DJ Eighties. (part five)

'hey man! how doing!'
'good man. good.'

short pause.

'So... we need to get you a girlfriend.'

I didn't like that look in his eye, it was hungry with help. Like many things, it made me nervous. After pausing too long, unsure of what to say, I croaked, 'yeah, boy do we ever.'
'Ok lets go find you one.'
'Whoa here? now?'
'Yup.'
'look, I'm not so good at meeting girls.'
'oh come on, it's easy'
'I'm actually pretty shy, in my own way.'
'oh come on.'

He put another beer in my hand and grabs my arm. He peers over the crowd, picks his target and drags me over to the first, and most importantly, the closes female contestant.

I quickly put on my best forced and awkward smile.

'hey how you doing?'
'fine.'
'This is my friend and he is without a doubt the best guy in this bar.'
'really.'
I blush and turn from the unbearable embarrassment. This is too much, it's fun, I'm totally without responsibility, but still, I'm emotionally incapable of handling the situation. I take a few steps back lean against the wall, smile and squirm uncontrollably just out of ear shot, taking momentary glimpses at my representative and the contestant. After an obviously cheerful and witty banter between the two of them, he comes back to me looking for new faces,

'No good. Keep looking. How about her.'

He's got my arm and we're off again. I take a position just out of earshot. My advocate gestures and talks animatedly with contestant number two, obviously, he's got skills and no fear. She laughs. She giggles, she turns and looks at me. She gives a little wave. I wave back. She Asian and very very cute, wow, he can talk to anybody. I try desperately to finish one of the two beers in my hands so I'm not 'two-fistin' 'er' which I'm sure is very attractive to all the wrong people. I finally clean out one of them and Kevin's back.

'Nope, No Good, Let's keep going.'

Upstairs downstairs he tries. He puts me on the auction block and nobodies bidding. Fortunately, he is drowning me in beer otherwise I'd feel rejected by every girl in the bar, which by the time we finished, was essentially true. But with the all the beer in my brain, it just seemed kinda like a race, i'm not sure what for but the less I thought about it the better. I'll just live in the moment.

We sat down for a moment to take a break at my request. Kevin runs off to get more beer. I think I'm in trouble, he has a much higher tolerance then I do. There's a tap on my back. I turn and it's contestant number two.

'Why are you so shy?'
'umm... I guess it's my nature.' awkward
'oh.' she smiles
'umm... Where are you from?' awkwarder
'Korea.'
'Really! That's pretty cool. How long are you here?' feeling better.
'another week, I'm recruiting for ESL school in Korea.'
'oh that's pretty cool.' this is ok.
kevin comes back with a beer in one hand and double rum and coke in the other, he stops in his tracks and wears a stunned, but pleased expression.
she continues, 'Do you know what?'
'what?' felling pretty good.
'You look like Jesus.' she giggles
'wow. oh well, thanks. I'm.. umm.' awkwardest.
'Well it's good talking to you.'
'yeah yeah for sure.' fight urge to run.
'cya.'

Kevin sits down incredulous,
'dude, you should have closed that.'
'see I'm no good at this, she seems really nice and pretty but, I can't do this. It's weird, it's...'
'you could have totally closed that.'
'well, like I said, I'm shy it's hard. I...'
'she is sitting right over there, go talk to her...'
'no no no just forget about her, well will find someone else.'

I'm ready to run at this point, but fortunately, this seemed to satisfy him, thankfully and we moved on. I know his heart is in the right place, but, the closer to 'closing the deal' the more uncomfortable I become. It's forced and awkward and worst of all it's obvious. I can't stomach it.

We take another tour of duty and I'm exhausted, I can't deal any more, I'd just be happy to go home. We sit in the smoking room and Kevin makes the last trip to the bar as it's quarter after 3 in the am. I'm slouched over, drained, frustrated and spent. I look to my right and a girl comes up the stairs, looks at me, stops, smiles, looks at the floor, looks back at me and walks over, I've never seen her before, she's definitely not one of the nightly contestants so far interviewed.

(to be continued)


Today's Song of the Day is "Jenifa Taught Me (Derwin's Revenge)" by De La Soul off their 1989 debut album "3 Feet High and Rising."

Crazy Fact: The stage names of all of the members derived from in-jokes: Posdnuos (born Kelvin Mercer, August 17, 1969) was an inversion of Mercer's DJ name, Sound-Sop; Trugoy the Dove (born David Jude Jolicoeur, September 21, 1968) was an inversion of Jolicoeur's favorite food, yogurt. I don't know about Pasemaster Mase (born Vincent Mason, March 27, 1970.)

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