Naïveté

It’s early on a Tuesday afternoon and two friends are fighting over a soccer ball on an oversized pool table which uses other soccer balls as billiards. The formal turn taking of pool is lost in this oversized version and begins to resemble proper soccer in the way that the friends kick each others’ shins, gasping with drunken laughter.

This entire ruckus irritates the hell out of James Henry who is waiting for a client at the bar, nursing his beer and longing to slam it down with a few others. However, out of professional courtesy, he holds back, knowing that if he looks drunk to the client, the money might get spooked.

James is especially irritated that he has to be alone with his thoughts right now. He hears his mother’s voice from two nights ago over the phone.

“A common whore.”

“Mom, it’s not like that, it’s a legitimate—”

“To think that it would be you to turn into a prostitute and not your sister. She got married! How about that for legitimate?”

“It’s just a job, mom. You know I wouldn’t do this if I could find something else. And anyway, it’s been around in Japan for a while. Lots of people make good money.”

“I don’t need to hear about my son’s sexual exploration. You keep that to yourself. Japan. Like that’s supposed to convince me that you aren’t engaging in some sort of perverted game.”

“It’s not about sex, mom! How many times do I have to tell you?”

“Then power, is it?”

“No! It’s about money! About paying the rent! I need to pay the rent and I’m going to try this out.”

“Sigh, just tell me that you’ll wear protection.”

“Mom. Listen carefully. There will be no sexual contact.”

“The clap isn’t the only thing you might catch from arrangements like these.”

A guy about James’ age entered the bar and he knew that this was the mark. He wore a pony-tail with the sides of his head shaved, his designer sunglasses were painted to look like rough-cast gold, which was somewhat ironic considering that the rest of his outfit was taken straight from the slacker techie handbook. He smiled, but in a goofy, just-got-out-of-the-dentist’s-chair grin.

What kind of sick joker had told this man to get that haircut?

He saw James and seemingly speed-walked over. “Hey, you Henry?”

“James,” James said and stood up to shake the guy’s hand.

The guy kept his hands in his pockets, “Oh, no, I’m looking for a Henry.”

“Henry is my last name. You can call me James or Jimmy,” James kept his hand extended.

“Ehhh,” the guy grimaced with displeasure. “I’d already kinda gotten used to calling you Hank in my head. Hope you don’t mind.”

The guy took a seat and ordered a Blue Moon “with an extra orange slice.” James lowered his hand and took a seat. He gestured to the bartender for another beer. The client seemed to have a habit of jouncing his knee up and down levered by the foot rest. It made small ripples in the remainder of James’ beer. 

James briefly visualized the complexity of tying a hangman’s knot and shook it off.

“So, uhh, what should I call you, dude?” James said.

“Rick, just Rick. Don’t call me Ricky or Richard or Dick. I hate that.”

“Okay, Rick, so how does this work?”

“Hold on!” Rick snapped. “Lemme get a beer first,” he sneered at James’ social misstep.

James considered briefly how they go about testing lengths of rope, how thick does a rope need to be to hold, say, 180 wriggling pounds?

“Ah!” Rick had his beer, which he immediately fished an orange slice out of and stripped of its flesh. He tossed the rind on the floor behind the bar. “So, what were you saying?”

“Look, man. I’ll be honest with you. I’ve never done anything like this before. I don’t know how this is supposed to go.”

“Wait a minute. You’ve had friends before, right? Your resume said that you did,” Rick said, a twinge of panic in his voice.

“Yeah, of course! I mean, well, not ‘of course’... I just haven’t been a friend for hire before.”

“It’s easy enough, we’re on a trial basis right now, so we’ll do friend things and if it works out maybe I’ll retain you for a while.”

“Friend things,” James said as if he hadn’t heard the words before, especially not in that order.

“Yeah, play games, get drunk, hit on bitches. What did you think I meant, faggot? Huh-huh! All-right, let’s get started. Clock is ticking!”

“Pfft, not for me. Seems like I’ve got all the time in the world.”

“Oh, nice, I like that. Real laid back,” Rick reached over to stuff a ten dollar bill in James’ shirt pocket. James felt paralyzed by this strange gesture. The uncomfortable thought that his mother might have been right was starting to take hold.

“Thanks, man. So, uhh, what do you do?”

“Full-stack developer and project manager for Werechicken Games.”

“Oh wow, I love your games. I must have played Bullet Ninja for over two-hundred hours. Talk about massive!”

“What do you do?” Rick said while looking directly at James while taking a long sip of beer.

“What do you mean? This is it, man. You’re looking at it.”

“Sit at bars? You a drunk?” Rick looked displeased.

“I’m sorry, do you not want me to refer to the arrangement that we have? Is that, like, part of this?”

“Oh!” Rick slammed his beer down and slapped his forehead in recognition, “No, I get it, you’re a professional friend. Yeah, that’s cool. How long have you been doing that?”

James stood up and started to look around the room, peering for a long time at every person’s face he caught.

“What? What’s wrong with you?”

“What’s wrong with me? Are you fucking with me?”

“What?”

“Is this a new fucking MTV show? I haven’t signed a goddamn release.”

“Whoa, you went crazy quick!” Rick said with obvious amusement. 

“I just told you that I’ve never done this before, is this some kind of candid camera show? I’m not into that. I’m really trying to make some money here and I don’t want to get jerked around. I don’t go to your office and play pranks on you, man.”

“Haha! There’s no show, man. Hey, sorry, sometimes I don’t listen to people. I remember you said that you’re new to this. Sit down, man. Chill out!”

James felt the hackles on his neck settle and he felt kind of silly considering the scene he had made. This only compounded the uncomfortable feeling he had being a professional friend. He sat down and started drinking more in earnest, he was going to need a buzz to get through the night. 

Mostly James and Rick sat at the bar for another hour commenting offhandedly on things that played on the big-screen television. Laughing mutedly and sipping persistently at their beers. Groups of people come and go. Bartenders change shift. A viagra commercial plays and Rick laughs uncontrollably, James laughs along uneasily. 

After beer number three, Rick proposes that the two of them take shots. 

“The hour’s up, Rick. I think it might be time for me to be moving on.”

“No!” Rick shouts, desperation in his voice, which then cooled into a more relaxed cadence. “Come on, man. You don’t have any other appointments, do you? Let’s hang out, I’ll pay you your rate and I’ll pick up the shots. I’ve got the money.”

“I take it you’re getting ready to get roaring drunk?” 

“Come on, Hank, the night is young!” 

“That’s very true. It’s five in the afternoon. Aren’t you supposed to be at work or something?”

“Took the day off. Come on, tell me about your girlfriend.”

James took a seat. “I haven’t got one.”

“Oh, I get it. Hey, dude, I’m not prejudiced. Love who you want and that kind of shit. Sorry about saying ‘faggot’ earlier.”

James looked over at Rick again, “I’m not. I broke up with my long-time girlfriend last year. Before I moved out here.”

“Oh yeah? How’s that working out for you?”

“Terribly.” James paused and then turned to Rick, still unsure if Rick was fucking with him or not, “I’m sorry, are you not picking up on the fact that things aren’t going so great in my life as of late? I feel like you aren’t really listening or paying attention to social cues.”

“Shit, at least you’ve got good friends.” James recognized that Rick was referring to himself. 

James wondered if hardware stores sold rope by the foot or in coils and if so, how many feet would he need to tie those neatly collared knots…

“At least you’ve had a girlfriend,” Rick says. “The girls I get with, they’re great for the first month and then bam! They turn into bitches.”

“Is that so?”

“Yeah, you wouldn’t believe how many girls end up being all about the dollars, just want to be around me for my money.”

“Wait. You realize that the reason why I’m still here is because I’m literally after your money?”

“Yeah, but this is different,” Rick said and took a sip of beer. James sensed a profound statement coming, “This is honest.”

Profound or not, James couldn’t argue with it. The bar was beginning to fill with local college kids finished with their classes and even more finished with their reading. His eyes were starting to blur bright lights into sheets of glare and thoughts were flowing freer. He was finally starting to feel comfortable sitting next to Rick, even through the awkwardness. Girls were beginning to stream through the door and it occurred to James just how long it had been since he had had sex. Spitting distance from thirty years of age, he wondered if he was too old to hit on college students. Then he remembered his own college days and all the girls that he wanted to date who already had boyfriends in their early thirties. 

“Wow, this is my time to shine,” James muttered to himself.

“What you say?”

“A-ha, nothing. I was just thinking about how I must be too old to hit on college girls, but then I remembered all the girls I went to school with who dated guys the age I am now! Funny, right?”

“That’s an excellent point. We should get you laid.”

“Oh, no. I’m not doing that.”

“Why not? You said you don’t have a girlfriend, what’s your problem?”

“I’m just not really feeling it.”

“Alright then, fine. Help me get laid! Be my wingman.”

“I dunno, Rick.”

“Double the going friendship rate.”

There would be no more argument. James immediately committed himself to helping the client get laid. Would this make him a pimp or a prostitute or something new in the dim light of new millennium cell phones? James wasn’t making judgements tonight. Tonight he was making rent.

James insisted that they not immediately join the fray, but rather survey and consider the surroundings of the bar before going to talk to a group of girls. He ordered another couple of shots and threw his back with purpose. There were a lot of promising tables, but he tried to focus on groups of two. This way, Rick and he wouldn’t have to split their attention between many. A man doing well in a conversation with many women is liable to suffer whiplash. If the conversation goes bad, he’s liable to suffer a different variety of neck injury. He’d zeroed in on two girls on the far side of the bar. He’d already developed a narrative of them. Fun, sexy, spontaneous girl-on-the-left takes her more grounded and intelligent friend out to the bar for drinks, they meet two guys who seem pretty cool even though one of them is kind of a hipster idiot. At least the other one seems to know what he’s doing. 

“What do you think? Up or down?” Rick asked about his ponytail.

“Lord christ in heaven. Up. Absolutely up. Do not undo that hair-tie whatever you do.”

“Gotcha, going tight. Tight. Toight. Tight-tight-tight. Tiiiiiight.” 

“Stop doing that.”

“Okay.” Rick said and fell silent. Then, he did something that James did not expect, he allowed a crack of authenticity to shine, “I’m pretty nervous. I think I need another tequila.”

James put his hand on Rick’s shoulder and said, “No more shots, you’ll end up puking on the girls, and there’s no coming back from that.” There was something very present about Rick’s smile now and ironically, at the drunkest point of the afternoon, it had completely lost its anesthetic quality. “Alright, here’s the plan: We’re going to walk over there and I’m going to break off to go set up the pool table. While I’m doing this, you’re going to ask them if they want to play pool.”

“What if they say no?”

“You should be asking what you’re going to do when they say yes.”

“Yeah, but they’re not going to say yes, they’re going to say no and give me this look,” Rick stuck his tongue out and lolled his head on his shoulders making for a terminally bitchy look.

“Come on, you got to trust me. Trust your buddy!” James flashed a disingenuous smile and felt soul-sick.

“But…”

“Okay, now we’re moving, if they really say no, just improvise. Ask if they want to do anything else. I’ll roll with whatever you do,” James was impressed with himself. He was really taking control of this situation. He was making some good money, helping Rick out with his insecurities. He was positively glowing with masculine authority.

Or is that the tequila?

Nevermind! There’s no time for second guessing what feels so natural, so right!

James and Rick split apart and he grabbed the pool table’s triangle off of the light. He considered giving it a toss and catching it behind his back, but that might have been a bit much, he did toss it onto the table with a careless cool, though. He looked over at the table to see the girls staring blankly at Rick. He couldn’t read their expressions. He reached down without looking to grab the billiard balls to put into the triangle all the while watching the scene unfold. Rick gestured a little more than what was helpful and James wished he could hear what was happening. Then, Rick turned:

“Hey Hank, what was the plan again?”

James’ face burned in embarrassment for Rick, “Pool!”

James could only shake his head as he racked the balls for the game and waited for Rick to come over. He’d just finished pushing the triangle over the center of the table when Rick and the girls came up. 

“Hi, I’m Jennifer,” the extrovert said.

“I’m Lucille,” said the introvert.

“Hey, I’m Jimmy.”

“Ricky said that your name was Hank,” Lucille said. James watched Rick wince, but that was all.

“Oh yeah, that’s what Rick calls me. I’m a man of many names and aliases. The police station’s got an entire drawer reserved for me.”

“You go to school around here?” James asked.

“Is that your game?” Lucille asked.

“How do you mean?”

“I can pick your kind out of a crowd. You walk into these bars and practice your pickup techniques and “neg” on people like Jennifer here until she sleeps with you.”

“Lucy!” Jennifer objected. “I’m sorry, Lucy thinks she’s some kind of savant because she’s in the computer science department and has to deal with all the—” Jennifer remembered who she was talking to.

“Did I hit the nail on the head or are you going to feed me a line?” Lucy challenged Rick by looking him straight in the eye. 

“Look, all we’ve come here with is some homegrown, old-fashioned, how-to-talk-to-girls advice that we’ve scraped together from years of failure. You’ll not find any sort of social engineering at work here. I don’t even know a single pick up line.” James said.

“I know some pickup lines—” Rick started before catching  a silencing elbow to the ribs from James.

“So, you want to play pool or do you think that I’m going to somehow game-ify that too?” James said with a smirk more mischievous than he felt.

After the second game of eight-ball, Rick and James were feeling the hurt having built up their egoes on the first win of the night, only to be dashed by an absolute run on the table executed by Jennifer. 

The girls went to the bathroom for a time and as soon as they were out of earshot, Rick hissed at James, “Dude, this is going great! Are we going to take them back to my place or yours?”

“What? What do you mean?”

“Probably my place because I’m going to guess that yours isn’t that impressive.”

“Okay, that’s what I mean. You’re not going to get them to come home with you because you’ve been a braggart asshole this entire time.”

“No I haven’t!”

“You haven’t? You asked them how much they made at their college jobs and scoffed when they told you! That’s a dick move!”

“I’m not really feeling the friendliness, man. Wanna dial back the tone?”

“I’m giving you some real advice, bro. Whatever your image of what a friend is supposed to be, sometimes they have to get real with you and tell you some unfortunate truths.”

“And what kinds of truth do you got?”

“That in the past thirty minutes you’ve shown that me and those girls that you’re profoundly obnoxious. Your inauthenticity is practiced, you’ve got an overinflated sense of your own importance, you’re rude to people, you don’t listen, and and I don’t care if I’ve just talked myself out of a job. If I’m supposed to be a friend to you, even if only for a few hours, then I’ve got to tell you that you’re a difficult person to be around.”

Rick looked hurt by this barrage of criticism and it occurred to James that he probably just trashed his entire online reputation, this guy was going to ruin him on yelp. Rick’s eyes looked misty, but then his face morphed into a sort of resolve. He stood up and strode towards James, who thought that he was about to catch a fist to the face. 

Instead, Rick walked right past James to confront the ladies who were just walking out of the bathroom. He grabbed their arms as if to lead them out of the bar and declared, “Hey ladies, what say we go back to my place to fuck?”

This was clearly the wrong way to proposition these women. Jennifer gave him a quick spritz of pepper spray in the eyes and Lucy slapped him twice in quick succession: first pimp slap, then ho-style.

James sat with Rick in the park across the street as he wept the pepper out of his eyes. They had been kicked out of the bar for “causing a stir”. 

“‘Causing a stir’? Is that the official charge?”

“Look, buddy, you can pay your tab and get the fuck out or we can see what the police call it. You wanna hang out and find out?”

James had managed to buy a couple of water bottles before being kicked out and occasionally he would tell Rick to look up so he could rinse pepper spray out of his eyes. More screaming, more crying, more cursing.

“Goddamn bitches! Can’t take a fucking joke, I hope their vaginas dry up!”

“Uh-huh.”

“What the fuck are you still doing here? Didn’t you go through all that trouble to say that you fucking hate me?”

“Call it an act of good will.”

“I’m not fucking paying you for the past hour.”

“That’s fine, the burning should subside soon and we’ll part ways. Here, drink this.”

James handed Rick the other water bottle and Rick immediately chugged a quarter of it.

“It’s water.”

“Yeah, what did you think it was?”

“Don’t know. Vodka? Something? Are you sure that we shouldn’t call 911?”

“She barely sprayed you, you’ll be fine. Give it fifteen minutes. And then call 911 if you still feel like it.”

In silence they sat on a small grassy hill in the park across the street. Rick moaned and wept while James watched people stream in and out of the bar. 

James remembered how excited this particular bar made him feel when he’d first moved to town. He felt hip and young and outrageously important. But it wasn’t long before he became disillusioned with its cornhole boards and pool tables and beer-pong championships. Its cosy nooks and novel wall fixtures and endless draft selection became trite in time. 

Eventually, as his career fell apart, the place became a symbol of his embarrassment, a monument to his hubristic fall.

It was fitting that Rick chose this place, its extravagance mocked James and he knew he deserved it.

Rick was surely repulsive to James, but he couldn’t help but think that they were kin. The impulses that made Rick were familiar to James and he blamed his lost job and faltering career on them. Their shared naivete and immaturity bound them in a cosmic sense. This, James admitted to himself, was why he was still sitting on this hill with Rick.

“You aren’t so bad, Rick.”

“I’m not? Do you like me?”

“Not particularly, but you aren’t that bad. Just naive. A few more years and you’ll buff out those rough spots and come into yourself.”

“Aren’t we, like, the same age?”

“Yeah, but if you were a loaf of bread, I’d put you back in the oven.”

“Oh!” James got the feeling that Rick was about to say something profound again. “I finally get that phrase… Half-baked!”

They let that word fade into silence. James watched a band carry their instruments into the bar when he felt fingers in his shirt pocket. Rick had slipped a twenty dollar bill into his pocket.

“Thanks, bud,” Rick said.