Drunk Dialing

“I got some good news and some bad news.”

“What’s the bad news?” I ask, walking toward the corner where he’s standing.

“The bad news is, I forgot my wallet at home this morning,” he says with a straight azz face.

Then what the hell is the good news?

I hadn’t meant to say that out loud.

“The good news is, I’m here,” …again uttered deadpan.

This time my response isn’t audible, I kiss my teeth and roll my eyes on the inside, and outwardly reach up for a half-azzed hug, and walk inside for lunch.

*

I have this horrible habit. Usually done when flat drunk, and I did it the other night.

About a year and a half ago I meet this cat. He aight…tall, smooth brown complexion, kinda thick. College educated, athletic, early 30s, on the prowl for a wife.

We talk on the phone and it’s apparent right away that there’s not much chemistry. But I give it a shot and agree to meet him out for a drink. I can’t remember where we meet, somewhere on the far eastside, maybe…near the old Jimmy’s Downtown ... but I do recall that he was already at the bar when I got there…and since we hadn’t really known each other that long, this was our first time out, I assumed he’d be waiting for me near the door so that we could go back there together. I don’t know why I thought this was proper protocol, but I did.

So I sit and wait for him near the door, talking on the phone to pass the time. 20 minutes later I get a beep…he calls and for some reason it goes straight to voice mail.

“Hey Wise…I guess you decided you didn’t want to meet up after all…breaking my heart already. At least you can give me a call and let me know you’re not coming.”

I walk inside and see him throwing back a Labatts or some shit, cavorting with the white folks.

Ok, that was my fault. I sit down and apologize. We talk, have a nice time and that’s about it. Nothing more or less to report. I gave it the old college try, and confirm that just like in college, chemistry's a no-go. No spark to speak of.

Yet, I still found myself engaged in a wet and wild lip lock with dude at the goodbye.

And not the good kind.

He’s big and won’t stop hugging me. And he says something to the effect of my lips being enticing and fantasizing all night about touching them.

Mercy kiss? Starved for attention?? I don’t know. But I kissed him and immediately regretted it.

I avoid having to see or even speak to him much after that, traveling a lot, focused on making paper. Hustling. And ignoring I guess. I thought it was understood that this was a wrap. A bore. A lost cause.

So fast fwd to this past weekend and I see this guy and can’t figure out why I know him. He’s a bouncer and he’s kind of staring at me too, long after I’ve ID’d him and decided not to have a reunion.

But somehow, probably three Grey Gooses into the night, I find my way over to the block that he’s standing on, and motion for him to lean down.

“Has it been that long that you don’t know me no more?”

“Don’t play me. Of course I know who you are.” But he’s kind of distant so I figure he’s really still trying to figure it out. “You’re the one who up and forgot about me.”

“Me?” I pull out my cell phone and scroll through…not really sure if he ever made it into the bat phone (ie - cellie #2. #1 is mostly used for biz, bills and bastards I don’t wanna talk to. I thought for SURE he was only in that phone.)

But I find his name and number and show it to him.

“Okay, okay,” he says, smiling. “But you ran off and took my heart with you.”

“Stop.” I’m serious. I HATE when dudes play that ‘whoa is me’, self-deprecating nonsense.

“I’m serious. Wait lemme show you.” With that, dude, let’s call him Dominicarlos (looks Dominican, has a kind of Latino name, but I never cared enough to ask his ethnicity), pulls out his cell phone and retrieves a throw-away text message I sent him, literally a year and a half ago. I gasp. Genuinely appalled. It wasn’t even a “When you get here I want you to meet me out on the fire escape wearing only a hard-on…” type of text. It was like, “lol” or something like that. No more than 7 characters.

But alas, 3 Grey Gooses. I smile, and hit dial on my phone, calling his number.

“Well, here’s my number again, just in case,” I say, and lean up to give him a kiss on the cheek.

And this fool calls me less than 6 hours later... at 8:35AM the next morning .

And again that night. And again Monday. Tuesday. Wants to meet for lunch. I’m busy, and I tell him I’m home the next day. Tell him I’ll call him.

He calls me before I get the chance and he says he’s near me and can come by to “fix me lunch or something.” Let’s meet in the middle, I suggest.

So there we were, standing on the corner today, with bad news and more bad news, as far as I’m concerned.

No wonder he wanted to come over. He was fcuking broke.

That’s what I get for drunk dialing. I do it way too often. Put your number in my phone, then call it so that you’ll have my number in your phone too.

It’s become a habit ever since I met this cute azz Jamaican guy (I NEVER meet cool Jamaicans) at The Turtle in White Plains (there are NEVER cute brothas up in there)… he asked to give me his number, but instead I decided to be coy and put my number in his phone. Then when I didn’t hear from him in the first four days after we met I was beside myself! [note: he did finally call]

Hence the compulsive call back. To boring azz Dominicarlos of all personas non grata.

And what do I get? To pick up the tab.

::sigh::