They say truth is stranger than fiction. Whoever said that clearly must have been single in New York. I often feel that if some of my real-life stories and experiences were in a movie, people would say they're too unrealistic and could never happen. This is one of those stories...
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It was December. The dead of winter, in the midst of the worst snow storm of 2013, and I was rebounding. Or at least trying to. "Come get drinks with me tonight," the familiar face typed over Facebook. I was one month removed from the heartbreak of my life, and my days had been reduced to wandering around Brooklyn listening to Whitney Houston's "I Will Always Love You" on repeat, picturing my ex-boyfriend as Kevin Costner, and me, Whitney in the pre-crack days, singing it to him on an airplane hangar. Yet here was a bright shining offer to get out of the house, and out of my own head, for an evening. I had met him nine months earlier on a film set. Being on a movie set is sort of like being POWs with someone in Vietnam... You may not be attracted to someone in your everyday life, but when you're stuck there together, after 20 hours on set, they start looking cuter and cuter. This is known as "Set Goggles."
We flirted the whole day on set, and then halfway through, he dropped the G-Bomb: "So, my girlfriend..." Fucking typical. Yet that didn't stop him from still trying to "chill" with me over the course of the following months. I knew what he was after. And I'm not a random hookup kinda guy. But I finally relented. Partly because he looked like Michael Cera and partly because I couldn't stand the thought of the guy who broke my heart being the last person I had slept with.
I got a late start and wouldn't be able to meet him until after midnight. I was living in Bushwick at the time and he lived in Astoria - my future neighborhood, but a place I hadn't been to since I was 15, back when it was used primarily as a meeting place for junkies and crackheads. So I put on a pair of tight pants and made the trek to meet him at an Irish pub, where his roommate was the bartender. By the time I showed up, he was already three sheets to the wind, and within five minutes there, he started hitting on me, in a quite direct way. "Do you KNOW how good I am at going down on girls? Can you IMAGINE how good I would be at going down on a guy?!" I didn't quite know what to say to that, but a smile and a nod felt appropriate. We made small talk for an hour or two, and eventually, a crazy homeless-ish man came up to talk to us. (I'm not sure what you might call somebody who isn't homeless but might as well be. We'll go with "homeless-ish". Or okay, let's give him a name... Hobo Pete!) The guy I was with (I feel like I should have the decency to not use names, so we'll call him Cera) decided to engage him in conversation for a long - longggg - period of time, during which I became increasingly disillusioned, and the idea of going home to my warm bed and my dog was starting to feel more and more appealing.
"You guys are cute together. Are you dating?", the homeless-ish man asked.
"No, I'm straight," Cera said. Quite a bold revelation for somebody who had spent the past hour and a half discussing all the ways he could S my D.
"Ha! What?! That's crazy! No you ain't!", the homeless-ish man retorted. You go, Hobo Pete!
Things had been mostly pleasant thus far, but that was where the evening, uh... took a turn.
Cera blinked his eyes in disbelief. "What? Why would you say that?"
"Nah man, I'm just playin'. Be whatever you want to be. It's 2013." This sort of enlightened comment I hadn't expected from Hobo Pete. Cera wasn't moved.
"Why... why would you say that?", the volume of his voice modulating, his cheeks turning from pastel to crimson. "I thought, I thought we were friends... We're talking, we're having a nice time..." Cera looked at me and gave what I thought at the time was a wink, signaling he's fucking with the guy, but in retrospect, it might've just been a twitch. I laughed, nonetheless. Suddenly, without warning, Cera LOST. HIS. MIND. He starts screaming at the top of his lungs, "WHY WOULD YOU SAY THAT?!?!?!" Tears (yes, TEARS!) streaming down his face. Every old Flannighan and McGerrity in the crowded pub turned to look. I just stood there in disbelief, wanting to hide under the bar stool. I suddenly had pangs of thinking about my ex and thinking how hilarious he would find this situation. I started regretting leaving my house at all this evening.
Cera's roommate, the bartender, came running over and put her hands on top of his, as he sobbed to himself, soothingly reminding him, "It's okay. You're in a safe place. Remember where you are." It was clear she'd been through this with him many times prior. He stands up and runs with all his might out the front door of the bar. We see him run out through the glass doors, sit on the curb, and put his head into his hands, bawling. ....I stood there awkwardly. And then, she said the fateful words...
"Oh, you're gonna make sure he gets home, right?"
FUCK. By now it was well after 3am, it was approximately 0 degrees and snowing, I had no idea where I was, but was at least 3 trains away from home. Yet I felt bad for the kid. He was clearly either on medication, or SHOULD BE, and even I'm not that much of an asshole to let him wander home sobbing. "Yes, I will take him back," I said begrudgingly.
"Okay, give me your phone so I can put in the address. He doesn't know where we live". Great. Fucking peachy.
She handed me my phone back. I look at the oppressively blinding, glaring light of Google Maps and see.... 45 minute walk away, through a park, under a bridge, and nowhere near a subway. Fuuuuucking great. Just. Fucking. Peachy.
I grabbed my coat and walked outside, to where he was still sitting on the curb, looking down at the ground like someone had murdered his entire family. "Why do I attract all the nutjobs?", I wondered. "How do they all fucking find me?!"
"Hey, uh... You okay?" I ask.
"Yeah," he says. "Sit with me. You're uh... You're really beautiful."
FUCK! NO. No, no, no, no, no! He is NOT hitting on me! Please, dear Jesus, tell me he's not hitting on me!
He tells me his life troubles... How he's "bisexual" and has a girlfriend and his family is homophobic. I tried to relate and give the best advice I could, but for me personally, once I'm really turned off to a person, it's very hard for me to go backwards from that. And let's be honest... I've never been so good at that whole feeling bad for people thing.
"Can I kiss you?", he said.
FUCK. WHY?! Why me?! Did the Sanderson Sisters put a hex on me at birth, I wondered.
"Nahhh, uh... yknow... You don't wanna do something you'd regret. Anyway, let's get you home."
"You're so nice," he said. (Something I've rarely been accused of.) "And you're so sexy," (something I've been accused of even more infrequently.) He continued, "Did I tell you how amazing I am at eating girls out...?" Dear Jesus, kill me now.
We began walking towards his apartment and during the walk, he began saying THEE craziest shit.
"Hey... would you ever let someone pee on you?", he queried.
Fuck. This is what my life has come to, I thought, as I mentally flashed back to my ex and some of our more romantic moments together... Me showing up at his door with flowers, us chasing each other down 3rd Avenue, dancing in the middle of the night in his apartment, bathed in the silhouette of the refrigerator light, us laying down in the middle of a quiet street, like they did in The Notebook. And now, here I was, in the middle of Queens at 4 in the morning with a bipolar 22 year old, asking if he can pee on me. Amazing what a difference a month can make.
"What?! No! God no! Of course not! I mean, if this is a game of Would You Rather, I guess it's not the worst of the worst. Better than somebody shitting on you", I say. Without missing a beat, he looks at me and goes, "I would do that!"
"Let's uh... let's get you home..."
We continued on, walking in the snow. We stopped at CVS and afterwards he revealed to me that he shoplifted a hair brush. Knowing my luck, I could only assume this night would end with me sharing a jail cell with him in Jamaica, Queens, asking Bertha from Cell Block B if I could bum a cigarette. But nonetheless, we continued on - through the park, under the bridge. It was then that I noticed a truly horrifying sight. I look down at my worn iPhone... Battery life: 1%. It's 4am, I have no clue where I am, no idea how to get home, not enough money to take a cab, I'm under a bridge freezing my ass off with this nutjob... what the FUCK am I gonna do?! We reach his apartment, he continues hitting on me, asking me inside... So I devise a plan. I'm going to go inside for 15 minutes, long enough to warm up, get directions, and charge my phone a little, then I'm out of here, far away from the land of Lithium, and far away from this crazy bitch. So I exhale, pick my head up, and walk inside...
His apartment was pitch black. I found my way to the bathroom, and he went into his room. As I open the bathroom door to exit, his other roommate is standing there. "WHO ARE YOU?!?!", he exclaims. "I'm uh... I'm with... uh... I'm Mike. Hi." I just power on and try to find Cera's room. I open his bedroom door... And there he is.... Sitting at his computer desk... in his boxers. The kind of baggy JC Penny plaid boxers I wore when I was 10 years old. My crazy grandma always did warn me, "Sometimes people will look good with clothes on, but remember... the clothes have to come off." That vulgar prophecy never felt truer.
The room smelt of stale bagels, Axe body spray, and daddy issues. I sat down on his bed and told him I can't stay long but can you please look up directions to Brooklyn… He didn't. Instead, he comes and sits down next to me on the bed, talking a mile a minute about comic books, Star Wars, and other things I could care less about. So I just tuned him out. Eventually, I start paying attention again and hear him say: "....it's okay though, I have a machete." Now, there are moments in life when people are best served to keep their damn mouth shut. I, however, lack said skill. So, I asked the question I had a strong inkling I would regret....
"You, uhm... You have a machete...?"
"Oh yeah!", he says as he makes his way to the back-right corner of his room. He reaches into an oversized cardboard box and says, "I have handcuffs.... I have ball gags... I have rope". As he says this, he comes at me, standing a foot in front of me with a rope. Now, I don't mean it was a little rope that you tie knots with. This was like fucking boating rope or something! It was thicker than my skull. He stood there in front of me, the rope tied around each of his hands and held out in a straight line, as if he were about to hang me from the ceiling fan. It was then that it occurred to me.... I'm here, in Queens, at 4am, under a bridge... this guy is crazy, nobody knows I'm here......... OH MY GOD IM GOING TO FUCKING DIE HERE!!!!! And maybe this just goes to show what a sicko I am, but for some reason, the more I thought that.... the more I just started HYSTERICALLY laughing!
"What are you laughing at? Are you laughing at me?!", he said with the seriousness of a heart attack. "WHY. ARE. YOU. LAUGHING AT ME?"
All of a sudden, he lunges forward toward me, and puts the rope around the back of neck. Now, I had known for quite a while that this guy looked familiar, but I couldn't place it. It was in that moment that I realized who he looks like....
The Columbine killer.
Yup. I was on a, uh - date? - with the doppelgänger of the Columbine killer. (I mean... I did always kinda think one of them was cute. Not the one that looked like The Crow, the other one, with the glasses and the dimples). I continued to have several epiphanies, and come to realize, as Hannah Horvath once said ... I had initially thought he was murdery in a sexy way, but what if he's murdery in a MURDERY way?!
So again, this probably just goes to show what a sicko I am... I couldn't think of what to do, so............
Yup, I stuck my tongue down his throat and started making out with him. (Okay, okay, I hear your judgements!!! Not one of my finer moments, I admit.) So we made out "and stuff" (he was wrong, by the way... About the thing he had said earlier that he thought he'd be good at... But my dad is reading this so we'll just leave it at that!) I determined that instead of trekking home this late, under the bridge and through the park, that I would instead take a QUICK little nap here while my phone charges, wake up at the crack of dawn, and get the hell out of there. Good idea, right?
The next morning, I awoke at 8am, half expecting to either wake up in Brooklyn next to my dog, and realize that it was all one big fucked up dream... or that I would awake in a bathtub filled with ice, to find my kidney had been removed. But for better or worse, I awoke in his bed. I turn to my right, only to see him sitting at his computer desk with his head in his hands, STARING at me. You could tell he had been there for a while. I gasped. He immediately began running his mouth, but I wasn't listening. I just wanted to go home. I had a major "whoa-over", which is a term I've coined for when you have the effects of a hangover but weren't drunk the night prior, and the whole world makes you feel "like... whoa". A whoaover.
So, just like last night, I began listening mid-sentence and hear him say "(Something, something)....my machete." It was early, I was in Queens, I wasn't thinking... So again, lacking the capacity of keeping my big fat mouth shut, I said, "Wait. You actually own a machete? I thought you were joking about that..."
He smiles, and says, "Oh no, it's right here..."
He reaches behind my pillow, by the headboard, inches away from where I was sleeping, and pulls out..... a fucking machete. And I don't mean the kid's size K-Mart version of one... It was a foot+ long, fucking Jason Vorhees style, motherfucking MA-CHE-TE!!!!!!!
I lay there on my back in bed, in disbelief. He's kneeling on the bed directly in front of me. I should've kept quiet. I shouldn't have asked. But I suppose somewhere in the back of my subconscious, I knew.... This shit is gonna give me an epic bar story for the rest of my life! So I opened my mouth and said...
"Yknow, um... I'm probably going to regret asking you this, but um.... why exactly do you have a machete?"
He looks at me. He blinks, as if to say "Why DON'T you have a machete?!" and without missing a beat says, "In case someone tries to kill me".
He looks at me... He lets out a creepy giggle, better fit for Chucky, or at least his Bride, and says......
"Or in case I have to kill somebody else...."
All of a sudden, he takes the machete...
and with the force of Whitney Houston in the post-crack days, ironically enough....
STABS IT....
into the mattress, about six inches away from my ribcage. It went through the sheets, through the mattress, through EVERYTHING.
I had about seven simultaneous heart attacks and let out what can only be described as a little baby kitten yelp. When someone is directly in front of you, you can't tell if they're stabbing you or half a foot next to you! (Not that I'm assuming most people have been in a similar situation...) I was waiting, expecting any second to feel the pain of having been stabbed with a machete and to see a pool of my blood fill the plaid sheets. But thankfully, it was his poor Certa mattress feeling that pain today.
I jumped up, in shock. "WHY DID YOU DO THAT?!?!?!", I exclaimed.
He looks at me, and with that familiar giggle of a possessed doll, says, "Tehe... tehe... I don't... I dunno."
"I think I'm uh... I'm gonna go... But yknow, uh... this was greaaaaat. Let's do it again sometime!" I say, fumbling for my ten layers of coats and sweaters.
And then he said what I should've expected would be the note that this utter trainwreck of an evening would end on...
"No, don't leave! My girlfriend is gonna be here soon...."
!!!!!!!!!!! (I know, right!?)
"Ah, yknow, I'd love to, but I've gotta walk my dog.... GOTTA GO! BYE!"
I swung open his front door and closed it as tightly as it would shut. And so I wandered back in the winter, whoa-overed, sunglass-free Astoria morning light. Happy to be alive, and happy to be going home. Back to Brooklyn. Back to heartbreak. Back to Whitney Houston songs.
But at least back to a place without machetes.
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