know why she makes such a big production about it.

 

But she does.  Every time we have a little disagreement about anything the tuna salad incident comes up.  There’s no point in interrupting her, the story will be told.  And this is not so unfortunate because this will give that maddeningly slow barmaid time to make her lackadaisical way to our end of the bar.  So all in all things are going well. 

 

“I thought I would die,” she finishes, and fixes me with that piercing look.   

 

“First of all,” I begin, raising my finger to illustrate that this will be the first of many points that I will raise in my defense, but before I can even begin, the barmaid has slipped a new Mad Hatter right in front of me.

 

This is the purest serendipity.  There is no way that I would have ordered a beer at this sensitive point in our conversation, but the barmaid has clearly mistaken my enumeration of points for that very act.

 

And so there it is, the tenth beer, or the twelfth if Jenn’s probably mistaken calculations are accurate. But the point is it is the apex, the acme, the shining summit of the evening.  Oh, there will probably be some unpleasantness from Jenn, but I will be able to deal with this from the pleasantness of a comfortable barstool with my hand tightly wrapped around the cool base of the capstone beer. 

 

And actually this is the best way for this little spat to proceed.  Were I irritable from being cut short, then I might speak sharp words to Jenn, which would be unforgivable.  How much better it is for me to be ensconced and enbeered and kindly disposed to deal with the situation in a calm and patient manner.

 

Yes this is all for the best.  But then right at this point when all is going well with the world, as I am pushing my money towards the bar, I realize that I only have three dollar bills.  I am a dollar short.  Two options come immediately to mind.

 

The first is the quick nod to Jenn accompanied by a sheepish look, my eyes darting from where the dollar is missing to Jenn’s purse.  No, that had best be discarded.

 

The second is finessing the barmaid.  It’s only a lousy buck after all, and hadn’t I enlivened her evening with my enchanting conversation?  Hadn’t I enhanced my volume so that she could partake of it?  Yes, this will almost surely work.  I shove the three bills towards her with a little complicit shrug, imploring eyes, and that sheepish look which always works so well with women.

 

And yet it doesn’t work.  “That will be another dollar,” she says, and worse yet she does not relinquish her firm grip on the glass.

 

It is standing there right before me.  Right before me.  And yet for want of a buck I would be denied what fate had so clearly granted me.  I give Jenn the quick nod and sheep it up. I even extend my hand towards the steely clasps of her purse so she won’t have to reach so far to slip me that single slim bill.

 

Jenn’s a wonderful woman, a caring considerate woman.  Hardly would a woman of this nature deny her man one paper thin, almost worthless really, scrap of paper.

 

Yet she does, and worse yet she yanks the purse back off the bar and into her lap leaving my hand dangling where once the clasps had clasped, where surely behind this purely mechanical contrivance in sweet perfumed comfort resides at least one lousy buck.

 

“Jenn,” I say, and then I say her name a little more softly, a little slower, a little deeper.  Women love a deep voice.  “Jenn, may I borrow a dollar?”

 

“Borrow?” she asks.  “Borrow?  You mean in the sense that you will be paying me back?” 

 

Oh here is a sore point.  There have been times in the past when I have treated Jenn to an enchanted evening at a fine restaurant only to discover, when the bill was presented, that the previous evening when I had stopped at the bar for one quick one, but had unexpectedly met up with a lively and philosophic crowd, that in the ensuing give and take, symbolized by the buying of rounds, I had depleted my wallet, and I had required her financial assistance to pay for the meal.

 

But this is all in the past.  We are living in the present now, this little present of just one more beer which is presently sitting before me, little bubbles rising from its base like giggles. 

 

And then in a second incident of serendipity the pool players are ready for another round and are being quite vocal about it and the barmaid has released her grip and then she is gone, gone down the bar, and my glass of beer is all my own, steady in my hand.

 

I seize the beer and the moment, take a quick quaff, and the whole thing is a fait accompli, the triumph of logic accompanied by a couple small quirks of fate, a heroic ending for my quest. 

Oh the glare from Jenn’s gimlet eyes.  There is trouble ahead, and more troubling yet is the realization that, what with all this consternation, this beer will no longer be the capstone.  One more after it will certainly be required.

 

But with all my legerdemain, and my current serendipitous streak, I don’t see how this will be a problem.