The ANECDOTE ABOUT Whiskey Dick...

This is the ANECDOTE about whiskey dick. Which I feel compelled to write about for a couple of reasons.

A few years ago, I was going through a VERY,VERY hard time. Emotionally. A break up that was so bad, I offer to guess that it was worse than any break up story you can tell me. It culminated in my getting a phone call on my birthday, that was so bad and horrible - it wrecked my heart so terribly - down to it's very core - that I felt like a shaky, delicate survivor - barely hanging on - for months afterwards. Along with everything else, I lost 30 pounds the month after that phone call. When I didn't have 30 to spare. I just didn't have any appetite. I remained in this fragile condition for 2 years - maybe more. And there were a couple of people in my life who helped me through it. One of them was my beloved Mieke. And the other one - the other surprising one - was....let's call him Rudy.

I met Rudy and his X (the mother of his child) at that wonderful school I have mentioned before. The Hollywood Little Red Schoolhouse. The school was full of cool parents. WONDERFUL parents. And Mieke, Rudy, his X and I were among the youngest of them. Rudy would be just outside of whatever play or event was going on, smoking and offering up his glib, witty comments on everything and anything. He was usually accompanied by a tall, good looking gay man. They were an odd couple, to say the least.We weren't really friends at this point, just parents laughing at the same jokes.

So, when Rudy came up to me one night at Boardner's, with a shocking pink mohawk - I didn't even recognize him.

"You know who I am!" he said as he kneeled by me in the crowded, noisy bar. "I'm RUDY! Our kids go to school together!"
I looked at him more closely. "Oh, yea! I didn't recognize you with the hair.."
"Ha! " he laughed, "I just did it! Hey, we should hang out sometime."
"Ok. Yea..."

Months later, we went to some crazy art thing with a bunch of people. Mieke was there, and I don't remember who else. We took the metro downtown, and ended up riding back into Hollywood at 2 in the morning in the back of someone's truck. It was early September.

A week or so later, I got a disturbing love letter hand delivered to me in the seat of my car. I never locked my car. I figured it must be from the horrible man that had broken up with me in such a devastating way. It didn't make a lot of sense, but it kind of looked like his handwriting, and I couldn't think who else would do that. Someone who knew where I lived, etc. I called Mr. Horrible up, and demanded to know if he had delivered this letter to my car. He denied it, and became instantly jealous, crazy and threatening (even though we'd been broken up for months).

Again, I felt so rocked, so shaky and upset, I didn't know what to do. I NEEDED to stop feeling. I needed to quit feeling so scared of him, and angry and hurt - and ALL of it.
Just then, Rudy called.
He caught me at the worst moment. I was crying, talking a mile a minute, probably sounding utterly insane.
"Look," he said calmly, "Is there someone to watch the kids?"
"Yes. Dora's still here. She can stay." (my faithful Dora! She's been with me for almost 13 years!)
"Ok. Just hop in your car and come down to my place.I live RIGHT down the street from you. We'll figure it out, ok?"

So, I did.
He didn't know the story of what had happened (not yet), and he was so wonderfully unfazed by the whole thing.
Rudy looked over the note and burst into laughter."What a douch-bag!" he said, glibly. "This is the cheesiest bullshit I've ever seen! And what a chicken shit! To leave it in your CAR! Who DOES that? Fuck this guy! Let's go out and go dancing."
"Well, I'm not really dressed to go dancing, I just ran out of the house in whatever..." I said, looking myself over.
"You look great! I'll drive."

So we went back to Boardner's. They had a good DJ on fridays back then, and a few people were dancing. Rudy set us up with drinks stat, and pretty soon I was dancing with a really cute girl. Her name was Sara.
"What are you, doing the whole 'Fleetwood Mac' thing?", she said over the music, making fun of the flowy skirt I had run out of the house in.
"Not on purpose!" I said loudly back.
"It's cool. You look like Stevie Nicks!"

In my attempt to numb the sharp, aching pain in my heart, I threw back the drinks. I tried to keep up with Rudy, and I was doing pretty well.
At one point in the evening, we found ourselves on the back patio, so Rudy could smoke.
"Hey!" he said to me, "Save my seat. I have to use the john, I'll be right back!"
I nodded my head 'yes', but about 2 minutes after he'd left, a couple of big football player looking guys came over and started chatting me up. One them sat right down in Rudy's spot.

"Ummm..I'm actually saving that seat for my friend." I said to the huge guy. "He'll be right back."
"Ok, so then I'll move when he gets back." jock-man retorted as if it were a clever thing to say.
"Is that little guy your BOYFRIEND?" said his side kick.

I paused for a moment in my foggy, numbed condition. Had I just fallen into a bad John Hughes' movie? Were there ACTUALLY meat heads out there in the world that SPOKE like this? I thought that was only fictional. My respect for John Hughes went up a notch.
Just then, Rudy came back.
He was a small guy. And on this evening his hair was slightly purple. Rudy was (and is) a very good looking man, with perfectly proportioned features,big brown eyes and dark rimed glasses. He's my height, exactly. 5 ft, seven. And theses guys were both HUGE.

"I thought you were going to save my seat for me." Rudy said, laughing a little.
"Well, I tried...this 'gentleman' says he's getting up just a soon as you get back. Which is now..." I looked expectantly at the 'gentleman'.
"Yea? Well, I'm comfortable here now. You're comfortable, aren't you?" jock-man asked his sidekick. (seriously!!!???)
"Yea. I don't FEEL like movin'" the sidekick directs to Rudy. (who comes up to this guy's pecks)
"Let's just go inside." I immediately interjected, a vision of blood and smashed glasses popping into my head.
"Get the FUCK out of my FUCKING spot, you rude FUCK." Rudy said without hesitation. ("Oh...SHIT! Here it comes", I thought. "This night is going to end up in the ER!")
I looked at the meat-heads to see what they were going to do, trying to quickly come up with some back up plan. But the meat-heads just looked kind of shocked.
"You heard me." Rudy went on. He did not look one single, TINY bit scared of these guys. "Get the fuck out my spot, you rude asshole, before I punch you in the FUCKING FACE."
The meat-heads were still in shock, I think. They just nodded and backed away.
"Ok. Ok, man. What EVER.." were their parting words, as they made their way over to a far corner of the patio.

Rudy sat down next to me nonchalantly. I think my jaw was on the floor.
"I would have done it, too." he said, matter of factly. "I would have punched that guy right in the face."

We stayed at Boardner's drinking and dancing until pretty late. We talked to Sara some more, and I danced with her some more. She suggested that we might want to come back to her house to play pool when we were done with Boardner's. Rudy and I went back out to the patio to discuss it.He took a deep drag of his cigarette and looked right into my eyes.
"I've got to tell you something." he said,his eyes becoming giant and liquid - like that kitten in the old cartoons from the fifties, or a japanese anime character. (this is a trick I've become very familiar with from Rudy over the years)
"What is it?" I asked.
"Have you ever heard of 'whiskey dick'?" he asked me a little sadly - his giant brown eyes looking so sincere and vulnerable.
"Well...I guess so."
"Do you know what it means?"
"I....I don't think I do. Exactly." It seemed like I SHOULD know what that meant, but I really didn't.
"It's what happens to your dick when you drink too much." he explained.
I had been drinking too much. That night. I still wasn't sure what he was talking about, or why.
"Your dick doesn't work. It doesn't work. And that's me. I'VE got whiskey dick. So, you should just know that. We can go out, and be friends and stuff....but the sex thing's not going to happen. It's not you. It's not because you're not pretty or anything like that. I just drink too much."

He said it as an explanation, and as a confession. With his big, sweet eyes letting me know that his heart was in the right place.
I didn't care about that. He had rescued me from a terrible night. He probably didn't have a clue about what a desperately needed rescue it was - or from what terrible dark place I was needing rescuing from.
"It's ok. " I said, honestly.
"Cool. Just wanted to get that out of the way. Let's go to Sara's."

Sara turned out to be Sara Rue. (you may know her from her TV show,or her current Weight Watcher's campaign)

And THAT was when our night really BEGAN......