our dinner with the manly-men
Justin and I went out to dinner last night, to our favorite restaurant. Normally we go there on Saturday afternoons and sit in leisure and talk over our steak chili. But this being one of those incredibly rare Saturdays when I have my children, we went out last night instead.
We sat in smoking, because Justin still smokes and because it's less wait for a table on a Friday night. Oh yes, Friday night. The smoking section is in the bar. It is elevated up from the bar floor, but it's still right there, in the room full of happy hour drinkers - mostly middle aged men with beer bellies and older women with too much make up.
We think twice about coming to a bar/restaurant on a Friday night of a holiday weekend and sitting in the bar, but we are starving, so we stay. I order the steak salad, he orders the chili. The waitress moves in slow motion. The bar fills with cigar smoke. Our conversation is dead because my hoarse, almost gone voice cannot make itself heard over the cackling of the two hair-sprayed women sitting three feet from us in the bar.
After what seems like forever, our food arrives. Drinks? What happened to the drinks? The waitress looks dumbfounded. Maybe just dumb. She makes her way through the ever-growing crowd of paunchy men to get us our drinks. I guess she forgot to take the map with her, because she obviously got lost. How else could you explain taking over ten minutes to get an iced tea? Oh, there she is. She's at the bar. Smiling at the paunchy men. I try to use the force to get her to move from the bar to our table, but no. She is mesmerized by something on the television now. Rocket Power. My waitress is making me die of thirst so she can watch Nickelodeon.
Finally, she tears herself away from her cartoons long enough to remember our drinks. By now we are halfway done with our dinner. We commit ourselves to enjoying the rest of our meal.
Now, picture how this is set up. We are on an elevated platform. There is about 1 foot of space between the table and the short divider wall that separates us from the bar. That space is used for the diners to walk through and for the waitstaff to tend to the tables. The wall and platform are not high. You could conceivably stand there if say, the bar floor is too crowded but you still wanted to talk to your friends. You would just come around up to the platform, park your beer on the divider, and hang over it and talk to your buddies. The only problem is.....
"Excuse me, but I'd rather not have your ass in my face while I am eating."
There's a big marine-type man and his equally macho friend standing in our one foot space, leaning over the divider to talk to the two cackling women. They are leaning in such a way that I can see the lines of their tighty whities through their Dockers. They are making small talk with the women, a conversation I can hear every bit of because these macho men talk in booming voices. It's one of those converstations that center around being a manly-man. On the tv above the bar, CNN or one of those news stations is showing a press conference about the church sexual abuse scandal. The manly-men and cackly women talk about it. I hear the word faggot one time too many. The women laugh. The manly-men make snide remarks about fags.
"Excuse me, I'd rather not have your ugly ass in my face while I'm eating."
Of course he doesn't hear me. I can barely talk above a whisper. I tap him on the back of his college football sweatshirt. He turns, disturbed that someone touched him.
"Do you think you can move somewhere else? Your ass is in my face. I am eating."
He hears me. He snickers. He turns around and continues his tale about how he once beat up a fag for standing too close to him.
We ask our waitress for the check. Now, we tell her. Not a half hour from now. Now. We want out. She throws the check on the table and we leave enough to cover the bill and a 10% tip because I am generally not a bad tipper, but when you choose to watch a kiddie cartoon rather than bring me my drink, you suck.
We stand up to try to make our way through the one foot space, down the platform and out the door. The manly-men don't move.
"Excuse me," Justin says a bit too politely. They don't move their big asses.
"Excuse me," He says again, a bit more edge to his voice. They don't move.
I barge past the one standing closest to me, nearly causing him to spill his drink while I brush against him. I mutter something I know he can't hear under my breath.
Justin is right behind me. Instead of brushing past the man closest to him, he turns sideways so he is facing the man's back. There is barely any room for both of them, and Justin has to squeeze by him to get by. Justin stops for a second, presses his crotch against the manly-man's backside and says, loud enough for the other manly-man to hear, "Nice ass, buddy. Thanks for the view." And then licks his lips and winks at the guy.
We get down the platform and turn back to see the manly-man staring at Justin, a look of disgust on his face. Good thing he was too stunned to come after us.