A Night On The Town!!

Last night I drove to the town of Emmett Idaho to meet with someone I haven’t seen since 1980 or so, we went to junior high together for a year before I moved in with my dad and re-acquainted recently over Face-meh-book and discovered we have something in common besides Hillside Jr. High—we are both LIBERALS *GASP * ((cue ominous music))

In a way it is a little like a scene from Logan’s Run where Logan finds someone else  who is over 29  and who’s life jewel has gone out *Ally* ((Look around)) *Whisper *  ((RUN!!!))

SANCTUARY!!

Well, not quite but I am known for an active imagination.

It gets a little lonely in my head.

Out here, it’s very quiet. Just me and some birds.

Real ones, not the angry ones.

So back to the story.

Emmett Idaho is about 30+ miles from where my family lives, it’s nestled in a valley and surrounded by a lot of fruit orchards, the occasional hop field (Where the beer fairy gets beer from, don’t you know) and random dairy farm. When I set out on my trip, I of course checked the yahoo map to make sure I was going to the right place, I hadn’t been to Emmett since the 2^nd grade for a field trip to an apple orchard. I don’t know why I felt the city person’s need to check technology, like all the places out here, there are many signs to tell you where to go, you just look for arrows labeled “Emmett” and take it from there, silly me.

I had forgotten something about this valley and it didn’t hit me until I turned onto rural route 72 that I HAD been here one other time, my mid 20’s on a motorcycle ride with a boyfriend from my high school days, we went skinny dipping one hot summer afternoon out in a secret swimming hole.  We had a summer fling and he wanted to follow me to the city and I that’s when realized it was only a fling to me. 

I broke his heart and went back to my city life then forgot our romantic outing until this moment.

Amazed at my poor memory and callousness, I drove on and wondered if he remembered that day.

Coincidentally, I had just run into him the other day while standing on a corner talking to an old friend from high school, a truck drove by and the driver made eye contact with me and said my old name.

It was him.

He is married now with kids and a camper and a boat, no hair and smile lines around his big brown eyes. I have always been a sucker for big brown puppy dog eyes. 

They say you can’t escape your past and in a small town it is especially true, your past can drive or walk by at any moment.

But back to the present, or at least back to last night.

I make my way to Emmett driving down memory lane and then taking a left at the light to the karaoke bar. My friend and her boyfriend were going to meet me there after the cherry festival bands stopped playing and I was excited to go in and sing some songs on my own, I love karaoke and will go to bars in LA by myself and sing the night away.

I walk in and am hit by a wall of cigarette smoke. Of course, independent Idahoans would not allow a government law telling them where to smoke, how could I have forgotten?

I find a stool at the bar near the open door and order a gin and tonic.

The bartender is dressed in a black shirt and tie with a cute porkpie hat and a ponytail, he looks like a guy I know in LA, he stands out in the crowd of flannel shirts (men and women), baseball hats (men and women), and moustaches (men and women). The bartender looks at me in that Idaho way that says “hello stranger, you aren’t from these parts, are you?” all in a glance, I am familiar with that glance, something about 25 years of city living has marked me and even when I try and blend in, I am not from here to them so I don’t try anymore. He then hands me my gin and tonic ($3.50, suck it Los Angeles!)which brings tears to my eyes and not because of the price but because it is basically a tumbler full of gin with a tiny splash of tonic. I sign up to sing some Patsy Cline and a little Dolly Parton, order a coke to help me gag down my drink and survey my surroundings.

So much flannel. I notice people noticing me, not staring but that glance and I feel a feeling I have not felt in a long time, that feeling of being the Lone Asian.

Like the Lone Ranger but less heroic.

It’s not a bad feeling just one I haven’t felt in a very long time.

Sort of like being the two-headed calf at the Boise History Museum you know people are looking but you’re used to it, it’s as natural feeling as the second head.

My name is called, well, sort of she pronounces it “Po-zhjoe” and I hear echoes of

“Po-zhjoe?”  

“Po-zhjoe?”  

“Po-zhjoe?”

“Po-zhjoe?”

 As I walk up to the tiny lighted stage with brown shag carpeted walls. The two-headed “Po-zhjoe” sings and I feel another familiar feeling, the one that transcends species or heads I know my voice is good and I know it is always surprising for people to hear a soulful country belt come out of my two headed cow Asian person.  It is a magical spell I always enjoy casting. I leave the stage to applause and now it’s “Po-zhjoe!!”

Now here is where my night gets interesting.

As I head back to my stool near the precious oxygen of the open door, I see an enormous bear shaped-man has taken my seat and put my coat on the bar. I think to myself “Oh, boy.” Try and look friendly but not too friendly and reach for my drink and my coke-down-the-drink-soda and say “Excuse me” meanwhile another man, much thinner with a leathery quality sits down to my left so I am basically the filling in a very awkward sandwich.  The bear man lets me know he has rescued my coat from the floor and I thank him. I move to leave and he and his buddy say “Sit, sit, we’re all friends!”

So I sit.

I introduce myself to them, the mountainesque fella is named Dave and his friend mumbles so much I can’t tell what his name is so I will call him Mumbly for our purposes. Dave goes to talk to someone and Mumbly and I begin to chat, we talk about rodeos, how Nyssa’s really sucks now “They just don’t have the draw anymore, they can’t afford a carnival.” says Mumbly and he feels Vale has one of the best rodeos. I tell him I haven’t been to Emmett since I was a kid and he talks about how pretty it used to be and how it is full of lead and poison nowadays, I am beginning to like Mumbly, his teeth like a fine aged oak, he cares for the environment, has good taste in rodeos and I can tell he loves his town. 

I notice over his shoulder a booth of very drunk women with matching blonde over processed long hair and tight, tight jeans of varying sizes.

The drunkest and tiniest is wearing a tiny tube top and I realize she has “The Look”.

Now to folks not from the region, “The Look” is when a person is boozed up and wants to indulge in one of the more popular sports in our area, a fight.

Yes, women enjoy fist-fights as much as men and in my wild youth I admit I did indulge in a few.

More than a few, to be totally honest.

I haven’t been in a fist fight since 1985 when my most excellent right hook downed an intruder in my dorm who had just attacked a friend, to the impressed cheers of all the Alaskan boys who watched. I took a vow of non-violence shortly afterward but I am well acquainted with “The Look”

I hear her slur to her friends “No one will fight me” and make a mental note to steer clear of Slurry-Tube-Top.

Dave comes back and smiles at me and I smile back, he says the words every girl longs to hear in a bar “So, are you a lesbian, or what?” I am tempted to lie and say “Yup, Dave” and tell him some tale of my wife and our cats or to confuse him with my stock answer of “Well, I like dorky boyish men and dorky boyish women, but mostly I like the men” but that would probably just confuse him and who knows how Dave feels about lesbians or the ambisexual, so I keep it simple and go with “Or what.” and laugh "HAHAHAHAHA!" 

Dave smiles and after a brief pause pulls out his best line of the night “Are you a man?” and I say “Well, you ARE a smooth one, Dave! Does that line get you a lot of action?” He gives me his suave look and grins his textured British-tribute-toothed grin and says “Well I figured I should find out before I ask you to dance.”

Now who can turn down a line like that?

Certainly not this hippy, that’s for sure.

So Dave takes my hand in his meaty paw and leads/drags me to the dance floor, which is really a small space beside the pool table and we swing dance. Dance is a loose term, it is more like he swings me about while music plays and slams me roughly into his island-like-torso, my spleen groans and my spine threatens to herniated but I manage to smile and look somewhat graceful as we play a sort of musically accompanied person-and-bumper-car performance piece. 

I wonder if I might have whiplash as the music ends and I stagger back to my stool with Dave to rejoin my awkward sandwich.

Mumbly is there and all is right with the world until Slurry-Tube-Top gets a look in her eye and weaves her way over to Mumbly and though he and I are sitting very close, she shoves her ass in between us and leans into his face to rub his neck and whisper sweet nothings into his ear as she burns me with her cigarette, I brace my feet on the stool and lean as far as I can to give her denim-strangled-buttocks more room which of course makes Dave think I want to ride the Matterhorn. 

I am literally stuck between a rock and a hard place. 

I realize that all of these people are friends with my friends who have yet to show up, so I curb my instinct to tell Slurry-Tube-Top to get her butthole off of my arm and stop burning me with her smokes and instead grab my drinks and slide out and into an empty booth. “VICTORY!” I think to myself as I slide into slightly less smoky-burny-horny-creepy seating.

SANCTUARY!!

I relax and look again at the room, I see an enormous woman slow dancing with her tiny leathery boyfriend and they look happy and in love, I am jealous.

I wonder if I will ever be in love again, will I dance in smooth rhythm with someone and have him look at me like this tiny man looks at his lady. 

I sigh and gag down my drink.

I see the booth next to mine filled with patrons in their 80’s matching flannel, moustaches and ball caps men and women sharing a pitcher. A woman sings “Me and Bobby McGee” and I feel connected to my fellow patrons as we all wince in pain and clap politely, acknowledging that she did her best and grateful it’s over as is the way of karaoke.  I think of  all the short stories, plays and screenplays this night is inspiring when the other bartender, a beautiful Latina woman with that efficient calm that all female bartenders over 40 seem to have no matter what town or city comes and asks me if I need a refill, I ask for another coke and when she brings it back she refuses my money. Dave waves at me and smiles his mosaic smile and I realize he has given me a gift. He slides into the booth and we start chatting awkwardly when Slurry-Tube-Top walks by and asks for a light. Dave invites her to join us and the thought of being trapped next to her ass and penchant for burning me is more than I can bear. I tell her I am about to go up and sing and I need to sit on the outside “I’m naaaaaah gonnna to fuckin’ get trapped in that hoooooooooole back there!” she slurs at me and tries to shove her ass into the booth onto my lap and force me over. I repeat myself, then just get up and take my drink back to the bar.

An hour has gone by and I consider that it has been one of the most action packed nights I have had in a while.

My friend arrives with her boyfriend in tow and they are wearing tie-dye and I cannot tell you how happy it made me. It’s the simple things. 

SANCTUARY!!

Oh, Tie-dye what a sight for sore eyes!

We start chatting away and then it is that thing that occurs when you talk a lot with a person online and then meet them IRL and the only difference is you are hearing each other’s voices, I am totally at ease. Her boyfriend is equally warm and witty and we have ourselves a great chat. As I suspected they know Dave and Slurry-Tube-Top, I don’t know about Mumbly as he and Slurry had some sort of falling out and he left, seemingly to get away from her.

Like I said, I like the way Mumbly thinks.

We talk, laugh, sing and are the last ones out of the bar and as I drive home I think about the night, how things are not always what they seem, we are indeed all connected and if you get past a wary glance you sometimes make friends. Though I doubt Slurry-Tank-Top and I will ever be close and Dave is moving to Tri-Cities so our great romance will never begin.

 I am coming home for a longer stay in the fall and you can bet I will be making that memorable drive again.

Country roads really do take you home.