25th Birthdays

I knew it was going to be a special night when my coworker, “Mark” we’ll call him, called me at 5:30, already drunk on a bottle of cheap red. It takes a special kind of person to rush straight into an alcoholic binge at midday on a Friday. Mark is a special kind of person though and I seem to always run into him on nights where the only memories are those left in digital pictures and rousing voice mails.

The first stop was a nice little bar in Alphabet city, a bar with character. Looking back I don’t know why I was so surprised to find the bar so empty considering we arrived at 7. They had a fascinating mix of American brews which, aside from Yueng Ling, I recognized none of. I satisfied myself by relentlessly downing a delicious concoction named “Two brothers Cane and Ebel.” The discernable method I used for picking this sweet gem out of a list of wild and obscure names was that its alcohol content rested nicely at 7%, well beyond the 4.3% of many others. If that’s not a bargain I don’t know what is.

Some of our other co workers had joined us and I looked and saw Mark animatedly talking with them. I went and mulled over the digital jukebox selection trying to find an appropriate song to capture the moment. I settled on the classically obnoxious Def Lepperd mantra, “Pour Some Sugar on Me” and proceeded to entertain myself with the air guitar while people watched laughing at my ridiculous display. Luckily the bar tender for the night worked at the same company I did, albeit now in California, but tonight he was my server and was serving free round after round. “One more Cane and Ebel please.”

The scene started to pick up slowly as night had finally fallen and I suddenly felt very at home here. They left the doors open and opened the floor to ceiling partitions in front as the bar felt more like a Patio then anything else. As I was joking about an outrageously inappropriate coworker on our floor I spotted an Asian vixen eyeing our dear friend Mark with shrewd, lustful eyes. This is a woman with purpose I thought as she was clearly ignoring the three guys hanging on her. Mark, hadn’t noticed her though as he was savagely tearing into another cold glass of booze. He had a wild, primitive look in his eyes. He spoke with the same fervor that we were used to, but there was something different in his gaze, a reckless confidence perhaps. As I was walking to the bathroom before we moved to the next spot I overheard that same girl exclaiming to Mark how “cute” he was; to which I then heard Mark drunkly laugh and reply, “You’re pretty cute yourself.” Her over the top laughter at this barely funny remark only confirmed her licentious intentions for him. A few coworkers and myself waited near the front of the bar while they exchanged a few more words. Finally, he tore himself away and just told us that “that Asian girl had said I was cute, I think she’s meeting up with us at the next bar.” We just laughed and made our way to the next place, a bit higher end then the one we had just left at least from the fact that they had a bouncer, velvet rope, and dj.

We stepped inside and I observed an aimless sea of clueless women and men, idling over drinks and impotent conversation. I saw right away that Mark was intent on changing that as his stares shifted quickly scanning the place for potential targets. Uninterested in anything else but my next drink I walked straight to the bar and stupidly opened a tab quickly buying up a round to get the place started off right. We all toasted and relaxed a bit with some office stories of inappropriate themes.

Suddenly Mark blurted out that we should try and talk to some of these girls. I had seen him measuring up a group of girls to our right along the bar after they had bought a round of champagne. Another one of our companions sealed his fate when he dared him to go through with it. Before he’d even finished his sentence Mark had turned from us and was walking straight for that group of girls, it was eight on one and he was too blasted to even feel intimidated…alcohol is a holy drug indeed.

We all watched intensely as he walked up to the girl everyone seemed to be toasting to and said something close to her ear. I was bracing for the worst, a slap in the face or a drink thrown. Apparently though he knew what he was doing as she burst out laughing and then so did her friends. Now that he had broken the barrier we awkwardly made our way over to him, we could’ve said it was for back up…but the truth is he didn’t need it and we wanted some new conversation.

I must confess that I remember none of their names, and nothing else for that matter aside from the part about them all being there to celebrate the 25th birthday of the one Mark seemed to be focusing on, though it could very well have been the other way around. Either way, the two groups soon mutually lost interest in forcing conversation between each other and Mark and his nameless female companion drifted further and further into their own space. Our party found this social dance endlessly entertaining, however with a few glimpses at her friends I could tell they were far from amused as they saw their dear friend, obliterated on champagne shots completely abandoning them for some sleazy drunk bastard she’d never met.

I’m sure Mark made this girl’s 25th birthday one to remember as he succeeded in dancing, grinding, and passionately making out with her in a very public way. I’m sure he ruined this girl’s 25th birthday when after she said that she didn’t think she’d go home with him that night he immediately stepped back from her releasing himself from her desperate embrace, took back the drink he had bought her, chugged it and then walked out without saying good bye to her, us, or his sense of morality. It was a stunning exit, that left us all questioning whether he had really left until ten minutes later he still hadn’t come back in. It was quite a sight to see her visibly annoyed friends triumphantly saying I told you so as she just repeatedly questioned why he had just walked away and left, birthday tears shamelessly falling down her face.

It was a sad display and I couldn’t help but feel bad for her. I don’t think Mark will be getting an invitation to her 26th birthday and I don’t think she’ll be hooking up with random strangers again soon, probably both for the best. Bleary eyed and dizzy I thought about the reasoning of random hook ups at bars and decided that when left at superficial lust it was a perfectly legitimate arena, but that it may not be best method for finding a partner that will share emotional attachment…or a cell phone number.