One in red scrubs, the other in black.
These women, they are attractive. Around thirty, they look like they’re used to getting hit on in bars, to knowing what it feels like to have a man watching carefully as she leans over the pool table to take a shot. Neither woman makes eye contact or acknowledges anyone else in the elevator. There is an unspoken hierarchy. We all know it.
They continue their conversation, which had likely followed them all day, as if nobody else was present, as if nobody else was visible. And so we all stand there, subordinate now, pushed just a little further to the margins while they talk about the perfectly normal privileges of being young and desired.
And then the elevator doors open and we walk out into the foyer. A classical quartet is playing beneath the Shopper’s Drug Mart sign. All the players in black suits and ties, all concentrating. The music is familiar and dislocating. Like a dream memory. Listen carefully. And yes, yes it is a classical interpretation of Under Pressure. And suddenly you are transported to when you first heard the song, back to when you played pools in bars and your heart was inexhaustible, back when within each day the premonition of true love was ever-present.
We were at the Madison Pub’s regular Tuesday night game. Perhaps 50 people were there to play Texas Hold ‘Em, with the winner receiving a $25 gift certificate for the place. I’m a bad poker player who is almost completely ignorant of the protocols at the table. I play cards with the same amount of intelligence and design as I play a scratch-and-win ticket. I also talk constantly, always telling people I don’t know what I’m doing, and so for most serious players—even in a no money game– I’m a really irritating presence. To make matters worse on this night, I kept winning.
(This is a rough approximation of me at the table)
Drunk guy: This is bullshit, man!
Me: I play by my gut. I play the person, not the cards.
Drunk guy: Are you saying you played me?
Me: What I’m saying is that I just got lucky. Honestly, I’m a beginner and I really don’t know what I’m doing.
Drunk guy: I see through you, you fucker. Don’t keep feeding me that bullshit line, okay?
And then he glowered at me, rolling up his sleeves to reveal his white supremacist tattoos. I pretended to suddenly become transfixed by something that was happening on the TV.
This tension continued for another half hour, eventually culminating with the drunk guy accusing my friend and I of being cheats, before our table was broken up by the powers that be, and we were sent to different games like a bunch of delinquent children in need of a time-out.
After I was eventually bounced from the tournament, I started to play pool, where I met a woman named Mary. This woman had met actress and model Milla Jovovich on the set of one of the Resident Evil movies that was shot in Toronto and proudly announced that she had her cell phone number. Although she would not divulge the number to me, she agreed to act as an emissary and send some question to her on my behalf.
These are the ten questions:
- How many actors have you had sex with?
- How many actresses have you had sex with?
- Would you be interested in funding and starring in a movie about a couple of Poker Grifters who go from moneyless game to moneyless game in pursuit of the validation and love that eluded them as children? It will be an Oscar caliber screenplay.
- If a ghost lived in one of your many zillion dollar mansions, what name would you give it?
- Have you ever caused a ruckus on a plane? If so, please explain.
- What music do you put on when you’re feeling like doing it?
- Where do super-models hang out in Toronto?
- What is the best way to approach a supermodel? I’ve heard that they’re easily startled.
- Do you eat Kale? My wife says it’s a SUPERFOOD, but I’m suspicious.
10. The troops, are you for them or against them?
]]>