Cold Cashmere

We knew a kid in the cover band, but it didn't change the price of the drinks or the fact that women like dancers, and I use both terms loosely. He looked about ready to fall asleep with an elbow between his chin and the oak. I caught his eyes closing a few times.

"Do you not want to be here?" I asked like a fool for the second time in as many weeks.

"I mean...I'm bored," he replied, the froth of his dark beer dissipating at the top.

What was he expecting? The third bar of the night to be any more spectacular? Ours was a one-horse town with no good news on the cart. At least I hadn't encouraged his pursuit of the two uninterested college girls at the last gin-joint we haunted that evening. Unlike some of my less fortunate compatriots I'd developed a sense for failure. Sure, most times I ignored it; but in the most extreme cases, like this recent one with the co-eds' backs to my blindly blundering buddy as he tried so desperately to engage them in conversation, I let its wisdom reign. Besides: What kind of shameless twenty-seven-year-old would sentence some promising young sophomore to a fate such as his dirty sheets?

It was about this time that this may have set in with him. Perhaps that was contributing to his inability to sing along to the few tunes that we knew.

It seemed logical to bore him further if only to save him from himself.

"Sometimes I hate the fact that I never run into any exes at the bar," I confessed, the Captain strong on my breath as it reflected off the side of his head and back into my nostrils. "It's like they hate me so much that they won't risk seeing me in public. And God forbid I try to make amends."

He nodded in something slightly short of agreement; empathy, at best. Maybe it was because he only really had one ex, at least one from his adult life. Eight years was a long time, and now that time was over. I hoped my foolish comment hadn't sent him down that trainwreck of thought. There are times when I over-analzye and I hoped that this was one of them.

I took a sip and gave up trying to make the best of a wasted night. We were all defeated; some of us just knew it already.

The cover band didn't play any more songs that we knew.