Jackass Tea

Preston Hogan is a short bearded fellow several years older than I. After a stint in the Air Force, from which he was honorably discharged pending an overseas installment, he moved to Seattle and started an information protection agency ranging in clients from Amazon.com to smal mom-and-pop companies sprinkled thoughout the west coast. Despite stereotypes, the only thing Irish about him is the feckled red hair that compose his neatly trimmed beard. He has a round face, a sharp tongue, and a deep affinity for pale ales-which his tolerance allows him three before a cab ride is in order.

Aside from being able to finger a computer into doing what he wants, Preston has an unmatched talent for names and faces. A magnetic ability that affords him many friends, and many more opportuntity to collect them.

I met Preston once. It was an unseasonably clear night somewhere in October. We met in passing. "Andrew, I'd like you to meet Preston." "Preston, Andrew." We shook hands and that was it. Months later we happened to be entering the same watering hole and met at the door. "Andrew isn't it? Whachya drinkin?" Inside we laughed loudly, made insufferable remarks toward women, and watched his friend Pete coax the waitress into kissing him on the cheek (where at the last moment Pete turned his head and her efforts ended on his shit grinning lips). Preston and I would later meet for lunch during the business week, and on weekends manage a pick up game of frisbee or walks through the Olympic Sculpture Garden with mutual friends in tow.

In an age where men mistake extensions of friendship as the comings on of the effete and ashamed, Preston seems at ease with the quiet strolls as he does with the yuck-em-up good times requisite of adult males. I would say that my friendship with Preston was akin to worn in house shoes; the easy demeanor of old friends and the verbal jousting matches that ensue.
Friday nights are a bit of a wild card for me socially. There are nights when I'm left with nothing to do by eight o'clock, and there are those when I'm getting off work around midnight. It was around 10:30 and I had been cut early from my bussing shift at Sostanza the Italian trattoria. Lorenzo, head chef and owner, after hitting the Glenlivet since early in the day, told me in the pigeon-english of drunks to "get outta here and go impregnate something".

Making my way through the alley, I gave Preston a call to see if he might be in the neighborhood and would want a round on me before I turned in early. I could hear his phone ringing as the alley opened up into the street where Preston was standing in the open door of a cab, his red face staring blankly at a phone that looked capable of calculating co-tangents.
"Answer your phone Asshole!" I shouted from across the street. In my right ear I heard a delayed hello come over the airways. "Dick." he laughed. "Get in I got a surprise for you." He motioned towards the inside of the cab where Pete was sitting sharing a lude joke with the cabbie who appeared as disintrested as the aforementioned waitress. "I'm still wearing my apron,"I protested, "and Dickies don't meet dress code anywhere you're going." "Just get in. Trust me, you're gonna regret it if you miss out. Look, Pete's going and he's basically a mongoloid. You'll be fine."

After a re-decision on my miner's pants and Pete's mental capacity we stopped at my house where I ran in and changed which cost us only $13 dollars thanks to Seattle cab fares. A quick change of clothes, some eau de cologne, and a sports jacket later we were winding through downtown streets when Pete made a base reference to Dekembe Mutumbo's appearance at the state of the union address not realizing the ethnicity of the cab driver. We were asked to leave the cab and had to walk in the cold for 6 blocks while Preston un-re-decided Pete in fact, was a mongoloid.

We arrived at a place called Trinity. Trinity is a club notorious for it's roster of famous DJ's which attract an even more notorious crowd. It's a hot spot of the best music and the worst stabbings within the Emerald City.

Preston directs Pete and I to the front of the VIP line, which circumvented the lengthy que of meat heads, the thugs of asian persuasion, and black men wearing silk shirts and white women. Thankfully the door and two water buffalo with security printed on their shirts seperated us from the spite and disgust of the aforementioned. A small Asian man in an expensive suit halted us and demanded a large sum of money "fuh E-Eye-Pee". Preston, trying to scream over the crowd and the music, insisted we were on a list, which one of the water buffalo checked with marked disbelief. "What are you doing? There's no way I'm the list, I just met up with you guys." I spoke to the back of Preston's head. "We're making fools of ourselves..." Preston turned his head and giggled like a loosed balloon, "Shhh, I'm buying us time," he screamed, "Don't worry about it, we'll get in."

After arguing with the now pissy Asian man, and the two security lummox, it happened. It was one of those rare moments when, amidst struggle and embarrassment, you are suddenly and accutely aware of what life is like on the other side of the tracks. She was 5'7, brunette with gemstone eyes, razor sharp curves, and the gait and confidence of a duchess. She pointed at us without looking and her words, no, her commands, seem to roll down her perfect nose to the Asian that we were with her. A retinue of colors and breasts and legs swaggered behind her as the Spoiled Beauty Express rolled through the red velvet roping making Preston Pete and I their humble, yet vastly important caboose.

After being patted down for weapons of mass destruction by a man resembling a cinder block, the now cowering Asian man led us through the surging crowd to a secluded stair case that wound it's way to a balcony over look. At least, this is what I thought the VIP room was. A balcony, nothing more than a better view with better seats and better liquor, and vastly better cocaine. In my dreams, the VIP room was a quiet place where deals were made between men in gingam suits, hits were issued to men with leather faces, and all the while everyone is getting blown under the table by super models with daddy issues. Being VIP meant something according to Hollywood lore, and I was sure that my time had come. From now on, I would be included in this eschelon of the priviledged and avante'gard. While I was trying to decide on what color ascot would say 'tortured artist' more definitively, we reached the top of the staircase and what I beheld there wasn't exactly as I had imagined it, but close.

There were enclaves of leather couches on which sat NFL players of all rank shoruded with beautiful rich snots...cartilidge held together by designer clothes...wealthy foreigners whose style is always slightly off, not in the coming trend kind of way but more in the greasy Eastern Europe kind of way.

The VIP bar was run by two attractive felines; one who wore a glossy smile that seemed genuine and out of place, and the other with inked sleeves midway down her arm. There was some mild dancing, which consisted of slight hip movements and deep conscientiousness. Then there was the central ring of leather couches, roped off with red velvet and another brick-house meat-dick. Inside sat the brunette with her entourage of breasts and legs and jewels. She sat as royalty would. Ambivalent to the ropes and the music and the dance-aleptics. We had lost Pete at this point, and Preston thought it our only window of opportunity to gain entrance and pay homage. A quick word to the brick-house and a solemn nod from the brunette and we were in. I took a seat across from her while Preston did most of the talking. I noticed she was young. Very young. My sister young, and suddenly I felt as though I were the kind of guy that wears jewelry.

"Thanks for getting us in." I spoke into the blank asexual face of raw lust. She stared at me and rolled her eyes. "Don't thank me," was all she said, then crossed her legs and leaned back. Having no where else to look, I glanced down at the table and noticed something I hadn't before. It was a centerfold calendar. The familiar MAXIM logo appeared in bright red letters across the top, and below on a beach of luminescence and waves she lay sprawled before me. Below the picture: Carmela.

"You didn't know" she laughed, seeing my cogs try to turn through the scotch. I shrugged. She laughed and told me to come back at the end of the night. I found Preston talking to one of Carmela's fruit flys. "I'm stepping outside." I screamed. "Meet you at the stairs.

This is where I found Pete. Pete was talking to a jaw dropping blonde who had her own personal body gaurd. "This is ______ ( I can't remeber her name )" Pete said introducing the two of us. She corrected him on her name, then smiled and shook my head. Her body guard glared at me with the kindness one might show a rapist. "She was the Playmate of the year for 2006" Pete announced like a boy discovering his penis for the first time.

"It was 2005." She corrected him sweetly. Preston walks by and looks at me. "Ready?" We start to make our move when the body guard hands her a small stack of papers and she hands one to Preston. It was her cover shot from 2005, signed, and kissed. He looks at it, looks up at her, says, "thanks", then hands it back to her and walks down the stairs. Pete howls.

Outside, "what the @#$% did you do that for?,"Pete launches into Preston. Which is answered by a smile, and "you'll see."

Back in the club, up in the VIP room, we had several more drinks, made untrue proclimations, told lies, and anything else that falls under the banner of bullshitting. When we decided to leave, Miss Playmate 2005 finds Preston out of the crowd and, while handing Pete and I her picture, looks at him and says, "Your not getting one." And I love his response. "That's ok. You remembered me." Then he smiles and walks outside.

Then something occured to me. Our culture, ruled by youth and beauty, saturated into scenes like this one, is as fleeting as youth and beauty itself. Misss 2005 stood there, with decadence, radiating natural beauty, a has-been with a failing sense of self importance. Left with memories soaked in a surreal half light of what will never be again, of hindsight, and the impossibility of going back. And she'll remember Preston. Maybe not Preston, but the prestons. The short funny looking man with slightly thinning hair and a red beard who gave her image back to her. And how those images she will continue to give back to herself. "This is all so inane" I thought.

Outside I felt freedom. I didn't care for any of what I had just witnessed, however fun it was. "I want a hot dog" I kept screaming at Pete with a Harry Carry emphasis on 'hot dog'. The more I said it, the more beligerant I said it, the more Pete laughed. Ahh, our little gloid.

"That's not how we roll." a voice called behind me. Carmela stood, her friends surrounding her like peacock feathers. "Do you know what a hot dog would do to my stomach?" she continued with what sounded like mock disdain.

"Yeah, that's why I want one. It's better than a colonic." My only good line all night. She laughed She funkin' laughed.

Preston stood by one of the peacock feathers and smiled a shit eating grin. A Navigator pulled up and everyone filed in. "Coming?" the feather asked Preston. He turned to me and said, "I told you you wanted to come tonight."

I don't remember the car ride. I don't remember where we went, or how this place existed, but somewhere in Seattle there is an all night, fine dining, Chinese cuisine, restaraunt. Crispy seabass, roast duck, Shrimp tempura, and many other entrees were brought to our table. We each had a tiny cup of amber colored tea, a glass of champagne, and glasses of mineral water seconds within walking through the door. I think at one point we each had our own person geisha girl, but in retelling the story, Preston claims this, in fact, was not true. I still haven't figured out who was massaging my inner thigh. Anyhow. There we sat. Preston, Pete and I, across from Carmella the Maxim girl, Jen a busty blonde with more bite than bark, and some mestizo number named Angela whose natural carribbean tan made me want to drink her skin. The six of us, eating and talking and laughing, and having our wants met by subservient asian men with silk dressings.

I must confess, I was hammered. I was also smart enough to know that when I'm as well oiled as that, it is always in my best interest to remain silent. Being resolute on not speaking, I needed something else to do, and navigating the chopsticks was proving the only worthy task I could find.

All I wanted to do, was take a peice of roast duck and dip it in that sweet and sour sauce sitting in front of Preston. There were no forks, and being drunk, chopsticks were quickly getting the better of me. Soon the others began to watch without me noticing. In trying not to make an ass out of myself, I was making an ass out myself. Carmela, sitting across from me said, "Need some help big boy?" in that mocking tone where you're left unsure whether she's on your side or not. I looked at her and gave a curt look, and went back to chopsticks.

Getting more frustrated I noticed a little cup of sweet and sour closer to me than Preston. It was right in front of Carmela. The duck was covered in this thick gravy that caused it to slip out of the pinch every time I managed to lift it six inches above my plate. Also I'm swaying, which doesn't help. Finally, after much effort and silent cursing, I manage to get ahold of the stupid duck and dip it into Carmela's sweet and sour sauce. As I'm lifting thhe duck back out of the sauce, it slips and splashes amber colored liquid everywhere. At once the table fell silent and everyone just stared. I thought. "Like none of you have dropped YOUR food in the sauce."

Preston patted me on the back, and said,"Andrew's had a good night. Carmela, would you like some more tea." I was mortified. I don't know whether I was more embarrassed about dipping the duck in her herbal tea, or the fact that it took me damn near 4 minutes for it to register. She stared at me, "Well....?"

"I didn't know what to say, so I went with what I knew. I stuck to the facts. Drinking brings out not only the southern accent in me, but also the southern gentleman as well, and my manner begin to revert to the 19th century, which is embarrassing.

"Carmela," I took her hand,"forgive me for droppin mah meat in yore tea."

She exploded and her friends said they wanted me to talk like that somemore. Preston was shaking his head and Pete was nodding his. I leaned over to Preston after the storm had passed. "Am I a jack-ass?" I whispered with a scared sincerety.

Carmella leaned in, "Yes. But so am I." and then she winked.

Sorry it took so long to get back to you on this one. after re-reading it, I'm not so sure it was all that entertaining. I did, on the other hand have fun writing it. (It took me a week, because I can only use the computer 15 minutes at a time--which explains the lack of continuity in the narrative...whatever). Call you later, or you call me.

Heart,
Andrew