Oops, I Totaled my Sister's Car

Last Wednesday, I went out for what I called a “girls night out” with some alumni from my high school. A series of coincidences led me to reconnect with these girls with whom, in fact, I never talked back in the day. In particular, a colleague from the Brew Works happened to be involved, quasi-romantically, with this girl called Trixie, that I knew from middle school – she was dating my friend Stephen Steral. They were both very young to be dating; that was weird. When I ran into Trixie a few weeks ago at the Fun House, another awful dive bar in Bethlehem, I was reminded that she was pretty crazy and fun. In high school, though, I hadn’t felt attractive or cool enough to hang with her. Now, obviously, I’m hot stuff; attractive, svelte, and dapper. The bros from my high school are still just bros with similar drinking habits.

Yeah, well, one day I was creeping Trixie’s Facebook and I saw a photo of her parents when they were young. OMG her parents are really attractive, I thought. Generally speaking, the photos featured Trixie looking fun. So I sent her a message on Facebook with the subject as “fun grl”:

I feel like you’re a pretty fun person to hang around with. i’m moving out jan 15. we should hang before i leave. btw your parents are hot.

The following exchange occurred:

TRIXIE: Haha thanks I guess they were pretty attractive in their day. where are you moving? i’m moving to pittsburgh soon.

M.E.: where’s pittsburgh? i’m moving to brooklyn. lets get together sometime next week, bring your girlfriends along, we’ll paint the town red

That was the end of the exchange, but last Monday, my colleague Bobby from work brought Trixie along to the holiday party. We had a really fun time, and Trixie and I arranged to have a girls night out that week.

It turned out that only Trixie and her friend Veronica could make it out – apparently their friend Sally is part of a triumvirate of crazy or something; but, unfortunately, she had broken her wrist.

The details of the evening are murky. We drank a lot and went to a few different bars. I had a bad cold, and at one point, outside of the Fun House, I puked because I couldn’t stop myself from coughing. It got over part of my scarf, but I was able to clean it off in the bathroom of another bar. I was not allowed back in the Fun House, though.

At the You’re Welcome Inn, Veronica saw an ex-bf, this skater dude from my high school called John Keefer. For fun, people used to call him Johnson Queefer. This brought up emotional shit for Veronica, because John isn’t doing so hot; Veronica is finishing up at NC State, while John is on dope. This was sad, and I played Nick Cave on the jukebox.

The girls came back to my house. Veronica was still sad and both Trixie and I tried to be a consoling presence. I was pumping out jams on my computer and in an effort to to assuage Veronica’s complicated feelings of guilt, loss, and grief, I played Leonard Cohen’s song “Tower of Song.” I directed her attention to the following lines:

I loved you, I loved you way back when
And all the bridges are burning that we might have crossed,
but I feel so close to everything that we lost-
We’ll never, we’ll never have to lose it again

I really like these lines, and it makes me feel sentimental when I hear it, due to some turmoil I got going on inside of me. It seemed to touch Veronica.