'How did you meet your wife?'�
Darren's dull-as-a-butter-knife and sedated-as-a-mental-patient fiancé Edie asks me over a cocktail at Kevin White's horrible dinner party.
I don't want to answer the question, but as I look over Edie's shoulder I see Kevin nodding in my direction, no doubt introducing me from afar to his new business partner Mitchell. I briefly spoke to Mitchell about a half hour ago.
We were standing next to the punch bowl-which was spiked weakly, I might add, as if cheap vodka were a precious commodity in the circles I run in-when he approached me with a twinkle in his eye and pursed lips. His wrist was a limp as a freshly dead cat hanging half way over a roadside curb. My eyes rolled-I hate it when queers try to pick up on me, it's almost an insult-but he either didn't notice or didn't care. I'm inclined to think he didn't care, I'm wearing a tight-ish button-down shirt tonight to display to the crowd how hard I've been working with Jamone, my personal trainer.
Anyways, Mitchell and I spoke for about three seconds before his onion breath and off-putting, I want you stares made me excuse myself to go stand in a corner. When someone leaves you to face a corner I would hope that would be a sufficient fuck you to keep you away. Not Mitchell, apparently.
Anyways, all this happened when I was still sober enough to hate myself for being bored enough to come here tonight. How could I not have anything better to do? But, but, but'� these little parties are good for business, I guess. Rubbing shoulders with the industry, blah blah blah.
Mitchell is so queer he could have been a lead actor in the Broadway musical turned movie musical Rent. Mitchell and Kevin, they both stare at me and wink. Maybe Mitchell is hoping I'll swing his way, but I know Kevin is waiting like a vulture circling a dead carcass for me to abandon Darren and his blonde pill-factory here. Then he will take me by the elbow and lead me further into this mistake of an appearance I made here tonight.
So, in the end, I decide to answer the question of how I met my wife.
'Andrea, my sweet Andrea.'� I say, about to begin.
Edie blinks once like she was zapped with 220 volts and then regards me as if I have a lump swelling on my head.
'Who?'� She asks, as if three seconds ago she did not question me.
'Andrea. My wife. You asked me how we met.'� I say.
'Oh'� right, right. Sorry.'� She giggles lamely and rolls her eyes, as if that is code for her being an airhead flibberty-jibbit and I'm just suppose to forgive her. Whatever. As of right now I'd sleep with her once, but that could change any minute. I don't know, we'll see how it works out.
'I guess I met her in high school.'� I say, hammering back the last of my dry martini. I'll need it. Cocktail olive speared by a tooth pick in hand, I gesticulate as I continue.
'She was really into me. We had band class together. But me'� I just always had something else going. But awhile into it we were doing coke at some senior's party and I decided to throw her a bone-literally-and giver her what she'd wanted. This way she'd have something to brag to her friends about and I would get her off my back. So we porked.'� I make a circle with my thumb and forefinger and then pump the olive and toothpick combo in and out of it for emphasis. Edie stares at it, concentrating.
'Honestly-and I should have seen this coming-Andrea wasn't done with me and so she faked a pregnancy.'�
Darren, who I've know for a few years is standing there, trying not to let his distraught look completely sag onto his face. He isn't doing a very good job. Edie is so pilled up that maybe she is hearing actual words coming out of my mouth, or maybe not. Maybe just a string of vowels running into each other like snowflakes will collide in their descent from cloud to earth. Who cares. I'm drunk enough to where I am my own entertainment now.
'So I tell my folks and all and word gets around school. Anyhow, we do this she's pregnant thing into the third trimester-we must have been at month eight-and I notice she's not really putting on weight. At all. She blamed it on all the coke she was still doing. Ironically enough I quit using dope for the kid, and there she was sucking up lines fat enough to make my eyes bulge just watching her take them in. But after awhile I told her she needed to show or something. She should be showing. I mean, for shit's sake, we had a kid growing in there!
'She agreed with me that by the third trimester she should be showing and that was when she told me she had been faking it. Faking the pregnancy all together. To, you know, keep me around. I was pissed, but I'll get back to that in a minute.'�
I eat my olive and notice Jack Herringston, this ass-wipe who is next in line to run accounting come striding past me. In his hand is a full high ball glass. Of what I'm not sure, but I don't care. Vodka. Gin. Tequila. Whiskey. Bourbon. Long Island iced tea. Jack and Coke. Horse urine. He's holding it high in the air (how some people, when traveling through a crowd, will raise their glass to head level or higher because for some reason they think that will stop them from spilling it) and prissy, like royalty floating through a crowd of peasants and trying not to touch them.
His hand-the dainty one holding the high ball glass-it comes within a foot of my face and I just reach out and lick the glass. I got a little bit of one finger also, but I made sure I wetted up the rim real well. Jack stops, mortified. Darren is not trying to hide his disgust or shock at me and that makes my smile grow even wider. Edie yawns, and I decide that if I punched her right now she would blink twice and ask anyone if the front door was open because she was feeling a breeze.
Still being mind-blown from me licking his glass, Jack stands there with it frozen in space. I take it from him and take a deep swig. Vodka. On the rocks. Twist of lemon. I laugh out loud and slap his shoulder, all buddy-buddy like.
'Thanks for the drink Jack. You're an asshole.'�
He says nothing, and I return my attention back to Darren and Edie. I see Mitchell and Kevin over her shoulder, and their faces look more like Jack's or Darren's rather than mine or Edie's. Oh well. On with my tale.
'So I went back and told my parents. I was like, hey, it's cool now. Andrea faked it. Now, they had thrown me out. But that was cool too, I was sixteen by then so I had a license. Of course, I had no car but that was a moot point.
'My mom though'� the damage was done. The church had shamed her out of there. Ostracized. Unwelcome. Ex-communicated protestant-style. 'Don't-wanna-see-your-face-no-more,' all that. Protestants, man. Everybody gives Catholics a bad name, saying they're judgmental and all that shit, but protestants take the cake every time if you ask me. I'll swear that fact up and down and double on Sundays until I die.
'But my folks took me back in'� after I got out of jail. When, you know, Andrea dropped the charges.'�
'You were in jail?'� Darren finds the voice to ask. Edie stares on.
'Yeah. Like I said, I was pissed. Pissed. That's the better part of a year I wasted thinking she was knocked up. All the problems at home, at school, with her folks, the money I spent on baby stuff'� it adds up. So does the pressure, the anger'� So I belted her once. No big deal. In the long run she thanked me for it-and I'm not making that up or throwing it into my story to give me some sympathy. She said that woke her up to the scam she had me going under. Anyways, she dropped the charges and I moved back in with my folks.
'We graduated, dated for two more years and finally got married. I figured why not?'�
Darren realizes who he thought I was is not in fact who I am. That's his fault, not mine. Never make assumption about people. My dad always told me that. I guess I did it with my wife, and look how that turned out.
Jack is standing a few feet back, angry at me but too big of a pussy to do anything. Kevin and Mitchell-much to my surprise and relief-have started kissing. I didn't know Kevin did guys, but then again, I never did assume he didn't. See what I mean? The things people do at parties after the booze is unlocked.
'Well, do you have any kids now?'� Edie asks, eyes staring blanking past me at the egg shell-white colored wall behind me.
'No.'� I say, finishing the high ball glass. 'Don't want to go through that again.'�

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