Mistress Melody and the Hairless Asscat*

There are three primary rules of drinking:

1.    Never drink when you’re depressed;

2.    Never drink on an empty stomach;

3.    Never mix your alcohol.

I’m sure there are rules for breaking up with someone, too.  On December 31, 1986, the entire rulebook got tossed out the window. 

I was fifteen years old and getting ready at Vi’s** house for a New Year’s Eve party of epic proportions.  Vi was my inseparable very best friend.  We did practically everything together, especially if it involved staying out all night.  Vi was my constant cover story, as in, “Mom, can I sleep over Vi’s house?”  - which usually meant Vi and I wanted to go to http://www.myspace.com/lamourrocks">L'Amour , The Rock Capital of Brooklyn (currently located in Staten Island), which meant we would be walking a couple of miles or so back to Vi’s house in the wee small hours.  This is something we could never do at my house because I lived in a “bad” neighborhood.  I wasn’t even allowed to come home alone after dark – not even in a cab.

That afternoon, Vi and I each ate a ham sandwich while contemplating dinner.  What was Vi’s mother making?  Did Vi want to eat it?  I thought Vi’s mom was a pretty decent cook, so I had no preference until the doorbell rang.  Then I lost my appetite for a month.  Vi’s friend, Melody, was there and needed to speak to me, which was total weirdness because all I knew about Melody was that she was president of the Joan Jett Fan Club, was a punk rocker who hung out with a graffiti artist whose tag was “The Mad Lesbian” and could totally kick my ass.  I feared her as much as I wanted to be her.  And there she was asking to speak to me.  I didn’t know whether to shit or go blind.  I did neither.  Instead, I let her take me by the hand to Vi’s bedroom.

She sat me down on Vi’s bed and while still holding my hand, which made mine really sweaty, she dropped the B-bomb.

“Jen, I’m sorry but Brian can’t go out with you anymore.”

 “Huh?”

 “We think you’re a really nice girl and it’s not you.  He’s just with me now.  I hope you can understand.”

 “Uh, we?”

 “Well, Brian likes you but he wants to be with me.  I don’t want to hurt your feelings or anything but that’s just the way it is.”

 “So he sent you to break up with me?”

 “Yeah, I know, he’s an asshole!”

 “And you’re with him now.”

 “Yes.”

 “But why did he send you?”

 “Because we thought it would hurt less coming from me.”

 “Yeah, um, it didn’t. “

 “I’m sorry, Jen.”

 “Yeah, me too.”

She gave me a hug and then she left.  I sat dazed on Vi’s bed in total disbelief.  Did that really just happen or am I engrossed in a story in my head again?    Vi couldn’t believe it, either, and laughed hysterically while I cried.  It only took her a couple of hours to get me laughing about it, too.  But I was still pretty raw when we left to go to the party.  I hadn’t felt like eating dinner after all.

When we got to the party, Vi cheerily spread the news.  There were lots of laughs and jokes about what a loser Brian was, along with quite a few “I told you so’s”.  Yep, I sure did know how to pick ‘em.  I started drinking a tallboy.  Then I drank two more.  And then Brian showed up and apologetically handed me another beer, and then another.  I lost count at twelve.  The rest of the party is sort of hazy because I was quite drunk.  Anyone who’s ever gotten so polluted understands that there exists a place in your conscious mind which remains completely sober, no matter how much you drink.  I call it The Inner Observer. 

My inner observer saw the bottle of Jack Daniels being passed around and stop in front of my lips several times.  My inner observer also saw the bottle of Absolut do the same.  My inner observer saw the bottle of Faberge*** brand champagne sitting on a shelf just waiting for midnight to have its top screwed off, as it got a big laugh watching my friends saw the tallboy cans in half to serve as cups.  My inner observer was keenly aware that if I were not careful, I would wind up looking like Batman’s Joker.

I guess that’s what kept me going all night.  My inner observer.  Kept me drinking.  Kept me making Brian feel even worse about what he had done than he probably already felt.  Kept me upright most of the night and kept me from puking on my friend’s dingy old couch.  It screamed in my head, “Get up now!”  when the time came.  Although it didn’t keep me from puking on my new boots and it didn’t help me walk back to Vi’s or from falling several times in the street and ripping my new jeans, it was present with me throughout the night and enabled me to have these fond memories of the oddest breakup and the last time I vomited (that was twenty-three years ago - there should be some kind of award for that). 

Overall, I would say that was the most gentle of all the breakups I would eventually experience in my life.  I wonder if it’s always like that when women break up with each other.  Melody and Brian’s relationship had outlasted mine and Brian’s by several months.  For about a year, he lived as Melody’s slave in her apartment, allowing her to, presumably among other sordid things, shave his body from head to toe and all crevices in between.  Vi and I would run into them on the street sometimes.  Melody would be holding the leash which connected to the dog collar around bald Brian’s neck.  To me, it looked like she was walking a giant plucked chicken.  He would sheepishly make eye contact with me for a split second when Mistress Melody gave the ‘say hello’ command.  It would have been funny if it weren’t so pathetic.  Oh well, he really was an asscat and Melody made his outside match his inside and in the process, did me a huge favor.  I wonder whatever became of Melody.  I never knew her last name, so finding her would be impossible.   Can you imagine the stories SHE has? 

*credit for “hairless asscat” goes to http://tightgourmet.pnn.com/12874-the-front-page">tightgourmet , who inspired me to write this story, which was originally inspired by Kerri's Bad Breakups question.http://kcarpenter.pnn.com/articles/show/58917-question-of-the-day-bad-break-ups

**Vi was not her real name but it did start with a V and it was one syllable.  Though I doubt we would ever be friends again or that she’s even on the internet at all, I still chose to protect her privacy.  All other names are real.

***This is something I remember distinctly, although a Google search only turned up Faberge champagne glasses.