Ezekiel from Tennessee

There’s a few dancers who are such baddies it’s intimidating. One girl looks like she descended from a 1980’s Victoria Secret runway show. She’s tall, with an exaggerated hourglass figure, a perfectly defined muscular bottom, and huge new boobs. She has chiseled features like someone selected her from a Marvel comic book, and she has a penchant for over the top lingerie. When she’s working, we all request not to dance after her on stage, because it’s hard to feel hot when she’s got that bodyodyody and you’ve just got a body. She went up to this white man in a baseball hat after a set and he bought a single dance with her, which I took to be a sign that he didn’t have enough money to afford a set, mostly out of my own insecurities— what could I have that she doesn’t? But I made my way over to him anyway, after exhausting my other options around the room. 

Me: Hi there, what’s your name?

Him: Ezekiel! What’s yours?

He had a southern drawl so thick I needed a spoon.

Me: Where are you from?

Him: Tennessee. Where are you from?

Me: Oklahoma.

Him: What part?

Me: Norman.

Him: I’ve been to Oklahoma before. Is that near OKC?

Me: Really? What part? It’s about 30 minutes south. 

Him: Ardmore.

Me: Wow, I don’t think I’ve even been to Ardmore. What were you doing out there?

Him: My company sent me.

Me: What kind of company?

Him: I’m in the hemp industry. CBD. It’s equine— We handle horses. It’s uh, a kind of equine care. 

Me: Excuse me?

Him: We help treat race horses with CBD products. It helps with inflammation, and other muscle pain. Some people say it’s just a placebo, but we’ve done so many trials and you’d be amazed. There’s nothing like it. You know, animals have a whole lot more receptors than humans do, so they feel it and you can see the difference the moment they take it—

Me: Did you just go out there and start giving drugs to horses?

Him: Haha, kinda.

Me: That’s hilarious. How did you get into it?

Him: You wouldn’t believe it. Back a few years ago I had an opioid addiction. It was bad, I couldn’t start my day without pills. Almost tore apart my family. I went to rehab for it, and while I was there, I met this guy— actually one of the guys in Three Doors Down— and he owned some horses. I had some experience with horses ‘cause I’m a country boy. I was taking CBD’s and I put two and two together and now we have a huge business. I swear, CBD and THC saved my life. 

Me: Wow, that is incredible. Glad you’re doing better. 

Him: You know, so many of these guys hooked on opioids started off with just a shoulder injury. They give you these pain meds and next thing you know you’re hooked.

Me: Did you have a shoulder injury?

Him: No, actually I didn’t. I had a friend who was a nurse and I asked if I could try some of her stuff. Went from popping xans to snorting oxy every morning. After a while, I didn’t enjoy it like at first. I was just snorting it to feel normal, and I liked snorting. Like I like smoking cigarettes because I like to puff.

Me: I get that. I’m that way with weed. I don’t care as much about the weed as much as the act of smoking.

Him: Exactly. I’ve been thinking about just getting those flavor cartridges with nothing in it just so I can puff away. 

Me: That’s not a bad idea.

Him: How do you like it out here?

Me: It’s great, beautiful weather, all kinds of nature, and the city. I can’t complain.

Him: I’ve never felt so out of place anywhere in my whole life.

Me: Really? I guess you do have a heavy accent.

Him: Last time, I brought my wife out here and we went to the beach, but it was about impossible to find parking.

Me: Which beach?

Him: Venice.

Me: Venice is always pretty packed, but if you go at odd hours or midweek you can usually find parking. There’s a lot of other, quieter beaches though.

Him: They tell you the traffic is gonna be bad, but I never expected it to be like this. I went out at noon and got stuck in traffic for an hour!

Me: That sucks. You really have to know where you’re going and plan around the traffic. Back before I officially moved up here, I came up to visit my sister. She decided somewhat spur of the moment to visit, so I drove up and didn’t have a plan. We ended up stuck in traffic for hours, just searching for a parking space. I didn’t know anything about the city then. You really need a guide for LA.

Him: I would have brought my wife up this time, but it was just a quick trip. I’m flying home tomorrow.

Me: What’s she like?

Him: She’s a good ole country girl. Stayed with me through it all and was never anything but loyal. When I had my opioid addiction, I had an affair for four years. It almost ended my marriage.

Me: That’s a long time.

Him: Sure was. My wife and I hadn’t been having sex for a while. First it was a few months, then a year. Then I met that girl. It was just sexual though. We were having sex five times a day, every day.

Me: Wow, that’s a lot.

Him: I would wake up, snort some oxy, go to the gym then go by her house for a quick fuck, go to work, go back to her house at lunch, go back to work, say I was working late then go by her house again. It was just sex.

Me: That sounds fun.

Him: It was, until it came to a point where she wanted me to leave my wife for her and my wife wanted me to end it.

Me: She found out?

Him: Oh, she did. I had to choose and it was hard, but I have kids and I couldn’t just break up my family like that.

Me: Did your wife forgive you?

Him: Eventually, she did. It was one of the hardest years in our marriage. We’ve been together...

He paused to count, staring up at the neon sign that said “Skybox.” 

Him: Well, married 15 years, but we were together a few before that.

Me: That’s a long time to be with one person. To fuck just one person. One affair in 15 years isn’t too bad, considering.

Him: It is a long time. After we weren’t having sex for so long, I looked for someone else. I wish my wife would fuck me five times a day. Maybe if she was I wouldn’t have gotten into the whole affair.

Me: Five times a day is a lot.

Him: It is. My wife is great. We actually went to Vegas recently and I took her to a strip club with me.

Me: How did it go?

Him: Well, she’s a kinda conservative country girl, so all them tiddies and whatnot in her face was a lot for her to handle.

Me: It takes a lot of confidence for a woman to enter into the strip club. It can be hard for some.

Him: She was okay. I think in the end she enjoyed herself.

Me: Conservative country girls always have a wild side.

Him: They sure do.

Me: I don’t think she’d have chosen you if she didn’t.

Him: I am not easy, that’s for sure. I’m a lot better, now that I’m clean. I just vape a lot of weed now. Everyone wants to have you think that you’re just lazy and stupid if you smoke pot, but it was the THC that finally got me clean. Now I wake and vape, work and vape all day, but I get a lot done and it keeps me going. It took some time for my mom to understand, but she knows it’s a heck of a lot better than snorting pills, heck, alcohol is a poison, and we don’t judge it as much. I don’t even know how to party because I don’t drink much anymore. 

Me: You don’t have to drink to have fun.

Him: You’re right. My son is 15, and I let him drink a little at home so I can supervise. He knows I smoke weed, but I tell him not to. Now he just makes jokes about it with his friends, stuff like, “what’s that smell, dad?” He knows I keep my vape in the armrest of my car but he doesn’t try to touch it.

Me: He definitely vapes when you’re not around haha.

Him: I’m sure he does, after I go to sleep probably.

Me: But if that’s the only forbidden fruit he’s looking at, it’s not so bad.

Him: I wouldn’t mind if he was just smoking weed, but I can’t tell him that. I don’t want to encourage him. I took him and his friends to a Grateful Dead show recently. I brought my weed with me, so I warned them, “y’all are gonna smell some stuff.” They laughed. It was fun. But it did smell like some weed.

Me: Sounds like you’ve got a good kid.

Him: He’s great. That’s why I couldn’t leave.

Me: Family is everything.

Him: It sure is.

He bought a single and a set with me, and tipped fairly. 

Him: Wow, you are something else. I wanna just put you in my pocket and take you with me. The things I would do with you. I’ll be back in town again soon.

Me: I hope I’ll catch you again.