Читать книгу Blackouts and Breakdowns - Mark Brennan Rosenberg - Страница 7

When you’re single and living in the big city, there is nothing better than long nights out with your friends, searching for your next lover. We have found, as a culture, that drinking and socializing at bars has been a foolproof way of getting someone into the sack. There is something about alcohol that lowers inhibitions and makes people more willing to do things or sleep with people that they normally wouldn’t. For me, going out and drinking let me create a world in which, only I exist. I am not above creating fake professions, wild nonsensical back-stories, or faux celebrity relatives to get someone to notice me. I completely lose my bullshit filter and it’s anyone’s guess what ridiculous nonsense would come flying out of my mouth. The following are a few situations that I have gotten myself into that have proved disastrous in finding that new lover.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

After moving to New York, my friend Valerie gave me her friend Ashley’s brother’s fake ID. Tired of missing out on the fun of going out with everyone else, I accepted it, but there were some clear discrepancies between the ID and me. For one, it said my name was Brennan Kasperzack. My name is Mark Rosenberg, however my middle name happens to be Brennan, so it seemed meant to be. Secondly, it said I was six feet, two inches tall. I stand at a mighty five feet, eight inches tall. Brennan has dark brown hair and I have blonde hair. Brennan has brown eyes and mine are blue. There were so many clear differences between my ID and I that I never thought in a million years it would work, but time and time again, it never failed to get me where I needed to be.

After about a year of using it, I got pretty cocky. It didn’t seem to matter that I was not who I claimed to be so I continued the charade. One night, when a group of friends and I were out at our favorite bar, Posh, the bouncer came over to me.

“Hey,” he said. You have to appreciate the rituals of the gay male mating call.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“Nothing much, just thought I would come over and say ‘hi’. I have seen you in here a lot lately.”

“Yea, my friends and I love this place. The drinks are strong and the dancing is always so much fun.”

“You’re name is Brennan, right?” he asked.

“What?” I said with confusion.

“Brennan. You’re name is Brennan, right? I remember it from your ID.”

“Ummm…yes, of course it is. My name is Brennan. Brennan Kasperzack.”

“What are your plans for the evening?”

“Not much. Just hanging out here.”

We were at a loss for conversation. After about ten drinks, the only conversation I am usually up for is one that revolves around ABC soaps or a dance off. Sensing he wasn’t a fan of One Life to Live, I dragged him onto the dance floor and we began dancing.

“You’re from Ohio, right?” he yelled over the music as we were dancing.

“What?” I yelled back.

“You’re from Ohio, right?” I had forgotten that my alter ego Brennan Kasperzack was from Columbus, Ohio.

“Yea.” I yelled back.

“Me too,” he said. Fuck. I had never been to Ohio and was too drunk to lie about anything so I just continued dancing. “Columbus, right?”

“Uh, yes,” I said. “Brennan Kasperzack from Columbus, Ohio.”

“I am from Columbus,” he said.

Great. I tried to pull away from him on the dance floor. There was simply no way I could continue to have a conversation about a place I had never been to, let alone lived in.

He followed me as I sat down on a barstool.

“I think you are really cute,” he said. “I thought you were really cute the first time I saw you come in here.”

“Thanks,” I said. “You’re really hot.” All tact had seemed to fly out the door.

“Where in Columbus did you grow up?” he asked.

Were we really still talking about Ohio? Surely there must have been something more interesting we could have spoken about. Having remembered my fake address, I replied:

“15409 Cherry Vale Road,” I replied.

“Oh my God, I lived down the street on Rolling Bluff Road.”

Seriously? How the hell was it possible that this guy lived down the street from the real Brennan Kasperzack?

“What a coincidence.”

“What high school did you go to?” he asked.

“Private school,” I replied. I figured that was a good way to get out of making something even more ridiculous up.

“Holy Child?” he asked.

“Sure,” I replied.

“Oh my God, I went there too!” he said. “What year did you graduate?”

“2000,” I said, hoping he wasn’t going to catch me in a lie.

“No wonder you look familiar. I graduated in 1998. We must have crossed paths at some point in high school,” he said as he was patting my back.

“Wow, what a small world,” I said as I signaled the bartender over to refill my drink.

“Want to come back to my place for a nightcap?” he asked.

I did, but I certainly could not continue talking about the goings on in Columbus, Ohio.

“Sure,” I responded, “Let’s not talk about Ohio anymore. I have really bad memories about that place. My father used to beat me. The first chance that I got I left and I will never go back to Ohio. Columbus, Ohio, where I am from. I really don’t even like talking about my past.”

“That’s horrible,” as he said this Valerie and the rest of my party were approaching. I gave her a leave-me-alone look, but she came up anyway.

“Mark, where the hell have you been?” she asked in my direction. I pretended to ignore her. I was Brennan Kasperzack now and Brennan Kasperzack was going to hook up with the hot bouncer. “Mark!” Valerie yelled in my ear, “we are leaving, now. Let’s go.”

“Who’s Mark?” the bouncer asked.

“I have no idea who this girl is,” I said referring to my good friend Valerie.

“Mark, let’s go,” Valerie said once more.

“Who is Mark?” the bouncer asked.

“Mark,” Valerie said as she gestured toward me. “Mark Rosenberg.”

“You? You’re Jewish?” he said as he looked me deep in the eyes.

“I have no idea who this girl is,” I continued, “my name is Brennan Kasperzack from Columbus, Ohio. Are you lost little girl?”

“Fuck you,” Valerie said, “Let’s go.”

“I am sorry miss, but I think you have the wrong person. His name isn’t Mark, it’s Brennan.” It was as if Valerie had completely blacked out and forgotten it was she who had given me the fake ID in the first place.

“His name is Mark,” she replied, “I’ve known this homo for seven years. We grew up together in D.C.”

“I thought you said you were from Columbus,” the bouncer said.

I didn’t know what to do. If the bouncer found out that I was lying, I would not only not get laid, but never be allowed into Posh again. I had to think quickly. I looked at Valerie, looked at the bouncer and turned away. I then ran out the door, never to return to Posh again until after my 21st birthday.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

The evening before I was supposed to go home for Christmas break, sophomore year of college, my friend Jason and I decided to celebrate the fact that we had made it out of another semester of college alive. We decided to head down to The Park, which was a really trendy bar at the time in the west twenties that hosted an all-gay event every Sunday evening. Jason and I agreed, on the way down, to a three-martini limit because we both had to catch an 8:30 train the next morning. One thing led to another, as it usually does, and before we knew it, it was two in the morning and both Jason and I were severely trashed. It had been a really difficult semester and I felt a long girls’ night out was long overdue and well deserved. As Jason and I continued drinking, I spotted a really hot model-type standing at the opposite end of the bar. I gave him a drunk half wink and walked over. Before, walking over, Jason grabbed me.

“Oh my God, Mark,” Jason yelled into my ear, “it’s Boy George!” Across the room stood Boy George, and his entourage of British teenaged hangers on. Jason had had a man crush on Boy George since he had been able to apply his own lip-liner, so this was quite the sighting for him.

“Go talk to him,” I said. I was trying to get Jason out of my way so I could talk to the hot model at the end of the bar. Jason was notorious for accidental drunken cock blocks, so I needed to get him out of my way in order to make my move. Jason walked over to Boy George and I approached my model.

“Hi,” I said to the Adonis that stood before me.

“What’s up?” he said.

“Nothing,” I said as I put my hand out to shake his, “my name is Mark.”

“Jared,” he replied.

We made the usual small talk, but I could tell he was not interested. I had to think of something quick to draw his attention back to me.

“So what do you do for a living?” I asked.

“I’m a model, but I am trying to get into acting.” Of course he was.

“That’s amazing. I was a teen model for Dockers in the JC Penny catalogue.” There goes my drunken word vomit. When I drink, it’s like I get full of Tourettes and shit just comes flying out of my mouth.

“Cool,” he replied, “what do you do for a living now?”

I had to think quickly. Being a student and waiting tables is not nearly as glamorous as something I could lie about. Besides, he would never find out if I made something up. “I’m a casting director for All My Children,” I said.

“Really?” he asked.

“Yes,” I had my awkward half smile on, as if I had just had a stroke. I always get a half-lazy face when I am drunk and lying.

“I have an audition for All My Children right after New Year’s.” Of course he did. Now being borderline obsessed with Susan Lucci does not a casting director make. I had absolutely no idea how to follow that remark so I just replied:

“Oh, let me give you my card so you can call me before the audition,” I said. Apparently, I had fake cards to go along with my fake job. “We can go over lines together. I am just warning you now, that you will most likely have to take your shirt off.” I searched my pockets for my “card” and told him that I must have left them in my other pants. I gave him my number and told him to call me.

All and all it was a great night out. A hot model had gotten my number and a D-list celebrity from the 80’s had manhandled Jason. I passed out that night and woke up the next day at four in the afternoon having missed my train home for the holidays.

I had completely forgotten that I even met anyone that night until a few weeks later when I got a message from Jared: “Hey Mark, it’s Jared from The Park. Just wondering if I could come over to your place and run over lines with you. My audition is in a few days and I would love some pointers. Give me a call.”

My fake profession had caught up with me. Previously when I had told people that I was Angelina Jolie’s stunt double or Ray Charles’s Seeing Eye dog, people knew I was lying immediately and didn’t bother. This guy was totally buying it. Models are usually not the brightest crayons in the box, but I figured if he came over to my college dorm room to run lines, he would have had enough sense to know I was lying. I had to think quickly. I picked up the phone and called him back, but it went straight to voicemail. I left a message:

“Hey Jared, it’s Mark. Sorry I missed you, but it’s been chaos on the set. We just found out that the girl who plays Maggie is pregnant so we are either going to need to recast or rework a whole six months worth of storyline. I have a feeling that she may just get raped and become pregnant with her rapist’s baby and be torn about what to do, but you never know with these things. Anyway, good luck with the audition and give me a call if you need anything.”

How layered and elaborate. There was no way he would ever find out that I was completely bullshitting him.

I never ended up hearing from Jared again. Probably because once he got there, he realized that I had absolutely nothing to do with All My Children and that the girl who played Maggie was totally not preggers. Next time I create a faux profession for myself, I am going to have to do a little more research beforehand.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

I had met a few friends out at Therapy one night for a few psychotic episodes. Therapy is a bar in Hell’s Kitchen that serves the most delicious drinks in New York called psychotic episodes. For a while, they were my favorite drink. It’s basically just a bunch of liquor dumped into a glass but it tastes like fruit punch. I had tried to master the recipe at home, but never could so I began to frequent Therapy so I could get my lips around the delicious cocktail. The thing about psychotic episodes is that they go down really easily and before you know it, you are drunk off your ass. I had about six of them on the night in question and went outside to get some air and smoke a few cigarettes. When I got outside, there was a handsome man smoking, so I struck up a conversation.

“I’m Mark,” I said.

“Eric,” he replied as we shook hands. He was hot and he smoked so things were looking good already.

“Are you here by yourself?” I asked.

“My friends just left. I am procrastinating going home. I have to move in the morning.”

“That sucks. I hate moving.” Having done it about seven times in three years, it was not something I ever wanted to do again.

“Yea, me too,” he replied. “I am so not ready. I’m packed, but I have no idea how I am going to move. I have not hired movers yet.”

“I’ll help you.” There goes my drunken Tourettes again. Not only did I hate moving myself, I hated helping other people move even more. I guess it must have been the six cocktails talking but at the time, it sounded like a really great idea.

“Really?” his eyes lit up.

Fuck. Did this guy think I was serious? I was really just trying to get laid. I would be in no condition to move my neck in the morning, let alone his bookshelf.

“Sure, why not?” I replied.

I ditched my friends and got into a cab with Eric. We chatted on the ride up but I don’t really remember what we were talking about. The drinks were strong and sweet and I was beginning to feel them. Once we got back to Eric’s apartment, I noticed there were boxes packed and a few things scattered about. We sat down on his couch and began making out. A few moments later, Eric pulled out a bottle of scotch and poured two glasses. I had sworn off brown liquor years before after a mishap involving a bottle of Jim Beam and a few lesbians, which I care never to discuss again, but I was just drunk enough to accept a drink. We drank and continued making out. The room began to spin so I excused myself to the bathroom. I had way too much to drink and now I was beginning to feel sick.

The next thing I knew, I was sleeping on the bathroom floor under a bathmat, which I had been using as a blanket. The sun was coming in from the bathroom window and hitting my forehead. I got myself up and splashed some water on my face. I guess I drank more than I thought, as my head was ringing. I got myself together and opened the bathroom door. When I peered out of the door, everything in the apartment was missing. The boxes, the television, the couch I had been making out on hours earlier, were all gone. Eric had moved out while I was passed out on the bathroom floor. I looked at the clock on my phone and noticed it was three o’clock in the afternoon. What a gentleman not to wake me up from my twelve-hour slumber on the bathroom floor. Or, had I fallen into a small coma and he tried to wake me, but couldn’t? At least I got out of helping a stranger move. I walked out of the vacant apartment and went home. That was the final time I ever offered to help anyone move, drunk or sober.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

A few months later, Jason and I went down to D.C. for Thanksgiving. I decided to join Jason and his parents for dinner one night that weekend. We went to a bistro that was right next door to a gay club. Jason’s dad is nearly deaf and you literally have to scream for him to hear anything.

“Colonoscopy, Dad!” Jason yelled at the dinner table after his father asked how my father was doing, “Mark’s dad just had a colonoscopy!!!

“Oh,” Jason’s dad replied.

Of course, this is inappropriate dinnertime conversation, but with Jason’s family, this is the norm and it is also typical for everyone around you to hear what is going on. It makes for quite an embarrassing evening, so Jason and I decided we would dance it out at the club down the street. On our way over, Jason pulled me aside:

“My mother told me in the bathroom that my Dad is not only going deaf, but blind as well.”

“You and your mother go to the bathroom together?” I asked.

“Shut up. On our way to the bathroom….” Jason continued, “whatever, anyway, I don’t think she is really happy about the fact that she is going to be living with Helen Keller.”

“Yikes,” I replied.

“I know,” Jason said, “and he is still driving, it’s such a mess.”

“Well, let’s forget about all that and have fun,” I said as we entered the club. I always have such pearls of wisdom after a few cocktails.

Jason and I entered the club and tried to have fun. Coming from New York back to D.C. you realize how superior everything in New York is. However, Jason and I manage to have fun wherever we go, with a little help from our friends, Jack, Jim, Jose and Johnny. We drank a ton and as we were dancing, I spotted a group of really cute guys in the corner, talking and moving their hands about. I assumed that they were just really passionate about what they were saying, but Jason informed me that they were deaf.

“That’s sign language, you moron!” Jason yelled. Having learned sign language to accommodate his father’s dwindling hearing, Jason walked over and began signing something to the boys and they laughed. There he goes again cock blocking me. I walked over to join them and introduced myself, and noticed one of the deaf boys was very attractive.

“Jason, that one is really cute,” I said about the boy I was eying.

“Ok, Mark,” Jason said. “How on earth are you going to have a conversation with him?”

“Oh, Jason how little you know. In middle school chorus, I had to sign “The Star Spangled Banner” and “I Swear” by All-4-One when we performed at a nursing home. I can wing it.” Although, at that point in the evening, the only sign language I remembered was “stars”, “moon” and “sky”. I could totally make a conversation out of that. Perhaps he was into astrology.

“How do sign ‘thank you’?”

I looked at Jason, gave him the finger and walked away. After a few drinks my English usually isn’t that great anyway so what difference did it make if he could hear me or not?

I walked over to the cute deaf kid and waved ‘hi’. He waved back. I could do this after all. He began signing something and I pretended to understand what he was signing. He signed something else and I decided that having a conversation was not necessary and I dragged him onto the dance floor and tried making out with him. We began dancing and he continued to sign something.

“I DON’T REALLY KNOW SIGN LANGUAGE THAT GREAT!” I yelled into his ear. After remembering he was deaf, I gave him a I don’t know look and we continued dancing, but I could tell that the deaf kid was drifting away. He kept signing something, but I didn’t know what it was so I just kept grabbing him and dancing. I saw Jason yelling something from the other side of the room, but I just ignored him. He was always trying to ruin my fun, but I was not going to let him do it this time. The deaf guy kept on signing and I had no idea what was going on. Finally, Jason intervened.

“Mark, what the hell are you doing?” he asked as he pulled the deaf kid away from me.

“Dancing,” I replied. I turned around and the deaf kid disappeared. “Damn it Jason! Thanks for ruining everything!”

“I think you are completely retarded,” Jason said. “So much for you ‘winging it’, you moron.”

“What do you mean?”

“The whole time you were dancing with him, he was telling you that he had a boyfriend. The guy he was sitting next to when you walked over to him was his boyfriend.”

“Damn All-4-One and their pointless lyrics! It’s no wonder their careers were short-lived.”

As Jason and I continued talking, a six-foot tall black guy, who was built like a brick shit-house walked over to us. It was the deaf kid’s boyfriend.

“Which one of you were trying to steal my man?” the huge man asked two scrawny gay boys. Jason and I looked at each other and ran out the door. Once outside, Jason smacked me upside the head and called me an asshole.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

A few years later, Jason and I moved into together. We found an apartment on the Upper Upper East Side. Actually, it was more like Spanish Harlem. We decided to coin the name “SpaHa” to make it seem as it we were living somewhere cool.

“Wow Jason, we live on the 6, just like J. Lo.! Isn’t this exciting?” I said. It was very exciting for both of us to be living in our own apartment after having lived in student housing for two years. It was cheap and just what we needed. Although it was right next door to a slaughterhouse where they killed chickens and the sound of chickens meeting their maker was rather unappetizing so we opted to eat out every night. Jason and I moved into the new apartment and the shenanigans immediately began. We would host after hours parties just about every weekend and have about seven to ten of our new best friends that we had just met that night over for drinks. One night, our straight new best friend Bill got sick in our toilet and ended up clogging it up. The next day, Jason and I did not know what to do. We had a clogged toilet and about $17 between the two of us. That $17 was most definitely going to have to be spent on drinks that night, so we decided to leave the toilet as is and figure something out at a later date. That’s what you get for having straight people over to your apartment. Over the next few weeks, Jason and I managed to make do without having a toilet. We befriended the Chinese lady who owned the restaurant downstairs and she let us use her bathroom whenever we needed it. If it was an emergency, Jason and I both knew what drastic measures to take. That’s where the big plastic bags from Key Food came in handy. In actuality, we were the exact opposite of J. Lo.

Jason and I loved living together. Every weekend was a new journey into the unknown. If there was a new gay bar or club, Jason and I would hit it up and we were having the time of our lives. Only one thing lingered, our toilet. I am not exactly sure why it took us so long to have it fixed, but we were young and on the go, and it just didn’t seem like a necessity. Booze on the other hand, was totally necessary and consumed in great amounts during the year Jason and I lived together. One night, Jason and I got really hammered at a piano bar that we frequented in the West Village. I had just the right amount of vodka in my system to approach a really hot guy that was eye fucking me from across the room. I stumbled over:

“Hey, Mark,” I said. “I mean…wait…my name is Mark.”

He laughed: “I’m Michael.”

“What’s going on?” I asked.

We chatted for a few minutes and it was clear to Michael and I that we would be hooking up that night. Jason saw what was going on from across the room, and in his usual fashion, came over to interrupt.

“Hey guys,” Jason said.

“Jason, this is Michael,” I said as I introduced him to my latest trick.

Jason and Michael exchanged pleasantries then Jason pulled me aside and whispered in my ear:

“Mark, you can’t bring that guy home. Our toilet is broken. If he spends the night, he is going to have to go to the bathroom at some point and he most definitely cannot use our toilet.”

“Damn it!” I replied, “maybe I can go to his.” Jason walked away and I gave him a thanks-for-the-reminder smack on the ass as he walked away. I refocused my attention on Michael.

“So, do you want to get out of here?” I casually asked Michael.

“Yes!” he replied.

“Should we head out to yours?” I asked.

“No, we can’t, I live in a studio with another guy and we agreed not to bring people back to our place.”

“Oh.”

“Why can’t we just go back to your place?”

“Well…” I said. I couldn’t tell him that our toilet had been clogged for the past two months and that he would have to pee out of the window if he needed to go to the bathroom.

“Is that Jason kid your boyfriend?”

I laughed until I almost chocked and replied: “Of course not. Jason is my best friend. We are just having some problems at our apartment.”

“I really want to hook up with you,” Michael said. Damn it. Why hadn’t we fixed the toilet weeks ago? Why did we suck at life so much that now I was missing a night in bed with a total hottie? I tried to think of an elaborate lie to tell him, but I was too drunk to lie, something that never happened.

“Well, you can come over if you want,” I said as Michael’s eyes lit up. “But, if you have to go the bathroom you’ll have to pee out of the window; and if you need to take a shit, I am afraid that you will have to go in a plastic bag or run down to the Chinese restaurant downstairs. Just tell Ming, that you are with Jason and I, she knows us.”

His face went from a smile to a face of utter disgust.

“Are you serious?” he said.

“Yes,” I replied. “Our toilet is broken.”

“That is the most disgusting request anyone has ever asked of me. You people should be ashamed of the way you live,” he said as he grabbed his coat and walked out the door.

The one time I don’t lie about my life I don’t get laid. Typical.