Chapter 1

It was karaoke night and I was almost always there on Mondays. I am a mature fat guy at 6’ 1” and around 290 lbs. depending on what week or month it is. Being of Welsh/Norwegian ancestry, I am a big boned thick male of the species. I am bald because I shave what hair I have left on my head and I have a really nice, silver white, Fu-Manchu style mustache.

I am also a nice guy, with many friends at the bar.

Well, bar friends, not the kind I would lay my life down for.

Well, that is not exactly right, either.

I would take a bullet for the guy who runs karaoke. His name is Brody and he and I have had some great knockdown, drag out verbal fights over politics, since I am a staunch libertarian constitutional conservative and he is a liberal progressive.

When we get to drinking and talking politics things get really nuts. Mostly because he cannot win arguments with facts, he only ‘feels’ things should be better. He ‘feels’ people should be civil. He ‘feels’ that everyone should love each other. And he ‘feels’ government should make laws to make people ‘feel’ the same as him.

Anyway! It was Monday night and it was a packed house at The Bar-Bar. For some reason, in downtown Boise Idaho on Monday nights everyone came to The Bar-Bar. I was a regular as were my friends Beth and Mike and Dara. Those people, and the bartender, Jeffery, I would take a bullet for. They were the closest thing I had to friends in the whole fucking world.

I had been divorced from my second mistake for 9 years. Correct that. I had been divorced from my second wife for 9 years. My first marriage was great, and it produced two great kids, but it was no mistake. The mistake was me working fucking stupid hours to give my wife and kids the things I thought they wanted, what I lost sight of was that what they needed was a husband and a father.

After my first divorce I went into a deep depression and stayed there for several years. I ran up credit card debt as I drank myself out of a job or two and almost into the world of drunks that surrounded my current apartment, across the street from the Salvation Army homeless shelter. The second marriage was a foolish mistake by a lonely man, and it cost me a lot of self-respect.

But back to the story, it was Monday night at The Bar-Bar, and I was walking in the door at 9:30 with a sub sandwich from the shop, ‘Uncle Munchies’, across the street. They normally closed at 9pm on Mondays but I caught them open at 9:10 so I stopped in for a bite.

On Monday night in Boise, The Bar-Bar was the only real place to be. Everything was different on Monday’s. The few restaurant’s in the immediate area closed early and the food trucks came out to fill the void, by the time I normally got out of work and went to the bar the food places had closed and I was stuck with hot dogs ($4! Really!) from the food truck or the food cart or whatever was parked outside the bar at that time of night.

So, I wandered in at 9:30, sandwich in my hand and I greeted and shot the shit with the door guys. I greeted the sound guy (an average singer can sound pretty good with a good sound guy), the bartenders (always the bartenders). My dad taught me that suits might think that they run the world, but bartenders and janitors have the beer and the keys.

On Monday’s the Bar-Bar has a great special that they call a ‘Dew and a Brew’. No, it is not a Mountain Dew and a lite beer. (People who drink Lite beer, should die! Kidding!) The special is a shot of Tullamore Dew Irish Whiskey and a pint of either Guinness or Harp or Bass Ale. I ordered the one with the Harp.

I took my seat next to Brody and began to fill out my song list for the night. Tonight, I was in a mood, so I put in some somber 60’s tunes from the protest days on my youth. I was feeling rebellious, like the world could go and fuck itself and as soon as I turned in my list, ‘she’ walked in the door.

‘She’, was about 5’8” and about 120 lbs. ‘She’ had a thick head of blond hair and was wearing a long black coat and was accompanied by a hot brunette in a gray coat that did nothing to hide her big tits. However, back to ‘She’. ‘She’ removed her coat and I was struck. Under the coat was a red sweater, that stopped just above her belly button. Fuck that ‘navel’ shit, it is a fucking belly button! And it was wonderful.

‘She’ was not anorexic and was not voluptuous. Her body was just right. ‘She’ had on black leggings/yoga pants that showed off her curves and screamed to me, “LOOK!”

Remember that I have not had sex in 9 years, I have been alone in this world for a long time and I drank to kill the loneliness, except on Mondays, when I sang karaoke to do the same.

Since I was the longest standing regular, Brody always had me go first. He used to ask me if I wanted to go first, and I always told him that it wasn’t my gig and if he wanted me to go first I would and if not then it wouldn’t matter to me. So, I always went first.

As I said, I was in a mood, so my first song was ‘Dock Of The Bay’ by Otis Redding. I did ok. In my mind, I could have done better. Otis did it faster than I used to do it with the band I was in before I moved to Boise, Idaho.

I spent the evening watching the various drunk guys try to pick her up, but ‘she’ always managed to ward them off. A couple of guys tried to dance with her and when they spun her and pulled her back to their chest, so they might get a quick feel of her tits, ‘She’ had their hands in hers in an instant. ‘She’ seemed to be a master cock-blocker.

At one point I walked to the bar to get a refill and the normal spot was packed with morons ordering lite beer, so I walked to the long side of the bar only to find that the only open spot was next to ‘her’. I leaned both elbows on the bar and waited to be served.

“Hi!”

There was no one at the bar that would normally talk to me, so I kind of ignored the voice. My curiosity got the best of me and I turned to look into the eyes of ‘she’ ... er... ‘her’ ... er ... that woman.

“Hi”. ‘She’ spoke to me again, more firmly.

“Hello.” I turned back to the bar to try to flag down the Jeffery.

“I liked your song.”

“Um, thank you.”

“I have heard you several times. I really enjoy what you sing and how you do it.”

“Thank you, may I eat your pussy?”

Well that is what I thought of saying. At my age, it was too late to drop lame-ass pick-up lines, but I knew that I was too old for her. Maybe if I talked to her, I could set up a double date with her and her guy de jour, and her mom and me! Instead, I thanked her again and tried to extricate myself from the crush at the bar.

Finally, I got free and went back to my seat next to Brody. As I walked towards him, he shot me a look and I was about to figure it out when I felt a hand on my back, and I heard a voice.

“Would it be alright if I sat with you?”

“Um, sure.” I pulled out a bar stool that was stored under the side bar where I sat, and ‘She’ took her place. I made sure that the stool was far enough away from me that we would not bother each other. I also figured that ‘She’ would be a nice distraction for the evening.

“What are you singing next?”

“I put in a list of songs and Brody picks based on the crowd. I don’t want to be a buzz kill. If everyone is dancing, he picks a dance song. If everyone is into slow songs, he picks a slow song.”

“Do you do requests?”

“Sometimes. It depends on the song. I don’t do rap and I can’t sing the high notes.”

“Would you sing a song to me?”

“Don’t you mean ‘for’ you?”

“No. I speak very clear and concise English. I would like to know if you would sing a song to me.”

“Well, that is a first.”

“How so?”

“I have been asked to sing a song ‘with’ and ‘for’ but never ‘to’ someone.”

“Will you?”

Just then Brody called me, and I went back on stage to sing. I had not been paying attention to the songs and was a bit surprised when the title appeared on the screen. ‘Two Princes’ by the Spin Doctors was the song and not one I had done often. As I sang it, I thought about the lyrics. As I sang “I know what a princely lover ought to be” I looked over at ‘she’.

‘She’ was smiling as she sat upright with great posture. Posture is important to my particular attraction model. A woman with slouched shoulders sends a message of sloppiness to me. ‘She’ sat up and presented an image of grace and confidence. Her breasts sat high on her chest and her body line was straight from the bottom of her breasts down to her lap. ‘She’ didn’t present a tummy bulge as she sat. The picture in my mind was ‘Grace Kelly’.

I almost forgot to sing the song as I looked at her and her at me. I finished and to my surprise was rewarded with loud applause. I always marveled that despite the current auto-tune sloppy music scene, young people still lean towards meaningful lyrics and well written music and solid harmonies.