Another round of drinks was ordered by all—with everyone trying Beau's latest version—except, of course, The Boys, who had found AA and each other some years ago.
Timmy was a few years beyond twinkie. I had a brief affair with him more than a few years ago. Upon first glance, he seemed little more than a cute package, empty head kept inflated by music from his ever-present MP3 player. However, upon removing the earphones, one discovered his very pretty head had depth. The usual music was classical, with opera being favored. He had dragged me to several operas during our time together and was always eager to explain and compare this version with others he knew. He had a fair knowledge of modern painters, with a particular fondness for de Kooning. He also was an ardent member of the religion of the month club, moving from Buddhism to Hinduism to Eastern Orthodox seamlessly during our few months together. He loved iconic spectacles and each religion he devoted himself to had ever more ringing of gongs and bells with larger clouds of incense. When I finally stiffed my resolve instead of my member and insisted that he move out, I had to repaint. Altogether, he was a charming package, he was also a hopeless drunk. When drunk, he became attached, figuratively and literally, to anyone nearby who was interested or at least willing. His proclivity for multiple helpings of ritual, drink and men finally became too much for me and we parted company instead of bedsheets.
We still enjoyed each other’s company as long as we were clothed and had clear paths and reasons to exit at all times. I was very glad when he finally took the necessary steps to slow his tendency for too many trips to the well and well-hung.
If his realization that he was a drunk was a long and difficult personal journey, it was a quick jaunt for everyone who knew him even peripherally. The news was no surprise to anyone who had met him after one of his extended liquid lunches, or had seen him nearly every night dancing—mostly vertically—at Hoosier Daddy and mostly horizontally for anyone who happened to ask him at the right moment, which was about closing time, who had either a bottle of something or a taste of something or, even better, a little bit of both. Had they still been in contact, it would not have engendered surprise in any of the myriad employers who had been initially fooled by his ability to “come to” in the morning looking fairly presentable for at least the first few weeks on a job, before non-stop excuses for late or missed arrivals and multiple hungover, growling, sweating, barf-swallowing work days which inevitably included long lunches, frequent breaks, and early departures—to the mutual relief of all concerned—led to another Timmy-centric downsizing.
It was with great hidden amusement that each of us endured his private, deep felt admission of his alcoholism to each of us. “I just want you to know,” he sobbed to me while sitting at my kitchen table one sunny morning, “I have finally realized that I’ve been drinking to live and living to drink. But that's all behind me now.”
Roger very publicly—particularly around Timmy—organized a betting pool for how long or short a time it would be before Timmy was back to his old tricks, as it were. One afternoon, a little more than three weeks after he had initially gotten sober, Timmy confided to Roger and me that someone had bought him a bottle of expensive wine and, since it was so special, he felt he had to taste it. He proudly told us, “I only sipped one glass, then gave the rest of the bottle away. That proves it! If I can give away good booze, I have this drinking thing licked.”
Roger broke into a particularly nasty grin and crowed, “Wonderful, boychick! I was missing your antics. Once you’ve had the one drink, others will follow like smell follows the fart and I have a bet with Nacho that I can convince you to hang naked from the swing above the bar while I shave your balls. I better go buy the shaving cream, ‘cause I’m sure you'll be dangling before the week's out.”
Timmy looked at Roger, who held Timmy’s gaze and licked his lips, highlighting a particularly evil smile. Timmy began to tremble like an excited Chihuahua. Then he ran out of the house. “I went right to a meeting,” he told me later. “Now, any time I think of drinking, I see Roger shaving my balls at Hoosier Daddy, which is more than enough to keep me sober.”
I confided this tidbit to Roger. He grinned, sipped his beer, and replied, “I thought it might.” Even after he got sober,
Timmy continued to come to Sunday afternoons, but always drank bottled water. After six months, he started bringing Cosmo with him. Cosmo’s real name was Sheldon and, as a computer geek, it fit him well. In a failed attempt to lower his dweeb quotient, he changed it in high school as if the Jetsons was cool. It didn’t work. A Sheldon by any other name would be a geek, but Timmy had been with cool before, plenty of times really. Cosmo’s uncomplicated and obvious devotion was all he cared about. Within another six months, they were inseparable—almost cloyingly so. They never hid their participation in AA, but they rarely commented on or even seemed to notice anyone else's drinking, except occasionally Beau’s, latish in the evening of a particularly bad day. Even then, neither said more than a word or two. That really didn’t count. Everyone had been driven to talk to Beau about his drinking at one time or another. However, it was done out of obligation and with little zeal. No one, including Beau, expected these conversations to make any difference. Look at Aunt May—not a single member of our group could match her glass for glass, yet she still looked the perfect lady. Beau did not have May’s control, but he did have the same thirst. Suggesting he moderate his drinking was like remarking on how hot and humid the day had been—requisite and unnecessary. Beau paid no attention unless it was Nacho threatening expulsion or May asking for an escort home. Otherwise, he only made promises of limitation or abstinence when he was blasted enough to ensure he would not remember any resolutions upon awakening the next morning and the sunlight gleamed over a new day’s hangover.
The Boys liked to dance, and they liked the company. They were just one of the table, although occasionally a little too professionally gay for my taste and a little too sober for Beau to comfortably handle late in the afternoon. Roger took great delight baiting them, concerning whatever topic was at hand.
At the next hole in the conversation, Timmy said, “Cosmo and I have been thinking—”
“Oh God,” Beau moaned, “you’re going to become Mary Kay salesmen and go everywhere in pink?”
Roger held up his hand like a particularly kiss-ass grade schooler who knew the answer . . . again. “Ooo! Ooo! I know! You're both going to have your perineums pierced and get a gold chain welded between them so you will never be more than three feet apart!?”
Foxy materialized from somewhere, gliding up to the table, cigarette holder waving a greeting as if blessing us all with the heady smell of his exotic, imported tobacco. His deep, rolling voice, honeyed by wasting his youth in Louisiana’s bayou country, rolled over us, vibrating a special place of pleasure in all who heard it.
“Hello, my lovelies. You all look particularly ravishing this evening. Now, who’s getting their perineums pierced?”
“What's a perineum?” Cosmo asked. Cosmo had climbed into a computer room when he was young and had never really climbed out. Somewhere along the way, he discovered that a bottle or two of scotch helped him relax after a particularly long session with the silicon beast. Soon, as he told it, the basement apartment where he lived was the only place he felt safe and his previously limited social interactions dwindled to the rare phone call to his dissertation advisor to avert being ejected from school for not showing up to any classes or doing any work toward writing his thesis, and brief conversations at the door with delivery boys who arrived with pizzas, liquor, and food. Oh, and foil. Cosmo had developed a phobia about some sort of waves that could penetrate his brain, so every grocery order contained a roll of foil, which he constantly layered on each window in his basement apartment. Eventually, the foil was thicker than the glass, but it made him feel safe.
There was no worry about money. As is the case with many computer geeks, Cosmo had dabbled in playing online games, but they did not tickle any of his fancies as he preferred programming. However, he did find a lucrative niche creating characters for others. The endless details to be considered when crafting an imaginary being appealed to his OCD tendencies. Once created, he had no interest in using them as that required interactions with other people—for, as a creator, he was hyper-aware that behind each character was a human. It was a wonderful day when he discovered—although never understood—that many people were not particularly interested in creating these characters, they just wanted to play. In fact, there were people so interested in getting in there and playing and so uninterested in the time-consuming work of building a character that they were willing to pay someone else for an identity. As their wishes and finances were often mirror images of Cosmo’s, he was happy to fulfill their desires. With a few online adverts for custom creations, his enterprise was launched and word of mouth did the rest. He had found something that he could do well that others were willing to pay well for him to do. It was a match made in heaven. Over the years, his reputation for creating online avatars—particularly characters that included 3D modeling—had grown and he made a small fortune making various people, creatures, and things in virtual worlds for real people he would never meet. The money rolled in and he never had to interact with humans since all orders and payments were handled online. No complaints arose requiring his direct intervention and, as his customers were not extraordinarily social themselves, it was easy to stay sequestered.
One day, a client asked him if he could make genitalia. While Cosmo had never really thought much about sex—being initially taken by all things digital and later, by all things alcoholic, he answered that he supposed he could. After all, it was just basic 3D modeling with a more complex than usual skin texture. This particular client was a bit on the small and gnarled side, peniley speaking, and had always wanted a massive, glistening, baseball bat of a man club. Cosmo took on the task and, as a true craftsman, spent a lot of time looking at pictures of cocks in all shapes and sizes. At some point during this research, he realized that he rather liked the subject. He was not only drawing cocks but was being drawn by and to them, and he tried to suck up—as it were—every little bit of graphic imagery of things thingitudinal. The resulting project was a masterpiece of a virtual wang. The other result was a deep hunger on Cosmo’s part to explore the real thing.
This presented a problem. Real cocks were invariably attached to real humans and Cosmo was not. He faced an unsolvable dilemma—his new love of manipops did not diminish his old love for liquor. The more he drank, the more he wanted to continue his explorations, but the less he was able to cope with anyone who existed outside of a computer screen. Delivery boys were the only source of ahem . . . release, and he found that by increasing the size of his tip, boys were often happy to expand the range of their services. He could not go on the prowl—he was barely able to handle the very limited interactions with people he now had to bear. Humans were just too invasive, and this war between the desire for flesh and the desire for solitude finally pushed him over the edge. One afternoon, a delivery boy who was bringing his weekly supplies of food and cum could not get a response when knocking on the door. Knowing Cosmo never left his apartment, the young man broke down the door and found Cosmo unconscious, a victim of alcohol poisoning.
Cosmo didn't wake during the trip to the hospital or for the seventy- two hours he spent in intensive care. He spent several days in detox and went directly into a posh rehab facility where he stayed in the thirty-day program for six months.
He emerged a new man. He never moved back into his basement apartment. Instead, he chose to purchase a sunny, airy loft where he was very happy. He continued with his profession—who could turn down a six-figure income for drawing dongs? Beyond his trade, he concentrated on his two new passions—sobriety and penile pleasuring. He found that he loved both equally and was surprised that he particularly loved these activities because they both involved people—something he had previously avoided, had little experience with, but found endlessly interesting, educational, and entertaining.
However, his years of virtual seclusion had left their mark. Sometimes conversations put one in mind of a scattershot brain injury. Large portions of common knowledge were simply not there. These gaps showed up at odd times.
One year, when Timmy was back visiting family over winter break, we invited Cosmo to a New Year’s party. He showed up the evening of January 1, smiling brightly at all who had gathered back at the scene of the crime in hopes that a joint battle against the collective hangover of death might prove more effective than individual moans, prayers, and pledges to never, ever so ravage our bodies again. He had never been to a New Year’s party and rarely watched television, so with no experience, he assumed that a New Year’s party would take place the evening of New Year’s Day—the first night of the new year. He proudly displayed a computerized ball he had developed especially for the party which could light up and spin while it swooped down a wire. He had seen a picture of such a thing on the internet and wanted to show his gratitude. The ball was impressive, but the lights were too bright and the spinning and swooping took our stomachs along for a very unpleasant ride. It took a few long painful minutes to explain to him that the party had been the night before and that the rotating lights on his invention seemed to be hard-wired to very sensitive gag reflexes, and that he had better turn it off before he was hurt, hurled upon, or both.
So, despite his areas of expertise, I was not particularly surprised with his question about perineums. Evidently, his research on cocks had not extended beyond the base.
“Perineum!?” hooted Roger. “My gawd, the Member Master doesn't know what a perineum is?! The gooch, my man! The grundle. The taint! Surely, you're knowledgeable of the taint. My grandmother knows what a taint is.”
Cosmo looked blankly at Roger, then turned to Timmy. Timmy kissed Cosmo’s forehead and glared at Roger. “Cosmo is an artist, not a gutter rat like you or a skank like your granny. He's an innocent, and that's why I love him.” Roger and Beau mimicked shoving their fingers down each other’s throats. Turning to Cosmo, Timmy said softly, “You know, honey. It's that bulgy part you like to chew on after you suck my balls.”
Cosmo started to blush a bit, but his eyes took on the beginnings of a lust-filled glaze. I didn't think The Boys would be around much longer. Usually discussions like this ended with Cosmo claiming to have forgotten something at home before he dragged Timmy off for another session of ‘look what I can do’.
He turned back to Roger, his curiosity overcoming his lust for the moment. “But why call it the taint?” he asked.
Beau licked the rim of his glass and answered before Roger could get a word in, “Because, you virtual horn dog, it ain’t your balls and it ain’t your butt.”
Cosmo began to giggle, a surprisingly girlish sound from an older, bespectacled man.
Foxy broke in, “I had the most mahvelous idea for a product that I must pursue one day. A sort of blending of a douche, a hygiene spray, and a deodorant for the male privates. There is, after all, a huge industry for female anti-coogie scents. Why not a male version? There certainly is a need. We all have met someone with undeniable man-stank.”
“I'll say!” Timmy blurted out before thinking. “Why, I remember this time when I was walking by the gym and this big ol’ gorgeous hunka-hunka muscle man came out . . .” He glanced at Cosmo and stopped. Cosmo knew of Timmy's past, but got sad when he heard of the men who came before him. It was not jealousy. He felt his little dear and been over-used and under-appreciated. “Well, he was pretty ripe.”
Roger fluttered his eyelashes at him. “Why, Timmy, you do tell the most entertaining and detailed stories.”
“I have the perfect name for the product. It is, after all, the name that creates the market,” Foxy continued, ignoring all talk that threatened his ultimate crescendo. Foxy never told a story that did not rise to a wonderful end. “I was going to call it 'Taint Misbehavin?' with the words in gold script and a question mark at the end. And then, of course, the theme song would be . . .” He had to pause, as we were all howling so loud, then he smiled at us. “And the theme song would be . . . taint misbehavin? Savin my luv for you.”
We all broke into song. “I don't stay out late. Or get a ho. I'm gay and it’s great. Just bein’ a big homo.”
Nacho rolled up. “You songbirds want to keep it down? Miss Tia's getting ready to start her set, and I don’t want everyone to come running out here because they think some drunk is trying to fuck a cat.”
Beau stood. “Agreed, oh powerful one! If you will only send the boy with the tight buns back with another round for us all, we shall all sit here as quiet as a man at a Womyn’s Music Fest.”
Nacho looked Beau up and down. “You get two more, angel, then it's home or soda for you. You know how you get.”
Beau saluted and put a hand over his heart. “One now . . . and one a little later . . . and I shall behave. I promise.”
I turned to Timmy and Cosmo. “Now, before all this talk of taints and sprays interrupted you, weren't you saying something?”
“Oh, that's right! Cosmo and I have been thinking—”
“I hate it when you do that. It never bodes well,” Beau moaned.
I glared at him. “Shut up, Beau. You too, Roger.” Roger tried his best to look innocent and offended. I held up a hand. “Never mind the crap.” I turned back to The Boys. “Go ahead, Timmy.”
“We've decided to get married.”
“Mahvelous, sweethearts!” Foxy exclaimed. “True love . . . l'amour! I do wish I had a voice; I would break into song—Cole Porter is usually apropos. However, my voice has been unfavorably compared to a neophyte’s attempt to deep throat while destroying the Queen of the Night’s aria from Mozart’s Magic Flute. Hmmm . . . I wonder how many puns one could find in that sentence, but I digress . . . I would at least offer to break out a bottle of something wonderfully special to toast the joyous occasion if you would allow it. What do you use to toast? There is something about a high- pressure cork that is simply indispensable for a tres important moment.”
Roger looked at the two boys with open scorn. “Married!” he snorted. “You might as well sell Mary Kay. Fags don't marry. Fags shouldn't marry. It's an advantage and an advancement to be a fag. One of the greatest advancements is that we are not tied to silly, outdated ideas designed to keep the masses in check. Besides, in case you haven't noticed, fags can’t marry . . . unless one of you is going to have a lop-it-off-omy and become the lil Miss. I figure that would have to be you, Timmy, ‘cause Cosmo, you may be many things, but a lady you are not, nor could ever be. All the surgery and makeup in the world would at best, make you the ugly sister of Jack Benny and Uncle Miltie. No offense meant, but you could never be more than a hideous lady. The problem is that if it’s Timmy who offers up his jewels to allow said wedding, wouldn’t that kind of reduce the whole glue that binds . . . eh, Timmy boy? What would you think about a lifetime of cockless cocktails?”
[Author’s note: Do remember that this tawdry tale takes place in 2007, before courts declared homos to be humans. This may remain enshrined in law or may prove to be a temporary waltz with sanity, soon corrected by bottom- feeders madly pointing at the activities of others in order to distract from the scum they are busy sucking.]
Beau looked up from his glass. “Why do you two want to do it anyway? It's not legal in this state, and I can’t see that changing before the next ice age. I mean, you can go to some other state and tie the knot, or nuts, but you know the reactionaries in this state are never going to pass gay marriage. That means that beyond a certificate that will be ignored by the feds and the state, what do you have? It’s like having a star named after you. The heavens aren’t any different because you bought a piece of paper.”
“The point, you boob, is to force the issue,” Timmy snapped. “And gays do too marry. Why shouldn't they?”
“Because we don't need to,” Roger replied. “We have trust and freedom. We stay together as long as it works for both parties—be it a lifetime or a quickie in the bushes. We don't have to model our lives on the quaint traditions of breeders who hope a ceremony from bygone days will provide some level of certainty that there will be shared childcare even after one, the other, or both have become old, fat, and completely undesirable. My gawd, they have fairy tale weddings in Mousieland now . . . with the bride arriving in a carriage pulled by a white horse. Now, that's calling a plastic fantasy a plastic fantasy. It's a perfect wind up to an appearance on some daytime TV shout-avision show. 'It started as a fairy tale wedding, but she ended up riding the horse and he can’t compete!' It doesn't work for them. Why would you think it will work for you? Is your little humpfest hitting the skids, so you need a piece of paper to prove something?”
“Actually, it was my idea,” Cosmo said quietly, which stopped us. Cosmo had never claimed to have an opinion on any issue of the day before. He seemed entirely content with his craft, his program, and Timmy. “We went to a friends' house a while back, and they were watching a presidential debate. I noticed that all the presidential candidates except the little man from Ohio kept making references to gay lifestyles or civil unions. Now, it seemed to me, that while they were tap dancing around the “m” word, they were really saying that what I did and what Timmy and I do is not okay. That they didn’t want to stick their necks out to say we were acceptable human beings. Now, I don't know much about these people, but I am pretty sure that each one of them has approved things during their lives that ended up with people, animals, and natural spaces pretty well- ravaged. I've never done anything even close to that awful.
“I've never judged them for what they have done or are doing. I’ve never been asked to judge them, aside from an occasional election, so I mostly keep my opinions to myself. Seems like I deserve the same from them. I have never called someone and asked them, ‘Hey do you think it’s okay for Timmy and me to be in love?’. In spite of that, a lot of people seem to think it is okay to appoint themselves as judges and put their judgments into law. Who do they think they are to say what is okay for us?
“I didn’t care about getting married until strangers started telling me what Timmy and I could and could not do. Even worse, they were saying that we were some sub-class of human as far as the law of the land was concerned. That’s when I decided to do something. Isn’t the law of the land supposed to represent us all? Isn’t it supposed to protect us? That means it has to include us and a lot of other gays, too.”
We were all stunned. In the past two years, Cosmo had never uttered so many sentences strung together at once. And he wasn't finished.
“So, we decided that we should go to Massachusetts. I have a vacation home in P-town and can say that we live there, so that the dickhead's end run around the law won't stop us.”
[History lesson: When the Massachusetts supreme court ruled that marriage, as a state-sanctioned benefit, had to be made available to all citizens, the governor, Mitt Romney, tried to block or at least curtail the impact of civil rights bustin’ out all over, by requiring any gays who had the audacity to commit marriage to be residents of the state.]
“No need,” I broke in. “The dickhead is gone. Now he’s going to try to run the country into the ground. The new guy told the clerks to let folks from out of state go ahead and get married as long as they spend three days in the state.”
“Well, that's good,” Cosmo continued. “But no matter . . . we'll get married there. We don’t want a church wedding. We don’t need a certificate from somebody who thinks they talk for some god. We just want the government—which stands for all of us—to admit that we are human beings and are just as valid as anyone else, and issue a civil certificate of marriage —not some other word—because that is what we are, married, not unionized or euphemized. We know we are married and that is what we want the state to state. Then, we will come back here and sue to force this state to recognize our marriage. The politicians may not have the balls to make a change—they rarely do because they’re too afraid of losing their jobs. Same thing happened with civil rights—the courts ordered it. Then the battles to make people obey common decency began. Finally, laws were passed. That’s what has to happen here. Consider us the rear-guard action.”
I poked Roger as he opened his mouth and shook my head. “Too easy, and I want to hear what he has to say.” Roger considered my words, then nodded.
Not noticing our interchange, Cosmo continued, “Either we are one hundred percent humans or we are not. Words and labels do matter sometimes, especially when they are used to take away fundamental rights of a minority group. Separate but equal is not okay in this country. It took the courts to say that. It always turns out to be separate, but never turns out to be equal—it is always worse. The back of the bus gets to the same place as the front, but I don’t want to be told Timmy and I have to sit back there because someone I don’t know says we are less a person than the hypocrites rocking on their butts in the front seats. I have the money, we have the time and the love to ride it through. It'll be our hobby. That's why we are getting married. Is that good enough for you, Roger?”
Roger looked thoughtful, then raised his bottle toward The Boys—Cosmo, with fire dancing in his eyes and Timmy, holding him and looking at him with such adoration, it made you want to bottle it for times of doubt. “Now that, my man, is one hell of a good reason. L’chaim! I give you my blessing to marry my daughter and stick it to the man . . . and my daughter, for that matter.”
Timmy giggled. “That's my man.”
We all broke into applause and The Boys took a bow.
Tia appeared at the table in full regalia. “What's the commotion? I haven't sung one note and you're already clapping? How dear you all are. Hello, Foxy. Have you heard? This is to be my last night, so I hope you'll stay at least through the second set. I'm going to try to do them all tonight.”
Stunned, Foxy opened his mouth but Tia placed her finger against his lips. “I'll explain during the break. I must get started. Come on all of you, inside now. You know I must have an audience that I can count on to pay attention and enjoy when I'm trying to get the first set started. It is so heartbreaking when the stage lights come up and all the afternoon boozers stand up and leave just as I walk on.”
“Timmy and Cosmo are getting married,” I told her.
“Tonight?! Why wasn't I told?”
“No, not tonight, dear. They can't get married here. They'll get married in Massachusetts.”
“Massachusetts!?” Tia was confused. “I thought they lived on West 6th. All this time they've been coming all that way just to see the show? How sweet! I must dedicate a song to them, maybe something about love.” All Tia's songs were about love. “Perhaps People Person. It's up and jumpy.”
Yas . . . People Person . . . I recalled the driving bass drum beating the jungle, bluesy rhythms.
Oh I like the way you comb your hair.
And I like the way you're sort of there.
One more bad affair will lead me to despair.
How 'bout with you? Do you dare?
I've opened wide my . . . heart
and you could be the first one in.
I'm not really a . . . what you think.
I'm just a people person . . . a people person.
“Yes, Tia, that's a wonderful choice. I think they should use it at the wedding. It would be a real improvement as Timmy walks down the aisle, so much less risqué and open to lewd comments than Here Cums the Bride. In fact, it may become the new Oh Promise Me. Go sing, dear . . . your public awaits.
Tia turned with a smile. We finished our drinks and shortly followed her footsteps into Hoosier Daddy, into the darkness, the pretense of air conditioning and the promise of exploratory undulations with the muse as only Tia and Thumper can do. The early set was short, usually about forty-five minutes starting around seven. It was really an opportunity for Tia and Thumper to warm up and try out a new song or two. It was entirely Tia and Thumper—with only occasional visits by old performing friends. This was Tia’s time to revel in the eloquence of Thumper’s creative genius. It was the set for the real initiates of the TiaRa del Fuego experience. The big show was the second set, which usually lasted from about eight-thirty until ten—a rocking, rollicking adventure guided by Tia, using her cattle prod of wit, compliments, and threats to contain the explosion of talent, energy, and melodrama provided by a passel of drag queens. The final set started at about eleven and was the newcomers show, as by that time on a Sunday night, the only patrons still around had no intention of being anywhere the next morning but asleep or praying at their private porcelain alters and were far past any claim to being discriminating listeners.
Knowing that the sword of TiaRa’s parting was dangling over the evening, each set promised to be more than remarkable. With equal measures of anticipation and regret for the coming evening, I passed through the curtains and into the dark, cool interior of Hoosier Daddy. It was necessary to pause for a moment, getting used to the darkness which hid the imperfections in patron and décor, but was ineffective against the damp smell of stale beer and sweaty bodies that lurked in the corners and repulsed any attempt at extermination. I tuned to the right and stepped into the big room just as the stage lights blinked on and Thumper began Wasabi Chew Toy, one of my favorites. This was going to be pure fun with the stops pulled out, all the way out. Rejoice and unfasten your restrictions—it was going to be a funky night. Hell, I might even dance a bit before retiring to the quiet and relative calm of the patio for another round of drinks and nachos.