A Fucking Rock Star

“It’s your fucking fault!” The man’s face was inches from mine. When he spoke, spittle would fly from his mouth. “You sit there, dressed up all fancy.” I was wearing a pair of dark jeans and a Perry Ellis shirt that I’d picked up for less than ten dollars on a much-pawed-over Macy’s rack, as well as a pair of boots from the deep discount rack of DSW that weighed more in pounds than they cost in dollars. “Smelling so sweet.” I had used soap in the shower, that morning. “And looking so fucking fine.”

Well, I couldn’t argue that one.

The man continued in so strident a voice that everyone in the bar was turning around to look at him. Considering that the little Westchester bar was fairly full, and loud karaoke was going on in the background, he was making a pretty considerable racket “You do all that and it’s no fucking wonder that men like me drink too much. We drink too much because it takes all our fucking nerve to talk to you!” I laughed, because it’s the only thing I could do. “You know what?” he said, leaning in closer. His eyes half-closed, and he stabbed a stubby finger in my face. “You’re smug. You’re real . . . smug.”

It was at that moment I realized I had a problem on my hands. Because when a drunk starts telling you that you’re smug, the next thing he wants to do, always, is to wipe that smug smile right off your mouth.

I’d been at the bar for about an hour by the time this guy had come in. He was tall and had the kind of looks that probably had turned heads for just about all five of his decades. Immediately upon his arrival, he’d gone up and down the bar and lifted guys out of their seats and up into the air in a show of strength and, I guess, a supreme indifference to personal space. I’d watched him out of the corner of my eye while pretending to listen to the karaoke singers, thinking to myself, Man, why couldn’t that guy be hitting on me?


And of course, it turned out to be one of those prime examples in which I should’ve been careful for what I wished for.

When the guy began giving me flirty little glances a few minutes after he walked in, I felt a little bit tingly and vindicated. When he started making his way over, eyes locked with mine, I felt my dick stirring in my jeans. When he leaned forward and rasped at me, “Are you Scandinavian?” and his breath was so flammable that I wanted to move the open tealight candle on my table, I felt pretty certain that he was rip-roaring, stone-cold drunk.

“Uh, my ancestors were mostly from Scotland,” I said to him. Immediately my mood changed from aroused to amused.

“Like Craig Ferguson.” He had one of those accents I recognized as utterly New York. It wasn’t exaggerated, like an old-fashioned wise-cracking cabbie from a movie. It was distinct, though.

“Yes, exactly like Craig Ferguson,” I agreed.

“I have a big dick,” he announced next.

I’d arrived at the bar that evening with a friend of mine who was sitting across the little table from me. I looked in his direction with an appeal for help. He, however, started snickering to himself, pretending he was with the guys at the bar behind him, and recording the conversation for posterity on his Facebook wall. “Wow,” I said, when I realized I wasn’t going to get any assistance from that quarter. “Okay!”

“It’s real big,” he repeated. “It’s really going to hurt when I fuck you.” I was on a high stool; the guy used the outside of his thigh to part my knees and stand between them. When he swooped in to—well, I thought he was going to take a chomp out of my neck, but apparently he only wanted to lick it—I ducked.

“Wow,” I said once more. “You know, I think you really need to work on that sales pitch there.”

He was staring at me as if he’d been hypnotized. “Are you Scandinavian?”

“Scottish.”

“Like Craig Ferguson?”

“Like Craig Ferguson,” I said, pretty openly laughing at his face again.

“I have a big. . . .”

“You kind of covered that.” I gently and discreetly eased him back to a length at which my aged eyes could actually focus on him.

“You know what I’m gonna do? I’m gonna take you over to the dam, right up to the top. Then I’m going to throw you down to the bottom and fuck you!”

The Kensico Dam is less than a mile from this particular bar. “I’m going to be at the bottom and you’ll fuck me from the very top? Your dick is three hundred feet long?” He blinked slowly at me, not comprehending. “Okay. How big is it?” I didn’t really need an answer to that question, given that I could feel it pressing against my right knee, but I held my flattened palms three inches apart and very slowly drew them apart. “Tell me when to stop.”

It was a very long time before I stopped. “That’s it,” he finally told me.

“Not bad,” I nodded, impressed. “About sixteen inches.”

“How old are you?” he asked.

“How old do I look?” I asked. I usually don’t play that game, but I wanted to know what his answer was going to be.

“Thirty-one?”

Across the table, my friend tittered. “YES,” I said with great affirmation. “You are COMPLETELY RIGHT. I am EXACTLY THIRTY-ONE YEARS OLD.”

“Are you Scandinavian?” he wanted to know again.

Across the table, my friend posted more status messages to Facebook. I silently damned him under my breath.

Over the next few minutes, when it became obvious that the guy was not going anywhere, I managed to find out that he drove a city bus up and down Fifth Avenue for a living, and that his soul was empty (his words) from the job. “You’ve never driven inna city before,” he said, sucking down another gin and tonic and somehow managing to unbutton the top three buttons on my shirt. “I can tell. You’re nice. Nice people don’t drive in the city.” Well, that one I could easily believe. “You’re hot. I want to fuck you. Are you gonna give me your number?”

“I will make sure you get my number before you go,” I assured him, knowing that if he couldn’t remember whether or not I was Scandinavian, I wasn’t likely to have to follow through. I buttoned myself back up and glared at my friend, who by this point was just sitting with his back reclined and his hands over his stomach as he enjoyed the show.

“There’s a place five minutes from here?” said the drunk. “It’s an underpass? And the high school kids hang out there during the day?”

“That’s nice,” I said, pulling his hands off my zipper.

“And someone’s painted something in spray paint there and it says, I’m a fucking rock star.” I nodded. “So what does it mean?”

“That someone’s a fucking rock star?”

“No!” He seemed firm on this point. “You say it.”

“I’m a fucking rock star.”

“Mean it.”

“I’m a fucking rock star,” I said, still laughing. “So are you, mister.”

“Damn straight. Two fucking rock stars.” He took another drink. “I’ve got money. I’ve got a 1992 Benz. I’ve got a big dick. And you’re going to get in my car and we’re going to drive there and I’m gonna fuck you in the back seat. But I’m big. So it’s going to hurt.”

“It’s tempting,” I said tactfully, “but it’s really too late and cold to go to some overpass to fuck.” Not to mention he was too drunk and weird.

That’s when he announced, with increasing frustration and anger, “It’s your fucking fault! You sit there, dressed up all fancy. Smelling so sweet. And looking so fucking fine. You do all that and it’s no fucking wonder that men like me drink too much. We drink too much because it takes all our fucking nerve to talk to you!” I probably shouldn’t have chuckled at that moment, but it was my way of trying not to take him too seriously. “You know what? You’re smug. You’re real . . . smug.”

When I realized he was on the borderline between merely inebriated and potentially violent, I immediately did some backpedaling. “Hey,” I told him, holding open my arms. “Give me a hug.” He leaned forward and fell heavily against me. “You’re a good guy,” I told him. “Very handsome. I thought so when you walked into the bar. But I think you’ve had a little too much to drink. Okay?” I held him at arm’s length and looked him in the eyes. I raised my eyebrows and bobbled my head a little. I felt like I was talking to my son, not a fifty-year-old man. “Okay?” I repeated.

At last he nodded. “I do kinda feel like I’ve gotta vomit,” he admitted.

Because, you know, after I have a big dick and it’s really going to hurt you, those are the exact words that will charm my thirty-one-year-old self into the back seat of a guy's 1992 Benz.