Blackouts and Breakdowns (17 page)

“That sucks about the mice,” Anna said pretending to do her job. Apparently, this was the most entertaining part of the story for her. She stopped typing and looked at me, “As far as the guy goes, sure he has a small penis.
All Irish guys do.”
While Anna was studying at Notre Dame, she conducted a little survey with her friends to see what ethnicity had the largest and smallest penises. “That was a great semester,” Anna continued, “We concluded that the Irish have the smallest penises after combining our research.”

“I wish you had told me this before I had to go down on my own pinky finger.”

“You didn’t call,” she replied.

“Oh well, I really like him anyway.”

“That’s great!” she smiled.

“What did you do this weekend?” I asked.

“I found out that my stupid fucking husband got me pregnant about a month ago,” There goes another smoking buddy.

The week ended up going by quickly. I didn’t get a chance to see Kevin but we had made plans to go to dinner that Thursday.
Small penis aside, he was a really nice guy and I loved hanging out with him.
That week, my friend Chad from Atlanta was coming into town on business and drunken shenanigans were sure to ensue.
Chad was always fun to be around and one of the hottest guys I had ever laid my eyes on.
The summer before, when Chad had come to visit, I became borderline obsessed with him.
He didn’t return the interest so I just let it be, but enjoyed his company nonetheless. When I told Kevin that one of the hottest guys in the world was coming to visit, Kevin insisted that we make things exclusive between us.
I am sure telling Kevin that Chad was hot was not something he really wanted to hear, but what can I say?
He’s
really
hot and I calls ‘em like I sees ‘em.

Could I deal with Kevin’s abnormally small penis forever?
I didn’t know if I wanted exclusivity but figured Cher stayed with Sonny for a long time and he was just taller than a dwarf. I decided to be exclusive with Kevin and put dreams of bigger penises on the back burner.
Thursday had rolled around and instead of going out to dinner we ended up drinking absurd amounts of vodka and ordering pizza.
Could this guy be the one?
It doesn’t take much to impress me and he was definitely on his way to Loverville.

Within the next few days, it was time for the ritual unveiling of the new boyfriend to Tom. We all met for drinks at our favorite piano bar.
Kevin and I had not drank much that evening, something I made sure of.
If Tom had told me that he didn’t like this one, I knew he would need to be dumped.
He was always right about these things and I knew that Kevin would need to be on his best behavior in order to not jinx it.

Everything seemed to go off without a hitch. Tom brought his boyfriend Michael and his friend Cindy.
We had a few drinks and a few laughs while watching the performers sing.
After going our separate ways, Kevin and I returned to his apartment, which we had basically turned into a frat house.
I guess it was more like a gay frat house because there was a lot of homosexual kissing going on, not something you normally see on university campuses.
Making out with Kevin always led to heavy petting.
More on his part than mine, I’m afraid.
I was secretly hoping that his penis had miraculously grown over night, but much to my chagrin, when I pulled down his pants, there was his little half-incher.
I was just drunk enough to go for it.
I was not going to let this, or any other little penis get in the way of my happiness.
Besides, Valentine’s Day was right around the corner and I told myself that I was not going to spend another Valentine’s Day getting drunk by myself and watching
Steel Magnolias
.
I flipped him over. I meant business. As I began to move the sex train in the direction I thought it needed to be going, Kevin began wailing like a child.

“What’s wrong with you?
I haven’t even done anything yet!” I said trying to console him.

“I was molested at summer camp when I was thirteen,” he cried.

This was not the time, nor the place to have this conversation, but I rolled over, pulled the covers up and patted his head.
If conservatives ever wanted to make a commercial about why gay sex is bad – they should have come in with a camera crew at that moment.
I leaned over to listen to Kevin’s story.
He told me that a camp counselor had touched him inappropriately when he was a teenager.
I guess I didn’t understand because I would have probably not only encouraged that kind of behavior, but it most likely would have saved a lot of awkward moments for me in high school. I listened to his story and as he finished he said:

“Thanks for listening and understanding.
I love you.”

Wait…what?
I had known this guy for two weeks and he was already dropping
L bombs
.
No one had ever told me that they loved me before and the only time I had ever said it to anyone was to Sebastian after a night that should have landed me in rehab. So I replied:
“I love you too?”
What was I supposed to do?
He was crying hysterically for over an hour and I didn’t want to hurt his feelings any more.
We went to bed that night and we never spoke of that incident again. I guess he didn’t want anyone to know…woops.

Kevin’s confession was not the only thing that led to the demise of our relationship.
He only wanted to see me on certain nights of the week – never on Mondays, Wednesdays or Thursdays.
Sometimes on Saturdays, and Sunday afternoons were never good. I began to sense a pattern.
I called Tom for advice.

“So what do you think I should do?” I asked.

“I don’t fucking know!” Tom replied.

“Did you like him?”

“Actually, I did,” he said, “but Cindy didn’t.”
Tom’s friend Cindy however, was a well-known racist.

“Was it because he is half Cuban?”

“No, I thought that may have been it too, but she said that he just was not her cup of tea.” Apparently, Cindy, as well as Tom, were to be avoided upon dating someone new.
“Hey, did you watch
One Life to Live
today?”
We continued talking about soap operas for about a half an hour until Kevin called on the other line.
We were supposed to go to dinner with my friend Chad, who had just gotten into town.

“Hey babe, I am picking you up in an hour, are you about ready?”

“Yea, about that, I can’t go,” he said. I had just gotten out of a hot conversation about ABC soaps to be stood up.
“Actually, this just isn’t working for me.
I hate to say it, but it’s true.
It’s not you – it’s me.”

“Is this really happening right now?”
I asked.

“Yeah, I just need to sort things out with myself right now and be alone. I am super sorry.”

Super sorry?
What things did Kevin really need to sort out?
His drinking problem or, the fact that he had an abnormally small dick?
I hung up on him.
This breakup had really upset me.
I did like Kevin very much and even though he was drunk when he told me, he still had told me that he loved me.
Something no one else had ever said to me.
Being as resilient as always, I picked myself up and went out with Chad.
Suddenly, I turned into a whirling dervish – a drunken cyclone if you will – drinking my way through life for the next few weeks.
As fate would have it, I bumped into Kevin six times the week after he dumped me.
I ignored him until the seventh time when I saw him with another guy.
They were both drunk and all over each other.

“I thought you needed time to be alone right now.” I asked.

“I’m sorry Mark,” Kevin replied.

“Who is he?” the gay guy with him asked.

“I am his ex-boyfriend of about a week, who are you?”
I said, shaking my head from side to side.

“I’m Timmy.
His boyfriend of the past nine years,” the gay said.

First of all, what man out of elementary school thinks it’s ok to be referred to as Timmy? Secondly, this asshole was playing both of us.

“Aren’t you pissed he was seeing me, uh, Tim?” I asked.

“We were on a break,” Gay Tim said.

Apparently, I was the only one being played.
None of this makes any sense to me to this day.
But, as I was walking out of the bar that night, I made sure to let everyone know that Kevin had the most unusually small penis I had ever seen on a grown man.

Kevin was a true blue bastard, but nothing prepared me for what was in store.
Which was of course, the granddaddy of all dysfunctional relationships.
After moving from New York back to Washington D.C., I began working at a small cafe in Adams Morgan – the absolute most obnoxious part of the absolute most obnoxious city I had ever lived in, but, the cafe was great.
It enabled me to make friends after failing to do so after the first four months of my D.C. residency.
One summer night, a few on my co-workers and I were sitting on the cafe patio, smoking cigarettes and drinking mimosas.
I was on the clock of course, so I was trying to drink and help customers at the same time.
The cafe was great because management was really lax and I basically got away with murder.
I was working with my Russian transplant Alexy, who was a little slow on the uptake, so I would pick up his slack.
I figured he was so slow because he was from Siberia and the heat of the D.C. summer confused him.
At least, that was the only thing I could think of to excuse his utter incompetence. Nonetheless, I ended up picking up one of his tables where a single man was sitting alone reading what may have been the biggest book I have ever seen.
I barely spoke to him because honestly, after a day of drinking mimosas in the heat and waiting tables, my conversation skills were usually below par.
After the single man had paid his check, I noticed he had left me his number on the receipt.
Priceless!
No one had ever left me their number on a check before, and since he was pretty cute, and the summer seemed to be dragging on uneventfully, I thought I would send him a text message.

“Hey cute boy. Thanks for leaving me your number. Lets grab a drink sometime,” I texted.

Immediately, I got a return text: “Yea.
Maybe tomorrow”

I texted back: “Can’t, working.”

“Tuesday?”

“Working”

“Wednesday?”

“Wednesday, I am having margaritas at the pool all day.
Maybe afterwards.”

“K.”

All of this texting was making me thirsty.
I needed a drink.

The next day, I went about my usual business.
After I left the gym, I saw that I had a message.

I checked my voicemail and listened to what had to have been one of the most hilarious and memorable messages I had ever received:

“Hey this is Jake from last night,”
the voice in my mailbox said.
“It’s nice to know that you actually have a name.”
I guess I had forgotten to tell him my name through text message. “Well, Mark, it’s nice to know your name because I was going around calling you mystery meat.”
Ha, ha, ha, I laughed.
“Anyway, I just wanted to call you and let you know that I am in the ‘M’ word.” Murderer? Masochist? Mathematician? “Married” HA HA HA.
“To a woman” HA HA HA!!!!!!! “And if that’s ok with you, I would love to get together with you sometime this week and grab that drink.
If the whole marriage thing doesn’t bother you. Give me a call and let me know what you want to do.”

I was dying.
Before I did anything, I was going to have to change my pants because I had just peed myself.
I had never heard anything as funny as that and saved it so I could play it for anyone that would listen.
Who did this guy think I was?
A home-wrecker?
Certainly not.
There was no way I was about to start dating a married man. I may be a slut, but Amy Fisher I am not.

The next day, I went to work at the cafe and it was business as usual until about two seconds before I was leaving and Jake sat down in my section.

“Oh hey, what are you doing here?” I asked him.

“I came to see you.
You never returned my call yesterday and you said you were working tonight so I thought I would swing by,” he responded.

“Dude, I don’t date married guys.”

“That’s OK, I totally understand. Well, since I am here, I may as well have a beer.” I got him a beer and since he was the only table in my section, I sat down and chatted with him for a bit. We talked and laughed until I finally asked him why, if he was married, was he after me?