put that finger away; i tried to tell him then i was in love . . .

I drink with Ricky when I feel I'm most confident, not chemically induced, to add. He was just one of those smartasses whose big egos you'd just like to keep on adding air into until that one critical moment when the thinnest pin would do for a perfect prick. I cannot come unprepared; it is always a war around him. He would have the littlest annoyances. I understand how guys tend to make a big deal out of girls' toenails. Ugly nails are really a turnoff. My point was that I thought I didn't have to worry about my nails around my guy friends. "Be turned off all you want, MF! I wouldn't mind having ugly nails if it means keeping myself hump-free from you!" He allows me certain cuss words now. "No, really, even without the sexual clause, you should look after your nails." I looked at my nails then. I had to agree; they looked ugly. "Get over it. Just keep your eyes from my knees up."

After one bottle. "Some women cannot afford the look to reach your standards, you know," I told him. "What? Clean nails?" "Get over the nails already!" He smiled. He could get really picky with his women. Perhaps it was his only indulgence. He is a good person and has many opinions regarding how unfair the current system is for some of us. But this does not mean he would all-of-a-sudden go courting some nice girl from the slums. He likes them well dressed and all worked up to match the perfectly photographed ones in magazines. It's a man's world to him, and women could go and make themselves pretty all they want; the world has created heavier crimes than making its women beautiful. "I think if nails really should not matter that much, I would meet a girl who'd actually make me forget about them." This guy just could not get over things quick. I decided to join him further on with this topic he seems to be unable to let go of. "What do you think women before used for nail cutters?" I was really now starting to wonder. Of course, he, predictably, turns to me and gives me a look as if to say, "That's going too far back."

After the second bottle. "For all we know, God must have created Adam and Eve to see if they would end up killing each other." He laughed this time. By now he was already used to me being fond of God-thoughts. "Yeah. It's really a wonder, huh? Maybe they were not the first couple God made. The first ones could have killed each other. They only happen to be the first to actually learn about sex, which stopped them from cutting each other's head off." "And they say God hates the serpent." We were both amused and became silent for a long moment or two, each inside our respective Gardens of Eden.

The third bottle got opened. "I'm thinking of moving to a new place." He looked at me. If he was about to say something that would hint on an attempt to stop me, it didn't show on his face. As I've said, I only see him on a few occasions, and my moving to another place would not seem that big of a deal to him. By looking at the the number of times we get together, I could move to another city and still see him just the same, with the same frequency we currently have. "What's wrong with the place you have now?" I had to hold back a smile. Even if he understood clearly what I meant, he was making me feel as though the impossibility of what I intend to do just could not reach him. It was always like him to twist what I actually meant into something else, into what he thinks I intended to say, and he just has this way of making me end up going along with him until I become convinced that it was what I really meant to say to begin with. I meant a new city, not just a new place. But I still ended up saying, "It would be great to have a kitchen of my own." He nodded his head. He had me again.

The fourth bottle came, and I still wasn't even half drunk. "I'm running out of ideas for my book." I tried again. Even I cannot understand why I had to establish it with him that I was moving away. I could just send him a message one day that I'd be leaving in a couple of days and that I would like it if we get together with our friends for a despidida. I guess I'm a sucker for romance too. I'd like to know if he'd try to hold me back, or if he'd finally tell me some secret feelings that had been accumulating inside him--things like that. Don't get me wrong. I don't have a secret love for him or anything, or that I'm dreaming for us to one day realize we are actually in love with each other or something. I told you, this guy has some serious dose of megalomania in his blood. Those people, you wait for them to fall head-on just for the sake of seeing them tumble over. I have to say, though, that it never occurred to me as a problem just in case he actually does. There's a reason why I stayed friends with the conceited brat. Ricky could be a real charmer.

The fifth bottle found me starting to morph into a carrot. "You're starting to burn around the cheeks. Do you think you can still drink some more?" I told him I was fine. I just had too much sun over the previous weekend. "What happened to your hiatus from smoking?" I decided to go to another topic. I am an egoist too, and I considered him a break from myself. "I told you it was only going to be a short one," he answered me matter-of-factly. "I didn't think you'd last long without smoking either." I saw the look on his face and went for a quick follow-up to keep the tensions, his mostly, from rising. "I mean you really don't have any reasons to quit or anything, do you?" He must have realized I didn't mean anything from my last statement because he looked away from me and just stared at the space in front of him.

There were more yawns than talks when we reached our sixth bottle. He finally gave in to this one-case minimum when I pointed it out to him that we don't drink that often now anyways. I grabbed for one of the last two remaining slices of pizza left. He waited after my third bite and went for the last one. More silence followed. Halfway through his slice, he poured himself a shot, twirling the ice around in the glass to make the beer cold before drinking it. He then poured another shot and gave the glass to me. I got the glass from him and placed it on the table between us; I finished my pizza first before drinking down my shot. I then went on to stare at the space between me and the vandalized wall across the street.