Truth Telling

Last night, the third installment of Rock and Roll Friday, Jennifer and I headed over to the Legion for a little punk rock.

Though first we followed the balloons and went to someone's birthday party in the basement by mistake. Note to self: don't follow the balloons.

One second after we walked in the door of the right party, the table that the door guy was sitting on collapsed, flat on the floor, its legs splayed out like a tired puppy. It made an explosive noise in the empty hallway and then a moment's stunned silence before we all started moving again.

J and I eventually got in and made a beeline for the bar line. There's a window there at the legion, like you're going to get a movie ticket, but instead, it's cheap booze, and a frazzled man wqho will give you your gin and soda and then proffer you a bag from which you may choose your own lime. Until he runs out of limes.

I rush ahead, however.

In line, we were chatting, I don't even know about what, just the random stuff that we always amuse ourselves with. I didn't notice anyone behind us until the guy there dropped a loonie. It landed smack clang on the laminate floor.

He bent over, reaching for it, just touching it, and stumbled forward a step. Shoulder-first into J's ass - not hard enough to knock her over, not hard enough to move her even, but enough to be firmly pressing a part of his body into a part of her body he had no business pressing.

There was more stumbling, but he finally got himself upright, swaying only a little. He stuck a meaty paw between us, mumbled a name, slurred "Yers?" We gamely shook his hand, said our names and turned our backs on him.

Or tried to.

He kept moving closer to us, closer like bumping into us, ship on the dock bump drift bump, gentle-like, then we'd move and he'd move closer, bump drift bump. We got uncomfortably close to the people in front of us. Bump bump.

He tried to talk to us again, but with the slurring and the loud music, we couldn't hear him. I just smiled a tight smile in his direction and looked over his right shoulder, which is my defense mechanism when I'm being offended or annoyed but feel I can't leave.

He turned to Jennifer and mumbled what seemed like a direct question.

"I'm sorry," she said. "It's loud and you're quiet. I can't hear you." He mumbled something else, and she raised her eyebrows helplessly and turned away from him.

He looked at me with wide eyes, drawing a finger across your throat. He said the only clear sentence I heard from him that night. "Your friend doesn't like me."

I hate that shit.

Because what I'm supposed to say in that situation, what the script calls for, is "Oh no, no. It's not that she doesn't like you! She's just, uh, having a bad day."

Fuck that.

Improvising a new script: "Well, you've been standing really close and bumping into us. So. That's probably why."

I did try to use a civil and even tone of voice. But his mouth gaped and he held up his hands in a hands-up fashion - caught! - and took an exaggerated step back.

So it probably came off kind of rude, but then again, so is pressing your shoulder into a stranger's ass without asking them first.