So I moved to Florida. In my opinion there are two reasons why you move to Florida. One is that you are old and rickety and have decided to spend the rest of your life in a sunny environment. The second is to hide. I fell into the second although I didn’t know it at the time.
My dramatic, ill-prepared move was because I had exhausted all of my resources in New York City and needed a change in my life. Translation, a girl dumped me, I was drinking way too much, I didn’t give a shit about work, and I blamed the city of New York for my crappy life. It’s much easier to blame a city than blame yourself. I highly recommend it.
Luckily for me, my codependent mother who had absolutely no concept of the job market suggested that I move in with her and my stepfather to their house in Naples. My mother told me that Naples Florida had a wealth of job opportunities that would suit me. I of course decided not to do any research and trust a sixty-year-old woman who’s never worked a day in her life and take her up on her offer.
I learned quickly that my mother had no idea what she was talking about when referencing the booming economy in Florida. I think she was using a homosexual antique salesman roughly my age as her economic reference.
“A gentleman your age by the name of Troy runs a lovely antique shop downtown. Have you ever thought about antiquing?”
One time my mother even told me that a local butcher was hiring and I should inquire about the job. I wasn’t opposed to blue-collar work, referring to the butchering, but I thought I might be able to find a better opportunity where I could use my skills that I acquired while working in various job in NYC lying to bosses, staring at blank pieces of paper, and coming up with original ways to call in sick.
“There’s a flood in my apartment!” or, “My roommate just had a seizure and I need to carry him to the hospital.”
I also bought all these Brooks Brothers, striped ties at the outlet down the road and wanted to put them to good use.
A month had gone by and my networking techniques had not proven as effective as I thought they would be. I would wake up at the crack of noon, and drive my mothers Volkswagen Bug (the new shitty kind, not that the old one was much more masculine) to a bar or restaurant to eat lunch. My stepfather wouldn’t let me drive his Lexus because he was so sick and tired of having me as a roommate and thought that this would be a suitable punishment. To this day, I’ve never seen a male drive one of those Menopause Vehicles. At the bar, I would sit by myself and proceed to drink enough booze until I was confident enough to inquire to the bartender about any job openings.
I can’t believe I became the creepy, solo, day drinker guy. The hardest part for me was finding that happy medium where I was confident enough to talk to the bartender, while being careful not to drink too much where I would wreck my mother’s car. If I did feel a little too tipsy to drive, my drunken brain would tell me that it’s daytime and there’s no way that I will get caught. It told me that when it rained and snowed as well. My drunken brain lived a very reckless life and didn’t like to think about consequences.
I would gauge on whether the bartender was worth talking to by seeing if he or she would join me in an afternoon shot. I liked Sambucca during the day, because it made my breath smell minty. It was like mouthwash for alcoholics.
I had almost given up hope and was wasting my days hanging out at Harrys Bar, which had a reputation as being the seediest bar in Naples. It was an outdoor bar where you could hack butts and I personally liked it because of all the characters that would frequent the place. I was convinced that all the patrons were scofflaws and it made me feel kind of cool to be with my own kind. You see, I was once arrested for public urination at my alma mater. A liberal arts school in upstate New York. Therefore I too knew the cold hand of the law. Harrys was nice ego booster for me. Especially the plethora of hideous older women, drunk on draft Miller Lite, who would stumble over to me and whisper disgusting sexual favors that they were willing to do to me in the backseat of a car. Not their car because they usually didn’t have a license or didn’t own a car but they just needed A car. They usually had no sense of depth perception due to their inebriated state and I would always be amazed at the crinkles in their skin that could probably tell a story that would both shock, amaze, and might even make me dry heave, all at the same time. “If only those crinkles could talk.”
This particular day I was lunching on Catfish while guzzling Bud Bottles with a Jameson back when Rob the bartender came over and told me that his friend Big-John was looking for a bartender at his establishment. Just when I thought I was out of luck an opportunity comes my way. I thanked Rob and gave Big -John a call.
Two days later I’m sitting on a bar stool At The Beacon Bowling Alley wearing a Hugo Boss suit waiting for Big-John to interview me for a bartending position. “Look how far I’ve come,” I depressingly thought to myself. Since it was the morning it was relatively quiet and the lights were turned off in the bar area.
A cook with his neck covered in jailhouse tats with a hair cut that might have come free with a Megadeth ticket in 1992, carrying a gargantuan 7 Eleven Big Gulp Cup, emerged from the kitchen and creeped up behind the bar. There’s something about a man who has neck tattoos that just says, “I’ve pretty much have given up on ever trying to make a good first impression.” Unaware that I was watching, Tattoo-Cook-Guy put his big gulp under the Jagermeister machine and pressed the pour button. The machine started to rattle making a noise similar to a lawn mower, which I assumed was because it was the Jager Meister machines maiden voyage of the day being that it was nine am. After filling the big gulp with Jager the cook grabbed two Red- Bulls filling his cup to the top and placed the lid on it.
The cook slithered underneath the bar to escape back to the kitchen undetected when he noticed me and knew that I had busted him during his morning ritual of getting his breakfast power drink. I chuckled and gave him an approving glance trying to show that I didn’t care and I too was down with drinking at unusual times throughout the day. The cook gave me a surly, evil eye not giving a fuck that I saw him helping himself to the bar’s fixins’ and walked away while sipping on his 40 ounce Jager and Red Bull.
Seconds later, I heard the delicate patter of footsteps and turned to see that Big-John had walked right up next to me. I might have even called him Enormous- John since he was that large. I was so confused how he got so close to me while being so quiet. I even looked down at his shoes to make sure he wasn’t wearing any special ninja boots with the toe thingy’s.
Big-John was pushing four hundred pounds. He was all smiles and seemed very friendly and warm. I liked jolly, fat people. Big-John reached out his swollen fingers to shake my hand and I nearly fell off the bar stool from his grip. He laughed out loud hard watching himself inflict pain on my fragile city slicker hand. His laugh was real boisterous. I couldn’t help but imagine Santa Claus having the same laugh, after one to many eggnogs.
We made small talk for a little bit and he asked me if I saw the Cook sneak behind the bar for his morning breakfast drink. Big-John explained that it’s hard to find someone willing to get up a 6am to cook so management looks the other way when that Jagermeister Machine starts to roar.
Big-John held himself well and had a leadership quality that I admired. I knew that I wouldn’t mind working under him. After talking longer I got the impression that Big-John was the man to know throughout the town. More specifically I felt like he had his fingers in a lot of shady operations. He was like the Boss Tweed of the dive bar scene…which I thought was cool.
I was getting a good vibe from Big-John that he was liking me as he decided to sit down and get comfortable on the bar stool adjacent from me to conduct the rest of interview. As he was doing most of the talking during this time I began to size up his wardrobe. I was curious as to what a man of his stature wears to be comfortable. He had on this enormous bowling shirt that I thought fit in well considering that I was applying for a job at a bowling alley. What really got to me though was his, tight, denim, shorts. Why in the hell would a man of such proportion wear shorts that were skintight?
Then the unthinkable happened. Big-John adjusted his sitting pose and I don’t know if the rip in the denim-jean-shorts occurred during the adjustment or had been there the whole time but all at once his entire penis was protruding out of his pants in a hole right next to the zipper.
I didn’t know what to do. All I could do was just try to keep eye contact but even with eye contact, the peripherals of my lower corneas were catching glances of his exposed dong. My mind was spinning. “Does he know? Is he doing this as a test?” Then I started thinking, “How the fuck can he not know that his dick is exposed? The change in temperature alone would be cause enough for him to excuse himself and put on a cloak or something.”
I made it through the interview not being able to retain one thing that Big- John said and when I came out of the penis black out I was shaking hands accepting the job as the new Beacon Bowling Alley Bartender.
I had finally made it to the big time.
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