The Sensitive Player by Alex Crevar

Why is it that no matter how well you plan, you can never get to bed at a reasonable hour the night before a trip? You can pack your grip a week ahead of time. You can lay your tickets, passport, and itinerary out on the bureau with OCD precision the day prior. You can eat an early dinner, flip on the white-noise machine, pull the mask over your eyes and still, still you end up on a barroom table in Croatia, minus one shoe, sleeves rolled up, shirttail out, bourbon stain across your chest, and sports coat balled up in a corner while trying to sweet-talk a miniskirt-ed co-ed with red-bull-and-vodka breath over a blaring Missy Elliot remix.

To make matters worse, on this occasion, the Sensitive Player hadn’t planned his evening’s refreshments very well. He’d mixed the aforementioned bourbon with a few glasses of a popular Croatian beverage known as a bambus – red wine and coke – a tumbler of grappa here and there, beer, and a celebratory trio of bad tequila shots in honor of someone who did something … the details were blurry at best. End result: On the pre-trip morning in question, Señor Sensi P had not quite made it to the bedroom and was on the floor in the living-room doorway in socks and green-and-yellow-polka-dotted boxer shorts clutching a square of paper upon which two numbers and names were scribbled in two different female handwritings. For some reason, trying to remember which one was Lucia (raspy voice? leather pants?) and which was Martina (nice behind? could shake it?) was more important than looking at the clock, which clearly showed that Monsieur S. Player had 20 minutes to gather his belongings and make the 15-mintute walk to the station for a train headed to Budapest.

My only goal was to find a car with a vacant cabin to lie down, draw the curtains, and feel sorry for myself. Instead I was forced to squeeze into the last, non-adjustable seat in the smoking compartment. No, second-to-last. A fellow American filled the last one. A gum-smacking, coffee-filled New Englandite. A Yankee.

Had I ever been to Budapest? Oh, I love Budapest. Don’t you love Budapest? I know a super little restaurant in Budapest. Would I like her to draw a little map to that little restaurant? No? Well if I change my mind, she’d be happy to. She draws really “awesome maps” she told me. Really.

In the tinny echo chamber that was my head I was trying to float away on the Marrakesh Express. My reality was something akin to a 5-hour sequestering with Steve Urkel. But here’s what you learn as a Sensitive Player bopping about cultures where word-of-mouth is the main source of down-and-dirty party info: listen – even in the darkest of moments – and you will learn. This spry lass knew of a hip wine bar, where her fellow study-abroaders – ladies mostly – start their evenings. They’d love me, she said. You are so funny, she insisted. I grunted and burped a mixture of tequila, tic tacs, and Old Grand-Dad.

As if this news wasn’t good enough, all at once – after explaining this potentially trip-altering detail – the gum-smacker wore herself out and grew quiet. I caught a wink. Sawed some logs. I was on the Marrakesh Express now. I seem to remember a lute and a flautist and someone thumping a noise harp. Certainly there was a contortionist. No question there was sandalwood wafting. Lots of sandalwood. When I woke, I was in Budapest’s Keleti Station. The car was empty … a map to the wine bar stuffed in my shirt pocket.

There’s a vibe I always get when traveling that makes me feel like anything is possible. When I walk in a shop, restaurant, bistro, café, or random apartment in a new town I feel I can do no wrong. I am not just Mr. S Player. I am Mr. S Player’s even more adorable half-brother. Same father. Sensitive Player, Esquire-edition, is just certain everybody wants a taste of this foreign matter. This funk machine minus the afro-sheen. Lawdamercy.

Walking into the wine bar, tiny map in hand, all the stars were aligned. I walked with a gentle swagger. Distinct but not too cocky. And it’s a fact that homeboy’s hair was looking good. Not too much humidity in the air so it had just the right wave. In the omniscient words found in the Book of Brown, first chapter, first verse, the Godfather said a mouthful when he spoke unto his disciples: “Hair is the first thing. And teeth the second. Hair and teeth. A man got those two things he’s got it all.”

The gum-smacker nearly peed herself when I came in. Actually she really might have. If there was little wetness it probably came when she jumped straight into the air and squealed like a really small pig. Not an adolescent swine. A newborn with its little legs moving super fast trying to catch up to mama with an ecstatic zeal rooted in fear and milky hunger. “Oh you really have to meet Dorika. And this is Nusa. Here’s my roommate Janka.”

“Ladies,” SP said as if he were adjusting his monocle and as he was handed a glass of wine.

“Will you come with us to a house party?”

“Will I come with you to a houseparty?! ….” I said, almost peeing myself, then reeled it in and played it cool. Got to hang the carrot, you see. I gulped down the rest of my red Hungarian wine called Bikaver, which means bull’s blood. “Hmmm, you sure I’ll be welcome?

“Oh yes. Bring a bottle. There will be sushi. There will be music. There will be ….”

The Marrakesh Express was rolling again. This time there was a definite hint of ginger-flavored gummy bears. Was there a monkey in tux? Seems I could just make out a trapeze artist in a singlet two sizes too small and with a blond and downy sheen that could only be seen when she stood at a profile and the moon was just so.

Lawd knows Sensitive Master Playah ate some sushi. Drank some wine, too. And when that was running low, he gave a cutie a fistful of forints to jog down to the 24-hour kiosk for more, “how you say, blood of bull?” Then, just as a joint started making the rounds, SP, Esq., changed the music. But he did it smoove. There wasn’t the harsh song break that draws attention. There was the silky trans that says: “Come along and ride on a fantastic voyage.”

It was then that Katarina, a sandy-haired Hungarian honey, walked in with the sugar toting the new bottles of wine. My Katarina flooded the room with fresh life.

My God what a package my Katarina was blessed with … all the right curves. Not too much. Just enough to jerk a neck and with a face that made me breathe through my nose for fear of dropping spittle on the dance floor. She was perfect. She walked over just as MJ was talking about “mama-say mama-sah ma-ma-coo-sah.” When I asked if I could get her a drink she nodded. When I returned, she was waiting. When “American Boy” came on she put her arms over her head, closed her eyes, straddled my knee and wriggled hips. When folks started to leave she gripped my arm and kissed my cheek. She pulled me out the door and kissed me hard as we walked down the stairs of the apartment.

We walked through the crisp, late-spring Budapest night and held hands. We never spoke. I was already thinking of where to file for a marriage license the next day. We stopped and kissed against a street sign with genuine abandon until the sun started to creep atop the horizon and shimmied along the Danube. As her bus pulled up I realized why we’d stopped here. “Come stay with me, I said.” She nodded politely, beautifully, no. As we kissed one last time she said only: “I hate you for not living in Budapest.” She smiled the most precious, pouty, longing smile I have ever seen. We watched each other through the window until she turned a corner and was out of sight. I didn’t get her number. Forgot.

I slunk to my empty hotel room like a popped and dirty balloon being dragged on a string across the gravel and straw and peanut shells and cigarette butts in a carnival’s parking lot by a kid worn out from too much cotton candy and the hollow, once-in-a-lifetime realization that he came this close – this close – to hitting the 50 hole in skee-ball.

Read More Sensitive Player: The Irony of Being a Player, Having Sex and Falling in Love

The Sensitive Player

Most connect Sarajevo with the war of the 90s, when mortar shells rained down on the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina. If they think about it, that is. After all, it’s a place stuck somewhere in an area once called Yugoslavia, which is somewhere in that blurry blob in Southeastern Europe among countries with communist-sounding names.

Some really old timers would perhaps remember that the First World War started here when Archduke “l” Franz Ferdinand was assassinated during a visit in 1914. (If you are among this WWI group, you’re likely in the older-than-100 category and I salute you. I also worry, frankly, that by reading this column you’re perhaps not spending your last days as wisely as you might. Suggestion: squeeze into that zoot suit one last time, grab yourself a flapper, put a fresh carnation in your lapel, stash a new jimmy cap in your wallet, wind your pocket watch, leave your worries on the doorstep, direct your feet to the sunny side of the street, and may your final moments be spent cutting the rug or doing the horizontal mambo … walker or no.)

At any rate, the bottom line is that Sarajevo’s a complex place with regard to history and politics, and, more appropriately, for love. They say Bosnia is the place where East meets West. This was the border between the Ottoman Empire and the Austro-Hungarian Empire for centuries. And there is still a considerable amount of Turkish influence. A Muslim town, the sound of muezzins calling folks to prayer can be heard five times a day.

“Okay, Okay … but how are the women?” you’re wondering. “Have I been putting my own jimmy caps to use?”

You are sharp today, my friend. Nothing gets by that steel trap of a mind. Thank you for keeping the Sensitive Player honest. I’ll get to the point.

I know I’ve made proclamations before but let me be clear here: the women are so beautiful that one has problems making it through the day. Really. I think it may be the mixture of the different cultures that give the lasses an evolutionary step up. As I sit in my office and try to meet this or that deadline, all I have to do is look out the window and see a gaggle of Bosnian ladies – wielding cigarettes and laughing conspiratorially – and Shazaam! I am transported to a place where pillows are made of chocolate.

Yeah, that’s right, I said it, they’re made of chocolate. And there’s a subtle hint of something exotic wafting about the place … I can’t quite put my finger on it. I want to say cinnamon and bacon. But I think that’s only because of my fondness for bacon. In actuality Muslims don’t eat pork. At any rate, cinnamon is kosher. I mean okay. And the chocolate pillow certainly can’t be argued with.

Maybe it’s because there are so many of them that they seem more beautiful. Something like sensory overload for the heart … and the nether regions. Homeboy just don’t know. He just don’t know. I’ve said it many-a-time but I’ll say it again: I am not the sharpest knife. Ain’t a person ever accused Don Sensi Play Play of that. But I got mad instincts. And when I feel that blood a-pumpin’ and that chocolate-bacon-cinnamon dream starts to wash over me, ooohh-weee: it’s like things get all noodle-ly.

The situation wasn’t any different when I first arrived here in the late 90s for a visit.

At that time troops still patrolled the streets. There were no tourists. There were three foreign-owned businesses in the country.

To make this story less like the dotted line following Billy in a “Family Circus” cartoon, that visit turned into me becoming manager of a restaurant named Texas (one of the three businesses). Again, to cut to the chase: we made mean chicken fajitas and we were the sole importer of tequila and Corona beer to the country. To get even more to the point: you really haven’t lived until you’ve invited a bevy of beautiful Bosnians – all juiced up on margaritas – to come back to the apartment and dance to Stevie Wonder.

During such an episode, I convinced one honey eating at the restaurant to join us back at the pad. That sweetie – let’s call her Wanda to protect her identity and because, come on, Wanda – was Bosnian. But, in the spirit of full disclosure, she had moved to the States during the war and had thus been more than a little corrupted. (Unfortunately for one Mr. S. Player, Bosnian culture is significantly more conservative about chicas running around with chicos.) “Aha,” I thought. “Gotcha.”

“You Haven’t Done Nothing” turned into “Reggae Woman,” which turned into “Sex Machine” (man gotta eat, lawd knows … it can’t be all Stevie). Suddenly Wanda and I found ourselves in the street. Nominally we were looking for a late-night bakery. Actually, I had my pants around my ankles in an alley behind the Old Town.

But, as is typically the case, while she was buttering my bread I was looking at her with a whole new level of respect. It was officially the first instance of my chocolate-and-bacon dream. In this one there was a duck-billed platypus. It was, if I’m not mistaken, wearing an Atlanta Braves jersey and tapping out a rhythm with its tail. Though hard to pick out at first, when I got it, it seemed so obvious: “Of course, Willie Nelson’s ‘Whiskey River.’” That realization came just as the rubber was meeting the road, so to speak. Shave and a haircut, two bits.

Son, we were drunk. I mean stinking and now sticky drunk. So much so that neither of us had a clue of how to get home. We sat down in the National Bank’s doorway and purred into each other’s ears … the purring of cats in heat plus tequila. The next thing I knew, it was morning. I knew it was morning because it was hot and really light. I also knew it because we were spooning on the doorstep as bank customers stepped over us to get into the establishment and get started with their daily business. Wingtips, high heels, pumps, and tennis shoes straddled our early-morning cuddling.

Though it likely sounds a little depressing, it wasn’t. I was invigorated. And she was cute and chirpy, even as she pulled a candy wrapper off her cheek. We made plans for that evening – the evening before she would go back to college Stateside – and I put her in a cab.

I hurried home. I took a nap. Showered. Cleaned my sheets. Went grocery and alcohol shopping. Said a prayer to the love gods. Accompanied it with a dance I like to call the “Lone Wolf.” And then I waited for her phone call.

It’s been nearly 13 years and I’m still waiting … while burning chocolate, cinnamon, bacon, and butter incense. My gods won’t let me down.

Read More The Sensitive Player:

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The Sensitive Player By Alex Crevar

Why is player a bad word? I reckon it’s because for a player to exist, someone else has to get played … at least that’s the logic the recently played spout during the sober light of day. Of course when the nasty electricity of nighttime builds, it’s a different story.

It’s the playahs, the groove merchants, the seduction hawkers, that give any get-together, disco, club, or house party that delicious, wicked, sexually charged vibe. Frankly they’re the reason to go to parties – even ones that are supposed to be tame. “God, I hope this gets out-of-hand,” the bored – one hip cocked, staring at the ceiling, sipping from a martini glass – seem to collectively think each evening as the gates of their normal lives part and they walk onto streets dripping with possibilities, which players are busy creating.

For the contrary, please answer truthfully: though you may not normally be naughty, don’t you at least want to know you have a choice beyond just an after-work drink and then going home to your TV’s depressing blue light? Don’t you want to believe you could end an evening with your pants suit/dress/overalls in a pile behind the door and a shiver down your spine?

That’s the player’s department.

Players are the ones who push the point. Sure, they may not go home with you and meet your parents during Christmas vacation. They may not water your plants when you are away on business. They may not remember your name. But they’re the ones who encourage one too many I-don’t-know-what-they-were-called-but-they-went straight-to-my-head cocktails. (“Where are my panties?”) They inspire the shedding of layers. (“It is a little hot in here, you were right.”) They encourage rump-rocking epiphanies and nether-region tingling. (“Yeah, I guess I could wear the same outfit to tomorrow morning’s meeting.”)

But, have you ever wondered what it would be like if the player lost his touch? If suddenly it was the player who got played? Now imagine the player and playee were the same person. Imagine if that he-thinks-he-can-do-that-to-me-and-just-forget-to-call sumbitch began unconsciously sabotaging his ownself. Time and time again.

Welcome to the Sensitive Player’s world.

Listen here baby, I play. Sho nuff, do I play. But I’m also trapped in a universe formed by an overly receptive and slightly self-destructive personality set. I am a tortured soul that loves to play AND has grown a conscience. For the player, that’s the death knell.

First, I’m Southern. I genuinely love hosting people and having folks, who were previously strangers, suddenly dirty dancing about the place. Rocks glasses in hand. Riding a knee. Rubbing a backside.

Secondly, when the room thumps and I go under the spell of a backbeat, I’ll dance with just about anyone. Anyone becomes a partner in crime. Anyone becomes prey. All the while my judgment is finding its own rhythm through copious amounts of bourbon. And don’t be fooled: I am an adorable drunk.

Sounds like the typical sleazy so-and-so to me, you think. Well, I would be except for one fatal flaw: in the heat of the moment and all at once – dancing, drinking, Southerning – I am not Playing. I am genuinely in love. Gosh darn it. Rather than finding a person’s faults, I find their strengths. Such beautiful lips. My god, what a neck. Her face is perfect when she’s serious. Is that a lilt in her laugh? Yes, rub that thing on up over here.

In fact, I fall so in love I become tongue-tied and have a hard time closing the deal. Can you imagine anything sadder than a player – lubed up on Southern whiskey and shaking it with a lovely young thing lost in his web – who can’t close the deal? It’s cataclysmic. It’s Tony Orlando without Dawn. It’s Chico without the Man. It’s Peaches without Herb. Lawd knows, it’s just sad is what it is. Sad.

But I’ve decided to put my plight to use. For all those who wished a player would get his, I’m your man.

I live in Europe and am given regular opportunities to fall in love. Most end in clown-like failure. This column will follow this Herb-less, the Man-less, Dawn-less Sensitive Player through almost-affairs across the continent as I fight through language barriers and convince the unsuspecting that “James Brown plus Jim Beam is actually a really good way to learn English” and then document my fall from the heights. And lest one should feel sorry for the Sensitive Player, don’t worry: I’m still flitting about a room dancing, sneaking a kiss, and trading naughty glances. And occasionally even SP ends up with his chain mail piled in a corner.

***

This episode comes from Zagreb, Croatia, where Mr. S. Player has been holed up under the guise of a freelance travel writer. Naturally SP is in a bookshop, looking sharp, smart, and trading bedroom eyes when he’s thunderstruck by a beautiful Croat: tall, blond, breathtaking … literally, I lost my breath. She must have noticed it because she came over and spoke – in English – to the Player.

“What are looking for?” she asked, her alert breasts resourcefully reeling in homeboy.

“Dunno,” homeboy replied with a tone that could’ve been mistaken as mild retardation.

“Well, let me know if you need any help.”

Only then did SP see the nametag. It was the first stage of heartbreak. I should have aborted then. Naturally, I didn’t.

“Wondering if you’d like to go with me to a hockey game tonight. I’ve got good seats,” SP asks while buying something inconsequential just to have an excuse to do a little jawin’. (The Player always has comped, of course, tickets to something. Tickets can be abandoned but they can’t always be secured.)

“Okay,” she said simply. “Meet you here at 8?”

The Player was in love. Period. And it wasn’t just her looks. It was her directness. It was her saying yes without hemming and hawing. It was her breasts.

We drank early and often at the game. Lawd knows SP was funny and witty and cute. After, we went to a pub and traded shots of brandy. We laughed easily. I brushed her hand with mine. She was receptive. The gods helped by laying down the soundtrack for the evening: Otis followed by brother Ray and then Reverend Al got in on the act. At one point we swayed into a hip-grinding slow dance so tantalizing and sweet that others were inspired to get off their stools for a little something something. I softly kissed her neck. She ran her fingers through the back of my hair.

All right … stop. Truly, I needed nothing else. I didn’t need to see her naked. If I had died there while nibbling on that soft, silky neck as Marvin Gaye told us to “Get it On,” I’d have been more than okay. Then why on earth didn’t we just remain in that heavenly cloud? The Player can’t quite answer that. That answer is wrapped in biology and animal instincts and lawdy, got to be honest here: when someone got their hand running through the Player’s hair his brain don’t work so good. All I can say is that the Player needed more. And like most tragedies in SP’s world, trough-scraping lows are a product of groin-throbbing, mountain-reaching highs combined with greed.

“Let’s go to a club,” the Player suggested. “But it’s raining,” Ms. Wonderful said. “What’s a little rain?” the Player foolishly retorted instead of dancing to Parliament. “Okay … I guess.”

It was in the rain, waiting on a tram that SP misplayed his hand and went in for a dramatic, romantic smooch. Ms. You-one-big-MFing-fool pulled back with a lurch. I am sorry, she said. I’ve got a boyfriend, she said.

Time stopped. Cars screeched to a halt. Dogs and cats started speaking in tongues. Somebody scratched the album on the record player and then switched “Songs in the Key of Life” with “The Heart Touching Magic of Jim Nabors.”

The Player played it cool though. When she asked: should I just go home? I said: no, stick around if you’d like. Then we met up with folks at a place spinning funk. Ol’ SP drank a bottle of whiskey. Just before she left she said: you were dancing with a lot of girls. I said, with a stumble and some slurring: that’s right, baby.