You Can't Judge A Plan By The Way Things Turn Out

A night of partying in Brazil gets turned up when a strange turn of events leads to two hetero Americans taking generic Viagra at a gay bar.

I very nearly wanted to be him. What I wanted to be was like him. My own version of his swagger, his fluency, his shameless nature: loud, self-centered, worthy of his own attention and everyone else’s.

He shined his light on me when it suited him, I knew he did it to suit him, but I still absorbed what I could. His name was Jack Rush, and I followed him because he crowded the box at every at bat, because he always found a new story to be told, because I liked him, and because he needed me. I was his only tie to sanity.

Jack followed the coke and I followed Jack, into a gay bar called São Fransisco. Two steps in, Jack had two hands on his a*s. He danced off his gropers and turned to me with a hung jaw and wide eyes and laughed giddily; gay men and straight women loved him, maybe gay women too.

A very tan man with a hooked nose and two large nostrils staring back at his bushy mustache hoisted up his shorts and pointed a toe in front of Jack’s path. Jack looked back to make sure I was watching " I was " and with a flawless mimicry of the classic ballet dancer, he pirouetted over the man’s advance.

The bartender ignored the cries of the crowd trying to order a drink, stood on tiptoe, peered over angry heads and asked Jack what he’d have.

“Give me what the house loves,” he said. The bartender smiled and stared for a moment but Jack had turned to find me. “Make that two,” he said, and flipped a twenty onto the bar.

“Jack,” I said, “it’s not that I don’t like catching stares, but we’re swimming in dicks.”

“Only the hottest women in gay bars,” he said, as if he’d intended to come to one. I put my hand over my eyes and shook my head dramatically. When I looked up again, hoping for a laugh, Jack had turned towards two Brazilian beauties he’d baited from the sea of masculine bulges.

He smiled at the girls, instantly enchanted them with a long jaw, bright eyes, and a golden aura. His smile told you that he was it, he was what you’d been looking for and trying to be, and the best you could do was embrace him. The girls kissed his cheeks. Jack passed me a glance, said something clever, and the girls giggled. One of the two, slightly prettier than the other, came to me with purpose. She whispered to the seams of my pants with soft hands. I laughed with Jack and kissed the girl hard on the mouth. I looked up. Jack was kissing his girl too.

The four of us danced. The men around us lost interest, there were no other straight men at the bar, no girls either, and the crowd changed from burden to border, corralling our group into our own private dance party. We were immune to the rest of the world, the only double date worth being in. We were it.

Between dances Jack joked with the girls. His Portuguese was beautiful they said. Like a true Brazilian they said. It flowed off his tongue in melodies, he flirted in foreign song, and while I didn’t understand a word, I was as captivated as they were. I even laughed when they did.

“Keep them entertained,” he said. And he faded behind the flow of chatting drinkers.

“Cervejas?” I asked. They shook their heads. “Other drinks?” I asked. Blank stares. Jack’s girl whispered to mine and laughed. Mine scowled and slapped her on the arm. “Vodka?”  Their eyebrows popped up and they smiled.

I yelled and leapt, waved my arms and tapped the bar, tried many languages including sign language without avail. The bartender gave no notice. The girls ordered their vodkas. I tried to pay but they said they’d already taken care of it.

Many faces: smiling, talking, laughing, hoping, scoping, prying, scanning, but none white, no outliers, no crown, no shine, no Jack. And no girls.

I snaked through the bar, ducking under arms and squeezing past shoulders. Jack was still gone but I found the girls conversing closely in a corner, their noses touching.

“You’re beautiful, very beautiful,” I said, to the one I’d kissed earlier. Then I smiled at the other. I won another kiss and even acknowledgment from Jack’s girl. Her eyes bounced from face to face, ending with familiar disappointment.

“Jack?” she asked. I shrugged. She opened her mouth and out came a barrage of Portuguese, presumably not Chinese, or French, or Martian. I understood one key word.

“Your apartment?” I asked. They nodded and smiled and urged me to find him. No extra motivation needed. Full lips and bright lipstick outlining bright teeth supercharged my soul. I set aside a nicotine buzz, and cocaine consequent ADD, and the drenching comfort of booze filled hours, and focused. A return to sobriety requires only water and willpower. A jug in the corner saved me from the nuisance of hopping the bar to get myself a glass.

Water, like duct tape, fixes all physical needs, and even heals the mental. Jack appeared.

“Put out your hand,” he said. I did. A blue pill fell into my sweaty palm. I checked my phone. 3:43am.

“A little late for ecstasy.”

“Not ex bro, it’s Viagra.”

The pill failed inspection.

“It’s unmarked and chalky. This isn’t Viagra.”

“Close enough. It’s the generic. The real one was 65 reais per pill.”

“And this s**t?”

“Seven reais!” he exclaimed with a wildly forced laugh. “You’ll be a god in the sack tonight!”

We went from bar to street to building to stairs to kitchen to two separate rooms and kisses lined my neck, chest, and stomach. All signs pointed to the pill. I saved up some spit and swallowed. I’ll be a god in the sack tonight.

A god, a god, is all I thought " god, why stop, what happened? She kissed me on the cheek and rolled onto her back, splayed out, lazy, tired, done.

I faced her. She turned away.

“Problem,” I asked.

“Sou lésbica,” she said.

“Excuse me?” not sure I’d understood, hoping to not have understood.

Her thin waist, thick thighs, great a*s, flat stomach, n****e piercings, and many tattoos disappeared behind shirt and shorts. She smiled, shrugged, strutted out, knowing what she was doing, but not knowing what she had done. I surged. I couldn’t think. Every blood droplet I’d had at the time, from the brain and ears and chest and legs, flowed south. My heart was dry; my c**k was ready to explode and paint the walls red. I was embarrassed. Rejected and fooled while Jack Rush was a god in the sack.

“No f*****g way!” Jack’s yell too powerful for thin walls. “You’re kidding!” he said. “What a joke!” he said, and then Portuguese, Portuguese, Portuguese. “Monty!” he yelled, and I jumped out of bed, threw on clothes and threw open the door.

My girl sat next to Jack’s, stroking her hair, Jack’s pants extra stretched just like mine. He looked happy but well beyond disbelief.

“Lesbians!” he exclaimed, with excitement and frustration, as if finally remembering the word stuck on the tip of his tongue. He looked up at me with a devastated smile.

“Yours too?” he asked. I nodded at the snuggling girls. “F**k!”

The girls held hands as they went back to bed leaving Jack and I hard on the couch.

“They left us a bottle of tequila,” I said.

“It’s the least they could do.”

One, two, five shots later, we’re nearly completely relaxed. Sleep forced itself and we woke up to the couple urging us out towards the sunrise. One girl said something. The other whispered back. They laughed and stared at my crotch. I’d have blushed but there was no blood left to spare. The erection stood pulsing and proud.

“What a waste,” I said, as we walked out the door to the morning rush hour streets of Jaraguá do Sul. “The ménage was there for the taking.”

“But what a story this way!” Jack said with delight, “played by the cutest two liars!” He lit our last cig, which we shared waddling home, and Jack walked with a pride in his hips. Taking a drag, I couldn’t help but look down and began finding the humor as well.

“They played us!” I said.

“They played us,” he said. And we laughed as we smoked and we walked. Laughing off rejection, laughing away disappointment, our laughter carried the memories of two dimes long into our past, everything gone in laughs, just delirium, booze stained shirts, smoky hands, and erections aged well past four hours bouncing along with each laugh.

Two tall white blondes, laughing as hard as we were, were bound to draw some attention. Bikers and drivers rolled by and stared. Early risers for work walked by and stared. Our laughter fed off of attention, confusion, and discomfort.

“I have to fart,” Jack said matter of fact.

“It’s good,” I said.

“I’m scared.”

“Of what?”

“Well not scared, more nervous.”

“Of what?”

“That I’ll s**t. That I’ll shart. I’m scared.”

“Who cares?”

“Well more nervous.”

“Doesn’t matter.”

Jack was two steps ahead but two steps to the side. I made sure I wasn’t down wind. He swallowed and clenched and flexed and squirmed and there came an obvious release.

“Oh no,” Jack said.

“You s**t?”

“Not quite.”

He turned to show his shirt. And my god it was glorious, a new sight to my eyes, a piss streak climbed from waistband to n*****s. I fell to the ground and laughed until tears and Jack laughed along just as hard.

“I knew we should go to a gay bar,” he said, and as we walked home, our lives defined by piss and cigs and booze and boners, it was hard not to believe he’d planned it all along.