NOTE: I wrote the blog below sometime in 2007, but never published it for reasons I don't remember. It's a little tongue and cheeky, but worth posting. Some strong language/sexual content. Don't read if you are easily offended.
SHOUT OUT TO A GERMAN GIRL
This is a letter from me to a German girl I had a weird, two-hour “moment” with at a bar in Boston on Fat Tuesday 2006. I write it in hope that one day the girl will remember my name, look me up on the Internet and find me here. So if you're not the German girl, you shouldn't be reading this, as things are going to get really erotic and steamy. If you are the German girl, then, "Hey, how's things going? Remember me?"
February 2006. Fat Tuesday. I was experiencing the blues. Only days earlier I discovered that all four of my wisdom teeth had cavities and needed to be removed. Bad news for a man with no dental insurance. Certainly a date with Mr. Anheuser-Busch was on the bill.
A friend from college was going to be in town for a few days, visiting his sister. We decided to get together and do a good old-fashioned bender. We started at a bar called the Pour House on Boylston Street. It was 11am. We got hamburgers and several mugs of beer. The hours began to blur. The buzz began to set in...
By early evening, we ended up at a bar formerly called the White Horse Tavern. I'm not sure what it's called now but I'm sure it's something stupid. I was sitting at the bar, going off on my usual loud, drunken rants:
“No, Paris Hilton is really, really smart.”
“Ok, Burns. Sounds good.”
“No, dude, Paris Hilton is, like, really bright. People don’t understand her.”
“All right, Burns. I believe you.”
“No, Paris Hilton’s REALLY smart. I’m gonna marry her and have her babies.”
“Ok, Burns. Good luck with that.”
“No, you don’t understand...”
When suddenly, I felt a pair of eyes on me. I glanced to my four o' clock and saw this girl sitting alone in a booth, looking in my direction.
I didn't think much of this at first. It wasn't unusual for me to draw attention to myself when going off on my drunken rants. But the glances kept coming and soon I began to realize that, "Holy shit, that girl over there wants my balls!”
Yes, it appeared to be the case. But should it have really surprised me? I mean, who wouldn't be attracted to a guy who sticks up for such misunderstood celebrities as Paris Hilton? Duh!
The question was what to do about it, as I wasn't in the mood for bullshit. All I really wanted to do was go over and ask, "Are you into me or what?" None of this, "Hey can I buy you a drink?" mumbo jumbo. But I was too afraid. Sure, I was drunk and more confident than usual, but when it came down to it, I was still my usual, nervous self.
Ten minutes or so passed. My friend had to meet another friend and had no choice but to take off and leave me. "This isn't good," I thought. My buzz had reached its peak and I was feeling really swell. I sure as shit didn't feel like calling it a night and riding back to the suburbs on a train full of boring commuters. I wanted to party. But there was no one to party with.
I looked back over to the girl who only minutes ago was giving me all sorts of eye-action. "Should I talk to her?" I asked myself. "No, bad idea," I thought. I didn't know her. What if she was a sex addict and wanted to go back to her place and she had Aids? "Aids wouldn't be a good thing to have," I realized. So I packed up shop and left the bar.
Stumbling down Boylston Street in a drunken haze, I started hearing an infuriated voice in my head: "You fucking pussy, Burns! That girl wanted your balls and you just ran away from her! She wanted to take you back to her place and give you Aids! How can you live with yourself, you...you pussaaay?!" I knew the voice was right: I wanted that girl’s Aids.
I was back to the bar in ten minutes - maybe less - and, to my luck, the girl was still there. But I was still too scared to make my move. Where would such an action lead me? What road could it take me down? What radical changes could it possibly bring to my life? But, most importantly, would the girl really have Aids?
All the questions freaked me out, so I made a quick beeline to the bathroom and tried like hell to muster up a leak. I eventually managed to shake a few drips into the urinal, flushed, took about three minutes to wash my hands and, finally, came to the point where I looked in the mirror and said...
“All right, Burns, you hot shit. Let’s do this!”
I reentered the bar, immediately put the girl in my cross-hairs and took a deep breath: “That girl over there is gonna get it so hard and ya know what? I’m the one who's gonna give it to her!!!”
I strutted closer and closer and closer to the booth...shoulders up, chest out - I had never looked so jacked. And, then...
I sat.
"Can I buy you a drink?" I asked in a voice reminiscent of a pubescent Peter Brady.
"Um...no, I'm all set," she said in what I soon realized was a German accent. That’s right: she was German, which, by the way, did not disappoint me in the least. She actually looked a lot like Lola in that movie Run Lola Run, except with bigger boobs and nicer thighs...oh, and she had brown hair, I think - not red.
“Why’d you come back?” she asked.
“I needed to go to the bathroom.”
“Oh...but why’d you sit down?”
“Oh, um, you know, I saw a pretty girl here and, thought, ‘what the heck?’”
Damn, I was smooth. Hell, Humphrey Bogart himself should’ve been taking notes...if, you know, this was 1946, not 2006.
But the Bogart-like charm I exuded was a stark contrast from what was going on in my head:
“Holy shit, is she gonna ask me back to her place, god, I need rubbers, well there’s a C.V.S. a couple doors down, Aids isn’t really too bad of a disease, do you think we’re gonna do it in the shower?”
Clearly my brain had mutated into a bottle of Budweiser.
But the question was how the transition was going to take place? How was I going to go from the booth in the bar to the hot German girl’s shower? I didn’t know the answer to this...
So once again I panicked and struck up a conversation with her! Yes, I know, I know. Stupidest fucking move a horny dude could make, right? But I did it and, goddamn, I had to follow through.
I learned she was a singer studying music at Berklee College of Music...
“...I’d get HIV first, maybe I’ll never get the Aids...”
That Johnny Depp was her favorite actor...
“...I’ve dealt with strep throats, certainly I can handle the Aids...”
That Guinness was her favorite beer...
“...Magic Johnson’s still alive, right..?”
And that she had a mom and a dad back in Germany. They were both worried sick about her.
Eeeeeeeerrrrrrrcccccccccccccchhhhhhhhhhh!!! Crash!!! Hubcaps rolling on pavement.
And that was that: my buzz was killed.
It was like suddenly snapping out of an acid frenzy and finding yourself in the middle of a desert...a whining wind shivering your bones...vultures circling your head. “What the hell am I doing?” I asked myself. “Where am I?” “Why am I here?” The recollection of rubbers, CVS’s and showers flooded back into my mind, but it seemed like these memories were all part of something that happened years ago - not minutes.
It was the image of her “Mom and Dad” that killed the buzz. Why were they worried sick? Among other things, because of horny drunkards like myself, prowling the streets of Boston. Their daughter was Little Red Riding Hood and I was the Big Bad Wolf - the sleazy guy in the Lifetime movie, the guy at the truck stop in Thelma and Louis, the dog trying to piss on the new fire-hydrant, the…well, you get the point. Yes, I was all those and more. And it made me feel like a horrible person.
So I decided to continue the conversation and pretend like I never had any thoughts of going back to her place and contracting her Aids. And, I must say, it wasn’t that bad of a conversation, though I couldn’t tell you what it was about because I don’t remember any of it.
Two hours later we decided to call it a night. I walked her a little ways down Boylston, asked for her email, and gave her a hug. Part of me still wanted some first base, but by that time I had stale booze breath and figured it would be better to part on a higher note (my hugs are irresistible). Besides, now that the booze was almost completely out of my brain, I realized I didn’t like her that much, anyway. She was just somebody to fill the space before I found Paris Hilton and had her babies.
Anyway, as fate would have it, I ended up losing her email, so this is just my shout out to her. If you read this, I enjoyed the conversation, even though I hardly remember any of it, and good luck with the Aids! Magic Johnson’s done well. You will too!
Love Always,
Matt Burns
Over the past few years or so I have shared many fascinating stories via blogging...stories of how I once made out with a woman almost old enough to be my grandmother and stories of how I once urinated dark-red blood and thought I was going to die...and stories of how I once barged in on a grown man dropping heat in a Starbucks bathroom (he failed to say 'I'm in here!' when I knocked)...and stories of how I was once convinced I had gonorrhea for a hellish period of three months but never did. Wait a minute...I never wrote about that latter story. Forget I ever said anything about that. It never happened. Well, yes it did, but I never got an STD test in the ER that involved getting a long Q-tip-type device jammed down my snake eye. All right, that happened as well, but I never got a thorough butt exam immediately after getting the STD exam for a reason I'm still trying to figure out, as it had nothing to do with the symptoms I was experiencing. I'm also trying to figure out why the "doctor" who did it wasn't dressed like a doctor. Come to think of it, he was dressed more like a custodian, and his name tag said "Chester"....
By the way, I'm clean.
Anyway, after the events of this past weekend, I have another story to add to the list: how I got drunk at a dive bar and ended up at the forty-dollar-per-night motel next door with a forty-year-old crippled woman desperate for sex. Yes, this is a good one, so pull up a seat and enjoy.
It was Saturday night and I started the evening off with a forty-ounce bottle of Mickey's, which is a Malt Liquor that has the tendency to mess me up something nasty. I met up with some friends in the "man-den", which is a term for my friend Russ' bachelor-pad basement that has everything from a beer fridge to four different video game consuls (PS2, Xbox, Nintendo 64 and Nintendo Game Cube). We drank, we laughed, I played a little PS2, and - after an hour or so - we headed out to the local dive bar: a place called Clyde's.
Clyde's is a claustrophobic little joint that usually gets uncomfortably crowded, but is a good place to go if you're looking for a mean between the "clubby scene" (i.e. hambone tool-bags and dance floors with dry humping), and the young professional scene (i.e. "classy" girls who you never have a chance with because they're looking for Johnny Professional who makes a secure living in the financial district, those friggin' skanks). Yes, at Clyde's you can get a beer, smoke a cigarette, not be judged, listen to some non-clubby tunes and maybe talk to a cute girl or two who isn't looking for the next Johnny Wall Street, those friggin' skanks.
Anyway, I arrived at Clyde's with two of my friends (Russ and Andy), already with a good, solid buzz in my system due to the Mickey's. I then proceeded to buy a beer. And another beer. And then another beer. Pretty soon, I was feeling mighty fine. And it was at around this point that a lady hobbled into the bar with a cane and - for some reason - immediately gravitated towards me.
"You look like you know how to party."
"You know it," I said, kidding around, and also incredibly stewed.
The lady wore a Patriots shirt and had whitish hair, palish skin, very red lipstick and smelled like a cheap deodorizer - kind of like what you would find in Kitty Litter - and it made my nose itch a bit. To be truthful, there could have been a urine-type scent mixed in there as well (maybe cat pee), but I don't want to elaborate on that too much, because I'm trying to be nice to this poor crippled woman.
"I have three hundred dollars and I'm looking to party," she said.
"What do you mean? You want drugs?"
"Well...drugs...and something else...."
I immediately told her that I couldn't help her out with the drugs, because I thought she may have been a cop or working for the cops or something along those lines (not to mention the fact that I don't do drugs and don't know where to get anything drug-related). She then proceeded to tell me how she used to be a mason and fell three stories off a building and has had several surgeries and is in an incredible amount of pain and needs something strong to take the edge off. I suggested she try extra-strength Tylenol or something like Advil with an anti-inflammatory, but she said she tried all that shit and it doesn't help her in the least.
My memory of our conversation from this point forward is a little hazy, what with the alcohol and everything. I know that more words were exchanged and more beers were sipped and she may have rubbed up against me a few times and then, at some point, she started telling me how her husband had died four years ago and that I reminded her of him and that "it's been so long" [since she's gotten laid].
"I'm staying at the motel next door. I have two condoms," she whispered to me.
Now, of course, if I was sober, my brain would have immediately registered the fact that this was an incredibly bad idea (well, I'm pretty sure it would have). But I wasn't sober. I was rather trashed and pretty much part-retarded. Drinking not only gives me the most amazing pair of beer goggles in the history of beer goggles, but it also makes me incredibly horny. Like, REALLY horny. Unnaturally horny. Probably no less horny than a man on Meth (from what I understand, Meth makes you want to hump anything in your path and take no prisoners).
So, instead of saying "I'm not interested" to this lonely woman whose husband allegedly died four years ago, I said...
"Um...I don't know...."
"Come on, it's been so long," she pleaded with me.
To be truthful, I'm not really sure what kind of thoughts were going through my mind. On one hand, I felt bad for this woman and wanted to do a Good-Samaritan-type-thing, go back to her motel, give her some company and try to make her less lonely. But, to be truthful, I think I was seriously contemplating having sex with her. Again, I was drunk, and when I'm drunk, my brain is located between my legs.
"I'm with my friends," I said.
"Well, bring them over. I have a box of wine and we can all party."
'OK, no harm in that', I figured to myself. 'Sure, we'll go over and party and hopefully give this poor woman a good time. And as far as anything sex-related goes, maybe it will happen, maybe it won't. I'm not gonna say it will. I'm not gonna say it won't.'
So, to make a long story short...I ended up going back to the motel with her, even though my friends advised strongly against me doing so. In fact, they had absolutely no desire to go over there for a drink. They wanted no part of this charade. So I told them to chill at the bar and I'd be back in a couple minutes. And, again, I'm not really sure what was going through my head. Maybe I DID want to have sex with her. Or maybe I simply just felt bad for her and wanted to give her some company...for a short while. Maybe a combination of the two.
Whatever it was, I know I definitely ended up in the "Boston View Motel" a few minutes later, which charges forty dollars a night for a room that smells like about thirty years worth of stale cigarette smoke and rotten sex. The motel derived its name from the fact that - on a clear day - you can see the tips of the Hancock and Prudential building in the far distance, as it is located on somewhat of a high hill. Not really much of a "Boston View", but technically, the name doesn't lie.
The crippled woman's room was accessible from the back of the motel, which was probably a good thing, just in case anybody I knew saw me walk into a place notorious for cheap prostitution and shady drug deals. With my kind of luck, one of my neighbors or aunts or uncles or grandmothers would randomly decide to go for a midnight stroll in their car, pass the Boston View, and catch a glimpse of me escorting a crippled woman into her motel room. That wouldn't have looked good at all. No way.
Before we entered her room, I helped the cripple hold her cane while she put her cigarette out on the pavement, intending to save the rest for later. She then took her keys out of her pocket and unlocked the door, which - she informed me - was directly across the hall from a family (with kids) who were paying $250 a week to live at the motel indefinitely. Maybe their house had been foreclosed and they were homeless. Such a thought depressed me. Crazy economy we're living in. Insane times.
The cripple creaked the door to her room open and the first thing I noticed as I walked into the place was that the television was already on and that there were a shitload of pain-killers everywhere I looked, especially on the night stand beside the bed. There were also cardboard boxes filled with clothes, a Pringles potato chip canister or two, and what looked like a brace for her leg. This poor woman had certainly seen better days.
"Make yourself at home," said the cripple. "I need to go to the bathroom."
"Uh...ok."
I sat at the foot of the bed while the cripple went to the bathroom and I pretended to watch the TV, but I don't remember a damn thing of what I was watching because my mind was racing with all sorts of thoughts. Whether this was all a big set up. Whether there was a boyfriend in the bathroom ready to jack my ass. Or a cop ready to arrest my ass (for no valid reason, but he'd probably come up with one). Whether I should actually have sex with this woman. Whether she was tainted with STDs. Whether I could catch crabs from just being inside the Boston View Motel. Whether I would get the cripple pregnant and have to explain the situation to my parents. Whether I should just run out of there as fast as I could.
But, then, my phone rang.
"Dude, bail!"
It was my friend Russ.
"This is not a good idea at all."
'Maybe he was right,' I thought, and for a quick moment I thought about leaving right then and there while the cripple was in the bathroom.
"I'll leave in a second," I said and then I hung up the phone.
At this point, the cripple came out of the bathroom, sat in a chair across from me and then proceeded to take her pants off.
"Is this OK?" she asked.
"Um...yeah...."
She removed her pants, only to reveal a really bruised set of legs and a bunch of scars from where she had her surgeries.
"See...look at this. And then here..."
She showed me each and every one of her scars, maybe to get sympathy, but it really just resulted in turning me off from her completely.
At this point, my phone rang again. I answered it while the cripple hopped out of her chair and scooted back into the bathroom.
"Dude what the HELL are you doing?!"
It was my friend Andy.
"Get the fuck out of there!"
"All right, I'll be out in a second," I assured him, not knowing whether I was actually telling the truth. I'm not sure why I wanted to stay. Maybe because, if I left, I knew the woman would feel like shit. The best thing to do, I figured, was to wait for her to come back out of the bathroom and then I would politely tell her that I had to go. 'Yes, that's the best way to handle this.'
So the cripple came back out of the bathroom and I stood up from the bed, took a deep breath and began to tell her I had to split...but before the words could come out, she handed me a box of (what turned out to be) Durex-brand condoms!
"It's been so long," she reiterated.
I analyzed the box and noticed that the condoms had 'vibrating rings', which is a feature I've never been privileged enough to experience. I also noticed that it was a five-pack with only two left inside. 'Where did the other three go?' I wondered. Either she was lying to me about not having sex for four years or she's had the condoms since her husband died, which - I believe - would mean they had expired long ago. Suddenly, I really wasn't feeling so good about the situation I was in.
The cripple hopped into the bed - still wearing just her underwear with a long, black T-shirt - and slid beneath the sheets. All I can remember doing is standing at the foot of the bed, staring at the box of condoms, feeling part-retarded and not really knowing what to do.
But, then, my phone rang again.
"Dude! What the fuck!"
"Who is it?" asked the cripple, who could hear the shouts coming out of the phone.
"It's...uh...um...my friends. They want me to go now."
"Let me talk to him!"
She snatched the phone out of my hand, asked who she was talking to, said she "was the owner of the household!" - whatever that meant, said something else, and maybe another thing...but the next thing I remember happening is hearing a really loud BANG! BANG! BANG! on the door.
"Jesus!" said the cripple and went to answer the door.
She opened the door and there was Andy.
"He's coming with us," he said, pointing at me.
"No, he's staying right here."
"No, he's coming with us."
"Get out of my home!" yelled the cripple and proceeded to slam the door shut, but Andy stuck his foot in the door to prevent her from doing so.
"I'm calling the cops!" she yelled.
"Yeah right you're gonna call the cops. You probably got all sorts of drugs in here."
It was at this point that I knew the situation was going very sideways and that it was only going to get uglier if I stayed. I basically meant well by "hanging out" with the cripple, but now I needed to go.
"All right, I better go," I told the cripple. "I'm very, very sorry about this. It was very nice meeting you."
More words were exchanged between Andy and the cripple, and they weren't friendly ones. All I remember are the last three things that were said:
"Next time I see you I'm going to stab you," said Andy.
"I know people who will have you killed!" yelled the cripple.
"Bring it!!!"
And that was that. We left the motel and went to get late-night bagel sandwiches at Dunkin' Donuts.
But, yes, what a disaster the evening turned out to be, and all because I was drunk and basically part-retarded. I probably never should have gone back to the motel, even to be nice. Everything turned to shit, and that woman's life is probably more miserable now after my attempt to make it less miserable. I don't feel very good about myself.
The bottom line, I think, is that you can't win with booze. You really can't. Alcohol turns me into a person I don't like and feel ashamed about when I wake up the next day. It brings out a Hyde-like personality, not that I get belligerent, but - in many ways - I get very sloppy and make bad decisions that end up doing harm to either myself or others.
In fact, it was only a few weeks ago that a woman said she "heard stories about me" and that "you're a pig, Matt Burns!" I think the "stories" she heard mainly involved an innocent make-out session with some girl in an atypical place, but let me tell you something: I never thought the words 'pig' and 'Matt Burns' would ever be used in the same sentence together. Being called a 'pig' by that woman flabbergasted the hell out of me, because I always saw myself (and was perceived by others as) a 'good' man. I mean, I did well in school and went to a decent college and took CCD classes to learn about Jesus and volunteered at a Mental Hospital and all that shit. Deep down I'm really NOT a pig (I think), but I guess, when I drink, I do display piggish behavior...often. So I can see why I could be labeled as such.
And, on some level, I guess I actually enjoyed being considered a pig...because for most of my life I've been 'good' all the time (i.e. what society considers good), whether it be in school or on a moral level, and I've always been kind of turned off by that. But, at the same time, I think I've gone too far towards the opposite extreme - become too 'bad' - and I have to maybe find some sort of a mean now. Yes, indeed. A mean.
Anyway, as far as the cripple goes...if you're reading this...I'm sorry for giving you a bad night. All I ever wanted to do was give you a good time. I never meant to hurt you in any way. Sorry. Honestly, I am. And I hope things get better for you.
As for me and drinking...it will most likely continue.
