It turns out, Chris and I aren’t going to be friends after all. He turned out to be more crazy than not, and more trouble than he was worth, but to his credit, at least he added one more great New York moment to my list.
Saturday we got together on the steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He said he wanted to get a drink first, and we went to a bar where he proceeded to have two Bloody Marys…at four in the afternoon. I didn’t think that was a good sign, but I thought I’d give him the benefit of the doubt. At the bar, Chris got a call from his sister, Lindsey, saying she needed to meet us to get her keys from him. They thought it might take 40 minutes, and we decided to wait in front of the Met.
Chris and I sat on the thick stone ledge of the fountain, which was inexplicably empty of water. The stone was warm, and when I had to make some phone calls, he stretched out. He said it felt great, so when I finished my calls, I stretched out, too. Head-to-head, his legs going one way, mine the other, we lay there in the sun with cars zooming by in the street and tourists ambling by on the sidewalk. We even dozed a bit, with the wind mixing my hair with his. It was a great moment, so peaceful and still, and I’m rarely peaceful and still.
After an hour Lindsey, his mom and his mom’s boyfriend showed up for the keys. We handed them off, then went in the museum and looked at paintings. He likes Kara Walker, Degas’ ballerinas and gloomy paintings in a certain shade of blue. I like luminous women against richly- colored backgrounds.
We left the museum and went for hot dogs at Papaya King. He was amazed I’d eat one because, apparently, all the women in his life fit somewhere in a continuum between vegetarianism and anorexia. “Yeah, women who eat,” I said, facetiously, “It’s the hot new thing. It’s sweeping the nation!”
Then he went to put a down payment on his new apartment and I went home. He said he might call me later, and he did. I met up with him and his friend Royal, and we talked and laughed for hours. Then Royal went home, and Chris decided we should go play pool. I warned him that I didn’t know a thing about it, but he didn’t care. We won game after game, but lost the last one due to spectacular incompetence on my part. He had the nerve to get crabby about it. “I’m sorry,” I replied, “I deceived you when I said I was a world-class pool player. Oh, wait, no, I think my exact words were, ‘I could only beat someone at pool if my bad playing made them laugh so hard they dropped their cue!’” He laughed and cheered up, then walked me to the subway where he shook my hand and told me to call him.
Yesterday I called Chris. He informed me that the love of his life, the semi-suicidal and violent Carrie who dumped him while in anorexia rehab, e-mailed him to say she loved him and missed him. He said getting the e-mail made him want to throw up, and he was still shaking. Hmm.
That night, I met up with Chris, Lindsey and Lindsey’s roommate, Victoria. We all had a lot of fun talking. Then they went home, and Crazy Chris appeared. Well, not at first. At first he was playing pool, and activity which (he had told me before) let him forget Carrie for stretches of time. But then it was someone else’s turn at the table. He started saying really rude things to me.
He went on to tell me that he still loved Carrie, and that he would die for her in the end, not tonight, but someday. I tried to talk to him about options for getting help. He said if his sister couldn’t help him, I sure as [word deleted--Sorry kids. I should have noticed that bad word before I posted] couldn’t, and what was I going to do, call the cops? He said I should leave him there, and I did. I felt a little worried about it, but I offered him help and he refused.
Goodbye, Chris, and good luck. I hope you get the help you need.
