Worst.Date.Ever Read online

  Contents

  Worst. Date. Ever.

  Copyright © 2019 Daniel Kopcow. All rights reserved.

  Dedication

  Introduction

  When Jilted Alice Spoke

  The Plucky Wooing of Emily

  Catch of the Day

  The John Hour

  A Love Supreme

  Harold Doesn‘t Date Anymore

  Mac and Cheese

  The Spot on Aunt Googie’s Head

  Equinity

  Casa de Los Gatos

  The Case of the Disarming Dame

  Forgiving Yoko

  Fun with the Knott Sisters

  The Cobbler Cherry

  Brain Takes a Sick Day

  Telepathetic

  The All-Dancing, All-Killing Mulvanians

  Ripple

  Astronaut Tang

  The Shallow Depths of Lester

  Atone Deaf

  Acknowledgements

  Worst. Date. Ever.

  Daniel Kopcow

  Regal House Publishing

  Copyright © 2019 Daniel Kopcow. All rights reserved.

  Published by

  Regal House Publishing, LLC

  Raleigh, NC 27612

  All rights reserved

  ISBN -13 (paperback): 9781947548169

  ISBN -13 (epub): 9781646030217

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2019941543

  All efforts were made to determine the copyright holders and obtain their permissions in any circumstance where copyrighted material was used. The publisher apologizes if any errors were made during this process, or if any omissions occurred. If noted, please contact the publisher and all efforts will be made to incorporate permissions in future editions.

  Interior and cover design by Lafayette & Greene

  lafayetteandgreene.com

  Cover images © by alaver / Shutterstock

  Regal House Publishing, LLC

  https://regalhousepublishing.com

  The following is a work of fiction created by the author. All names, individuals, characters, places, items, brands, events, etc. were either the product of the author or were used fictitiously. Any name, place, event, person, brand, or item, current or past, is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of Regal House Publishing.

  Printed in the United States of America

  Dedication

  To my beautiful and amazing wife, Angela. All the flattering bits are about you.

  Introduction

  When it comes to engaging in romance, people walk around with their defenses up all the time. In World War II, you could only enter a danger zone or other country if you passed a series of gates and armed guards. These passageways were called Checkpoint Charlies. Make the wrong move, show the wrong credential, and you found yourself spending time in a prison that looked nothing like Hogan’s Heroes. Or maybe you ended up succumbing to sniper fire or barbed-wire induced injuries.

  My own Checkpoint Charlie makes me very elliptical when it comes to women. I could never just tell a woman I liked her and wanted to go out with her. I insinuated. I intimated. I suggested. In business jargon, I’m not exactly what you would call a closer.

  I’ll give you an example.

  There was this woman I was crazy about in college. Let’s call her Angee. Angee and I were both Resident Advisors in a coed dorm. Rather than asking her out, I devised a foolproof two-phased Master Plan that would win her over.

  Phase I

  As RAs, we each had to lead some type of extracurricular group. Some RAs were on the Dorm Party Committee, some led the Study Group Committee. Not me. I started a whole new group: the Special Recognition Committee. The mission of the Special Recognition Committee was ostensibly to provide an opportunity for students to give recognition to their roommates for acing tests, or to help people who were homesick, or generally to make people feel better. Which we actually did. However, the real mission of the Special Recognition Committee was to act as a springboard for Phase II of my Master Plan.

  Phase II

  When Valentine’s Day rolled around, the Special Recognition Committee, still ably led by me and still operating under incredibly false pretenses, organized a massive kissing booth in the lobby of our dorm. Massive may be an overreach. A female RA and I stood behind a table under a sign that read, “Kissing Booth - $1 for a Kiss. All Proceeds Go to Charity.” The female RA, who was very attractive but no Angee, was doing a brisk business and our selected charities ultimately benefited tremendously from her generous lips. I, on the other hand, was having a going-out-of-business sale. I was the Willy Loman of canoodling. Then, the big moment came. I saw Angee walking out of the elevator and toward our kissing booth. Finally, all my hard work would pay off. The months of planning and philanthropic works would come to full fruition. Instead, she walked right by me with her friend without even acknowledging I was there. She was on her way to the dining hall, so I thought she was hungry and I would catch her on the way back. I waited long after the kissing booth should have closed up shop. My female co-RA had already left. On a date, no doubt. Angee never walked back my way. I clearly needed a Phase III to my Master Plan.

  Phase III

  After weeks of heartache and pep talks in the mirror, I finally asked Angee out directly. I somehow thought it would be romantic to take her to Sweeney Todd, The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. For some reason, she didn’t go out with me again for twenty-five years.

  Clearly, a reformulation of my Master Plan was needed. I appended two subsections to Phase III:

  Phase III.a

  I figured twenty-five years was enough time to have passed. She would have had plenty of opportunity to shake off our first date. I reconnected with Angee, now going by Angela. She agreed to get together. This mini triumph led to the final phase in my Master Plan. It was all coming together.

  Phase III.b

  Angela and I met at a county park in the middle of the day during the week. There was no one else around, and we would have the whole park to ourselves. It was wonderful to see her again, and it felt like no time had passed since we had watched people’s throats being slit before they were turned into meat pies.

  We sat at an old wooden picnic table and caught up on what we’d been up to for the past quarter-century. While I was providing my update, I noticed she was wriggling uncomfortably. All my insecurities came to bear. I pictured her bolting up and driving away, and I started sweating. It was the kissing booth all over again. I wondered if I would have to wait another twenty-five years before we could actually finish a date. I asked her what was wrong. She said she needed a moment and looked around for a bathroom.

  The women’s bathroom in the park was in a small, cinderblock building near the parking lot that probably only let in thin daggers of sunlight. She had been in there for about ten minutes when I yelled in and asked her if she was alright. She hesitated and then asked if I could go to her car and grab her first aid kit. I enquired again what was wrong, but she seemed uninterested in pursuing my line of questioning at the moment. Instead, her disembodied voice echoed out of the cinderblock chamber with pleas for her first aid kit. To punctuate her point, she tossed her car keys through the tiny bathroom window opening.

  I got her keys, went to her car, and returned with the first aid kit. She asked me to leave the kit and her keys at the door. I walked away to give her some privacy and heard the door quickly open
and close. When I turned around, the kit and keys were gone, having been swallowed up by my date inside.

  After a respectful ten minutes had gone by, I asked again if there was anything I could do to help. She finally told me what was going on. While we were talking at the wooden picnic table earlier, she had sat on some broken glass. A small shard had penetrated her jeans and into her right buttocks. Between the odd angle and low lighting, she couldn’t get out the shard. She had managed to stop the bleeding. I asked if I could help, and she immediately said no, perhaps more forcefully than she intended.

  She told me later she did not want me to see her butt after twenty-five years, thinking it would scare me away. Also, knowing we were going on a hike, she had chosen to wear beige granny panties and she added this to the list of visuals from which she wished to spare me. I assured her I just wanted to help. She finally acquiesced and allowed me into the bathroom. She handed me tweezers from her first-aid kit and told me to pull out the shard with one condition: I had to keep my eyes closed. She didn’t want me to see her like this. Effectively, she was asking me to play the game Operation blindfolded. If I had started singing, this wasn’t a million miles away from Sweeney Todd.

  I removed the shard with my eyes closed in one of the few heroic moments of my life. She was fine, and we proceeded with our hike. A few years later, we were married. I still have the glass shard as a souvenir from our second date.

  Ultimately, my Master Plan worked, but I attribute it wholly to her letting down her Checkpoint Charlies rather than any strategy on my part.

  I hope you enjoy these stories and that you never get glass shards in your bottom.

  When Jilted Alice Spoke

  At forty-three, Jilted Alice had finally decided to find her voice. She drove along the two-lane ribbon of road near Butte, Montana, toward Basil’s house. Although it was her sixth Thursday date night at Basil’s, Alice was honored to have Stagecoach Mary riding shotgun this time. Alice knew she’d have to be on her best behavior tonight.

  Alice flirted with the possibility that she might be Basil’s first true love. Her mind and body were nimble enough to carry out this new relationship. In an act of puppy love trust, Basil gave her a copy of his house key after their third date so she could let herself in before he got home from work. Alice would arrive early, surrender to the house’s majestic calm, and wish she had her own peace.

  Her routine consisted of two tasks: 1) she would gracefully prepare dinner with her nine fingers, and 2) she’d mix Basil’s special drink with her long toothpick. In addition, tonight, after letting herself and Mary in, she went into his bathroom, slipped off her jeans, and sliced a small gash into her left thigh with her chef’s knife. The gash stood at attention like a little red soldier.

  Alice hadn’t spoken a word since she was eighteen, after her bitter mother died. Alice’s father had run out on them years before and quickly remarried. Alice portrayed herself as mute to all she met. It’s what attracted Basil to her. It’s what attracted all the men to her. But these men, without fail, also assumed she was deaf. They never bothered to ask. They just calculated that her signing and smiling equaled deaf-mute. Her expressive hands waved in the air, compelling her sign language to float across to her intended’s eyes. What a funny way to speak, she’d thought when she first started signing. From my hands to their eyes. No lips, no ears. Also missing was the heart of her conversation, the distinct inflections, sighs and tones that she was unable to declare. That was okay with Alice, especially when she had to speak with men.

  The men she dated were full of assumptions. They made the mistaken leap that a deaf-mute was also dumb. They all reasoned that she made up for her lack of hearing and speech by overdeveloping her sensual side, her tactile needs, and her risk in pleasure. In short, they presumed she was easy.

  They would talk and talk to her as if she was a confessional with lipstick. They were all attracted to her silent, unquestioning sexuality and implied lack of judgment. Alice understood she exuded these qualities to the world even though she knew differently. It was like her old restaurant job. She had loved turning out dinners for others but she never ate her own food. Currently, Alice was not affiliated with any restaurant. Not since hers had burned down.

  Her burning restaurant had set off flickering memories. Her life’s thieves. They were all men. They all stole from her. Her father fled with her childhood. Caesar robbed her creativity. Stu ran off with her heart. And finally, Alfredo took her money.

  Basil’s kitchen was fairly well-stocked for a civilian’s. This pleased Alice. Mary, Alice’s best friend, turned to Alice and said, “Girl, look at you in that kitchen.” She knew all of Alice’s secrets. “You best steel yourself.”

  Alice took a deep breath and snapped herself back to the present. A pang of guilt wafted in the air. She lit some candles and waited for Basil.

  Alice had met Basil at his shoe store six weeks earlier. He was a skinny assistant manager who clutched his stomach occasionally from a developing ulcer. On their first date, he told Alice that it had been a long day until she walked into his store and made the air in the room stop moving.

  Basil couldn’t tell at first what she looked like. He had lost his thick glasses that day and was practically blind without them unless things were really close. Alice had walked right up to him and stared so fiercely, it made him drop his head towards her feet.

  “What size are you?” he’d asked, trying to gain back his confidence. She’d begun signing to him but realized quickly that he wasn’t looking at her. Basil had started sweating. She’d pointed his hands to a pair of loafers and held six of her fingers in his hands to indicate her foot size.

  Basil had kept his head towards the floor and asked, “Do you know how beautiful you are?”

  Alice had pretended not to hear as she scanned the shelves for strappy sandals.

  “I’ve always wanted someone like you,” whispered Basil, like a ventriloquist, to the worn carpet.

  Their breathing was in perfect unison as he’d put the new shoes on her. At the same time, she’d caressed his left ear with her index finger. They had their first date at Basil’s that night.

  Alice peeked out of Basil’s front window. An old Jeep pulled up, and Basil hopped out of the passenger side.

  “So, that’s him,” said Mary unimpressed. “Child, that boy look like he won the lottery. I mean, look at him, prancin’ home to sexy, voluptuous you.”

  Alice let go of the thin curtain. Basil had a tender manner. He reminded Alice of her father. That’s what had impressed her. He always handled her gently, like he was fitting a whisper-thin leather sandal on a child’s foot.

  Basil opened the door, stepped into his house and smelled the air. Alice knew the glorious mix of perfume and food would tantalize him.

  Alice watched him eat and drink. She’d push his black hair to the side since it had the wonderful tendency to fall over his eyes while he ate. He would ask her to stop, that it didn’t matter, but that endeared him to her even more. It reminded her of her father’s hair when she was a child.

  After dinner, they went to his bedroom without a word. He had a single bed so they lay on their sides, face-to-face. Their bodies were only inches apart, their mouths, their lips, closer still. They almost never touched.

  “That boy knows you’ll cause a world of trouble if he breaks into your space,” noted Mary. “Your rules entice him.”

  Alice stared into Basil’s eyes. He would always talk about his passions, his dreams, and his fears. About how his mother used to hit him. About how he had gone from being angry to lonely to lustful. Things he had never told anyone else. It was like therapy but with the added promise of something more. Then, one day, it occurred to Alice what else was in his voice: release. She offered him release.

  Alice initially listened carefully to Basil, but as the night wore on, his speeches turned her eyes around, inward. She g
ave the illusion of listening by occasionally letting him caress her face while he spoke. Basil was saying, “You’re like no other woman I’ve known. You are complete with or without me…”

  No. Instead, week after week, her mind drifted back to her own past, like an anaconda swallowing its own tail. Back to how her mother convinced Alice that all their ills were due to “that man” walking out on them. Back to her mother dying, still cursing Alice’s father, and Alice choosing silence for all her coming days. She’d replay how she ended up here in Montana, how she had lived and worked in New Orleans, San Francisco, and New York City—the three greatest eating cities in the country—with the help of men, how these men had driven her out of these cities just as fast, why she hated men, why she loved them, why she had decided to do what she was doing, why Stagecoach Mary was her best friend

  “It’s this simple,” Mary interrupted. “This boy, Basil, is still made of tomorrows. You, child, are made of yesterdays.”

  Basil tried putting his hand on Alice’s waist, but she winced. His hands were rough and not at all symmetrical. It made her think of Caesar’s hands. Alice slowly began to shake her head.

  “He knows to back off and keep gabbin’,” said Mary. Alice looked up and smiled at Mary.

  After Alfredo burned down Alice’s restaurant, Alice tried to start over in Montana. She had tried to buy an old restaurant in Bannack. During her inspection of the restaurant, she discovered an old photograph of a large, severe black woman holding a shotgun and a bottle of whiskey. The inscription at the bottom, in thin, black letters, read, “St. Mary.” Taped to the back of the picture was an old, long toothpick. The picture enchanted Alice. An afternoon’s research at the library revealed to her that this was Stagecoach Mary.