Today I met up with an old acquaintance that I went to high school as me. Somehow the conversation turned to adventures that took place in the town where I went to college. I remembered a crazy night that I just want to write down while it is fresh in my mind. . .
At the time I was working for a Thai restaurant while finishing up my degree. The spring was coming to a close and the whole town was on edge in anticipation of graduation and the start of summer. After finishing up my shift at the restaurant, I arranged to meet up with a couple of odd characters that had somehow worked their way into my life. On my way to meet them, I got a phone call.
The call was from a friend. I'd gotten to know him during my many debauch adventures during my early twenties. He was, at the time, in a poly amorous relationship with a woman who worked at the local sex shop. I was excited see his name show up as an incoming call and assumed it was the sign of an exciting night. I had no idea just how interesting it would play out to be.
When I answered the phone, the voice on the other end was not the normal, slightly stoned P* -like the starfish from Spongebob- I was expecting to hear. No, the voice on the other end was full of phlegm, tears and desperation. I had never known P* to be dramatic or overly affected by anything so, I knew something was terribly wrong.
I let my comrades, who were waiting to meet me at the bar, know that I'd be making a pit stop before I met up with them and I headed directly over to P*'s apartment.
When I got there, the door was unlocked and slightly ajar. I walked down the hall and I entered the room where Ween’s Gabrielle was screaming from the speakers. P* was on the floor, lying broken: a marionette with his stings cut unceremoniously.
I dropped my bag and crawled over to him. I snaked my arms around him and rested my head on his back. I waited for his sobs to dull and his breathing to resolve enough for him to form an intelligible sentence.
He told me he had found out through reputable sources that the love of his life, Danny, had committed the worst of betrayals. He had discovered through firsthand account that she had had unprotected sex with an ex of hers who had just gotten out of jail on heroin charges. The album playing on his vinyl record player was one of his favorites and he had already downed a significant portion of a bottle of gin he'd been saving for Danny's graduation party.
"I can't believe she'd do this!" He told me; "I'd do ANYTHING for her!" his voice was small and full of air, like the last hiss from a deflating balloon.
"I know it hurts. There's nothing you can do about it right now. Come out with me and we'll get your mind off of it." I was trying to insert calm and logical thinking where there was none.
Completely ignoring what I'd just said, P* reached in his pocket and flipped open his phone. He pressed a button to re-dial Danny's number. He had the phone on speaker, undoubtedly to compensate for the music, and the call went straight to voice-mail.
While the recorded message played he looked at me, eyes swollen, red and vacant.
"She stopped answering an hour ago and it's been off for about twenty minutes," He told me.
After the beep sounded he screamed into the phone with all the rage that was boiling inside him.
"How could you?!"
In an intense blur of expletives poured from his mouth. He listed off all of the reasons he felt hurt and betrayed and transitioned to begging: for her to answer her phone, for her to come back home and for her do something so they can work it out.
I waited for him to run out of breath and, before he had finished his rant, I closed the phone in his hand and stood to hoist him to his feet.
"C'mon, we're getting you out of here. You need a break. We're gonna go meet up with Gary and Gavie at the bar and you're gonna stop thinking about this for a while."
He didn't seem to have the energy to protest so; he stood and gathered his things to leave. Once we got to the bar and met up with Gary and Gavie, P* seemed to be in better spirits. We chatted as a small group for a bit, talking about our various possible nighttime conquests and I stepped away to buy a drink for P* and myself. I left P* in the hands of my slightly-less-than-reliable friends and walked over to the bar.
Not two minutes after I got the attention of the bartender to place an order, I heard a commotion in the area of our table. I turned heel to see what the issue was. There at our table, was a bouncer confronting P* and motioning for him to leave.
By the time I got back to my friends, P* had been escorted out of the bar. I was informed that P* had been removed because he was seen drinking from a flask openly and that he was exceptionally rude to the bouncer who asked him to put it away or leave.
I told my friends that I wanted to make sure that P* was OK and left the bar to meet him in the parking lot. After a short rant about the markup of liquor at that particular establishment, P* told me that he would be going home to sleep and that he was going to be fine.
My night continued without P* and I didn't think much of the whole strange and upsetting encounter until a couple of days later when I learned the events that transpired after our parting.
Apparently, P* did not go to bed upon returning to his apartment. No, once alone again surrounded by the trappings of a five year relationship, he reverted to the form of a spoiled child throwing a tantrum in a supermarket.
He began by knocking over the shelves that held her pagan crystals and runes, and the destruction rampage escalated exponentially from there. Not only did he act out his indignation on every item in the apartment -which happened to include an ox spine- he punched and kicked the wall separating their living room and bathroom to oblivion.
In the process of destroying the wall, he ended up breaking a couple bones in his hand and splitting it open thereby spreading his blood throughout the apartment for the remainder of his rampage. The whirlwind of obliteration came to a halt when a mutual friend invited him to a bar-crawl after-party across the street from his apartment via text.
P* stumbled over to their place and once Coco and Jay saw him in that state, covered in blood and drenched in liquor, they called an ambulance for immediate attention.
While P* was in the emergency room receiving IV fluids and getting his broken hand stitched and set, the local police responded to a wellness check/noise complaint at P*'s apartment. When they got there, the record P* had been playing earlier that evening was still on at full blast and audible two doors down from the entrance.
When they were met with no response at the door, the police contacted the landlord for keys and were permitted entrance by the front desk. What they walked in to, I can only imagine.
They saw strange artifacts of Danny's pagan religious rituals strewn about the floors. There were odd spinal bones, too large to be human, dispersed throughout the apartment. A wall had been destroyed and there was blood everywhere. On the walls, on the carpet, in the kitchen, in the bedroom. Everywhere.
Before I continue, I feel the need to explain that Danny and P* were the happy owners of five cats during most of the time that I had known them. One of their cats had recently been diagnosed with an advanced cancer and they had agreed that it would be best to have him put down. Because they both loved the cat, they had decided to put him to rest in their home town after Danny's graduation. They chose a place they both found significant and were keeping his body in the freezer until they were able to bury his remains.
This point is important because, upon assessing the state of the apartment, the police were confronted with a puzzling scene. Several extremely distressed felines were roaming the apartment, whining loudly. Additionally, after one of the officers opened the freezer, he found a dead cat, frozen, and encased in several plastic grocery bags.
I can't even venture to guess what was going through those two officers' minds after entering that apartment. I imagine the call to dispatch going something like this:
"Uh. . . we've got what looks to be some sort of cult ritual gone wrong over here. Please advise. I'm not sure if I should call a forensic team or an exorcist"
P* was blissfully ignorant to the intrusion on his apartment until two officers entered his hospital room about an hour later. They told him that they had received a call and that a woman (I’m guessing me) was seen entering his apartment earlier that evening. They were told that someone heard screams, violent banging and objects being thrown. The officers explained to him that because his name was on the lease along with Danny's that they would have to keep him under surveillance and/or in their custody until they could determine her whereabouts.
It ended up taking about six hours for the police to locate Danny and determine that she was alive and well. I received a rather confusing phone call at 4 a.m. that I answered rather drunkenly whilst in the midst of entertaining an adorable girl named Amber I met at the bar that night. P* was shaken slightly but ended up sleeping on my couch for a couple weeks while he finished up his business in town and moved back in with his dad.
All said, the important lesson I learned from the experience is: when a significant other leaves town to visit non-family, make sure to get two contact numbers to reach them in case you are questioned in connection to their possible homicide.
Much love and thanks for reading.