The plan was for Morrie and I to hit the town, but now, as the workday was coming to an end, he was on the fence. “Remind me again why tonight’s the night,” Morrie asked. “I forgot.” “Man, if ever there was a night to just go out and holler at women, it’s tonight,” I explained. “Tonight is the premier of Sex and The City the movie. So think about it. We live in the city where the movie takes place. They’re already here. That’s step one. Next step. Have sex in the city. Who are they going to have sex with? Us. That’s who. Now come on!” Not only did my speech help Morrie hop off the fence and get back on board, he arrived at my apartment sometime around 10:30 with a bottle already open and handed it to me. “And that my friend, is smaller than the one waiting for us at the table,” he said. “What table?” I asked. “The table my buddies have downtown at the rooftop of this hotel. They sent me the details on whatsapp earlier.” High fives. Shots. Wallet. Keys. Cab. Gone. Sex and the City aside, we needed nights like this. I knew it. Morrie knew it. My ex and Morrie’s ex met through us. When everything was going well, Morrie and I thought it a perfect idea for them to be friends. Let those two women hang out, while we watch games in peace. We even joked once about making a whatsapp group just for the four of us — before everything went south. But separate from one another, over a period of months, our relationships with those two women began to fall apart, which coincidentally brought the two of them closer together. When we were all happy, the two of them were perfect play dates, but as both of them were going through their breakups with us, they morphed into “sisters”. The two of them so close, it was like they choreographed their breaks up with us because they were days apart from one another.

As a result, Morrie and I were acting like distant brothers. We didn’t really talk about the break-ups. We especially didn’t talk to our exes. Every time we asked each other if we had, we had the same answer, “She said don’t talk to her ever again.” So we followed the rules, and talked about other things like, the games. But we both knew the truth. Our exes were these elephants in the room. As a matter of fact, they were elephants trampling all over our swag and for the past three weeks, we were just letting it happen. But on this Friday night, we were going to slay the elephants. On this Friday night, we were on the hunt for some new girls, with one rule: No friends. We can be each others wingman, but none of that Diddy-your-friends-get-with-my-friends-and-we-can-be-friends stuff. Our lesson was learned. Morrie even said, “If I get a number, I want it saved in whatsapp, not in some messy contacts list.” When we arrived at the hotel, the line outside stretched down the block. It didn’t apply to us. Morrie went to the doorman, dropped a name, and the velvet rope was lifted. From the moment we stepped foot in the lobby, we were in the land of women. There were breasts, skirts, short dresses, makeup kits, and clutch purses barraging our line of vision. On the rooftop, Morrie and I quickly found his buddies at their table, which had the biggest bottle of Grey Goose I ever saw. It looked like it was for display purposes only, but in fact, it was for recreational purposes. Our recreational purposes. Drinks were poured, music was blasting, toasts were made, but like magic, Morrie’s friends disappeared. It’s as though they were just watching our table until we got there, because not ten minutes after we arrived did they leave.

Oh well. Morrie and I embraced the bottle, and started grabbing every girl in sight. We started a Soul Train line, we were hi-fiving the men and women at the tables around us, encouraging girls to have dance contests on the couch. Morrie even joked about collecting their whatsapp numbers like baseball cards. A magical night was happening before our very eyes, and my theory, the one about how all these women were out because they were either on their way to see Sex and The City or just finished seeing it, was holding true. All night, I opened a conversation with women using the same three questions. “Which character are you?” “How was the movie?” “What’s your name? I’m Mr. Big. The real one.” These stupid, corny lines only sounded good to me because I was too drunk to know better. But apparently every girl I met that night was too drunk to know better. Ninety percent of them laughed, smiled, or responded kindly. It was why Morrie and I had a section with more women than a book club. A couple even pulled out their phones, ready to swap whatsapp details, like it was the natural next step. Unprompted, I took the bottle from the table and began to walk around the rooftop carrying it over my head. If a woman looked at me for more than three seconds, she was offered a pour. This went on for about 10 minutes, before I turned the corner and saw my ex. With Morrie’s ex. Sisters. The elephants. In the room. Together. Looking fine as hell. I froze. The bottle dropped to my side, and my face went from party look to funeral look in less time it took for a woman to get a pour from me (three seconds!). I wanted to run, but I couldn’t. My ex looked so much better than I remembered and so did Morrie’s ex. So much better than any girl who was at our table. My ex was just as surprised as I by this coincidence, but I could also tell she was going to take advantage of it. She just looked at me with this face that said, I see that bottle and I see your fun. Both of those things are ours now. The elephants were going to win. We hugged, kissed each other on the cheek, and I asked the both of them, “How was the movie?” as I walked them to our table. Morrie later whispered, “Man, I thought we were going to swap whatsapp with strangers tonight, not sit here with ghosts from the past.” As I was turning the corner, I see Morrie has joined the women in the dance contest on the couch. He sees me, he does not see these elephants in the room. He does not see mine. He does not see his. He just sees me and says, “YEEAAAHHH! JOZEN! GET UP HERE!” Just as I was about to frantically wave to him to get off the couch, I could tell he saw who was behind me because now his face went from party to funeral. As for the girls on the couch? It’s like they saw a rat on the cushion, because Morrie had them girls out of there in three seconds. Our whole VIP section was so empty I think I saw a tumbleweed pass through and whatever party music the rest of the club was blasting was now drowned out by this R&B scenario playing right before our very eyes.

On one end of the couch Morrie sat with his girl. On the other end of the couch I sat with mine. We were pathetic and helpless, like two people drowning in quicksand together. At least half of our bottle was left, but never finished and to top it off, both girls said they were hungry as we were leaving the hotel, so we took them out for breakfast. And of course we paid for it. Over pancakes, they casually mentioned how they’d deleted our whatsapp numbers months ago, but somehow still had us saved in their memories. In retrospect, I still can’t come up with a good reason why we let them take over the evening. At best, I blame it on the liquor, which is as good of an excuse as a dog eating my homework. But if I had to take a guess as to why we kicked out the other girls in VIP to be with our exes, I would guess it was a mutual decision amongst all parties that no one was about to have more fun than the other. We weren’t about to have any fun on their watch, and they weren’t about to have any fun on ours. Elephants unite! The cab ride home was long. All four of us were squeezed in and as we were going up the East Side highway, the sun was rising. The night was long, made even longer by our unexpected run-ins with our exes. The first to get dropped off was mine. Morrie’s was dropped off next. When he got back in the cab, I said to him, “If I were you, I’d call your girl tomorrow. She looks good, man.” “Yeah well, take your own advice, my friend,” Morrie replied. Then, for no apparent reason, out of nowhere, the cab driver, from the front of his seat said, “You guys both lost. Maybe try whatsapp next time instead of chasing ghosts.” He had a point. Morrie and I intended to go home differently. Separately, with new women. Instead, we were both en route to crash at my place, with no new women, just thoughts of two old ones who we knew we weren’t going to call the next day. And as we were getting out of the cab, Morrie said to me, “Remind me again why tonight was the night.” And all I could tell him was the elephants won.