Mojo

Posted by Lex Konrad in Dispatches | Oct 25, 2005

“I feel like I’ve lost my mojo,” I tell my girlfriend as we cab downtown.

“You’re not the only one,” she says.

The girl with a flower in her hair. Evil witch done put a hex on me. Maybe on both of us. The trouble started at the first installment of the After Hours Social Club, the Club being an informal almost-weekly gathering of our fellow late-night wanderers. We’d sit and drink and talk, maybe listen to music or watch a video, smoke weed, eat some breakfast and then the gathering would dissolve as effortlessly as it had come together. Not unpleasant really. But it takes a certain kind of easy-going, good-natured person to appreciate the After Hours Social Club.

The girl with a flower in her hair was not one of those people. Oh, she’d been pleasant enough early in the evening, when we’d discussed sex and literature, but in the wee hours she began to complain about the smoke and the drinking and the rough language. As much as she tried to brush them off, the artifacts of her cultish upbringing became apparent. She said things that sounded innocuous enough at the time but, upon later review, I found offensive. You know, that delayed reaction: Wait, that was fucked up.

Eventually I’d had enough. “Perhaps it would be best if you left,” I said. She looked surprised and hesitated as if to call my bluff.

Except I wasn’t bluffing. I held my gaze and motioned toward her shoes. She didn’t have money for a cab so I escorted her to the subway station. Even under duress I try to maintain a modicum of gentlemanly decency.

And then the girl with a flower in her hair muttered something under her breath. I could’ve sworn it was a hex. That was the moment I lost my mojo, I’m sure.

Tribe is nearly empty when we arrive—eerily so, as if the place had been prepped for our arrival. A young man with a head of thick curly hair sits hunched over the bar, deep in conversation with the bartender. “That him?” Les asks.

“Yeah,” I respond, “that’s the Bad Man.”

He’s not so bad anymore, the Bad Man ain’t. He’s a reformed pickup artist, or PUA, in the parlance of the self-styled masters of seduction he used to hang out with. He used to have a sex blog—one that mysteriously disappeared many months ago. Maybe his girlfriend made an honest man out of him. Maybe not. I want to know.

“Yeah, there was drama,” he tells me. “My girlfriend didn’t appreciate the blog at all, of course, and a few of the women I’d been involved with didn’t take the news of my new relationship too well.” He goes on to relate the whole sordid story of how he was run out of the blogosphere.

“And I thought we’d known some crazy chicks.” I shake my head. “So that’s it? No more adventures for you?”

“My girlfriend and I still have fun,” he says, although he’s vague on what this actually entails. “No more random encounters for me.” He grins, then joins his index fingers and thumbs together, lifting them over his head like a halo. I ask the Bad Man what he thinks of the seduction community. “Computer nerds mostly: the guys who sort of missed out during high school and college. Some of the leaders are genuinely skilled though. I had some people looking to me for leadership but I didn’t want to be anyone’s guru.”

“People ask me for advice all the time and I get a certain amount of attention from pickup artists,” I say. “I’m just not cynical enough to prey upon people’s insecurities like that.” I contemplate my present lack of mojo. “There really isn’t a formula, you know.”

“Here, I’ll show you my formula.” He turns away from me and slouches over his mixed drink. He’s right in a way, but this isn’t the whole story. I go to the bathroom and return to find the Bad Man’s engaged my girlfriend in conversation. She hadn’t been terribly excited about coming out with me but she seems happy enough now. I see now that he, at the very least, knows how to keep a woman entertained. I stand back for a bit and observe. I enjoy watching my girlfriend flirt.

The place has filled up in the time we’ve been chatting. Bad Man and I both instinctively, reflexively scan our surroundings for attractive women. A girl in a yellow turtleneck returns my eye contact. “Some pretty ones here tonight,” I announce. Bad Man makes his halo again. I scowl.

Les and I head out for a smoke. A group of yuppie gentlemen are sharing a joint. One of them passes it to us. “You can have the rest,” he says. Reason #179 why I love this town.

When we return Bad Man is a little miffed we indulged without him. “I didn’t know you smoked,” I say. Eventually, he and Les step outside to see if they can scare up any more bud. I lean sideways over the bar and sip my usual gin and tonic. I decide I’m not terribly distressed over my lack of mojo, which is of course yet another facet of the mojo curse: the initial alarm gives way to waning interest. The dark-haired salsa dancer who beat a hasty retreat when she saw me kissing Les, the tall girl whose eyes glazed over when I referenced the Algonquin Round Table, the numerous women I’d barely had any words with at all—they simply furnished proof of what I already knew. My usual moves, if you could call them moves, fell flat. I accepted this the way one might accept the loss of a kidney.

The Bad Man and my Bad Girl have been gone for awhile. I order another drink, aware that my limit for a school night is fast approaching. A tall woman materializes by my side. She looks like that chick from 3rd Rock from the Sun. “Do you have a girlfriend?” she asks.

“Yes, but—”

She cocks her head toward the crowd. “My friend’s interested in you. She’s the one in the yellow turtleneck. She said, ‘Who’s that tall guy over there?’ Just letting you know.”

“Oh really.”

“Yes really.”

“I’ll come over and say hello when my friends get back.”

“Don’t bother.” The girl in the yellow turtleneck has already sidled up to us. She takes the Bad Man’s seat opposite me and she’s all smiles. We make mouth noises at each other and she laughs. I learn she’s a copy editor for a highly-regarded New York publication. I mention a recent article I’d enjoyed. “I didn’t edit that one,” she sez.

The Bad Man and my Bad Girl return from their adventure. He shoots me a sly grin and stands back analyzing my technique, I presume. To the girl in the yellow turtleneck I’m saying, “Oh we see other people, selectively.” Her eyes grow wide. “Look, if you don’t believe me you can ask her yourself,” I add, putting my arm around my girlfriend’s waist.

“Oh I believe you.”

“It’s just that I want you to know what you’re getting into. People have said I’m a bad influence.”

Later on I offer my seat to Les and let the girls talk. “I didn’t expect to be on a date tonight,” I tell the Bad Man. “It’s a school night and I have to be a good boy. Plus, I didn’t come here to pick up chicks.”

“It always happens when you’re not looking for it. Anyway, I’ll be impressed if you can pull this off,” he sez.

“Heh. What about you? I get the feeling you’re holding back on me.” Once again he makes his halo. I laugh. “I swear, if you do that again I’m gonna punch you in the gut.” Leslie’s already gotten the woman’s number and soon enough they’re kissing. “See?” I tell the Bad Man. “She’s always stealing my thunder.” The Bad Man shrugs.

The girl in the yellow turtleneck won’t kiss Leslie again because she’s worried about what her friends will think. I whip out my phone and begin to mash the buttons with clumsy fingers. “Here, gimme that,” the girl says, punching in her digits with blazing speed. “I used to own this same model,” she explains.

The Bad Man invites me and Les back to his place for a bowl. He lives in a large studio, one wall of which is made of exposed brick. The place is littered with electronic gadgets. “So this is where it all went down,” I mumble. I feel like I’m touring a porn set. We lounge on his bed in a druggy haze and watch anime. Otaku, I think. Figures. There’s something nerdy, after all, about trying to hack the female mind. When the bowl is finished we thank him for his hospitality and gather our things. “We’ll have to do this again,” I say.

In the cab I turn to Les and stroke her cheek. “You know, I can’t even remember what her face looked like—the girl with a flower in her hair.”

“Mmm…”

“So I guess we have our mojo back now, huh?”

“Yes we do.”

More: Mojo | Bad Man | Drugs | Marijuana | Flirting

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