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Stardust Lanes before/after "She's not the sharpest tool in the shed," my friend rob said, over the din of loudly played old rap music at the bar of the bowling alley. I peered through the dark and vaguely ultraviolet lit smoke and haze of the place, made eye contact with him. He'd been through a rough divorce, and clearly wanted a girl that did not threaten him in any way. A girl with which he felt safe. "That's okay." I said. "I mean, she's not dumb, but she's smart enough to realize she's not smart." It had all started rather poorly. I had been wandering the halls of the building I was in at school, and I ran into Rob. Rob is an old friend from the days of working with kids, and doing social work in Detroit. Almost like a "war buddy" in a certain sense, although I'm pretty sure we lost the war. We agreed to meet later on that night at a pool hall attatched to a bowling alley. Stardust lanes, yes, the name impels the imagination much farther than the reality of the place. My class got let out early, the adjunct in the class is being shafted and the necessary software we need wasn't installed. Not a big deal. Went home, chilled out. Realized I was late to go meet Rob. Called his girlfriend at his house and told her I was on my way, in case he called. "Oh." she said quietly, unaware that he wasn't coming home until late that night. Raced to the bowling alley cum poolhall. I fuckin' hate bowling alleys. I hate bowling. Dumpy, stinky little buildings, reeking of feet and cheap beer, essentially a parade of the banal and emblematic of the atavistic attitude and much that is wrong with america. I have been kicked out of a few bowling alleys. I pull into the bowling alley. The parking lot is stacked full of cars. People are milling about aimlessly. I am non-plussed. I walk into the entrance to the pool hall, which is nice in itself, in that I get to avoid the bowling alley. I am a half hour late. I see Rob talking to a cute blond girl and her three friends. They are standing in a huge line of people. And people come and go, come and go. We make eye contact. I mouth "What the fuck?" to him. He shrugs his shoulders, eyes bewildered. End up being forced to chat with the girl and her three friends. Turns out the blonde is a cousin of Robs. We go in, get a table, chat aimiably about nothing. The blond comes in, gets a beer, sits down. Rob focuses a bit on her, which is fine. Family is family. I nurse my diet coke. Then the rest of the girls tromp gracelessly through the door. They get some beer, then spontaneously all go to the bathroom together. We shoot a few games, and these girls are getting louder and LOUDER. And watching me. I catch them a few times, but feel their eyes on me. At one point, my mind drifted and I brooded off into space, letting my eyes casually wander. As my gaze moved from person to person, they each seemed to jump at my seeming attention. Oh, yeah. I forget. I have a pretty heavy stare. So I keep moving, and my gaze rests on one of the loud girls. She is holding a CD, bending it a little as she holds it. SNAP! It breaks into thousands of tiny pieces. "What the hell was that?" Rob says. "I don't want to get into it." she says. "What happened?" her blonde friend asks. "I don't want to talk about it." she says. Fine, fine. The loud girls chug some beer, and get louder. And decide to go to the bowling alley in the bar. The blonde stays with us. We shoot some pool, and then the blonde's purse starts talking. "Kelly.Kelly.Kelly!" insistently. "I think your phone is asking for you." I said. I looked at her. She had blonde eye brows, too. Hmmm. Its her friends who left, much more drunk, demanding we all come to the bar. I get the phone and mess with the girl on the other end for a little bit, and we end up going into the bar. "Could you repeat that please?" "Come. TO. THE. BAR.--" "I'm sorry, could you say that again?" "COME. TO. THE BAR--" "What? I couldn't make that out..." All of white suburbia was there for the hideous hit parade known as "Moonlight bowling." or "twilight bowling" or "midnight bowling". I never ascertained. I don't want to know. I had read an article about it "sweeping the nation" a few years ago, and quietly thought to myself, "Yeah, sweeping the geek nation, maybe." Gawky gangly uncoordinated white bread abounded around each table. Many guys, very few women, all crowded around, wearing stale used shoes and drinking cheep beer. Ultraviotlet lights lit the lanes. Music throbbed through the speakers. And it was still...bowling. We went into the bar, set up the pool table. The loud girls were even louder. There was a hooker at the bar, gorgeous. Curves that should be illegal. And in this instance, was. One of the loud girls repetitively sought attention by being loud, and sought attention from me by interrupting my conversation with Rob, whom I hadn't seen in years. It pissed me off, but some people were a bit overindulged as children, whaddya gonna' do. So I paid her some middling attention. Not attracted to her at all, as she groped me, and rubbed her tits on me over and over. At one point, she grabbed my hand, and held it up, doing a dance ghetto twirl under my arm, grinding her ass into my cock. I stood there with a blank look on my face. Kelly, the blonde, saw me and laughed. She was pretty cool, drank hard and smoked marlboro reds all night. Its a magic combination. The night went on, predictably. The loud girls got louder. One had to leave, because there was a guy there she liked, or something, and didn't want him to see here there, so the others flocked around her, hustled her out, providing her with cover. It was sad in a way. She was a really hefty gal, and my guess is some guy took her home one night, they tangled between the sheets, and lacking any other options, she became invested, while he drinks beer at the bowling alley, either dissing her to his friends or lying flat out about her qualities. Either way, what she did speaks of strangeness, and not a normal happy encounter. You never fear those you love. Or shouldn't, anyway. Obnoxiousness ensued of the normal variety. Watching people get drunk while remaining sober isn't as strange as I thought it would be. Likely because when I drank, I usually could outdrink just about anyone. So seeing someone get shitty is nothing new. The adventure that takes place in some of their heads while swilling the brew is interesting. After awhile, you can tell rather easily. Sometimes I wonder why people drink. I drank for a lot of reasons, vengance, death, love, hate, sex, admiration, happiness, grief. Never just to get shitty and sloppy. That was a place maybe visited along the way, and really only rarely. Arg gets sloppy, arg starts finding a place to sleep. "You really don't want to lay there." I admonished to the one girl laying down on the floor of the bowling alley bar. She got up, dusted herself off, and tried to make excuses, sounding more and more like DrunkGirl from SNL all the time. I don't mind bad drunks, insecurities, weirdos, highons, immaturity or anything. Be whatever and whomever. Just don't annoy me. The night drew to a close, the annoying girl clasped me tight, cheek to cheek, and stood close, posturing for a kiss. Her friend did the same. I have to admit to being something of a kissing slut. I really like to kiss. And socially polite kissing is fine by me. But I didn't. Thought about it, didn't do it. Maybe it was the lack of connection, the mis-matched personalities. Or maybe I'm growing a little. The blonde shook my hand goodnight. Differentiating herself? Politics between her friends? Who knows. Maybe she just held her shit together, and the difference in that alone was the deal. Still, she could have given me a hug. Hmmm. I would've gotten one had I asked. I walked to the car at night, way in the front of the parking lot, and pretty much swore off of moonlight bowling after my one and only time of attendance.
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