"Let me please introduce myself..."

Cole wasn't looking for trouble on a Saturday night. He wasn't even planning on going out.
So he wanted nothing to do with the black guy in the top hat.

"Umm... What?"

"I am a man of wealth and taste."

But he seemed to exhibit neither. I mean... *maybe* a rustic creole charm, but his face was painted white like a dead hooker.

"Look man... I don't have any change."

"No sir, you do not. You don't even know what change is. You're going to 7-11 for a big bite, super big gulp, and barbecue lays. You already have $3.37 counted out and waiting in your pocket. Then you're going to go home, play Call of Duty for six hours, and fall asleep jerking off to bikini photos of Agent Scully from Google Images. And this is Saturday night."

What made Cole stop was the man's stunning accuracy.

That and the fact that he could no longer move. The top-hatted man's face no longer seemed like a face at all. It was fluid like smoke. It was damp like a wet painting. It was dry like ash. Yet there was nothing else in the world. Or the world just sort of blurred and spun around him. Cole had to keep looking directly at the center of this face to keep from falling over.

"You don't have change, but tonight you will come to know what it is."

Then the man's face started fading out like the last dot of an old analog television. And landscape faded out with him. And then Cole was floating. He floated until he was flying, then he faded out as well.

He woke up to loud music and licking his lips. Then he realized that, while his lips were being licked, it wasn't with his own tongue. His eyes shot open with a start, worried for a moment that it might be the man with the top hat. But it was a voluptuous 5'6" Venuzeulan girl.

"Who the hell are you?" Cole asked, coming up in deep breaths. The south americana licked Cole's chin and his eyelids.

"A friend."

There seemed to be lots of friends at this party and everybody was getting friendly.

Two more girls came and dragged Cole off to a beer pull. They took shots of vodka. They danced. They talked but no one was listening. The music was too loud for anyone to hear.

But the most incredible thing of all was that everyone became aware that there was ANOTHER party going on at this exact moment that was even better than the one they were at!

They couldn't wait to go. Everybody grabbed their coats and pushed Cole in front of them to lead the way.

Cole grabbed his hat and opened turned the knob, but there, on the other side of the door... was an exact replica of Cole at his apartment jerking off to a Celine Dion video.

Panic. His blood froze. His was dripping cold sweat. He slammed the door. People started making noise behind him trying to get Cole to open the door so they could get to the party. They were ready to go.

"Umm... Just one sec... Kind of a draft out there."

But they were having none of it. They had to keep the party moving. The Venezuelan girl reached for the doorknob and Cole was too slow to stop her.

The door flung open...

Cole woke with a scream and fell off the couch hitting the floor hard. He was bleeding from an elbow he banged against the solid oak table on the way down.

He pulled himself off the carpet, walked over to the TV, yanked out the wires and threw his X-box in the garbage.

$3.37 was just enough to catch the last train into downtown.