Of Flipcharts and Poor Decisions

It was a standard Saturday night. And by that I mean it was probably Wednesday or Thursday. I know that I was still living around the corner from Scolari's at the time. I'm going to go ahead and take a minute to tell you about Scolari's.

It was the first bar I ever visited upon moving to San Diego. The full name was Scolari's Office. And it. Was. A. Dive. Not a dive in the hipster sense either (though it did get plenty of hipster traffic); this place was truly sketchy and frequently populated by transients who had scraped together enough spare change to buy a beer. It has since been gentrified, as all good things must come to an end, or at least have fancy lighting fixtures and DJ booths installed.

Anyhow, as I recall, it was the usual crew, which, at the time, consisted of me, Ward, D, and whatever guy she was tagging along with those days. I guess I had arrived separately from the rest of them, because I had my skateboard in tow. As the night wore on, a band started setting up. I use "band" in the absolute loosest sense of the word. There were two guys, a guitar, and inexplicably, a flipchart. This could only end badly.

What ensued can't even be described as music. It was sort of a modern-day minstrel show, except really crappy. The "guitarist" proceeded to play completely random and non-melodic chords, the "singer" was really just screeching/chanting/rambling, while simultaneously drawing what I guess were supposed to corresponding illustrations on the flipchart. He was also wearing spandex tights. It was bad, and I was annoyed.

At some point, I had started talking to a guy standing near our end of the bar. We discussed the godawfulness on display before us, I whined about the lameness of my friends (D had already started arguing with whatever guy she was with, as was her custom), and it was decided that he and I should go down the street to the taco shop (Saguaro's, which I'll talk about in more detail later on, as it has figured prominently into my 3+ years in SD.)

I remember that I initially took notice of this guy because he was vaguely attractive, at least in the extremely poor bar lighting, and of course, with the beer goggles on. He was tall, older than me, and most importantly, had really good hair. I'm a sucker for a guy with good hair. However, I wasn't so enamored with him that I felt it necessary to actually walk WITH him to the taco shop. I hopped on my board and told him I'd meet him there. Yes, gentlemen, I'm a catch.

By the time he showed up, I had already ordered (again, classy dame.) As I recall, he didn't eat anything. What he did do was proceed to tell me his life story, unprompted. He had just moved to SD from Michigan. And he was living in a halfway house. And he was a recovering heroin addict who had been clean for a whopping three months. What's the proper response in that situation? "Congrats!"? He did also volunteer that he had passed his most recent HIV test with flying colors, because I guess he still thought that he had even the slightest chance of sleeping with me.

By this time, I was finished with my burrito, throughly creeped out, ready to leave, and wondering if my friends were still around. Which brings us to one of my biggest character flaws: I will freely give my phone number out to even the sketchiest motherfuckers, because, and this is truly how my brain works, "Well, I don't want to date him necessarily, but he doesn't seem like he'd be so bad to hang out with." I could probably find redeeming qualities in Charles Manson if I looked hard enough. (I'm not ALWAYS a jaded cynic. Just most of the time.) And so, as I was excusing myself for the evening, when he asked for my number, I gave it to him. Even though I was looking over my shoulder the entire time I skated home to make sure he wasn't following me.

I figured that was the last I'd hear of him, but not so. About a week later, he texted me around 10AM on a Saturday. He wanted to know if I wanted to meet around 2AM that night/morning to "hook up". That's the phrase he used. I guess when you're an unemployed recovering smack addict halfway house resident, you kinda just throw it all against the wall and see what sticks.

That didn't. I never replied. I did however see him about 4 months later, at Scolari's again. There was a flicker of recognition on his face, but I quickly looked the other way.