What happened next can only be described as a series of drunken misunderstandings, each being worse than the last, all in a row. I had taken the lighthearted approach to Nicoletta’s
beer in the face, and why not? No harm, no foul. However, Nicoletta was coming down from the coke and diving deeper into the alcohol, and so had it in her head that only a real shitstain would comment on bruises that she had gotten for him in the first place. Actually, that was a good point. Had things not happened so fast, I would have taken her aside and apologized. Instead, with my hands up in the air like an idiot, Nicoletta gave me a cold slap and screamed “fuck you!”
as loud as she could. The room got quiet and one of her friends, some thin blonde girl with a deep voice named Cindy, I believe, put her arm around Nicoletta, who was crying now, and said six words that became the epigraph on my proverbial tombstone:
“These bruises are from you, asshole!”
Nick Denardi 