"Did you go on a date with Summer soon after?" she asked, then washed down the burger with a satisfying sip of her beer.
As I had been telling her my story thus far, she had barely gone through one beer as she listened intently, eating her burger and fries. I, on the other hand, had drank two and a half beers as I spoke, one bite of the burger, and hardly touched any of my french fries. Honestly, when I had been telling her about Mario and I smoking weed, I had forgotten about my food. When she asked me about Summer, I had noticed the pitcher of beer was nearly half empty, and thought that maybe I had poured myself three beers instead, and was drinking my fourth. I wondered if I was being selfish with the booze, and felt like offering to buy the next pitcher.
"Olavi, you home?" she asked, knocking her knuckles on the table.
"Huh, what?" I mumbled, looking up at her. "Sorry about that. I'll often go pensive when I'm inebriated. Not as much when I'm drunk though, you should've been around me when I was still smoking weed. I mean, if you were talking to me when I was high, my mind would go wandering and I literally would forget someone was talking to me. I admitted it to Summer once, and she was pissed. 'How could you do that to me?' she'd say as if betrayed. I laughed, and she'd get more angry and sad. Yeah, it was good times."
I paused for a moment, pointed my finger in her direction, and said:
"You, you had a question for me. I apologize. What was your question?"
She grinned, seemingly amused, and said, "Your first date with Summer. Was it soon after you first smoked weed?"
"Uh, I'd say it was about a month after, maybe less, maybe more. I hung out at her apartment with Mario and her roommate before I asked her on a date. Well, I mean, I didn't say, 'Hey, let's go out on a date, girl.' I just asked her if she wanted to see a movie."
"Actually, that's asking her out on a date," she informed.
"But I didn't use the word 'date' when I asked her to see a movie with me. I asked to hang out. You know, like a friend."
"Well, did you eat before or after you saw the movie?"
"We went to Pizza Hut before going to the theater."
I filled my half-empty beer to the brim.
"Date," she stated. "It was a real date. How was it?"
"Typical."
"In what way?"
"In the way any typical first date is: answering each other's questions. Blah, blah, blah. Well, here's the thing - now I never told her this - I wanted to see a movie called Little Miss Sunshine, but I was being gentlemanly and asked her what she wanted to see, and she said Jackass 2."
"Yeah, so?"
"A guy drinks horse semen in the fucking movie. What kind of first-date movie shit is that? What was I thinking? I bet things would have turned out better if we saw what I wanted to see: Little Miss Sunshine. I fucking love that movie."
"The Jackass movies are cool," she said. "Never heard of Little Miss Sunshine, though."
"It was nominated for Best Picture at the Academy Awards," I informed. "And if it were up to me, it would have taken home little gold Oscar."
I took a big gulp of my beer.
"Okay," she starts to say, "so you two start dating. And what happens after that?"
"I'm going to fast-forward two years to when she took my virginity," I said.
"Wait," she said, closing her eyes, and putting a hand up, "excuse you? Virginity? Skipping two years? Uh, what?"
"Well, the thing is we weren't really an item in the two years I'm going to skip. Yes, we went on a date, then hung out a bunch of times afterwards, but she made it perfectly clear she simply wanted to be friends. And since during this time I was getting drunk and stoned nearly every day, at work or at home, I tirelessly pursued her affection to no avail of course."
"When a girl says 'No,' it means she means fucking no, Olavi," she said. I could see in her eyes and furrowed brow, she was beginning to misjudge me.
"But she seemed to always want to hang out with me," I said. "The thing about Summer is that she had a harsh upbringing I'll get into later, causing her to be a little awkward socially. I'm not saying she was abnormal in her interactions with people, just, you know, different. I liked that most about her. She was beautiful, and best of all different. Smart as hell too, but had this internal frustration which made her soul a bit callously numb, you could say. People at that fucking job her and I worked at would walk all over her. Those fucking goddamn junkies. I hate those who are full of a lifetime of faults exploiting the momentary faults in others just to feel better about themselves. One of the reasons I quit that fucking job."
"What job was that again?" she asked.
"One where those with a rebellious characteristic and a desire to be euphoric would throw a customer's package against a wall for the hell of it due to the seclusion of working inside a warehouse," I said.
"Sorry, I don't understand," she said, obviously confused by not getting a straight answer out of me.
"I worked for a shipping company, and was a member of a union," I finally answered. "But I won't tell you which one, because I think you use the services provided by covertly said company."
"Whatever," she said. "So you quit your job because of how your coworkers treated Summer. Correct?"
"Yes, but that wasn't the soul reason. The other reasons were she would never love me as much I loved her, the management pissed me off as much as some of my coworkers, and basically I was beginning to have of a manic swing without knowing it, causing me to make rash decisions in my life."
"A what swing?" she inquired.
"I'm bipolar," I informed. "Bipolar One to be more specific. I told you about my third fifty-one-fifty."
"You know, I could barely even tell you're bipolar," she admitted.
"That's because of the stereotype most people define us by, intense mood swings where one starts laughing, then crying within seconds. Those are Bipolar Two's. Bipolar One's have a more prolonged swing which actually can be more damaging, emotionally and physically depending on the circumstances. Plus I'm on the good medication. My brain is well balanced."
She pointed to the nearly empty pitcher of beer, about to say something before I said:
"Oh, yes, we need a refill. I'll get the next one." I stood up about to go inside and order a fresh pitcher.
"I was about to ask if it was a good idea for you to be drinking," she said.
"Yeah," I said, "it's always a good idea when you're having a good time."
"But your mental health," she said, concerned.
My reaction was simple. I laughed.
I then said, "When I get back with the fully loaded pitcher, I'll tell you about my first devilock haircut." I moved my hand to the back of my head, took hold of the end of the devilock hanging against the back of my neck with my forefinger and middle finger, then flipped it over the top of my head to let it hang before my face.
I said, "And I'll continue telling you my story until I'm done." I turned to go inside the bar, stopped midway, then turned to face her once more before going to order another pitcher of beer. "Then you may judge me in whatever way you desire."
"Okay," she simply said, strangely amused.
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