My buddy Enis, who's girlfriend was so hot that an Angel lusted after her, and so she begat a giant, and the giant was evil, and the giant killed us.

Not to mention that the Giant ate a lot before it decided to kill us.

No matter where we went. McDonald's, the local farmer's market, that giant could eat its own weight in food and still want more. A ceaseless hunger that giant had.

I always thought that the mother of that giant was cute, even though she was my best friend's girl. She was skinny and usually that's enough for me. But she also had freckles and a spiral perm. In 1987 spiral perms were totally hot. They still might be today. I never really pay attention to those sorts of things. But I do know that freckles have never been considered hot. Maybe that's why she flirted with me all the time.

I remember the first time I saw Mandi. She had just had a baby. She brought that baby with a giant head to her work which was also my favorite bar. I remember not thinking too much about the kid as the Suns were on TV and Charles Barkley was dunking and shooting his way to a victory over the Spurs.

With less than a minute to go I was staring up at the big screen TV when I noticed out of the corner of my eye Mandi urging her man to leave, "I wanna go, you can watch the game at home."

I saw Enis get up rather sheepishly and I felt sorry for him.

"Why don't you let him stay 'till the end? The game is almost over."
For some reason Mandi relents and allows him to watch the rest of the game. The Suns win on a 16 footer from the "round mound of rebound."

There was an angel in that bar that night. He was watching the Suns game with me. Other than angels drinking at my local bar it had been an unremarkable year in Phoenix. Great basketball and the 130 degree summer temperatures.

That angel looked over at Mandi and Enis' big headed baby and thought to himself, "I wonder what it would be like to have a big headed giant from a spiral haired, cutely freckled, human girl?"

I say he must have thought it, because that's exactly what he did. He even got me to introduce him to her. Later when asked, I wouldn't be able to recall if a skinny blond haired guy in the trench coat frequented the bar where Mandi worked and I so often drank at.

At the time I probably just figured that the guy was there for the same reason I was. His wife had left him and now he was trying to pick up on girls half his age. And if that didn't work he could get drunk and hope the bartender would flirt with him.

Which she did. At first it seemed innocent enough. She gave him free beers and he delighted her with stories from his high school debate team.

I remember the first time I introduced Mandi to him. He'd been seated by himself at a table next to the bar stools, picking away at his complimentary peanuts. He was not what you'd call an attractive man. He had patchy blonde facial hair that wouldn't quite grow in. Much like a pubescent boy's won't. He looked animated and cheerful. But his eyes betrayed him. They were sulky and he tried masking that fact through extravagant vocalizations and flailing his arms about whenever he spoke to nearby patrons or the waitress who refilled his bowl of nuts.

He wore a trench coat. Always. Even in the summer. Despite this I never saw him sweat. And the summer in Phoenix is hellish. Even the devil vacations away from Valley in the summer, preferring the moist heat of Hell to the stifling blast furnace faced when one decides to brave the air un-conditioned.

He said his name was Noah. "Like the sailor?" I asked. He laughed a little at my joke. And seemed intrested in hearing how I had been waiting my whole life to meet a guy named Noah. Just so I could use that joke.

"Do you plan a lot of things like that?"

"I do." I told him.

He thought I was bit odd. And that was OK. He was used to weirdness. He had been in, "Drama club in high school." He didn't get offended when I called him a "Drama Fag" for being in theatre.

That's how I came to introduce my new friend, Noah, to my best friend's girl, Mandi.

Part II coming soon.