CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 3 - Jake

So, I went to meet up with Wes and friends at Morning Bar.  He had earlier told me that we would go to Jezebel's, because he was taking out a client and he thought it would be a good idea to go to a strip club (even though it was a female client).  Sounded like a plan to me.  Meet up at Morning Bar and let's do this.

It was freaking cold.

I stop at the ATM on 18th and Spruce before going, since, you know, you need cash for a strip club.  The ATM asks me all the standard questions about what I want to do, then it kicks out my card saying it's invalid.  What's the deal there?   I go a little further, this time to the ATM on 19th and Walnut and the same thing happens, after I finally get done waiting for some chick to finish up there.  I go across the street one more time, have to instruct some old couple how to use the ATM, and then while I'm waiting for them to finish, I finally look at my card and realize it expired last month.  Shit.

I headed over to Morning Bar finally, and it takes a good five minutes to warm up.   It's on the second floor, which provides a nice view of the street below from its windows. A very narrow place, the bar on one side, tables lining the windows on the other side. I relay to Wes what happened, he gave me the requisite "Oh, that sucks" response, and we move on.

It's Wes and a bunch of other people from his company and their client (the aforementioned female who may have interest in going to Jezebel's) and some older dude from another company named Aaron.  Two guys Wes works with who I've met before (Fred and Jorge) are also there.

It quickly becomes a running joke (which I'm sure it already was before I got there) that even though Jorge is from Argentina, everyone just names a Latin American country to say he's from, since, you know, they're all the same anyway.

We had the same waitress I often have at Morning Bar, this cute little brunette.  I don't know her name.  Maybe I'll ask one day, but probably not.

At some point Wes and I both do a literal double take when a new, beautiful (from behind, at least) girl walks by, with jeans that were ridiculously tight and low-sitting enough to make it clear that she probably wasn't wearing any underwear underneath.  And she had a very nice ass.  By the second time she walked by I realized I'd spend about a total of thirty seconds staring at her ass and zero seconds seeing her face.  Oops.  Wes' female client (what was her name?  I don't remember) made a comment about us staring, but I don't think she was upset, I think she was laughing.

The people next to us apparently ordered pizza and then disappeared, because it's just sitting there.  Wes goes and grabs a slice even though he had just ordered his own pizza.  And then he grabs another.  It's pretty clear that no one's coming back any time soon.

A little later, a bunch of people do show up and start going for the pizza.  We're not sure if it's theirs or if they've been eying it like Wes was.  So, the female client runs over and yells "HEY, that's OUR pizza!"  which immediately gets a reaction.  I think she leaves it with "You guys can have some".

Somehow the conversation turns to something a few of us saw on TV where some guy at a bar punched a girl in the face.  Half the group had seen it, half hadn't.  Jorge is demonstrating what it looked like by pretending to punch their female client in the face.  He says, "Man, if I did that for real, I'd be off your account so fast".

I reply, "Dude, if you did that, they'd deport your ass back to Mexico City".  Everyone laughs, but Wes especially loses his shit and can't talk for a good three minutes afterward.

To celebrate the hilarity of my joke, I ask if everyone wants to do a shot of tequila, in honor of Jorge.  They say sure.  I call the waitress over and order six shots.  She asks if I have a preference and starts listing what they have.  I say "Just bring the cheapest one you have, these guys won't know the difference.  I mean, I will, though, because I'm classy".  I say this just to her, as we're at one of those stand-up high tables on the same side of the room as the bar and she's behind me and no one else can hear.  She asks if I want them chilled, Wes hears this and says "Yea, definitely".

The shots come, we cheers to something I don't remember.  Everyone says the shot was tasty.  Oh well.

It's at this point where I notice a hot girl and her not so great looking friend have sat down at the table right near us.  The hot one is drinking wine.  I make eye contact with the hot one a few times over the next ten minutes.  Wes notices her, too, and we start talking about her.  She's thin, smallish, her face has a bit of a flat shape, but in a good way and it's very very easy to look at.  Dirty blond / light brown hair, I can't really tell in this light.  But, it's straight and long, past her shoulders.

At some point I go over to their table and ask if she's my friend "Ann".  She says "No, my name's Jill, why?"  I explain that I was supposed to meet someone named "Ann" here and that the only way she described herself was to say that she would be the most beautiful girl I'd ever seen, so I just figured you must be her.  I could tell she loved this.  Her friend laughed.

I introduced myself to her and her friend ("Karen") and tried to talk to both of them simultaneously.  One key mistake I've seen guys make while talking to a girl at a bar is to ignore their not good looking friend.  You can't let the friend get bored or they're going to leave and then that's that.

I notice that the friend thinks Wes is hot, so I call him over and get him to start talking to her.  Wes has a girlfriend, so he won't do anything, but he'll be good for some conversation / distraction.

While I'm talking to Jill, I catch her thinking back to some guy yelling at her.  It quickly comes to my realization that she just got out of some verbally abusive relationship (I can't tell if it went further than that) and she's pretty hesitant about talking to a guy so soon after.  I feel bad about hitting on her, so I figure I'll take it easy and just have a nice conversation.

I'm not really paying attention to what Wes and Karen are saying, so when Wes says "Right, Jake?" I'm caught off guard.  Wes repeats what he must have said right before that, which was, "You just quit your job so you can travel the world solving mysteries, right?"

I laugh and say "Yea, that's the truth, I just haven't gotten around to leaving Philadelphia yet".  It is somewhat true.  I did just quit my job, and an over-dependence on watching TV as a kid has produced in me an idea that if you're unemployed you can just get yourself into various hijinks by traveling from town to town helping people.

Jill says that sounds fun, she's kind of tied down by her job.  I ask her what that is, and she explains that she works as an accountant for some small company around here.  I say that doesn't sound tied down, but it comes out wrong and sounds condescending.   And she seems to think of it that way.  I try to quickly recover but it doesn't go well from there.  Jill announces that they have to get going, even though Karen seems like she still wants to keep talking to Wes.  I'm sad when I realize that the thought that keeps coming into Jill's head now is of the guy she just broke up with saying something bad about her job and now she's relating what I said to that.

We say goodbye, it was nice meeting you, etc, but Jill's heart isn't in it, and they leave.

I go back to our table, where Wes' pizza has arrived and is mostly eaten.  Jorge is trying to light a slice of pizza on fire in the candle, Aaron keeps asking me questions about the Giants (he apparently lives in Dallas but hates the Cowboys).  When suddenly I hear something resembling a woman screaming.  I ask if anyone else just heard that but when they look at me like I was nuts, I realize it was in my head and not out loud.  I tell Wes to come with me and we run for the stairs that go down to street level.

When we get downstairs, there's a situation in front of us that becomes pretty clear (to me, at least) right away.  Jill's boyfriend found out where she was going and he was outside smoking a cigarette when she got outside and they started arguing.  He's drunk and he's trying to kiss her and he's grabbing at her and she says he's hurting her, while Karen fights off his friend who keeps saying "This is between them, stay out of it" while holding her back.

I immediately grow a pair and say, "Yo dude, she clearly doesn't want to talk to you, why don't you go home?"  He gives me a death stare.

The boyfriend says "Why don't you fuck off before I beat your ass?"  He probably could, too.  I'm not the best fighter and this guy's probably like 6'3" and 210.   I don't register any coherent thoughts from him (big surprise).

I say "Naa, I came out here to smoke a cigarette, but I just realized I don't have any right now, so maybe I'll take in the show instead.  I kind of showed up in the middle here, though, let me make sure I have the characters straight - she's the damsel in distress, you're the asshole ex-boyfriend, and this is your new lover" I say while gesturing toward his goofy looking fat friend.

The ex lets go of Jill and starts making a move in my direction while Fatty lets go of Karen.  As soon as the ex pushes me with both hands to my chest, Wes swings and catches him right in the jaw.  It's at this point when I catch the thoughts of a bunch of people upstairs in Morning Bar apparently watching this unfold.  I realize I got distracted by it for a second, because the ex and Wes are already locked up as the fat fuck is walking over.

Luckily, I still have my beer in my hand which I break on the wall and hold in Fatty's direction.  Jill's got her mouth covered with one hand and she's grabbing for Karen with the other.  I tell them to just get out of here while they can, but before the word "can" can come out of my mouth I have a meaty fist hitting me in the side of my head.  I'm so easily distracted.  I'm down on the ground, I've dropped the bottle and I'm getting kicked in my ribs.  I start laughing between coughing up a little blood.

Fatty asks me why I'm laughing and I say I'm just happy he decided to kick me, because my immediate reaction when I went to the ground was to think that he was going to give me the Earthquake Splash and jump on top of me.  He kicks me again but I just keep laughing.

I look over quickly and see that Wes and the other guy are still locked up - doesn't look like anyone's getting any punches off.  It's too bad this is a weeknight, because otherwise this street would be crawling with bouncers.

I grab the next kick and a shard of broken glass that's nearby from the bottle I broke and dig the glass into his plump ankle.  The fat fuck loses his balance trying to stand on one foot while grabbing for his ankle.  Once he's down I get on top of him and get Ex's attention.  I tell him to break off the fight with Wes or I'm going to carve my name in Fatty's face.  I catch a flash of fear from Ex and realize it's because I look like I'm nuts here, with my face bloody, sitting on his friend's chest and as much of an asshole that he is, he actually gives a shit about his fat friend.  He says "Ok, ok".  I tell him to walk across the street and wait over there and hail a cab, and once he's in the cab, I'll let his friend up to join him and then they should just get the fuck out of here.  He complies and while he's getting a cab I catch glimpses of fear and hate from Jill.  This wasn't the way to win her over.  Fatty gets up and limps over to the cab and gets in.  They drive off.

Jill and Karen just stare at me and Wes.  The people upstairs are still staring, but I don't think anyone called the cops.  For how much happened, I think it was all less than a minute or two.  I say "Jill, I -"  but before I say anything else she says "We're leaving, go back inside and maybe you'll find some other guy to fight".  She turns her back and the two of them leave while Wes and I sit on the sidewalk, worn out.

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 2 – Jake

I think the best way to describe what I was thinking is that I would just do this for a while to get some easy money and then I'd get out.  These people were asking for it anyway.  They shouldn't be gambling more than they could afford to lose.  And if I didn't take the money from them, someone else just would, right?  And if they were destined to go home a winner before I got there, then I'd justify it by thinking that they didn't really deserve the money they would have won. It sorta makes sense.

In reality, I was just stealing.  I was pulling people's cards from their minds and it was working well. I always tried to be careful not to win too much or too easily, but I was always self conscious that a high enough caliber player would be able to figure out what I was doing anyway.  So I kept trying to pay attention to each person at the table as often as possible, to make sure no one was catching on that something fishy was happening.  No one really did.

Sparing the details - because the only thing worse than a poker story is a poker story when someone's cheating and guaranteed to win - I left the casino with an easy nine thousand dollars.  I stopped there because I figured the anti-money laundering laws kick in at ten thousand, forcing you to fill out forms, and sure, I could probably just cash out more slowly and avoid them, but why bother with that?  I could always come back for more, and I was getting bored.

Now it was six pm on a Saturday night in Atlantic City and I was due to meet Wes and everyone in an hour or so at the Sheraton.  Why'd we stay at the Sheraton?  Because Wes got massive amounts of hotel points from all the travel he did for work and we could stay there without spending a dime.  I guess even having free access to money doesn't make it painless to spend.

Ever since I'd quit my job, I'd had a hard time telling everyone else about what I was going to do.  "Oh, I'll travel, I'll ski, I'll visit people, blah blah".  I would do those things, but mostly I had an ability that could earn me way more than my job did and I wanted more time to mess around with it, to learn how to do something interesting in life.

With an hour to kill and nothing better to do, I got in a cab and told the driver to take me to the nearest strip club.

I don't remember the name of the place we ended up at, but I made sure it was one that served booze, since I didn't have any on me and didn't want to deal with a BYOB place since I didn't have a ton of time. It was the type of club that was warehouse-big, and it looked warehouse-abandoned, since it was still early on in the evening. I once learned that dinner time on a Saturday can be the best time to hit a strip club, since that's when most of the night shifts start, and the place still isn't crowded. So, you get all of the girls with a fraction of the clientele competing for the attention of the hottest ones.

I sat down at a table in what looked like a particularly good location (situated between the girls' dressing room and the stage, so they almost all walked past me each time out), had a few beers, then started talking to a stripper named Foxy.  I'm fairly certain that wasn't her birth name, but not one hundred percent.

While talking to her, I picked up a few things here and there - only really what she was actively thinking at the time, which wasn't a ton, since she seemed to be high as fuck.  Eventually I tried to steer the conversation toward her, asking questions about things she liked to do, and I used those thoughts to try to direct the dialogue even more toward what she wanted to talk about.  She was way more interested in me within about twenty minutes, since I so conveniently seemed to know exactly what to discuss.

We went into the lap dance area and she gave me a dance, then another.  Then another.  She was probably mediocre at best, but whatever, I wasn't really too selective at the time because I had to get going soon anyway.  I paid her sixty for the dances and another twenty for a tip.  She grabbed my arm when I went to leave and said I had to make sure to come back later after I met up with my friends.

I said "Probably not, since we'll probably have people's girlfriends with us, but we'll see."

She insisted on giving me her number.  I followed her to the bar and she wrote "Foxy" and a ten digit number on a napkin.  Whether it was her number or not, I wouldn't know until later.  I stuffed the napkin into my pocket and headed for the cell phone check area, figuring that went pretty well since I came out of it with a stripper's number.  She was probably like an eight or so.  Maybe a seven.  Maybe less?  I wasn't sure - I was getting kind of drunk by then.

So I met up with Wes and his friends at the Sheraton.  There were no girls with them, which I knew would be the case - I just didn't want to commit to going back to the strip club.

I was running a little late, but no one cared - they already had the bathtub filled with beers.  

I talked to Wes a bit and to Johnny a little.  I think the basic idea would be to hang out at the Borgata since there are a few different bars/clubs in there that we could go to when one got boring or – more likely - when we had hit on all the (half-)decent girls available.

Once we were at the Borgata, for whatever reason Wes and I went right into hit-on-girls mode at B Bar.  It didn't matter if they were great looking - as long as they were average or so, we would try to start talking to them.  I think we were doing pretty well, making good conversation, being funny, but it wasn't really going anywhere.  At one point, while I was talking to a girl who kept thinking about getting McDonald's after the bar, Wes got behind her and started humping the air.  It was pretty funny but I tried not to react, partially because I didn't want to drop the ball and ruin my chance with this girl, but also because I thought it would be funnier if I managed to keep a straight face.

Later on I was really drunk and started talking to this girl who turned out to be not a girl, but a 38 year old woman (she actually told me - she seemed to be telling the truth).  We made out for a bit, somehow the conversation turns to how she can't go home with me (did I ask or did she bring it up out of nowhere? Who knows).  She says we can't go back to her room because, "My husband is up there.”  Oops?  I think we made out for a few more minutes before I ditched her.

We head over to the club in the Borgata.  Is it called Mixx?  I forget.  There aren't a ton of people in there, since it's still early.  But there is one guy who's got a circle of people around him watching him dance.  I immediately turn to Wes, who's right next to me and fancies himself a great dancer (I guess he's good?  I'm probably not the best judge) and tell him "Wes, show him how it's done."  Things degenerate into a dance off, which I'm pretty sure Wes won.

While wandering around the Borgata later in the night looking for something to do, we came across a group of girls, two of whom made out for no particular reason while in mid conversation with us. I consider calling Foxy, but ultimately decide against it for reasons of laziness.

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 1 - Jake

Before I had any time to react, I was getting hit in the face with something.  I guess it was his fist.  I don't even know what set him off.  Maybe the blonde was his girlfriend.  Maybe I just looked like someone who liked getting punched.  Who knows?

I ducked after that.  Actually, I fell, but it was just as effective as ducking.  Then I kicked at his legs and he fell, too.

I grabbed a table for support, pulled myself to my feet and started booking it for the door.  As I ran past the bouncers, I realized they were heading back toward the guy who hit me.  Worked out pretty well.  Hopefully they beat his ass.

I got outside and it was dark, and I was pretty drunk.  It was probably about 12:30.  I slowed down from my stumbling run and just started strolling back in the direction of home.  But now I was pretty adrenaline -filled and pretty (very) drunk, so I didn't really want the night to end just yet.

I sent a couple text messages out, see if anyone was doing anything interesting.  Got the somewhat normal replies of:

"Just heading home now" from Mike.

"No, Jake" from Julie, who must have figured I was booty calling.  Maybe I was?  I don't know.  It's such a thin line between asking a girl to hang out when you're already loaded and booty calling, anyway. Actually, they're exactly the same thing almost all the time.

and "Yea, we're at McGlutty's" from Kevin.  I figured I'd head over to meet up with Kevin.  I don't think anyone I knew was still in Boozers anyway, since I had stayed behind to talk to that girl.  I'm not even sure if either of us knew what the other was saying, we were so sloshed.  I know I didn't know what either of us were saying.  I'm pretty sure my words were incomprehensible.  Luckily I could just reach into her head and pull the thoughts out rather than waiting for her to say them.   Being able to do that helps with the ladies. Although, being drunk still hurts your comprehension skills a bit.

I get to McGlutty's and Kevin and Gary are just sitting there, having a couple beers.  McGlutty's is a pretty standard dive-ish bar. Or as dive-like as they get in Center City, which can be a bit ritzy, depending on the area. There wasn't much beyond a bar in the middle and some (mostly unoccupied) tables around it. Kevin says hi, Gary says hi.  I say hi.  I think we're all pretty hammered.

"We should go get some Jacob's after this" says Gary. Jacob's is a Chinese place over in Chinatown, with a surprisingly Old Testament name.  It's open all night.  Or so.

"I'll probably just go home" I say.  Which is true.  I'm wayyyyy too lazy to make it across town for some Chinese food when I can just go home to my apartment.  Late night eating hasn't been that interesting for the last few years anyway.   Most likely a sign of getting old.

So, I start telling them what happened.

"And then she's talking about some nonsense, I'm not really sure, I think she was a Pharmaceutical salesperson or something.  I don't know, I wasn't really listening.  I was kind of just nodding and waiting for a chance to say something funny.  Or at least funny to me at the time.  She was alright.  Maybe a seven or eight."

Then I get into how the guy ambushed me.  I embellish little, if anything, because I don't really care that the guy obviously got the better of me and I hauled ass out of there.  What was I supposed to do?  For all I knew he had buddies with him.  And anyway, no one wins if we both get arrested or something.

I leave out the parts about reading her thoughts.  They'd probably be confused if I got too into that, and I'm not sure I'm ready to just throw that kind of knowledge around.

I notice Gary's thoughts drifting as he starts checking out some brunette in the corner.  She's sitting with a slightly larger friend.

"We should go talk to those girls over there" he says.

"Naa, I'm pretty much done talking to girls for the night" I respond.  I know Kevin won't want to either, since he and Cathy just broke up and I can tell he's pretty sad about it.  Guess our earlier session of virtually killing teenagers online didn't get rid of all his anxiety.

"Come on."  Gary stands up and starts walking over.

We follow, because why not?  Worst case scenario we can just watch him crash and burn, or who knows, maybe he'll do something great.

We get over near there, and yea, the brunette's not bad at all.  Definitely an eight.  Or I'm drunk.  Whatever.  The other girl, definitely not.

"Come on, let's talk to them" Gary says.  We're standing maybe five feet from them at this point.

"I'll even take the big one,” he continues.

I think they heard that.   Yea, the brunette definitely heard that.

"Uhhh, I think they heard that," Kevin says.

"Whatever," Gary heads in to talk to them.

I don't remember clearly what happened after that, but we were pretty drunk, we didn't go to Jacob's.  Gary didn't get either of the girls, although I feel like the brunette was into me.  Gary and Kevin took the train home, I walked back to my apartment, and went to sleep.