This happened a few years ago. The seeds were planted at Mullen's in Lisle, where a friend had a regular karaoke gig at the time. That night, the guest was a DJ from Q101, and anyone who got on stage and sang would be given free tickets to a local show. If memory serves me correctly, the DJ was Sludge. Anyway, I'd already planned on getting up and singing. The previous week,
I'd gotten my friend into trouble because I serenaded a blowup doll to Elvis's "I Want You, I Need You, I Love You." I had to play nice this week. I'd planned on wearing a strap-on dildo to stroke while singing Chuck Berry's "My Ding-A-Ling." Because I didn't want to fuck my friend's gig up, I wore a string of bells around my waist instead. When I was done with my rendition, a Q101 rep came up to me and gave me my choice of concert tickets.
I hadn't heard of any of the bands he'd mentioned except for Tantric and 10 Years. I flipped a mental coin and went with 10 Years.
That night, I was arrested for DUI. After years of struggling with the legal system, I was found not guilty. However, at the time, I was about to lose my driving privileges for a year. In that time, I was dating the woman who co-wrote "Suicidal Tendencies" in my second book, TALES OF QUESTIONABLE TASTE. (This is one of the two stories everyone always mentions as their favorite from that book. I owe a lot to her for her help with that one.) She was having difficulty at home for several reasons which isn't my business to talk about here. Suffice it to say, she and I went to this show together. It was one of our most memorable dates.
I remember sitting in the back seat of my car in the parking lot of the venue because they weren't open yet. Others were tailgating, but she and I were messing around a bit. She was cool with one of my big turn-ons, which is public sex. While this group of college-age kids were getting hammered a few spaces over, her and I were doing just about everything but fucking in my car.
When they let us in, we hung out, had a few drinks (most of them poured from the airplane bottles I'd hidden in my pockets), and before you knew it, while 10 Years played on the stage, she and I were getting pretty heavy on the dance floor. It got to the point where we were almost kicked out for public indecency. The bouncers were very uncomfortable with how far we'd gone.
But we didn't get kicked out. Instead, we drank more, danced more (even though I hate dancing) and she tried to get me into a three-way. Back then, I was super uncomfortable with that, even though it would have been with another woman, not a dude. I might be the only guy in history who ever turned that down. I don't share very well, regardless of sex.
Anyway, the show ended, and she liked the band enough so that we got their album, and then we had to figure out what we were going to do next. The father of her daughter was taking care of the kid, so we were free to do whatever we wanted. We got a bottle of Evan Williams, and she pointed out a truck stop in Bolingbrook just south of I-55. We parked and drank some more and then she invited me into the backseat of my own car. I'd like to say we made love back there, but seriously. You can't make love in the backseat of a Ford Focus while parked in a dingy truck stop. We fucked so hard I eventually had to get my car detailed. The windows were fogged up, but we could still see the silhouettes of truckers as they walked by on their way to the store. I'm sure they knew what was happening in my car.
But no one bothered us. When we were done, we got dressed, and she wanted to show me around the truck stop. She'd originally wanted to fuck in the showers they had, but I expressed my reluctance, not knowing what kind of ugly shit we'd find in there. Anyway, she showed me the showers, the store, everything. We wound up with some energy drinks in the lounge, where truckers sat around, watching TV.
And then one of the truckers--a skinny guy with a baseball cap on--started a conversation with us. I don't know how it started, but he wound up telling us about his history on the road. He'd done plenty of drugs over the course of his life, but he'd been clean since 1976, which was two years longer than I've been alive. (She was born in 1983, so . . .) And then, he made an incredibly ridiculous claim: that he'd invented meth back in the 'Seventies. Neither of us could refute his claim, so we sat back and listened to him babble about this for a while. Then, he must have gotten bored talking to us, so he watched TV until we decided to get the fuck out of there. I drove her home, where I spent the night cuddling with her on the floor of her apartment while her baby slept in the crib and the father of their baby snored loudly on the mattress in the corner of the room.
I didn't realize it at the time, but that was pretty awkward.
Her and I are still friends. She looks back on the times we dated kind of negatively, which is fair because those were negative times, for the most part. I don't think she likes to talk about those times. To be honest, I don't, either. However, I'm not going to try to hide a part of my past. If she wanted to talk about it, I'd listen.
The one part of our relationship that she has no problem talking about is that night, however. She looks back on it fondly. So do I.
She brought adventure to my life. I miss that. I don't miss the relationship, which was terrible. We were awful for each other, and I'm glad that we're not like that now. But still, those were fun times. Times that will never happen again.
[I didn't know if I was going to tell this story, but I figured it's a fun tale to tell. Originally, I named my girlfriend at the time, but I redacted her name. Those of you who know me well enough, or those who read my second book, know who she is. I don't think she'd have a problem with me telling the story, but on the off chance, I figured I'd leave her name out of it.]
