(Billy Boulangerie could never have been faithful to me, because ice cream.)
The first time I met Billy Boulangerie, he was in town to visit my best girlfriend, Punchin' Judy (I have only ever been in three fistfights in my life, and all three were with a drunken Punchin' Judy). Judy and I worked at a bar together (we'll call it The Homebar), and she had met Billy Boulangerie on a Bahamian trip she had just returned from, and thought it would be a good idea to toss him into the fucked-up social mix that was our lives, back then.
The is a three-part story. There is a moral here. You know, for those of you (rather unlike the three people involved) who are about morals.
PROLOGUE
So, Judy and Billy Boulangerie and I all hang out one of the first nights he's here. Judy is working at first, so I take her Billy to a nearby restaurant to eat while we're waiting for her to get off her shift. Naturally, it takes me about one mug of beer and .06 seconds before I start asking him really uncensored, personal questions. He turns out to be one of those rare Billys that can instantly hang (you have to figure, anyone who's been around Judy for more than two minutes and is still standing (homegirl is formidably awesome) should be able to take a lot and dish it back - and Billy Boulangerie delivered). So we get along, in an offend-nearby-tables-with-children way. Also, I discover that either:
PROLOGUE
So, Judy and Billy Boulangerie and I all hang out one of the first nights he's here. Judy is working at first, so I take her Billy to a nearby restaurant to eat while we're waiting for her to get off her shift. Naturally, it takes me about one mug of beer and .06 seconds before I start asking him really uncensored, personal questions. He turns out to be one of those rare Billys that can instantly hang (you have to figure, anyone who's been around Judy for more than two minutes and is still standing (homegirl is formidably awesome) should be able to take a lot and dish it back - and Billy Boulangerie delivered). So we get along, in an offend-nearby-tables-with-children way. Also, I discover that either:
a) he has a sort of unintentional-tic wink that has uncanny timing, or
b) he's not above trying to score with Judy's girlfriends.
The night is short, I deliver him back to The Homebar where Judy is wrapping up, and part ways with them.
Now, let's get to the meat of the soap-opera.
PART ONE: SUSIE
Billy Boulangerie calls me the next day while I'm tending bar at another place I worked at the time (hey, undergrad life's a bitch and it takes a whole lot of drink-slinging to get through it with an intact mortgage and no student loans - done and done!). He's home alone, since Judy's working till fairly late, and bored, and knows nobody else in Fort Billy. I survey the scene, assess all four drinking patrons I have at the moment, and am thrilled at the prospect of someone *interesting* coming in to entertain me.
An hour and a half and about four double Crown-Rocks (him) later, I get off-shift and join him on the other side of the bar. I jokingly tell him about The Curse Of The Daybar, the punchline of which is passing out usually by 11 p.m., and we sort of start bonding.
At some point, we trade hats. This will be funny, we decide, to observe Judy's reaction when we walk into The Homebar together. This is because, though I love her to death and I know she loves me as well, well... we know each other too well. We've both indulged in slightly scandalous decisions. And we both know it because girlfriends talk about that shit. (Also, because one time when Billy Brylcreem was still on my scene, she took my phone after I was in bed and drunk-dialed him for an attempted booty-call).
Anyway, Billy Boulangerie and I move on to another downtown Fort Billy watering hole. There are mojitos. There is more bonding. There are a few missed calls from Judy, who is now off-shift and wondering where the hell we are. The last thing I clearly remember is ordering a Tanqueray-10 martini, dirty, up. I cannot for the life of me imagine why this particular series of words, completely unfamiliar in all my drinking history, comes out of my mouth.
The night is short, I deliver him back to The Homebar where Judy is wrapping up, and part ways with them.
Now, let's get to the meat of the soap-opera.
PART ONE: SUSIE
Billy Boulangerie calls me the next day while I'm tending bar at another place I worked at the time (hey, undergrad life's a bitch and it takes a whole lot of drink-slinging to get through it with an intact mortgage and no student loans - done and done!). He's home alone, since Judy's working till fairly late, and bored, and knows nobody else in Fort Billy. I survey the scene, assess all four drinking patrons I have at the moment, and am thrilled at the prospect of someone *interesting* coming in to entertain me.
An hour and a half and about four double Crown-Rocks (him) later, I get off-shift and join him on the other side of the bar. I jokingly tell him about The Curse Of The Daybar, the punchline of which is passing out usually by 11 p.m., and we sort of start bonding.
At some point, we trade hats. This will be funny, we decide, to observe Judy's reaction when we walk into The Homebar together. This is because, though I love her to death and I know she loves me as well, well... we know each other too well. We've both indulged in slightly scandalous decisions. And we both know it because girlfriends talk about that shit. (Also, because one time when Billy Brylcreem was still on my scene, she took my phone after I was in bed and drunk-dialed him for an attempted booty-call).
Anyway, Billy Boulangerie and I move on to another downtown Fort Billy watering hole. There are mojitos. There is more bonding. There are a few missed calls from Judy, who is now off-shift and wondering where the hell we are. The last thing I clearly remember is ordering a Tanqueray-10 martini, dirty, up. I cannot for the life of me imagine why this particular series of words, completely unfamiliar in all my drinking history, comes out of my mouth.
(Young Sergeant Susie, a role-model and a Patriot.)
I wake up the following morning at home, in my own bed, and by all appearances I was fully-functional up to the end. Lights are off, the door is locked behind me (meaning nobody else had to drag me inside), I'm in pajamas, my teeth are brushed. I have several voicemails and missed calls on my phone, which is just outside my front door (helpfully delivered by a Homebar coworker on his way home).
The first is Billy Boulangerie, and he sounds very glum. There is a lot of sighing, unfinished sentence starts, and apologizing. His first words are: "I'm really not a bad person, I know what you must think..." and his ending statement is "I apologize for me... and for your own actions."
OK, I'm a little confused. Though I know I didn't succeed, my first thought is that I must have tried to hook up with him, to some extent? Jeezus, was I trying to make out right in front of Judy? (Would not put it past Drunk-Susie.) Was there a scene? There's a moment of panic, but I think about it, and I think about the Judy I know, and think about them scheming together, and I suddenly see the obvious, funny truth:
It's been a setup all along!
Judy knows how patchy my late-night memory can be (let's just call it time-traveling), and this most certainly smells like a signature Judy piece of trickery. It's sort of funny, to think that that evil little slut has recruited Billy Boulangerie into a little gambit to make me think these things - probably to test what I do or don't tell her, and to laugh at my tortured conscience.
Yeah, Judy: foxy and creative-points to you, but I'm onto it. Good try.
The second message is just goddamn nonsensical. It's Billy Boulangerie again, hard to understand this time because he's laughing (or possibly stuffing petit fours into his face while talking?), saying something about how he should have known I'd instantly call Judy, apologizing again (presumably this time for participating in her mean little scam).
How lame, I think, that they couldn't even keep a straight face for an entire day after trying to plant the (probably easily-germinated) seeds of self-doubt. It would have been actually kind of a funny prank, had they kept their shit together.
PART TWO: JUDY
Judy is off work, and Susie and Billy Boulangerie are AWOL, even after repeated calls. She makes the following statement, verbatim, to another Homebar bartender: "I'm starting to think Susie is a little bit of a liability in this situation."
Those bastards finally show up, late and looking guilty as hell. Well, maybe not guilty, but fucking drunk, that's for sure. Why the hell did it take them so long? Why the hell is he wearing her hat? Judy knows the sordid details of Susie's ridiculous and occasionally-scandalous dating life and she starts to think about the potential for trouble. She's also probably stewing over her own as-yet-unexploded recent debacle with another best friend's long-term boyfriend.
So Susie and Billy Boulangerie are here, and everyone hangs out for about a second before Susie swaggers unsteadily off to the bathroom. Judy secretly hopes, in her black little heart, that Susie passes out in there, and when nobody sees her again for awhile, her spirits rise. Ridicule will ensue, and Judy will be at the forefront of the torch-weilding mob of HomeBar villagers! Little does she know, Susie's Get-Horizontal-Immediately-In-An-Appropriate-Place-At-All-Costs circuit, which is for the most part an utter failure, has been miraculously tripped. Susie's brain, currently battered down to the reptilian nub by Tanq-10 and rum, has hit survival baseline and has forced her to blunder out the door and through downtown Fort Billy to put herself to bed, charging blindly forth without a moment to lose on social conventions like words of goodbye, the paying of her tab, or re-assuming possession of various personals strewn across the bar.
Judy has a cocktail or two with Billy Boulangerie, but Susie has obviously wrecked him before 10 p.m. and the babysitting of her VIP guest is a real damper on her further drinking plans. He agreeably volunteers to go home to bed, she drops him off and sees him pass out, and heads back out.
Back at The Homebar, Susie's phone is still on the bar, completely forgotten (along with numerous other expensive pieces of personal property) by Susie in her reeling beeline for home. As Judy talks to a bartending coworker, Susie's phone rings. Judy looks at it, and sees that it is Billy Boulangerie.
Who is supposed to be passed out, night over.
At this moment, she knows her suspicions have just been confirmed.
It's been a setup all along!
Billy Boulangerie and Susie are definitely trying to hook up behind her back. Why the fuck else would he go home, pretend to pass out, and then secretly try to rendezvous with her? That pair of untrustworthy, backstabbing bitches!
She instantly snatches up her own phone and, infuriated, calls Billy Boulangerie, to ask him some unexpected questions:
"Why are you calling Susie? I thought you were done for the night?? Were you just trying to see if she made it home OK? Did you want to HELP HER TO BED??"
Billy Boulangerie isn't owning up to anything, but Judy sees through his pitiful "I'm confused and drunk and I... who did I call...?" act. Those scheming assholes are not going to play her for a fool. She gives him the third degree, and when he comes out to talk to her in person, she ditches him in the middle of Fort Billy to go to a friend's party, promising that he'll find his shit outside her house in the morning.
She proceeds to drink her own self under the table (no small feat!) in fury at this betrayal... but really, she thinks to herself (in a louder and less internal monologue as the shots go down), she should have seen this coming from the moment Billy Boulangerie and Susie met.
PART THREE: BILLY BOULANGERIE
Billy Boulangerie is ragingly inebriated, after drinking free-of-charge with Susie for a few hours. Things are fuzzy and funny and he's having a great time with this chick (did he mention how wildly charming and hilariously witty Punchin' Judy's girlfriend is? He meant to). It's such a kick, in fact, that he forgets why he was supposed to leave the current bar after receiving that last call - don't remember who that was. Oh, well. Bartender!
Eventually, he and Susie go to The Homebar to meet Judy (Aha! He knew there was someone missing from this scene!) and Susie subsequently pulls a Houdini, disappearing for the remainder of the night as the rest of the show goes on. He continues pounding Crown and forgets she ever existed. Bartender!!
Suddenly, he finds himself in Judy's house, waking up alone. She has apparently taken his advice and continued partying without him. Vaguely troubled, he picks up his phone and calls Susie, who he remembers being out with earlier.
No answer.
Quite logically, he calls at least four or five more times, just to be sure, but still no answer. So, he goes ahead and leaves a message, assuming she's not answering because she's mad at something he did. Was he trying to hit on her? Hook up with her? Get her to make out with Judy? He's not sure, so he goes ahead and spreads a blanket apology for all things drink-related.
Shortly thereafter, he picks up his ringing phone to field a call from a ready-to-start-punching-things Judy. How on Earth does she know he called Susie just now? How does she know what did or didn't happen, when even he can't remember, and he was there?? He's dumbstruck and confused, and somewhere in the highly potent stew of cerebral fluid and Canadian whiskey in which his brain is currently swimming, he realizes the ugly truth:
It's been a setup all along!!
Judy must have known he's not good with temptation, commitment, and alcohol all mixed together! She must have prepped Susie and then set her loose to tempt him into betrayal! She must have received a rat-out call from Susie as soon as he'd called - the entire night while he thought he was getting along famously with Susie, making inroads with Judy's friends, those two horrible fucking girls must have been ensnaring him into a web of his own deceit, just to teach him a lesson!
Oh, cruel fate!
Oh, wicked karma!
It is at this time, when Judy informs him in the midst of her own betrayed ire, that he is pretty much dead to her and might as well walk the plank, so to speak, that he knows the awful truth... and he begins to weep.
I am not talking about a tear in his beer, here.
I am talking about all-out sobbing, wandering through the streets of Fort Billy scorned, lashing out at fences and the sidewalk with his hopeless fists, plastered in tears of 70% Crown/30% agony at having been tricked by this horrifyingly clever duo... and, of course, dialing Susie and Judy again, for good measure. He is destroyed by anguish and lacrimal loss of control, ego ruined by having to admit that - as he concludes with sorrow - he has been duped by ladies he thought he could trust. Some classic bits from the resulting voicemail transcripts include a sentence about how "I should have known you'd rat me out (to Judy) as soon as I called" and "oh God, now I guess I deserve to know how this feels."
EPILOGUE
The following late morning, as if it were all just a bad dream, the three of us end up at brunch together, where, in the sober light of day, we triangulate our separate-but-equally-ridiculous conspiracy theories.
There is much speakerphone replaying of Billy Boulangerie's voicemails, and coffee-spilling, choking-on-eggs laughter at the idea that we're all three just paranoid enough, potentially untrustworthy enough, and just plain goddamn drunk enough to have assumed the worst of each other.
The moral?
One should be so lucky to have friends like these.
Seriously. Friends like these.
The first is Billy Boulangerie, and he sounds very glum. There is a lot of sighing, unfinished sentence starts, and apologizing. His first words are: "I'm really not a bad person, I know what you must think..." and his ending statement is "I apologize for me... and for your own actions."
OK, I'm a little confused. Though I know I didn't succeed, my first thought is that I must have tried to hook up with him, to some extent? Jeezus, was I trying to make out right in front of Judy? (Would not put it past Drunk-Susie.) Was there a scene? There's a moment of panic, but I think about it, and I think about the Judy I know, and think about them scheming together, and I suddenly see the obvious, funny truth:
It's been a setup all along!
Judy knows how patchy my late-night memory can be (let's just call it time-traveling), and this most certainly smells like a signature Judy piece of trickery. It's sort of funny, to think that that evil little slut has recruited Billy Boulangerie into a little gambit to make me think these things - probably to test what I do or don't tell her, and to laugh at my tortured conscience.
Yeah, Judy: foxy and creative-points to you, but I'm onto it. Good try.
The second message is just goddamn nonsensical. It's Billy Boulangerie again, hard to understand this time because he's laughing (or possibly stuffing petit fours into his face while talking?), saying something about how he should have known I'd instantly call Judy, apologizing again (presumably this time for participating in her mean little scam).
How lame, I think, that they couldn't even keep a straight face for an entire day after trying to plant the (probably easily-germinated) seeds of self-doubt. It would have been actually kind of a funny prank, had they kept their shit together.
PART TWO: JUDY
Judy is off work, and Susie and Billy Boulangerie are AWOL, even after repeated calls. She makes the following statement, verbatim, to another Homebar bartender: "I'm starting to think Susie is a little bit of a liability in this situation."
Those bastards finally show up, late and looking guilty as hell. Well, maybe not guilty, but fucking drunk, that's for sure. Why the hell did it take them so long? Why the hell is he wearing her hat? Judy knows the sordid details of Susie's ridiculous and occasionally-scandalous dating life and she starts to think about the potential for trouble. She's also probably stewing over her own as-yet-unexploded recent debacle with another best friend's long-term boyfriend.
(Guess who doesn't live in little ol' Fort Billy anymore? Oh hey, Judy.)
Judy has a cocktail or two with Billy Boulangerie, but Susie has obviously wrecked him before 10 p.m. and the babysitting of her VIP guest is a real damper on her further drinking plans. He agreeably volunteers to go home to bed, she drops him off and sees him pass out, and heads back out.
Back at The Homebar, Susie's phone is still on the bar, completely forgotten (along with numerous other expensive pieces of personal property) by Susie in her reeling beeline for home. As Judy talks to a bartending coworker, Susie's phone rings. Judy looks at it, and sees that it is Billy Boulangerie.
Who is supposed to be passed out, night over.
At this moment, she knows her suspicions have just been confirmed.
It's been a setup all along!
Billy Boulangerie and Susie are definitely trying to hook up behind her back. Why the fuck else would he go home, pretend to pass out, and then secretly try to rendezvous with her? That pair of untrustworthy, backstabbing bitches!
She instantly snatches up her own phone and, infuriated, calls Billy Boulangerie, to ask him some unexpected questions:
(Billy. You are in such. Deep. Shit.)
Billy Boulangerie isn't owning up to anything, but Judy sees through his pitiful "I'm confused and drunk and I... who did I call...?" act. Those scheming assholes are not going to play her for a fool. She gives him the third degree, and when he comes out to talk to her in person, she ditches him in the middle of Fort Billy to go to a friend's party, promising that he'll find his shit outside her house in the morning.
She proceeds to drink her own self under the table (no small feat!) in fury at this betrayal... but really, she thinks to herself (in a louder and less internal monologue as the shots go down), she should have seen this coming from the moment Billy Boulangerie and Susie met.
PART THREE: BILLY BOULANGERIE
Billy Boulangerie is ragingly inebriated, after drinking free-of-charge with Susie for a few hours. Things are fuzzy and funny and he's having a great time with this chick (did he mention how wildly charming and hilariously witty Punchin' Judy's girlfriend is? He meant to). It's such a kick, in fact, that he forgets why he was supposed to leave the current bar after receiving that last call - don't remember who that was. Oh, well. Bartender!
Eventually, he and Susie go to The Homebar to meet Judy (Aha! He knew there was someone missing from this scene!) and Susie subsequently pulls a Houdini, disappearing for the remainder of the night as the rest of the show goes on. He continues pounding Crown and forgets she ever existed. Bartender!!
Suddenly, he finds himself in Judy's house, waking up alone. She has apparently taken his advice and continued partying without him. Vaguely troubled, he picks up his phone and calls Susie, who he remembers being out with earlier.
No answer.
Quite logically, he calls at least four or five more times, just to be sure, but still no answer. So, he goes ahead and leaves a message, assuming she's not answering because she's mad at something he did. Was he trying to hit on her? Hook up with her? Get her to make out with Judy? He's not sure, so he goes ahead and spreads a blanket apology for all things drink-related.
Shortly thereafter, he picks up his ringing phone to field a call from a ready-to-start-punching-things Judy. How on Earth does she know he called Susie just now? How does she know what did or didn't happen, when even he can't remember, and he was there?? He's dumbstruck and confused, and somewhere in the highly potent stew of cerebral fluid and Canadian whiskey in which his brain is currently swimming, he realizes the ugly truth:
It's been a setup all along!!
Judy must have known he's not good with temptation, commitment, and alcohol all mixed together! She must have prepped Susie and then set her loose to tempt him into betrayal! She must have received a rat-out call from Susie as soon as he'd called - the entire night while he thought he was getting along famously with Susie, making inroads with Judy's friends, those two horrible fucking girls must have been ensnaring him into a web of his own deceit, just to teach him a lesson!
Oh, cruel fate!
Oh, wicked karma!
It is at this time, when Judy informs him in the midst of her own betrayed ire, that he is pretty much dead to her and might as well walk the plank, so to speak, that he knows the awful truth... and he begins to weep.
I am not talking about a tear in his beer, here.
("To send this Ugly Cryface voicemail now, press one.")
I am talking about all-out sobbing, wandering through the streets of Fort Billy scorned, lashing out at fences and the sidewalk with his hopeless fists, plastered in tears of 70% Crown/30% agony at having been tricked by this horrifyingly clever duo... and, of course, dialing Susie and Judy again, for good measure. He is destroyed by anguish and lacrimal loss of control, ego ruined by having to admit that - as he concludes with sorrow - he has been duped by ladies he thought he could trust. Some classic bits from the resulting voicemail transcripts include a sentence about how "I should have known you'd rat me out (to Judy) as soon as I called" and "oh God, now I guess I deserve to know how this feels."
EPILOGUE
The following late morning, as if it were all just a bad dream, the three of us end up at brunch together, where, in the sober light of day, we triangulate our separate-but-equally-ridiculous conspiracy theories.
There is much speakerphone replaying of Billy Boulangerie's voicemails, and coffee-spilling, choking-on-eggs laughter at the idea that we're all three just paranoid enough, potentially untrustworthy enough, and just plain goddamn drunk enough to have assumed the worst of each other.
The moral?
One should be so lucky to have friends like these.
Seriously. Friends like these.
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