You Can Never Know Too Many Davids or Emmetts

'Waking up next to David on the couch, still in my jeans and black wifebeater, I rubbed my eyes and shifted my arm, bracing myself for the pins-and-needles. David stirred and smiled, kissing the top of my head. "Good morning, sweetheart."

I had to go. So did he. Have you ever seen "50 First Dates"? If not, there’s a scene where, after Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore meet, they catch each other dancing out of excitement after each thinks the other is gone. I’ve forever considered it the ultimate in Post-First-Date behavior, which I unwittingly engaged in while descending the stairs of David’s 4th-floor walk-up, sporting the same clothes as the night before.

Guess who hadn’t stopped watching me walk down the stairs?

At the landing, I let out the customary, "Ahhhhhhh" sigh, coupled with the standard "square-dance arms" and "dooo-deeee-dooo-that-was awesome!" hum, and looked up at his door to see that he was still watching me walk down the stairs!
"OOOHHH, Crap!" I said, involuntarily.
"It’s cool," he said. "I was about to do the same thing, except behind closed doors."
"Oh. Well...... shit....."
"Have a great day, sweetheart," he told me.
"You, too...," before I disappeared over the next landing.

Getting back to the hostel... albeit late in the morning... I swore this would be a lazy day. A writing day. I showered and crawled into bed with my laptop, writing furiously. Around 3 I got hungry and went for Thai, bringing "The Devil in the White City" with me. Afterwards, I went to Millenium Park, intending to read. Instead, I fell asleep, until the screams of children woke me. I got a voicemail from David: "I know tomorrow is your birthday, so let me take you out to lunch. I have to work at five, but when I get out I’ll take you to an after-hours jazz club called The Green Mill. It’ll be a birthday celebration. By the way, I miss you..."
"Damn this!" I thought. "Not now! The whole love thing was not supposed to happen yet!"
Still, it was better than sharing all my experiences with Nick The Unfeeling Bartender.

I got a call around six from another David, the David I was good friends with when we were little, whose parents I stayed with in Cassadaga. The David I haven’t seen in 18 years. The David who never understood why I was so excited to talk on the phone, because he never knew what it was like to lose years worth of memories after moving away. That David. I had written him off a little after not hearing from him for a good month or so, but called to say he was at The World’s Largest Block Party, a Chicago street fair, a couple miles away. "Rusted Root is playing and so are a bunch of other bands if you want to come out," he said.
"I’ll be there in a little bit."

I took a cab, not knowing what to expect. Seeing David for the first time in years had my palms a little sweaty. On the phone, it sounded like he had grown into a.... how do I put this without sounding mean?.... stuffy, money-grubbing corporate android. I hoped he wouldn’t think I was too crazy or weird, although from our conversations it was obvious that he already did.

Through the glory of cell phones, we found each other in the crowd and began catching up. We were both there alone. It was odd. He had changed so much, and it was obvious that we developed completely different personality types, almost stereotypically so. A sitcom could have been built around us; it was just like "Dharma and Greg" but without the romance. Dave is a highly-paid engineer with nice clothes and good hair who even smells like money. I live in a car and sometimes have to shave my armpits in Dunkin Donuts.

I had to laugh. I had to laugh until David told me, "Yeah, the only thing I really remember about you is that you peed your pants in kindergarten and you got kicked out of reading class for it."

What a legacy I’ve left. Seriously, you have no idea how it feels to learn that, in one corner of the world, you are known as That Girl Who Peed Her Pants In Kindergarten And Then Moved Away. Also, bear in mind that live music is blaring, so we have to shout to be heard. And it’s crowded.

Standing in that beer-cup-strewn parking lot, I held my tongue. I didn’t say, "Do you remember how you told me I was your girlfriend that year and gave me an adjustable plastic pearl ring and a cloth purse as gifts? And how I got in trouble with Mrs. Price because I kissed your cheek by the water fountain? Do you remember the countless hours you spent at my house, playing He-Man? Or how our parents used to take us to the candy store together for ice cream and candy necklaces?" It was that same old paradox - I moved away, so I held onto my scant memories of Cassadaga fiercely. He never had to.

At one point, watching Rusted Root, I said, "Dude, I don’t want to cock-block you. If you want to go talk to chicks, go right ahead." "No, no, it’s cool," he said. "I’m fine." But I think a little Persian girl in the crowd must have had bionic ears, because not even two minutes after I said that and then stepped away to the trash can, she was on David like white on rice. It was funny to watch. Girls can be so much more aggressive when hitting on strange guys than vice versa. I stayed away, dancing instead with some drunk people. I was well on my way myself, and soon the concert was over and I had made a whole new group of friends. Whose names I can’t remember.

I do remember Emmett, though, and Mike. And Mike’s sister, but I forget her name.
"Come with us! We’re going out tonight, a big group of us!"
"Okay!"

I went back over to David, saying, "It was good seeing you again!" He pried himself away from the laser-beam, "Fuck Me" stare of the Persian girl long enough to say goodbye and give me a hug. Then I got back in step with Emmett, Mike, and the gang, and soon we were at Paul and Jenny’s apartment, a sweet couple who were really excited to hear about my book. There was also Mickey, Katie, Emmett, Mike, and myself. We smoked on the balcony, talking in that loud, excited way that drunk people do when getting to know each other. We started singing at one point, who knows why. I felt so at home with these people, like I had known them forever and could joke with them as such. They were so incredibly welcoming. "This is a much-better Chicago," I thought.

We decided to go to a blues bar called Nick’s Uptown, and were going to cab it, but Mike said he would drive. "Hey, wow! Thanks, Mike! Good man! You’re awesome!"
We all stumbled over to the parking garage, after taking some horrible pictures.
"Okay, this is me, over here," Mike said.
There were seven of us. It was an Audi.

That night I rode through the streets of Chicago with my head hanging out of the rear window of an Audi, balanced precariously on a lap, singing "Sweet Caroline" at the top of my lungs.

Later, at the bar, the level of drunkeness surpassing ridiculous and reaching re-cock-ulous, Emmett and I were dancing to the blues. He dropped me on my head three times, trying to dip me. I think it was my fault, I was pretty much just dead weight by that point.

Emmett, if you read this, my head still hurt well into the next week. But I had so much fun with you guys....... thanks. From the bottom of my heart.