She’s an Alcoholic

December 1st, 2004 Posted in Essays

I was in a Chinese restaurant on a lunch break yesterday, by myself with a newspaper. (My co-workers are, to a man, uniformly vegan. This is LA—I eat meat, so I’m the outcast.)

Sometimes we go to a place that manages to accomodate both of us. Other times my coworkers get lunch at places that serve meals in small cups. Disinterested in the merits of liquified spinach and organic wheat germ, I decided to eat alone.

In typical Chinese restaurant style, my table was sandwiched against the tables of my neighbors. At the risk of sounding racist, I have to point out that this is a phenomenon I see most often while eating asian cuisine. I remember reading a sociology text once mentioning that Asian cultures have a different sense of personal space than Caucasians, as a result of their per capita population and, thus, daily proximity to one another. I don’t know if that’s the reason, or if I’ve just had the bad luck of frequenting every asian restaurant run by an asshole, but I’ve yet to dine on Korean, Japanese, Thai or Chinese food without getting shoehorned into a tiny eating space consisting of a chair, a table, dozens of blurred flailing stranger elbows and at least three simultaneous loud conversations.

The restaurant was almost empty, but the waiter seated me in a clump of seats next to the only other six people eating in the entire restaurant anyway. It gave us a more soothing communal experience, allowing us to gaze on the ocean of empty tables stretching out all around us.

Among this small clump was a duo of 14-year-old girls–a breed of teen so simultaneously self-conscious and over-confident that it makes my temples ache talking to them, and whom I typically try to avoid. Most likely sensing this, the ballsy one of the pair immediately started talking to me (actually, talking to the paper I had held up to my face and was reading) about how hungover she was from all the weed she smoked? And all the drinking she did? And, omigod, how she was probably an alcoholic? And last night? At a bar? This guy totally bought her like, omigod, $300 worth of free shots!

And so on for minutes. The quiet, dumpy one giggled, rolling her eyes at me in an “I can’t contain her—isn’t she one in a million?” sort of way.

“You wanna know the best way to get rid of a hangover?” the alpha female continued.

“Sure,” I said noncommitally, still reading my paper and avoiding eye contact. “What’s the best way to get rid of a hangover?”

“A shot or a beer.”

“Uh huh.”

It was like having a conversation composed entirely of conversational openers, without any of the subsequent conversation that would usually follow. I suspected I could have been any 20-to-29-year-old at all and heard the same things.

Though I don’t talk about it often on my blog, I’ve battled with alcoholism for some time. I’ve long since passed that point in my life where drinking was a monument of social significance (”I drank SOOO much last night!”) and have since hit the point where the opposite is true, and I find myself downplaying my habits to coworkers on a regular basis because it’s so lame (”What did I do last night? Certainly not sit at home and drink! I went to the library and made out with girls, of course.”) But when you’re actually in a situation where a fourteen-year-old is telling you ludicrous fiction about how much she drank, it’s easy to remember how mysterious and forbidden drugs and alcohol used to be.

I didn’t have any idea how to respond. A high five sent a hypocritical message, I suspected; conversely, a lecture wouldn’t do any good either, and besides, I had a meal on the way. If I reamed her out I’d have to sit next to her while I ate my egg rolls. Awkward. I decided to be polite but non-committal.

“I swear I’m like an alcoholic,” she said, oblivious to my indifference. “You smell like pot. Were you just doing it?”

“What?”

“Were you just smoking? You smell like it.”

“I smell like pot? I just came from work.”

“I don’t mean that in a bad way—I just love the smell of dope.”

“I smell like dope?”

“Do you smoke a lot?”

“What? No. I don’t smoke dope anymore. It makes me paranoid.”

“I get that too!”

I moved in for checkmate. “So why do you do it?”

“Because I’m such an alcoholic. Do you smoke?”

“No.”

“Why not? Smoking’s amazing.”

“I quit a month ago.”

“That was stupid. Why would you do that? You stop liking it or something?”

“Yeah. I stopped liking it.”

“I also love sex.”

“Uh huh.”

“Do you love sex?”

“I’m not talking about sex with you.”

“Why not? Does it make you embarrassed?”

“No. It makes me arrested.”

The alpha female was being incredibly loud by now –not angrily, but just in that vapid, clueless way typical of the fourteen-year-old. It’s not even like she was being intentionally rude. She was actually really this clueless. I could feel the stares of everyone in the restaurant around me, urging me not to encourage her further.

After a few minutes it became clear it’d be impossible not to. She just kept lobbing conversational assault after conversational assault at me. She wasn’t trying to be intrusive—she just really really wanted me to think she was cool. And, of course, an alcoholic.

“Do you have a girlfriend?” she asked.

“No.”

“Why not? You’re all employed and shit, dress nice…”

“…smell like dope…”

“Yeah. You’re funny. How come you don’t have a girlfriend?”

“I’m shy.”

“You’re shy?”

“Yeah. I dont go to, like, clubs and stuff. I’m shy.”

“Oh. I went to a club last night. I swear I must be an alcoholic.”

“Uh huh.”

“Are you an alcoholic?”

“Actually, yes.”

“It rules, huh?”

“Not really. Being an alcoholic means you can’t drink. It doesnt mean you can drink as much as you want.”

“Yeah. I wish I had some dope right now.”

“Uh huh.”

“What are you reading?”

“Just… nothing.”

“I should have known you didn’t smoke dope when I saw the newspaper.”

“Why?”

“You know. Nobody who smokes is gonna read.”

“If you smoke dope you don’t read?”

“Well. Not as much.”

“Uh huh.”

“What do you do in your job? Do you know that sauce made your lips red?”

“Really?”

“Yeah. Your lips are bright red.”

“Shit. Thanks.”

Shit. Stupid sauce. My meal’d gotten there by this point, by the way.

“So what do you do?” she continued.

“I write.”

“What, all day?”

“What do you do? You go to school?”

“Not today. I’m too hungover. You take it from the Man?”

“What?”

“You take it? From the Man?”

“Do I take what from the Man? Like, anal sex?”

[shower of giggles] “NO!” [shower of giggles] “Do you hate fags?”

“No. I don’t hate gay people.”

“Oh, yeah? What if one like wanted to kiss you?”

“They wouldn’t want to.”

“What if they did?”

“What?”

“What would you do?”

“I wouldnt let him kiss me, I guess.”

“But you dont hate fags.”

“No.”

“Hey, there’s Brent. I totally want you to meet Brent!”

At this point Brent, in his Radio Shack uniform, showed up with three other guys, and I apparently had to meet them now, and go through basically the same entire conversation I’d just had about alcoholism and why it rules more than anything else has ever ruled. My embarrassment started to mount, since no matter which way this ended up leaning—they all thought I was really cool or a huge loser—either way I was a huge loser, because I was 27 and had somehow gotten involved in the ongoing soap opera of fourteen-year-olds.

Not only that, but I started to get distinct vibes that Brent thought I might be moving in on his lady. That sounded bad for at least five reasons, three of which ended with me in jail.

Part of me wanted to tell Brent his girlfriend was letting guys buy her shots all night, but most of me just wanted to leave. I’d already had a bad day, and now I was rapping with teens in a Chinese buffet in a mall about what big alcoholics we all were. I didn’t need this.

I got up and decided to pay at the register, my meal half eaten.

“Are you leaving?”

“Looks like it.”

“Well, it was nice meeting you.”

“It was nice meeting you too.”

“Your lips are still red.”

“Thank you. I’ll take a look at it before I go back.”

“Don’t let the Man get you down.”

“I’ll try not to let him take me from behind, thank you. Bye.”

On my way out, Brent shot me a glance that let me know I’d made the right move, and alpha-girl shot me a look that let me know that, if I’d had the inclination, I could have easily gone to jail. I nodded curtly at both of them, avoiding the temptation to say something. Part of me remembered their world fondly—when drinking wasn’t a monkey on a back but an adventure to be uncovered; when sex was both foreign and yet lurking around every corner; when bothering other people while they ate wasn’t a concept that existed yet.

Another part of me remembered the first time I uncovered the end of that grand drinking adventure, and wound up puking up stomach lining on the floor of my bathroom at three in the morning; a time when sex was fumbling and unfulfilling, little more than a tit grab and a few desperate, confused thrusts; a time when, it now occurs to me, I probably acted exactly like these idiots and didn’t even know. Looking at Brent now, puffing out his salllow chest and covered in polyester Radio Shack uniform and acne, I realized that youth was a beautiful curse we should all experience. Once.

I put my hands in my pockets and went back to work, hoping I didn’t actually smell like pot.