The Night Jim Struck Out

Once upon a time, back in the days before ICE existed, while Bill Clinton was still in the White House and Donald J. Trump was just a bankrupt New York City real estate investor and self-help author, I had a friend who we’ll call “Jim”. We met at a shitty Army bar on South Riva Ridge Loop in Fort Drum, New York. It was my first weekend on post. It was also country night.

He’d been at Fort Drum for a year when I arrived, but like me he’d come from Schofield Barracks, and as we started talking that first night we realized that we’d lived mere meters away from each other for years in F Quad. He had been in the Scout Platoon of 2/35 Infantry and I was in Charlie Company 2/5 on the other side of the quad. We trained on the same ranges, ran and road marched the same roads, climbed the same volcanic mountains, and ate in the same chow hall for two years without ever bumping into each other. We’d even spent our time drinking in the same Navy run cowboy bar on Pearl Harbor and yet somehow we’d never crossed paths until years later in a shitty, generic bar on a cold night half a world away in upstate New York. Country music, cold beer, and the 25th Infantry Division were what Jim and I had in common. That’s enough for young soldiers. He was there the next Friday night, and the Friday after that, and before we knew it we were friends.

That was about all we had in common. Jim was tall, fit, and handsome with sandy hair and blue eyes. I’m 5’09” and was 156lbs at the time with brown hair and muddy brown eyes. He was from Kansas, or maybe Nebraska, one of those Midwestern states that’s more cowboy than snowmobile, the kind of state where folks talked with a TV news anchor’s non-accent. I was from the Deep South with a thick southern drawl. He had a lazy kind of quiet charm. Always laid back. Always smiling. He liked to call his friend “mijo” and buy rounds. I was foul mouthed, anxious and either broody or rowdy, as apt to call you a motherfucker and start a fight as I was to let you bum a smoke.

Our biggest difference was with girls.

In every male friend group there is one guy who seems to draw women in like he has a special sort of personal gravity. It’s not always the most attractive, wealthiest, or most charming (though those attributes don’t hurt) but there’s one guy that for reasons the rest of us mere mortal don’t understand, attract women like bees to honey, or flies to shit. While the rest of us have to shower and shave, put on nice clothes and borrowed cologne, learn a few lines, develop game, and still bat a little below .500 this lucky motherfucker can sit sipping a long neck in a dark corner wearing a dirty t-shirt and jeans and somehow women will walk across a crowded bar to speak to them.

Jim was that guy.

Looking back now, I’d describe us as friends, even good friends, but if you’d asked me at the time I would’ve described myself as Jim’s side kick. And that’s okay. I LIKED being Jim’s sidekick. He often drove and never “forgot” his wallet or bummed cigarettes. He never talked too much shit or got too hammered and started fights. He was always down for a good time, and he always introduced me to the girls he knew. They were never interested in me, not with him standing there for comparison, but they were polite and friendly and occasionally willing to dance. Every once in a while they even had a friend. I learned some lessons. For well over a year he was the handsome, confident, and charming lady magnet and I was his rowdy, redneck, sidekick and we were both fine with that dynamic.

Except for one glorious night when, somehow, our roles got reversed.

It was Jim’s idea to go to Canada. He’s the one who knew of the cowboy bar in Kingston and he talked me in to putting in for a pass. I don’t remember if it was our first time or not. I don’t remember if Jim was there with me in Kingston the day I bought my beloved Canadian cowboy boots, the pair my mom and then girlfriend conspired to throw away just as soon as they were properly broken in, all because there were quarter size holes in the sole. I know it was October, the weekend before Canadian thanksgiving. It was chilly but not yet cold and there were still some red leaves on the maple trees as we crossed the border on I-81 and turned West toward Kingston. We bought a case of Coors Light in the province beer store because we always bought a case of Coors Light. We stayed in a yellow painted, “L” shaped motel close to the club because we always stayed there. We drank half that case before we even stumbled out of that motel room and the night was already blurry before we even paid our cover.

Was it the night we showed up late and the doorman found out we were soldiers? I don’t remember. I remember there was a live band playing Alan Jackson covers that night, “Who’s Cheating Who” and we were sitting at a table where Jim could see the door. It was shaped like a whiskey barrel and the top was already crowded with empty Coors Light long necks, most of which were mine. My back was to the door so I didn’t see what Jim saw, but I noticed the way he sat up straight and craned his neck, like a curious prairie dog peeking out of it’s hole. He tried to tell me, “Don’t look” but it was too late. My bar stool screeched across the floor as I turned to follow his gaze across the crowded room to the door where I saw a no shit, real life, Canadian rodeo queen.

To be fair, she could have been a dental hygienist playing Urban Cowboy. She wasn’t wearing a sash, but she was dressed to the nines and looked the part in expensive boots, tight fitting Rocky jeans, a well starched, white, Wrangler shirt with sponsor logos embroidered on the breast and sleeves and a pristinely clean white felt Stetson. She was my height, thin, with long, blond hair that seemed to glow with reflected neon. Maybe it was the white hat and shirt, or that long blond hair, but even from a hundred feet away she seemed to glow like a well paid cinematographer had carefully lit the scene to show that she was the romantic lead. She was gorgeous, clearly well out of my league.

And Jim was obviously smitten, he was down bad in a way that I'd never seen him before or since. He followed her with his eyes as she made her way further into the room, scanning the crowd as if she was looking for an empty seat, or maybe friends. He nervously peeled the label on his beer bottle. He straightened the front of his shirt.

“I’ve always been weak for a legitimate cowgirl.” He told me.

“So go talk to her.” I suggested. After all, I was six, or maybe eight…I was several beers into the evening and that’s what we were there for.

Jim looked at the rodeo queen and shook his head. “Nah.” He replied as if he’d thought it through for a long time and decided against it.

I would have let it go at that, but I was drunk and it amused me the way he slouched on his bar stool, like he was trying to blend into the shadows, like he was hiding from the rodeo queen’s gaze even as he followed her with his eyes as she forced her way through the crowd. I’d never seen Jim nervous before and it amused me.

I don’t remember if I saw the dark haired girl tagging along in the rodeo queen’s wake from across the bar. I just remember the urge to twist Jim up and watch him squirm.

A few months before we’d been leaning against the wall of a Watertown, New York country bar when a pretty girl in tight leather pants walked past. She gave Jim a wave and a smile as she passed and he nodded in her direction then returned to his beer so casually that it made me a little angry. “How the fuck do you do that?” I demanded.

He shrugged.

“If a girl in leather pants smiled at me like that I’d fucking spontaneously combust.” I told him as I pushed myself off the wall and stumbled toward the restroom.

When I returned the girl with the leather pants was waiting by our table. She smiled and introduced herself and asked “Would you like to dance?”

And fuck yea I did.

I knew when I took her hand that Jim had put her up to it, and she confirmed it as soon as we stepped onto the dance floor. “I’m a little disappointed.” She said. “I thought you were gonna spontaneously combust.”

Now, the tables had turned and Jim was staring across the bar at a Canadian rodeo queen that he was too nervous to talk to, and I’d had just enough beer to be brave.

“Fuck, go talk to her.” I ordered.

Jim grunted but didn't move.

“Well if you don’t I will.” I threatened, knowing there was no shame in being shot down by a girl that pretty.

Did Jim call my bluff? Did I fall off my bar stool and stumble across the crowded room right then to introduce myself? I don’t recall. Did I badger him long enough until he gave in and got up himself? I forgot. But we finished our beers and we left that whiskey barrel shaped table and we walked together across the crowded room to the rodeo queen, though I don’t remember if Jim or I lead. Did I see the dark haired girl then as we walked across the room or was she just a pleasant surprise? I dunno.

What I will never forget was the contempt, the utter disdain on the face of that rodeo queen when Jim and I approached. I am not a bright man and I was drunk but I still recognized immediately that she wanted nothing to do with us. Jim must have seen it too, because he faltered at the last second. He stumbled through his introduction sounding more like a love lorn middle schooler than the confident Army Ranger I knew and that blond rodeo queen would have shut him down in seconds. Hell, maybe she did. I dunno. I remember that look of contempt on her face and I remember Jim being flustered and awkward but then I got distracted because the dark haired girl that had been hiding in the rodeo queen’s shadow smiled.

Did I introduce myself or did she? Who knows? Fuck, who cares? The rodeo queen was gorgeous, but the dark haired girl was something else. She had shoulder length curly hair, a round face, and dark eyes that were somehow both sparkling and shy. I don’t remember her name. I don’t remember what we talked about in those first few moments but I will always remember her dark eyes and bright smile. I always recall how quickly and easily we hit it off while only a few feet away Jim and the rodeo queen lapsed into awkward and icy silence. Did that dark haired girl and I dance there? Did I buy her a drink? Did I light her a cigarette? I dunno. I don’t think so. As I recall, the rodeo queen wanted to leave.

“We were going to try this other spot so…” she began.

And that brunette immediately interjected, “But you could follow us over there!” She said it to me, but she was looking at the rodeo queen.

Was there a debate? Did they huddle together and whisper? Did I wait anxiously to find out my fate? If this was fiction I’d flesh those details out but the truth is it was 26 years ago, I was almost as many beers deep into the weekend, and I just don’t remember. What matters is the rodeo queen was as good a friend to that dark haired girl as Jim was to me and when the girls left, we left with them, even though the rodeo queen clearly knew that meant she was stuck with Jim and we all realized she didn’t want that.

It was a dark night. Chilly bordering on cold. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police were lurking in the parking lot but the streets were empty as we made our way across town to a single story black building with a large sign that spelled out “Golden Nugget” in bright gold letters. It was a smaller place than the club we thought of as “our” cowboy bar. Inside the ceiling was low and the room was crowded and stuffy. The band was louder, but not as good. The dance floor was smaller and packed so thickly with twirling couples that a proper two step was impossible. Which leads me to believe that the rodeo queen was bluffing when she said she wanted to go somewhere else. She was trying to ditch Jim, and her brunette buddy screwed her by inviting me along.

Did I buy a round? I damn sure drank a few. Did I dance with the dark haired girl? I don’t know. I’m sure we talked. We had to have talked a lot though I don’t remember about what. I remember a drunk in a leather cowboy hat accosted me at the urinal, demanding to know my opinion of George W. Bush and who I was voting for in the upcoming election. I lost track of Jim and the rodeo queen even though they were sitting at the same table. Did they ever talk? Did he buy her drinks? Did they dance? Or Did they just sit like lumps on opposite sides of that barroom table, Jim staring off in the middle distance and chugging beer while the rodeo queen periodically sighed and rolled her eyes? I know they didn’t hit it off, but I don’t recall the details because I was distracted by a dark hair girl with shy eyes.

When did that dark haired girl and I stagger out into the parking lot? I’m not sure. I know we went because we wanted to be alone. There’s something magical about a bar parking lot in the wee hours of the morning. Something about the shadows and soft light and neon reflecting off car glass. The sounds are muffled. The air has a different density. It wraps around you like a blanket. There could be a hundred people milling about and it still feels private, comfortably secluded, like the rest of the world is just set dressing for your own private drama. Leaning against the quarter panel of a Honda Accord smoking Canadian cigarettes is as comfortable sometimes as laying on the finest linens. It was that night. Cool. Quiet. Private. Comfortable. Soft. Safe.

That dark haired girl had to feel it too. Why else was she out there with me alone? Why else did she let me bum a cigarette? Why else did she tell me about her kid?

And I knew, even then in the comfortable, drunken, cocoon of a late night bar parking lot that the kid was a warning sign. Not that there was something wrong with the dark haired girl, but that we had no future. I was an American soldier living on the opposite side of a border. She was a single mother. It was hopeless, but neither one of us seemed willing to admit it in the moment. We smoked cigarettes and she showed me pictures of a dark haired infant and then she kissed me, leaning against the hood of that little Honda. We made out until Jim and the rodeo queen found us and told us it was time to leave.

The rodeo queen didn’t get out of the car and Jim waited impatiently by the door as that dark haired girl and I said our goodbyes in the parking lot of that yellow motel as the first hint of morning pink began to show in the eastern sky. Did we kiss one last time as the sun started rising? I don’t think so. I know she got a pen from somewhere, tore the top off of a nearly empty pack of Players cigarettes and scrawled her phone number on it. I tucked it into the breast pocket of my once well starched cowboy shirt and we said our goodbyes.

When you’re a rowdy young man raised on James Dobson and hand me down barracks VHS porn you tell your dirtbag buddies “I wanted to fuck her” but that’s a childish lie. What I wanted was for her to want to fuck me. What I really wanted was to feel her warm beside me, to see what she looked like in the gray, hungover fogged, morning light with her hair and makeup a mess. I wanted to wake up to her smile. I wanted so bad to invite her back to our room and maybe I could have if Jim and the rodeo queen had hit it off, but they didn’t. So instead I told her I had fun, then I told her goodbye and I watched as she drove away with the rodeo queen.

Turns out even twenty-two years old, three thousand miles from home, drunk in the parking lot of a foreign motel I’m not that guy.

I called that number. Pretty sure the rodeo queen answered the phone. Maybe she didn’t relay my message. Maybe the dark hair girl had second thoughts, Lord knows with college classes on Tuesday and an infant at home, she had every right to. Either way, I never got a call back and I never saw her again and that’s fine. No one needs an Infantryman sniffing around and no one would believe me if I said I had a Canadian girlfriend anyway. It’s a better ending anyway, standing in that motel parking lot watching her drive away as the late night stars started fading into early morning. It's a perfect end to the tale of the night Jim struck out and I made out with a pretty, dark haired, girl, with dark, shy, eyes.

I tried for weeks to turn this into "fiction" but I couldn't beat the real story.