“Dude… Come on,” he pleaded, sighing and shaking his head.

I refused to look up at him. “I said ‘No,’ Mike,” I stated.

“Look… All I’m saying…” He sighed again. “Hey - could you hit pause or something?”

“Don’t want to,” I replied.

“I don’t care if you want to,” he answered. “Just… do it, okay?”

I stared at the screen for a moment. Thinking about the situation now, I really shouldn’t have bothered… I should have ignored his request and went right on playing Mario64. But at the time, the fact that my best friend in the world was standing in the doorway to my room practically begging for me to listen to his desperate pleas won me over and made me do the courteous thing.

“There,” I said as the speakers of the television rang out with a pleasant little jingle, “It’s paused. I have paused my game because you asked me to.”

“Good,” he replied.

“Yes, good,” I restated. “Now I can devote my complete and undivided attention to ignoring you.”

We stared at one another for about fifteen seconds – which doesn’t really sound like much when you’re reading about it in a story published on the internet, but if you ever get a wild hair up your ass and want to test it out, you’ll find that fifteen seconds is actually quite a long time to just stare at somebody. And after that time had passed, he sighed, turned on his left foot, and groaned as he pretended to leave my doorway in frustration.

“Yes, fine,” I replied, unpausing my game and getting back to beating that nefarious little bastard, Bowser. “Leave. Mario and I are having fun without you.”

“No, no no no,” said Mike as he begrudgingly returned to my doorway. “It’s not ‘fine.’ You need to get back out there.”

“No,” I answered. “What I need to do is find that fucking green switch palace so I can get the winged hat blocks to turn on.” I finagled the controls a little to make it past an anthropomorphic wall that kept trying to fall forward and squash me.

“Look,” he stated, “It’s been three weeks since she left.”

I stopped moving the joystick, and I stopped mashing buttons. I turned to him and I sternly asked, “So?”

“So… She hasn’t even called you, Joe.” He walked into the room and stood in front of the television.

“I know, Mike… You don’t have to remind me. And you certainly don’t have to stand in front of my game while doing so.”

“Come on, this will be good for you,” he replied. “You need to get out there and get back on the saddle.”

“She’s going to wear a saddle?” I asked. “Kinky.”

He stared at me. “You’re an ass.” He made his way over the cord of the controller and plopped onto my couch.

“Yup,” I answered, scooting over slightly to make room.

“Kayte doesn’t love you, Joe.” he said.

I looked over at him. “She never did,” He reiterated.

I looked back at the screen, staring at Mario as he laid down on the ground and began taking a nap due to the lack of attention I was paying him. “Yeah, I know,” I replied.

“So…”

“So?”

“So, why don’t you just get past it?” He asked.

“Well… It’s not that easy,” I answered.

“Sure it is,” He said. “You just take every letter and email and whatever that she wrote, dump them, and move on with your life.”

“Oh,” I said, glancing his way. “That’s all, huh? Shit… Where have YOU been all this time, huh?!?”

“Joe…”

“Well, damn it all to hell!” I yelled, raising my voice. “And here I’ve been, like an idiot, suffering through this shit… And to think! All I had to do was throw some paper away and delete a few emails!” I turned my attention back to the game, jiggling the stick and waking my red-capped little plumber from his restful slumber. “You know, you should really be more careful with that.”

He sighed. “With what?” he asked.

“With that power you wield… The power to fix everything so easily. You might end up disturbing the great universal balance of good and evil that way.”

He stood up. “Fine… Sulk and cry, you dick. Skip on an opportunity to actually meet someone new and maybe have a good time.”

“Okay,” I replied unemotionally. “I sure will.”

He navigated the cord of the controller again and headed toward the door. “I don’t know why you have to be such a baby about it.”

“Who’s being a baby?” I asked rhetorically. “I don’t go on blind dates. You know that.”

“What,” He said with a sarcastic chuckle, “You don’t call taking a trip to Savannah with a strange girl you met on the Internet a blind date?”

“No,” I answered, “I’ve known her for…”

“…For a week,” he interrupted. “I don’t care how long you chatted with her on your little chat thing, you knew her for a week.”

“Get out,” I demanded. “Go meet your girlfriend and my blind date and get the fuck out of here.”

“Fine,” he answered as he marched out the room. “You should know, however, that Rachel says she’s totally hot.”

“Don’t care,” I replied, maneuvering Mario onto a platform rife with little gold coins. “Wait – how hot?”

“I dunno,” he said, pausing in the middle of the room. “Hot.”

“Like, Rachel hot? Because if she’s Rachel hot, I’m not interested.”

“Dude,” he quipped, “That’s my girlfriend you’re talking about.”

“Yeah,” I said, “And I hate her.”

“Yeah,” He answered, knowing this to be true. “Still… Show some courtesy, huh?”

“Sure, ok…” I replied, pausing the game once again such that I might pay total attention to Mike the Matchmaker. “The question remains – how hot?”

“I dunno… Rachel said she’s really pretty.”

“Pretty?” I sneered. “Pretty isn’t ‘hot,’ dude.”

“Hot, okay? She said hot.”

“How hot?”

He shrugged. “She didn’t say.”

“Have you seen her?” I asked.

“No.”

“Bah,” I answered, turning back to the game.

Mike left the room, only to return less than a minute later with his cordless phone in hand. “Hey,” he said into the receiver as he sat next to me once again. “He wants to know how hot.”

I heard some buzzing over the earpiece.

“Here,” he said, thrusting the phone into my face. “She wants to talk to you.”

“What?!? Who?” I said, placing the phone between my ear and my shoulder.

“She’s really hot,” Rachel said from the other end of the phone.

“Like, Cindy Crawford hot?” I said, knowing immediately who it was.

“Hotter,” she replied.

I chuckled a little. “Right… Just like “Scream” was a ‘great movie’,” I said, throwing her opinions back at her like so much rotten, fetid, disgusting, month-old meat from Kroger.

“It was!” She yelled. “You have no taste in movies!”

“I have impeccable taste in movies,” I replied, “and you liked Scream – AND you’re dating Mike… The combination of those two things alone calls your judgment concerning any matters of taste into question.”

“Hey!” Mike said, elbowing me, causing me to jostle the controller and send Mario over the side of a cliff and into an eternal abyss from which there was no return (except, you know… Restarting the game or something).

“Great job, fuckhead,” I said. “That was my last guy!”

“You deserve it,” Rachel said from the other end of the phone. “Besides, you shouldn’t be playing video games while talking to me on the phone. It’s rude.”

“Well, I don’t like you,” I said in reply, “So, you know…. Fuck that.”

“Well fuck you, too,” she stammered. “Look – go out with my cousin tonight.”

“No,” I said, tossing the controller toward the Nintendo 64 and lifting myself off the couch. “I’m not interested, okay? I don’t want to, you know, ‘Get back on the bike’ or whatever it is Mike thinks I should do.”

“Saddle,” he said. “Get back in the saddle.”

“You know, that metaphor doesn’t even make sense to me. It doesn’t even APPLY to me. I don’t even know how to ride a horse,” I replied.

“You would if you got back in the saddle,” He answered.

I stared blankly at him.

“Are you going to go out with her tonight?” Rachel asked from her end of the phone.

“No… Wait – why the hell do you guys want me to go out with her so bad, huh?” I asked. “What, does she just need a man in her life or something?”

“Tonight she does,” Mike said under his breath as Rachel began to answer my question.

I covered the receiver of the phone with my hand. “What does that mean?” I whispered.

“You want the truth?” He asked.

“Yeah, of course,” I said; Rachel still buzzing in the earpiece.

“Her cousin’s in town because both her parents and Rachel’s parents are in Florida for the weekend,” He said. “Some sort of adult getaway weekend thing.”

“So?” I said, ignoring the phone.

“So, with Rachel’s parents out of town, that gives us the house for the evening…”

“Oh,” I said with a tiny little bell going off in my head. “This is about you getting laid.”

“Well… No – wait… Yes, but no… You need to get back out there and start seeing people, man.”

“Hey, don’t turn this into a ‘me’ thing, you asshole!” I barked. “You wanna get laid? Just say so.”

“But…” He stammered.

“No ‘buts’ – you need a wingman, just be honest, man. Just say “I need you to babysit the cousin while I try to get into my prude girlfriend’s pants.”

“What did you say?!?” I heard Rachel say from the earpiece.

I realized I’d taken my hand off the receiver to point at Mike for emphasis, leaving it open for Rachel to hear our conversation. “Uhh…” I said, “I said… uh…”

“I HEARD what you said,” she replied. “Why do you have to be so crude?”

“Well, why do YOU have to be such a damn prude?” I said, turning it back on her.

“I’m not a prude!” She yelled.

“You’re not?!?” I asked as Mike buried his face in his hands. “Then how come you won’t just come over here, where you are one hundred percent free of parental supervision, and just get it on?”

“God,” she said, embarrassed. “See what I mean? Crude!”

“Whatever,” I said. “I don’t see why you can’t just come over here and get your jollies off. It’s not like any of us care if you bump uglies.”

“I can’t do that!” She yelled. “It’s… I can’t deal with you guys hearing us!”

“So you’d rather do it in the back seat of a Jeep?”

“OH MY GOD HE TOLD YOU ABOUT THAT?!?” She screamed.

“Of course,” I answered, watching Mike’s entire body turn red. “He tells me everything.”

A muffled noise that sounded almost like a balloon releasing air through a tightly-pulled mouthpart echoed through the phone. “I cannot BELIEVE you two!” Rachel said once she was done squealing.

“Yeah, whatever,” I said with a sigh. “You know what? Fine. You guys want me to entertain your cousin, I’ll entertain your cousin. Whatever. I don’t care. Just… She better not be ugly.”

“She’s not,” Rachel said. “I promise.”

“Or stupid,” I added.

“No, she’s really smart,” she countered.

“Okay,” I said, and hung up the phone.

Mike looked at me. “You just hung up on her?”

“Yup,” I answered, tossing his phone back to him.

“You’ll be hearing about that one later,” he said.

“Oh, I imagine,” I said, moving past him. “What time are we meeting them, then?”

“Eight,” He replied. “At the Outback. Be ready in an hour.”

“An hour?” I queried. “It’s only five o’clock, dude. We only live, like, 10 minutes from the Outback.”

“Gotta make a stop first,” he replied.

I looked at him quizzically for a second. He pointed at his crotch. I immediately caught on and nodded. For the normal human being, the acquisition of prophylactics should be a two-minute operation, if not quicker. You walk in, you grab a box, you pay, and you go. However, Mike being Mike, the extra hour and twenty minutes was necessary because – unlike normal people – Mike needed time to evaluate each product, analyzing both strengths and features of each individual cut of condom. Because of this, a gas station or convenience store was out of the question – we would most likely have to stop at Wal-Mart on the way.

Well that’s just fine by me. I’ll just visit the electronics section and fiddle with the television display.

“Are you ready to go?” He yelled as he busted into my room an hour later, almost on the dot.

“Yeah,” I replied, playing Mario64 again. “Just gotta get my shoes on.”

I felt him looking at me from across the room. I looked over at him – he was wearing slacks, a button-down oxford, and a curious look on his face. “Is THAT what you’re wearing?” he asked, pointing at my New York Rangers jersey and accompanying Levi’s.

“Uh… Yeah,” I answered. “Is that what YOU’RE wearing?” I asked back.

“Yeah,” He snapped. “It’s a date!”

“Yeah? So?”

“So…” He answered, trying to tie his necktie. “Don’t you, you know… Want to make a good impression?”

“No, not really.”

His face grew red. “Look, if you don’t want to do this, I’d prefer you just say so and stay home.”

My jaw hung open. “Really?” I asked with my eyes wide as platters. “What happened to the first 200 times I said that very thing?!?”

“Just…” he stammered. “You know what… Fine. Just… Go put on a tie and let’s go.”

“I’m not wearing a tie,” I said, performing a deft triple-jump with Mario to place him on top of the green switch I’d so laboriously sought out.

“Yes you are,” he replied, switching off the console.

“HEY!” I yelled. “I didn’t even get to save, you asshole!”

“Get up!” He yelled.

“Fine…” I stated, marching over to my closet. It took all of two minutes for me to throw on a pair of khakis and a button-down shirt that halfway matched, and then we ran out the door so that he could pick just the right style of rubber for his clandestine coital rendezvous… Which took about ten minutes.

We arrived at the Outback nearly an hour earlier than necessary. When faced with the question of what we should do in the meantime, my vote of “go the fuck home” was discounted on the basis that I was not the one in control of the vehicle that evening. So, instead, we elected to go on in and have a few drinks.

“But you don’t drink,” he said in reply to my alternate suggestion.

“I’m starting tonight,” I answered.

“Whatever,” he said, dismissing my smart ass. “Why can’t you just relax and have a good time tonight, dude?”

“I don’t do blind dates,” I answered.

“Yeah, you said…” he answered, turning off the car. “I just… I don’t know why you can’t just, you know… Give this a shot.”

“Dude,” I said, getting out of the vehicle. “It’s your sucky girlfriend’s cousin. She couldn’t possibly have any clue whatsoever what kind of person I’m into – and even if she did, she’d probably set me up with the exact opposite of who I would want to meet just to spite me.”

“Come on,” he pleaded. “She’s not THAT bad…”

“She isn’t that great, either,” I answered. He didn’t disagree. “Besides, I’m just not ready, you know?”

We walked up to the front door and entered. “Well, maybe it’s time you gave it a shot,” He said just as the hostess introduced herself, which prevented me from rebutting.

We put our names down and waited about two minutes for a seat, which ended up being in plain view of the Rangers game – thank god! At least this way, when Rachel and her cousin arrived and things went to hell quickly, I’d have something to pay attention to that I actually cared about.

“Oh, the game’s on,” Mike said, following my eyes as they looked past him. He swapped around and sat beside me to watch. It was sad that Wayne Gretzky was retiring, and even though Mike can’t stand the New York Rangers, he felt it acceptable to root for them for just this one year, given it was The Great One’s last.

We became absorbed in the game… Well, he did, anyway. I mostly watched the guys in the blue shirts chase the puck across the ice while thinking about Kayte… And that great week… And the nature of our relationship – if there even was one (or anything that could be considered one). I thought a lot about the things Mike had said – that maybe I do deserve a chance at happiness, and that what Kayte and I had was fleeting and temporary.

I thought about how this evening could be the start of something special for me. It could open the door to a brand new outlook on things… I could be starting down a new path with a new person, you know? She might be just what I was looking for. Who knows? Maybe Rachel wasn’t lying when she said this girl was pretty and smart. Maybe this girl was a total “10” and I’d be LUCKY if she’d have me.

Maybe…

“Hi guys,” I heard a familiar voice say from in front of me.

“Hey!” Mike said, shooting out of his chair to hug and kiss his girlfriend.

“Hey,” I said, looking in the direction of the mass of humanity that Mike and Rachel formed. I could see someone standing behind them, I just couldn’t make out who it was or what they looked like. “You’re blocking the game,” I said curtly.

Rachel turned her head away from Mike’s cheek and looked at me. “Rude,” She said.

Mike was also looking my way; his eyes opened wide. I guessed he’d gotten a look at my date for the evening. He was mouthing something to me, but I couldn’t make out what it was.

“Well, so is blocking my view of the game,” I answered with a smirk. “Where’s my date?”

Rachel smiled. “Well, nice to see you’ve warmed up to the idea of meeting her, Joe.” She broke from Mike, who stepped to the side to let Rachel's cousin walk forward and meet me. "Joe, this is Jennifer," Rachel said cheerfully.

Just then, I heard crowd noise from the television screen... Someone had just scored a goal. I couldn't be bothered to check who it was... My eyes were fixed and dilated on my blind date.

“Well, isn’t this interesting,” I said as she came into view.



(This is part one of a two-part story. Part Two is HERE. You will enjoy it, I just know it.)