This charmer knew how to take care of business on St Valentine's Day...with a forget-me-nots bouquet
of Tommy Guns & Hot Lead
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Back in the days before skinny jeans, soul patches, man-buns, and Weezer, every self-respecting straight guy in Chicago could give a fairly accurate summary of The Saint Valentine's Day Massacre when Al Capone's boys ambushed the Bugs Moran gang on Chicago's North Side on February 14, 1929. Bugs was trying to move in on Capone's numbers racket and bootlegging operation and Scarface wasn't pleased.
Good Catholic boy Bugs Moran thought Capone beneath contempt for dealing in prostitution. |
GSL had his own Saint Valentine's Day Massacre. only without the high bodycount, that the Good Doctor gleefully reminds me of every year. I'll set the stage: What started as a blind Boxing Day coffee date extended well into the night (natch) with dinner/drinks etc. (ahem) follow-on....and then a NYE date and on and on and before you know it, GSL is in a pickle.
The shapely school teacher was a dead ringer for a young Meredith Viera (American telly presenter). Estella loves debriefing GSL on nocturnal adventures and to give her a visual, we often label them (to protect the innocent) with a public figure they most resemble. Estella can recount the incidents with the Elizabeth Shue, Katie Couric, Lauren Becall (based on voice, not appearance unfortunately), and 'Clarice' to name a few. |
She was a very nice and attractive school teacher (which GSL loves) but relentlessly dull. Getting thru dinner with her alone was work....even with 3 double-scotches and as the Good Doctor can attest, I'm often less than pro-active at extricating myself from these not-in-my-best-interest associations. Good Doc knew I was suffering and kept urging me to cut my losses but GSL kept enduring the punishment like a schmuck. Then I find myself locked into a Valentine's Day date?!?!?! How does a crafty old pro like GSL let this happen you wonder? Well, me too as I've long railed against this most ridiculous of days.
Scene of the Crime: Brasserie Jo circa 1997: GSL would gladly have swapped places with one of Bugs' boys standing against the wall rather than endure what followed. |
Ok, so GSL decides that V-Day will be when we bring all this pain and suffering to a close. GSL is awful at these little "let's just be friends" initiations as drama always follows and I wish they had texting back then to make a cowardly exit as I'd have been all over that. But we were in Brasserie Jo, then in it's late prime, when it had SATC ratification where all you girls used to order rounds of Cosmos and bandy that tired SATC dialog to and fro while aspiring to Conde' Nast sanctioned lives with a Mr. Big of your own...
Just as GSL summons up the courage to nip this thing in the bud, after inhaling 2 quick double scotches, shapely school teacher reaches into her bag to hand me a gift. While this is occurring the smoking hot redhead that caught my eye at the bar was being seated at the table just behind school teach and she eschews the hostess's suggestion and sits so we can furtively make eyes at each other which we do and she was apparently in the same "put me out of my misery" sitch as GSL so we begin volleying clandestine pantomimes of "get me the hell out of here" which we both found amusing. As school teach hands me gift, luscious redhead can see the agony etched in my bewildered brow and stifles a giggle as her schmuck of a date turns to see what she's reacting to.
As I unwrap the gift, this is what I'm looking at and hold up so luscious redhead can take a gander.
Angling to take our 'relationship' well past 'item' status, school teacher and hairdresser, Brandon, set a Venus Fly-Trap..
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Reading that gooey Writ of Habeas Corpus aloud nearly gave me 3 cavities and I thought they were going to have to wheel the redhead out on a gurney.
Epilogue: Never saw redhead again and Good Doc shared her amusement at what had transpired. A few hours ago I got my annual Sonnets from the Portuguese text from Good Doc.
Has anyone ever had a Valentine's Day actually go well?