Who Are You?

Straight up. Who the fuck are you? Do you ever wonder? Not your bank account, accomplishments or lack thereof. When you set aside the conventions masquerading as the criteria for a life well lived, who are you? Do you know? If you live in a psychopathically capitalistic society like America, maybe you can just peek into your wallet, or, perhaps, your driveway and figure it all out.

I have no idea, but Trev, Sam and I had a few drinks tonight and we mulled it over.

"Hey, ever wonder who the fuck you are," Trev asked. I glanced over, took a sip of my room temperature beer. And decided to pretend to ignore him. Samantha gave me the, "he's-drunk-enough-to-say-something-stupid-so-I'm-glad-we're-at-our-house look." I smirked and drained my beer.

I unfolded from the couch, on my way to the fridge. "Anyone need a brew," I tossed. A few beats of silence. Then Trev, "I'll take a fresh one." Fred wraps a tail around my leg as I stand in front of the fridge. His way of letting me know he might take a snack or two. Cool, you little furry, lovable bastard. I grab a couple of beers from the fridge. Then it dawned on me. Trevor isn't going to let this shit go. No one asks, "Hey, you ever wonder who the fuck you are" and then drops it. This is going to be something.

I poured Samantha the rest of her margarita. She doesn't drink much, but when she does--margaritas. I started thinking about getting Trev out of here, and maybe taking advantage of my increasingly inebriated wife. I check the microwave clock: a little after midnight.

"Hey, Sam. You want the rest of your marg?"

"Sure." She said sleepily. Yep, might as well drink up and hear what knowledge Dalai Trev has to drop on me right quick. I strolled into the living room. Sam is flipping through the CD collection. I hand Trev his drink. I move to the couch next to Sam. Hand her the remainder of her marg.

"Thanks."

"Naturally." An exchange of glances. Trev looks impatient.

"So, what the fuck were you talking about again? And, seriously, if you get all self-help section on me, you're walking home." I said. He takes a deep pull on the fresh beer.

"No seriously," he holds up his hand asking me to hear him out. I shrug telling him for sure; if you say something crazy, I'm confiscating that brew--it's the last one.

Another sip, and then he sets it down. Samantha selects a CD and heads to the stereo. It looks like Anthony Hamilton. Nice.

"Okay," Trev starts, " One time we were talking and you said that you believed that people change all the time because who you are, is a sum of your experiences. And you are constantly experiencing new things, so you are constantly evolving and becoming someone different."

"How drunk were you," Sam asks over her shoulder. I have the remote sitting next to me. "Honey." She looks. I show it to her. She gestures as if to say, "I'm right in front of the stereo, drunkard." I nod as if to say, "Good point." I decide I need to talk to the person in the room drunker than me. To Trev, "Yeah, I remember." Not really. I had to be drunker than shit to say some mood ring bullshit like that.

"Well, what do you know about yourself? Who the fuck are you?" I'm not drunk enough to deal with this, and I'm wondering where the fuck this is going. I run my hand over my head, I need to shave. I take a swallow of beer. As Anthony Hamilton starts the first of his gritty, soulful ballads I do my best impersonation of someone who hasn't heard a word of anything.

"Well?" Trev asks. I'd rather have a vasectomy than have this fucking conversation. I shrug. "All you have for me is this?" He mocks my shoulder shrug. Sam gets a big kick out of this.

"I'm straighter than the hair on a Native American. I know that shit." I'm thinking beer run. Trev, apparently, isn't.

"What else?"

"Who the fuck are you, Trev?" Asks Samantha. I guess she was growing weary of the clumsy philosophical explorations.

"Funny you should ask," he smirked. He laid back on the ottoman and begins.

"You know that girl I was telling you about? The one I work with?"

I nod in the affirmative. "The boss's daughter."

"Right, right," he starts laughing. Now my curiosity is piqued.

"Well, I finally asked her out the other day. So we started the evening out with a few drinks."

"You went out with your boss's daughter? Where were you the last time you saw your fucking mind, Trevor," Sam says. "That's career suicide. Well, it wouldn't be if you actually treated the women in your life with a modicum of respect, but that not being the case; when do you suppose you're getting fired?" I nearly spit my beer across the room.

Trev shrugged and said, "Could be any day now. But I don't have a career. I have a series of jobs that fucking eat shit. So I don't really give a fuck," he continues "Plus, I have never done anything to any woman who didn't have it either coming to them, or that they consented to--albeit sometimes that required a little interpretation."

"Liberal interpretation, fuck boy." I said.

"So? Do you want me to finish my fucking story or what?"

"Please, continue," Sam offers.

"Okay, so we went to Harpo's and had a few brews. We were both getting hammered and hungry, so I suggested we go grab something to eat."

"Where'd you go," I asked expecting to hear the usual--Taste of India--which is where he normally takes his dates.

"O'Sullivan's." Nice. Awesome food there. "Anyway, that's not the point. So we're sitting at O'Sullivan's and it becomes pretty clear that I'm going to be fucking the boss's daughter here in a bit." He pauses, takes a sip of beer. I'm looking at him as though I'm the expectant father in the birth room. "Well, you know, it'd been awhile since I'd hit a piece."

"A piece," Sam says. I knew that was coming. Trev doesn't have the "there's a woman in the room" filter.

"So I'm sitting there and I'm thinking, 'I don't want to be the two-pump chump.' You know what I'm saying?! Fuck that, chicks talk." Out of all the possible solutions to this particular dilemma, I'm really curious as to which one he chooses. I couldn't decide between either a condom that desensitizes a bit, or more foreplay, or just be prepared to put some work in. I eyed my beer. If he goes with the desensitizing condom, I'll make a beer run.

"So?" I asked.

"Well," he chuckled, " I ordered a couple more beers, closed the tab, and then told her I had to use the restroom." Now I'm really wondering where the fuck this is going. He looks at me and Sam as if we should know where this is going. I glance at Sam, she's as clueless as me.

"I fucking jerked off in the bathroom!" No beer run.

"You fucking jerked off in a public restroom?!" I couldn't believe it. Sam stared and just shook her head in disbelief. "What did you say took you so long," she asked.

"There was a line."

"You know, of all the possible solutions to your problem, why did you settle on that one?"

"It was the easiest. What other solutions, anyway?"

"I would have went with the desensitizing condoms, and just put in some major work."

"They have those? That would fucking suck."

"Are we having this conversation, or did you put something in my drink," Sam says. I shrugged.

"Yeah, but there's more to the story," he says. Everything else seems to be a bit anti-climatic.

"You couldn't get it up because she wanted to fuck sooner than you thought?"

"No, but that did kind've occur to me after the fact--on the way to her dad's house." He laughs.

"Her d..? You fucked the boss's daughter in your boss's house," I asked.

Trev is laughing his ass off at this point and Sam is getting a good chuckle out of this, too.

"Dude, and excuse me, Sam; I fucked the shit out the boss's daughter in his bed," he's rolling hysterically now. Then, through tears of laughter," I wiped my cock off with the drapes hanging in his room!"

I'm fucking floored. I think Sam is going to pee her pants she is laughing so hard. I have laughing cramps and Trev can't fucking breathe. After our paroxysm of laughter passes. He looks at us and asks, "So who the fuck would you say I am?"

"Someone who believes that their cock is the center of the universe," Sam says. He nods, "Good enough for me."