This post contains the poem written about my night stuck at the airport hotel in Cincinnati. I suppose you could consider the last post to be the story behind the poem. If you haven’t read part 1, I would suggest you read it now. Whether you read the poem first and then read part 1 or whether you read the story first and then the poem is entirely up to you.

But they both go together, so if you haven’t read part 1, you may as well. It provides a lot of context for what is about to come next.

So here goes…

10 Dudes in a Bar

All by my lonesome, nowhere to go
Lampooned by weather’s crushing blow
A caged animal in this dingy hole
Beaten by forces beyond my control

You never know when opportunity knocks
When a wayward traveler wants to interlock
In a torrid night of passion and lust
Fueled by the desire for an anonymous thrust

I set my sights on the meeting point
In this most unconventional of pick-up joints
But to my displeasure and great chagrin
Musty testosterone permeated the den

Vagabond dudes packed the bar
Weary and hungry from traveling so far
I looked around in great disgust
Not even a cougar to satisfy my lust

It seems bad luck has put a stop
To my hopes of a rollicking, raucous romp
For in the entire bar there were only 2
And even now neither lady would do

One old and busted, toothless and coarse
I couldn’t stand it, she smelled like a horse
The other a socialite of Kennedy stock
Ashamed to rub elbows with this sordid flock

I shared a moment with 10 dudes in a bar
On an evening nothing short of bizarre
We drowned our sorrow in a pint of beer
All of us wishing we were anywhere but here

“The Jababa Chronicles”: All musings, anecdotes, philosophies, ramblings, rants, and tirades written exclusively by Andrew Martin unless otherwise specified.

I was traveling back from NY after Thanksgiving. It was raining in NY. Actually, it was raining in about 3/4 of the country. Flights were getting delayed all over the country due to weather. My flight got delayed…

…not from weather. The dumb fuckers working for the airline couldn’t get the hatch in the back of the plane closed. So we sat in the plane waiting to take off for over an hour. Just waiting on the runway. Waiting…and waiting…and waiting…

Finally, we took off. I had a connecting flight in Cincinnati to take me back to Colorado. Our plane landed in Cincinnati about 5 minutes after my connecting flight took off. Unlike everyone else in the country who missed their connecting flights from an act of God (read: mother nature), I missed my flight because the airline crew couldn’t figure out how to shut the fucking hatch. Fantastic.

The Sunday of Thanksgiving may possibly be the worst day of the year to miss your flight. Especially when bad weather was derailing every airline in the country. Hundreds, maybe thousands of people were scrambling to rebook on a different flight so that they could get home. After all, this is the busiest travel weekend of the year.

I was flying Delta. They couldn’t get me out of Cincinnati until Tuesday morning (2 days later), so they rebooked me on American. Unfortunately, the flight they booked me on was full. How ’bout that for great service.

The best American could do was get me on another flight the following morning. But I would have to transfer in Chicago, where they were experiencing a huge blizzard. So there was some question as to whether I would actually make it from Cincinnati to Chicago to make my connecting flight. But since it was Thanksgiving weekend, my options were limited. I had no choice but to roll the dice on a blizzard.

The gracious people at Delta tried to tell me they wouldn’t pay for a hotel for me, even though it was their fault that I missed my flight. I had to get into angry New Yorker mode and start raising Hell before they came around to my point of view. But ultimately, I was able to make them see it my way, and I was on my way to the Holiday Inn Airport Hotel in Northern Kentucky (the Cincinnati airport is actually in northern Kentucky).

If I had been stranded in a more happening place, I would have gone out on the town for the night. But seeing as it northern Kentucky on a Sunday night, I was pretty much fucked. I was stuck in the airport hotel with a free room and a $7 food voucher.

Some people might have looked at this as a miserable situation. Not me. I am an optimist. I viewed this as an opportunity. This was the busiest travel weekend of the year. There were major storms all over the country. Surely there would be others who missed their connecting flights in Cincinnati. If they were flying Delta, they would be at my hotel.

There are very few instances in your life when you have the opportunity to meet a woman knowing that you have nothing else to do all night but share her company till dawn and then part ways in the morning never to see each other again. The other option was to spend the entire night alone. This was my situation.

Anyone traveling alone who missed a flight would be stuck in my airport hotel, with nowhere to go. This was a deadbeat town. You couldn’t even take a cab to a downtown district to find a restaurant. You had one choice. The hotel bar.

I realize that not all people think like me. Sure, you may be married, yet traveling alone. In that situation, you may not be looking for a one night fling. But chances are, if you were traveling alone over Thanksgiving and stuck in that hotel, you were more than likely to be single. And bored. Why not have a debaucherous, raucous, guilt-free, no-strings-attached night with someone else sharing your predicament?

I personally believe that most people, male or female, would share this sentiment. We all have needs, drives, desires. We all enjoy a little fun once in awhile. We rarely have an opportunity to indulge our desires in such a low-stress, carefree manner. This is a truly great opportunity. Anyone denying that they would think this way in this situation is a complete and utter liar.

I’m not going to be arrogant enough to consider myself the most jaw-dropping attractive guy out there. But I do think that I fit the range of attractiveness that many women would look for when sizing up a suitable partner for such a night. And, I am quite the conversationalist. For a night like this, I am a fairly good catch.

Of course, I am not holding out for some A-list bombshell either. I am looking for someone in the general range of average attractiveness or better. My age range is flexible as well. Let’s say early 20’s to mid 40’s. I mean, I’m not sizing her up for a relationship; just a good one night stand. And in these cases, older is generally better. She will most likely be more down with the cause.

So I’m playing the odds right now. Most likely, there will be some women stuck at this hotel. They all need to eat dinner. There is only one place to go for that — the hotel bar. So I head down there early. Don’t want to miss any prospects. Time is of the essence.

When I get to the bar, it is relatively empty. I order a drink and start watching the Sunday night football game. Eventually I order some food. Sure enough, the bar fills up.

But it fills up with a bunch of dudes. It’s unbelievable. All the people stuck at the hotel from missed flights are dudes. Inconceivable!

I was polite. I would respond to their mundane inquiries as to my predicament. They all seemed to be in a mood to share travel nightmare stories. I didn’t share their zeal. I wasn’t here for companionship. At least, not that kind of companionship. I would have rather sat in my room reading a book.

So I kept my eyes out for some lovely ladies. But there were only dudes.

Finally, a woman graced us with her presence. She was young (about 20) and decently attractive. She was a perfect prospect.

Or so I thought.

From the moment she walked in to the bar, she clearly tried to establish a distance between herself and the rest of the riff-raff in the room. She spent the first 5 or 10 minutes on her cell phone, and eventually sat down by herself at a table (instead of at the bar).

Her table was near my spot at the bar, so I tried to engage her in conversation. For a young girl, she was a hell of a snob. I don’t really know what she had to be so snobby about. At 20 years old, she couldn’t have done a whole lot to make her better than everyone else. But she sure seemed to think she was.

From our brief conversation, I was able to ascertain that she was VERY rich. Let me rephrase that. OBSCENELY RICH. She normally flies on her mom’s private jet, but for some reason, it was loaned out to someone else for the weekend. She had some strange provision in her trust fund requiring her to get her Master’s degree by age 25 in order to keep her inheritance. She was from a Massachusetts political family — the Kennedy family (or so she said). OBSCENELY RICH.

But a bit stuck up. She was giving me snippets of a fascinating story. She had me hooked. I don’t really know any people with her life. I was curious. Not in some weird stalker way. Not in some violent rapist way. Not in some deranged kidnapper way. But curious the way a writer gets curious when he meets someone with a life experience completely different than his own.

That’s what writers do. They observe and comment. I approach most situations from the perspective that it may be fodder for an interesting piece of writing. Because to be a true artist, you need to be able to find inspiration in the ordinary and mundane as well as the extraordinary. Both are equally viable sources of juicy material.

And here was my chance to get a window into the life of a person whom I have no business ever meeting or knowing. I had my chance to enter this world. At Penn, I met all sorts of people who came from obscenely rich families. But I never sought them as friends. There was no connection. They weren’t my people. I didn’t share their values or their interests. It wasn’t personal. We just didn’t connect. I could have been one of the people at Penn who desperately tried to break into this circle (and believe me, there were plenty of them). But it wasn’t for me. So I punched my exit ticket from that society and had no qualms about it.

And 10 years later, I’m face to face with one of these people. And I have as much to bring to the table as she does. Our lives are completely different, but I can share as much with her as she can with me. And as a writer and an artist, I want the whole story. If it leads to my desired carefree romp in my 3rd floor room, that’s fantastic. But at this point I’ll settle for the inspiration to a song, poem, or short story.

So I prod. Very directly. Is there any other way?

She wants no part of it, and makes it clear to me instantly. As soon as I pressed her in her family and background, she rudely responded, “Are we done?”

This was a golden opportunity for her as well. She could open up and share her life with a complete stranger for one night (or even an hour over a beer). She can be more honest with me than she’d even be with her shrink (if she has one). I’m a person who she’ll never see again in her life. There is no reason to hold back. And she did hint that there was plenty of drama and turmoil in her family. And I have the conversational skills to keep her going. If only she’d not been such a stuck up bitch.

So she blew me off. And instead of becoming the inspiration for a great song, poem, or maybe even a short story, she received 2 lines in a poem and a tirade in my blog. And she passed up a night of guilt-free, uninhibited sex to boot. Sucker!

Back to square 1. Surely there will be others.

Well, there was one other. A woman in her 40’s or 50’s. Toothless. Looking like a bag lady. Could barely get her words straight. I don’t know what her drug of choice is, but it clearly has had its effects on her. She wouldn’t do. And remember, I’m not about to be picky in this situation. But she wouldn’t do. Inconceivable!

And that was it. No more women came thru the bar for the rest of the night. Only about 10 dudes hanging around, coming and going, all thinking the same thing as me. Finally, one of them had the balls to say what was on everyone else’s mind: “Are any women going to walk thru this door? What do I have to do to get laid tonight?” Gotta love honesty. None of the rest of us were going to say it. But we were all thinking it.

And so I sat at the bar, sharing my frustration in the situation w/10 other strange dudes, all of us wishing we were anywhere but here.

I have completed a poem about this night. I will share it with you all in my next post. Part 2 of my Cincinnati saga.

“The Jababa Chronicles”: All musings, anecdotes, philosophies, rants, ramblings, and tirades written exclusively by Andrew Martin unless otherwise specified.