The Story of the Bouncer, the Stallion and the Very Strange Phone Call

I just got the weirdest phone call and have to spill it somewhere, so why not here? I have to process what just happened... Most of my friends already know the background on this, but if you just know me through this blog, it will take a bit of explaining to put this phone call in context. The story is a little too sordid to tell in detail, but I'll try to work around that as best as possible.

It starts back when I was a senior in college. Liu and I used to go clubbing a lot. At one of our favorite nightspots, both the bouncer and a bartender were into me. (Let's just call the bartender "the stallion." Those of you who know the story are well aware of why...) The bouncer was significantly older--I think in his 40s. The stallion is around my age (and pretty damn hot).

Anyway, I was dating B at the time, so my encounters with these characters didn't go beyond flirting and the occasional free cover/free drinks. But when B and I broke up (for the first time) in January of 2000, the stallion and I hooked up at the club one time. (God, I can hardly even remember the chronology anymore!) B and I got back together at the end of January and stuck it out six more months before breaking up for the second (but not the last) time. So in June 2000, I was again on my own and heartbroken. That whole summer I was majorly depressed and drowned my sorrows in a shitload of partying. I was still very much into my club-drug phase (which ended with 9/11 when my source dried up). Anyway, to make a long story short, one insane night, I got together with both the stallion and the bouncer. It was a crazy thing to have done, but it was totally a "one-night-stand" kind of thing and I didn't see either of them again or keep in contact.

This past July, a full four years later, all of that changed. I had one really strange week in July. The chance encounter with these two happened the same week that I met Narc! (Some of you may recall- my meeting with Narc is quite a strange story on its own).

Anyway, a friend of mine had a going-away party on a Sunday afternoon at d.b.a. Forget the fact that it was a Sunday afternoon...I was pounding down the whiskeys. From there we moved to another place, then to another and another, finally drifting from the Lower East Side to Hell's Kitchen in Midtown West. We ended up at a place called Rudy's. As we approached the door, I was shocked to see none other then that very same bouncer. I asked if he remembered me. Not only did he remember me, but he told me that the stallion was inside! It was the strangest thing. The stallion was sitting in a booth, chilling with a girl (who I would later learn was his girlfriend) and a few other friends. I went right over and introduced myself. He was excited to see me and picked me up, giving me the biggest hug. It was strange because we had never been friends originally, but it was a cosmically bizarre reunion that we both had to appreciate. The stallion gave me his number, which I programmed into my phone, but by the end of the night, I had lost my cell phone and his number along with it.

It turned out to be okay because the stallion called me about a week and a half later, asking if I wanted to get together. I didn't want it to be an "automatic" booty call, so I dragged VJ along for some female protection. We met down on St. Mark's. Once there, I knew it was all over for me. Physically, I was SO super into this guy. After just two drinks, I told VJ she could take off. She did just that, and the stallion made his move. This launched a two-three week affair fueled by alcohol, "medicine" and lust--just an insanely amazing experience that I will never forget. Probably a good thing--the stallion was preparing to move to California with his "fiancee" and I had to try to put the whole thing out of my mind. Also, we would never have been able to make it work on an intellectual level. While he seemed to have a good mind and be naturally smart, he wasn't college educated and just came from a totally different world than mine. He had worked for years as an exotic dancer and liked to tell me about all of the rich women he had screwed on the side. It's funny now, when I look back at this summer realizing that it was during this affair that I had my first few nights with Narc. I remember that at the time I totally didn't think Narc was anything special because he was in the shadow of the stallion. But now he's fucking heaven and earth to me? It doesn't make any sense.

Anyway, I feel like I'm getting so off track from my original point about the weird phone call I just got. Let me try to speed this up. (God, I'm such an annoyingly long-winded writer!) Okay, so the stallion and his girlfriend left town in early August. At some point near the end of September I was leaving Cheers at around 4:00 am (closing time) and a crowd of strangers I had met wanted to find somewhere else to hang out to do after-hours. I told them all I knew a bouncer on the West Side. We picked up two other boys at a nearby bar and we all piled into cabs over to Rudy's. The bouncer was there and let us in. Even though I was so fucking trashed, we exchanged numbers that night. That was a weird night too.. It's the night I met MarriedGuy (who was chivalrous and took me home safely that night). Whatever...that's another brief fling from this fall that I SO don't want to get into right now.

Just a few days later on a rainy Tuesday night (after a date gone terribly wrong with some loser unworthy of mention) I called the bouncer and asked if he wanted to hang out. He told me to meet him at China Club. I was already wasted and high at the time of the call and ended up heading out on my own in pretty incapactiated state at about 2:30 am. (NOT a very good idea...) We left China Club (where some asshole tried to take advantage of me while I was dazed on the sofa in the lobby) and ended up at another bar where I got even more drunk. The bouncer was super agressive with the suave compliments and sexual innuendos, but didn't take advantage of my inebriation or poor judgement. We did talk a lot though, and I think I revealed way too much about stuff I've been though in the past, etc.

The next day I was so embarassed. I called him to apologize, but he was nice about it and said that I had nothing to apologize for and that I'm a sweet girl. I think that over the course of the next few weeks I drunk-dialed him a few times, but it's all a blur. I just know that we never met up after that point.

In October (right after my tonsil surgery) the stallion called me out of the blue. I guess it got my mind back on those guys and that whole situation. Shortly after that I made a late-night trip back to Rudy's. It was one of those nights that I didn't know when to quit. I just had to push things to the extreme and party as hard as I could, you know? Anyway, Cheers closed up and I headed to the West Side on my own. The only problem--when I arrived I learned that the bouncer was no longer working there. I was pretty fucked up already upon arrival and a creepy old man at the bar started hitting on me. I was too out of it to properly resist on my own, so I asked the bartender on duty to watch my back and make sure I didn't do anything stupid or leave with the creepy guy. (You'd think that my request for help with judgement and impulse-control would be a sign to stop serving me drinks, but I guess not...) Anyway, eventually the bar closed up and the only one left there was yours truly. The bartender sat me down in a booth and he and another guy who works there were talking to me about some bullshit I don't remember.

At some point it was arranged that the bartender would take me home "to make sure I got home okay." To be sure, he took me up to my apartment where the topic of "medicine" came up and we started to indulge. I was sooooooo out of it that I really don't remember the rest in any detail, but things started to go terribly wrong. The guy tried to make off with my "medicine" and when I followed him into the hall, he assaulted me, hurling me against the wall. I bruised my head and got a few scratches from the fall, one of which left a scar that's still very visible on my left arm. I started pressing the button for the elevator which thankfully came quickly for once. I wedged my foot in the elevator door to hold it open, and told him that there's a security camera in there and that everything he was doing to me was being caught on tape. Suddenly he did a 180 and tried to make it look like I was attacking him and he pushed me hard and said "Get away! Leave me alone!" I was so confused. I fell down again from his shove and bewildered, bruised and shaken up, stumbled back into my apartment. The doorman buzzed up a few minutes later saying that the guy was back and claimed to have left his backpack in my house. I told the doorman not to let him upstairs. In the end, there was no backpack in my house, so I can only wonder what he wanted to come back upstairs for... (God, I shudder to think...) I was pretty devestated at that point and crying a lot. I called the bouncer to tell him that I had just been assaulted by someone who works at his former establishment. It was awful and I was probably pretty incoherent and hysterical on his voice mail.

The next day I felt embarassed about the whole incident (not to mention feeling physically wrecked!). I called the bouncer and apologized on his machine and said I would erase his number from my phone and not bother him any more. I never heard from him again.

I did hear from the stallion a few times after that. In fact, most recently, he called me on the Saturday night I spent with Narc a few weeks ago. (See my post Narcissist in the New Year). He and I have an interesting relationship. I mean, I do feel some sort of connection to him because we actually spent some time together those few weeks in the summer and they were absolutely amazing. I guess we're sort of "friends." But the weird weird weird phone call I just received was from the bouncer!

Even though we have had no contact since October, he just called and basically said that he was "calling me back" after that "strange phone call" he got from me "a while back." I pointed out that it was four months ago. I mean, that's kind of a long time to go before returning a phone call, don't you think? So what did this guy want? First of all, he told me that the bartender who assaulted me is an asshole and has been reprimanded for bringing girls downstairs at the bar and making them "uncomfortable." Second of all, he said that he wants to hang out with me and to "get to know me." He said that I'm sweet and fun to party with, that I can call him any time day or night and that it's never a burden, etc. We exchanged some stiff akward banter about how my school is going and what he's doing for work now. (I hate that shit. Didn't I get enough of that with PakistaniMan last night?) He asked if I was seeing anyone, so I said
"um, kind of...the same guy I probably told you about in the fall."
"The guy who's abusive to you?" he asked.
"He's not abusive to me," I said.
"Well, that's not what I recall," he said.
I don't know what he was basing that on, but my guess is that he mixed it up with another story I must have told him that night we went out. Either that, or I was terribly misleading in my description of Narc and completley incoherent in my drunkeness. I mean, I think he's been a little emotionally abusive in a manipulative way, but he's no wife-beater type or anything like that. The bouncer said that he wants to "help me get rid of that guy" and "take care of that problem." (Hmm...How are you going to do that?) Then he asked if I wanted to meet up tonight and I said I couldn't b/c I'm tired, but to have a good night. So he said "honey, you've made it a good night already!" This guy had a lot of slick one-liners like that tossed into the conversation.

God, I just don't know what to make of this. I can't take any more fucking drama. I mean, this is not real drama, but I already have enough on my mind without this whole saga being raked to the forefront. Whatever... I need to stop thinking about all of this and go to bed. I'm a monster glued to the computer. I think I've probably spent as much time blogging today as I have teaching. I'm a fucking blog addict. I guess it's better for me than being out drinking though. I wrote so much today that I don't know if anyone's going to have time to even read all this shit, but I don't care. It helps me to write it.

See, now it's past midnight and I haven't showered or schminkined to go out for some Friday night fun, so it means I'm past the danger zone. What a weird fucking phone call though! I don' t understand men. I just don't know how to navigate them. I'm too tired to think right now. Too tired to care. This is turning into a ramble...into some stream of consciousness freewrite that will no longer merit becoming a published post if I don't stop now. So I will. Right Hyde? Always know your limits. Always know when it's time to stop. That's always been my motto... Wouldn't you say?