Free The Fuck Up by Arthur Nersesian Page A

next day when my energy level was maximum. He walked me to the door. Thi, the porter, had already started cleaning the theater. Miguel wished me good night. I started walking to the subway, but I decided that I didn’t want to be stranded in Brooklyn wide awake.

FIVE
    As I passed Eleventh Street on Third I saw the big bright sign of the Ritz. Jersey kids were still stumbling in, so I walked over to the door. There was usually a five-dollar admission but an accord had been arranged between Pepe and the manager of the Ritz: their respective employees were allowed free into each others places. I approached hesitantly. The doorman, who was chatting with a group of Jerseyites, apparently remembered me from my many previous entrances. Unaware of my dismissal from the Saint Mark’s, he just waved me in.
    Once inside, I had just enough to buy a beer. I was wide awake, so Idecided to try dancing off some energy. I approached a skinny girl leaning against the bar and we danced for a while. She kept trying to dance slower and closer, and I kept pushing her away and the tempo up. Finally when it took more energy to repel her than to dance, I thanked her and left the floor. I saw an attractive, healthy girl put down an almost full bottle of beer and leave. 1 would kiss her if she let me, and with that criteria I wiped off some lipstick at the nozzle and poured it into my mouth without touching the rim.
    I finally felt tired enough to fall asleep on Helmsley’s sofa, which seemed to be getting harder and harder every time I was on it. Heading toward the door of the club, I was suddenly stopped by two soft hands shoved before my eyes.
    “Guess who?” murmured a disguised voice.
    “Sarah?” was the only name that came to mind. Pulling off the blinds and turning around, I found myself face to face with Eunice.
    “How are you doing?” she asked as if no preexisting clash had ever occurred.
    “Are you here with him?” I asked, looking around.
    “No,” she replied.
    “Why did you lie to me,” I leapt right into the fray, “saying that you were going to visit your parents?”
    “Well, I was going to. But do we really have to go through this?”
    “But you lied to me! That’s what I most resented.” No anger still existed but for some reason I felt compelled to continue the fight, to hold to some righteous platform.
    “You swine!” She gave me a token swat. “You have a girlfriend, and you have the audacity to yell at me for having a fling.”
    “Ah ha! But I told you about it!”
    “Is that how it works? If confession makes everything all right, then why don’t you tell her about us?”
    “She already found out,” I confessed with a hung head. “I told you. She left me.”
    There was a stretch of silence, so I gave a slight farewell smile and resumed walking.
    “Wait a second.” Eunice caught up. “She left you?”
    “Yeah.”
    “Do you want to dance?” she finally asked pliantly.
    “No thanks, I’m tired.” And resumed walking.
    “Wait a fucking second,” she said this time, angrily. “Can’t we try to be friends, I mean does one fight end the friendship?!”
    “Yes!” I yelled. “You teased!”
    “Tease? I told you right up front exactly what I was up to when you asked me,” she answered.
    “You left me hoping, you left the possibility dangling.”
    “You’re crazy!”
    “Fuck you!” I shouted unconcerned that we were the center of attention in the place. She, on the other hand, had become visibly embarrassed. I continued, “I made minimum wage and spent every cent on you! I spent all my available time with you!”
    “Look, I was interested in you as a boyfriend, I admit it.”
    “Ha ha!” I exclaimed idiotically.
    “But I’m not going to be the other woman. Now that you’re unattached, there’s a new context.”
    “Well fuck you!” I yelled. “Go fuck that old fart I saw you with.”
    “Well fuck you too!” she yelled back and vanished back into the masses. If not getting