Chapter 17: X

Welcome back to “week 2” of the Denny’s epic. Again, I do not feel that the amount of stories I have to be told about Denny’s is at an end yet. I guarantee that this epic will end when it needs to. This isn’t Pirates of the Caribbean 3: At World’s End and I’m not going to just keep going without purpose.

Anyways, onto the cliffhanger of last Friday.

***

It has been well established by now that Denny’s is the polis’s real night spot. We all converge there when necessary and stay as longer than we probably should. As such, the people that do converge there are often friends. Even if they are just acquaintances it is nice to walk up to someone and greet them. This is one place where we can all gather.

Because of its reputation as the singular late-night spot it also means the possibility of running into people I or others may be on good terms with.

The possibility of running into an enemy somewhere public is always around. I just witnessed it about 2 weeks ago when I went to the Cass Café with a friend. But with the Fort Gratiot Denny’s being the spot for the whole polis that means that once in a while I will see someone that I don’t get along with very well.

As last year was ending I went to Denny’s with my friend Josh and his friend Sadat. I had recently met Sadat over the Thanksgiving break after years of hearing about him, hearing his tunes, and seeing rather infamous videos featuring him. So it was neat to finally meet the legend and hang out once in a while.

I was enjoying a small portion of hash browns with a coffee as we sat and chatted about whatever it was. We were seated by a window and I took the seat at the booth so I would be facing the door. I like to know who is coming into Denny’s and maybe once in a while see a friend or know if any enemies may walk in. I like to know my surroundings.

As I ate I took a look at who was around. One table behind me was obstructed from my line-of-sight but I noticed there were people there. I took a closer look to see who was there.

Looking right back at me was the one “rebound girlfriend” I ever had.

(NOTE: I will not name who this is. At least I do not think that I will. I might. For now though I will not.)

The first break-up I had with my ex was back in October 2003 on a Thursday. We would et back together a month and a half later but it was rough for a day. This happened the day before the first public performance of Our Town at SC4. I had 2 parts in the play and I thought it was going to be hard.

After the first performance she started being really flirty with me. I had met her a few months before but it wasn’t at SC4 but rather at my job in Utica when she bought something from me.

At the first performance was some guy that had a crush on her but she didn’t like. She didn’t want him around and needed someone to pretend to be her boyfriend so he would leave her alone. Personally, I wasn’t looking for anyone since I was obviously still heartbroken. I didn’t let it affect my performance though.

This girl was insistent that she do my make-up for the show. I had two characters to play with varied states of aging so I had to have a bit of make-up done for my parts. I had never been in make-up before but I was pretty sure that nobody else in the production had a make-up artist’s legs wrapped around them. I didn’t think anything of it despite how odd it certainly looked.

It was after the show and it was decided that I would be the faux boyfriend. The ruse worked and he backed off. But by the end of the night I found myself quite interested in this girl. Even though she was 18 and I was 21 I thought she was cute. It certainly got my mind off the bad that was happening.

After the show that night we went to the Raven. We were sitting on the balcony with one of her friends. After a few minutes she shot her friend a look that said “get out of here now”. After her friend complied she took a deep breath and planted one square on the lips. There was some more kissing that night and I found myself go from fake boyfriend to real one.

We saw quite a bit of each other over the next two or three days. She was nice but I was finding out that we had little, if anything, in common. It seemed we enjoyed each other’s company. She tried to dedicate a 112 song to me on 95.5 that Monday. While I would rather have had a song from U2 dedicated to me I decided not to be picky.

The following days though she became the complete opposite. She was flirting with my friend Steve a lot. In my office.

A lot of things quickly built up between us and culminated for me during a completely useless 3 hour trip to Birchwood Mall where she was trying on clothes the entire time. And it wasn’t even that she was trying on clothing so much that she was actively teasing me with what she was wearing. I wasn’t interested in sex but she was being a tease and I never like that in a woman. Coupling that with the flirting with Steve I was getting mad. I decided that “date” to see Mallrats at the mall that Friday would be our last time together. While it is a little more complex than that for the sake of brevity I’ll leave it at that.

The Thursday before Mallrats she broke it off with me. Though we decided to go to Mallrats together still it didn’t end up being that way. We were at the Raven with RJ and the time to actually get to the movie was rapidly approaching. She was flirting with a guy that was easily 10-15 years older than her and I decided it wasn’t worth waiting for her. RJ and I left her there. She came about 15 minutes after the movie started.

I did find it interesting that within one week I had two women break up with me.

A few times we’d see each other around and we’d say hi. But I eventually found out that she was really interested in Steve. Steve was never interested in her and partially because of her treatment of me he became less interested.

But last winter our eyes locked for only a second or two. We recognized each other and went back to our respective parties. Even if it was only a second that we shared the mutual gaze it felt like I could have watched the entirety of Arrested Development.

Josh and Sadat insisted I go talk to her. I didn’t want to. They said I was being too scared but I wasn’t. I had nothing to say to her. I’ve barely even scratched the surface of what happened here.

I stayed where I was and continued having a good time with Josh and Sadat.

Some time after we finished our food she passed by our table to leave. She didn’t look back at me. I’m glad. Other than this post, I don’t look back either.

***

This relationship at least had the controversy to make it to a blog posting. It is a very histrionic post and even if I may have displayed some hints of immaturity I stand by the principles. It is certainly fun to read Rashomon-style stories though with this one in particular having wild inaccuracies occurring as frequent as "objects-thrown-into-crotch" in a Ben Stiller movie.