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(Continued)
“What the hell?” I
couldn’t help saying to myself. I almost made the turn around
the cul de sac and kept going, but I was too interested. I walked
to his door carefully. When I rang the doorbell Ty answered, to my
delight, very clothed.
“Hey, Mac,” Ty said to
me.
“Hello, Ty,” I replied.
“Whatcha been up to?”
“Oh, nothing. Just doing
some cleaning.”
Nude cleaning? I thought to
myself. I didn’t say anything as Ty lead me into his bedroom,
which, for a twenty-three year old man, was one of the funniest
things I had ever seen.
He had rather infantile
wallpaper with little bumblebees and frogs and Formula 1 racecars
on it. It was downright adorable. The cutest one was the big pair
of lips that said, “Kiss me.” The whole background of the
wallpaper was denim. I could not imagine anyone having this
wallpaper. As I might have guessed, Ty also had some pictures of
pro wrestlers on his wall. I felt like I was in the bedroom on a
twelve year old. Below the wrestling pictures sat a pair of bunk
beds.
“Bunk beds?” I said. “What
are you, pretending you’re in prison?”
“My dad’s gonna take the
top one out,” Ty said. “My brother’s in college.”
“Where will he sleep when
he comes home?”
“I don’t know. With your
mother?”
It was comments like this
that made me see why Ty doesn’t say too much at work. I laughed
it off and turned around to see all the pictures on his bedroom
door. It was a collage, a shrine even, of Calista Flockhart. There
were no candles or anything, just pictures. Ty seemed to be into
muscular men and super-skinny women.
I was so glad I came. I
wanted to go back to work the next day and tell everyone about it.
I’d never seen a nude man from the street before. I had never
seen such silly wallpaper in anyone’s room over ten years old.
Nor had I ever seen a grown man with bunk beds or an actual
shrine. I was content with my discovery.
“Oh,” I said, “You
know what, Ty? I actually have to go.”
“You do?”
“Yeah, my roommate wanted
me to pick up some... pornography.”
“I have plenty if you want
to borrow some. What do you want? All girl? Fat chicks? Amputees?”
“That’s okay, dude. I’m
good.”
Ty lead me out the door. We
said our goodbyes, I started another temp job two weeks later, and
I didn’t hear from him again for nine years.
***
2006
I got a permanent job at another healthcare company. In seven
years there nothing much had happened for me. I spent a lot of
time surfing the Internet, and eventually started spending a lot
of time on a site called MySpace, the community/friend sites
normally for teens and college students. I got so bored at work I
created a fictional female named Ruth, gave her a profile with a
phony photo, and waited for the men to contact her. I can’t
explain why I did this. It was just fun.
The first guy to contact
Ruth was Charlie, a geeky-looking guy who wrote a sweet little
hello:
Hey whats up. I’m 29
just moved to Boston from NY, transferred by my job. I really
don’t know anyone here so I’m looking to make some new
friends to show me around etc. If you would like you can Im
me...
He proceeded to provide me
with endless IMs, email addresses, and his cell phone number. He
was a Yankee fan. I also noticed from his profile that he used “LOL”
a lot. So I wrote back:
Okay, for starters, I
don't like LOL. Get rid of it. Second, you might want to ease up on the
gung-ho Yankee fan thing. These people are retarded; they'll bash a Sam Adams
over your head as easy as giving a high-five.
P.S. Why not just
give me directions to your house?
I don’t think he liked
this because the rest of our exchanges didn’t go too well:
Charlie: well thanks for
being completely bitchy to me, but hey I'm getting that most people
in Boston are... LOL
Ruth: Ah, cheer up,
buckaroo. I may not even be a woman.
Charlie: well thanks for
that nugget of info on the back end
That was the last I heard
from Charlie. There were a few others, but nothing prepared me for
getting a message and friend request from Ty. It was simple and
very Ty-like:
Hey, whatcha up to?
Ty
(Turn
the page)
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