I was desperate, and it showed.  No matter where we went I couldn’t find the Mojo.  I tapped my deepest intuition trying to read the situation, but everything came up cold.  It was time to abandon the heuristics and go back to old-fashioned math.

So I swallowed a handful of ephedrine and decided to try every bar in town.

I met Hack out on the sidewalk.  He was coming from one of our usual haunts, shaking his head.  We stopped at my car to swig whiskey from the bottle in my trunk and headed in search of a crowd.

Mr. Black was still uptown.  The last time I saw him was backstage at the rat hole metal bar I just left.  I expected him any time, but the police presence was heavy and his truck lacks certain important bits, like an exhaust.  Or an inspection.

Hack and I scoped out the obvious places.  Crowds were thin everywhere.  With everyone gearing up for Halloween, Friday night was about the worst I’ve ever seen it.  Even the busiest bars looked like closing time by midnight.  We didn’t bother sitting down.

Disappointed, we hit the curb again.

We paused to formulate a plan.  I was weighing our options out loud when a stranger approached us.  Hack pointed him out to me half an hour before when the poor bastard unsuccessfully approached a group of girls solo.

He was blonde and goofy looking, in khakis and a polo shirt.  He had a face like a salesman, and he was wearing a glowing Bluetooth headset.  He looked intent on conversation.

“Fuck,” I muttered.

“Hey . . . ! These bitches are pointless.  I don’t know why I even bother.  None of ‘em are gonna go home with me anyway,” he said.

Nice to meet you.  I’m Max.  You must be Hopeless.  How do you do?

“Try taking that fucking thing off your head,” I told him.

“Huh?  Aww, this thing?  Yeah, I just got it.  I don’t even know how to use it yet . . . “

“Yeah?  Well, you look like an asshole.  Remember when anyone who had a cellphone was automatically an asshole?  That thing in your ear makes everyone think you’re an asshole.”

“I’m just trying to figure it out.  It doesn’t really matter anyway,” he said, producing a phone from the inner pocket of his jacket.  He stared at it, expectant.

“Right.  Do you want to get laid tonight, or not?”

Hopeless explained to me why he wasn’t going to be successful tonight.  I looked up at Hack and shrugged before cutting the guy off mid-sentence.

“Hold on.  This is the reason you’re not getting laid tonight.  This right here.  Let women figure out why they won’t fuck you, don’t do it for ‘em.”  I said.

“Well . . . what’m I supposed to do?  I mean, they’re just gonna look at me and . . . “

“No, stop that shit.  Stop it.  You need to project confidence, man.  Nut up a little.  Just give it a fucking try.  And take that fucking thing off your head.”

“Yeah, I dunno, man.  I doubt it.  Whatever, right?  Whatever.”

“Yeah.  Whatever,” I said.

Hack had been smirking the whole time, but his eyes began to roll in frustration.

“Good luck with that whole . . . thing.”

Hopeless muttered something and started off across the street.  Hack and I sighed in relief.  I held up one hand and began again, listing bars as I counted them off on my fingers.  As I did I heard the unmistakable sound of The Abrams . . .

The Black Man had arrived.  Willy Pete once commented that Mr. Black’s truck sounded ‘like a fucking Abrams going by’.  No one would ever mistake the rumble of a small-block V8 for the high-RPM whir of an M1 Abrams.  Despite this, the “Abrams” does have a distinctly tank-like presence.

The name stuck.

Mr. Black pulled a left across two lanes of traffic and stopped.  The ass-end of his truck still blocked one lane and he leaned out the window.  I flagged him over and motioned down the alley.  He parked his truck in the lot and we headed across the street.

The next stop was an upscale college bar – and the only place with people in it – a spacious and overpriced spot for grad students and assholes.  The bouncer recognized me and waved us by.  We took a quick lap of the inside.

There were only a few girls in Halloween costumes.  Each was some variant of Slut, none of them terribly creative.

All that exposed flesh, I thought.  These girls were just looking for a reason to hang it out, and they’ll probably all play hard to get.

We headed to the bar.  I let Mr. Black lead the way through the crowd.  He stands my height, plus 50 lbs.  In a bar full of milquetoast white college students, he slipped through the crowd without uttering so much as an excuse me.

Hack edged up to the counter, reaching over and between people to order drinks.  He handed us each a Bud bottle and we turned our attention to the crowd.

A dark-haired little girl slipped into a seat across from us.  She had on some sort of corset arrangement with angel wings.  She had a pretty face, but she was underweight and about a full cup-size away from being attractive.  She perched at her bar table holding a giant rainbow swirled lollipop.

I nudged the Black Man.

“You got a couple bucks?”

“Yeah, why?”

“Go buy her lollipop.”

“What the fuck for?  I ain’t gonna eat that thing . . . “

“That’s got nothing to do with it.  Just offer to buy it, like you’re just using it as an excuse to strike up conversation.  Then take it and walk away.”

His eyes lit up.

“Come on, she’s perched there for everyone to look at.  Get her candy and ignore her.  Hopefully it’ll crush her spirit and we can give that stupid fucking pop to some other girl in here.”

Mr. Black laughed and made the direct play.  I couldn’t hear a word he said over the music, but the girl looked at points surprised and confused.  Then I realized things were taking an awfully long time.  Mr. Black produced money from his pockets.  Hack and I looked at each other.  I suspected our plan was failing.

The Black Man’s posture straightened and he stuffed the cash back in his pocket and walked back over to us.

“I offered the bitch twenty bucks and she wouldn’t take it . . . “

“What!?  Fuck, man . . . I was talking like five dollars.”

“She wanted forty!  I told her to fuckin’ forget it.”

“Goddamned right, forget it.”

Hack nudged me.

“Here comes our friend again . . . “

It was Hopeless.  He had removed the Bluetooth headset, but he looked as unsure of himself as ever.  He was carrying a beer and walked straight up to three people – two girls and a guy – standing next to us.  I didn’t see what happened because I was too busy laughing in the other direction.

Hopeless came walking over to us, shoulders slumped.  I did the math myself on the outcome of his most recent attempt.  He struck up a conversation with Hack about the fruitlessness of his approach.  Mr. Black looked at me, confused.  The expression on his face said: You know this fuckin’ guy?

I shook my head at him, motioning to suggest that I’d explain later.

Hopeless introduced himself again, for the Black Man’s benefit.  I nodded and promptly forgot his name, staring instead at someone’s cleavage across the bar.  Hopeless started in again, listing all the reasons he didn’t pass muster by some abstract Female Standard.  I checked the time and began gesticulating at him with my phone.

“Listen . . . there’s fuck-all anybody’s gonna tell you that’s gonna do you one bit of good.  I mean,” I paused, squinting and looking around the bar for help, “Jesus, man . . . just hit on anything with a pulse.  Look for the easy hit.

“Find somebody who’s drunk enough to fuck you.  Just make sure she’s not so drunk it qualifies as rape, alright?”

He laughed.  I wasn’t joking, but it seemed to bolster his spirits.

“With my luck they probably would, too . . . I mean, like that girl, right there.  That girl would never even talk to me.”

He was looking at the girl with the lollipop.  Hack laughed.

“Fuck it.  Talk to her.  What’s the worst she can say?  ’No’?  Everyone else has told you No tonight, what the fuck have you got to lose?  If she isn’t interested, it’s her fucking loss, right?”

Somewhere inside, this guy’s plight mirrored my own.  All I wanted was a place to drink with a seat at the bar and a glass of decent bourbon.  I was willing to walk all over Hell’s acre to find what I wanted.  Why shouldn’t this guy?

“Just introduce yourself and try not to spill beer on her.”

“Hey, thanks fellas.” he said.

He started to turn away, but stopped.

“So, what are you, like some kind of pick-up artist or something?”

I didn’t laugh.  No one has ever accused me of being an artist of any sort, much less that sort.  I sneered at the idea.

“No, I’ve just got a chip on my shoulder and a drinking problem.  I don’t care what the fuck any of these people think, and neither should you.”

He offered me his hand (palm up, I noticed) and I slapped him on the shoulder.  He turned and marched straight over to Lolligirl, who had just been talking to some other douchebag.  We didn’t stick around to find out how things turned out for Hopeless.  When we left he was still talking to her.

We decided to press on to another bar – closed – and another.  One had a cover, which we refused.  Another was too “dark”, even for Mr. Black’s liking, which Hack found interminably funny.

It wasn’t even three o’clock when we realized our search was hopeless too . . .

I was angry.  I felt as though I had been cheated – robbed of a Friday night.  My feet hurt.  My pulse throbbed from the steady drip of adrenalin that was keeping me awake.

It was The Goal, or my failure to attain it, that set me on edge.  I knew exactly what I was looking for, but I wouldn’t be able to tell you specifically what it was if Hack hadn’t pointed it out . . .

I was looking for a good bad time.

-    -    -

I heard the words playing in the back of my head.

“It’s one of those nights . . .

There’s warm beer, and cold women.

No I just don’t fit in.

Every joint I stumble into tonight

That’s just how it’s been . . . “