The Times Are Never So Bad Read Online Free
missed two nights of a job I liked, tending bar at Newburyport, where I got good tips and could have girls if I wanted them. I knew that a girl would help, maybe do more than that, maybe fix everything for me. But having a girl was just an idea, like thinking about a part of the country where you might want to live if you ever stopped loving the place where you were.
So I wanted to want a girl, but I didnât, not even when these two pretty ones came in almost every night I worked and sat at the bar and talked to me when I had the time, and gave me signs with their eyes and the way they joked with me and laughed at each other. I could have had either one, and I donât know how the other one would have taken it. Sometimes I thought about taking both of them back to my place, which is maybe what they had in mind anyway, but that wouldnât be the same as having a girl I wanted to want, and I couldnât get interested enough to go through the trouble. Once, before Polly, I went to a wedding where everyone got drunk on champagne. I noticed then something I hadnât noticed before: girls get horny at weddings. I ended up with two friends of the bride; I had known them before, but not much. They were dressed up and looking very good, and when the party broke up we went to a bar, a crowded bar with a lot of light, one of those places where the management figures it draws a crowd with all kinds in it, so one way to keep down fights and especially guys pulling knives is have the place lit up like a library. I sat between them at the bar and rubbed their thighs, and after we drank some more I had a hand up each of them; it was late spring and their legs were moist, squeezing my hands; then they opened a little, enough; I donât remember if they did this at the same time or one was first. Then I got my hands in their pants. The bar was crowded and people were standing behind us, drinking in groups and pairs, buying drinks over the girlsâ shoulders, and I was stroking clitoris. When I told Alex this he said, How did you drink and smoke? I said I donât know. But I do know that I kept talking and pretending to each girl that I was only touching her. I got the drinking done too. Maybe they came at the bar, but pretty soon I couldnât take it anymore, and I got them out of there. But in the car I suddenly knew how drunk and tired I was; I was afraid I couldnât make it with both of them, so I took the plump one to her apartment and we told her good night like a couple of innocent people going home drunk from a wedding. Then I brought the other one to my place, and we had a good night, but every time I thought of the bar I was sorry I took the plump one home. Probably the girl with me was sorry too, because in the morning I took a shower and when I got out, the bed was made and she was gone. She left a nice note, but it was strange anyway, and made the whole night feel like a bad mistake, and I thought since it didnât really matter who I got in bed with, it should have been the one that was plump. She was good-looking and Iâm sure was not lonesome or hard up for a man, but still for the rest of the day and that night I felt sorry when I remembered her leaving the car and walking up the walk to her apartment building, because you know how women are, and she was bound to feel then that her friend was slender and she wasnât and that was the only reason she was going home alone drunk, with juicy underpants. She was right, and thatâs why I felt so bad. Next day I decided to stop thinking about her. I do that a lot: you do some things you wish you hadnât, and thinking about them afterward doesnât do any good for anybody, and finally you just feel like your heart has the flu. None of this is why I didnât take the two girls this summer back to my place.
What is hard to explain is why, when I knew Polly wasnât going to press charges, I stayed here instead of giving my boss
So I wanted to want a girl, but I didnât, not even when these two pretty ones came in almost every night I worked and sat at the bar and talked to me when I had the time, and gave me signs with their eyes and the way they joked with me and laughed at each other. I could have had either one, and I donât know how the other one would have taken it. Sometimes I thought about taking both of them back to my place, which is maybe what they had in mind anyway, but that wouldnât be the same as having a girl I wanted to want, and I couldnât get interested enough to go through the trouble. Once, before Polly, I went to a wedding where everyone got drunk on champagne. I noticed then something I hadnât noticed before: girls get horny at weddings. I ended up with two friends of the bride; I had known them before, but not much. They were dressed up and looking very good, and when the party broke up we went to a bar, a crowded bar with a lot of light, one of those places where the management figures it draws a crowd with all kinds in it, so one way to keep down fights and especially guys pulling knives is have the place lit up like a library. I sat between them at the bar and rubbed their thighs, and after we drank some more I had a hand up each of them; it was late spring and their legs were moist, squeezing my hands; then they opened a little, enough; I donât remember if they did this at the same time or one was first. Then I got my hands in their pants. The bar was crowded and people were standing behind us, drinking in groups and pairs, buying drinks over the girlsâ shoulders, and I was stroking clitoris. When I told Alex this he said, How did you drink and smoke? I said I donât know. But I do know that I kept talking and pretending to each girl that I was only touching her. I got the drinking done too. Maybe they came at the bar, but pretty soon I couldnât take it anymore, and I got them out of there. But in the car I suddenly knew how drunk and tired I was; I was afraid I couldnât make it with both of them, so I took the plump one to her apartment and we told her good night like a couple of innocent people going home drunk from a wedding. Then I brought the other one to my place, and we had a good night, but every time I thought of the bar I was sorry I took the plump one home. Probably the girl with me was sorry too, because in the morning I took a shower and when I got out, the bed was made and she was gone. She left a nice note, but it was strange anyway, and made the whole night feel like a bad mistake, and I thought since it didnât really matter who I got in bed with, it should have been the one that was plump. She was good-looking and Iâm sure was not lonesome or hard up for a man, but still for the rest of the day and that night I felt sorry when I remembered her leaving the car and walking up the walk to her apartment building, because you know how women are, and she was bound to feel then that her friend was slender and she wasnât and that was the only reason she was going home alone drunk, with juicy underpants. She was right, and thatâs why I felt so bad. Next day I decided to stop thinking about her. I do that a lot: you do some things you wish you hadnât, and thinking about them afterward doesnât do any good for anybody, and finally you just feel like your heart has the flu. None of this is why I didnât take the two girls this summer back to my place.
What is hard to explain is why, when I knew Polly wasnât going to press charges, I stayed here instead of giving my boss
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