Alan was a lover. He talked about women, women with big asses, thick hips, and women with milky tits and exotic women of ambiguous ancestry, and he always made a whooshing sound with his mouth when he talked about them as if that little breathless interjection was a sexual act. He liked them all (well, the hot ones) and he was always in mid-scheme to get them, but I don’t think he got that many. He reckoned himself a tough guy but he was just a garden-variety Casanova in search of a bed. He was too pretty and soft. He had no edge. In contrast, I was all edge in those days. He seemed amused by my erratic personality, I think he gravitated to my dark side like I was a train wreck. I likewise gravitated to his dark side, literally. I was able to tell people “some of my best friends are Black” and mean it, but that’s not really true. I didn’t give a shit about color or race or any of that stuff.
Alan was a cool guy, and we hung out a lot after work and sometimes on weekends. He was very sensitive and was always crying about (once, literally) perceived slights at work and from the world in general. He was suspicious about people’s attitudes and agendas, a real oozing morass of Darrylized slights. At work, he submitted a few written complaints to HR that were roundly ignored (it was the 90s). His biceps were about 5 times the size of his heart. He was a snowflake hiding behind a Black man’s tough facade. He didn’t even drink that heavily while I was getting wasted as he nursed his second drink and acted like he was hardcore.
One afternoon we went to lunch at Roro’s, a Mediterranean takeout place next door. As we walked back to work, a sketchy Black dude walked in the opposite direction. He looked like a hybrid form of homeless-unemployed, messy, and unkempt, but not so much that it was conspicuously repulsive. He was just one of those shiftless-looking men. He didn’t walk fast or purposefully which is how self-important people walk in crowded urban areas. He made the mistake of taking Alan's preset path (of course a totally imaginary line there on the dirty Hollywood sidewalk). Alan haltingly segued into his tryhard thug persona which was more comical than commanding. He decided this was his invisible sidewalk lane only because he was playing a game of macho chicken. He thrust out his overtrained pecs and swung his disproportionately large arms a little more fiercely, like a Marvel character on a rampage. Homeless Homey wasn't backing down, and frankly, that dude had a lot more street cred than domesticated Darryl, I mean Alan.
Neither of these men was backing down. A collision seemed inevitable and was only averted when Alan's soft side came to the rescue and he swerved. Still, Alan's mouth wouldn't relent and even as he moved aside he mouthed off to the homeless dude just in time for the receptionist to buzz us in through the security doors.
At that moment, with the door unlocked for us, Alan unleashed a string of insults at the guy before shutting the door locked behind us. The hybrid homeless/unemployed man was furious and he rushed insanely at Alan who was hiding (cowering) behind the closed door. We stood in the receptionist lobby where we were safe. With the heavy glass separating him from this man who probably could have kicked his fresh-smelling pansy ass, Alan was possessed by bravado. He began yelling back at the crazy black guy from inside the lobby.
The man outside told Alan he was a pussy, to open the door so they could settle this but Alan just yelled back, emboldened here where he was safe. It was amusing hearing all this inside the quiet lobby. Alan’s empty threats bounced off the walls as he insulted a man who couldn’t hurt him. The receptionist and I watched him shadowboxing with the homeless guy. The lobby was quiet except for his empty threats.
The black guy gave up and walked away, the winner of the pathetic battle by TKO in this pathetic battle.
Alan strutted away from the door, his tree trunk biceps retreating confidently from a battle that wasn’t. Typical of Alan, the battles never lived up to their billing.
He just wanted nookie.
