Chronicles of the Lost, Volume I

I'd previously lost touch with my friend and former co-worker, we'll call him Rick. We'd always gotten along well, both personally and professionally, and so it was with a decent amount of pleasure that I received his call a few months ago, out of the blue. He'd apparently met up with a mutual friend of ours, who had given Rick my contact info.

We resolved to grab dinner together on the Westside, and after a couple of reschedulings (commonplace in the entertainment biz), we met up at a popular bar and grill with surprisingly good Mexican food. I'd arrived before he did, and so I went up to the bar to grab a drink.

There sat one of my exes (that's actually a slightly strong word, considering how we only went on a couple of dates and hooked up a few times), we'll call her Cathy. Cathy was already well on her way to a wicked hangover, and she embraced me heartily. After some small talk, my friend Rick walked in. We all got acquainted, and either Rick or myself (I honestly cannot remember) invited Cathy to join us for dinner. She happily accepted.

At that point, we had the challenge of finding a table, which is no easy thing in a crowded, popular Westside spot. Cathy said, "Watch this." She walked over to a table that had had a "Reserved" sign on it, which had just been removed by a party of five who was sitting down at that very moment. She appeared to engage them in conversation before returning.

"That guy is a major douchebag," she said.

"What happened?" I asked.

"Well I told them that they were sitting at our table, and they asked me to prove it, and I told them I was going to get the manager, who's my friend," she replied.

"We had a table?" I asked, confused.

"No, but they didn't know that. There's my friend, hold on." As I stood there in surprise, off she went to speak to her friend, who apparently had some bad news for her, because she came back unhappy. "He's not giving us the table!"

"Well, there are five of them, and they're already there," I reminded her gently.

"Yeah, but that wasn't their reservation either! I'm going to get that guy, nobody screws with me and gets away with it, I always hit back harder," she declared.

"Just let it go, Cathy," I said.

"No way, be right back." So off she went again, this time to engage in another discussion with the leader of the party of five, a thin, short guy with a smirk on his face. It got to be heated, so I went over to bring her back. As I approached, I heard her say, "You must have SUCH a small penis," which elicited disgusted looks from the women in the party of five and derisive laughter and a murderous look from the leader.

I brought her back with me, embarrassed for both her and myself, even as the party of five called out various unkind things toward Cathy. I wondered how in the world I had ever gone out with her in the first place, with the uninspiring answer coming back right away: because Cathy is hot.

Ultimately, I decided we should leave the place and head to a nearby sushi bar instead. I was grateful that Rick appeared to have been mostly oblivious to the scene that had just transpired. When we sat down to dinner, things seemed to have calmed down. I tried steering the conversation to a more Godly level by saying how I'd been attending church a lot and describing my testimony about how I converted to Christianity, but every time, either Cathy or Rick would say something else and we'd get sidetracked.

Eventually, Rick was telling us about his wife (who I'd met a few times before) and his new child, and how strange it was to be a father. I was a little surprised that he wasn't more excited, although perhaps I was projecting my own desire to have children onto Rick. Regardless, I was surprised again when I discovered where the conversation was going to head next.

"So you guys don't have sex any more, huh?" asked Cathy.

Rick just laughed, "Where did you find this girl?" he asked me.

Embarrassed again, I didn't have time to respond when Cathy asked again, "No really, you guys don't have sex any more, right? Seriously, just tell me."

Apparently thinking this was all enormously funny, Rick grinned and said, "Yeah, OK, I give, you're right."

"So then you have a mistress now," she declared confidently.

"Oh come on," I said, "this is ridiculous."

"Where did you find this girl?" Rick repeated, laughing and grinning.

"You know you have a mistress, I can tell, don't lie," Cathy persisted.

"Cathy!" I exclaimed.

Rick laughed even harder and said, "OK, OK, I have a mistress."

I looked at Rick, sure that he was joking. "Yeah right! Come on, Rick."

He became a little more serious, but still had a big grin on his face. "I'm not kidding."

Again, I sat there stunned. "Ha! I knew it!" crowed Cathy.

"You've got a newborn child and a wife, and you have a mistress?" I asked wonderingly.

Rick sounded a little more defensive, but he still had a smile on his face. "Well it's like she said, we never have sex any more."

"Yeah, what else could he do?" agreed Cathy.

It's hard not to judge people when they say things like that. Looking back, I know that I should have preached the Gospel to them right then and there, but I'm ashamed to say that it either didn't occur to me, or I lacked the courage (again, I honestly can't remember which). So I gestured for the check instead.

After we paid, Rick remembered, "Oh, that one sushi dish was terrible," gesturing to the one we'd left uneaten, "I'm going to get it taken off of the bill." While I thought it was a little late to raise the issue, I couldn't argue that the sushi was terrible, so I made no objections. So Rick spoke to the waitress, who flushed and seemed embarrassed.

"I'm going to have to get my manager," she said, apparently dreading the prospect, but off she went and we waited for the revised bill.

To our surprise, the manager came out personally, his face red from alcohol. "What's wrong with the sushi?" he demanded.

"It's terrible, way too fishy," Rick explained, surprised as I was about the manager's vehemence.

So the manager proceeded to pick up the uneaten sushi from our table and eat it. "This is delicious, you've never eaten this type of sushi before, have you?"

Rick was incensed. "I'm co-owner of a sushi restaurant in the Valley, and I've had it a lot. It's terrible."

"You're a Korean guy, aren't you, what do you know about sushi?" the owner asked.

"Yeah, so? And you're white! What do YOU know about sushi?" Rick demanded.

Meanwhile, the waitress looked as if she was going to die.

I was equally unhappy with the owner's racial prejudice, so I said calmly, "Take it off the bill or I'm going to protest the charge and hit you with a chargeback."

The owner grumbled but complied. To my surprise Cathy had been silent all this time. As we left, she went to the bathroom. When we all got outside, we exchanged a few more pleasantries before I prepared to leave. "No, please stay for a moment," she pleaded.

"What's going on?" I asked.

"Just hang on for a few minutes, I need to make sure I can get my car," she replied.

"Wait, you're not driving, are you?" I asked. "You're way over the limit, Cathy."

"Then hang on, wait here for a bit." She disappeared into the bar and grill as I waited, less than patiently, I'm sad to say.

Meanwhile, Rick got his car from the valet and we said goodbye to each other. I suspected I would not see him again, which bothered me since my evangelism efforts with him had been weak. Nevertheless, the moment passed (to my chagrin) and off he went.

I waited for Cathy for a while, before losing patience and going into the bar and grill to search for her. I looked around for a few minutes but didn't find her, so I asked one of the bartenders who knew Cathy well if he'd seen her. "Yeah, I think she's outside," he said. Somehow I had missed her. So I went back outside.

To my surprise, I saw Cathy talking to two police officers. One of them went into the nearby sushi bar as I approached. "What's going on?" I asked warily.

"Oh good, you can tell him too, about how the owner of the sushi bar harassed us!" she exclaimed.

On a night full of shocks and surprises, this one was the largest. "Cathy...what are you doing?" I asked her.

At that point, the police officer interrupted, and proceeded to ask me a bunch of questions about the sushi bar owner. I told him yes, he was a jerk, but no, he wasn't threatening us or assaulting us, and yes, he was probably drunk, but no, I don't think he did anything illegal and if it had been up to me I never would have called the police (!) about it.

The other officer came back and said the owner had apologized. Then he squinted at Cathy and me and asked, "You two aren't driving, are you?"

Although I'd had only two glasses of wine over the course of over two hours, I wasn't about to argue with the officer. And there was no way I was going to let Cathy drive! "No, my house is a few blocks away, we're not driving at all," I replied. Satisfied, the officers left.

At that point, I was emotionally and physically exhausted. "You must think I'm a total freak, huh?" Cathy asked.

"So let's get going, come on, I'll crash on the couch, you can sleep it off upstairs," I replied brightly, not answering her question. So we walked back to my place. By then, the true extent of her drunkenness became clear, because she was practically stumbling back to my house. As I poured her inside, I wasn't even able to get her up the stairs, so I set her up on my couch with some blankets.

"Thanks for everything," she said, even as she reached over toward me, and we kissed.

To my shame, I let this proceed for a minute or two (and perhaps oddly, I wasn't experiencing lust at that time, it was more a sin of pride relating to my ego, I believe) before I broke it off and said that I needed to get some sleep, and that she should too. So I went upstairs and the evening ended.

In the morning, I dropped her off at her car, and since then, I've never spoken to or seen her again. Yet even now, I marvel at the entire experience. I view it as a cautionary tale, not only with respect to my own sin, but also with respect to the dangers of lacking boldness in evangelism. My testimony was weak that night, and even though I was young in the faith, I cannot excuse myself because I still knew better. I also view it as a cautionary tale with respect to the dangers of alcohol, rage and revenge, and un-Godly marriages.

I still pray for Rick and Cathy sometimes. In fact, I think I'll go do that right now.

D