Dead in my Bed.

A dear friend of mine that is a dancer and I have known since I before I needed to kill muscles in my face, got a sublet that turned out to be...well...a New York sublet...aka bates motel meets...well...a dirty toilet.  This is New York.  It is just true.

Anyway.  So I get this late night frantic call that he needs to stay with me.  I have MADE this call before and thank GOD for my dear friend Joanie AND Michael....or I would have been under the brooklyn bridge ....or throwing myself from it.  I didn't know I made that call twice.  Well there you are.  Anyway.  So my friend calls.  And of course....bring your shit over and don't be scared.  There really is nothing worse than being scared of not having a place to go....well maybe a horrible outbreak of herpes....Or my ex....but I digress.

So my friend...I need to name him...as I am not sure he wants PUBLICLY to be known as my friend and honestly who can blame him.  My Mother feels quite similarly.  So I will call him Jim.

So Jim comes over and was a bit shaken up and so logically we drink our faces off and then he goes out with friends and I pass out like the old man I am....before midnight.  That's how sexy I am.  I got invited to THE hottest club in town today where they have that studio 54 bullshit about only letting certain people in etc and my friend goes all the time and wanted me to go with her.  And because I am soo not at all cool....I declined due to the fact it STARTS at 11pm.  I know.  I am lame.  it is true.  I know.

And he was going to a drag show.  Really not my thing.  I think it is lovely for people who like the drag.  But for me it is a tad like scary clowns.  Except for the fact it might be because the last time I attended a drag establishment was for a girlfriend's birthday ( why do women love to see drag for their birthday and engagement parties?  I don't understand.  I am not running to hooters followed by a night at scores when I get hitched) that she wanted to have at a drag restaurant...yes...they exist...can you imagine how awful the food is.  Exactly.  So At that dinner.  the food was soo awful that we just drank.  And Drank.  And shots for the birthday girl and more and more and one more and just a nightcap before we go home and one more.....until I woke up full dressed in my bed with the keys left in the outside of the door and a headache to rival certain medieval torture devises....or my longest relationship.  So I got up and realized my shirt was buttoned all wonky.  What?  So then I go into the bathroom....take it off...and realize I have smeared lipstick kisses all over my body.  Oh shit.  Did I make out with the birthday girl?  So I call her.  " hey....are we ok?  Did we...make out....quite a bit...and how far did we go...?"  To this she burst into one of the loudest fits of laughter I have ever heard.  "What?" I asked head pounding and annoyed.  "Um...Zack...."  Well.  It seems I had...how does one put this...a few cocktails...and somewhere after I blacked out....the drag queen...named peppermint gummybear...or peppermint candycane....some God damned peppermint something....well...pulled me onto stage and did her "song" while riding me like a bull and proceeded to rip off my shirt and kiss my body.  I wouldn't believe it if I hadn't seen......the video.  So that might explain why I am a tad weary of "the drag" as it were.

Anyway.  Jim.  DAMN IT THIS IS JIM'S STORY.  So Jim goes out and gets in VERY late.  Like next morning,,, about the time I need to go to work late.  And God bless.  If I had gone through that trauma of possible homelessness I might do something similar...like suicide.

So he got to bed and I left for the gym(which is a stupid thing to write but then again maybe some one might think I work out and ask me out...which has really worked well for me thus far...dateless in what...months....no....years?  Lord.)....then work.

Then I texted him to see how the night was.

Then I texted him to see if they keys worked.

Then I texted him to see if he knew where the menus were

And Nothing.

So I called and left a message

"hey Jimmmmy.  Big night you whore.  Call me."

Nothing.

Soo I called again

"Jimmmmmaaaaaaaay.  I mean really you slag.  Call Me"

Nothing.

Text again.

"Jim.  Are you Okay.  Let me know.  XO"

Nothing.

Wait ten minutes.

Call.

"ALLRIGHT JIM I AM FREAKING THE FUCK OUT HERE.  IF YOU DON'T CALL ME I AM GOING TO COME BACK BECAUSE I AM....WELL FREAKING THE FUCK OUT!"

So at this point I am on the verge of a full blown panic attack and taking two xanex just so I dont have a heart attack because I have realized what has happened.

Jim is dead.....In my bed.

Jim went out.  Did cocaine somewhere( as somehow NYC is Liza Studio 54 again and coke is sold in vending machines next to Doritos)....drank too much....took a sleeping pill...he had asked me for earlier...and I gave him....and he....like every socialite as of late....died in his sleep from the combination.....but this time....on my watch...in MY house.  FROM MY SLEEPING PILL.

What am I going to tell his Mother?  "Um...I am sorry....he died...of a drug overdose...in my house...From his heart stopping from the PILL I GAVE HIM"  WHAT THE FUCK CAN YOU SAY TO MAKE THIS NOT THE MOST HORRIBLE CONVERSATION EVER???!

And then I have to LIVE in this apt where someone I loved DIED.  DEAD.  IN MY BED.  DEAD.  And then I need to buy a new bed and sadly will HAVE to throw out the frette sheets I loved because there would be death all over them....maybe I would try to wash them in really hot water....except they have to be dry cleaned....well dry clean and then  maybe... sage them?  I mean, they are really great sheets....BUT still I would look at them and see dead friend (but they are greeeeeat sheets.)  DEATH.  Someone needed a roof over their head.  And I killed them.  With a pill that barely puts me to sleep....kills my loved ones.  Next I will stab my Mother or give my God daughter a bottle of bleach.  WHAT IS NEXT?

So I go to the only co-worker that actually likes me.... freaking out.  I am on my third Xanex and am shaking.  Pam....I am about to have a heart attack (insert story above here) " and I killed him....I have written now 46 texts and called 37 times.  He is dead.  It rings.  It doesn't just go to voice mail....he would hear....he would pick up...he is DEAD.  AND I KILLED HIM"

I am soo hysterical at this point I actually look like an insane person and am shaking.  Pam looks at me and says "No.  he is asleep."  and I said " there is no way.  He is dead and I cannot walk into my apartment and see this man dead and know I killed him"  

Pam:  "Zack.  You are insane.  He is sleeping off a big night.  He is not dead" 

Zack:  "He is dead.  I am leaving.  I have to try to get him to the hospital or give him mouth to mouth or something"

And at this point I run out of my office without a coat in the middle of winter with tears running down my face like the Mother in "terms of endearment"  GIVE MY DAUUUGHTER THE DRUUUUGS!!

I get a cab and scream crying about needing to speed and run lights and someone is dying and I have to get there....to a man...that I am sure didn't speak english as all he said the entire time in a very scared voice "My friend...we will go fast....My Friend...We will go fast"  I am fetal in the back seat "poor Jim...Poor gym.  HIS MOOOOTHHHHER....oh GOD his MOOOOTHER"

So we get to my apartment and I throw "my friend" a wad of bills that later I found was about forty dollars (for a eight dollar cab ride) and sprint to (almost through) the glass door leading to my apartment. I rang the buzzzer....nothing.... I ran up the five flights to get to my apartment like I was rescuing a baby from a fire...but the baby was dead...and I killed it...and I get to the top floor and to my hall four feet from my apt...ready to do cpr and call 911 and my phone rings....

Motherfucking Jim.

"hey...(yaaaaaaaawn) you allright?"

I ran so fast to my door and almost broke the fucker down.

" YOU SON OF A BITCH *^%*&^$&^%#%^&$#&^%$*&^RT(*^T(*&^T(*T)(every word possible"

I scream at the still half asleep and half drunk- supposed to be dead- man.

HOW DARE YOU DO THIS TO ME!!!??

(Insert original story here)

And I am huffing and puffing and crying and out of breath and about to have a heart attack.

"Sorry"  And he stumbles into the bathroom and I hear him piss.

"Sorry?"  I stand there.

Oh my God.  That was all in my head.  I was able to create that entire thing...that entire nervous breakdown....just in my own head.  I had picked the song I would sing at the funeral...and the outfit...and how we would frame his picture and the make-up artist that would make him look life like if not better (that would be my gift to his dead ass) I had thought about venues and flowers...charities and my speech.  What verse I could find about not stoning me for killing him.

And it was all for nothing.  FOR NOTHING.

And this is the lesson I learned....I share with you today...this is why....THIS is why.....You should never let anyone stay at your house....why IIIIIII will never let anyone stay in my house ever again.  They all die on me....and then don't have the decency to be dead.

Food Bar.

So when I was 21 I was told I had to get a job. Some job from my parents. They spoiled the shit out of me and are part of the reason I will be single until I die. Finding someone who is the high bred of the two most amazing and opposite people is certainly a task of improbability at best.

But I digress.

This morning sitting in front of my God damn fake sunshine machine as ordered by my crazy doctor and recovering from last nights migraine that felt like a knife in the back of my neck that ripped all the way through the top of my head and turned and pulled it self out between my eyes....I started thinking of simpler times. Before I lost my mind, needed pills to get stay off my roof, could sleep without Michael jackson's former doctor (thank God he became free-I've been on the waiting list for years) and had virtually no responsibility.

21.

Ahhhhhh. Yes. 21. ( now referred to as "fucking 21") being 33.

So there was this chelsea shithole. Not really a shithole but a haunt that was really a ball called FOOD BAR. The food was inedible but the crowd was known for being pretty gorgeous and ridiculous. It was when chelsea was still a haven of muscle boys and beautiful men. And was almost studio 54 about who was there and not. It was not nice. But it was as it was.

So I had never done anything work wise that was not music or theater so getting a job was going to be difficult. Of course first haunt I hit was FOOD BAR. Why not go for the gold. Or gold plated at best.

I went in and there happen to be a "host" job that paid nothing but would appease my parents need for me to do something.

So day one of my new job I got my list of responsibilities were basically told to me very bluntly. Be pretty. Be hot. Be nice. and control the waiting list and seat people in sections equally divided amongst the waiters.

Sounded simple enough. And I was too nervous and had too much anxiety to wait tables (first sign of things to come) So this was perfect.

So I started to work and soon realized it was pretty ideal except for his lack of pay.

The job description really should have been. Look hot. Drink as much as you want all night. Flirt and appease costumers if there is a long wait....and remember who the hell is who when you have a list of people waiting.

Now my memory when it comes to music and lyrics is amazing.

My memory when it comes to things I really don't care about...is not.

So I had to come up with this system. And my handwriting is worse than any five doctors you know. But very very attractive. Like unreadable art....My Mother and Grandmother used to have to get together to decode my letters from college....and kind of figured out the hieroglyphic form my writing took...and yes....I was in college when people actually wrote letters and mailed them...with a stamp and such....but in this case very important to the next part of my job.

So the place got slammed alot because of it's reputation for pretty and muscley. And so I would actually have to DO something those times. And that was write down all the names of who was waiting. But since my memory was shit I had to start adding descriptions like. James: hot guy in white jeans. Bob: looks like Jaba the hut Tony: Unf*ck*ble in suit and so forth. Somehow I never got caught. I wish I had kept the exact lists because they were pretty wonderfully horrible. Only something a 21 yr old with no knowledge of how he one day would be described by some other 21 yr old as meanly and nasty as he once did. I don't want to know mine. Zack: Loud, pink pants like golfer grandpa, can't move his forehead, bad hair. And I am sure that was being kind. "no ass" might be in there too.

So back to the fun parts where I didn't have to give superlatives and could just flirt and drink. I have always been a rather big person and at this time was obsessed as most of chelsea was with being the muscle-y thing possible. However this at the time was also combined by almost everyone with wearing the smallest tshirts known to man to display the fact. I just recently realized I am actually not a size small. I am a large or extra large. Unless I wanted it to look like body paint. Which I think was the goal in chelsea in 97. Lord.

One of the fun...and ridiculous...and calling cards for the place was the random snowing wednesday or Monday or whatever off day the owner would come in with a horrible theme. Like Pajama night. But he would buy only pajamas that were meant for children and thus belly shirts and tights on us. But we were more than happy as we were young and hot. Now it would be grounds to cry and/or quit. But I would at least try and give it a look to make SURE I couldn't. LOL

There was also the Latex/ rubber Valentines day outfits. Everyone had to wear red or black latex of some sort that was like muscle moulan rouge...latex and rubber should never be shorts...I learned. I don't think there are photos. God I pray there aren't. It is like lady gaga but without the irony.

This is also where I met the worst liar meets antichrist. My ex on and off....and on and off. for four years. Lived together twice. It must have been the glamour of the non job and the intoxication there in that really reeled them in. I truly need to see if carrie fisher is right about electroshock therapy. It would be nice to really rid that period from my brain permanently.

Anyway. That is really the least interesting thing about my life to date. Hardly worth mentioning other than it happened at FOOD BAR.

I never came up with a clever nickname for Food Bar. Fool Bar. Fine Scar. Swine Car. Too Far. I gotta think up something. There is a gym in NY that is full of fags but is beautiful called David Barton. Yet everyone calls it Dolly Parton. That is just plain funny and good. Makes me smile everytime.

FOOD BAR days were a ball of frivolity and flirting and drinking and laughing. I was carefree and happy. Flirting with the owner. And the other owners beautiful boyfriend....sneaking to the kitchen to make out. And the sexy waiter I still think about to this day. ahhhhh Youth.

Now FOOD BAR is gone. And is a f*cking Chipotle. Of all sad things.

But I am glad I got the best of it. And it's one thing the new generation can't ruin. It will stay a time capsule of my youth and New York's last moments of chelsea's vanity ridden self conscious wonderful sexy awful fun fun fun years.

RIP Food Bar. And can I have a burrito bowl with double chicken and no chips or bread (see. a little chelsea lingers. Lives in the DNA)