Joe is not the only person who has no plans on lassoing up cowgirls. This would also apply to my newest roommate, Phil Laswell. But what am I actually dealing with, here? A well documented intense metal guy, yes, yet otherwise almost entirely an unknown commodity. He’s had an air of mystery from the moment we all met him, years ago, occupying the grey borderlands as the least well known of my closest friends. Dresses almost uniformly in black, as in black (non cowpoke-tight) jeans, black tee shirts, even his hair that is not naturally black yet customarily dyed to make it so. A cool fellow, though, and deceptively friendly despite this gruff hardcore exterior. As folks have dispensed as a wisdom kernel for decades, however, rooming with someone is the ultimate test, and you don’t know what you’re in for until passing it.
I receive an early primer on this topic the first morning after he fully moves in. The night before, celebrating his conclusive arrival at last, a bunch of us went from an early pregame house gathering at my friend Millie’s place across town, over card games and beers, to hitting some other apartment before winding up at a couple different bars. Only to conclude this fine night, after he and I arrive home somewhere around 1 a.m., with Phil insisting upon showing me how to make what he calls Elwood Dogs, i.e. cooking Oscar Mayer’s finest via this crazy method he says he somehow picked up from watching The Blues Brothers: bending a coat hanger into this specific configuration to where it makes a raised platform above your oven burner, and will hold a row of doggies for roasting.
By this point he has already accentuated our pad with his own distinct touches, such as hanging the glow in the dark Misfits Fiend Club frisbee from a nail in the kitchen, and a massive sound system cabinet that forces my weaker stereo to a swift bedroom retreat. Also, more crucially, a washer and dryer he just happened to have, whereas I did not. Nobody in his right mind would ever argue that having a male roomie was better than your recently departed girlfriend…except maybe for the newly single guy. A newly single guy, particularly one who’s already gotten over the post-breakup blues, is electrified by this concept, and ready to see where this possibility laden, party-centric, suddenly untethered lifestyle might lead.
But of course, we do still have to maintain our jobs, if hoping to pay for the parties. Phil I’m aware has just caught on with some contracting crew, a group he has already described to me as, “a buncha fuckin hacks, I’m serious, Sid, that’s what they are: a buncha fuckin hacks.” Which rings some bells as sounding highly familiar to how he described his last job. And yet it’s a totally different sound waking me on this first morning of his residence, at an hour where it’s not quite yet fully light outside. A series of loud yet varied metallic clanking wakes me up, the sounds so peculiar that I instantly know they must be work related. A hunch confirmed when I creak my way downstairs, bleary eyed, to find him dressed in his black jeans and black tee already, an unzipped black hoodie, grinning and nodding at me as he explains that he brought in every single tool from his truck, emptying the smaller ones from their various tool boxes, to line them up all up along the living room floor and decide what he truly needs for this job.
It’s quite a sight, to be sure, and I can only wish in retrospect that I had a camera ready. If nothing else this would have made for quite the album cover, for some semi-obscure metal band. As it stands, half asleep still, squinting as I pour myself a bowl of cereal, I can only laugh under my breath at this scene. Yes sir, this is bound to prove an interesting arrangement.
Which isn’t to say there’s so much as a whiff of elitism here, by any means. My job, working in the meat department at the nearest majorly corporate grocery store, is not the least bit glamorous, either. The entire attraction in downgrading to this somewhat ghetto apartment was that I am now close enough to walk to work, on all but the coldest and dreariest days, which is what I plan on doing this one, too. My car is a rolling deathtrap and I prefer to spend as little time in it as possible.
Glamorous or not, we’re doing alright, though, all the same. Not just Phil and me, but most of us guys, in roughly all the same economic stratosphere. How we choose to spend our discretionary income is largely identical, too, the only real difference our choice of watering holes. And though Phil is okay with the neutral dives, like Triads, it comes as no surprise to me that he immediately stumbles upon the dingiest pit in the land, Bootleggers Inn, and can be found stopping by there most nights on his way home from work.
Bootleggers Inn is so downtrodden that despite driving past it numerous times myself, I wasn’t aware that it was even a functional business. Though resembling from the outside (not that the vantage improves much indoors) some tin shack in your grandpa’s back yard, after Phil’s initial foray here, he can’t stop raving about the place and insists upon bringing me the next night. As we approach, Phil having driven us in his truck and parked in the dirt lot — that last part highly anachronistic itself along this heavily trafficked thoroughfare — I can’t help but think, hmm, this is a bar? Okay, apparently this must be a bar.
The interior is only slightly less dirty, although it’s possible I wouldn’t say that if not for the excessive gloom. We’ve no sooner secured a table before Phil stormtroops the jukebox, firing up a metal heavy setlist that begins with Slayer’s Reign In Blood. Then he insists upon buying us both a shot of whiskey and a cheap domestic beer, which leads to the next thought, that I am in for some serious trouble if attempting to keep up with this maniac, for who knows how many months.
Fortunately, the rest of this night and most that soon follow, at least for me, are not nearly as extreme. As for now, we kick back and settle into a more subdued pace, allowing Phil to absorb and pontificate upon the tracks he has selected, with occasional forays into discussing this bar, the potential behind still other dilapidated pits he has passed, and the whole mess of fucking hacks he works with, such as the one today who nearly dropped a hammer on his head from a rooftop.
“Swear to God, Sid, I was this close to choppin off his fuckin hands and throwin em across the yard,” he tells me, holding up his own palms for emphasis before adding, “I’d a done it, too, you know I would.”
Again, though, despite this bluster, he is actually nothing if not chatty, outgoing, and mostly friendly. All of which leads to our outing’s greatest takeaway, which is the moment he meets this brunette, Jen, up at the bar. Attired in some navy blue nurse scrubs, she’s just gotten off from her own job, and is sitting up there alone. Phil has ventured forth to order us some more drinks, as I paid for the second round and we’re now beginning our third. He winds up chatting with Jen at length, and invites me over to meet her as well. I can see she’s a skinny, attractive brunette, her voluminous head of dark black hair (a shade surely enhanced by Bootleggers’ illumination optional lighting fixtures) shorn in a stylishly modern, somewhat jagged cut, her features enhanced with smoky eyeshadow and an indeterminate lipstick.
Given that he’s just made her acquaintance, it’s somewhat of a miracle that we extricate ourselves after just this third round. Because although I’ve been wondering how he does with the ladies, and despite that somewhat impressive showing making a paper rose for that girl last month, or meeting Jen just now, I soon have some indication on this front, when he stops by Bootleggers again the next night, intent upon seeing her once more. Safe to say that this is not at all the way I personally operate, but who is to say he is wrong? Or for that matter, that I have the first clue what I’m doing, either? The other consideration is that what works for one guy will not necessarily work for the next.
Well, an outgoing nature is one thing, the ability to meet girls, but actually getting somewhere with them is another matter entirely. And yet this too is encouraging, for he manages to sit at the bar all night with Jen, the two of them pounding drinks together, and comes home at closing time quite hammered but with her phone number on a cocktail napkin in his pocket. I’m happy for him, but also believe it bodes well for this brand new living arrangement.
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