Jowita Bydlowska - Guy

“Because they like the fish. Because the fish are pretty. So they will bring more girlfriends here to look at the fish.”

“So the girls are like the fish?”

“A woman needs a fish like a man needs a bicycle,” I laughed.

Gloria didn’t laugh. “Are you having a stroke?”

Gloria’s company can be exhausting. Some days it’s like hanging out with a homeroom teacher. Anyway, the aquarium disappeared one day. A waitress tells me all the fish died after someone threw cocaine in the tank.

I’m immune to the girls in here. Even the plain ones are too much, adorned in their sparkly bits, lines memorized from one of those books about how to catch and train a man. Sometimes when I’m here, I picture myself wrapped inside a giant condom to keep all the mental illness and sparkly filth away.

I would like to stay away from these clubs for good, but right now I need this place in order to find someone to help me to keep the Tumour Thing going. I go to Bibliothèque night after night, pretending to be a bland-yet-exuding-friendliness type – a guy everyone wants to talk to because you can just tell he will listen.

I’m an okay actor, save for the inability to tell jokes. I can become a friendly person, a chatting/listening machine, asking about people’s jobs, their clothes and the television they like. People love talking about TV shows. I talk about The Sopranos , the greatest TV show that’s ever existed. I’ve never seen it. But almost everyone can and will talk about The Sopranos , and no one really listens to anyone, so it doesn’t matter that I haven’t seen it.

For my outings, I wear a white T-shirt, a black Varvatos suit jacket, a rotation of skinny Tiger of Sweden jeans, always paired with a set of ugly Coach tennis shoes. This outfit makes me look like one of those ad agency guys, exactly who I’m trying to attract.

I sit and wait. I check my Facebook. Try to come up with clever status updates. I scroll through the recipes I’ve posted. I count my comments. Not a lot of comments. I message my new Mexican clicker to request more comments.

I look up from Facebook to look at people. I shouldn’t look too busy. I should look inviting.

A girl journalist starts chatting with me. The Sopranos comes up. She tells me she’s just like Adriana. I have no idea what that means, but she seems proud of herself, so I say, “Interesting,” and she smiles and squints at me. “What do you do?”

I could probably fuck her, but I won’t. “Nothing. Unemployed.”

She gasps. She checks her phone. “I have to go.”

“Yes, please go,” I say, and her eyes turn big and her ponytail whips around and she clicks off on her silver heels.

An older woman with a baby-rat face and a cloud of teased yellow-red hair, wearing black-patent Louboutins that she shows while crossing and uncrossing her legs, has been watching me. She’s someone I actually hooked up with once, after Gloria and I had a fight in here and I was left alone to feel bad and remorseful.

“That’s Mildred,” someone says beside me. “She used to be married to some famous Canadian musician or an actor. She’s okay for fifty.”

“You should go for it.”

“She’s a Six,” the guy says. I like him.

“A solid Six.”

“I don’t go anywhere below Seven,” he laughs.

“I like anything from One up,” I laugh.

He quickly looks behind me. “Yeah? You should go for it yourself then.”

“Are you with an ad agency?”

“Who isn’t?”

“Anything I’d know?”

“We did that cat food ad. We do a ton of shit, but everyone always talks about the cat food.”

“Where you’ve got guys pretending to be cats? Those were great.”

He nods and looks in the direction of the glass door leading to the patio, as if he saw someone there he knows.

I look in the same direction, but there isn’t anybody there; he’s just one of those guys who is always looking for a better party than the one he’s at.

I try to guess his age. Close to mine. But balding. Expensive glasses. I’d ask him where he got the frames but I don’t. We’ll exchange fashion tips another time.

I say, “I’m in the music business. I need an ad for cancer.”

“Like the Run for the Cure stuff?”

“Like that, but different. I want to make cancer cool.”

“Twisted. I like it.” I really do like him.

“Good. I know someone who has a tumour, one of my clients, a pop star. I want people to respond to it positively, you know, connect with it. They have grey ribbons. It’s a brain tumour.”

“Terrible.”

“Yeah. Terrible. But that’s my point – we’re demonizing it. And it’s just part of life. I want to make it acceptable. No drama.”

“Drama is bad.”

“Unless it’s the mentally ill or children. Or seniors.”

“Soldiers.”

“Yes. Exactly,” I say and watch him chug his beer, something behind his eyes whirring, some kind of machine that probably has access to everything that’s ever been trendy, trying to come up with the perfect formula for me.

This is why this unpleasant place is okay after all – watching this guy, I become aware of how everyone here is actually working on something. Sure, it’s mostly about hookups, about sad lost Sixes like Mildred, but it’s also about being on, being ready to talk about making tumours acceptable if it may mean more money, a step up to glory. I’m always impressed with people trying to make something out of themselves.

“Mmm,” my new best friend says and takes a sip out of his new bottle of Heineken, which shows up along with my Scotch. Dalwhinnie.

“It should be a WTF strategy,” my new best friend says.

“What?”

“The Tumour Thing. You know, WTF, what the fuck, as in, what the fuck was that? It’s basically a hidden ad, like a teaser. I mean, I don’t know what that would be exactly right now, but I think that’s the route to go.”

“We don’t tell people it’s about a tumour?”

“Precisely. Right. We just do some other stuff, you know, not even related, and then there could be a big reveal. Or not. No drama.”

“No. No IVs. Something quiet and sexy instead,” I say.

He blinks at me, smiles. “Yeah.”Then his eyes lose their focus and he’s looking past me. “Ah screw it. She’s almost a Six-and-a-half. One more beer and she’ll be a Seven.”

I recall the feeling of Mildred’s teeth on my skin. I look around the rooftop patio. There are transactions buzzing all around me, the eager eyes and mouths, the shiny hair and skin. Everywhere, the ringed fingers and bracelets touching shoulders, shoulders shaking in laughter and iPhones flashing, the tiny trays of olives and almonds everywhere.

I notice two women at a table near us. They are sitting head to head, whispering to each other, hands covering mouths. They’re both attractive, with big bodies full of angles, wide faces and slightly upturned eyes. They look Russian. I like how they talk, how absorbed they seem in each other.

I catch a few women who might be glancing toward their table, though I can’t be sure because they could be trying to look at me. But not likely – it’s the girls, not me, they’re interested in. I know enough about the female psyche to know that the girls’ giggly familiarity would feel threatening to other women, driving them a little crazy about not being let in on the secret.

I tap the ad guy on the shoulder to ask him what he thinks.

“Nine-and-a-half. Both of them. So that’s what?”

“Nineteen.”

“Nineteen,” he giggles. “Listen, my standards are dropping proportionally to time going by. By last call, Mildred will be an Eight.” He winks at me. He gets up. He hands me his card. PAT on one side, TRICK@kolektiv on the other. Thick cardboard paper.