I was waiting for a cab last night, coming home after the Red Sox game, which I watched at Dempsey’s in the East Village. I stood in line in Hoboken, with a bunch of other drunk Yahoos. Anyone who has spent any time in Hoboken on a Friday or a Saturday night will know what an absolute madhouse it is.<\/p>\n
I mean, hey, whatever, let the kids have their fun … but the AMATEUR drunks are what I’m talking about. It’s like the entire town turns into a raging frat party. Vomiting people on the sidewalks, fights breaking out, sloppy sloppy sloppy drunk staggering … Whatever floats your boat. It just ain’t my scene, and it never was.<\/p>\n
\nTruly dangerous bar fights break out, because it’s a post-college-guys-who-can’t-control-their-liquor social scene. At around 2 or 3, when the bars start to close, is when the vibe on the streets starts to get a bit scary. If you’re a woman walking down them by yourself, I mean. Washington Street transforms into a gauntlet of nicely dressed absolutely wasted white boys – hostile <\/i>wasted white boys. They travel in packs, large groups of roving drunk post-frat-boys, who have not hooked up with someone yet. Their mission of sex for the night was not accomplished. And now they’re too drunk for a hook-up anyway, but that doesn’t stop them from getting in the goddamn face<\/i> of every woman unfortunate enough to be strolling by them.<\/p>\n
If any of you people have ever hung out in Hoboken recently, you will so know what I am getting at. The chicks in Hoboken aren’t much better. Drunk, sloppy, they all look like rejects from the first round of casting for The Bachelor<\/i>.<\/p>\n
Again, whatever. It’s a social scene – for a specific age and place …. everyone is in the 21 to 27 range, everyone’s having fun … I mean, that kind of sloppy drunk stuff never appealed to me, even when I was 24, whatever, I was in a whole different place during that age-range. I was hanging out with Chicago boys in pool halls, going to improv shows, and laughing like crazy.<\/p>\n
Basically, I like a guy who can hold his liquor. A sloppy out-of-control hostile drunk makes me freakin’ nervous.<\/p>\n
Call me unreasonable, but whatever.<\/p>\n
Anyway, long story longer.<\/p>\n
A guy got so in my face last night, as I waited for the cab, and got so in my personal space<\/i>, and he kept saying the word “c***s***er” – RIGHT AT ME – that I finally hauled off and slapped him across the face. As hard as I could.<\/p>\n
WHAP.<\/p>\n
Please keep in mind that this is not some insane homeless drunk. This is a cleancut guy wearing khakis, a Polo shirt, with a nice haircut.<\/p>\n
Here’s how it went. I was standing in line, waiting for a cab. It was 2 am. A bad time to be in Hoboken on a Saturday night, if you’re a chick, all by yourself. You have to pretend you’re wearing a walkman, and you have no peripheral vision, in order to avoid all the SHIT you get tossed at you. This guy obviously hadn’t gotten laid yet, despite an entire night of carousing – and so all his hostility towards all the women who had probably turned his sorry drunken ass down over the night – came right out at me. I knew it had nothing to do with me, not really, but whatever. I’m not gonna be a fucking therapist for your precious pain when you get 2 inches away from my face and say “Do you like that word? C***s***er?? Huh?”<\/p>\n
He was with a group of friends who were also WASTED – but one of them had some semblance<\/i> of manners still surviving beneath the flood of alcohol – and when the guy got in my face like that, the friend with the vague memory of manners intervened, drunkenly. Turned on his friend and said, “What the hell are you doing, talking to her like that? What is your problem?”<\/p>\n
But he wouldn’t stop – he was on a mission to humiliate me and frighten me, in order to pay back all the other bitches who had rejected him. Hostility like his has a scent. It’s not logical. It’s an animal response.<\/p>\n
Right up against my nose, wafting alcohol-breath into my face, saying “c***s***er” at me …<\/p>\n
I said, immediately, firmly, “Please back off – gimme some space… ” This was like a red flag to a bull.<\/p>\n
He said the c word one too many times. It wasn’t just a word, coming from him. It was … an intimidation tactic, maybe? He wanted to see me embarrassed?<\/p>\n
I don’t know. And I don’t care.<\/p>\n
So I slapped his face. I mean – Jeez. I was coming back from a really fun night, with my friend Jen, my sister Siobhan, my friend Nate … we had hung out, watched the Red Sox, laughed so hard we cried, had great conversations … and now I come home and have to deal with this nonsense?<\/p>\n
The slapping made QUITE a scene.<\/p>\n
I’m 5′ 4″. This guy was probably 6′ 2″. A big tall sloppy young drunk.<\/p>\n
The look on his face after the slap was one of the most beautiful and satisfying things I had ever seen in my life.<\/p>\n
But I wasn’t going to hold a grudge. Once I punished him, I was done. I was still trembling, though, from … fear … adrenaline … whatever … I turned and watched the line of cabs advance. Strangely, I felt like crying. I think it was just because a confrontation like that is upsetting, in general.<\/p>\n
The friend with the manners was kind of beside himself (in a drunken sweet way) over how his friend had acted, and said, “Please … go in front of us … take our spot in line …”<\/p>\n
The slapped-man stepped back to let me pass. He looked …. horrified. In a deep-down “oh God I am so out of control” way. He remembered his fucking manners, he remembered that I am a goddamn person sharing space with him on the sidewalk, and not a holograph of all the women who said “No” to him over the night.<\/p>\n
I stepped in front of the group. My knees were trembling.<\/p>\n
A cab pulled up, and I got in. Gratefully. It already had taken on this strange unreality … did that really just happen?<\/p>\n
The second I got into the cab, I heard a fight break out – between the three guys I had just left.<\/p>\n
The kind one with the manners started yelling at the guy I slapped, “Jesus Christ – dude – you are so – what the FUCK -”<\/p>\n
Slapped-dude was drunkenly defending himself, “What the fuck is your problem …”<\/p>\n
“You just … you don’t get it … SHIT, you do this every time …”<\/p>\n
Blah blah.<\/p>\n
As my cab pulled away, I saw guy-with-manners shove slapped-guy – in a manner which suggested it could escalate into a big ol’ fight.<\/p>\n
But I was safe now, on my way home, to my lovely curtains, and my comfy bed … leaving behind the chaos of the sloppy amateur-drunk social scene of Hoboken.<\/p>\n
It felt good to slap that guy. But still. It took me about half an hour to stop shaking.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I was waiting for a cab last night, coming home after the Red Sox game, which I watched at Dempsey’s in the East Village. I stood in line in Hoboken, with a bunch of other drunk Yahoos. Anyone who has … Continue reading