. . . . Poetry reading finished we proceeded down Ralph's ice-covered driveway in pursuit of margarita's. Half-way down he paused in front of a basement window.

"There she is."

He whispered, in a dreamlike voice.

"My neighbor. I have the Biggest Crush on her. She walks around in a little t-shirt this time every night…NO UNDERWEAR!!"

He hissed this last part and I watched a vein bulge and strain out of his neck. I couldn't believe I was standing there, the fully-clothed, idiot companion of this peeping Neanderthal. I should have left the poor animal there to drown in a pool of his own saliva. BUT. Something. Some morbid curiosity made me grab his arm and pull him forward, like a mom in the grocery store steering her hungry three-year old away from a chocolate Easter bunny.

The Cactus Café was packed with aspiring guitar players and their girlfriends who loyally attend each open mike night. We stepped up to the bar and I bought Ralph the drink of his choice- the drink I owed him. A drink which, coincidentally was the priciest on the margarita menu. Maybe you've had one or know someone who has…The "Taxi," a margarita so loaded with liquor it's guaranteed to render you useless and bound for home in a yellow checker cab.

After his third "Taxi" and the fifth amateur guitarist, Ralph spotted someone he knew from across the room. A woman. This one was dressed, though barely, in a spaghetti-strapped black top, her nipples, Japanese beetles desperately trying to chew holes through the thin material. Ralphy settled down in an empty chair at her elbow and began frantically rolling cigarettes. He remembered me ten minutes later and gestured to a chair at his right. I sat there for about forty- five minutes, watching them carry on the most Intimate of bar-room conversations. The Nipple Queen was introduced to me by Frank as:

"Sinead, the first girl I met in town when I moved here this summer. My Ex-Girlfriend who I never see."

Ralph seemed to think that "neverseeing" Sinead excused him from staying within the normal boundaries that surround male/female conversations. While Sinead leaned over and whispered into his hot, little ears, he stared intently straight at her chest, as though trying to see through it to the guy sitting behind her. I decided I'd had enough by this point.

"Where are you going?"

Ralph demanded, as I slipped into my coat,

"Let me buy you a drink. It's early still…"

then, suddenly overcome with chivalry--

"You can't walk home alone. Have a drink, then I'll walk you home."

Eager to get home, I agreed to let him buy me the drink. Somehow, Ralph made it up to the bar and back with my beer, stumbling around a row of potted cactus plants. I took one swallow of it, then when he turned to continue his conversation with Sinead's nipples, I fed the brown liquid to a rubber cactus.

"Done. Let's go, now!"

We somehow made it out onto the street where it became obvious that Ralph was drunk, damaged beyond his senses and incapable of finding his own way home. Slinging his arm around me, he pursed his lips and let out a wet whistle.

"Hey, Taxi! Will you carry me home?"

Giggling, pleased with his drunken wit, he rested his head on my shoulder and we made our way toward Church Street. All the way down the street, he tripped into doorways and pointed at closed store windows.

"Pick out anything," he slurred leaning up against a jewelry store window, "I'll buy you whatever you want."

That walk home was the longest of my life. I taxied my date around corners, through puddles, fighting the urge to abandon him on a couch on someone's' front porch. It would have been easier to fight this urge, had I passed just ONE spare couch on ONE strangers porch—but eight out of ten Burlington porches come equipped with a beat-up couch. I couldn't help thinking-- what difference would it make to one hung-over college student, opening his door at 9 in the morning to find another hung-over body asleep on the porch?!

Well, I resisted the urge to abandon my date, and right as it began to rain, we reached Ralph's house. I left him fumbling for his key on the front porch and, feeling dizzy and released, made my way down the drive, pausing only to notice that the basement window was now dark.

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