I’d had far too much to drink; in those days, that was my way. I’d sidle up to the horseshoe bar with the boys and toss back one shot after another; that year, I believe, it was tequila that was all the rage. Lick the hand, shake the salt. Lick the salt, gulp the shot, bite the lime. Again and again, until everyone either had enough, or ran out of money.

I liked the way booze made my feet feel in my shoes - which is to say, I couldn’t feel my feet when I walked. I pegged the sensation as that of walking on clouds and I liked it, so I did it whenever possible. The haze of smoke, the loud thump of the jukebox, the heat of the person on the next bar stool rubbing against me, and my magically disconnected feet. I loved the whole damned thing.

My boyfriend, the man I lived with, worked the night shift as a warehouse security guard. But even when he was home, he was always too depressed to have sex, and recently suggested that I “do whatever you have to do” about it. That night, I was at the bar with a co-worker, a guy I was pretty sure wanted to sleep with me. I hadn’t made up my mind whether I’d let him.

His name was Giles, which I thought was odd. (After all, he was a Jewish boy from South Jersey.) “Giles” sounded a little too precious, too Anglophile for me, and that was the main reason I was still on the fence about him. He was a tall, good-looking hippie boy, a more-handsome Jim Croce, and I was tempted: Tall, powerfully built with long, dark curls and a Fu Manchu mustache. He was very physical, which I liked. There was just that name to get past.

I excused myself to go to the unisex bathroom. While I was washing my hands, I noticed new graffiti. Right beneath “I’ve got to find the princess, she’s in another castle,” it said “Please call Paul.” Underneath was a phone number.

There was something about it. Maybe the sheer, stark need, the loneliness that drove someone to write that on a dive bar’s bathroom wall. Could it be a joke, someone playing a prank on a friend? Perhaps. But I didn’t think so.

I pulled a receipt out of my pocket and scribbled the number on the back. Then I went back outside to flirt some more with Giles.

By the time I got back from the bathroom, he’d decided he was entitled to something. His arm was still draped around my shoulders, but his inquisitive hand was starting to make occasional dips into the back of my jeans. “No no no,” I told him, pulling his hand out and smiling. “No, I have to get home, really. But this was a lot of fun, I’m glad we came out. Thank you.” And then I planted a long, slow, wet, lingering kiss right under that mustache. I patted his cheek, said goodnight, and left. He probably hated me.

I’m not sure how I got home. If you can’t even feel your feet, you probably shouldn’t be driving, but I did it. I don’t remember getting the key into the lock of my front door, either, but apparently I did that, too.

I sat back in an old stuffed chair, legs splayed wide as I surveyed the living room. And then, a flash of clarity. I fished Paul’s number from my pocket and reached for the phone.

“Paul? Are you real?” I said when he answered with a sleepy “Hello.”

“Wait a minute, let me check,” he said. “Yeah, I’m real. Are you?”

“Paul, I found your number on the bathroom wall tonight. You sounded lonely. Are you?”

“What’s your name?” he said.

“Catherine,” I lied.

“Well, Catherine, I suspect we’re all lonely. I suspect this is especially true when we’re as drunk as I was when I wrote my phone number on that wall.”

“I’m drunk,” I volunteered.

“Are you lonely, Catherine?”

“Just a little bit. A teensy bit,” I said. I squeezed my thumb and forefinger together to show him through the receiver.

“My girlfriend left me yesterday,” he said. “She told me she wasn’t happy with me, but that isn’t really what happened.”

“What happened?”

“What happened is, I got bored. We had this nice, comfortable routine. Too nice, too comfortable. All our friends were asking us when we were getting married, and she was pushing for me to get her a ring. I could see my whole life stretching out ahead of me. I could even see the furniture, you know? Just like her mother’s. Already, I could feel the pressure: ‘Paul, when are you going to look for a real job? Don’t you think we should buy a house?’ Buy a house? I’m twenty-five fucking years old, for Chrissake.” He slurred a bit, and it was then I noticed that Paul was a little drunk, too.

“So what did you do?”

“I started fucking with her head. I’d be nice and normal some of the time, but I started staring off into the distance, or at other women. When she’d say ‘I love you,’ I’d say, ‘Of course you do.’ Shit like that. Told her I didn’t want children, that only selfish people had children.”

“Is that really what you think?” I asked. I was curious.

“No, not especially. I was just trying to say things that would make her think she was making a terrible mistake. I didn’t want to be the one who left so I pushed her into being the one who did it. I didn’t want all our friends to be mad at me, so I made her do it.”

It was actually a pretty shitty thing to do, I told him. “That’s the coward’s way out, Paul. I don’t know you all that well, but I get the distinct impression that you are, in fact, a coward. Not that I haven’t been a coward, too, but you should at least own up to it. It’s good for your character.”

“Of course I’m a coward,” he said. “I put my phone number on a bathroom wall so I could confess to someone. I’m a real asshole. Don’t you think I know that?”

“Just checking, Paul. Just checking. Hey, let me ask you something: What do you think of a guy who doesn’t want to have sex with his girlfriend? Like, in a really, really long time?”

“How long?”

I thought about it through my drunken stupor. “Um, about three months?”

He laughed, a dry laugh. “I’d say that’s not a boyfriend, that’s a roommate.”

“Yep,” I said. “Yep yep yep.”

“That actually makes me feel better,” he said. “Because obviously, I’m not the only guy doing what I did.”

“Nope. Well hey, Paul, I’d love to chat, but I have suddenly developed a serious allergy to cowardice and I have to go take some Benadryl or something. Good talking to you, though!” I hung up the phone carefully.

Then I went upstairs to pack.

I wasn’t sure where I’d go - my friend Anna’s, probably. But no more Cowardly Lions, I told myself. That’s it. No more.