Drinking with Daniel is always an exercise in stupidity and bravery. He had a thing for biker chicks and never failed to know all the seediest, greasiest dive bars in any major city. We ended up in someone’s garage, at least it looked like someone’s garage. The interior design plan started and ended with someone putting a few chairs next to an ancient bar, pulling a pool table out of the dump, and slapping a TV down before hanging an open sign. “Big Rusty’s” was not much to look at, but Daniel was content to sip cheap beer and pay to talk up pudgy blondes in black leather and spikes.

“Have anything else besides beer? Maybe some kind of liquor?” I bravely asked the gigantic man acting as barkeep.

The Norseman towered over the plywood bar top in full leather, he stood a good foot taller than me with a braided beard down to his silver belt buckle.

“No, have a problem with it?”

He smelled heavily of beer, sweat, and bad-ass, not a mix anyone remotely smart would mess with. Not only was I smart enough to wish I hadn’t said anything, but all one hundred and fifty pounds of me wanted to scrunch down small enough to fit in Daniel’s back pocket. Might as well get him beat up with me.

“No, no, no problem at all,” I squeaked, “I was just curious is all, I love beer.”

I took a big gulp of what tasted like dishwater he had recently soaked his feet in and smiled. Neither of these actions seemed to impress him.

“Who are you here with anyway?” he bellowed, narrowing his eyes down at me unnervingly. It was fairly obvious he could snap me like a twig and use my corpse as a toothpick.

“Uh, that guy over there picked the bar,” I said and pointed to Daniel.

He was plastered against a rather stocky blonde with a nose ring and enough leather to make a small couch. She had to be at least forty, but that didn’t seem to bother Daniel one bit.

“That scrawny weakling?” he grunted, “Martha’s going to break him in half.”

Sure enough, while he looked pleased, Daniel’s face was going purple under her heavy embrace.

“He always goes for the more powerful type, I think he likes being broken,” I commented.

The barkeep grunted in what could be interpreted as a laugh, then stood up straight, ceasing looming over me.

“As long as you pay and don’t get smart-mouthed you can stay,” he said, going back to wiping out cloudy glasses with a greasy rag. “Might want to tell your friend that Bill likes to mess with any guy who hangs over Martha. They’re divorced, but he still hates to see her with anyone else.”

Great, of course Daniel would choose that particular woman as his target for lust. How he was still alive after all the times he’s been caught with his pants down by the other man, I’d never know. The chances of dragging him off her now were slim, once he saw an opportunity to score he was like, well, a dog with a bone.

“Hey, maybe we should go,” I muttered to what I thought was Daniel’s ear. It was hard to tell where Martha ended and Daniel began, it had devolved into a mass of undulating flesh. I knew he was probably going to get his ass beaten and then ran over by an angry biker, but I couldn’t help to feel a little like he was still a lucky bastard.

“Mm mm… mmhm… mu…” he said unintelligibly from somewhere in her ample bosom.

“Uh, you’re going to have to remove whatever you have in your mouth and say that again. Please don’t add on what exactly was in your mouth though.”

“I said, ‘grab a handful, she won’t mind’,” he said as he came up for air.

There was certainly plenty of her to go around and she was looking at me like I was a freshly frosted donut, but the thought of sharing a woman with Daniel gave me the willies.

“Um, no thanks, we really should be going.”

“No we don’t, we just got here,” he said before disappearing again.

“There’s this guy, Bill, he’s going to mutilate you, apparently,” I said loudly, hoping he could still hear me.

“He doesn’t own me!” she shrieked in a shrill southern accent. “He can kiss my big, round ass!”

“Yeah!” Daniel exclaimed, suddenly a big supporter of women’s empowerment, “Let him try, I’m probably stronger, more handsome, and much better in bed than him!”

Poor guy never saw it coming, never stood a chance, and in general it was somehow much less of a fight than I had been expecting. Granted, Bill’s first punch was a crotch shot and if it were me, I would have fallen over and passed out while crying too.

“No one touches Martha!” screamed a round, red, mountain of a man, “she’s mine, mine, MINE!”

“You shouldn’t have divorced me and paid more attention, then you’d still have me!” she screamed, apparently unconcerned with the purple color Daniel was turning at her feet.

“I tried to make it up to you, but you’re too busy trying to run off with twig boys to notice!”

The scene was ridiculous enough to be fit for a redneck soap opera, one of the few forms of television entertainment I never wanted to be a part of. I could have easily ducked out and left the three of them to duke it out, but in a real fight against either behemoth, Daniel would end up little more than a grease spot on the floor. Looking around, it looked like many other scrawny guys had met a similar fate.

“You never really tried!” she blubbered, her face streaming with tears.

Scooting behind her, I used her as an effective shield to leap out of Big Bill’s line of sight. I was never so grateful that Daniel had a taste for bigger women, it gave me the chance to save both of our lives. Leaning over, I grabbed Daniel by the arm and slowly tugged him behind Martha. Lucky for him, they seemed to be too engrossed in their redneck rekindling to take notice.

“Daniel… Daniel, get up, we need to get out of here,” I whispered to him.

He didn’t budge, most likely out of sheer refusal to feel the searing pain in his crotch. Accidental hits are bad enough, I couldn’t imagine how bad a direct, intentional hit must have been. Just thinking about it made me wince out of pity. I had to get him home without waking him up.

“Just don’t wake up and scream,” I muttered to him as I hooked my arms under his and started dragging him towards the door.

The redneck fight was still in full swing, though it had slowed, both panting from the exertion. I was glad for the breathing trouble, would make it harder for them to stop me if they ended up realizing our escape. Angling the swinging door open with my foot, we slipped through and I let out a loud exhale of relief.

“Hey, where’d those two twigs go?!” Big Bill bellowed from inside. Sometimes I’m certain I live in a badly scripted sitcom.

Thudding steps started for the door and I put all my strength into pulling Daniel towards his truck, ignoring the sounds of his jeans scrapping along the concrete. I smacked into the truck and immediately dove for his pockets, desperately trying to find the keys. Big Bill was already in the doorway of the bar, he could move much faster than you’d expect when he was bent on making pretzels out of a couple of guys.

“Stop what you’re doin’ ya coward! Fight me like a man!”

Fat chance, I might have been pretty depressed about my life, but I didn’t have a death wish just yet. My hands shook as I looked for the keys, I’m sure I would have made Daniel creeped out and feel violated had anything down there not been mush at the time.

I found the keys after searching each pocket several times, managing to miss them in my panic, and unlocked the passenger side door. The redneck mountain was starting his bulky shuffle towards us. I hefted Daniel’s dead weight up into the truck, hit the lock, and slammed the door shut. I ran to my side, letting out a small yelp of fear as I looked back at how close he was. Flying to the other side, I jammed the key in the lock and threw myself into the driver’s seat, not that I had any idea of how to drive a truck. Sure, I had my license, but hadn’t driven for years and never a truck, not like I had much choice either way.

Big Bill smacked into the side of the old truck, tipping it until I was sure it was going to roll over. By all laws of momentum, we probably should have, but miraculously he bounced off the side and we settled back on all four wheels.

“Damn twigs, get out here so I can teach you respect!”

I had no such plans and slammed the keys into the ignition and coaxed the engine to turn over. I fumbled with the stick shift until the truck relented and lurched forward, I was going to have to hope that the hillbilly would give up chasing a truck going barely faster than a brisk walk.

It was the most ridiculous chase in history. I meandered down random streets and allies at a snail’s pace, not wanting to give him any clues as to where either of us lived. It was possible that I could have figured out how to put the truck in proper gear and ended the unintended comedic scene, but I didn’t trust myself to not burn out the transmission trying. He was still keeping up after ten minutes with his fast waddle and looked all the more pissed for it, there was no way I was going to risk being a sitting duck.

Eventually the man’s waddle slowed and I puttered us to away to the safety of my apartment, not that I didn’t circle the block five times to make sure it was safe. Daniel stayed passed out for all of it, even through dragging him to the elevator and then to my couch. There was no way I could blame him, the crotch of his jeans were tight around the swelling and I pulled them off. I tried not to look, but the swelling seemed even worse in just boxers, he was going to hate life for the next couple of weeks, minimum.

I pushed the large pile of books off of the couch the best I could and freed him a space just big enough for him to sleep, then carefully laid him out into what was probably a comfortable position. Before heading to bed myself, I covered him with a spare blanket and set a bottle of pain reliever and his cell phone on the books on the coffee table next to him; he would either need the pills or the phone for 911 Ewhen he woke up. After triple-checking the locks and contemplating if they would be hillbilly behemoth proof I went to bed, but I would be having nightmares about Big Bill for a long time.

I woke up to a muffled scream of my name.

“David… vfffhnggggg…. David!” Daniel called from the living room. “Why are my buddies ground beef?!”

I got up and shuffled into the living room, shook my head, and got him a glass of water to wash down a handful of pain pills.

“You don’t remember any of last night?” I asked, trying not to look as he nakedly inspected his injuries. That was hard considering that they really did eerily resemble ground beef.

“No, I remember this hot blonde and you bugging me… then waking up with a crotch full of molten lead,” he said through gritted teeth.

“The blonde had a big ex-husband.”

“Oh,” he said, “usually they at least threaten me a little first before throwing a punch.”

“If it makes you feel any better you might have gotten them back together.”

“Getting the pope to fuck a stripper on camera wouldn’t even be worth this,” he said, pointing to his lap.

“Yeah, should probably ease up on the skirt chasing for a while.”

He snorted a pained laugh and shook his head at me. “Live hard, party hard, and die hard, preferably young if you can manage. None of this growing old and boring shit, only losers get old.”

I wanted to believe he was just joking, but he wasn’t deep enough to think much past his immature outlook on what life should be. He looked down again with a grimace, but behind it there was a proud twinkle in his eye; he had stared danger and possibly death in the eye and had won for the time being. Despite any argument or encouragement Daniel could provide, I would not be able to find the same pleasure in looking down at my mushy, swollen genitals if it had been me.

“What’s wrong with wanting to live and accomplish something?” I asked him.

“Nothing, but life should be about how much fun you have,” he answered, stretching out and showing no sense of shame. “I guess if you want to go cure cancer or something it makes sense to sacrifice your fun to do it, but do you think all this crap you have around here is worth it?” He waved his hand towards he mountain of books still inhabiting the living room.

Sure, the book collection was kind of a bust, werewolves having proved to be a joke, but I did still get a small sense of happiness from all those nights I spent at work on finding them. Each new book I found provided a small sense of accomplishment, especially with those that took some effort to track down. I had at least a little pride in knowing that there were few paranormal libraries out there that could rival mine.

“Maybe not completely, but I was kind of happy sometimes when I felt like I was on to something and this is an impressive collection. I know that you won’t ever really understand that, but this took a lot of time and effort to curate,” I said, knowing the argument it was going to start.

Daniel stared at me a moment, face showing a bit of pity, but sadly for me, no surprise. Every single moment of pity from him stung, this was the guy who had pissed his pants in bars no less than six times since I had known him, I was the one who was supposed to look down on and pity his life. Plus, my views on things had lightened up and gotten less fanatical, he could at the very least give me credit for that.

“My balls are crushed, just spare me the conversation where you try to tell me things weren’t that bad and talk yourself into picking the hobby up again and keeping your books. I already know that I have little chance of ever making you lighten up and have real fun,” he said, “Just try to get some of the crap out and be a little more social. Look in the mirror once in a while, I’m pretty sure you don’t really want to be the person you are right now, that’s just going to make you die alone.”

“The books are going to storage, don’t worry about that,” I said softly, trying to ignore the comment about dieing alone.

“You’re going to start on the magic mumbo jumbo, huh?” he asked with a raise of his eyebrow. “Look, just because you were probably instantly attracted to another of your kind doesn’t mean he’s any sort of sane.”

“How do you explain his dog being a werewolf? It was right there in front of us, you saw it too,” I pressed.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about, I was too busy being paralyzed by an overdose of cough syrup or whatever else the weirdo put in that drink.”

“You should have seen it,” I said, glossing over his denial of the potion being real, “It was the most amazing thing I’d ever seen. I mean I was too stupidly upset over my werewolf being a golden retriever, but now that I look back at it, it was so real and vivid… it had to be magic.”

“Let me get this straight,” he began. He attempted to straighten his posture on the couch, but winced with an audible grunt and slumped over, giving up. “A weird guy whom you had never met before lured us to his house using his dog, drugged me, showed you a magic trick, then helped you dump my drugged body onto my doorstep, and you still think that was a cool and eye-opening experience?”

“Well when you put it that way…” I trailed off.

“When you put it anyway!” he exclaimed, exasperation heavy in his voice. “This could be just another obsession for you where you’re going to end up stuck in this apartment again wasting away and smelling up the place. You have to learn to pick a normal hobby.”

“Picking up chicks at biker bars and getting your ass handed to you every weekend is a normal hobby?”

“It is for people who know how to have fun,” he grumbled. “I’m tired of arguing with you now, do you have any frozen food like peas or something? I need an ice pack.”

I combed through my freezer and found an old bag of frozen corn, it had probably been there for years, but it wasn’t like I was planning on eating it after it had sat on his junk either way. I also sliced a piece of unicorn cake for him, seeing as he was probably going to be stuck on my couch for the foreseeable future. No need to have to hear him whine about my life choices and being hungry.

“Thanks,” he muttered through clenched teeth as he maneuvered himself. “Hey, don’t they always say that you should put an injury above your heart? You have any pillows?”

“None that I want your ass all over.”

“Seriously man, if this was you I would help you out,” he pleaded.

“No you wouldn’t, you probably would have left me at the bar and told everyone you knew how I died.”

“Yeah, okay, but you’re a better person than me or whatever, just please get me some pillows.”

Begrudgingly, I did have some guest pillows that I had never used in my closet that I was okay with burning once he was done. I did regret my kindness when he was propped up and balancing the vegetables carefully, he seemed to have no problem with the position or the nakedness.

“Much better,” he sighed, “feed me cake?”

“No.”

“Come on, how am I supposed to be able to eat like this? You saw what I look like down there, its pure luck that I’m conscious. I can just start to question why you brought me here and not, oh I don’t know, the hospital where I pretty obviously should have gone.”

He had a point, thinking back on it, the hospital should have been stop one, but in my panic it hadn’t really crossed my mind. “Fine, but this is just a one-time thing.”