The Looker

1. I finally made it to the party.
2. This is the party everyone will be talking about.
3. This is the 27^th party I've been to in a month.
4. I wasn't really going to know anybody.
5. Except for a few people who would rather I didn't show my face around them again.
6. I got out of my Dodge and stepped out into the parking lot.
7. The air was cold, but my skin was still warm from the heat of my Dodge.
8. I started to get cold.
9. I could see people outside of the party smoking cigarettes, folding their arms to protect their bodies from the cold.
10. They were talking about the party.
11. And how the women/men were looking tonight.
12. "... so good in his suit."
13. "... so awful in that dress."
14. "... so fat in those shoes."
15. I walked towards them -
16. Cute, ugly, short, tall, pretty, slutty.
17. And shoved past them without looking back.
18. A woman in a business suit opened the door for me and smiled-
19. Crooked teeth, short.
20. And pointed me in the direction of the party.
21. I shoved past her without looking back.
22. I passed many people in the hallway following the woman's point.
23. They looked at me funny.
24. They didn't know me.
25. They seemed to speak under their breath as they passed.
26. "Handsome, but too arrogant."
27. "Tall, but too thin."
28. As they shoved past me I walked through the doorway to the entrance of the party.
29. I made my entrance.
30. I didn't really know anybody.
31. Except for a few people who would rather I didn't show my face around them again.
32. Everyone stared at me as they continued their conversations.
33. And I stared at them.
34. Fat, priggish, busty, cute, lanky, thin, pig-nosed, rat-faced, plain...
35. I walked to the bar.
36. People whispered as I passed.
37. "What a horrible suit."
38. "What a wonderful tie."
39. "What ugly shoes."
40. "What beautiful hair."
41. "All the girls will be after him."
42. "I want to kick this guy's ass."
43. I sat down at the bar and ordered a shot of tequila.
44. I wondered why I was even here.
45. I wondered why anyone was here at this damn party.
46. I drank the shot and it flowed inside me like a warm, welcome flame.
47. A woman sat down across from me at the bar.
48. She was wearing a red and yellow dress.
49. I stared at her, but when she looked at me my eyes shot away to another part of the room.
50. Beautiful, perfect.
51. I called to the bartender...
52. Fat, smelly bastard.
53. ... And ordered another shot.
54. I drank the tequila, but it didn't go down as smoothly as the first.
55. The woman looked at me, her eyes bright green.
56. "I was nauseous and tingly all over. I was either in love or I had smallpox." (Woody Allen)
57. I suddenly didn't feel so good.
58. I ordered another shot.
59. And another.
60. I wasn't looking at her, but her image still burned in my mind.
61. Like an intrusion of my senses.
62. I couldn't picture her the way I pictured the others.
63. The smell of her perfume, the glinting golden hair, the burning green eyes...
64. No man would be good enough for her.
65. I'm not good enough for her.
66. I could imagine all the men who had met her before.
67. All the men who weren't good enough, who couldn't break the invisible barrier surrounding her.
68. Tom, Dick, Harry, Mike, John, Matt, Petey, Paulie, Mickey, Smittie, Dopey, Doc, Tommy, Dickie, Harold, Michael, Johnny, Matthew, Peter, Paul...
69. Her standards would be so ridiculously high that no one less than perfect could get to her.
70. I took another shot.
71. I looked over at her.
72. Her eyes glanced up from her drink and into my head, setting each thought on fire so that nothing existed except for her.
73. She was drinking an apple martini.
74. It matched her eyes.
75. "Green is the prime color of the world, and that from which its loveliness arises."
(Pedro Calderon de la Barca)
76. She probably had a husband-
77. No ring.
78. - Or a boyfriend.
79. A man...
80. Skinny, scruffy, bald.
81. ... Came up to the woman and offered to buy her a drink.
82. She politely declined.
83. Fool.
84. There's only one way to get a woman like that to love you.
85. This is the way to get a woman to love you: "Walk over to her, smell good, look attractive, make her laugh, hold her interest, introduce yourself, and then maybe buy her a drink."
86. If you don't do it in that order you're lost.
87. I took another shot.
88. I got up off my bar stool.
89. I walked over to her.
90. The air around the bar smelled like her perfume, mixed with the colognes of all the men walking to and from the bar.
91. I brushed my hair back, so that I looked handsome.
92. My stomach twisted and wrenched inside my body.
93. As I approached she looked up at me.
94. I sat down next to her.
95. Her green eyes stared at me and she smiled.
96. I told a joke.
97. She laughed.
98. She asked me my name.
99. And I threw up.
100. It was red and yellow.