Boys

Boys (The Attack of the Michaels)

they gimme
they follow my voice…

I took my car into a body shop a few weeks ago to repair the bumper and needed to get a rental car. So I stop by an enterprise where the twenty-something slackers are at the service counter slagging through the day, punching the keys, earning their nine bucks and hour. One the guys is on top of customer service and asks me, “Can I help you?”

“Yeah, I need to rent a car,” I said. He had hazel eyes. I’m a sucker for hazel eyes.
“What kind of car?”
“A Focus is fine.”
One of the girls at the counter chipped in, “We only have one Focus, and I think one of the tires has a flat.”
“Okay,” Hazel Eyes said. “We have a Hyundai”
“That’ll work,” I said.
“Alright, I’ll take your credit card and get you on your way.”

I stared out the window at the damp streets, moist from the morning rain shower.

“Pretty nice weather we’re having for January,” Hazy said.
“Yeah, last year we already had like two snow days,” I said.
“Where do you work?”
“At a community college. I’m a college professor.”
“Cool. Okay, let me take you out to the car.”

I followed Hazel Eyes out to the lot to a beige Hyundai sedan. We walk around making sure all the dents and scratches are noted, then we get inside so I can sign the paper work.

“Okay, do you want insurance? That way you can have worry free driving.”
“Sure.”
“Alright, sign here, and here, and initial there, there, and there.”

I give the pen a few strokes; Hazel Eyes tears off my copy of the agreement, hands it over to me, and gives me his card.

“I’m Michael. If you need anything, just give me a call.”
“Thanks Michael. I will.” I notice that Michael’s hair is slightly thinning, but he’s still a cute kid.

Michael “B” gets out the car, and I'm on my way.

I’m on Facebook a few days later, and I’m reading a message from Michael R. , the policeofficer: “Hey, Diva. I was going to call you, but I lost your phone number, so can you call me at (313) xxx-xxxx?”

Well, I could have just given the guy my phone via reply instead of having to call him. Most days I don’t have time to play cat and mouse, and Michael “R” has been creeping around corners for a while. I’ll get to later, but probably never.

A few days after driving around in the Hyundai, I get a call from Michael “B”.
“Hi,” he said.
“Hi,” I said.
“I just wanted to make sure everything was going okay, and you were happy with the car.”
“Yes, I’m good. No problems at all.”
“Great. Well, just remember. Give a call if you have any concerns.”
“I will, Michael, thanks.”

After I ended the call, I did pause for a moment to try and parse the conversation, but then I just chalked it up to good customer service and Michael wanting some customer service bonus.

After seven days, my trusty Volkswagen was ready to picked up from the shop. I drove over to Enterprise to drop off the Hyundai.
“Hi,” I said to Michael B. I as I walked up to the counter.
“Hi there. You’re returning the car.”
“Yup. My Volkswagen is ready.”
“Great. Do you need a ride to the body shop?”
“Yes, as a matter of fact I do. It’s only a mile from here down Boullybase Boulevard”.
“No problem. A-1 Collision, right?”
“Right?”
“I know where it is. I’ll take you there.”
“Cool,” I said.

So we get in the Hyundai, and Michael B drives off. But he doesn’t take the straightforward boulevard for a mile. In fact he goes in the opposite direction. I’m thinking that maybe he’s taking a shortcut, so I humor him and talk about the weather and cars.
Michael tells me that he was born in Saudi Arabia but his family is from Muskegon, Michigan. His father was some sort of international contractor doing selling equipment for oil rigs and ships, and some other crap about trade and commerce. Michael was also well-traveled, Turkey, Spain, Argentina. He lived in Fort Lauderdale before he came back to Michigan and got an Associate’s degree. He’s not sure he’ll stay. He wants to go back to the warm weather. Maybe Texas.

I realized that we had been talking for a half hour when I should have been dropped off at the shop five minutes after we left enterprise, so it’s now time for a moment of awkwardness.

“Um, do you know where the body shop is? You passed it two miles ago.”
“Oh, I thought were going to a different shop.”
“No, it was just a mile away from Enterprise.”
“Sorry. Lost track. That happens.”

I don’t think Michael is going to pull over in some remote alley and rape me, but the weird diversion off the beaten track was weird. Maybe he wanted to hop in the back seat and depreciate the value of the Hyundai some more by fucking my brains out, which would not have been such a bad idea because my libido has recovered, and I need to be done properly.

Nevertheless, Michael B. gets back on track, and I finally arrive at the body shop after 45 minutes. Michael shakes my hand and give me another business card.

“Call me if you need anything.”
“Okay, I will.”

I shake his hand, and he drives off. I wonder. Is this how men pick up women these days? Or is Enterprise going to send me a survey asking me if Michael gave me enough ambiguous references to servicing me to merit upping his salary.
I haven’t called Michael B, by the way. Might commit the ultimate crime and make him a Fakebook friend, though.

I wish Michael Crawford would die. Sure, he provided enough amusement between stints in the loonybin, but I wish the male denizens would get off the idiot’s cock. I’m hoping the upcoming trial on Felony Harassment puts his ass in jail for years, and I no longer have to read the infantile shit that he squats down and emits in the queue every two days. Damn. Maybe his arrest is the gateway to his final demise where he finds a shotgun and kills himself and his mother before they put him in clink. But really, I hope he just kills himself.

And Saint Michael: Hereafter in my bruised and wounded consciousness known as The Satanic Pimp Lord. Lo, these many months I’m am now discovering the depths of his depravity and deceit. What was that he said to me? He was anti social? He wasn’t hanging out anywhere? Wasn’t getting laid? Couldn’t even be bothered posting photographs like he used to? Nothing could have been further from the truth. He’s been getting laid. He’s out and about, socializing, finding new puppets to string up, I guess. The final slap in my face:

“Hey bitch, I don’t give a fuck about you. You wanna leave me? Well fuck you, you stupid nigger whore!!! And by the way, my pale, white Ravna has returned with her white Scandinavian feet so go kill yourself!”

But I’m hanging in there. I might have spent a few hours crying, but I’m living. Yes, I’m wounded, and wounded bad. But I can take it.

Congrats, Michael. I’m a complete useless and unworthy human being in your world. Good mindfucking all around. You won this battle, but you and I both know you won’t win the war, but I know I’ll be okay, and you’re still a piece of shit. And you know this, no matter how hopped up on drug and mindless adoration from your puppets that have completely absorbed your deluded, deteriorating, and mentally unstable mass of fungus you call a brain.

Last week I get a LinkedIn email asking me if I want to connect with an old. And glory be, it happens to be Terence G. One of my first boyfriends. What the hell? I email him back and say “Hi”. He emails me asks me to tell him everything. I don’t have much to say except I’m an English professor; I haven’t bred rugrats, and I’m generally very happy. He’s glad to hear and wonders if I’m up for dinner sometime. I say “yeah,” and he says he’ll reach out to me this weekend and asks for my number. I give him my number but don’t hold out hope. Men these days have become so wishy-washy. And I don’t see myself fucking him for old time’s sake. Sometimes you just can’t go back home again.
But at least his name isn’t Michael.