BITCHES!

I've been in too much pain to sleep tonight. So I spent an inordinate amount of time writing this through the agony fog:

BITCHES

I had to go to the second-floor's bathroom because the first-floor's was completely mobbed. After waiting on the stairs for about five guys to come out I was able to go in.

I went to the one open urinal and started to think of when I was ten years old and the family went on vacation to Niagara. My stage fright was just abating when a guy stood at the urinal next to me and put a beer in a plastic cup atop the stained porcelain, directly beneath the pipes where the effluent water flooded down when you depressed the handle... And I could see the pipes sweat just above his drink...

My dick shrank until it was nothing but an oversized clitoris.

"Fucking bitches. I mean, man, you bring them out, you buy them drinks and then the bitches are like (he puts a childish expression on his face and speaks faux-apologetically): 'I'm kinda seeing someone.'

"Fucking fuck you bitch! Tell me that before I buy you five drinks!

"...I mean bitches, right?"

I was still trying to convince myself that I had heard what I had heard, which prevented me from responding.

"You've been there man. Watch out some bitch could be doing it to you right now."

He flushed, and with the sound of flowing water my dick reappeared and I pissed.

...If anyone would've taken the bet, my life was on whatever girl he came with not being the slightest bit involved with anyone...

I came out of the bathroom after washing my hands. The line for the women's went down the stairs.

I stood on a landing: "My friend just came out of here to go find us a table -- anyone have any idea where he went?" I asked, effectively, every girl on the stairs.

The girl standing right in front of me said

"Yeah, he went through there."

"Thanks so much."

I went through the door-frame-without-a-door and to the second floor's bar. I thought about how all my friends were downstairs... Christ, two of them had come all the way from the other coast just to see me...

But in my mind that schmuck was still pouring out bitch bitch bitch bitch bitch.

I sat on a barstool, turned it away from the bar, and spotted the fucker quickly. He was sitting on a couch, which was across from another couch (both running parallel to my line of sight) on which other guys dressed exactly like him sat (khakis, undershirts that clashed with their long-sleeve, pinstripe, button-up Polos, anyplace-brown shoes). And there were girls with them -- one apiece. The "bitches."

Every one of the guys was more muscular than me -- accomplishing a feat fit for a ten-year-old. But I had skill and speed... But not enough to take down three guys who, when I punched them, would end up less damaged than my own knuckles.

I turned my barstool around and ordered a Stoli on the rocks.

I exhaled from the bottom of my lungs, then turned around with the tumbler in my hand.

I was amazed to see the guy who had previously shit from his mouth leave suddenly to piss again... Or maybe to stumble around for a "bitch" who would appreciate his sensitive nature.

His presence on the couch had hid his leather bomber jacket from my view. It was draped on the couch's back.

I drained my drink and immediately began walking... slow, calm.

I had no idea what I was going to do, but found myself doing this:

I grabbed bathroom-boy's jacket by its collar and slung it over my shoulder, mid-stride.

"Don't worry about it guys," I said to the males (I would kill myself for calling them "men") on the couch, not looking directly at them, not looking away.

As I made my way to the stairs, down to the first floor and out to the insanity of Eighteenth Street Washington DC on a Friday night I didn't hurry, didn't complain when I was held up for a few minutes in the entryway by a girl who had lost her shoe on the stairs. I didn't look behind me.

I was either going to get the shit knocked out of me or I wasn't. I thought of the best position to take to cover my head and internal organs once they had me on the ground.

But I got outside and to the sidewalk to my amazement, and immediately crossed the street. I spun the jacket around my arm like cotton candy around a stick and held it close to my stomach so it couldn't be seen from behind.

Then I walked the mile downhill, home, never looking behind me.

When I got into my apartment, with the locks clacked behind me, I finally took a deep inhale and let out a long exhale.

Why was what I had just done so important to me? Why, from the word "bitch," did I have to harm that piece of shit in some way?

I tried on his jacket. Finding that it fit was an unexpected bonus...

I'm sure the douchebag chalked up his loss to a mindless act of theft...

But it's not about him and never was. It's come to be about the fact that every time I wear that jacket my shoulders go back and my chin comes up and I remember that I can overcome rational fear to do the irrational: what I believe is fair.

Mixx it!