John Devore is a satirist, critic and editor and this is a true story.

In retrospect, I shouldn't have cried at the brothel. It unnerved the hookers.

See, for the record, I preemptively broke up with her. She walked out, and I decided to drink. Hauled ass to the local old-man bar, and that's where I met Frankie. I made the mistake of laughing at some joke he made. This pleased the toxic heap, and he bought me a shot.

Two shots later, I've told him my whole sob story. He starts giving me absolutely insane advice. "Broads can't hurt you because they don't exist" and "Fight dragons with fire." I have no idea what anything he ever said meant.

At one point, he had his arm around me and whispered that I should give it time. What I needed, according to Frankie, was to live a little, and "clean out my pipes."

A Small Brick of Cocaine

He slaps my back with his manhole-sized mitts, hands me a folded-over magazine page and tells me to go the bathroom.

It was a small brick of cocaine. I had to shave it with my keys to get a bump, and bingo -- I was his lap poodle for the night. Frankie bragged about knowing and banging every bartender in the area, and he wanted to prove it. We stumbled everywhere, grinding our teeth into paste, and he was partially right: He knew every bartender, each of whom met us with hostile eye rolls.

Eventually, we arrived at a bar with the roll gate halfway down and literally ducked inside. It wasn't until Frankie had disappeared in the back accompanied by a plump woman working lotion into cracked hands that I realized this wasn't really a bar.

It Didn't Help That I Was So Strung Out

I just wasn't sold that a 20-dollar handjob in the backroom of a jerk-off shop fronting as a shoebox-shaped bar was the best way to cope with a relationship that had just self-immolated. It didn't help that I was so strung out. And I was terrified of Frankie, and of most of the clientele slowly sucking bottles of beer, waiting for their turn with one of the waitresses who didn't serve drinks.

The little dude sitting next to me with the greasy mouth, bouncing knee and constant nervous giggling I could handle. I could even manage the old man who looked like he'd had the piss kicked out of him because, well, he smelled like piss. But it was the guy with one ear (one damn ear, I swear) who never blinked that really sent me into a paranoid downward spiral.

I was within walking distance of my empty apartment. I missed her. Cue the wetworks.

Let This Be a Lesson -- Never Cry at a Whorehouse

My whimpering was pissing Frankie off, who had long forgotten my name. The booze and coke and cheap trim had wiped away all memory of his having dragged me all over Queens on a mission to show me how a man deals with getting dumped.

Frank Sinatra came on the juke box. "You like Sinatra?" he violently jabbed a meaty finger in my direction. He barked the question again, and I gave him the man nod. My legs were trembling, but I got off my stool and looked at Frankie and said, "I love Sinatra. Next one's on me." My one single dollar bill was wet with my ass's fear sweat, but I fed it into the machine and ordered up "The Lady Is a Tramp."

The plump woman with the oily hands saved me. She sensed her mark still had more juice and led him, again, into the backroom. "One more time!" he bellowed. I made a hasty exit and went home to lie down, alone, on a bed with no sheets or pillow cases. (She took those with her.) Then I left the most embarrassing, rambling, unhinged voicemail of my life on my ex's cell phone.

It was days until she called me back. She had left her loofah behind.