I forgot to mention how I met Dave in the first place, and how it came to be that he slept on my couch once.
I was having a cook out one afternoon. My friends were over and I was no good at cooking, so one of my friends was manning the grill, and the rest of us were sitting outside at a picnic table in the common area courtyard of my six-flat apartment building at Wellington, Lincoln, and Southport. James had on the most ridiculous shirt.
[the cook out -- even the fact that it was
the year 2000 is not an excuse for James' shirt]
As we were having our lunch, a neighbor in the apartment building next door was going back and forth from his back door to a U-Haul out front. He appeared to be moving. We were making a lot of noise. At some point, this neighbor came over to the picnic table. He was carrying the stuffed head of a deer.
"We have enough to eat here," I said.
He said, "Hi. I'm moving into my girlfriend's place and she doesn't want me to bring this.”
“Peculiar,” I said.
He went on: “I was going to throw it out, but I thought maybe one of you would want it."
There was a slightly awkward silence. All of my friends clammed up. I said, "I'm all stocked up on deer heads here, but thanks for the offer!"
He was playful. "This isn't a deer. It's a gazelle!"
"You don't say!"
"I'm serious. I could sell this. It's museum-quality."
"I believe you."
"But I need to get rid of it fast."
"How much would a stuffed museum-quality gazelle head go for?"
"I don't know. It was given to me. But you could probably get like $500 for it."
The correct thing to do for the sake of making the cook out more memorable, was to accept this gift of a dead animal head. So I stood up and said, "I'm just kidding. I'm not gonna sell it, but I'll take it off your hands."
"Cool!" He handed over the gazelle head and went back to packing his U-Haul. I set the stuffed gazelle head on the ground next to me and we continued talking loudly and eating hamburgers and potato salad. Every once in a while, out of the blue, someone would say, "I can't believe that guy just came over and handed you a gazelle head."
"It's museum quality!" I would say.
After we were done eating, we cleaned up and went into the apartment to primp for a night out. We had only recently stopped dressing like lumber jacks, all flannel and Pearl Jam. We all had our Jennifer Anniston hair cuts. We all wore silver necklaces and Birkenstocks. We weren't quite there yet with our style. Kind of in between college and business casual. Do you remember those flat-front skinny black pants from the Gap? With the side zipper? We all had those. We were probably wearing them with clogs.
We went to a bar where a mutual friend had rented out a back room. It was dark and there were benches all around the walls. We were sitting down, maybe 15 or 20 people, as if around a campfire. I was sitting next to Joel, a kid I had gone to high school with, and his girlfriend named Sasha, who he had met at Middlebury College. The rest of us had gone to Iowa. I was asking Joel and Sasha about going to school in Vermont. It seemed so exotic. Sasha told me that her mother named her after a character in a novel by a Russian author. I had read a lot of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky and Solzhenitsyn, and it seemed to me that every character in every book by all of them was called Sasha. I never got around to asking which one she was named after, because people started to get up from the bench-style seating and were leaving the room to go to the street outside the bar. A girlfriend of ours was getting on the back of a motorcycle with a guy she had just met . Some of my girlfriends were trying to dissuade her. They thought it was a bad idea. They were concerned that the guy might be drunk . Our friend clearly was. We were in our mid-20s and we didn't know yet about the phenomenon of men in their 30s with their motorcycles. Against the objections of some of my friends, my girlfriend rode off with this guy. We hailed a bunch of cabs. We yelled, "Follow that motorcycle!"
The girlfriend, her new motorcycle friend, and we ended up in a Polish part of town at a dance club called Jedynka. All of the people in the club were speaking Polish.
At this time in my life, I liked going to clubs, and I enjoyed doing some dancing. Now, I am not a trained dancer, but let's just say that I'm "noticeable". In many instances, I think it would be fair to say that I have "caused a scene" on the dancefloor. The cruel irony is that while I have this inborn natural talent for freestyle dancing, I have next to no hair on my body, including on my head, and when I dance, I get really sweaty. It's not just that I perspire. I hit a point of no return when I sweat right through all of my head hair, and sweat is just gushing out of my head and my face. I am always sad when this happens, because that is when I know that it is time to stop dancing.
I had nearly reached this point when I saw that a tall, blond guy, with just the most gorgeous, chiseled face, was dancing next to me. We made eye contact and he started kind of groping at me. He was very good looking and he had some pretty keen dance skills, so I let him, but I wasn't really interested. It was a dance club, and I don't typically find men who dance in dance clubs very interesting. Also, he seemed very young.
"What's your name?" He had a Polish accent.
"Jules."
"Jules." He repeated. "Jules! I'm gonna buy you a drink!"
I walked to the bar with the tall, blond Pole. This is a woefully generic and useless description, as all Poles in Chicago except for me are impossibly tall, blond, and svelte as kittens.
We were trying to get the bartender's attention to order drinks. It was crawling with beautiful, blue-eyed Poles wearing trendy clothes. I was in a forest green (remember that color?) top and feeling decidedly not tall and not slim and definitely not trendy. I was blond at the time, but not in the right way. I was slippery as a seal from the dancing, and so I was looking around the bar for some napkins. I finally grabbed some and was trying to surreptitiously wipe the sweat running down my temples while he got the beers.
He asked me, "Are you Polish?"
"I am," I said. "But only a little bit. My last name is Polish. Or Russian?" I told him my last name.
He lit up with excitement. "Do you know what your name means?" I could barely hear him over the baseline of the blaring dance music.
"No!" I yelled, so he could hear me.
He leaned right into the side of my head and yelled into my ear, "Your name is in the Polish National Anthem!" I was certain he had felt my sweaty hair. I yelled into his ear, "I don't believe you!" He had his hand on my waist now.
"It is! I swear it is!", he yelled into my ear. "You're a famous Pole!" He kissed me on the neck.
I felt ridiculous. And stupidly proud. Could it be? Was it true? Was my last name really in the Polish National Anthem!? I realized that I hadn't asked him his name. So I did that. I don't remember what he said, but I do recall that he said he was an EMT. We talked for awhile and I found him articulate and funny. The banter was very fast-paced and intelligent (for dance club conversation) and we were laughing like mad. I had been surrounded by law students and lawyers for years, and these types of people are all English and history and poli-sci majors, but this kid knew how to do something. He knew about science. I was asking him about CPR compressions and riding in ambulances. While he was talking, his eyes were boring into me, and even though he seemed to like me, all I could think about was how sweaty I was. I started squirming away from his grasp. I liked him, but the closer he got, the younger he looked, and the sweatier I felt.
Then my friend (the one with the asshole boyfriend) appeared next to me. She jabbed me on the arm with a cold beer and said, "You're making friends!"
I yelled, "He's really young!"
The young Polish EMT, who was standing on the other side of me, whisper-yelled in my ear, "I'm not that young!"
My friend yelled, "We're leaving." She was referring to herself and her asshole boyfriend. She shouted, "Are you going to stay?"
The young Pole grabbed me closer and whispered, "Stay."
The asshole yelled, "Have you seen Dave?"
"Who's Dave?" I yelled back.
"He's right there," my friend pointed. Dave was standing at the bar on the other side of the Polish EMT. He lifted his bottle of Bud Light in acknowledgement.
"Where's Amy?" I shouted at my friend.
"She left with the motorcycle guy."
"You're kidding?"
"No." She stared at me seriously.
But then we laughed. Because of our age, this was funny, our friend going off who knows where on a motorcycle with a complete stranger who was probably drunk.
"Is there anyone else here?"
"Dave," my friend said.
I looked over at Dave. He waved at me in one motion and took a swig of his beer.
The Polish kid clutched me closer. "Let's go dance."
I kept looking at Dave. I was curious about him. He was decidedly not a Polish dancer, but he seemed comfortable. And he wasn't leaving.
"I'm going to stay for a bit," I said to my friend. The Pole and I went out to the dance floor and I got more sweaty. He was pulling me really close and I was perspiring uncomfortably. I excused myself to go to the ladies room. "I'll come back," I yelled to him as I backed off the dance floor.
I made my way through the towering blonds to the rest room. I wiped myself down. My hair was mostly sweated through. I wondered why Dave hadn't left with my friend and her asshole boyfriend. I wondered if the Polish fellow liked me for me, or if he was just into sweaty, one-quarter Poles distantly related to famous war heroes.
When I walked out of the rest room and made my way back, Dave was standing on the edge of the dance floor. I said, "Hi, Dave."
"Hi. Are you going home with that guy?" He looked over at the Polish kid.
"I don't plan to," I said.
"Do you need another beer?"
"Sure." I followed him to the bar. I was wondering what kind of commitment, if any, I had to the Pole, and whether it would be in bad taste not to return to the dance floor.
Dave handed me a Bud Light, and the Polish guy came up next to me and said, "Do you want to leave?"
I looked at Dave. He took a drink of his new beer. I wanted to keep talking to him.
I said to the Polish guy, "I just got a beer."
The three of us stood by the bar, drinking our beers, watching the attractive Poles living it up in the flashing lights. The Pole and I started talking about the people on the dance floor. I performed a 5-minute critique of the dancers. He was laughing. Dave was standing on the other side of me not saying anything at all.
And then, very abruptly, the music stopped. The lights went out. The dancing Poles came to attention. A single spotlight shone brightly on the Polish flag. Some proud chords struck out. A mazurka?
The Poles began to sing.
The EMT grabbed me and yelled, “It’s the Polish National Anthem!”
And then, I swear to God, I heard all of those beautiful Poles sing out my last name.
The anthem ended, the strobe lights and music resumed, and the Poles went back to their dancing. Dave casually said, "Do you want to get out of here?"
"Yeah."
I leaned over to my Pole. "I think I'm going to leave."
"OK," he said. He put his hand on my waist again. I turned to leave and we snaked our way out of the bar, me in front of the Pole, and Dave behind us. We got out on the street and all three got into the cab. It didn't make any sense, but no one was backing down.
"Are you hungry?" The Pole said?
"I don't have any money," said Dave.
"We could go to my place," I said, and did not know why. There was no food there. They were both strangers, but I reasoned that the odds had to be low that they would both, independently of one another, try to kill me.
The cab dropped us in front of my place and as I was putting the key in the door, I was wondering what the hell was going on. The Pole wanted to make out with me. I wanted to make out with Dave. All I knew about Dave was nothing.
Dave sat on the sofa and the Polish guy followed me into the kitchen to get some beers from the fridge.
"Is he staying?" he asked me.
"I'm not sure what's going on," I laughed. He kissed me. I pulled away from him. We went back out into the living room and I gave Dave a beer.
"I'm locked out," he said. "I lost my wallet and my keys and my roommate left with your friend."
"The motorcycle guy?" I asked.
"The motorcycle guy."
I knew my friend, and I knew that she had probably had the motorcycle guy drop her off, and she was probably sound sleep, alone, in her bed. I knew that Dave's roommate was probably at Dave’s apartment. But I didn't say that out loud.
Again, this was before cell phones. We were always wondering where people were back then. I could have called my friend to find out, but he didn't suggest it. He was so certain that he had no place to go.
So I said, "Do you want to sleep on my couch?"
"Do you mind?"
"No, it's cool."
(Since we already know how it turned out with Dave, I'll just add for the record that at this point in the evening, Dave might have taken the time to pipe up about his having a girlfriend. If I'd known he had a girlfriend, my interest in him would have evaporated entirely and I might this very day be the mother of a gaggle of beautiful, blond, three-quarter-Poles who are very good at science!)
The Pole looked at me. I could tell he was hurt. I'd made up my mind. I wanted him to leave.
"Well, I think I'm going to get to bed," I said to the two men I didn’t know in my living room. "Can I show you out?" I got up and headed to the hallway. The Pole followed me to the front door. I maneuvered him into the entryway of my building. He was standing next to the mail boxes and I was trying to keep it short and also starting to imagine myself telling my girlfriends about the most awkward evening of the year, which for me, is really saying something.
He grabbed my face with both his hands and pulled me into him and kissed me. It was a good kiss. I started to reconsider.
He said, "You don't want him to stay. You'll have a better time with me." He was smiling. He was sincere. Or maybe he wasn't. Mostly he just looked very beautiful and very young. It was impossible that someone that attractive and bright, and knowing how to save people's lives in high-pressure situations and all, would like someone like me. He could have had his pick of the hundreds of pretty Polish girls at the bar who dressed themselves so nicely and really knew how to dance. There had to be something seriously, pathologically wrong with him. I regained my resolve.
"I had fun tonight," I said, wriggling away from him like the black cat from Pepe Le Pew. "I really did."
"I want to stay." He looked sad.
"No you don't. Believe me, you don't."
"Yes. I do."
I ignored him and kept ushering him to the door. "Good luck with your EMT training!" I said cheerily.
Defeated, he turned away from me and went out into the street and I went back into my apartment, where Dave was still sitting on the couch.
"Did you want that guy to stay?" Dave asked.
"No. That was kind of weird, wasn't it?"
"I guess."
"Do you want a blanket? Do you want to brush your teeth? I have an extra toothbrush."
"I'm fine."
He put his empty beer bottle on my coffee table and lay down on the couch. I went over and sat on the edge of the sofa. He didn't touch me. I wished right then that I hadn't sent the sweet Polish kid packing. I considered being more aggressive, but instead I got up and turned off the living room lights. There was a little light coming in from the kitchen.
"What's that?" he asked.
The gazelle head was propped up in the corner of the living room. Its dead, black eyes were eerily gleaming, reflecting the light from the kitchen.
I perked up. "That's a museum-quality gazelle head," I said proudly. “Recently acquired.”
He didn't seem to need to know anything more about it or why it was there, so I went to the back of the apartment to my room and went to bed. Didn’t he have any other friends he could stay with? Why did he come home with me? Why did he so overtly cock-block that nice, intelligent, completely normal, unbelievably attractive Polish kid? Why did I let him?
When I got up the next morning and went into the living room, the TV was on, and Dave was lying on the sofa on his side with the gazelle head wrapped in his arms like a teddy bear.
I laughed. "I could sell that," I said.
"Don't," said Dave. "I've never met a girl who had her own museum-quality gazelle head."
[My friend, not featured anywhere in this story, with the museum-quality gazelle head]
“Poland”
Poland has not yet succumbed.
As long as we remain, What the foe by force has seized,
Sword in hand we'll gain.
CHORUS
March! March, Dabrowski!
March from Italy to Poland!
Under your command
We shall reach our land.
Cross the Vistula and Warta
And Poles we shall be;
We've been shown by Bonaparte
Ways to victory.
