THE BAD TOUCH

This Saturday night I went to hang out at the barbecue joint for the first time in a while and as I sipped my customary Jose Quervo a familiar and sleazy figure arrived, entourage of friends in tow, and set up court at the other end of the bar. Something unnameable began to queasily crawl under my skin at the sight of this guy and after managing to stay under his radar for a couple of hours, he nervously approached and greeted me. I politely acknowledged him and went back to my boozing, making it clear that I wanted naught to do with him. He swiftly slithered back to his stool, planting his narrow ass next to his corpulent, Ugnaught-like spouse, and regained his old neighborhood composure, his pals totally oblivious of our little exchange.

“Bunche, just who the fuck was this guy?” I hear you ask. “And why does he get under your skin, you who merrily wallows amidst the seamier elements of humanity?” Well, kiddies, lemme tell ya a story I kept under my hat while working at the barbecue joint — I wrote it a couple of days after New Year’s — and now that I no longer work there the truth can be told. And please bear in mind that the following narrative was written when I was still an employee.

DISCLAIMER: in the following essay the names of the guilty have been withheld.

You're gonna love this one.

Ever feel like you needed a very hot, cleansing shower when there’s been no sweat-inducing physical activity?

The night before New Year's Eve, I had finished my shift and was sitting at the bar working on my computer, when one of our locals came in. His name is Dennis, he works for a Universally Popular Service that delivers mail with great expedience, is an annoying propagator of Italian-American stereotypes, and whenever he shows up he's already pretty much in the bag and accompanied by his wife who shares much in common with a competition-quality sow. The staff and regulars tolerated him because he was basically harmless but his behavior took a disturbing turn the other night.

Dennis arrived with another drunken goombah, plopped himself down right next to me and tried to force conversation. He loudly went off about "the fuckin' spics and niggers" who are fucking up his fair neighborhood, all the while trying to get me to agree with his rantings, and when I tried to ignore him he reached his hand over to my keyboard and attempted to fuck up what I was working on, punctuating his efforts with "What wouldja do if I erased that shit you're workin' on?" I playfully answered, "I'd rip off your paw and stuff it up your ass," and that kept him at bay for another five minutes.

He then got up to supposedly use the bathroom but instead he sneaked up in back of me, gave me a reach-around and cupped my man-boobs. Not one of those disturbing-enough locker room moves; I mean a full-on, sensual grope like I was his drunken prom date.

Needless to say, that did not go over well with me, so I politely told him to keep his hands to himself. "Yo! I'm just goofin' witcha," he said, and resumed his seat. He then proceeded to grope me again and I responded as I had just a few minutes earlier, and he laughed to himself while totally checking me out. I've been leered at by women and found it kind of fun, but not so much when it's a drunk, annoying delivery guy.

So Dennis left me alone again, long enough for me to refocus on my work, and then, about a half hour later, he sneaked up behind me again and started to play with my stuff. I whirled around, kicked the stool out from under me,and yelled, "HANDS OFF, YOU FUCK!!!" as I grabbed him and just barely held back from putting my clenched fist through his head, Kenshiro-style. That got his attention and he sat his drunk ass down and left me the fuck alone.

When I came in to work on Wednesday, my kitchenmate filled me in on how Dennis had been in the previous night and tried more of his drunken closet-case bullshit on Pete, one of our favorite regulars. When Pete came in, he and I compared notes on our encounters with Dennis and he apparently tried to get Pete to go scuba diving with him for an underwater photo shoot because, "it feels so good bein' in one o' those tight swimsuits as sharks rub up against your body." Now Pete's no idiot, so, smelling the obvious come-on, Pete asked him what kind of camera he favored. "Uh, I dunno, a Polaroid, or somethin', I guess" was Dennis’ answer, and then he started to fuck with Pete's laptop computer and tried to repeat some of the moves he pulled on me three nights earlier. Just as it was about to get really ugly, Joy the bartender came to the rescue, cutting Dennis off, which spurred him to leave the bar.

Me and Pete, "Los Molestados," commiserating over our jailhouse experiences.

Later that night, Pete and I related our stories to the girls who work at the restaurant next door and we both found ourselves sobered by the fact that the girls offered us no sympathy whatsoever, instead saying, "Welcome to the shit we go through every day, you crybaby pussies." Talk about a reality check.

Another two weeks passed and by that time the tale of myself and Pete getting molested was known throughout the bar community, so much so that when Dennis came back after what he must have figured was enough time for things to blow over he found himself with an empty bar stool on either side of him for the duration of time spent at the bar. No one would talk to him, so he eventually got the message and fucked off home.

While this was going on, Big Mikey, a six-foot-seven-inch tall, four-hundred pound mountain of a man — and one of the barbecue joint’s most beloved regulars — came in and I filled him in on the situation.

The petite excellence that is Big Mikey.

He then shocked the shit out of me by telling me Dennis had pulled the same shit on him as he had with me and Pete, Dennis only getting the hint that his in-the-bag advances were unwelcome when Mikey stood up from his seat and loomed over him like Tchernobog in the “Night on Bald Mountain” segment from FANTASIA. So not only is Dennis a serial closet-case molester, the motherfucker is also clearly a chubby chaser.

Then, a day or two later, Dennis returned, emboldened by a gut full of liquor and the “beard” that is his wife, and took his usual place at the bar, cutting me glances between shots. After about an hour of checking me out — like I’m so fucking awesome, for fuck’s sake — Dennis made his way to the men’s room, and as he walked behind me to get there he slowly ran his finger across my back, utterly giving me a bad case of the douche-chills, and as I turned to yell at him I saw his lips contort into a “sexy” pucker as he locked himself in the restroom. Wanting nothing more to do with that shit, I picked up my laptop and moved to the solitary table near the back that Tracey the Waitress Goddess dubbed my “office,” well out of range of Mr. Uncomfortable Pervy Shenanigans.

That’s it, but let’s get one thing clear: I have nothing against homosexuals, but if you’re gonna hit on me, at least be honest about it. I’m sure the guy has issues with his sexuality and its direct opposition to the macho shithead mentality fostered by a lifetime mired in the neighborhood’s wiseguy “manliness” and I can feel for his pain, especially with him being saddled with a painfully obvious loveless marriage, but his sleazy machinations were an oily buzz-kill and I couldn’t get away with handing the guy his ass without becoming one of the worst kind of humans there is, namely a fag-basher.

Sometimes ya just can’t win.

Behold the pitiful results of the ruination of innocence.