Friday Night.

Vodka on the rocks. Two limes. I almost pleaded with the surprisingly attractive bartender.

It was going to be one of those nights. I was pissed and it wasn't even 9:30, but there wasn't anyone I could blame.

It began the previous Wednesday with an action that was regretted even before it was completed. I was sitting amongst the wreckage of my emptied suitcase. Clothes and swim suits still soaked in the Mexican humidity. The high from drunken Baja peninsula love must have been long lasting, because I certainly wasn't thinking clearly. I was contemplating my weekend plans, only sure that I'd be making the six hour drive to attend a going away party.

But anyway. I sent an inquiry to the ex-convict. Despite having ignored him for the better part of two years, I was quite confident that he would speedily respond. And he did, and suddenly I had a Friday night agenda item. It involved a hotel much too swank for Minneapolis and what was sure to be an illicit amount of liquor. I knew I shouldn't have, but the forbidden always has an allure.



Fast forward to Friday. Short dress, copious quantities of mascara and sky high heels, certainly a formula for imminent disaster. I arrived at the hotel at the appointed time, the lobby dimly lit with eerie purple lighting and when he wasn't there and wasn't picking up his phone, I was truly unsurprised. Normally, I wouldn't even tolerate this kind of behavior, normally I would have just left. Instead, I found a seat at the bar and waited about 13 seconds for someone to buy me a drink.

Eventually, my phone rang and I strained to hear what he was saying. Fifteen more minutes or something like it. Those minutes came and went, I was growing more than restless. I wandered over to the front desk and inquired about room availability and somehow with a bat of an eye lash or two, I was handed a key to the 14th floor. If I was going to wait, at least I was going to do it eating room service and watching HBO.

He arrived twenty minutes later, knocked on my door and hastily hugged me, grabbed my bag and turned towards the way he came, indicating that I should follow. Confused as to where we were going, I tried to match his gait, unable to ask any questions because of the loud music escaping the confines of the hotel lounge. He flung the back door to $100,000 Mercedes Benz open and I climbed in. I was greeted by a man, slumped awkwardly in the front seat who was clearly enjoying the effects of some outlawed. substance

I leaned towards the ex-convict, who by now was on his phone. "May I ask where we are going?"
"Just down the street to meet this girl at my favorite bar", he replied in the matter of fact sort of way he always spoke, as if I was supposed to know all of this.
"But I need to change, I can't wear this to that bar" I said as I dramatically gestured to the sparkly dress I had so inappropriately donned for the occasion.
Suddenly alert, the man I'd never met asked "can I watch you change?"
I shook my head and laughed dismissively, "sure, but it will cost you".
He fumbled in his pockets and began throwing hundred dollar bills in the back seat.
I unstowed the pair of jeans that were smashed in my gigantic bag and wriggled them on in the darkness of the back seat.
"All done", I said as the ex-convict drove slowly though the downtown streets.

To be continued...