Some Place Better Than Here

Chapter 4: Here Comes My Baby/ There Goes My Baby

"Yeah?"

"Oh Christ." He smacked his forehead to his fist and shook his head.

The neon glow from a Budweiser sign nailed onto the nearby wooden fence turned the clumps of his uncombed hair a pinkish-red. I didn't tell Max the whole story of what happened at the grocery store; I left out the part about the douchebag ex-boyfriend.

"I told you, man, it was weird," I said and Max looked up, the red neon glow now shining on the side of his face. "When I got there, she had this super douche ex-boyfriend harassing her and causing a scene. So, by the time we started talking, she was already in a bad mood. I didn't want to bother her more. You know how females are."

"Run the other way, bro."

"Why?"

"Crazy, super douche ex-boyfriend? You're asking to get your ass kicked, man."

"I'd fight him back."

"Danny." Max raised his brow. "No, you wouldn't."

"Okay, yeah, realistically not," I admitted. I lifted a few dumbbells now and then, and I think I'm decently strong, but I'd never been in a fight my entire life, and I was planning on keeping it that way.

With a crash of cymbals and a fading reverb effect on the guitar, the band that sucked had finished their set.

"Thank you, beautiful people!" the lead singer, who was really drunk, shouted into the mic. A sharp metallic screech pierced through the speakers. I always cringe when I hear that. The bar applauded for them. Max and I joined in. It was the polite thing to do.

"Give it up for my boys," the lead-singer shouted excitedly into the mic, "Crystal Prism! Comin' up next."

The Mansion Club—or Mansion for short—was full of people, which was common in those days when The Alley sprang to life every weekend night between Memorial and Labor Day. It was an uproarious, unregulated, non-stop hurrah that started as soon as the workday let out Thursdays at five, and went on all weekend long until the first light of Monday's dawn. Heck, even by Monday's noon you could catch some strung-out rioter still asleep on the boardwalk.

Not that I personally knew the intoxicated delight of what The Alley had to offer. Only from the outside did I ever see within. Typically, it was when Max and I tried hanging out with some group on the boardwalk.

In the pre-car days, when a boy only had his bike and had to physically exert calories, stoking his already rampant appetite, to get anywhere, we'd bike from the South End all the way to Carraway Beach, lock up on any available steel railing we could find, and then go out in search for any mischief and adventure that the night had to offer. Max and I would loiter up and down the boardwalk, around downtown, back to the boardwalk, and repeat the pattern until we found a group. Any bunch of guys we might have vaguely knew from high school that were indifferent to having a few extra rag-tags would do. Max would try to impress whomever with loud-mouthed ranting of beers he didn't consume and blowjobs he never received. I can't clearly remember, but I think I would find a place in the huddle and nod along and yap in agreement with whatever the popular opinion was.

Between the lies of my kill count in Call of Duty or how hot I thought some girl I never met was, out of the corner of my eye, I was looking for love. I kid you not. Throughout any normal day in Gilmore Park, beautiful women held the same mythic status as the unicorn or the Jersey Devil. But my God, I don't know where they came out of hiding, but hot girls—anything blonde wearing eyeliner with hiked up jean shorts was apparently good enough to fit the bill—entered the dimension on those hot summer eves. One of them had to be interested in a guy like me. But they were always like a scorching mirage, out of reach. Always fenced in by some hotshot guy or disappearing behind the bouncer's guard into the bars.