Blackouts and Breakdowns (13 page)

Ryan cut me off:
“Ok, I think we get the point.”

Ryan and his friends looked at me with utter disgust.
They loved D.C. and could not understand why I didn’t.
To change topics, I asked:

“So where are you guys from?”

“Florida,” Ryan said.

“Alabama,” gay number two said.

“Louisiana,” gay number three said.

“Arkansas,” gay number four said.

“Wow.
Of course you like D.C.
How could you know any better, being from places like that?”

“Mark, maybe you are having such a hard time finding friends because of your attitude.” Ryan said.
Maybe he was right.
Maybe I did need an attitude adjustment.
“My friends are having a party near the Archives tomorrow night.
It’s a fabulous apartment, and the party should be fun. Why don’t you come with us?
It will give you a chance to meet some new people.”

I agreed to meet Ryan and his legion of skanks at the party near the Archives the next day. As I entered the upscale building, I regretted what I had worn.
I had no idea what was in store for me upstairs, but judging from the lobby, my Abercrombie cut up jeans and worn out polo shirt were not going to fit in.
As I exited the elevator and walked to the apartment door, I was greeted by Ryan who handed me a glass of wine and I walked onto the patio, where the other guests were.
The patio was beautiful and had an amazing view of Washington.
Across the street I could see the Archives and the Mall.
To the left I could see the theatres and the White House.
For a half a second, I kind of appreciated D.C. and it’s architecture. That quickly passed as Ryan came over with one of his friends.

“Mark, this is Tony, he works at the White House,” Ryan said to me, “Tony, this is Mark, he waits tables at the cafe down the street from my apartment.”

“Ryan!” I screamed.
“Is it necessary to introduce me to all of your friends like that?”

“Oh, I am sorry, I didn’t know that you were so embarrassed by what you do for a living.”

“I’m not,” I said, “but there is a lot more to me than just being a waiter.
I am also a writer and I really like Polo.”

“Really?” Tony said, “I love Polo.
I used to play on Cape Cod all the time.”

“Oh no, I am sorry, I meant the brand Polo.
You know, Ralph Lauren,” I said as Tony looked at me like I was a complete moron.

Tony and I chatted for a bit, but I could tell that he was not interested in making conversation with me, as I was just a lowly waiter and could not help him advance in his career.
In fact, once word got out that I was just a waiter, no one really talked to me at all.
I stood on the patio of this amazing apartment wondering what I had done so wrong to be stuck in an apartment with such fake bastards.
After drinking the bottle of wine I had brought alone, I left and hoped never to see any of these people ever again.

The summer continued on, and I was miserable.
Nothing made me happy and everything bothered me.
It was as if I had turned into a grumpy old man.
Fearing I was going to turn into my grandfather, who in the last years of his life, sat on his front porch and yelled at the Japanese people who lived across the street from him, I tried to refocus my energy on moving back to New York.
At this point, I had no ties to D.C., except my family, whom I could abandon at any moment and a serving job that I could not have cared less about. I arranged a few interviews in New York that summer but nothing panned out.
The economy was taking a turn for the worse and the options for me were very limited everywhere. Fearing my livelihood was at stake, I asked Christopher, one of the owners of the cafe, if I could work for him part time.
Christopher owned a small catering business that served healthy, organic food and were conscious to the earth and her many needs.
All of the utensils they served food with were biodegradable and the cars they used to drive the food to the parties ran on electricity and used very little gas.
The concept behind this business was amazing and I really wanted to be a part of the team.
Christopher told me I could work for them on the weekdays as part of the street team.
I was excited about my new vocation, the fourth this year, and eager to get away from the cafe and all of the drinking and debauchery that took place there.

I reported for my first day of duty and was excited about being part of the street team.
When I got there, a friendly guy named Tom explained what I would be doing.
He showed me around and told me that I would be taking one of the carts to the American History Museum and serving food there.

“Wait a second, I thought this was a catering company,” I asked Tom.

“It is,” he said, “But we also serve organic street food at the museums.”

“So basically, I am a glorified hot dog vendor?” I asked.

“No, you are an organic food service distributor,” Tom said.

“Are you serious?” I asked.

He was.
Here we are in D.C., trying to be something we weren’t, like everyone else.
He went over the instructions of what I was supposed to do and where I was supposed to go.
I still had no idea where I was half the time, so I told Tom that he was going to have to physically show me where I needed to be.
I concluded that figuring my way around D.C. was pointless as I was trying to get out as soon as possible.

“You see Mark,” Tom said, “D.C. is a grid, so if you just look at it like a grid, you will be fine.”

“D.C. is not a grid. Grid’s don’t have circles and squares and roads that go diagonally.”

“It’s a grid,” he said. “It’s easy.”

“No, Tom,” I said, “New York is a grid. D.C. is a mess.”

We fought about whether or not D.C. was in fact a grid for the next few minutes until Tom finally realized that I was right, as always.
We went outside and Tom showed me how to use the cart that I would be driving to the museum.
The cart ran on electricity so it did not go very fast, only about twenty-five miles an hour.
It was also very delicate.
The carts were designed specifically for this company and crafted with care, so they needed to be driven with caution.
He went over a few more details and taught me how to serve the food and I was off to my first organic food distribution location.

“Don’t kill anyone!” Tom yelled as I drove away.
Those were my instructions every day thereafter.

I got in my cart and drove off the site.
I am not a good driver to begin with. The cart was very fragile and every bump in the road I went over, felt like I had driven over a small canyon. It rattled and with every turn I just knew my cart was going to fall over on its side at any time.
I thought I was going to crash several times as I drove down Pennsylvania Avenue towards the museums.
I could not believe that my life had come to this. I was in still in D.C. and driving a fucking hot dog cart.
How did this happen to me?

I got to the American History Museum and set up my cart.
After I was done setting up, I ate about four hot dogs and waited for my first customers.
I stood in my cart and all I could think of was how my parents stressed that if I did not go to college, I would never end up with a good job. Well, I had gone to college and now I was stuck in a cart selling food on the street.
I guess had I not gone to college, I would have just ended up being a plain old hot dog vendor and not an organic food service distributor.
As the seasons changed and it grew colder, my services were no longer needed with the hot dog carts.
It was fine with me because during my tenure there, I ate more food than I sold and nearly killed two people when I came dangerously close to hitting them with my cart.

By the time the 2008 general election rolled around, I had all but had it with politics. Everyone who came into the cafe talked about politics and I couldn’t stand it anymore.
My beloved Hillary Clinton had lost the primary vote and so I had lost all interest in the election.
But everyone in D.C. was revved up for what was to be the party of the year.
People in D.C. are so lame that any excuse to drink was a good one to them. They couldn’t think of anything creative to do so they would use crappy excuses like Election Day and Bastille Day to get completely trashed.
I could not have cared less about the election and made it known to anyone that would listen that I was writing Hillary Clinton’s name on the ballot.

“Isn’t that a waste of a vote?” a friend asked me.

“No,” I said.
“It is my duty as an American and I will vote for whomever I please.
Please be assured, I am not voting for either one of those shmacockles.”

“Whatever,”

I thought that Hillary deserved to be president.
If nothing else the Clintons would bring a little class back to this shit hole of a town.
But she was no longer a candidate and I watched with everyone else, as Barack Obama became the nation’s forty-fourth president.
Everyone went crazy in the streets of D.C.
Yelling, looting and carrying about as if they were Jews that had just been freed from the concentration camps by the Americans.
I didn’t see what all of the fuss was about.
I was tired of Washingtonians getting drunk all the time for no reason.
Even I, the biggest drunk in the world, could not rationalize the reason people chose to drink.
I just thought people were using lame excuses to drink to mask their own alcoholism.
Washingtonians pretending to be something they weren’t was becoming more unbearable by the minute.
One night while waiting tables, Jim, the owner of the cafe came over to me and saw that I was upset.
He asked me what the problem was and I told him that I hated D.C., everyone in it and was afraid that I was going to be stuck there for the rest of my life.

“Well, you’re a writer.
If you hate D.C. so much, why don’t you just write a story about it?” he asked.

“Ok Jim,” I said, “Let me write a story about how much I hate D.C. so everyone in this town can hate me even more than they already do.
What a great idea.”

MY SUPER EX-BOYFRIENDS

As far as I am concerned, relationships are for teenagers and immigrants. Apart from anyone not classified as one of the two, rarely have I seen a relationship work out. I guess there is something about being trapped in a math class or on a ship to the new world that makes the heart grow fonder. But I’ll be damned if I didn’t try.
Throughout my clubbing, drugging and downright debauchery, I managed to find four real winners that stood apart from the rest.
Sure, there were others along the way, but these four beaus were the cream of the crop, each one with a bizarre story to tell.
The names of my former suitors have been changed to protect mainly, myself.
For one thing had I not changed their names, I most likely would have been court ordered to and for another I really cannot afford to have the United States government and/or the armed forces up in my business.

My first boyfriend who I’ll call Sebastian was a total gentleman.
A British import, Sebastian had as much style as he had substance.
Sebastian and I met through my former best friend Alex, who was dating Sebastian at the time.
Sebastian and Alex’s relationship was not a good one. Sebastian was twenty-eight years old and Alex was eighteen.
Sebastian had a seventy-hour work week while Alex was a part-time drug dealer.
Sebastian had responsibilities.
Alex rolled on ecstasy about five times a week.
Clearly this was not a match made in gay heaven, but Sebastian really cared for him.
I guess he had a thing for eighteen-year-old Asian guys and really – who could blame him? At the center of this episode of
Gays of Our Lives
was yours truly.
Because, as most dysfunctional relationships go, this one was weighed down by the fact that the three of us lived together.
Sebastian and Alex had dated for about three months until Sebastian had finally had enough of Alex’s antics.
I was never really sure whether or not Alex really cared for Sebastian or if he was just taking advantage of his generosity, but I could tell that Sebastian was done.

When Sebastian finally decided to kick Alex out of the apartment, I had to side with Sebastian.
For one thing, things were finally starting to come together for me.
I had a great job and I was looking really good circa summer 2001.
I was not really willing to put forth much effort into finding a new place to live. Secondly, while drug dealing is quite a lucrative vocation, Alex was beginning to sell drugs out of our apartment and the most unsavory people were beginning to hang around.
Sebastian and I stood as a united front upon giving Alex the proverbial boot.
While I was crushed by this decision, fearing for Alex’s well being, I knew in the long run, it was most likely the best decision for us to make. Shortly after Alex left our apartment, Sebastian and I became very close.
I had consoled him through his breakup and we had spent so much time together that suddenly I realized – I loved Sebastian.
It was like at the end of
Clueless
when Alicia Silverstone suddenly realizes she loves her stepbrother.
Except a lot less creepy.
At the suggestion of my dear friend Jason, who may have been drunk at the time, Sebastian and I began dating.
However, there were to be a few ground rules to be followed, but on my part only.
According to Sebastian, I was never to speak to Alex again, which was a very harsh request considering Alex was my best friend at the time.
At this point, Alex was going down a shadowy path, so I thought to detour myself from that it may be best for me to stop speaking to him.
Something at that time told me this was the best decision to make, but I had no idea this one request from Sebastian was going to loom over the remainder of our relationship.

The summer of 2001 was magical.
I had really captured the essence of being a functioning alcoholic. I partied hard but always managed to get my shit done.
Sebastian and I spent all of our free time together and we were living it up.
But the memory of Alex lingered.
Both Sebastian and I still thought of Alex, respectively, and everything that happened between the three of us.
One night mid-summer, I ended up bumping into Alex at one of our old haunts, Limelight.
He was a complete mess but I walked over to say hello.

“Hey Alex,” I shouted over the loud techno music.

“cdksjbfskgjhds,” he replied.

“What?” I yelled. “Are you drunk?”

He didn’t respond so I took that as a ‘yes’. Shortly thereafter, Alex’s friend gaily walked over and told me that both he and Alex were out of money and that they needed twenty dollars to get home.
I felt awful after everything that happened between us so I gave him the money.
I guess drug dealing wasn’t the money making business I had once thought it was.

The next morning when I told Sebastian about this, he was furious.
Mainly because I now needed twenty dollars from him to get to work.

“How could you give money to that little twit?”
Sebastian barked in his British accent. Accents, by the way, are cute for the first few months of a relationship and then become extremely unbearable.
The British think that they can get away with anything just by flashing their jacked up smile and offering you crisps or something.
In American they are called chips. Potato chips!
A nap is not a kip and a fag is most definitely not a cigarette.
I tried to explain the situation to him but he was having none of it.
For some reason, I apologized for giving Alex the money but Sebastian stewed over it for days.
It was clear that Sebastian and I were having a great time, but Alex was certainly still pulling the strings.

That summer also happened to be when I had the absolute pleasure of meeting someone who would become a permanent fixture in my inner circle.
His name was Tom and we met at a piano bar in the West Village when I told him to shut up while my friend Jason was singing.
We took an immediate dislike to each other.
However, after a few nights of drinking heavily and staying up for hours, we discovered that we both shared a passion for theatre, things that glittered and the 1980’s primetime soap
Falcon Crest
.
After only a week of bonding with my intellectual equal, Tom called with amazing news.

“I am going to Provincetown to do
Naked Boys Singing
!” he yelled into the phone.

I really only understood the naked boys part as I had no idea where Provincetown was or why exactly these boys would be singing naked.
He explained he would be starring in an all nude, all male musical review on Cape Cod and I was thrilled for him.
This was just the break in his career he was looking for, but it meant that he was going to be gone for the remainder of the summer.

“I’m leaving in a week and I need to lose thirty pounds,” he said.
“I can’t be seen singing naked in this condition.”

“What?
You can’t lose thirty pounds in a week.
It’s unhealthy,” I said as I took a drag of my cigarette.

“Watch me!”

No one does a crash quite like Tom.
He lost quite a few pounds before heading out of town.
On his final night in New York, I helped him move things into a buddy’s apartment in Queens.
But on the subway ride over, I saw that he looked a little flushed. Luckily, I had a balance bar in my pocket.

“Eat this!” I said waving the balance bar in his face.

“Absolutely not,” he replied.
“I did not work this hard losing all of this weight to fuck it up now”

Fearing he was on the verge of death from malnutrition, I gave him the only other thing I had to offer: a bump of coke.
Surprisingly, it helped, and I sent him on his way.

At the end of the summer, Tom and I decided to move in together.
We thought that if I moved out of Sebastian’s apartment it would not only be good for my relationship with Sebastian, but it would also free up a lot of time for Tom and I to get fucked up together.
However, the apartment was not available until October 1st so I convinced Sebastian to let Tom stay at his place when he got back from Cape Cod until our apartment was ready. Tom returned on September 10th, 2001 looking tan, happy and anorexically thin.
Apparently he had been hanging out with Karen Carpenter the whole time he was away.
Nonetheless, it was great to have him back, and to celebrate we went out for a super classy dinner at Chevy’s.

“Yea, I guess I am glad to be back,” Tom said.
“But I have a really ominous feeling that something bad is going to happen.”

“Are you coming down off of something?” I asked.

“Maybe”

“That must be it.”

That night we celebrated Tom’s return and partied old school.
The next morning, the world changed forever.

On the morning of September 11th…nay, the afternoon of September 11th, I woke to Tom yelling:
“Hurry up Mark, you are going to miss
Falcon Crest
!”

Tom and I were very excited because that day SoapNet was playing the episode of
Falcon Crest
where Maggie tragically died in the swimming pool after getting her ring caught in the filter.

“I just don’t understand why she didn’t let the ring go,” Tom asked.

“It’s a pretty nice ring,” I replied.
“I would have fought for that shit too.”

With such an intellectual conversation going on inside apartment 3H, it’s no wonder Tom and I had no idea what was going on outside.

Sebastian entered and asked if either one of us wanted bagels from the deli downstairs.
We put in our orders and I told Sebastian that if he was going to leave the house, he needed to put his contacts in.
The man’s blinder than a bat.
Every time he left the apartment without them, I was scared he was going to get lost and traded into white slavery, never to return.
But Sebastian left, sans contacts lenses and wandered onto University Place.

Apartment 3H backed up to a brick wall.
While it was not the most scenic of views, it made for great sleeping conditions.
It was pitch black at all hours of the day and you could never hear what was going on outside.
It was perfect for hangovers.

While Tom and I sat discussing whether or not
Falcon Crest
was, in fact, the best show ever, I had completely forgotten that I was supposed to meet my friend Michele for lunch.

I grabbed my phone to call her, but it went straight to voicemail: “Michele, you dumb bitch, where are you?
We were supposed to have lunch but I can’t make it down to Wall Street today.
I have to work in Times Square at three and it’s already 12:30, and I have to watch the end of
Falcon Crest
so let’s reschedule.
Love you, bye.”
As I hung up the phone, Sebastian came back into the apartment in a panic.

“What’s up honey?” I asked.

“Nothing. I went to the deli and people were going crazy outside,” he said, “There must have been a school trip or something going on because people were buying water bottles by the dozens and everyone seemed in a bigger rush than usual.”

“That’s odd,” I responded. “Where’s my bagel?”

We sat and ate our bagels. Maggie died in the pool. I got ready for work and Sebastian got ready for a job interview.
I am pretty sure that Tom had planned on staying in and watching soap operas from the 80’s all day.
Knots Landing
was about to come on when my phone rang for the first time that day.

I answered. “What the fuck is wrong with you?” my mother yelled into the phone.

“Uh. Nothing. Why?” I replied.

“You stupid son of bitch.
Why haven’t you called me?”

“I was watching
Falcon Crest
.
Was I supposed to call you?”

“You have got to be fucking kidding me!” my mother yelled.
“Do you have any idea what the fuck is going on around your dumb ass?”

“Well, Maggie just died in the pool if that’s what you were talking about”

“Jesus!
The city of New York is under attack.
The World Trade Center is gone and I have been trying to call you for hours now.
I have been so worried, but I should have known that your dumb gay ass would be sitting around watching crappy soaps from the 80’s.”

“
Falcon Crest
is a great show!”

“Well, I am glad you’re not dead.”
Click.
She hung up.
At 1:15 in the afternoon of September 11th, 2001, Sebastian, Tom and I finally realized what was going on around us. SoapNet had not pre-empted programming so we didn’t see the news because we hadn’t changed the channel.
Everyone at the deli was getting bottled water because pandemonium was ensuing around them.
Sebastian had not noticed that two huge towers, the largest in New York, were missing form the skyline because he didn’t put his contacts in before leaving the apartment.