Near Misses

Awhile back, it occurred to me to wonder why I seem to have so many stories to tell about myself and the things that have happened to me.  It dawned on me that what most of these tales have in common is at least one really bad decision on my part.  This has led me to the conclusion that poor decision-making leads to good stories.  And from my own experience and observations, I would say that nothing gets those bad decisions rolling like alcohol.  Booze.  Hooch.  Demon rum.  Which brings me to my first story:

On one particular night in the fall of 1996, having elevated my blood alcohol level with liberal amounts of crappy domestic beer at a mediocre sports-themed bar in downtown Phoenix, I got the ball rolling by making my move on a young lady.  Now, this was not in itself a bad idea; after all, the young lady had been casting what definitely appeared to me to be a serious bedroom gaze in my direction.  These inviting glances came up on my radar while my friend/wingman and I were playing pool at the next table over from the young lady in question, waiting for the rest of our usual weekend sausage party to show up.  Upon receiving confirmation from my wingman that I was, in fact, getting signals from the target, we moved into formation and swooped in on the young lady and her female companion with one common goal--getting me laid.

Several hours later, it became clear that I would not, in fact be getting laid, and would instead have to settle for a phone number.  My wingman had disappeared sometime between the arrival of the female companion's boyfriend and the arrival of the rest of our crew.  In fact, it occurred to me as the young lady prepared to depart with her friends and I bid her goodnight, that I had no idea where my friends--and, consequently, my ride--had gone. 

Those of you who are familiar with the Arizona Center in downtown Phoenix probably know it as an office complex with shops and restaurants on the first floor and offices on the second floor; however, in the 90's the second floor consisted mainly of a maze of nightclubs.  The sports-themed bar I was in was connected to a godawful piano bar and an extremely crowded club that played whatever kind of alternative music hipsters danced to when they were trying to get laid.  I made several circuits of this maze before coming to the conclusion that my buddies had ditched me.

This, of course, was the first in a series of bad decisions I would soon be making.  My beer-soaked brain reasoned that my boys were so supremely confident that I would be going home with the blond that they had left me to sink or swim while they went looking for greener pastures.  Clearly, this was laughable on a number of levels.  Nevertheless, in my impaired state I quickly reasoned that my next logical move was to walk back to my car.  Which I had left at my buddy's house.  In a different part of town.

This was bad news for a couple of reasons.  One, this was about a six-mile hike due east of the Arizona Center.  Two, the Arizona Center is located on Van Buren.  Bear in mind that this was the Van Buren of the mid-90's, before Sheriff Joe's campaign (or maybe between campaigns) to clean up that particular avenue.  At that time, the Arizona Center was located in a very small window of respectability on a street that was otherwise infested with prostitutes and other sketchy characters, drawn by its rows of skeezy little hotels that rented rooms (and diseases) literally by the hour.  You could drive down Van Buren on a Sunday afternoon and see a dozen hookers out working the after-church crowd.  I had recently been in the market for a car and, while visiting a sleazy used-car lot on Van Buren, I had to push past a hooker hanging out by the front door.  Like Mos Eisley spaceport in Star Wars, it was "an evil hive of scum and villainy."  I got walking.

At first, things were going great.  It was a beautiful evening in late autumn; warm, with a hint of a cool breeze--great walking weather.  Presumably because I was on foot, the prostitutes and pimps that I passed let my walk by unmolested.  For some reason, despite having gotten no further with the young lady at the bar than a phone number written on a napkin, I was feeling good about how things had gone that evening and was in high spirits.  As time passed, however, and my buzz faded, it began to dawn on me just how far I had to walk.  Also, as a result of a car accident I had been in a few months earlier that had shattered my ankle, I had a fair amount of hardware (bolts, screws, and a plate) in my left leg and still walked with a bit of a limp.  It was starting to give me little twinges; not painful, just letting me know it was prepared to start giving me trouble. 

About this time, a rather scruffy looking gentleman sidled up next to me and began walking alongside me.  This didn't worry me as much as you might expect; at that stage in my life, I spent a great deal of my spare time working out, and was in good enough shape that I was confident, to the point of cockiness, in my ability to take care of myself in any situation.  This, despite the fact that I hadn't been in a fight since junior high school, and I am reasonably certain I had never actually won a fight when I did.

After walking together for a bit in what seemed to be a companionable silence, my new friend introduced himself, sticking out his hand and saying, "Hi, I'm Mike."

"Hi, Mike," I replied, shaking his hand, "I'm Bill."

We walked on for a few moments in silence again.  I was feeling pretty good about my new friend when he turned to me again and said, "So, Bill, do you like letting off steam?"

I didn't know what to make of this question.  Was it some sort of sexual come-on?  Was he about to proposition me?  I tried to respond positively, while staying non-committal.  "Well, everybody likes letting off steam once in awhile," I said.

He seemed pleased with my response.  "Are you up for a little scrap?"

I was about 70% sure now that this wasn't a sexual thing, but it caught me off guard and my brain was still a bit pickled.  "Excuse me?"

He hastily explained, "I'm just talking about a little fair, one-on-one."

Had the movie been out yet, I would have had a name for what he was talking about: fight club.  As it was, despite my confidence in my physique, I was not quite deluded enough to think of myself as a "scrapper."  I hated to disappoint my buddy Mike, but I politely declined with a casual, "Oh, you know, I would, but I have to work in the morning." 

Mike seemed worried that he may have given offense.  "Oh, hey, I didn't mean anything by it.  I hope I didn't offend you."  For a guy who invited strangers to brawl with him, he was extremely courteous and considerate.  I assured him that no offense was taken, we shook hands again, and he departed on the best of terms.  I kept walking.

And walking.

And walking.

I was starting to worry just a teeny bit.  The leg was hurting, my limp was getting worse and slowing me down even more, and while I was still confident in my ability to walk back to my car, I was beginning to think it would literally take me all night.

A car passed me, signaled, and pulled over to the curb a few car lengths ahead.  The driver, a man, leaned over and opened the passenger door: a clear invitation to get in.  I stopped.  There was only one reason a guy would stop at 2 o'clock in the morning on Van Buren to pick up another guy.  This man thought that I was a male prostitute.

My first instinct was to decline the ride and keep walking.  No sane person would get into a car with a stranger who thought they were a prostitute and would be expecting gay sex--a kind of sex which, while beautiful and natural, is not a type of sex I have ever participated in, nor am I likely to ever do so.  But wait a minute, my still-lubricated decision-making center urged me, we still have so far to walk.  Maybe we could knock a mile or two off of the distance before this guy kicks us out of his car.  Then my vanity kicked in, reminding me that my muscular physique was sufficient to empower me to handle myself in any situation.  I got in the car.

Now, it is unlikely that I was ever the sculpted Adonis that I remember in my middle years, or that I thought I was at the time.  Never was this brought home to me as clearly as the moment I got into that car, shutting the door behind me, and turned to greet the driver.

This man was a mountain of muscle.  He was, quite possibly, the most muscular man I had met up to that point in my life.  It occurred to me immediately that this man could do whatever he wanted to me, up to and including pulling my arms and legs off with his bare hands. 

 I really, really, wanted a ride.

My brilliant, improvised strategy was to thank him for the ride and begin telling him my story as quickly as I could without stopping for breath: how my friends had ditched me when I met this girl and I had to walk home after I met this girl and I had so far to walk after I met this girl and I really appreciated the ride because I had just met a girl.

When I finally had to stop talking to take a breath, he introduced himself as Jerry and asked where I was headed.  I told him and he obligingly continued in that direction.  He mentioned that he, too, had just come from a club.  When I asked him which one, he looked at me slyly and said, "Oh, you wouldn't know which clubs I go to, dude, I'm gay."  I responded by telling him all about the girl I had just met at the bar. 

Jerry was a good sport; in retrospect, he was unbelievably gracious considering the bait-and-switch I had just pulled on him.  He made one or two more half-hearted attempts to gauge my interest in gay sex, and I stuck to my strategy of playing dumb and pretending I didn't know he wanted to bone me.  Eventually, he gave up, pulled over in a grocery store parking lot, and said, "Well, this is as far as I go."  I thanked him profusely, jumped out, and started walking with renewed vigor.  Jerry had generously knocked several miles off of my walk, and I was able to make it back to my car in half an hour or so.  It did not occur to me until much later that, as hard as I had been trying to get laid that night, I had quickly passed up my one real opportunity to get any action at all.  Nevertheless, I had made it home in one piece, surviving to try again with the young lady at a later date, unsullied by the taint of male prostitution.

I would have told her all about it, too, if she had given me her real phone number.

--Incredibill