Random Fiction Post. 99% of you can ignore this.

My best friend was excited that summer. He met his perfect mirror image in female form. I, conversely, was less than thrilled. The summer those two spent together meant that I pretty much had to take a back seat to the shenanigans. I suppose it is not fair to say that I had to, though I did.

Letting my best friend take the wheel was much easier on me. Specifically, considering that even if I do not concede, he would consequently drive from the proverbial back seat.

My memories of the events were patchwork at best but I was able to place a few things together over the four or five month span. May became July and July became September. The things missing were apparently not important. They never did come back to affect much of anything. A few key points along the way were all I knew. Points that were relayed to me through various channels: my writing, her or friends and of course, news broadcasts, police reports and court dates. Our myth, our legend nearly became greater than our deed.

I can still remember the first words out of my mouth when I saw her, “who invited the surly bitch over there?”

Stomping around as if mid temper tantrum, she was talking loudly and holding an Old Style beer in each hand. The beers sloshed side to side as she shouted and danced, her microcosm unfettered by the drunks milling around her.

My friend, almost always leaning over my shoulder, said, “I am pretty sure I am in love with that bitch.”

Not in the mood, I completely ignored him. I am still unsure of the forces which compelled me to approach her.

Ultimately, I found something beautiful about her. She carried herself with such a swagger but seemed unhappy about it. Her nearly flawless features were masked by a complicated working of tattoos, all haphazardly place across her figure. If I could have fixed her or possibly saved her were the questions that entered my mind. I wanted to either save her or to have some fun with her. The latter seemed the more likely since a man who can not get the things that go bump in his mind under control, could not possibly save some—

“Tattooed bitch,” the first words snarled at me were, in fact, snarled. Lip pulled up, spoken through gritted teeth. I stood stunned, not exactly sure what she meant or how to respond. “Yes, there is a tattooed bitch here with all your frat boys. Get over it.”

More stunned. “I…um….eh….you…” It was not my most eloquent moment.

“Save it polo-shirt. I need another beer.” She said, sinking into the masses of the Friday night bar scene, meshing with every sad soul requesting a drink.

“I’m not even wearing a polo!” I tried to shout after her as she sunk into the crowd, shoving aside all the drunks that stood between her and her next drink.

“She will be mine,” my best friend chimed in, once again, right over my shoulder. I rolled my eyes. I refused to humor him and break my pace.

The thing was, once I started drinking, I had a tendency to never stop. I intended that night to be different, as I always did at the beginning of the night. Starting slow, I would have three or four pints over the course of three hours. Eventually though, as my best friend began to nag more, as little reminders of the path I had chosen popped up, the beers began going down much more quickly.

Soon the beers would become shots and eventually, it was my best friend's coming out party.


My best friend's name was Id. He was everything about me I hated. He was my hate, my lust, my desire, my impulses. Id was everything ugly about me, melded down, brought into one existence. He was the worst thing to happen to me.

Careless, clumsy, trying hard to make right by himself, he was a space heater in a wax museum. Without much effort, he destroyed and disfigured everything beautiful that came near. He did not necessarily do it out of ill will. Instead, Id operated on a simple pain versus pleasure principle. If something made him happy, he did not care if it made someone else unhappy. If that meant stealing a car and me waking up the next day somewhere in Winnipeg, so be it (a story for another day, I promise you.)

Id was a toddler, a large toddler that drank and fucked and fought. I suppose not a toddler at all. Simply, he possessed the moral compass of one.

Typically, I contained Id. He would stand around next to me, invisible to all others, suggesting the selfish childish impulses of every person. As long as I was in control, he was ignored.

However, as my life took less fortunate routes, he found opportunities to take advantages of this and brought trouble. I had a less than secret hatred of Id. Unfortunately, he was a figment I could not conquer. In fact, I often drank, feeling sorry for myself because I could not control him, only for him to once again set out to ruin my life. While his commentary was almost always humorous in one way or another, if I could kill one part of me, he would be first and I would do it without mercy or regret.

It was one of those moment of Id encouraging me to do something against my better judgment. The tattooed bitch was gone and I had forgotten about her. Id reminded me.

“Follow her to the bar,” Id shout at me. He was now dancing around, swinging his arms from side to side, skipping, “I think I’m in looooooooooove.” He put his hands over his heart and swayed back and forth with the same smug grin he always wore.

“Fine,” I shouted back. “ But I’m only going to go tell her this isn’t a polo shirt and I’m the farthest thing from a frat boy,” I tried to justify what I was about to do. Truth was, I never cared if someone had the wrong impression of me. Fuck them. It was the major contributing factor to my younger brother being my only friend. He had the same attitude, which is probably why he lived in isolation and only sent me letters from PO boxes in whichever town he happened to stop in on the journey he set out on years prior.

Determination. I stomped to the bar full of it. Not determination, shit. I wished it had been the former. I walked up, pulled up beside her at the bar. She was leaning on the bar, cursing at the bartender for “taking too fucking long, you mother fucker.” I leaned over the bar and caught her attention. Her gaze met mine. Her brown eyes searched my face, obviously trying to figure out who I was.
Before she could, “My name is Joshua Mansfield,” I said, “I am not a frat boy. In fact, I am quite the opposite. I work at a book store and am a college dropout. I hope to someday be a travel writer and this is not a fucking polo.” I paused for effect, “now, can I buy you a drink?”

Good, assertive, well spoken. God damn it would have been awesome had I said that.

“Um….uhh….” Oh God I’m starting to lose her, I thought as I watched her start glance around behind me. “Jesus Christ you’re pretty,” were the words that came out. “Want to get drunk with me?”

Cue sigh of disgust. She glanced down the bar and made eye contact with someone she knew. Watch her walk away. Story of my life, I thought.

“How are you not a virgin?” Id was less than sympathetic and right over my shoulder. “Honest to God, I’m pretty sure if you said that to a hooker, a hooker you had already paid, you would get a refund and a handshake. You must have gotten really good at masturbation over the years. Sometimes, I would just like to see you get laid. Not actually watch by any means. Okay maybe a little bit of me would like to watch. I bet it is all clumsy and awkward.”

I had already stopped listening to Id berate me. Disheartened, I snagged another beer from the bartender and drank it before I walked away from the bar. Then I ordered another.

“Thats right, get primed mother fucker.” Id said, slapping me on the back, laughing obnoxiously. “Not like you need to worry about your dick working tonight.”

I sat down at a table a little less by myself than I would have liked and kept drinking. I was mid-swig when the tattooed bitch sat down across from me with two pitchers of beer and no glasses.

“Do you know how to macho mug?” she asked me.

I nodded and she handed me a pitcher. “Then get to it,” she said through a grin. “And this is a yes, I would like to get drunk with you. We're sharing a drink called loneliness but it's better than drinking alone.”

“Billy Joel,” I did everything but put it in the form of a question. I recovered from my excitement in finding a connection, “I pretty much love him.”

“As everyone should,” she raised her “macho mug” for a cheers. We tapped pitchers and just before we took our first drink, “oh yeah, and you’re damn right I’m pretty. I’m fucking gorgeous.”

“I think this may be the start of something fucking awesome,” an excited Id resumed his dance from earlier.

“I’m Josh,” I said leaning over the table to shake her hand. She slapped my hand away.

“Name’s Doreen. I’m the most bad ass chick you’ll ever meet. Congratulations.”

It was sometime in mid-May.