Ugly

She just sat there, wrapped up like a pig, in a blanket, on my couch. Posed as if waiting for me to be overcome with sudden lust and ravage her like a stable hand who couldn't be trusted with the plantation master's new bride.

Not happening.

Well, maybe if she paid me.

A couple more seconds were wasted thinking about how much to charge to feel like I came out on top of the deal; two-fifty seemed about right.

"How much money do you have on you?" I asked.

"What?" She burbled.

"Never mind," I said.

I looked at her bright eyes and expectant face and forced a tight-lipped "safety grin" around the end of my cigarette before striking a match and inhaling deep. Last night I should have just told her to grab a vine and swing on back to whatever treetop she called home when I saw the beard stubble. I didn't understand how I let it get this far.

Maybe it was because she was sweet enough to bring a diabetic elephant out of catastrophic insulin shock, and not too bad of a conversationalist. She told me this was the first time she had put makeup on in six months. That, at least, was the obvious truth.

What would be the harm in asking her back to the pad for a few more drinks? Smoke a joint, shoot the shit, she can crash on the couch and be gone by noon having had a wonderful evening with a true gentleman. Bada-bing, bada-boom, add another tally to my positive dating karma.

Must have been the alcohol.

The only plus side to getting hammered enough to sleep with a troll this hideous is an eighty-five percent chance of impotence, and that is a damn skewed perspective to have on life. I made a mental note to switch my charitable donation to the prohibitionist lobby.

Maybe she was waiting till it was time to go to work.

She knew I had no plans for the day outside of recovering from alcohol poisoning. Maybe I'm spineless, and maybe that's what got me here in the first place, but I couldn't bring myself to tell her that she was the most revolting human I have ever tried to have sex with and that she really needed to get the hell out so I could wash her smell off my skin.

I had to think of some way to get her to leave. I couldn't take much more of this with a hangover.

She didn't have to go to work until two; it was a forty-five minute drive home, that made it one-fifteen; she desperately needed a shower, which could take anywhere from fifteen minutes to an hour (that's a lot of miles to put on a washcloth) but we'll call it twenty-five, twelve-fifty, then; getting her dressed and out the door, five minutes, tops.

Worst case scenario, if I couldn't get rid of her myself, she would still be gone by twelve-forty-five. Only two-and-a-half more hours of staring at the bulging mass straining through the threads of my favorite comforter to go.

Now I'm gonna have to burn that blanket.

A sudden queasy feeling provided a burst of inspiration. It's a well-known bit of folk wisdom that dealing with a naked gorrilla girl in your living room on an empty stomach filled with whisky can spur an extended and quite devout prayer session at your local porcelain shrine. Sometime between three and nine o'clock this morning I'd attained sainthood. I decided to kill some time and whatever hope and desire she had left by describing the arduous rites of passage I suffered through to achieve my inglorious canonization.

She learned of the way the chemicals in Coca-Cola turn into little filmy chunks when they hit your gastric juices, and how they stick to your stomach-acid-sqeaky teeth. I detailed the pangs of rippling fire which shoot through your body while your stomach tries to pour itself out your mouth. I spoke of that taste you get when what you think is going to be a cough turns out to be a couple ounces of bile. That taste of pure evil foulness, evil that will not rinse out, not with an ounce, not with a cup, not with a metric ton of the purest mountain spring water. Evil like she is ugly.

After fifteen minutes, I gave up and decided to start drinking again --just long enough to pass out, then I'd kick it for good. I was giving her some of my best stuff and she didn't blink an eye, she just kept batting them at me "alluringly." My stomach then convinced me I'd do best to stick with water.

The phone rang.

I really don't have the strength for this right now.

"HE-lo," I barked into the receiver.

"Wasup? Get laid?" It was Teddy.

"Huh, aww nah man, thanks anyhow though, I'm was just about to go fry up some eggs"

I winked at her, as if sharing a joke at his expense. She smiled.

"What?" he asked, then a half-second later, "OH! She's still there! Bring her down. No wait! I'll come down there."

"Yeah, but no, that's ok though dude, really, you know I don't eat that nasty 'Gorrilla Shit' mess you make."

She actually giggled at that like it was funny I insulted his cooking. I love the delicious taste of irony.

But what is that lingering bitter aftertaste?

"Oh dude, was it that bad? I'm sorry man. Hey gimme a call when she leaves, OK?"

"Oh yeah, thanks dude, dinner sounds great, what's Carrie making tonight?"

"Damn! That late? You want me to page you?"

"Lasagna! Hell yeah!" I said. "I'll see you around five, then. Later." I hung up the phone with a deeply heartfelt sigh of relief. It was all I could do to keep from performing the happy dance.

Meanwhile Jabba-the-Slut had taken the opportunity to cozy on over and share my pillow. I fought the impulse to run and forced myself to ignore it. She wasn't touching me, I didn't have to look at her, and the ceiling fan took care of most of the odor. No harm, no foul.

You don't bother me, I don't bother you, in four and a half more minutes my pager goes off and your prehistoric ass is extinct.

I closed my eyes and let visions of Ringling Brothers dance in my head. I suppressed the urge to ask if she had ever been to the circus, or perhaps featured on the midway.

"Midgets really are God's clowns, aren't they?" I said to break the silence.

"You're goofy," she told me.

She giggled again. It was infectious and I couldn't resist the urge to look over. She was actually kinda cute from this angle, in this light, laughing, relaxed. Then she settled into a gaze of what could only be described as unconditional puppy-like adoration, which was just as cute in its own way.

I felt a little uneasy about something, either the way she was looking at me or the way I seemed to like it, but it beat the hell out of her feeble attempts to flash seductive glances. Then again I couldn't see her stubbly chin from where I lay.

Earlier, during a restless period between vomiting fits, I considered writing her a letter outlining exactly what areas I felt could be tweaked to make the most of what she had. If they can teach a chimp sign language, you should be able to show a reasonably intelligent young woman how to pass for human.

If I did that, though, she might breed.

It's best to not meddle with nature's way; we could throw the whole system out of whack. It was a nice thought, but impossible. She wasn't exactly Eliza Doolittle, it would take a hell of a lot more than this Henry Higgins to fix that mess. Picasso might have a shot, Marcel Duchamp, maybe.

What time is it? Ten twenty-nine. Any minute now Teddy will page me, better get her ready.

"Sorry I got so drunk last night," I lied. It was the only acceptable excuse for my behavior.

"That's ok, I had fun." She flashed a smile that would have been sweet if it weren't for everything else around it. It was like a rose in a steaming pile of manure.

"Me too," I said.

I couldn't tell if I was lying. I don't think I was. I'd had worse nights. It was the morning that was killing me. It's scary when something sincere comes out like that, without you even realizing you felt that way until you heard it coming out of your own mouth.

The long hand on my "Ren and Stimpy" wall clock from the Franklin Mint (only two more easy payments of $19.95 to go) touched six. My NOKIA pager came to life without warning and vibrated across the coffee table until it came to rest against the glass NASCAR ashtray, where it stayed and rang like that little bell on the Christmas tree that went off at the end of "It's A Wonderful Life" when Clarence got his wings. This was a sound I knew and had grown to love over the years. It was the sound of freedom.

"Oh, Shit!" I yawpped, leaping to my feet.

"What?" she jumped up. Half of the blanket stayed on the couch, leaving her left breast and thigh exposed.

"It's my pager", I said as I turned away and hopped over the coffee table.

I grabbed the pager and pulled up the message.

"Damn, that's what I was afraid of."

"What?" confusion, bewilderment, panic all flashed in unison across her horrid (and somehow deliciously cute) face.

"It's work. They only page me Saturday when there's something serious going on. I'm going to have to go in. I'm sorry. Why don't you get dressed while I go in the other room and give them a call. Thanks."

I grabbed the phone and punched in Teddy's number on the way to the bedroom. He picked it up on the first ring.

"Hello," he answered.

"Dude, you are a god among men. I'll see you in ten minutes."

"Cool, is that it?"

"Yeah, now hang up, I gotta go."

He hung up and I stayed on the line.

I'm ready for my close-up, Mr. Deville.

I walked to the living room jabbering into the dead phone about those damn idiots and how surprised I was that they could even manage to get dressed in the morning without me there to remind them which was the front and which was the back of every damn thing and how if they didn't think I was going to demand comp time for this one they were fucking crazy if they only knew what I was giving up to come in this morning, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

I paced and got really worked up about it. I practiced this bit about three hundred times before I ever tried it on a date, and about three hundred more "in the field" since then. It's so automatic now that sometimes I do it in half English and half Spanish like a pissed-off Ricky Ricardo, just to make it interesting.

I hung the phone up precisely half a second before that blaring tone that's supposed to remind you that you left it off-hook came on. I turned toward her and started to mumble more apologies. She was already putting on her bra and underwear. I suppressed the urge to burst into an impassioned negro spiritual, maybe "Free at Last", or "Oh, Happy Day".

"Well, uh, I had a good time" I tried.

"Yeah," she said. She pulled her yellow sweater over her head. "Me too."

"Maybe," I lied, "we could do this again sometime, without so much Jack Daniels. I mean maybe if..." I trailed off.

Maybe if you bring three-hundred dollars.

"Sure," she said, a little too fast for my taste. "I'd like that."

"I'll be in touch." I choked a little on that one. I was slipping.

"I'll be thinking about you," she said as her hand slipped into my sweatpants.

Even though I'd rather fuck a running garbage disposal than get near her smelly lovebox of doom again, I couldn't help responding to her touch. I wasn't drunk anymore but I was kind of drowsy, and it had been a while. She caught me off guard when she leaned in and planted a firm kiss on my mouth. When she tried to shove her tongue in I pulled away. She opened her mouth to say something but it was lost as her face began to crumble.

"Bile," I interjected, "I haven't brushed my teeth yet. Remember?"

She didn't brighten at that, but it did stop the imminent emotional collapse.

"Oh," she breathed, "right."

She pulled on her pants and walked to the closet. I sailed past her and reached in, grabbing her coat and shoes. I handed her the right shoe and sat down on the arm of the couch. She slipped it on and reached for the left, which I handed over. I stood up and helped her with her coat, and placed a gentle kiss along the nape of her neck on the right.

She seemed a little flushed and unsteady. "Do you remember how to get out?"

"Uh, yeah" she said. Then she repeated, softer, and more to herself than me, "yeah."

"Great, I really have to go hop in the shower, like, right this second, I'll call ya later, ok?"

"Ok."

We walked to to the door together. I planted another peck on her cheek and let her into the hallway. She walked away, but looked back over her shoulder at me after a couple steps.

I closed the door.

It seemed as though a single fat tear rolled down her cheek, but it was probably just the light.

And that, as they say, was that.

I wandered back into the living room and flopped on the couch. I lit up a cigarette while I dialed Teddy's number.

"Hey man, It's over, come on down," I told him, "And don't forget coffee."

In the kitchen, I pulled the slip of paper with her phone number loose from the magnet that pinned it to the fridge. I folded it in half twice and grasped it firmly in the middle with both thumbs. As I tore the paper, I caught a glimpse of myself in the little mirror attached to the freezer door.

I couldn't recognize the emotion my face conveyed, and I was paralyzed, the four torn pieces of paper still folded neatly and held tight between my thumbs. It was like sadness tinged with something indefinable. This didn't make sense. I should be ecstatic.

Teddy knocked.

Without thinking I unfolded the paper and arranged it on the countertop.

Teddy knocked again, louder.

"Just a minute!" I shouted at him.

I pulled two strips of clear tape free from the roll and carefully repaired the seams of the note before I put the number back on the fridge and answered the door.

I wonder if she'd be available again tonight for another shot at things?