Ah, college.
The day came. I think it was a Wednesday. What night of the was The O.C. on back in 2003 or 2004? That’s not a random question, it’s kind of relevant to the story. Whatever day it was, I spent many, many hours grooming myself in preparation of the date. I showered for about an hour. I washed every nook and cranny of my body. I shaved my face. I shaved my chest. I shaved my arms (my arms? really? what the fuck was I thinking!?). I shaved my balls. When I got out of the shower I looked like a freshly squeezed-out baby, all coated in foam and matted and shivering. I prayed all my body hair wouldn’t start growing in until after my orgasm.
I dressed myself in my finest rags and called Reagan to see if she could give me directions to the bar where we were to meet. I was told it was a really crazy place that was always packed to capacity because they had daily specials like 50-cent beers and 25-cent pizza slices, or dollar hamburgers and dollar shots. This was both good and bad news. Good because I wouldn’t have to pay for some expensive meal in order to get laid. Bad because I couldn’t envision myself being able to get a quick mid-meal handjob if we were going to be at an overcrowded bar. I did, after all, deserve one. I put forth all that effort to introduce myself to the girl. The least she could do was wax my pole. The most she could do was…well, I’m not sure the legality of it, so I’ll refrain from going any further in depth.
She gave me directions to the apartment she shared with a friend. It was a crummy, dilapidated place. Two stories, for units, all college kids who didn’t give a fuck about living in a hole so long as they were off campus. Reagan had a female roommate whose name I never cared to remember because, well, I’m not the type of person who wants to remember people’s names if I don’t have to. It was hot outside that day. Her roommate was seated in front of a window a/c unit when I entered. Insert awkward introduction here. I don’t recall Reagan saying, “[Roommate], this is Evan. He approached me randomly while I was at work because he intended to get inside me,” but she might as well have. My motives were transparent. They were reflected in the unnatural, baby-smooth skin of my arms.
We hung out. We had a beer. Then we walked over to the bar. I was told we would be meeting a few other close friends. I guess this was a Wednesday thing for Reagan and her friends, they’d all meet up after classes at this bar and then they’d go to someone’s house and watch The O.C.. Not only hadn’t I’d watched that show, I felt it was a symbol of the downfall of American culture. What a stupid premise. What stupid people watched that shit! My plan became to get Reagan too drunk to sit through a television show. Fifty cent beers? A girl? That shouldn’t be too hard.
It proved harder than I imagined. The girl could drink. She couldn’t out-drink me, but she could hold her booze. This was before the days of the New Jersey indoor smoking ban (we were pretty late to the party, I think it didn’t go into effect until like 2006 or 2007), so the immensely crowded bar was also August hot and stuffy with the acrid smoke of hundreds of college kids’ chain smoking. It was fun, and uncomfortable, and I wasn’t getting a handjob under the table as I’d envisioned.
I wasn’t getting any signals from Reagan as to whether or not she wanted me. Granted it was our second time hanging out and the first time we’d “gone out together.” Plus we were in a group of her friends at probably the most populated location in the entire town at the peak of its business. We were about as far from a locked bedroom with clothing strewn across the floor as we could be. Well, we were a few blocks from her place, so we weren’t far in a geographical sense, yet I’d say we were light-years away from that alternate reality. And, by the way, were my arms shaved in that alternate reality? I don’t remember.
We stayed there for a few hours. We pounded countless beers. We ate an ungodly amount of food. It definitely wasn’t smart from the perspective of a guy trying to get laid. Had I the opportunity to take my shirt off, my 130-pound frame would have looked like a freakish Biafran child with a distended stomach. As nine o’clock approached, our table began to make plans.
“Where are we going to watch? I’d say my place but we don’t have a TV!”
“We could go to John’s, he’s walking distance.”
“It’s not really walking distance, it’s more like…power walking distance.”
“Why do we have to walk to someone’s place, why can’t we drive?”
“Who’s bringing the blow?”
“Isn’t your place like ten blocks from here?”
“My place is five.”
“Okay, we’re going there.”
One of those statements went right over my head. I didn’t think too much of it. I was kinda buzzed. I’d been drinking for three hours already and I’d only spent like 20 bucks. I went along with everyone because I thought maybe Reagan would get a little drunker and then I could walk her home and toe the line between having consensual sex with a drunk girl and maybe taking advantage of a girl who was too drunk. Little did I know that these fucking kids I was hanging out with had this stupid routine on Wednesday nights, where they’d all go to someone’s house, with a giant bag of coke, and snort it in some retarded white-trash ritual performed while kneeling before the alter of a television tuned to the FOX network, bathed in the pathetic glow of that god-awful TV show.
So we walked a dozen blocks or so to this other kid’s house. I was beginning to lose interest. I’m not a coke guy. I’d never used coke before, I thought of it as a drug for assholes. I might be an asshole, but I’m not a cokehead asshole. I guess I just don’t respect cokeheads. Plus, I definitely didn’t want to take part in any rite that revolved around The OC. I never kept track of the most pathetic moments of my life in list form (though I can remember most of ‘em) I’m pretty sure subjecting myself to such an absurd ceremony would be ranked far above most of the other dumb shit I’ve done.
But also, I really wanted to fuck this girl. Like I said earlier (on Friday) I hadn’t gotten laid in half a year. And I have what tee-vee doctors these days call sexual addiction. An insatiable appetite for pussy. I was willing to subject myself to a coke and FOX party if it in any way increased the odds of ravaging this increasingly uninteresting state-school slam-pig. Four or five hours ago I was convinced I was going to meet up with a really cool, hot young girl who shared hobbies with me and had a great sense of humor. Now I was going to a coke party with a girl whose week revolved around The OC. I shaved my arms for this? I shaved my arms, period? What the FUCK was wrong with me?
I’m not proud of my actions that night. In hindsight, I think about the disgustingly long rails snaking along that dirty Salvation Army castaway coffeetable, and I think about all the depraved things man has done since the dawn of time just to get his dick wet, and I feel bad for myself. Hell, Cro-Magnon man could have just clubbed a bitch over the head and taken her back to his cave for whatever kind of sex he desired. I, on the other hand, had tried a different path. Guess what? It didn’t work. It didn’t even come close to working. I don’t think the chemical reaction in my body would have prevented me from getting hard if I wanted to, but I was so dumbfounded by the reactions these kids were having to THE OC and the conversations on top of conversations on top of conversations about the characters and plots and all that shit…I guess I just wished there was a flail or a pernach or something to club her over the head with. I longed for the Cro-Magnon days. They didn’t have to sit around while a dozen coked up idiots screamed the words to a stupid Phantom Planet song.
Following the decrepit display, some kids decided to stick around and plow through whatever fun remained in the bag on the table. Reagan and her roommate decided they wanted to leave. For such an austere “main event,” our night ended very unceremoniously. We walked twenty blocks or whatever back to their crummy apartment. I was invited inside but it was an empty invitation with no promise of sex. I was introduced to the cat. Reagan said something about needing to shower. We all stunk of cigarettes, but the real stink was aromatically imperceptible: contempt. She asked if I wanted another beer and I said no, she should go shower and do whatever she needed to do to get herself in shape for tomorrow’s classes. I would speed back up the parkway home and try my best not to hang myself out of the sheer embarrassment of it all. I don’t know what was worse: obsessively trying to clean myself up in the shower to the point where I shaved my fucking arms, or that I’d pretended to enjoy a coke party and an episode of The OC. Oh, the regret. The sour taste of it all. The feeling of being an LA asshole in a dingy apartment in New Brunswick, NJ. At least now, seven years later, I’m an asshole in actual Los Angeles. But don’t you dare call me an LA asshole. That’s reserved for those fuckheads lining up in teams to use the bathrooms at the fabulous clubs along the Sunset Strip.
As for Reagan, we talked a few more times and then fell out of touch. I met her for lunch a couple years later at that diner on Route-1…the Skylark? Is that what it’s called? I met her there and we had eggs. I remember that day she was especially talky about her dead mom. At one point I almost choked on a piece of tomato because she shared something that I thought was super personal as if it was high school gossip. I don’t know, I like to think that maybe in this situation she was the one who was too flawed to make it work. Then I realize, “No, Evan. You’re definitely the flawed one. You will always be the insane, broken one.” Her? She just had awesome tits and a burgeoning cocaine problem.
August 3rd, 2010
ahhh thank goodness for Nikki