By Drake Moreau
My apologies for being out last week. The editor of this blog, Anthony Tao, broke some of his own self-aggrandizing journalistic rules when he said I was “sick” last week. That’s not true at all. In fact, I was simply incapable of reporting back to him because I had been coming off a bender over the recent Tomb Sweeping Day. [Ed’s note: that's being sick, you twit.] My body felt like it had been frozen and bashed with a spiked club (think the bad guy from Terminator 2). My liver probably looked like it just went through 12 rounds with Manny Pacquiao. But the stories, oh my, the stories…
A friend who I met in Beijing, Jiminy Cricket (JC), had received some free coupons for Grey Goose bottles at a bar in the Solana area (another oasis of Western shops and restaurants located just north of Chaoyang Park). JC and I walked in to a loud, smoky room with standing tables semi-circling a live Cuban (or Filipino) band that played really good Cuban and other Latino music. A low reddish tint crept in around us, which illuminated the smoke circulating around the bar, giving it, and me in turn, an odd Alfred Hitchcock feel. Like true men, we immediately found an empty table, threw our coupons in the waiter’s face, and within minutes were chugging straight from the transparent Goose bottles. As we poured our cups with an obscene amount, we also took some mini-pulls from the elegant carafes.
As the band played some hip-swinging, booty-bumping rhythms, I started talking to a mocha-skinned French Canadian lady – we’ll call her Marie-Claire, or MC. I can’t remember at all what MC does out here, but she had the rack of a goddess. Hanging like perfectly plump fruit, it was very hard for me to focus on whatever it was we were talking about. Eventually, the Goose lifted my mental censor to the point where I could blurt out exactly what I was thinking.
Me: You know, it’s been hard for me to really listen to you because you have such amazing breasts.
MC: Aboef, attencion, apoof-apleuf, comme ci comme ca, cigarrrrettte, more franglish words
Me: I’m sorry, what did you say? Seriously, your breasts are just incredible. Are they even real? Can I check? I’ve felt fake ones before, I can tell the difference. They may be the most perfect I’ve ever seen on a woman.
MC: Homph homph homph, wat ahre u say, croissant.
Before I knew it, she grabbed my hand, pushed it against her tit, then promptly slapped me lightly and walked away. Mixed signals much? Or maybe these signals were clear but the Greyness of the Goose was clouding up the part of my brain that transcribes this shit.
Back at the table, JC was talking to some Chinese guys, and it looked like he was giving them a hard time. When I walked over, he was flailing his arms, head cocked back, hands gesturing for emphasis with some shoulder-raising while occasionally jabbing with his finger. JC, it turned out, was going off the rail about how “fucking hot” he found local Chinese girls, but there was one major problem: they never shaved around their rosebuds. He was asking the locals at our table what their experiences were, and with little to work with, he instead just gave them his take: Not only did they keep bushes the size of Ludacris’s afro, but they didn’t even have the common decency to trim; the least they could do is give us some Edward Scissorhands-style creations with all they have to work with.
The music started to captivate me as I continued downing vodka (with splashes of Red Bull somewhere in between), and all of a sudden John Travolta emerged from the inner depths of my soul. I looked around for MC, took her hand with grace and intention, and pulled her onto the dance floor ready to woo her. What happened next was sort of like the Chappelle Show slow-motion sketch in which Chappelle demonstrates how everything is cooler in slow motion: laundry, walking through a club, everything. I pictured myself in slow-motion twirling MC, her lovely lumps floating through space into my palms (or face), switching hands and directions with ease. What JC told me later was that in less than a minute I actually stepped on her foot no fewer than three times but still tried to twirl her and switch hands. This led to her bumping into a table near the dance floor because I could not control my force. I remember this, though, so it’s cool. I saw her bump into the table, but when I apologized, she started to blame me even more, so I ended up pointing out her clumsiness. After all, she should have known not to accept my invitation.
Turns out that a Chinese girl near our table saw me and immediately sparked up a conversation when I walked back to quench my thirst with the Goose. This girl, a Tianjin native who we’ll call Seedling, had seen my dancing and was thoroughly impressed. She asked me where I learned my moves; I replied, “Honey, dancing like that’s not taught. It’s something you’re born with.” Fact. She was floored. Seedling literally took the glasses off my face, threw them on the floor, grabbed my head with both hands and shoved it into her mouth. Her aggressive nature was as crazy as her looks were decent: low-cut black shirt with short shorts revealing lengthy legs glamorized by heels. I really didn’t have a say in the matter. I mean, throwing someone’s glasses to the floor is an act of war. And I had brought no guns to the battle. It was over before the next words were spoken.
She brought me back to her place, somehow. I don’t know how we got the fuck out of Solana, because that place is a graveyard at night. It’s like Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, everyone out on their own in search of a better place (or a vehicle to take you to a better place), navigating a barren landscape, only your instincts and maybe a few kuai for survival. Anyway, the shocker came when we pulled into Season’s Park. I had this image of Freddy seeing us and screaming at me to “go get ’em, tiger,” or, “You’re my boy, Blue!” or something frat-tastic like that.
She ripped off my clothes and I did likewise to hers, but it wasn’t until we were both fully naked that I came to a realization, a transcendental understanding of Chinese women, you could say, that I never expected I could achieve. JC was right. I was, without warning, notice or preparation, deep in the jungles of the Amazon.
Drake Moreau can be reached at drake@beijingcream.com. |Drake Archives|
So, did the grey goose get finished or not? Do they keep bottles at that place? I’m all but getting into a cab here.