Prince Ugly

 

© Steven Oliverez, 2005

I don’t usually go to bars. I find the whole experience to be quite depressing. I mean, get a room full of people together who have nothing better to do but go out and pay a lot of money to get drunk just so they can be around other people who also want to get drunk and pretend their life is much better than it really is, and you’ve got yourself one hell of a good time, right? Of course you do.

I especially don’t go alone. Of all the sins you could commit against the god of sociality, that one is the worst. I think going to a bar by yourself is downright pathetic. So why did I? I guess that night I was feeling kinda pathetic. So that’s how I ended up at Bluefish Tavern, this old bar down on Fifth.

It was supposed to look like a bar you would see in some old harbor or fishing town, but the owners weren’t very imaginative. A few wooden fish on the walls and some netting does not go as far as some people would hope. Still, the beer was cheap if you knew what to order, and were pathetic enough not to care that it tasted like crap. That was me to a ‘t’ that night.

It was at this fishy bar with its dismal decorum and dreary clientele where I met Roger.

Roger looked like the kid who peed his pants in second grade and never lived it down. His clothes looked like they were bought at a second-hand store, but the expensive looking watch on his wrist led me to believe it was just poor fashion sense. He was about my age – early thirties – but his face still looked boyish. His nose was too long and just a little crooked, and he had a very weak chin. His frame was small, and he slouched his shoulders too much, giving him a bent-over look that made him seem even shorter than he was.

Roger had a story to tell, and boy was he anxious to tell it. I could just see by the way he adjusted himself when I sat down – like some animal was squirming around inside him and he had to let it out.

I knew no matter how hard I tried to ignore him, he was going to end up talking to me. You can always tell by the way someone’s stare never leaves you even though you’re not looking. The second you make eye contact the barrage starts, and you’re stuck humoring them for as long as they feel like running their mouth. I decided to just get it over with.

“How bout this weather?” he asked. I knew I was doomed.

His voice had a nerdy twang, and he breathed too loud between words through the foamy saliva that pooled at the corners of his lips. The longer he talked, the more the lather grew.

I found his story to be nothing more than annoying at first. The words kept coming out of his mouth even though they were met by little interest on my part. After all, how interesting could a personal story be from a guy who looked the way he did. Great and interesting things never happened to the ugly or funny-looking, as everyone knows. All the drama in the world is reserved for those with beautiful faces and firm bodies, the ones who walk into a room and all feeling is sucked toward them like some sort of vacuum. The ugly and the average must give way to this special being, one of the few whom the world revolves around, that select oligarchy that the rest of us live merely to get their food when they order, or change their oil or paint their houses, so that they are free to do all the interesting things it is that beautiful people do. So what could Roger, a peasant among commoners, offer that could possibly be of interest?

I heard him mention something about being a father, and how he never saw his son, something that would have been very interesting had he been a bit taller, or his jaw a bit firmer and his hair better combed. Even a muscular physique would have made it a truly appealing story, but as it was, it was still only the story of a nerdy loser in a bar whose existence, problems and accomplishments really meant nothing, short of how they affected his ability to serve coffee (or whatever his job was) to the people who mattered.

When he mentioned the mother of his child being with another man, I think I started to take some interest. Certain events have their own inherent drama, and no matter how lowly this man was, an unfaithful woman is still something that makes your ears prick up and say ‘oh yeah?’

“Oh yes,” he said, grabbing on to the first sign I’d shown that I was listening. He latched onto it, encouraged, and started talking faster, more excitedly. When he started describing the beauty of this woman to me, I didn’t believe him. To a grotesque little insect, a slightly less grotesque insect is probably the most beautiful creature in the world. It wasn’t until he told me that she wouldn’t have anything to do with him that I gave his description a little credibility.

“Would you like to see her?” Roger asked.

He reached into a ragged billfold. From under a supermarket savings card and a slip of paper that said he was certified in community CPR, he pulled out an old high school photograph and eagerly handed it to me, his face beaming with pride.

The creature whose face stared up at me from the picture was stunningly beautiful. Blonde hair cropped at the shoulders, sparkling blue eyes that flickered even on the aged paper. Lips that could make any word uttered by them send pleasant chills through anyone who heard. I was looking at one of the few – those blessed souls to whom this world belongs, the select for whom the sun rises and the stars shine and the tide goes in and out.

“She gave it to me when I asked,” he said, his voice sounding like it had never left the moment when she handed it over. “It’s the only thing she ever gave me.” He smiled a bit. “Well, that and Roger Junior.”

If he had only told me from the beginning that one of them was involved, I would have paid more attention. What had he been thinking? That should be the first thing a good storyteller lets you know.

After he’d seen my reaction, he grabbed eagerly at the picture and gently slid it back into place in his wallet.

“Here’s our son,” he said quickly, afraid I’d loose interest before he had a chance to show me his life.

He pulled out one more picture, that of a little boy. It was his alright; it looked just like him. Yet the child was different. It had all of his features, only better, more defined, stronger. The boy was a handsome one, perhaps not the most handsome of the elite, but he definitely had his ticket. It was Roger as I think he would have liked to see himself. Suddenly, having a reference to the way Roger could have looked, he didn’t seem quite as homely anymore.

“That’s a healthy boy,” I said. Roger was beaming.

“It’s good genes,” he said. “Mostly his mother’s.” He took the picture back and stared at it admiringly for a good long while, before it too went back in the billfold.

Perhaps I had misjudged him, I thought. “Roger, let me buy you a drink.” I signaled the bartender and ordered more beer for the two of us. “Now start from the beginning again so I can make sure I didn’t miss anything. Where are you from?”

Roger was all too happy to oblige.

 

Roger grew up in Arden, a small town in central Pennsylvania. His father was a bookkeeper for a steel factory, and his mother stayed at home with Roger and his little brother Mike, who started showing signs of Multiple Sclerosis at age two. By his own admission, Roger was not very ‘social,’ and spent much of his school years studying. That made sense to me – a book will never tell you you’re too ugly.

It was his freshman year of high school when he met Angie. They didn’t really meet, exactly, because it doesn’t count if the other person doesn’t realize you exist. It’s kinda like how a government can choose not to recognize another government if it’s not cool enough.

Anyway, their desks were right next to each other in Earth Science, but Angie’s best friend Mandy Peters sat on the other side of her, so she never had any reason to look in his direction. But that year was all the time he needed to fall in love with that back of her head, and the next year when he sat two seats behind her in geometry and one seat behind Mandy, he fell in love with the front, too.

The obstacle between Angie and Roger was, of course, that she was beautiful and he was a toad. But the funny thing about amphibians is that they never realize how slimy and wart-ridden they look to others, or at least do their best to ignore it. The way Roger saw it, the biggest obstacle was her football player boyfriend, Dan. Not that Dan wasn’t a big obstacle – sophomore year he was the fullback for the varsity team.

Dan caught Roger looking at her once. If Roger had been better with words, he might have been able to avoid the beating that came afterwards. But he wasn’t, and poor Roger was beat up not only by Dan (who definitely could have done it by himself), but also two of Dan’s linebacker friends.

Roger showed me his arm as he told me about how they hit him. Aside from a few sparse hairs, I saw three round scars in a pattern just below his elbow.

“They were wearing their cleats,” he said.

I think Angie felt a little guilty when she found out what happened. Enough to yell at Dan and talk to Roger once or twice, to try to make things better but not encourage him too much. As one of the elite, she was obligated to at least try to appear to be nice, to keep some order and justice. But Roger was so far beneath her, she couldn’t keep it up for long, and before the black eyes went away and the cuts and bruises healed, she had already forgotten he was alive. But I assume she still felt enough guilt later for her to give Roger that picture of her when he asked.

“She was so upset by it all,” Roger told me.

He kept his love for her deep inside, where he could hide it and stay healthy. Everyday he longed to be with her, but everyday he knew he’d be alone. His heart burned for her, but in the vain way a heart burns for something it can’t have and knows it.

So instead he kept studying. He worked hard, read more, talked even less. High school was over and valedictorian Roger went to get his business degree. But his heart never left Pennsylvania.

After college he got a job with a bank in Boston.

“Did it pay well?”

“Well enough,” he said. “Plus I found a way to make some extra money on the side.”

“Oh?” I said, raising an eyebrow. “Anything… illegal?”

Roger laughed. “No, no, nothing like that.” I think he was flattered.

“I thought I could use some extra money,” he said. “So I went to the clinic.”

“What clinic?”

“You know,” he said, blushing a bit. “The kind where you look at magazines and leave a donation.”

It took me a minute, but I put two and two together.

“Oh, the Sperm Bank!”

“Yeah, that one,” Roger said in lowered tone as he looked around to see if anyone had heard me.

I realized Roger must have been embarrassed to say the word ‘sperm.’

“What made you decide to do that?”

“I knew I could get a decent amount of money. Do you know that they pay you more depending on this questionnaire thingy? They ask you all sorts of questions like how much school you’ve had and what your grades were.”

Ha! The best of all ironies. On paper, Roger was as good as gold. Yes sir, my boy Roger sure did have them fooled. He had found a way to sneak into the party through the back door – and if my friend Roger could do it, there was hope for everyone.

“So what brought that girl back into the picture?” I was anxious to hear him talk more about her.

Roger raised a thin, pale hand that said ‘I’m getting to that.’

“When my mom died I came back home for awhile. My dad didn’t take it very well.” Roger’s eyes were getting misty. He breathed in through the spittle on his lips. “I didn’t want to lose them both. He loved her so dearly.”

He paused to take a drink and swallowed hard.

“That’s when I saw them,” he continued. “Angie and my son.”

I was a bit surprised. It seemed like a big chunk was missing from his story.

“She talked to me. I guess it’s different after school. You’re so glad to see a familiar face you don’t care if you used to talk to them or not.”

“Well, I’m sure you had to talk to her at least once,” I said with a wink.

He ignored me.

“I asked her about her son. She told me she had always wanted a kid and thought she could raise one on her own. I asked who the father was. She told me she hadn’t done things the ‘natural’ way.”

I almost dropped my beer.

“You’re telling me your sperm ended back up in Pennsylvania?”

“It would seem so,” he said. “They never use the stuff from local donors – otherwise some kid could grow up and marry his half sister and not even know it.”

I was smiling a huge smile for him. “Haha!” I laughed, giving Roger a hard slap on the back that made him recoil a bit in pain. “You get around more than I thought!”

Roger blushed again.

“Does she know?” I asked.

“People don’t always see things.” He brought his hand up and wiped the spit from his mouth with his thumb and forefinger. “I’d never tell her, either.”

I think it was because, deep down, he was scared that if she knew where her child had come from she might treat him the way she had treated Roger. Maybe she’d lose a little love for him, maybe ignore him a little more when he cried. Roger didn’t have a very good chance at more offspring; he wanted his one opportunity to get all the affection possible.

“But why did she name him Roger? Isn’t that what you said your boy’s name was?”

Roger shook his head. “Nah, she named him Dan. Guess she never got over that oaf. They’re back together now, you know.” He took another drink. “But to me, my son’s name is Roger Junior.”

I didn’t know whether to be happy for him or pity him. I went over the situation one more time in my head.

“Now wait a minute. The guy who beat you up in high school is now raising your child and he doesn’t know it?”

“Yes.”

“Well, it’s a happy ending then,” I said, feeling right with the world. “Think of it as your revenge.”

Roger shook his head and took another drink. His beer was empty so I ordered him another one.

“It already had a happy ending. Long before Dan ever came back.”

I didn’t understand. The whole story was so depressing. I guess he saw that I didn’t know what he was talking about.

“To know you’ve had that. To know that part of you has been inside a woman who is so completely out of reach. To know it’s your seed that grew in her, that the child she cares so much for, the little human she lives for and mothers, that it came from you.”

He pulled his billfold from his pocket again and slapped it down on the bar. He pressed down on it with his finger.

“This,” he said. “This is my happy ending.”

I couldn’t argue.

I paid our tab and walked Roger out the door, then found us a cab. We engaged in small talk until we got to his townhouse on the other side of the city.

“It was a pleasure to meet you,” I said. I handed him my business card. “You’re too good for her, Roger,”

“Thanks,” he said, through the foamy saliva on the sides of his mouth.

I meant it, too. It was a good person who stepped out of that cab. I, on the other hand, went home that night a loser; a pathetic drunk who had gone to a bar alone.