LADIES OF THE ROAD (cont.) back

Late in the evening as I lie awake in bed with the echoes of the amplifiers ringing in my head. Yeah, I admit it. I like Bob Seger. Now that everyone has to be all indie-rock and keeping it real and shit they won’t admit they loved Bob Seger in 9th grade, but goddamn it I listened to Bob Seger then and when no one’s around, I listen to Bob Seger now. The reason I’m telling you this is that I met a chick who also likes Bob Seger. I think. When I was taking off her denim jacket and running my numb hands through her hairsprayed bangs, I was thinking that this was the kind of lay Bob Seger would have tagged back on an old fashioned classic rock tour. I sort of liked that, going back in time while in the sack, but maybe I was just excusing myself for fucking a girl that by modern-day standards would be considered universally unattractive. She seemed very purposeful, she knew what she had come for, can I see the bus she had said and my answer as always had been yes.

Yeah, that 80s groupie knew what she wanted and for some reason she wanted to sleep with me. Why do these biddies want me, I’m the goddamned roadie, but I tell you what, one time back in high school some girl offered to have sex with me, the offer was on the table, and I asked a buddy about it and he said, In life you’re not always gonna have snatch handed to you on a platter so when it is, you owe it to yourself to take it. So I fucked the chick in high school and I fucked the girl who looked like a Bob Seger fan, ‘cause someday I’m going to want some action and I don’t want to curse myself for passing up a free lunch.

So I lay there in my bunk with the girl next to me and the echoes of the amplifiers ringing in my head, even though I always wear earplugs at shows, and well, I didn’t feel like a big player and I didn’t feel like a dirty sleaze. I felt like Bob Seger. And it was great.

She wore a metal thing shaped like a butterfly in her hair to keep it out of her eyes. She was small, tiny, petite, whatever. She reminded me of my old friend Pete’s little sister, and for a while I found myself wondering whether I really could knock boots with someone that reminded me of Pete’s sister. I know that you’re just thirteen years old, I don’t want you I need. I know what you’re thinking, that’s pretty foul, tagging a chick that looks like a little girl you used to know, and well, you’re right it probably is a little unorthodox, but there’s a big difference between things being weak sauce and things being out of bounds. Back in college, I met this guy who rushed a fraternity and the fucking whitehats made this guy eat their shit, I mean their actual shit, like from their ass. And I asked him about this and I said That’s the worst thing I’ve ever heard, you actually ate turd, wasn’t it fucking nasty? and he said Yeah it was fucking nasty, I mean, I was sitting there eating shit, but I did it anyway. It was awfully gross, but I did it anyway. That’s sort of the way I felt about this girl in the tiny light blue T-shirt, I did it anyway. And tagging some borderline jailbait is a far cry from munching on some frat-boy’s loaf. You’d do the same goddamn thing.

She said she was a poet, that she wrote about the people she met, so I asked to be in one of her poems, as a guest star or a cameo or whatever. I told her in return, well, I gave her free beer and weed and shit but I also said that if I ever wrote a book I’d make her a character. She seemed to think this might actually happen, me writing a book, which is fucked up since I had a tough enough time writing three page essays in school, but fuck it, I guess everyone’s a writer nowadays.

I had this bottle of absinthe that one of the guys had bought from someone in Indianapolis, I guess the shit’s banned everywhere but some country in Europe ‘cause it made Hemingway cut his ear off and Van Gogh go insane or maybe vice versa. Anyway, we had this bottle of green shit and the girl said I love absinthe, it’s my favorite drink, I said It must suck to have your favorite drink be banned everywhere but some European country and I guess I knew she was bullshitting but she really wanted to be down ‘cause I guess absinthe is supposed to be artsy and she’s one of those chicks who reads poetry to guys in the sack and hangs out in small bookstores. I wanted to sleep with her, so we opened up the bottle and used paper towels as strainers, covering them with sugar and pouring water through them into the green crap underneath. It tasted like liquorice but it turned all white and milky from the water and goddamn it packed a whallop. We drank three quarters of the damn bottle. There I was, sitting next to this drunk girl who looked less and less like Pete’s sister and more like a blurry alien speaking German, hoping that the crazy chick wasn’t going to lop my ear off or stick my head in an oven.

She was quick to go down, which shocked me, I tell you. Shit got real fucked up after that was all done. She started crying, and I figured I’d really fucked the pooch on this one, this character was bawling and I was tanked on some bullshit outdated European cocktail and she was probably plowed, not too many tiny people can really throw down the liquor. She was crying but ashamed so she cried even harder. Bad, really bad, not just ‘cause my plans for a lay had pretty much launched themselves out the window but I honestly felt bad for her, which is fucked up since I don’t generally pride myself on giving too big a shit about all that much.

I’m living with this guy, she said, he’s 30 and hits me sometimes, I hate him so much, that’s why I came out here and I’m saying things like It’s all right, it’s gonna be okay which was bullshit ‘cause if she was getting tagged by some old guy who beats her things were probably not going to be the slightest fucking bit okay, but I tried, goddamnit, I tried to be nice and after a while I sort of remembered how. It’s strange how shit like that just happens, like riding a bike. She stopped crying after a while. I gave her a towel to wipe off her face, all smeared with eyeliner. I figured I was pretty much a shoe-in to appear in one of her poems, but I asked her to stay anyway, she was nice and I really couldn’t have brought myself to kick her out.

The guys came back to find this girl in my lap passed out. Bud wasn’t too sour about his absinthe, but all of a sudden my lap was warm with vomit and the chick was booting all over the bus and oh shit the guys were pissed off. Before I could even understand what was going on they had thrown her out and were closing the door and she was crying again and there was nasty green puke all over the fucking place and I couldn’t see a goddamned thing.

Hey, wait a second, I said, and went out after her, dripping all over the bus. She was lying on the pavement and she got up and started walking away, bawling, and being a fucking mess I just sort of stumbled after her saying Hey, come back, are you all right, do you need any help and trying to catch up with her even the night was cold and I was shivering so bad my teeth started smashing into each other. Dude, come back, Bud yelled from the bus, but I just kept walking after this girl, Hey are you all right, do you need anything and we finally got inside a door, a service entrance to the venue, there was a janitor’s cart inside filled with mops and plastic trash bags. She sat down and I sat down next to her and after a while the two of us fell asleep, shivering and covered in green vomit and tears.

The bus was gone when I woke up, which was just as well ‘cause I had no interest in cleaning up, and to tell you the truth the road goes on forever and I wanted a rest. The two of us, me and the chick, rubbed our eyes as we walked outside. We let the morning drizzle wash us off and just looked at the Portland sky. It was gray, the whole damn sky, gray. She put her hand in mine and we waited till most of the puke and alcohol and crud from the floor had been washed off.