"I like the tattoo," he said. "Angel-Hair would dig it."
"You think so?"
"No doubt."
"Hey," I said, wanting to buy my little chum a beer. "I'm going to Damascus to invite some people to my birthday party. Do you want to come?"
"Our birthday's not for a couple weeks."
"We're celebrating early"
"No thanks. Kids in bars. People get weird."
"Not mom," I said, but he still told me he'd pass.
I got to Damascus about three in the afternoon. The place was empty, except for Vern, sitting there with a warm one.
"Do you live here?" I asked him.
"Just the man I was thinking about"
"Me?"
"You and that arm. When we gonna break it?"
"It's my birthday."
"Happy fucking birthday."
"Thanks."
"When we gonna break that arm?"
"Do you want to come to my birthday party?"
He scowled and twirled one of his huge eyebrows. "Birthday party? What, are you ten years old?"
"Forget it," I said to Vern and asked the bartender for a shot of whiskey, who, in turn, asked to see my money first. I patted Vern on the back and said, "My friend here is buying."
Vern rolled his eyes. "Anything for the birthday boy. One for me, too." He shook his empty beer bottle: "Another dead soldier."
The front door opened and Enrique walked in. It turned out he worked at a metal shop around the corner called Meld, and he stopped in to Damascus a few times a day to drink a quick beer when the boss was gone. I looked at his Gloria tattoo and remembered mine.
"Check it out," I said to them and unbuttoned my shirt. My tattoo was supposed to be covered in gauze for the first few hours, but I'd ripped it off. Both Vern and Enrique stared at it. "Tell me what you see."
"I see Bush drinking oil from a martini glass," Vern said.
"Really?" I asked. "You strike me as a republican."
"I may strike you, but I haven't been a republican since this buffoon botched everything."
"No shit?"
"I was a democrat 'til Bobby Kennedy died."
"So what are you now?"
"Morbidly disenchanted." With his hand, Vern imitated an airplane and crashed it into his warm one, knocking it over, suds foaming on the bar. "It's a demented world since 9/11, and old Vern wants no part of it." He picked up his empty bottle, banged it like a gavel. "Another dead soldier!"
The bartender came down, wiped up the mess, asked what had happened, but Vern just grinned at him. "May I have another ale, sir?" he said to the bartender, who begrudgingly obliged.
"What do you see, Enrique?" I said.
He rubbed his tattoo, saying, "I see Gloria, and she still hasn't forgiven me."
I buttoned my shirt back up.
"You guys want to come to my birthday party tonight?"
Vern stuck his little white tongue out again and made a farting noise.
"I'd love to," Enrique said.
"What?" Vern asked him, appalled.
"It's his birthday. Stop being such a prick."
"I am a prick."
"You're a prick who's going to a birthday party," Enrique said.
Around eight, everyone showed up to my apartment. First, Enrique and Vern, then old lady Rhonda and her husband, whose name was Lyle. She carried a chocolate cake with two candles jammed in its top: one said 3; the other said 0.
"Am I really turning thirty?" I said. "I still feel like such a child."
"That feeling never goes away," Lyle said, his teeth sticking out of his lips, like CD cases. "You get old and ugly, but you still feel like a baby on the inside."
I didn't want to talk to him. I took the cake from old lady Rhonda and carried it into the kitchen.
I introduced them to one another.
Vern had a six-pack of warm ones and two bottles of cheap champagne. He had a present, too, something wrapped in pages ripped from a porn magazine. He handed me the gift. "Let's open it after everyone goes home. It's kind of private."
"I didn't have time to wrap mine," Enrique said, as he handed me a bottle of whiskey, "but you seem to like this shit."
We shook hands.
Old lady Rhonda and Lyle had a present, too. She winked at me, "This is all we can afford."
I winked back and loved that we had an inside joke. "You shouldn't have."
"Open it," she said, and I tore the wrapping paper; it was a board game version of "Wheel of Fortune." "So you can practice, Crash Man."
We popped the champagne bottles and had a toast and proceeded to get drunk. Lyle eyeballed the burned couch and the TV. I could tell that they made him mad.
"How's the TV working out?" he said.
"Great."
"And the couch?"
"Better than nothing."
"Are you sure about that?" Vern said to me. "The thing stinks like an electrocuted monkey."
Everyone laughed, except Lyle, who asked, "What happened to your arm?"
"None of your business," I said.
"Boating accident," Vern said to Lyle. "Rhonda fell overboard. He was lucky to survive."
Old lady Rhonda could see things weren't going so well, so she said, "Lyle, will you help me cut the cake?" and they went into the kitchen.
Vern, Enrique, and I huddled on the burned couch.
"I don't like that guy," I said.
"Really? I hadn't noticed," Vern said, making another farting noise. "You don't camouflage your feelings too well."
"You want me to throw the guy out?" Enrique said.
"No. It's her husband. It'll be fine."
And then she came in carrying the cake and sang "Happy Birthday" again. Old lady Rhonda leaned down with the cake so I could blow out the candles without getting off of the couch. There was pride in her eyes, love in her eyes. "Make a wish," she said.
I thought about what I'd give her if it could be anything in the whole world and blew out the candles.
Old lady Rhonda screamed, "Hooray!"
Enrique clapped; Vern drank from a warm one; Lyle said, "Let's go home."
"You go," old lady Rhonda said. "I'll be up later."
"Let's go now"
"I'll be up soon."
"Now."
I stood up from the burned couch. "She doesn't want to go.
"I'm talking to my wife, not you."
"Boys, boys," Vern said. "Let's play nice before uncle Vern has to give both of you a marine-style talking to. Trust me, you don't want that."
"Are you coming?" Lyle said to old lady Rhonda, and she shook her head no. He left without saying another word.
"Temperamental fellow," Vern said.
"I'm sorry;" old lady Rhonda said. "He's having a tough time." She grimaced, then looked at me and faked a smile. "Let's not ruin the party. Who wants more champagne?" and we drank what was left of the bubbly and moved on to whiskey.
Eventually, Enrique left. Eventually, old lady Rhonda kissed me good night and apologized for Lyle. I told her not to worry about it, but I was lying. It was well after three a.m., but Vern didn't want to leave until I opened his gift. We were on the burned couch. I opened the present, ripped right through the porn pages. Inside was a tire iron.
"Thanks," I said, "considering I don't own a car."
He shook his head, twirled a huge eyebrow.
"No seriously, thanks again," I said, "I think this will really come in handy."
"Jesus Christ."
"Really, I can wander around the neighborhood and help the less fortunate change their tires."
"It's not for a car, god damnit!" He flashed his little white tongue. "It's for your arm."
"What?"
"We'll use it to break your arm."
Me, Rhonda, drunk, confused. Wanting to buy a few minutes. "I've got to piss," I said to Vern and ran to the bathroom, trying to steady myself. I took off my shirt and stared at my tattoo, looked at all the things that lived in that one design, how a hundred people could see it and they'd all tell me something new, the freedom in that. I tried to think up some excuse to tell Vern, some reason I couldn't let him do it, but I wanted him to do it, but I didn't want him to do it, I had no idea what I wanted.