Low Life with Dirty Bird

The fight was over, the chaos of my emotions raised that afternoon was still a tangle I couldn't even bear to think about, much less release.

So I was drunk, but just. I didn’t want to be unable to dance, to end up puking my guts out like a teeny-bopper misjudging the potency of straight gin. Or worse, to do it in a bathroom stall with some some total stranger with bleached blond hair and a tight dress leaning down beside me murmuring, “Oh hon, that’s good. Let it all out. . .”

I wanted to get it out dancing hard instead, to hard, hard rock. I wanted to punish my body until I was cleansed of emotion, of thought, of love.

Because in the end, it wasn’t love I was feeling, was it? I was infatuated, obsessed even. I let the music move into my bones. Even if I wasn’t clean, it was. There was no subterfuge in a good beat. There were no games. A song was what it was. You danced, you sweated, it flowed and was gone.

I was so mad at him, so angry I didn’t know how my body contained the emotion. If I couldn’t express it, maybe I could exorcise it somehow. Otherwise, it would have to choke me to death. What other outcome was possible?

“Go,” I willed him silently. “Leave my life with the music. Let me dance you away.”

I caught sight of my gyrating self out of the corner of my eye in the bar mirror then, and the music seemed to stop. The audial illusion lasted just long enough for me to lose the beat and the feel of the song. I stopped, drifted to the wall.

Was it possible that my trying to banish him had somehow conjured him instead? How could he be here, standing at the bar near the DJ, chatting amiably with the guy spinning the discs? It was monumentally unfair, inconvenient, not to mention the end of the world. I could have killed him right then, if I wasn’t suddenly as weak as an invalid.

How could he be here?

I thought he hadn’t seen me, but how long could that situation last in this small room? To escape, I’d have to move away from my protective wall and step beyond the mirrored pillar I was for the moment able to keep between us. Either exit would be in his line of sight.

Had he just arrived? Would it not be far worse to slink back into the relative dark of a corner and have him discover me later, knowing I’d been hiding from him than to brazen it out right now? Hold my head high and march for the door, penguin on parade?

I didn’t know. I didn’t know anything. All that was certain was that my evening’s haven was now about as welcoming as the pit of vipers waiting to consume Sleeping Beauty in the original ending to the tale. I needed a drink.

So much for the idea of maintaining the equilibrium to dance. All I wanted now was oblivion. Then at least I’d be able to disavow my further actions, no matter how shameful, and no matter how cowardly the idea.

I circled him as widely as I could, comet in a far-sun orbit, and landed at the far end of the bar obscured from his direct line of vision by the taller folk between us. If he chose to turn, there’d be no escaping his notice in the mirror, but for now I seemed safe. He was deep in animated conversation with the DJ.

“You remember how to make a dirty bird?” I shouted to the bartender over the din. She’d made them for me before, but I was only a drop in the sea of special drink orders. “Grey Goose Martini. As much brine as you can fit in the glass, and lots of olives.”

She gave me a double tongue-click and shot me with a finger. I tried to sink into the reassuring bulk of the big guy next to me.

He was a mammoth of a man, a possible throw-back to another species, shoulders as broad as I was tall and massive everywhere. He turned and peered down at me, like Moses on the mount. “Hey, little lady.”

I laughed. He had a kind smile and I felt a surge of pleasure that momentarily slowed my frantic heart.

I waved up to him, and he grinned. “What you drinking?” he asked, checking on the prep for my disgustingly salty cocktail.

“In some circles, it’s called a river water martini,” I shouted over the music, “because it’s approximately the color of liquid goose-shit.”

The drink came, with me slapping down a couple of bills before he could offer to pay and further complicate my evening, and I slunk back into the crowd.

What to do but find my corner again, try to salvage something of the evening, and try to figure out why I’d ordered a drink instead of slipping out into the night when I could.

If I couldn’t reclaim my dignity, maybe I could at least enjoy a fabulously sloppy drunk. I could acquaint myself after all with the phantom tight-skirted blond. Maybe she’d hold my hair as I retched. I’d take any affectionate, non-complicated touch at all right now.

When I’d safely reached the semi-dark of my chosen lair, I finally got up the courage to look back to the DJ booth. That must be when my heart stopped beating entirely.

I knew he was looking straight at me, although my eyes wouldn’t quite focus. His lips, perversely, seemed to stand out perfectly clearly, a little parted, thin but sensual.

And he started walking toward me through the crowd, weaving to the music I couldn’t even hear. The martini glass was cold in my hands and ice dripped straight down my arms.

I still hadn’t moved a muscle when he reached me and lifted the glass gently from my fingers to take a sip.

Then he raised the rim to my lips, and I bobbled it. He touched my chin to wipe away the salty vodka.

Could I have been more devastated, more afraid, more - what? Thrilled, like you’re thrilled at the top of a mountain slope just as your skis begin to tip down?

It was not pleasure; it was too intense. My hate and my love were one thing, and neither name seemed the right one for what I felt, now that he was actually here in front of me.

But the music was coming back. I could hear the beat, heavy through my meat, pulsing from him into me through the finger that lingered a moment too long on my skin.

He took one more quick sip and set my glass down, his eyes never leaving me although mine drifted back and forth, from his lips to the floor, to the other dancers, and to the mirror that captured both of us together, so close, so intimate.

We were both swaying to the steady rhythm now, the beat carrying us where words couldn’t and away from where words had taken us earlier in the day. I had no words. I had no ability to look into the future or to remember the past. This didn’t even feel like my story, like it hadn’t that afternoon when our anger had spun so far out of control to become a third party to our relationship.

He was always a good dancer, one of those rare men who can and do like to move. There was an unbearable sensuality to the way his body captured the music, unbearable because I’d promised myself never again, promised I would stop wanting him for good.

I let him touch my back, cupping my shoulder with his hand, guiding me with gentle pressure of fingers on my waist, to mimic his movements and join the dance.

What were we dancing to? Stones, transitioning into Nine Inch Nails and an even harder beat. Where was I, besides lost in someone else’s daydream, something that might be as easily shattered as welcomed in?

Did he notice I was crying, tears rolling silently from the corner of my eye, even as I swayed into him, now following, now leading? Yes, because he wiped them away from my cheek as he brought the martini glass back to my lips. I drank out of one side of it, then he tipped it toward himself. I didn’t want to share even that much with him, to drink from the same cup. But even so, my arms were around his neck, and my body stretched against his.

One song gave way to another, and another, and we finished the martini. That, maybe, was what broke the spell, when he scooped up the two last olives and put one in each of our mouths.

I couldn’t open my lips, felt suddenly like I was choking. I pulled away and stumbled to the washroom, not knowing if he was following or not. Or if he was laughing, at how he’d overwhelmed my poor senses.

No, don’t be unfair, I told my spinning mind. I crashed through bathroom door, almost knocking over several party girls fixing their makeup, and locked myself in the furthest stall.

There, the flood of tears came fast and free. The dam of my anger had broken. I hadn’t cried that afternoon when we’d fought, when I thought we’d ended it. Instead, I’d willed myself to stay stonily calm and cool, trying to be rational even though my heart was breaking.

I bent down over my knees, covered the back of my head with my hands. How had I come to this? How had I let myself fall so quickly? Was it love? I didn’t think it could possibly be. I didn’t know him at all, or at least not nearly as well as I’d thought. The fight had proved that. Didn’t I have every reason to believe, by his own demonstration, that he’d betray my heart as easily as breathe, not even out of cruelty but from sheer ignorance? That and the training of this cruel world that love is just a subtler form of manipulation, and honesty to be ridiculed.

My tears began to choke me, and I could cry no more. The bathroom was quieter than it had been as I emerged from the stall, though in this place it was never empty.

I washed my face, letting the water run ice cold, hoping I could reverse some of the swollen redness of my eyes. A few women cast sidelong glances, but no one remarked. We’ve all been there, but nothing says we’re good at dealing with others. I guessed I wasn’t going to get my sympathetic party girl after all.

I straightened my hair, made sure my mascara was either intact or washed away, and, finally, left the bathroom.

He wasn’t in the corridor leading back down to the bar. For a moment, I thought I could just find my purse where I’d ditched it under a chair and slip away. Not going to happen. He was just by the door leading back in, near the bouncer, back to me.

But he turned as I came close, as if he knew I was approaching.

I bit my lip. He took a step nearer and stopped, face creasing in concern. Nope, I hadn’t covered up the evidence of my sob-fest, not that I really believed I had.

The bouncer, super-sensitive to our tension, put a hand on his arm and said, “Is everything all right here?” I wasn’t sure which of us he was talking to, but he seemed satisfied with my nod and went back to scanning the area for real problems.

We still hadn’t spoken, I realized, which meant that the last things we’d said to each other had been hateful and furious. And we didn’t now. Instead, I let him place one hand on my forearm, cupping with the other.

His skin - his fingers - Side by side, we moved into the stairwell, then into the dark space beneath the metal stairs leading up to the main floor.

Now at last I met his eyes. I saw the concern there, and the regret - but I was so afraid I didn’t trust it anymore than I trusted myself to be kind to him.

All I wanted was for us not to hurt each other. It was so easy to lose sight of that in the heat of the moment, but now, suddenly I was cool. Or at least, I was warm, but only to what I loved about him. The alcohol hadn’t helped, neither had the music. I hated that his presence, standing in front of me, was the best balm I knew.

So I put my hands up and drew him toward me, fingers laced through the hair on both sides of his head, and drank his lips as deeply as I’ve ever done a martini, dirty bird or no.