Hope Idiotic | Part 37
Hope Idiotic is a serialized novel. Catch each new part every week on Monday and Thursday.
OUTSIDE OF THE CONDO, he called Mark.
“You around?”
“Yeah, just eating a pizza and watching some documentary about some guy eating nothing but McDonald’s for a year. What’s up?”
“I’m coming over. Just walked out of Michelle’s place for good.”
“Great.”
Lou drove straight down Ashland Avenue to Mark’s Bucktown apartment running only one red light.
“You okay?” Mark asked.
“Nope. But it has nothing to do with her. Come on, we’re going to a bar. ”
“What bar?”
“Any bar. Closest one.”
Mark’s choice was only a block from his place. It used to be the usual spot for tired drunks, union guys and neighborhood folk in need of a shot and a beer. Recently, however, it was bought by two spoiled twenty-somethings using mom and dad’s money. Following the trend of irony being cool, the new owners turned the old dive bar into a new dive bar.
They rebranded Zigler’s Tavern as Zigler’s Dive Bar. There was a bit of media frenzy around it, thanks to the culture-shallow editors at The ChiEye and style-obsessed producers of local news. The things that make a bar a dive are not supposed to be the things that are celebrated as a way to attract new clientele. But because of the rotting wood bar, torn bar stools, slanted pool table with a missing 2-ball and a CD-spinning jukebox, Zigler’s was the latest and greatest dump in town. The new owners brought in a chef who not ironically referred to himself as a “tastemaker” to rebirth the long-unused kitchen turning it into a destination for what one reporter called, “must-have bar-and-grill chic.” It was gentrification for alcoholics. Zigler’s was no longer a familiar and charming neighborhood dump, having become a place for other trendy twenty- and thirty-something go-hards to flock south to and pat themselves on the back for slumming it at a bar that charged six bucks for a can of ordinary beer. All this style over substance and jacked-up prices, when what so many people really needed at that time was a quiet place to hide from the crumbling economy and drink their fears away, if only for a few hours. The new Zigler’s was an insult to the hard worker down on his or her luck.
Lou and Mark shuffled their way around a line of people, and Lou pulled open the door. A large bouncer pushed it shut in their faces.
“Line forms out there,” the bouncer said.
They turned and looked. “There’s a line? For what?” Mark asked.
“To get in,” the bouncer said.
Mark looked through the window next to the door. “But there’s plenty of space in there. There are even empty seats at the bar. What gives?”
“Line forms back there,” the bouncer said again with even more authority.
“What the fuck…” Mark said.
“You ever been to this place?” Lou asked him.
“Yeah, maybe a year ago or so. Came here with some girl. Place was a total shithole. I don’t get it.”
“Fuck it. Let’s go somewhere else.”
“No. I want to see what all this is about.”
They waited in line another twenty minutes before finally reaching the door and the bouncer again.
“IDs,” the bouncer demanded.
“You’re new here, huh?” Mark said. “When did you start?”
The bouncer looked over the IDs then at the guys before handing the cards back and giving them the okay to enter by grunting, “Have a nice night.” They secured seats at the bar and ordered Miller Lites and shots of Jameson.
“Well, I have to say, although I’m not happy with this bouncer or these new prices, the girls in this place are far better-looking than before.”
“I’m not taking that shot,” Lou said.
“Shut up. You just broke up with your girlfriend. You deserve a shot.”
“I can’t do shots. You know that. My body won’t allow it. I’ll puke it up instantly.”
“You drink scotch and bourbon neat all the time. It’s the same thing.”
“I sip those.”
“I’ve seen you drink, Lou, you don’t sip. Come on. Sláinte!”
Mark gulped the whiskey down. Lou drank his slower and a moment later, spit up a mouthful of puke onto the floor.
“Jesus!” Mark said.
“I told you.”
Mark looked around. “You done? You’re lucky no one saw that.”
“I’m a professional puker. I can puke in public without ever getting noticed. Phantom puker.”
“We’re going to change that.” Mark ordered another round of shots.
After a couple hours of drinking beer and whiskey shots—with only the occasional vomit from Lou—and striking out with several of the pretty and prissy girls finding the broken pool table ever so charming, Lou and Mark decided to call it a night. Plus, Lou was barely keeping his faculties in check. If the adrenaline from the break-up hadn’t been at full throttle, he’d have passed out long ago.
“How much cash do you have on you?” he asked Mark as they walked back to the apartment.
“I dunno. Twenty, thirty bucks, why?”
“We’re going to an ATM. We’re buying whores.
“Shut up.”
“There, that 7-11. Let’s go there and get cash.”
“Dude, we’re not getting whores. There are no hookers in Chicago.”
“Gimme your iPhone.” Lou searched Chicago Escort Service, which resulted in a list of agencies and phone numbers. He pointed his find to Mark, then dialed the first hit. “Hello, I’d like to purchase an escort—no, two escorts for this evening. Yes, right away. An apartment in Bucktown. How about brunette and athletic. Yes, both of them, thank you. We can pay cash. How much? No problem. The address is—Hey, what’s your address?”
Mark relayed the address, adding,
“Okay, we’re looking forward to meeting the lovely ladies. Bye-bye.”
Lou gave the phone back to Mark with a disturbing amount of pride.
“Have you done that before?”
“Nope. First time.”
“How did you know?”
“There’s always a hooker at the ready, my friend. Now, let’s go get that money.”
“How much?”
“Cheap. Three hundred bucks.”
“Do you even have that much?”
“I need to borrow three hundred bucks.”
✶
AT THE APARTMENT, THEY EACH DRANK ANOTHER BEER and straightened the place up so that the hookers wouldn’t feel like they were dealing with scumbags. They turned the spare bedroom, which Mark had been using as the TV room, into Lou’s love palace by opening the couch that really was a sofa bed and throwing a few blankets and pillows on it. Lou found a large glass candle of Saint Casimir that Mark’s religious aunt had sent to him and used it as mood lighting.
When the escorts arrived, the guys were disappointed that they were not what had been promised. Both girls were brunette, but neither was athletic, and both had the dentistry of a 19th-century English servant. One was tall and thin with a flat chest and no ass; the other was short and squishy with enormous tits and a gigantic ass. Mark and Lou looked at each other.
“You take the tall one, since you’re taller than me,” Lou said.
“I can’t believe you’re making me do this.”
“And you paid for it.”
They paired off and went to their respective rooms.
“It’s very nice,” the girl said to Lou as she looked around the room. “What do you want to do tonight, sweetie?”
“What do you think?”
She laughed. “You’re cute. How do you want it. What do you want me to do for you?”
“Just pretend to care.”
All of the drinking made his dick numb, so they screwed for over an hour. Lou wept the entire time.
Across the apartment, Mark acted impressed with his girl’s trick of applying the condom with her mouth. She screamed like a bad actress in an even worse porno while faking an orgasm. Mark laughed a little. Because he wasn’t as drunk as Lou, his whiskey dick was more in tune with sensations, and he was done sooner. Plus, he just wanted to get it over with. He and his girl sat on the couch watching the rest of the documentary while the other two finished up.
Immediately after coming, Lou passed out. The girl emerged from his room and the other quickly stood up ready to leave. “Your friend is very said,” Lou’s girl said.
“Yeah. I know,” said Mark. “We’re working on that. You don’t happen to know whether your company is hiring any copywriters, do you?”
The girls giggled politely and left. Hearing the giggles, Mark wondered what they might have thought a copywriter was.
