Blind Date

At approximately two a.m. on the morning of the loneliest holiday, I had consumed an unknown amount of alcoholic beverages, whereas my college roommate, who usually out drank me, had had only two. The reason she was holding back was because she had to drive to her hometown in North Carolina to make a court appearance regarding an underage D.U.I. However, she took advantage of my altered, agreeable state to convince me that rather than be alone on the holiday, I should spend the day with a courtroom full of the state’s most wanted rednecks and vagrants.

After a four-hour trip and a catnap at her mother’s house, I was sober enough to regret my decision. We arrived at the hot, crowded courtroom at ten o’clock in the morning, where they dress code seemed to be flannel, mullets and camouflage. I looked around, taking note of the fire escapes and empty aisles and twisted my hair up above my neck. A guy in the line waiting to chat with a court-appointed attorney smiled at me. He was wearing gray sweatpants, an orange hunting vest and red baseball cap with “Steamie’s” written on it. He had big blue eyes, the kind that occur when close recessive genes intermingle. The spirit of Southern hospitality must have overtaken me and I smiled back, like Melanie administering to soldiers, before I remembered where I was and turned away.

However, his interest was peaked, and after a rather short conversation with his counsel, he came and sat next to me.

“You looked even more beautiful with your hair pulled up like that. It’s good like that, away from your face. What are you here for?”

“Just visiting,” I was tempted to say. Instead I told him I was with a friend.

“Your boyfriend?” he asked.

“Yes, he’s an axe murderer,” I should have responded. Unfortunately, I was too vain to let this convict think that my pretend boyfriend was part of his social circle.

“No, my roommate. What about you, what are you in for?”

“ Well, what sucks is this is my second charge today.”

“Rough morning,” I agreed.

“Yeah, the first was for drivin my bike without a helmet n’shit and speeding so I got my license suspended. This is a weapons violation. My ex-girlfriend, she crazy, she got charges filed up against me.

“Oh yeah.”

“Yeah, what happened was she had a gun that she pulled from her purse. She said that she was going to kill herself if she couldn’t have me and then I tried to pull it away and I got charged with assault. She’s crazy.”

“Sounds like it.”

“It’s not her fault. It’s just that she loved me so much she didn’t know how to handle herself. She didn’t think she had any other choice and she was hard up.”

“Okay.”

At this point, the attorney came and whispered in his ear, and he stood up, turned his cap to face forward and let out a huge sigh and looked at me.

“So, do you think you want to go for a drive sometime?”

“Uh, I’m leaving town after this. Right after this. Leaving the state.”

He shrugs.

“When do you think you’ll be back?”

“I don’t know. My husband’s in the Marines, so you know, it depends on his schedule.”

“Oh yeah? It’s all good. I gotta deal with this shit, I guess,so it’s all good. Get my license back too. Guess I’ll see you back around sometime.”

“I don’t know, yeah probably, I guess.

He looked back before heading toward the judge.

“Happy Valentine’s Day.”