By C. Anderson Guthrie © 2006
This woman wasn't the kind of woman you bring home to momma, oh no -- she was the kind of woman that takes out her teeth before giving an alleyway blowjob. You know, the considerate type.
She spun around on the barstool, sloppily leaned back, propped her elbows on the bar, turned towards me and asked a question.
"Hey man, how oad are you?" she slurred.
My eyes fixed on the 1/4" gap between her front teeth, without trying to draw attention to the fact that I was mesmerized. Kind of like when you're trying not to stare at some massive cleavage, only these tits were teeth that didn't quite meet in the middle. I couldn't help thinking about grandma.
"Thirty-one."
My short response was meant to effectively end the conversation before it got up to speed, but she didn't take the hint.
"You gots any kids?"
If I had been a little bit quicker and a little less drunk, I would've spun some lie about how my wife was at home, waiting for her water to break announcing the arrival or our third beautiful baby. But, the only thing I could think of under such pressure was "No." Bright one, this.
I scanned the bar looking for an out, a reason to get the fuck away from this woman without having to tell her to get the fuck away from me. It was bar poker night, but I had arrived late, after the tournament had already started and was unable to use that as an excuse. Also, I couldn't just leave; the bartender had just poured me another hefe, and I wasn't very well going to leave a full beer until it was safe in my stomach.
So, I hunched on my stool, took an enormous, disinterested drink from my pint of Widmer Hefe, and tried to wait her out. Tried not to make eye contact. Tried to look gay.
It didn't work.
"Cuz youse a real nith lookin' man, thath what I'm tryin' to thay. Yee-up." She lithped.
If you've never seen an overweight, drunk, gap-toothed, 45-year old slob try to act coy, consider yourself lucky. Me, I'm not so lucky, never have been. And let me tell you, folks, it ain't pretty. I think the word that popped into my head that night was "disgusting."
That's just a small portion of my Monday night. After getting all moved into my new place, I decided to go on the hunt for a new bar. A new "my bar" kind of place. I stopped at five or six bars that night, and I can tell you which bars aren't going to be my bar, that's for sure. It isn't going to be the place with the $5.50 pints of Bud Light. It isn't going to be the place across from a certain local gentlemen's establishment, even though I witnessed one of the talent (a little chubby) stuffing her face, pre-shift, with greasy chicken wings and Grand Marnier, and that might be indicative of the kinds of stories just waiting to be pulled from there.
On second thought, I'm not going to cross that bar off my list quite yet.
My bar isn't going to be the place with cheap Widmer on tap, either; I'm afraid just too afraid of Gummy The Lush. But the search continues, and it's not going to stop until I find a place where I don't feel like I'm going to get rolled or propositioned for sex on the way to the bathroom.
I save those things for the Girlfriend.
C. Anderson Guthrie is a writer and poker player from Minneapolis, MN.
Showing posts with label C. Anderson Guthrie. Show all posts
Showing posts with label C. Anderson Guthrie. Show all posts
October 14, 2006
March 18, 2005
Bullet Proof
By C. Anderson Guthrie © 2005
"I don't know what Tommy was doing last night, and I don't really care to know," whispered Erin in an almost unintelligible Northern Irish accent, as she slowly pulled a ski mask and winter gloves out of a plastic bag, showing me and my travel companion.
I thought: Oh fuck! And I'm sleeping on their couch?
Tommy and Erin were an Irish couple in their 40’s who probably weren't all that atypical: they were late-teen sweethearts, married, had three daughters and lived in a very small flat overlooking the River Foyle in Derry, Northern Ireland. By all means, a downright lovely family.
We'd arrived in Derry a few days earlier, and I found myself with Erin’s and Tommy's extended family, drinking large amounts of Miller Genuine Draft, because that's the only beer the store carried that didn't have the words "stout", or "dark" emblazoned in big letters on the label. After driving counterclockwise around the island for the previous two weeks on a diet of Guinness, bread, cheese and little else, I needed a watered down American beer to cleanse my palette. Also, I didn't want to end the trip the same way I started it--plugged.
Somewhere around 4 AM, I'd converted 12 of my beers to pee, joined in many-a-sing-along in which I didn't know any of the words, and heard more chatter that didn't sound anything like English, even though I knew that's what was being spoken. It was also around this time that it was announced that Tommy was going to stop by.
While I thought it odd that the others were overly excited by this news, not much registered outside of that, especially considering my inebriated state. It was then that Mary, Erin's sister, pulled me aside to discuss Tommy.
"Do you know that Tommy is in the IRA, right?" Mary questioned with a Gaelic twang.
"What--you mean that he's into investing?" I dimwittedly replied.
She explained again, this time a little slower and with more enunciation.
"Eyyyyye-aarrrrrrr-ayyyyyyy," Mary said.
"...is Ayyyyye-oooooh-kayyyyyy," I fumbled out.
She still didn't get my humor.
It didn't make it any easier that I was having a tough time understanding what Mary was saying. I had taken three years of French in high school, one more in college, and this was much like when the professor would be speaking using new words: if you waited long enough and heard words that you already understood, it wasn't that tough to figure out the context.
So, I waited and I didn't want to understand. I mean, I really didn't want to understand. The context told me, after I'd tried and failed at making jokes, that Tommy was a main figure of the area IRA.
I tried my best to not act surprised, but let's see you try to keep a straight face after being told that you're in the same room with the Irish equivalent of John Gotti, only without the money and penchant for cement boots. If I'd been outside, little Irish sparrows would've taken up residence in my wide-open mouth.
From what I knew at the time, the IRA was originally created as a paramilitary group, moving towards an unified Irish state, and breaking away from UK rule. I was honestly frightened, because the only mental images I had of the IRA were from 80s news shows, included petrol bombs in Belfast, and assassination attempts.
And I was sleeping on his couch? Fuck.
Mary informed me that if were I to ever have a problem with anyone in Derry, that all I had to do was tell Tommy and he'd "take care of it." I didn't ask for further clarification on exactly who, or what, it was that he'd take care of, and it was better that I didn’t know.
Tommy took a liking to me, and nobody was entirely sure of his reasons behind it. By the end of the trip, he was calling me his "Bro." Erin told me later that he never calls anyone his "Bro," and I wasn't quite sure if I should be feel honored, or, well, really fucking honored.
He also told stories about his friends that died in internment camp while on hunger strikes, friends that died in the Bloody Sunday Massacre, and about his and Erin's countless run-ins with the British military stationed in the city.
For many people, this would be a scary, eye opening experience but, I had other revelations in my head--I was bulletproof. I could do whatever I wanted. I had diplomatic immunity in a city I'd only been in for a few hours.
"Hey, Tommy, go whack that guy in the knee for me, would ya?" I'd say.
"Sure thing, Bro," he replied right before clobbering an elderly man in his patellar tendon with a day old baguette. The old wanker deserved it, with his slow-walking, and all.
How cool does that sound?
Much cooler than not being able to understand when people are speaking what is essentially English, that's for sure.
Yeah, I'll stick with bulletproof.
C. Anderson Guthrie is a writer and poker player from Minnesota.
"I don't know what Tommy was doing last night, and I don't really care to know," whispered Erin in an almost unintelligible Northern Irish accent, as she slowly pulled a ski mask and winter gloves out of a plastic bag, showing me and my travel companion.
I thought: Oh fuck! And I'm sleeping on their couch?
Tommy and Erin were an Irish couple in their 40’s who probably weren't all that atypical: they were late-teen sweethearts, married, had three daughters and lived in a very small flat overlooking the River Foyle in Derry, Northern Ireland. By all means, a downright lovely family.
We'd arrived in Derry a few days earlier, and I found myself with Erin’s and Tommy's extended family, drinking large amounts of Miller Genuine Draft, because that's the only beer the store carried that didn't have the words "stout", or "dark" emblazoned in big letters on the label. After driving counterclockwise around the island for the previous two weeks on a diet of Guinness, bread, cheese and little else, I needed a watered down American beer to cleanse my palette. Also, I didn't want to end the trip the same way I started it--plugged.
Somewhere around 4 AM, I'd converted 12 of my beers to pee, joined in many-a-sing-along in which I didn't know any of the words, and heard more chatter that didn't sound anything like English, even though I knew that's what was being spoken. It was also around this time that it was announced that Tommy was going to stop by.
While I thought it odd that the others were overly excited by this news, not much registered outside of that, especially considering my inebriated state. It was then that Mary, Erin's sister, pulled me aside to discuss Tommy.
"Do you know that Tommy is in the IRA, right?" Mary questioned with a Gaelic twang.
"What--you mean that he's into investing?" I dimwittedly replied.
She explained again, this time a little slower and with more enunciation.
"Eyyyyye-aarrrrrrr-ayyyyyyy," Mary said.
"...is Ayyyyye-oooooh-kayyyyyy," I fumbled out.
She still didn't get my humor.
It didn't make it any easier that I was having a tough time understanding what Mary was saying. I had taken three years of French in high school, one more in college, and this was much like when the professor would be speaking using new words: if you waited long enough and heard words that you already understood, it wasn't that tough to figure out the context.
So, I waited and I didn't want to understand. I mean, I really didn't want to understand. The context told me, after I'd tried and failed at making jokes, that Tommy was a main figure of the area IRA.
I tried my best to not act surprised, but let's see you try to keep a straight face after being told that you're in the same room with the Irish equivalent of John Gotti, only without the money and penchant for cement boots. If I'd been outside, little Irish sparrows would've taken up residence in my wide-open mouth.
From what I knew at the time, the IRA was originally created as a paramilitary group, moving towards an unified Irish state, and breaking away from UK rule. I was honestly frightened, because the only mental images I had of the IRA were from 80s news shows, included petrol bombs in Belfast, and assassination attempts.
And I was sleeping on his couch? Fuck.
Mary informed me that if were I to ever have a problem with anyone in Derry, that all I had to do was tell Tommy and he'd "take care of it." I didn't ask for further clarification on exactly who, or what, it was that he'd take care of, and it was better that I didn’t know.
Tommy took a liking to me, and nobody was entirely sure of his reasons behind it. By the end of the trip, he was calling me his "Bro." Erin told me later that he never calls anyone his "Bro," and I wasn't quite sure if I should be feel honored, or, well, really fucking honored.
He also told stories about his friends that died in internment camp while on hunger strikes, friends that died in the Bloody Sunday Massacre, and about his and Erin's countless run-ins with the British military stationed in the city.
For many people, this would be a scary, eye opening experience but, I had other revelations in my head--I was bulletproof. I could do whatever I wanted. I had diplomatic immunity in a city I'd only been in for a few hours.
"Hey, Tommy, go whack that guy in the knee for me, would ya?" I'd say.
"Sure thing, Bro," he replied right before clobbering an elderly man in his patellar tendon with a day old baguette. The old wanker deserved it, with his slow-walking, and all.
How cool does that sound?
Much cooler than not being able to understand when people are speaking what is essentially English, that's for sure.
Yeah, I'll stick with bulletproof.
C. Anderson Guthrie is a writer and poker player from Minnesota.
February 13, 2005
Hindsight, My Friend
by C. Anderson Guthrie © 2005
Two years ago yesterday I was in Dublin, waiting on the girl that would, according to her, "unintentionally" break my heart. I'm still convinced she'd had it planned. I was also waiting on certain bodily functions to catch up to the rest of my body, and to this day, I'm still not sure which pain was worse--the broken heart, or the not pooping. I'm guessing it was the former, but with someone like me, it's tough to tell.
One year ago yesterday, my brother and his wife gave birth to my niece. Not that my brother did much of the work involved, but it sounds better than "He came, she grunted out a child". Sometimes I have a little tact. Just a little.
Now, a year later, I no longer call her "their daughter," she is "my niece."
What do these things have in common? Almost nothing. And no, what they do share is not what you're probably thinking. You people are disgusting; you know that, right? I may have done some things that are considered immoral by many, or just downright nasty by most, but I can say that without any reservation, that I've never crossed over that brother-brother line. A friend's ex? By all means. Ex's sister? Serve 'er up with syrup! But I've never crossed the brother threshold.
Saturday, I attended my niece's 1st birthday party. "Party" would be a bit much, I suppose. It was more of a gathering to watch her discover that cakes tastes better being passed through the mouth, rather than up the nose. But up the nose is funnier.
A party it was not. Come on, the baby didn't even realize that people were laughing at her, not with her. And she definitely didn't understand how to unwrap a present. She was more interested in little pieces of carpet fuzz than what awaited her beneath the brightly colored wrapping paper. It was blocks, in case you're wondering. I let her in on a secret that blocks taste better and make you vomit less, and she seemed pleased to learn this. Either that, or she'd chosen that moment to explode in her Huggies. The expressions are eerily similar.
Between the lulls in my niece’s self-imposed humiliation-by-cake and her unintelligible baby talk, my thoughts drifted from my brother's house in the Sticks, to a small Fiat Punto on west coast of Ireland.
I scanned the living room, starting with my brother, shifting to his wife, and on to my niece. Brother, wife, my niece. Brother, wife, my niece. Three times, I did this. And then, BAM!, back to the car being parked in Donegal town. There have been plenty times in the last two years that I’ve thought about that trip, probably far too much to be anything other than self-defeating. Never, though, had I looked at it the way I did this Saturday.
I've always held firm on my stance that I never want to have children, mostly for selfish reasons. But, if Emily and I had worked out-which, is of course the little bit of Optimist that hasn't been beaten out of my brain by the Pessimist-that's exactly what I'd be dealing with today: kids.
I've always said that having kids, for me, would be a scary ordeal. One that I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy. My friends, maybe, but that's only because they deserve it. It's not to say that I want kids right now, or that I'm ready to settle down and find an acceptable uterus that will pop a litter of 13 or 14 tiny-handed, non-back-talking little slaves. No, it's just that sort of thing never scared me when Emily was around.
"If I ever wanted to have a child, what would you say if I asked you to be the father?" she asked.
"Would I have to change diapers, or deal with ball-rash?" I replied, part joking, mostly not. I didn't want to deal with either.
"Not if you didn't want to," she said with an unwavering voice.
"Great, where do I sign up?"
Not that I think we were supposed to end up together, whatever that means. Or that I'm all grown up, because the minute I think that, take me out back and put bullet in my skull. Or get me unbelievably drunk, just something to make me forget that I said it. This I beg of you. The last thing I need right now is a baby. Well, that and a drippy penis. Either would be equally horrific.
So, the last few years could've been a complete 180 from where I currently stand. I could be married with a child, and another on the way. This doesn't even make me flinch, or feel uneasy in the slightest. It would've been fine, for awhile.
We would've been great for a few years, but I always held on to my belief that, no matter what happened, we'd get divorced. Don't ask me how I came to this conclusion, I just did. Perhaps it just comes with knowing someone that well. Regardless of that, this question always surfaces:
"If I could alter time, would I go back and do things differently so that we could end up together?"
Even with the unavoidable divorce thrown out of the recipe, my answer is a most defiant "NO!"
Why do I think this way now? Hindsight, my friend, hindsight.
The last two years of my life would've never happened, and that's not something I'm not readily about to release from my gnarled fingers. I never would've met some of the key people that have been, or possibly will be important in my life.
I wouldn't have spent a glorious week in Puerto Vallarta, drinking good beer and having sex in the shower. Or for that matter, I never would've spent a weekend in Key West, drinking bad beer and having sex in the shower. I may have been passed out in the Key West shower with the cold water hitting me in the face, but in my mind, I was having sex. I love my mind sometimes.
In fact, I never would've met Crystal at all, and though we aren't speaking at the moment-I'm not entirely sure why-I still cherish the time we spent together. Time that would've never happened if I'd continued to be another one of Emily's lemmings.
And I know I was. I was a fucking lemming. Anyone on the outside could see that, but I didn't want to. As much as I would've liked to be with her, I am happy with where I've come from and ultimately where I'm going. I may not seem that way all the time, but I am.
I still don't know what I'd do if she finally understood how unbelievably good I was to her-which, for once, I was-and decided to come back to me, or if I saw her walking down the street. I honestly don't. Part of me would like to punch her the face, an another, softer part of me would love to give her a good hate-fucking, but who says I have to choose? Both would give me that warm, fuzzy feeling that I very much crave right now.
Sitting there, on my brother's couch, I finally understood why people have children. And for once, I felt a tinge of jealousy towards him and the family he has helped create.
Just as I came to terms with all this, my brother handed me my smiling niece, and that feeling of jealousy was swept away as she swatted my head with her fat, cake-covered palms, and promptly threw up on my shoulder.
God, I fucking hate kids.
C. Anderson Guthrie is a writer and poker player from Minnesota. You can visit his poker blog: Pokerama-rama.
Two years ago yesterday I was in Dublin, waiting on the girl that would, according to her, "unintentionally" break my heart. I'm still convinced she'd had it planned. I was also waiting on certain bodily functions to catch up to the rest of my body, and to this day, I'm still not sure which pain was worse--the broken heart, or the not pooping. I'm guessing it was the former, but with someone like me, it's tough to tell.
One year ago yesterday, my brother and his wife gave birth to my niece. Not that my brother did much of the work involved, but it sounds better than "He came, she grunted out a child". Sometimes I have a little tact. Just a little.
Now, a year later, I no longer call her "their daughter," she is "my niece."
What do these things have in common? Almost nothing. And no, what they do share is not what you're probably thinking. You people are disgusting; you know that, right? I may have done some things that are considered immoral by many, or just downright nasty by most, but I can say that without any reservation, that I've never crossed over that brother-brother line. A friend's ex? By all means. Ex's sister? Serve 'er up with syrup! But I've never crossed the brother threshold.
Saturday, I attended my niece's 1st birthday party. "Party" would be a bit much, I suppose. It was more of a gathering to watch her discover that cakes tastes better being passed through the mouth, rather than up the nose. But up the nose is funnier.
A party it was not. Come on, the baby didn't even realize that people were laughing at her, not with her. And she definitely didn't understand how to unwrap a present. She was more interested in little pieces of carpet fuzz than what awaited her beneath the brightly colored wrapping paper. It was blocks, in case you're wondering. I let her in on a secret that blocks taste better and make you vomit less, and she seemed pleased to learn this. Either that, or she'd chosen that moment to explode in her Huggies. The expressions are eerily similar.
Between the lulls in my niece’s self-imposed humiliation-by-cake and her unintelligible baby talk, my thoughts drifted from my brother's house in the Sticks, to a small Fiat Punto on west coast of Ireland.
I scanned the living room, starting with my brother, shifting to his wife, and on to my niece. Brother, wife, my niece. Brother, wife, my niece. Three times, I did this. And then, BAM!, back to the car being parked in Donegal town. There have been plenty times in the last two years that I’ve thought about that trip, probably far too much to be anything other than self-defeating. Never, though, had I looked at it the way I did this Saturday.
I've always held firm on my stance that I never want to have children, mostly for selfish reasons. But, if Emily and I had worked out-which, is of course the little bit of Optimist that hasn't been beaten out of my brain by the Pessimist-that's exactly what I'd be dealing with today: kids.
I've always said that having kids, for me, would be a scary ordeal. One that I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy. My friends, maybe, but that's only because they deserve it. It's not to say that I want kids right now, or that I'm ready to settle down and find an acceptable uterus that will pop a litter of 13 or 14 tiny-handed, non-back-talking little slaves. No, it's just that sort of thing never scared me when Emily was around.
"If I ever wanted to have a child, what would you say if I asked you to be the father?" she asked.
"Would I have to change diapers, or deal with ball-rash?" I replied, part joking, mostly not. I didn't want to deal with either.
"Not if you didn't want to," she said with an unwavering voice.
"Great, where do I sign up?"
Not that I think we were supposed to end up together, whatever that means. Or that I'm all grown up, because the minute I think that, take me out back and put bullet in my skull. Or get me unbelievably drunk, just something to make me forget that I said it. This I beg of you. The last thing I need right now is a baby. Well, that and a drippy penis. Either would be equally horrific.
So, the last few years could've been a complete 180 from where I currently stand. I could be married with a child, and another on the way. This doesn't even make me flinch, or feel uneasy in the slightest. It would've been fine, for awhile.
We would've been great for a few years, but I always held on to my belief that, no matter what happened, we'd get divorced. Don't ask me how I came to this conclusion, I just did. Perhaps it just comes with knowing someone that well. Regardless of that, this question always surfaces:
"If I could alter time, would I go back and do things differently so that we could end up together?"
Even with the unavoidable divorce thrown out of the recipe, my answer is a most defiant "NO!"
Why do I think this way now? Hindsight, my friend, hindsight.
The last two years of my life would've never happened, and that's not something I'm not readily about to release from my gnarled fingers. I never would've met some of the key people that have been, or possibly will be important in my life.
I wouldn't have spent a glorious week in Puerto Vallarta, drinking good beer and having sex in the shower. Or for that matter, I never would've spent a weekend in Key West, drinking bad beer and having sex in the shower. I may have been passed out in the Key West shower with the cold water hitting me in the face, but in my mind, I was having sex. I love my mind sometimes.
In fact, I never would've met Crystal at all, and though we aren't speaking at the moment-I'm not entirely sure why-I still cherish the time we spent together. Time that would've never happened if I'd continued to be another one of Emily's lemmings.
And I know I was. I was a fucking lemming. Anyone on the outside could see that, but I didn't want to. As much as I would've liked to be with her, I am happy with where I've come from and ultimately where I'm going. I may not seem that way all the time, but I am.
I still don't know what I'd do if she finally understood how unbelievably good I was to her-which, for once, I was-and decided to come back to me, or if I saw her walking down the street. I honestly don't. Part of me would like to punch her the face, an another, softer part of me would love to give her a good hate-fucking, but who says I have to choose? Both would give me that warm, fuzzy feeling that I very much crave right now.
Sitting there, on my brother's couch, I finally understood why people have children. And for once, I felt a tinge of jealousy towards him and the family he has helped create.
Just as I came to terms with all this, my brother handed me my smiling niece, and that feeling of jealousy was swept away as she swatted my head with her fat, cake-covered palms, and promptly threw up on my shoulder.
God, I fucking hate kids.
C. Anderson Guthrie is a writer and poker player from Minnesota. You can visit his poker blog: Pokerama-rama.
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