Why Am I Single? Let Me Count The Ways Four: Oh, The Insanity Of It All

At O'dark thirty the next morning, there is banging on the outside apartment door. BANG! BANG! BANG! pause BANG! BANG! BANG!

I rolled over in the creaky bed and heard Tracy stomping down the hallway. I threw back the covers and set up on the side of the bed, rubbing my face. My feet did not touch the floor. I glance out the window. What the hell? It's still dark out. I slid down off the bed and stumbled to the bedroom door just in time to hear Tracy yelling, "Kans-ass!"

I walked down the long hallway, rubbing my eyes. Tracy was standing in front of our apartment door, door half open and a little brown man was standing outside. For once, somebody who was shorter than me. "Kans-ass. Our neighbor wants to speak to you." She had a little smirk on her face.

Wha..? I walked over to the door and squinted down at him. He was speaking in some language that sounded like Spanish, but wasn't. Then he said, in broken English, "Red Car. Driveway." and flung his left hand towards our open apartment door to where my car was parked. I leaned out to look and, sure enough, the back end of my car was blocking his driveway. The upstairs apartment door swung open and Becky stuck her head out the door, "What the hell is going on?"

I was so damned embarrassed. "Uh...just a minute. Um..Uno momento." The guy looked at me like I was speaking martian. Later I found out he was Brazilian and spoke Portuguese. How was I supposed to know? I stuck my index finger up to indicate one minute and went back to put my shoes on. I moved the car and then went back in to catch a few more minutes of sleep. Thankfully, everyone else had gone back to bed, too, sparing me any more embarrassment.

I was praying that this was not an indication of how the rest of my day was going to go.

I drove into the office with Lisa that morning. The office was actually only a mile away. Very cool. Can't get lost. She introduced me around to an eclectic group of people. The pharmacist, Kathy E..., was, to put it bluntly, gorgeous. Model gorgeous. I wanted to hate her so bad. She was almost six feet tall with dark brown wavey hair, perfect olive toned skin and green eyes. She's twenty six, Italian, and too damned nice for a beautiful woman. Why couldn't she be mean, dammit? At least give me something I could bitch about. But, noooooo, she's got to be beautiful, smart and nice. Well, shit. There goes the old ego again. And, hey! What is it with these freaking Amazon women around here? Isn't anybody 5'4" or less?

Later that afternoon, Kathy insists on buying me lunch as a welcome. Have I ever had a Philly cheese steak? No? The best is from Gaetano's that is just down the street. Greasy, cheesy steak with fried onions. Provolone cheese, not that cheap cheese whizy stuff. If you're going to do it right, it must be provolone. Ok. Now, I can hate her. She had just introduced me to my downfall. I will gain twenty pounds eating cheese steaks, french fries and downing cokes like an addict. She eats this stuff? She looks like that? I hate her guts. In a nice way of course, because she's still nice. Damn.

Several days passed and Saturday rolled around. Lisa and Becky were going to the store and asked me to watch Rachel, Becky's six year old daughter. Who is, by the way, a spoiled brat. I think. Aside from my brothers and cousins, I don't have a real good point of reference, but I'm already sure she is the evil seed. Becky told me that, if Rachel gave me any problems, I was to send her to her room. Oh, yeah. Evil child didn't make it too long before it was off to the bedroom where I told her to lay down on her bed until her mother got home. Wherein I immediately experience the "Mommy Opera" as I came to call it.

Imagine a six year old, laying on her bed, crying very loudly and, when she does not get my attention, she begins a caterwauling cry intermixed with, "I want my mommy." Not in that usual, high pitched, childish monotone, but alternating soprano and baritone pitch...

Soprano, "I want my mommy."
Baritone, "I want my mommy."
Soprano, "I want my mommy."
Baritone, "I want my mommy."

For about an hour until Becky and Lisa come home and I explain what Rachel had been doing. Rachel comes out of her room and runs to her mother, putting her arms up like she wanted to be picked up. Becky took hold of her arms and pushed them down, "Nooo. You're not getting any sympathy from me. I told you to listen to Kansas." As I'm writing this, I realize that Becky actually understood what it takes to establish authority figures. Kansas was an adult and Rachel was going to listen. Plus, I was trusted immediately by this woman to care for her child. Not a bad start.

This episode isn't only funny at that time, but it is very funny later on, when Rachel is fifteen, a cheerleader and has her first boyfriend over. At which time, I get a little payback for all the torture she put me through as a child and proceeded to tease her un-mercifully about this episode and "the french kiss."

Jumping ahead slightly, one day, when Rachel was nine, we are sitting on the porch. It's summer and the kids are running up and down the side walks with their bicycles. Rachel comes over with the little girl from next door in tow, walks purposefully up the stairs and over to where, Lisa, Becky, Tracy and I are lounging in our beach chairs drinking mellon balls and announces, "I know how to french kiss."

Uh..okaaayy. Where the hell did that come from? I can tell by everybody else's faces that we are all thinking the same thing. Tracy was the first one to speak up, "You do? Show us."

Rachel puckered her lips in the worst representation of a "smooch" I'd ever seen, closed her eyes, pushed her face forward and started twisting her head from side to side. We all started laughing. "Where'd you learn that from?" Becky asked after she caught her breath.

Rachel got a smirky little smile on her lips and the devil in her eyes and said, "I saw Tracy on the front porch with Michael last night and they were doing this." Then she repeated her interpretation of the kiss. Tracy turned red and we laughed our asses off.

Oh, yeah. Pay backs are such a bitch. Especially when aunt Kansas has a looooong memory.

Where was I? Hmm...yes. I was there for a couple of months and the girls were going out on Fridays, Saturdays and sometimes Thursdays for "thirsty Thursdays" when the local bars would have dollar pitcher nights. Oh. I probably forgot to mention that I was living in an area that was purported to have the most bars per square mile in the entire country. Go figure. It was a blue collar community mostly. Almost every guy that lived on our block worked in construction or roofing. I think that went for most of the men in the entire town.

I wasn't going out with them. I was still only 20 and the legal drinking age was 21. I was too nervous to try and sneak into a club with them, so I stayed home and babysat for Becky and a few of their other friends. I would read books and watch TV until they came stumbling home in the wee hours of the morning. Stumbling home, not because of the fear of drunk driving, but because driving wasn't necessary. I did mention that every kind of bar or night club you could want to go to was within walking distance. Just two blocks over and down the main road was a little club with a big square bar and a little dance floor.

Finally, about six weeks before my 21st birthday, Tracy harangues me into going to the club with her. I was really nervous. I decided to look as old as I could to avoid being carded. I put on my tight black knit dress, black stockings, black stilleto heels, did my hair, put on the make up and we drove over. We drove because Tracy was insistant on it. I think she wanted to show up in a little red sports car and be...cool. We parked on the side near the door so everyone could see that we were getting out of a nice, new red sports car.

I was so nervous when we walked up to the bouncer that I thought I might throw up. Oh, God. The bouncer was looking at me. He has really big arms and a really big neck. Please, please don't ask for my license. I was just about ready to chuck it all. Hell with it. I can go home and read a book. But the bouncer just looks at me and says, "Three dollars," sticking his hand out. What? Oh. Three dollars. I pulled it out of my purse and handed it to him.

I was in. The place was really dark except for the rope lights around the ceiling, around the dance floor and around the bar. I was blinking my eyes a little bit when I heard a bunch of women yelling, "Woohooo! Kans-ass!" It was Lisa and Becky and Lisa Beth. Lisa Beth was, how shall I put this? A character. She might have been pretty once, but her hair was thinning, her face was a little puffy, she smoked too much, cursed too loud, laughed at the weirdest times and was one of those women predisposed to flashing men in cars while we drove down the highway. She had no boobs to speak of, either.

They were all sitting at the bar with their backs to the little dance floor that was marked off by a half wall. Every guido and wannabe guido in town was leaning on the half wall and they all turned to look at Tracy and me as we walked towards the bar. It was like hungry lions watching the antelope at the watering hole. I felt like the antelope. My eyes were big and my ears were twitching. I took a little stuttering step towards the bar. I was really nervous again. Tracy grabbed my arm, "Come on," and dragged me to the bar.

Whew. Made it. I was nobody's meal. We sat down with our backs to the dance floor, half wall and the hungry lions...er, men. Becky said, "What'll ya have, Kans-ass?" as she waves the bartender over.

"Um..I dunno. A coke maybe?" I had driven over there. Besides which, I had no idea what there was to drink. So far, my experience had been beer, which I hated. I had tried to drink some when we were hanging out up at Becky's, but she kept giving me shit for wasting a half a can. Beer was expensive on our shoestring budgets. So sue me. I was still a square.

"A coke? Nooo. You don't wanna coke."

I looked over at Lisa (regular Lisa, not Lisa Beth) and saw she was drinking something red that looked like Kool-aid. "I'll have what she's having."

"Woohoo. High-five, Kans-ass." Umm..ok. I stuck my hand up and she smacked it and then turned to the bar, "Bartender. Give her a Red Death and I'll have another beer."

Oh, shit. Red Death? That didn't sound too good.

I was sitting at the end of the bar. I had my back turned to all of those guys and the hair on the back of my neck was standing up. The hungry lions were waaay to close for comfort. Tracy was turned sideways, resting her head on her hand with her elbow on the bar. The drink showed up and I was sipping it. MMmmm. It did kind of taste like Kool-aid. With a burn. "That guy is staring at you." Spew. Cough. Red stuff started coming out of my nose so I grabbed a little cocktail knapkin and started wiping my nose and mouth. Real classy.

"Who? Where?"

"Don't turn around."

Don't turn around? How the hell was I supposed to know who was looking? Besides the twenty other guys that were standing there?

Just then, a song comes on. Tone-Loc: Funky Cold Medina (or was that "Cole"? I never did figure that out.). "C'mon, Kans-ass. Let's go dance." All the girls stand up and Becky grabs my arm, pulling me off the bar stool, towards the dance floor and past the hungry lions. We get in the classic "girl circle" and started dancing. The entire back wall was covered in mirrors. I think the place was a strip joint at one time. My position in the circle put me in the back facing the half wall and the hungry lions. Oh, wow. I almost couldn't dance, I was so nervous. All of those guys were staring at the dance floor.

Alright. I don't think it was me exactly they were staring at. There were five of us and only one of us would I describe as...um...unattractive. I'll let you guess who that was. Plus, there were at least twenty other girls on the floor and a few couples. Didn't matter. It was almost creepy having that many eyes staring my way, so I manuevered in the circle until my back was to them. Ahh. That's better. Er...nope. Now I was shaking my ass at them and I could see them all in the mirrors on the back wall. Oh, God.

Then the song switches over to Snap: I Got The Power. It's gettin', it's gettin', it's gettin' kinda hectic. Yeah. I love that song. I was totally getting into. We all were. These two really drunk guys came over and crashed the circle. The couldn't dance worth a crap when they were sober, I was sure, and drunk, they were even worse. They were trying their best to dirty dance with all of us, stepping on toes and getting up in our faces. Eeeww. Stinky breath. Everybody just kept pushing them away and they would just go to the next girl. Finally, they got the message and started dancing/stumbling off towards some other girls, only to repeat the same episode.

Next song, E.U.: Da' Butt. Everybody was laughing and when the song started calling out names, the DJ would bring the sound down and everybody would shout out the name of somebody they knew, throwing our hands up in the air. Becky's gotta big ol' butt, oh yeah. Lisa's gotta big ol' butt, oh yeah. Tracy's gotta big ol' butt, oh yeah. Kansas' gotta big ol' butt, oh yeah.

Now wait just a minute.

When the song was over, I was sweating like a horse. We were all laughing and making our way back to the bar where our seats had been kept by the cute bar tender. The guys on the half wall watching the floor didn't bother me so much anymore. I sat down and took a big swig of my drink. Oh, yeah. This was fun.

I was sitting on the end of our little queue and turned in towards the other girls while we laughed at something or other. I felt a presence at my right elbow and smelled an overwhelming whiff of cologne. I wrinkled my nose, but kept talking to the girls. The feeling of being leaned over was getting stronger. Tracy jerked her chin towards my right, just as I felt somebody touch my elbow.

"Excuse me." Said a heavily accented, middle eastern voice, "can I buy you a drink?"

I turned around and there was a guy straight off the cover of a 70's disco album. He had on dark brown polyester bell bottom slacks and a burnt orange, brown, tan, swirly designed shirt with a big pointy collar that was pulled out on either side until the points touched his shoulders. It was unbuttoned half-way down his chest with a little bit of hair tufting out of the top and three heavy gold chains hanging down, one with a big circular medallion. His hair was straight and hung down to his shoulders in a blunt cut and one side was tucked behind his left ear.

"Uh..pardon?" Oh, crap. Out of all the guys in the bar, why did it have to be this one? His friend was standing right behind him. He was dressed similar to disco man.

This was 1990 for the love of God.

He leaned down closer and I leaned back farther, "Can I buy you a drink?"

His cologne was almost overwhelming. Tracy was nudging my elbow and giggling, the evil wench, "Go on, Kans-ass." I turned my head slightly and gave her the "buzz off" look which only made her laugh harder. I turned back to the gentleman and said, "No, thank you. I'm fine." I started to turn back to the girls, but he touched my elbow again, "Are you sure?" Heavy accent. I think that's what he was saying.

"Um..yeah. Yes. I'm sure. Thank you anyway." I was from Kansas. We were taught to be polite. I turned back towards the girls and gave them the evil eye because they were whooping it up, "Oooh, Kans-ass." "Go, Kans-ass." I didn't realize that I was supposed to get a drink bought for me, regardless of the buyer and THEN politely turn him away. I hadn't yet learned the intricacies of the "poor girls going to club" dance. All I knew was that this guy was NOT somebody I wanted to spend the night trying to lose just because he bought me a drink.

He was still there, standing at my back. It was starting to creep me out. Then he touched my elbow again. Damn. This guy was persistant. Heavy accent again, "Will you dance?"

Jesus, Mary and Joseph. "No, thank you. I'm tired. Maybe later." And I give him a polite little smile and turn my back to him. Please, please get the message. I can feel him standing there for another minute or two and then he walks off with his friend. Whoosh. I didn't know I was holding my breath. The other girls kept making remarks, "Oh, Kans-ass. You've got an admirer. Ooooh." Yeah, whatever.

A few songs later and on my second round of Red Death, I feel somebody touch my elbow again. Jeeshush H....I turned around ready to give the guy an earful and..."Oh, hi." There was another guy standing there. He was about 5'6" and built like a bulldog. Big, round chest, big shoulders, big neck and arms with a square head. He had a little butt and I wondered how he kept his pants up. "Yous wanna dance?"

Tracy shoves me off the bar stool, "Uh...yeah. Sure." We went on the dance floor and it was a slow song. I don't remember what it was. Everybody was doing that familiar dance with the girl's arms around the guys neck and the guy holding on to the girl's waist. Unlike the highschool dance, I was pretty sure I was not going to get away with making the guy do a classic dance stance so I gingerly put my arms around his neck and he holds onto my waist. One thing was for sure, I was still a square, still conscious of being from Kansas and I didn't know this guy from Adam, so I kept the minimal three inches between us while we danced in a circle.

His name was Pat...Patrick O'something or other. He was a roofer. He lived in the neighborhood. Need I tell you that everyone in the neighborhood was basically either Italian, Irish, Italian-Irish, or Portuguese? Anyway, he was kind of sweet, but quiet. I think he was more nervous than I was. When the dance was done, he walked me back to my bar stool, said, "Thanks," and then walked away to stand by his very tall blonde friend. I was a little bemused, but I shrugged my shoulders and went back to my drink.

The rest of the night he appointed himself my guardian. I danced with a couple of other guys, but if one was too persistant he would come over and stand between us, "Yo. She said, "no". Yous needs to go." My little bulldog. Of course, after a couple instances of that, nobody came over to ask me to dance. But, that was ok. It was almost a relief actually. I just went on the dance floor with the other girls and had a good time.

At 2:30 AM the club closed. The girls were all stumbling drunk. Except me. I had limited myself to two drinks. I wanted to be able to take my car home, but, when we leave the club, the girls are insisting that I walk home with them, "Ahh, c'mon, Kans-ass." "Yeah, Kansas, c'mon, walk with us." Lisa, "I'll drive you over tomorrow and you can pick up your car. Joey," she turns to the bouncer, "see that red car over there," she was kind of hanging on him with her arms around his neck, "can you make sure nobody tows it?" What? Now wait a minute. "No..c'mon Kansas. It'll be fine. Right Joey?" Joey grunts something like, "yes".

"Ok." What the hell was I thinking? It's February in the northeast, it's freezing and I don't have a coat. We have to walk about a half mile to get home and I'm in heels and a dress. Shit. They can't feel it because they are drunker than skunks in a wine barrel.

We walked down the main street, pass the cop shop (that's what I learn to call the little building that houses our ten man police department) and into "down town" with the little shops and apartments above it. Lisa Beth is insistant that we go to the downtown area because she needs to use the ATM. What? It's almost 3 AM in the morning, what the hell do you need the ATM for? "C'mon Kans-ass. You can make it." Lord, how many times I let them talk me into things that I knew were against my common sense.

As we walked down the main street, the girls were harassing me about being from Kansas. They all started singing, "Home, home on the range," at the top of their lungs. You could see our breaths puffing out in front of us. Suddenly, a window from an upstairs apartment above one of the shops flies open, "Yo. Shut up!"

Becky, "You shut up!"

Man in window, "No, You shut up!"

Becky leans back in this wierd position, tucks her elbows into her sides, puts both her hands out in front of her palms up and flips him the double bird. She jerks her body back and forth in this position, grunting a little, "ummph..umph..ummph" as if to say, "take that and that and that".

Oh. My. God.

I grabbed as many arms as I could, "C'mon," and started pulling them down the street. They were laughing of course. They were drunk. All I kept thinking was how much bail it was going to cost us. I know, I know. Square.

We finally get to the bank which is in a building in the middle of the street. All of these buildings were joined together. No space in between them. The ATM is on the left hand side of a little alcove right outside the front door. Lisa Beth was standing in front of the ATM machine and she lifts up the bottom of her coat. I'm standing there with my arms crossed, rubbing my arms, "C'mon. I wanna go home." Any buzz I had left was long gone. I THOUGHT she was pulling out her ATM card. Instead, she drops her pants, cops a squat and starts peeing. Right in the doorway of the bank.

"What the f* are you doing?" "Lisa Beth!" "I can't help it, I had to go pee. You want I should piss my pants?"

Oh. My. God.

I turn around, looking wildly down the street. We are only a block and a half from the cop shop. We are on main street of our little town. We had just pissed off some apartment dwelling neanderthal and Lisa Beth was peeing in the doorway of our local bank.

How the hell was I going to explain to my dad why I needed him to wire money to the local bail bondsman?

The rest of us turn our backs to her and try to block her from view.

"Hurry the hell up!" "You better never do this again, dammit." "Lisa Beth, how come you didn't go while we were at the club?" Nervous, drunken laughter.

Finally, she's done and pulls her pants up. I started walking off ahead of the group. "Ahh..Kans-ass. It was just a joke." Whatever.

They were still keeping pace with me and started singing again. This time it's "My country 'tis of thee." I was rolling my eyes until I heard a car pull up behind me (beside them). Rrrrr. Oh, shit. The police. "Hey! You girls need to keep it down or I'll run you in for disturbing the peace and public drunkeness!"

"Oh. Sorry officer. We were just singing." "Yeah. We like to sing." "We'll keep it down. Shhhh. Shhh." This last was Lisa Beth, holding her index finger up to her lips and looking at the others. Yeah. Uh-huh. The arbiter of courtesy and public discourse.

He finally drove on and the girls started laughing again. "C'mon you guys. I'm freezing."

"Kans-ass, you're no fun." Whatever. I might not be fun, but I wasn't planning on spending the rest of the night getting finger printed and photographed.

We finally made it home. I stripped off the heels, the hose and the dress, scrubbed my face and pole vaulted into my bed, snuggling down under the comforter.

This episode was to be repeated over and over again, with a few different twists, including singing, but excluding the peeing episode. Particularly as I threatened to kill Lisa Beth if she ever did that again.

As I drifted off to sleep, I heard a song in my head:

Oh, what a night, late December back in '63
What a very special time for me
As I remember what a night!
Oh what a night,
You know I didn't even know her name
But I was never gonna be the same
What a lady, what a night!
Oh, I got a funny feeling when she walked in the room
And I, as I recall it ended much too soon
Oh what a night,
Hypnotizing, mesmerizing me
She was everything I dreamed she'd be
Sweet surrender, what a night!