Chapter 1: Introductions Pt 1

November – Year 1

Hi! My name is Paul O’Dell and I am a 6’1”, 220 lbs American of Irish-Welsh-Norwegian descent. Over the past 18 months I’ve lost 170 lbs and although I looked ok with my clothes on, I’m still suffering from having a bit of loose skin, however workouts and nutrition are helping with that. I have shaved my head for the past ten years or so. I figured it was falling out anyway, why not just shave it off and shorten the process. My moustache is white and is about four inches long, sort of like a Fu-Manchu.

I have been married twice and divorced twice. My first wife was fantastic and I love her to this day. I was a stupid workaholic and I drove her away from me after 19 years and two kids. My second wife was a mistake I should not have made. I needed companionship and kept telling her “I love you” when I did not. We dated a year, were married for a year and have been divorced for 4 years.

Being so immersed in my job, I needed an outlet, a relaxation that had nothing to do with my profession. When I was in junior high school I was drawn to the music of Motown; I loved the lyrics and the harmonies, but could not sing most of the songs because my voice was too deep.

My voice has been deep since I quit growing when puberty hit at the age of 12! I have had this voice forever and I did junior and senior high school choir solos and musicals. I wanted a voice like Curtis Mayfield so bad, but instead I sounded like Gordon McCrae!

After college I went to work developing my profession and through some convoluted pathways I always ended up singing in a band for fun. Each band did what is now called classic rock and we did blues and we wrote original music. We always had a small loyal following and I really enjoyed the work/activity/past time. Music became my savior after my first divorce. It stopped me from killing myself and kept me at the fringe of depression instead of deep in its death grip.

I moved to this Boise, Idaho about 8 months ago and after taking the necessary time to get settled into the new community, I began to sample the local night life, finding a dearth of live music as the local scene was just screaming death metal and young kids trying to reinvent classic rock and roll. Most were not talented or were doing music that reminded me of the early 70’s. It was all original sounding to these kids, but not to me. I would hear a local band that was getting off on how original they were and I would recognize The Troggs or Iron Butterfly or Vanilla Fudge.

Anyway, I needed an outlet from the pressures of my solitary life and that outlet ended up being karaoke. So, I went online and found several bars that had karaoke. After stopping at 5 such places, I settled on two.

My second favorite place was small and at its best was a dirty hole in the wall. It was located between a cheesy Mexican restaurant and a strip club along a major thoroughfare on the west side of town, about 3 miles from my apartment. It did, however, have a great sound system and an almost unlimited song list since it was internet based.

The crowd was a strange mix, as its location would suggest, and toward 1 AM we would start getting the drunken guys from the strip club, the strippers getting off their shift, and Latinos from the restaurant. Singing a sexy song would usually bring out the strippers tits as they would do their dance thing. I was once used as a stripper pole during a song, but that’s another story.

My favorite spot was a small neighborhood bar with a decent sound system and a really decent song list. The best part was the crowd and the KJ; all good solid local business professionals and bikers and service workers and barflies. The closest thing I have to friends, outside of the few in my profession, are now located here. The one guy that I usually sat with was named Mark and he was a professional technical guy that worked behind the scenes in radio and television, and frankly, I think that he and I both have faces made for radio!

Mark was popular in the place and drew lots of very normal looking women to him. He acted as a backup bouncer, if the drunks got crazy; and a crying shoulder to the women who never seemed at a loss for drama. There were many women in the bar, most were heavier in the hips and swore like sailors. Some were biker chicks, some were recently post-college. The most attractive to me were more mature women with mature bodies with good proportions and pretty faces. I am a sucker for a pretty face and if that face has pretty eyes, I am in lust!

I always sat next to Mark because I enjoyed his company. The bar was L-shaped and we sat near the bend and along the short side of the L. From this spot I could watch three of the many TV’s, all with sports. Mark could see the main entrance, the pool tables, the door to the outside patio (thanks smoking Nazi’s!) and down the whole bar so if anyone acted up he was aware of it. I liked this spot because the women bartenders all had nice asses and anywhere from nice to really exceptional cleavage.

It seemed that every night I was there, every woman in the bar would come in, order a drink and then come over and say hello to Mark. I really was not looking for another woman in my life. I mean what would be the purpose? I still had strong feelings for my first wife and, therefore, I was not looking for a third wife or even a girlfriend, and I had real issues with sex outside of marriage. Sorry, I guess it is my old fashioned upbringing. But, I do love looking at women and having so many always coming by to see Mark, was nice.

After a few weeks I had achieved the status of “regular”; the women would acknowledge me and some would even talk to me. My response was always polite and muted but never inviting. Again, what was the point, I was never going to take any of them home. One night I helped back up Mark and the house bouncer, as we had to throw out some really drunken assholes that were grabbing the tits and asses of many of the regular women. After that more women came over and said hello and started up conversations.

On a Friday night a few weeks ago, I had just finished singing a favorite song of mine; it is a song in my range and it has a lot of emotion in it. I returned to my stool next to Mark, watching the college football highlights on the TV, and nursing my drink.

The spot I sit in is obscured from the stage when I sing so I cannot see it thru a post and a couple of rows of high tables. Mark takes advantage of the fact that I cannot see the spot and plays jokes on me. His favorite is to screw with my phone. I have a finger pattern security lockout. You slide the pattern on the dots on the screen to bring it to life. After 10 bad attempts the phone locks up for an hour. Mark thinks it is funny to do 10 real fast and wrong combinations and then put the phone back next to my drink. He thinks it’s funny.

He also buys extra shots of Capt. Morgan and pours them into my Capt. Morgan and Mr. Pibb. On this particular night I returned to my spot and Mark was looking exceptionally satisfied with himself. I looked to see if a leg on the stool was missing. My drink was almost empty when I went to sing and it had not changed so no extra shots were in there. I sat down and waited for the bomb to drop.

“My friend, there is a woman here who wants to meet you” Mark said.

“What?”

“A woman came by while you were singing and asked about you. I told her your name and that you seemed like a good guy.”

“She is really a guy, isn’t she?”

“I don’t know!” Mark was acting like he was seriously getting defensive. “No, she is a she. She is pretty. I’ve talked to her before. She is nice. What is the problem?”

“I don’t know. It seems that all of the women I meet who are my age are either married, married and cheating, married to a yappy little mutt, divorced and angry, or they’re single but they look like me! Seriously!”