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The Wood Chip Pile - Part II - September 28, 2006

"Yo Malcolm, you dropped your thing there" I said to the wild eyed crack addict whose homemade eye gouging coat hanger weapon had fallen from it's hiding place, his ass, during our strip search. Somehow, guided by the same instinct that the infant sea turtles use to sojourn their treacherous forty year, ten thousand mile odyssey from their birth place on the Western coast of the Yucatan peninsula to the Eastern shore of Australia and back again to lay their offspring on the very strip of sand they left nearly half a century before, Malcolm had a lucid enough moment to grasp that what I was telling him might to be the single most important thing he ever heard in his life. "Oh thanks." And without the "bulls" seeing, he picked the weapon up off the floor and tucked it back in it's sheath; the non existent flesh that would exist as an ass on anyone other than a boney, no assed crack head. He winked at me. I had a friend.

It had been ten hours now and I was no longer scared I would be killed and raped since beside Malcolm, who now just bounced and hummed loudly in the corner of the 15 by 15 holding cell that was home to ten of us, I had two other protectors; These huge, angry, incestuous, body building, steroidal gay brother guys with blood on their shirts. I had befriended them by giving them my quarter daily Spam, Velveeta, mustard and sugar packet sandwiches. The fear gave way to boredom. Waiting and more waiting. Slowly all of my peeps were being "processed" and leaving our dank tuberculosis den for the warm environs of the courtroom upstairs. I started to get a little concerned when even new criminals who were brought in to replace those who left were leaving and being processed before me. It had been 20 hours. The gay brothers and even Malcolm had gone. Oh but wait, Mustafa, the guard I had fallen in Patty Hearst captor love with was coming. He would take me up to the court room with him, I just knew he would.

"Mustafa, is my case now?"

"No. And if it's not called in the next round, you're going to Rikers for the weekend." There are truly no words to describe what "You're going to Rikers for the weekend" means to a nice, white, middle class honorary goy Jew from the Upper West Side.

It's the place where you will be skinned alive and your insides will be eaten while you watch until your last breath is stopped by your head being severed with a jagged chunk of glass, and then, while still just barely conscious, six giant dicks will fuck the eyes out of your free floating skull and mash your brain out your ears. On your best day. And I was headed there in an hour if I wasn't called. I was taught in my various addiction recovery groups and by my various spiritual teachers never to pray specifically for things for ourselves. I hadn't ever before. This time I did.

"Dear God. Get me the fuck out of here and I SWEAR I will NEVER EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEVER do anything bad again." I fell asleep. I was awakened by Mustafa.

"Howard, Sanchez, Borden and Schaeffer?"

"Schaeffer?!" I screamed.

"Yeah," Mustafa confirmed. Going from the holding cell to the courtroom was like being dried off by your mom after your bath and put into your flannel footies. It was the best feeling of my life. She and Patty were there. I started crying. I wasn't going to Rikers. I heard the judge say something about if I never wanted to come here again they would reduce the charges to a misdemeanor of obstructing justice and I would get off with a two hundred dollar fine and 20 hours of community service but I could never run for public office. Either that or I could go to trial and take my chances.

As much as it pained me not to follow in Alec Baldwin's footsteps and give up my amazing upcoming political rise to power, I took the deal and left in the arms of my friends and family. Let me tell you my non white-trash white, and middle and upper class black friends, there is nothing like 20 hours in jail at 29 years old and 8 years sober to make you appreciate your life and what plain old ordinary constitutional freedom means in a whoooooole new light.

The next day, I and the rest of the chain gang showed up for our community service, helping the parks department. Amazingly, it was in my beloved Riverside Park. I went up to the boss and asked what he wanted me to do. He gave me a wheelbarrow and a pitch fork and said, "You see that big wood chip pile over there on that running path? Spread it out." No lie.

I got the chills as I always do when God graces me with the antidote to my doubt. His radical and clear visit. I guess the motto of this story for me was, "if you want something done, stop crying about it and do it yourself."

***

That was my worst brush with the law. The only other one of any significance happened when I was taken in for writing graffiti which caped off the worst summer of my life. We all wrote graffiti on the subway trains when we were thirteen. I was "Devil 1." My best friend Robby was "Joker110" We would steal markers from Golden's art supply store and spray paint from the hardware store and make "pieces" with our names on the big wall in Riverside Park. It was like the green monster at Fenway Park in Boston, the hundred foot barrier keeping the outside world out. Like the one at Fenway, ours also kept long fly balls from going to the upper level of the park from the lower level where the baseball fields were by the Hudson River and West Side Highway. We also used it as our canvas, along with "tagging" the trains. We rode for hours. They were our playground when we weren't playing ball.

"Taki 149," "Moses 147," and "Stayhigh" were the original Kings of the trains. Like art students copying the Mona Lisa, we copied their names, seeing if we could imitate them, then branching out in our own styles with our own names. One day Robby told me that Taki, who was a crazy murdering psychopath when he wasn't writing graffiti and had once blown up a subway car with dynamite, wanted my baseball glove or he would kill me and my mother.

"But I don't even know Taki. I've never even met him." I told Robby, terrified.

"Well, he knows you and he wants it by Friday." I gave Robby my baseball glove to give to Taki.

"Don't tell anyone about this or he's gonna kill you." I swore secrecy.

For the next three months, while I lived in the most paralyzing fear of my life, certain my mother and I would be murdered, Taki, through Robby, took everything that was precious to me. My transistor radio, my games, my allowance every week, and my basketball cards. Clyde included. My mother finally noticed something was wrong when the pool table was the only thing left in my once very cluttered room. I confessed everything and she had a black FBI agent friend of hers interrogate Robby under a single stark white G and E in the kitchen the next time he came over for my allowance.

It turned out that while Taki did exist, he knew nothing of me and Robby had been extorting me all along, which made it clear why he always had my stuff after I gave it to him to give to Taki.

"I haven't seen him yet to give it to him." He would say as we played baseball, all the while using my glove while I used my bare hands or a borrowed one. I had been cuckolded in front of the entire neighborhood of kids who all knew what was happening and I didn't. I was mortified. I couldn't face them ever again. I told my mother I wanted to live with my dad in Vermont.

As Robby and my friends looked on, my Dad, his best friend Ron, and my mom packed what little was left of my things into a U-Haul trailer as I, sick to my stomach, watched from my apartment window until it was dark and the kids left. Only then would I come down and get in the car. I finished my beer. Dropped some acid and left New York for greener pastures. Oh yeah, I had started taking hard drugs that summer.

Posted by Eric Schaeffer at 9:24 AM

The Wood Chip Pile - September 26, 2006

I didn't tell April this story about the running path in the park on our first date even though she begged. I didn't want to risk more character assassination but I'll tell you since you care and it's a good story.

***

To stay thin, I mean healthy, I run in Riverside Park. I always have and I love it. Riverside is the real New Yorkers Park. I love Central Park but I love it like I love Times Square. It's the post card, not the prayer. In the 60's and 70's they were but now they're not. Now they're Toronto. Anyway, so I run in Riverside Park on my running path. Suddenly, one day in the middle of my run, Seal on the Walkman (yes, it was the early 90's. I still run to him but on an IPod now), a HUGE WOOD CHIP PILE appeared directly in the middle of the path. I mean this thing was literally ten feet high and fifty feet around. And isn't that just like New York City to put it directly in the middle of my path. So I ran around it. Day after day. Week after month. Summer it has rain on it. Fall it has frost on it. Winter it's covered in snow. I mean the thing was not going away. When would they spread it out already?! I go off to drive my cab. I have long dirty blonde hair that goes past my shoulders so from certain angles I look like a semi-cute girl and driving a cab elevates me from semi to super cute. At least in the eyes of the cop who, after stopping me for one of the few red lights in history I actually didn't go through, displeased upon clearly seeing my face, yelled back to his partner in the squad car, "Yo Jeff! It's a fucking guy?!" So now he's really pissed and I have no chance of getting out of my third red light this year, which is like 450 bucks. A week's salary at that time.

"Hack license and registration." I give him the stuff and he goes back to his car. I'm freaking out. I cannot afford this. Wait, I've seen this on TV. I get out and soldier up to his car.

"Hey, so, can't we just take care of this right here?" They look at each other for a moment, only slightly taken aback.

"Be more specific," He says.

"I don't know, can I take you guys to Sizzler or some shit?"

"Be more specific," He says again.

"I don't know. How bout fifty bucks?" He turns to his partner to see if he can close the deal. His partner looks down, thinks for a second, and then looks up at me from across the front seat.

"Our Sergeant takes care of all that, you wanna follow us to the precinct?" There are two possibilities. Either they're telling the truth and the Sergeant is in charge of all the "dirty money" that comes into the precinct, or they think I'm dumb enough to follow them there so they can arrest me. It couldn't possibly be that one.

"Okay. I'll follow you."

"You will?!" The cop says with a surprise and glee that at the moment I don't quite catch because all my brain is allowing in is that I am getting out of a 450 dollar ticket. So I pull up outside the 22th precinct on 82nd street between Columbus and Amsterdam. Now mind you, I'm eight years sober from drugs and alcohol at this point, deeply ensconced in a spiritual new way of life that is all about honesty and doing the right thing. This seems about as right a thing to do as any I can imagine at the time. Certainly more right than paying 450 bucks when I can pay 50. I sat in the waiting room forever. Finally,

"I'll just pay the ticket. It's been five hours now. I could have made a couple hundred bucks to offset the ticket."

"Just a few more minutes. I promise," the desk Sergeant who's been watching me while I wait, says.

"We just have to wait for one uncool cop's shift to end." A couple minutes later the dick cop and his partner come out and usher me back behind the desk into the inner sanctum of the police station where their female Sergeant waits.

"Tell her what you told us."

"I said, could I just give them 50 bucks instead of getting a ticket."

"Okay," she says, looking for the money. I take it out, my heart racing, and put it on the desk. Then, thinking quickly, juuuuuuuuuuuuuust in case something's not kosher here, I put a nearby napkin over it, so like, I didn't really take any money out... and put it anywhere for any cops to have... as a bribe and shit.

"YOU'RE UNDER ARREST FOR FELONY BRIBERY!" I probably had guns and knives, crossbows and bazookas taped to my body with homemade Taxi Driver curtain rod contraptions to make them fly out and shoot evil doers if I blinked my eye lids with sufficient force to initiate them, so thank God "for all our safety" the cops immobilized me with cat-like kung fu CIA ballet moves, pulling my leather jacket down over my shoulders.

"So, you just give me a ticket right, and then I go home?" They all laughed.

"Felony bribery my friend. You're in the system now." Not only had they scored the Serpico lottery bust of the century straight out of the academy, but they also got paid overtime to do it since I followed them to the precinct and was willing to wait the 5 hours until they made it to double time before arresting me. Fucking Einstein. I made a phone call so my mom and more importantly my best friend Patty knew I was headed for the Tombs. I love my mom but being a little spacey at her best, let alone at 4AM, I felt Patty, the rebel-activist-lesbian-priest would be the best person to handle my case.

I wept for a moment feeling at least I wouldn't turn into a bad Tom Selleck movie of the week. Someone knew I was in the "system." But my tears of comfort quickly evaporated upon seeing thick red streaks of blood on the holding cell wall. If the cozy Upper West Side station holding cell was this bad, what would the Tombs be like!? With the same quick thinking that had gotten me here, I decided it best to sully my youthful countenance to appear less attractive to the AIDS carrying anal rapists that awaited me. I wiped dirt from the floor all over my face and tucked my hair under my hood.

Now I knew what every woman in New York felt like preparing for her morning subway commute.

The cops loaded me in the cop van and we drove downtown as the sun rose, headed for the Tombs. I was scared out of my mind. I was a dead man.

to be continued

Posted by Eric Schaeffer at 9:07 AM

The Second Hour Of My 3 Hour First Date With April Before I Went To LA - September 22, 2006

"So, we met before you know," April said with a churlish smile as we were about to leave the upper level of Riverside Park and head for West End to get her a cab.

"No way. I would have remembered."

"It was at the premiere party for 'Fall.' We talked for two hours."

"We did not talk for two hours. I definitely would have remembered that. Did you like the movie?"

"Not my favorite. I love 'If Lucy Fell' though. My sister and I still quote it."

"No wonder I repressed you if you hated my movie. We might have a problem."

"I have to like all of your movies?"

"Pretty much, yeah. I mean, if you don't like my movies, you're not going to like me."

"Oh man, are you another 44-year-old-non-absorbing-narcissist-who-just-likes-to-hear- himself-talk?"

"That's a type?"

"Oh yeah."

"And you go out with a lot of them?"

"I seem to be lately."

"I've been asking you tons of questions about yourself."

"Not so much."

"That's bullshit. I know you went to Spence. I know you have a Human Rights Lawyer sister and that you are a huge fancy successful writer and live on the lower West Side. I know about your parents on Park Avenue where you grew up. Many things. And you're so full of shit. You're saying you don't care if I like your books?"

"I don't even care if you read them."

"I don't believe you."

"You like me. Who cares if you like my books."

"So you could love me even if you hated my movies?"

"Sure."

"Not me. If you're a sucky writer, we're done."

"Okay."

"Do you suck?"

"You'll just have to find that out for yourself."

"If I weren't such a non - absorbing - narcissistic - 44 - year - old - only - talking - so - I - can - bounce - off - of - you I would tell you what happened to me on this running path, but instead I'll just get you a cab so you won't be late for your dinner."

"And a pouter on top of it?"

"I'm not pouting. I'm just being conscientious of your time. Have you had any fun at all?"

"Oh shut up. I'm smitten." That's actually not what she said. I would have been in love with her if she had. What she really said was, "I'm here, aren't I?" And I wanted to throat punch her. I hate that. Just answer the fucking question. She sensed my displeasure.

"You like to do play-by-play don't you," she said, my vitriol building.

"No, I'm just not a secretive withholder." I had to summon all of my acting ability to choke out a sincere "I'm - just - joking - and - not - really - hating - you" smile.

"It's not called withholding if I've only known you for three hours. It's called not being a psychopath."

"With everything in the world that you're not allowed to know, I just like to know what I can know. So yes, if I don't get a read on something, I check in."

"And the fact that I've gone on a three-hour walk with you on our first date isn't any indication that I'm having fun. I need to say the words to you."

"I prefer it. Yes."

"Well you'll just have to let it unfold. It'll be good for you." I knew then any serious relationship with this girl was impossible. Well I actually knew in the first three minutes when, after the first harmless off-color joke I made upon picking her up outside her writing partner's building on 95th and CPW, she replied snidely with a disgusted look on her face, "No wonder you're still single at 44." Shit, she's 32 which is 70 in man years so she's one to talk but I let it go. Maybe she was nervous or had her period.

But by now, after the fifth time in three hours that my stomach alarm went off telling me to run for the hills, this chick was dangerous, I despised her. She made me sick to my stomach. I literally wanted to vomit. Choke her to death and smash her dead head in with a rock and then vomit onto her deadness. But being a fighter and wanting to champion that little spark of sweetness I did see in her that came out in between her radical projections and revolting judgments, I figured I could will myself in the other direction if I tried hard enough.

"I really like you." Like Lenny Bruce said, "Guys'll fuck mud." She smiled. "You do?" Her cheeks got red and she looked at me like she wanted me to kiss her. Maybe I don't loathe her.

"Yes. You're sweet," under that devil personality that makes it impossible for me to be around you, you self-centered, spoiled little cunt! Telling me I'm a fucking non-absorbing-narcissist!? If I hear one more pretentious fucking Upper East Side pontification about an Op-Ed piece in the Times come out of your machine gun mouth I'm gonna stab you in the eyes with the quills from an Australian Pine.

"You see those spiny pointy bunches on those trees? They're there so the Koala bears can't climb up the trunk of the trees and eat the leaves and kill the trees. They're called Australian Pines. I've been running on this path for twenty years and I never noticed them until I was arrested and put on a chain gang in the park a few years ago."

"What are you talking about?" She said, finally with real interest, only since it might eliminate me from the running as I'm sure a criminal record was out for any man she would consider long term.

"Oh sorry, I forgot. That would require another story about me, which I wouldn't want to risk at this point. And you're gonna be late. Let's get you a cab."

"No, I wanna hear. Tell me. Pleeeeeeeeeease." She was begging a little with a sexy smile. There was hope.

Posted by Eric Schaeffer at 3:00 PM

I Love Root Canals - September 20, 2006

Last year I was on a plane coming back from LA, Jet Blue, just like two days ago when again, I was returning from the West Coast. Last year it was to try and save a second season of Starved, which unfortunately, on a "pit stop" in Long Beech to get more fuel (I love Jet Blue but they pull shit like this. Apparently with the wind as it was in Burbank, they didn't have enough runway to take off with if the plane was as heavy as it needed to be with enough fuel to get us to NYC so they dumped some there, took off and then we stopped in Long Beach to get enough to make it across the country) I found out hadn't happened and we were canceled.

My face had been hurting for a couple weeks and I had hoped it was a virus or sinus infection or something and was taking antibiotics. I got off the place and went straight to the dentist, hoping against hope it had nothing to do with that as I would rather literally eat shit than have to go there ever. I fucking hate the dentist. Wait, I'm sorry, let's start reframing it and let's start reframing it now. I love the dentist. He took an x-ray and it was obvious and clear.

"You need a root canal." I employed every skill of getting around this I had. My devotion to this made my getting the quarters from the evil bank in LA look like child's play but in the end, I had to get the root canal or risk losing ALL MY TEETH one day as the infection would systematically spread through my face. I went straight to the specialist on 57th street and 7th. Doctor Adams. I go the opposite way immediately when I do lose and want the pain over NOW so I can begin winning again.

He walked into the office, took one look at me and his face lit up big, "Oh my God! My wife and I LOVE your show! It's our favorite night of the week. We get ice cream and jump in bed and watch your show!" "Great thanks. It got canceled 5 hours ago and now you're gonna do a root canal on me, shut the fuck up cunt and start murdering me." I didn't say that. "Thank you so much. You're very kind. Unfortunately it was just canceled," I said sincerely, he was a nice man.

So cut to yesterday. I fly back from LA, again having tried to sell a TV show, this time one based on my book that's coming out in May with the same title as this blog, again, with a hurting face. I again go straight to Dentist Adams, again hoping against hope that it's anything other than something to do with my teeth. The same tooth he fixed last year. And I haven't heard anything but passes from every network I had pitched in LA. There's only one left to hear from, the one I would most like to be at since I could go the farthest with content there and they are doing the edgiest stuff, Showtime.

"Yeah, you didn't heal from the root canal last year so there's a cyst there and we have to cut it out, scrape your gums and close you back up. It's nothing. You'll be out of here in an hour."

"Uh-huh. Okay, yeah. No. I don't want that. I might suggest an alternative. If it's all the same to you, I would prefer if your nice young blonde Polish assistant sucked my cock instead please and then spoon feed me chocolate cake and vanilla ice cream while I watch the Mets clinch the East on my couch at home." I didn't say that. But I did, of course, launch an epic battle to get around his idea of killing me. Again, if he didn't do the procedure, I would end up with NO TEETH after the infection spread. It had to happen. He numbed me up and sent me back in the chair. Like parents with their little kids, dentists can somehow understand your mauled half sentence gibberish English with cotton stuffed in your mouth like no one else.

"IIii tha ana cha dat da cy cou we cancer?"

"In 23 years I've never seen the cyst come back as anything other than what I know this one is. Infected tissue. Don't worry."

"Oo, no ay."

"No way."

"Oo or."

"For sure."

I had been dreading this fucking thing for so long but was glad at least it would be over soon. After "probing" my gum area but before he began he sat me up and said. "I have bad news. I don't think I'm going to have to do the surgery."

"What are you, a fucking comedian?!" I didn't say that. "Great. You can fix it without it?"

"No, it's worse than I thought and I don't think surgery will help. You have no bone attached to the tooth. It probably has to come out or be bone grafted which we take from your palate or..."

I didn't hear anything else he was saying as the blood rushed out of my head and I wanted to vomit my heart out of my ass. It had gotten WORSE?! Fuck me! I begged him to do the surgery and we'd hope for the "miracle" that my body would grow new bone. Anything to avoid the ordeal that was the other unspeakable option. He agreed. I was in the fucking chair now, do something!

As I lied back singing Krishna Das yoga Kirtans in my head to calm myself and he scraped my face away under my gums, I imagined that I was the one in a trillion who's cyst was in fact cancerous and it had spread into my brain and I had a month to live. In the space of an hour I had gone from being terrified of the scraping and then the idea of getting a tooth pulled, to praying to sweet Jesus that I could not die from brain cancer and be able to only have it be a tooth that got pulled.

Life is all perceptive. The lower the expectations, the better chance I have of having a sublime day. How I'm not jumping up and down with sheer joy at being able to take a single breath, hugging every fellow human in sight, tears streaming down my face with the abject, profound joy of the air hitting my face as I walk, being able to have two legs that can propel my living body down the street in this instant is a wonder.

Every day you wake up and don't need a root canal is a day you have no business not feeling is the happiest day of your life. And if God told me I had one day left and on that day I had to have a root canal, I'd be fucking overjoyed.

Because I love root canals.

Posted by Eric Schaeffer at 2:57 PM

We Don't Do That - September 19, 2006

I was in LA over the weekend. I took the train cross country to get there. I'll tell you about that later. In LA, since everything is in a mall, it's a major ordeal to get anything, a fucking apple you have to go to Macy's for. There's no Korean Mafia for some reason so no convenience store on every corner, and no bodegas. It's a major pain in the ass. You have to plan really well. Buy all your stuff and pack rat it in your car since when you leave the house you might not be home for 10 hours as your day stretches you out over the sprawling smog land for centuries.

And if you forget something and need it spur of the moment but don't have an hour to kill by driving to the Beverly Center, parking in a behemoth concrete structure, remembering you're in the orange section, on level P4, area B134-AC, taking the elevator down to the main floor so you can take escalators up to the floor that is home to rubberbands or socks or apples, battling middle America disguised as trendy as you go, you must go without.

But having solved this conundrum, I was good to do my drive - to - the - Santa - Monica - promenade - to - sit - and - watch - the - ocean - for - 10 minutes - before - a - pitch - meeting thing I like to do. I had all my supplies,

Summoning all my cab driving skills of which I have many being an excellent driver I managed not to die among the completely lost drivers of LA and made it to Wilshire and Ocean but FUCK! I forgot the quarters! Fucking quarters! Fucking parking meters! I just couldn't bare to go into another garage/tomb. I like to park right on Ocean at a meter. I found an empty spot as I always do having outstanding parking Karma and sat in the car thinking for a second.

I don't like to take "no" for an answer and always, ALWAYS believe there's a way around it. And usually there is. I checked my pockets again, the cup holder, nothing. A Starbucks two blocks away was my only choice but I didn't want to give up the parking spot and didn't want to risk the walk back and forth since the little meter maid cop scooters where like vultures and smell a kill this easy from miles away. I looked to the left and nirvana!

A bank. Oh my God, I'm a genius. I would go into that bank and get a whole roll of quarters and never have to bother with this shit again. And I could watch the car as I did. I bolted across the street, of course causing chaos with the three drivers who were so unused to jaywalkers in LA that they thought the crazy suicidal actor had had enough and wanted to end it all at the expense of their BMW's front end which is why they slammed on their breaks and honked with vitriol, not because they were concerned for my safety but only their cars'. And they don't understand that they should keep driving and you'll cross after they're bye you like in NYC. You take one step into the street and you can shut down the 405 at rush hour.

The bank was super elite, had no line and had to buzz me in the front door. There was no partition and the tellers were dressed casually. A nice middle aged Asian man was my helper today. I was excited by my smart idea. I love coming up with inspirational problem solves, no matter how small. I loathe inefficiency.

"Hi. May I have a roll of quarters please?" I put a twenty on the counter.

"Are you a customer of the bank?"

"No."

"Oh I'm sorry, we don't do that for non-customers."

I paused and looked at him blankly, as if I hadn't heard him just tell me that his BANK had no money in it. Or if it did, wouldn't exchange any for me.

He looked at me, smiling nicely.

Beat.

Pause.

"Hi. Can I have a roll of quarters please?" I said exactly as I had in take one. I was glad the director was allowing a second take, I knew I could do better.

"I'm sorry. We don't do that for non-customers." He was an excellent actor. The nuance of slight empathy I thought a wonderful choice for his second take. I stared at him blankly again for a moment giving him a chance to change the script and break into a big laugh and apologize for his bad joke and give me my quarters. But nothing. I looked around the bank. There wasn't a sole there, no one in line waiting impatiently. Empty. And it was a bank. I confirmed this by spotting some banking brochures and such around. The art director had done a tremendous job. Yup, this was a bank all right. I looked back at my teller and then decided to go another way. I sighed deeply, put my face in my hands and rubbed it as if I was having the hardest day in the history of days, even though I wasn't. I looked up and to the left, searching for my tact in this maddening moment. By this point I could feel the stare of neighboring tellers. Was this crazy staring man who wouldn't, who couldn't understand their policy on changing quarters going to become a problem?

I decided my next approach to navigating "no" would be to pretend to be mentally retarded. I looked at him dead in the eye. "So, I can't get any quarters here?" He'd seen that act before. Man, he was trained well. "No. I'm sorry."

Beat. I can beat him. Come on. THINK! AHA! Brainstorm!

"Can I pay a fee and get some quarters?"

He laughed uncomfortably, "no." I think he thought I meant a bribe. Like a personal stipend to him under the table, which I didn't.

"I'll pay ten dollars to get ten dollars in quarters."

"I'm sorry. We don't do that." I waited. Just standing there. Then suddenly, "I'll do it just this once." He took the twenty and got a ten and a roll of quarters. "But so you know in the future. We don't do that for non-customers."

"Thank you so much for bending your rules for me. That was very generous of you," I said sincerely and left the bank. The bank that wasn't going to give me any quarters. The bank that had millions, trillions of dollars in quarters, an illegal amount of quarters, that wasn't going to give me ten dollars worth.

I put four of them in the meter and crossed Ocean Ave and sat on a bench on the promenade watching the sunset over the Pacific with the homeless and the teenage runaways.

There is justice once in a while in this world. You just have to try to help it along and not take no for an answer... or pretend to have brain damage. I left the rest of the quarters on the bench figuring a can of Spam and a pint of JD in the stomach of my temporary neighbors was a better home for it than the city of Santa Monica.

Posted by Eric Schaeffer at 9:00 AM

Man Crying On Subway - September 18, 2006

I was coming home from yoga last week before my trip to LA, I was on the uptown express. It was rush hour crowded. I looked around for someone to give my seat to but no one standing was either as old or tired as I felt so I stayed. I noticed a woman through bags and hips sitting across from me. She was intently looking at something on my side of the train. She seemed concerned and fascinated. I turned to the left to try and see what she was looking at. Sitting at the end of my bench, slumped against the chrome handrails was a well dressed middle aged Puerto Rican man.

He was quietly sobbing.

I looked around at people's reactions. Like the woman across from me, everyone was perplexed at best, frightened at worst. Was he drunk? On drugs? A crazy man?

If you see a woman crying in the subway, you give her a handkerchief. If you see a man crying in the subway, you call the police. Women's tears are common, men's, an aberration.

Had his mother just died? His son? Had he been fired from his dream job? Or did he just feel like he couldn't take it anymore. I was fighting back tears. I don't know about this man but I cry often, usually in private though. I'll get sad in public but I'll find a bathroom stall somewhere to quietly cry in for a few minutes. I didn't want to cause a never-ending chain reaction of crying men in the subway. That's how he was crying. For every sadness every man had never cried for; wasn't allowed or was too ashamed to.

I got off at 96th Street and quickly walked home so I could cry in peace. I made it to the elevator and broke down. I stood in my hallway and leaned my head against the bedroom door jam. That's where I do most of my crying. I felt better. I wonder how far his train ride is. And if he's still sad. I still am, and often wonder if the well of profound sadness will ever be dry.

Posted by Eric Schaeffer at 9:00 AM

Thank Sweet Jesus It's Football Season ... and Clyde, Conan and my Ex-girlfriend - Part III - September 14, 2006

"Oh be quiet. Just fill it up and check the oil," Everyone laughed. I thought Conan calling me a gas station attendant was a witty comeback and I was having fun. We finished the interview without further incident and I left thinking everything was fine, not knowing I had been so "abrasive and confrontational" as to acquire a lifetime ban.

That all happened in 1996. Two years before I ever met Liza. At some point during our relationship I told her the Conan story. Being in advertising and not in show business she had never met him and although she liked his show, she sided with me out of allegiance.

I proposed to Liza the Tuesday before the millennium. I wanted to do it on New Year's Eve but I couldn't wait. I had gotten the ring. A simple elegant antique thing from the Hasidim on 46th Street in the Diamond District on Monday and it was burning a hole in my pocket. Once I had decided she was the one, I didn't want to wait another second. Fuck the drama of asking at midnight on the most exciting night in the last thousand years, a rainy Tuesday at 9:47 a week before was the perfect moment. I loved her so.

The first time I ever saw Liza was in a hallway in the office building where she worked in Seattle, (I was there screening Fall at the Seattle Film Festival, which she was working for along with her advertising job) and I thought to myself, "That's the woman I'm going to marry." I had never said anything like that to myself before.

I walked down the hall and asked her to lunch. She turned beet red and without saying a word retreated into her office.

"Is that a "yes?"

"Sure."

We went to lunch and had a second date while I was in town. She told me she didn't want a relationship but before my plane landed in NY the following night, I had a message on my machine from her, thanking me for the dates and saying she hoped we saw each other again. Of course I made that happen.

Our first kiss was on the fake Brooklyn Bridge at New York, New York in Las Vegas on our third date. It was perfectly kitsch. I loved it, except the kiss itself had zero chemistry, which concerned me. It was a portending of our lack of chemistry which I was afraid of but I fell in love with her none the less. I told her that night that there was something I had thought the first time I saw her that I would reveal to her at some point in the future. It was the line about wanting to marry her.

On the Tuesday I proposed, I rushed into her house, giddy with excitement and fear. On the second floor of her building I stopped, got quiet and prayed, just wanting a confirmation. "Dear God, should I ask Liza to marry me right now?" I waited for the answer.

Be still and know that I am God.

"Yes." That's what I heard. Loud and clear.

"Yes."

I resumed racing up the stairs. She was waiting for me in her doorway as usual, a quizzical look on her face. She had been away on business for a week and it was her first night back but still I seemed more enthusiastic to see her than usual, having called her to say that I had to come over right away.

"What's up with you?" I was jittery and giggle-laughing uncontrollably in a manic way, unable to catch my breath. Liza was almost worried. She had never seen me like this.

"Eric?! What's going on?"

I leaned in and whispered in her ear. "Do you love me?"

"Of course."

"More than ever?"

"Yes, honey. More than ever."

"Do you remember in Las Vegas on our third date when I told you that I had something to tell you that I thought when I first saw you in Seattle that I would one day tell you?"

"Yeah?"

"You know what it was?"

"What's going on? You're kinda of freaking me out."

"When I first saw you I thought to myself, 'that's the woman I'm going to marry.'" She pulled away so she could see my face. I had tears running down both cheeks.

"Awwww, honey, that's so sweet." She still didn't get it. Trying not to just start sobbing uncontrollably, I knelt on one knee. She gasped.

"What are you doing?!" She covered her mouth with her hand, started smiling this weird nervous smile and started muttering, "no, no, no, no, no" and hit both knees so she was eye level with me.

I choked out the words, trying to breathe in between and not cry.

"Will... you... marry... me?"

"Really?" Not the response I was looking for but I went with it.

"Yeah."

She just looked at me with this scared smile frozen on her face. Five seconds went by, which when waiting for an answer to that question, is a fuck of a long time.

"You have to say yes or no."

"Ummmmm.... Yes?" Again, if ever you don't want a question mark at the end of a yes, it would be now but I let her slide, thinking she was just completely freaked out. I took out the black box and opened it up. She was loosing it. I went to put the ring on her finger and that's when she did the weird sudden retracting of her hand thing. Then the "talk" and it was over.

The exact moment I clicked onto Conan's show that night, he was doing a sketch. He was having some random New York advertising company come up with an ad for a bed store in Houston or something like that. They panned the room of ad executives and THERE WAS LIZA. I couldn't believe it. I was stunned and confused and had a really bad feeling. After not seeing her since I had been on one knee with tears in my eyes asking her to marry me and her saying no, there she was on the Conan O'Brien show. And then, a week later, I bumped into her in Times Square. She didn't want to talk. She said it was "inappropriate to have a personal conversation in the middle of the street." This was coming from a woman who was taught it was inappropriate to hold hands in public. I, on the other hand, am a bit of a freak so, yeah, we were ill-suited in that and many areas and though I meant my proposal profoundly, in retrospect, I'm grateful she said no.

I told her that sometimes you have to have conversations in places you don't think it's "appropriate to have them."

"I quit my job," she said with an apologetic smile.

"So when are you moving back to Seattle?"

"I'm not. I got a new one here." I was speechless.

"I thought you said you hated New York."

"Does it really matter where I live?"

"When your reason for not wanting to marry me after saying you wanted to for two years was because you wanted to move away so you wouldn't have to carry baby carriages up subway steps. Yeah, it matters."

"I don't want to have this discussion here." She started to walk away.

"And what the fuck were you doing on the Conan O'Brien show?!"

She disappeared into a sea of people.

Three months later I read on Page Six that she and Conan were engaged. I guess they met when he randomly picked her firm to do the skit.

"Happy Thanksgiving," I said out loud even though it was July and I was alone in a Motel 6 In Hyde Park at my first yoga retreat ever. That's what I say when I really want to say something evil. One year during a Thanksgiving Day football telecast, Chris Collingsworth, ex player turned commentator, witnessed a player making a bonehead mistake.

"It's Thanksgiving my friends. I'm not gonna say anything bad about anyone today. All I'm gonna say is Happy Thanksgiving." It's worked well for me in all seasons.

After Liza cried about me being a gambler, I went home and eventually won the auction at $26,500 and got to play Clyde. It was out of control. I was pump faking the man who invented the pump fake, or at least made it cool. I was hitting fade aways from the left baseline on the playground of my dreams. I beat him 11-9. Fair and square. He missed a lot of shots but I hit two threes. NBA threes. From behind the arc on the Madison Square Garden floor. On a rainy Monday afternoon with a janitor, a couple of Knicks PR guys and a photographer watching. The Garden was filled to capacity in my mind and they roared as loudly as they did when Willis came out that night thirty years ago. A "dream come true" doesn't begin to tell the story. No words could. On my bench were three people. My mom, who video taped it. Patty, who thought it was the coolest thing in the world. And my publicist Liza, who bore the same name as my ex, so I guess she was represented after all. I kept the towel Clyde tossed me to dry off with after the contest and have a bus stop sized poster of him smiling, backing me down in the post, trash talking as he goes, on my living room wall.

Normally, when there isn't a Knicks game on during Sunday football, eating and phone calls with friends take me up to kick off at one. Then it's watching, napping, Nerve whoring, jerking off, napping, maybe a dominatrix or a special massage girl, and the four o'clock games. They end at 7ish. I take a walk down Broadway to clear my head and then the night ESPN game at eight-thirty. After that is Sports Center and the highlights of all the games I've watched all day. I have satellite so I see parts of all of them live, but the Sunday ritual would be incomplete without the highlight show. Oh yeah, and before Sports Center there's time for the girlfriend check in call. If I have a girlfriend. Which I don't now. And haven't had since Liza

Posted by Eric Schaeffer at 9:11 AM

Thank Sweet Jesus It's Football Season ... and Clyde, Conan and my Ex-girlfriend - Part II - September 12, 2006

I was about to drop to my knees and propose to Liza but I just had to tell her about the game with Clyde first.

"I'm one half away from winning a one on one game on the Garden floor with Walt Frazier."

"Who?" She asked apologetically. It was okay. Even that couldn't knock one knot of wind out of my sails this day.

"He's one of the 50 greatest basketball players of all time. He was the guard for the Knicks in the seventies when they won their championships and he was my childhood idol."

"How do you get to play him?" She was getting excited now.

"I'm in a charity auction war with other people watching the Knick game. It's halftime now, I'm leading. Whoever has the highest bid when the final buzzer goes off, wins!"

"Wow! That's so exciting! How much have you bid?"

"Sixteen-five."

"What?" She didn't understand.

"It's at sixteen-five right now."

"Sixteen dollars and five cents?" She was so cute. Naïve, from Seattle.

"Sixteen thousand five hundred, honey." Her face slowly dropped,

"What's wrong?" I asked, my stomach seizing, sensing what was coming. Red blotches started forming on her face and neck which meant tears weren't far off and I wanted to punch her in the face. She started crying.

"If we have kids would you just gamble away thousands of dollars on a basketball game?" She was gone.

"It isn't a 'basketball game,' it's me playing my childhood idol on the floor of Madison Square Garden and the money goes to a kid's charity. And if we had kids and I made a million dollars a year like I made this year, yeah I would spend it on whatever I want. Would I take food out of our kids' mouths? Of course not. If I only made twenty thousand dollars in a year would I spend 16 thousand on this? Of course not." She was gone.

"My grandfather was a gambling addict and I just can't handle this." A fucking tsunami on my parade. I left and went home. We broke up a couple months later. I was on my knee with a ring in my hand and she said "yes," but then pulled her hand away in the strangest, sudden, knee jerk way when I tried to put the ring on her hand. Then she relaxed and let me. She called her mother which seemed to put even more doubt in her mind and we had to have a "talk." She explained she didn't want to stay in New York and wanted to move home and didn't want to "carry baby carriages up subway steps," which apparently we would have to do since I was a degenerate gambling loser who frittered away money on kids' charities. She said she wanted to think about it and that's what the engagement period was for.

"No, an engagement means your betrothed to your beloved and you're planning what color to make the bride's maid's dresses. It's not to decide if you're going to get married. That's what dating is for. If you say you need time to decide then we're not engaged yet and you need to take the ring off." She did and quickly handed it back to me.

"Well my parents were engaged and unengaged three times before they got married." I didn't really get her point.

"Yeah, not a goal I aspire to match." I left and never saw her again. After two-and- half years of Liza repeatedly asking when I would be ready to get married, I finally asked and she said "no."

Well "yes" and then "no."

I had been engaged for an hour. The closest I've ever come.

Three months later I was flipping through the channels and landed on my old pal Conan's show. Hey, no hard feelings. I had been on his show for each of my two first films. When my publicist called to get me booked to promote my third film I was amazed to find that due to my last appearance, one I thought went swimmingly, I was banned for life. Apparently I was abrasive and confrontational.

In my last appearance, Chris Rock was on before me. And though I loved him and knew he was going to try and bogart my segment, a move I would have made were I on first, I couldn't allow it to happen. He jumped in on Conan's first question to me. I turned to him armed.

"Excuse me Mr. Already Famous, you wanna give someone else a chance?" The crowd ooh'd as if I was now one up in a playground dis contest. I was so straight with my delivery Chris actually thought I was pissed.

"Sorry, man," he said apologetically.

"I'm just kidding. I love you and that's a snappy suit." He did look sharp.

"You give him a hard time coming on my show dressed like that?" Conan barked at me. I was doing my "shabby chic" look with a rumpled linen shirt and beat up black leather jacket.

"Uh, it's Agnes B? A famous French designer? Ever hear of her?" Conan looked at me and said...

to be continued

Posted by Eric Schaeffer at 2:23 PM

Thank Sweet Jesus It's Football Season ... and Clyde, Conan and my Ex-girlfriend - September 8, 2006

I haven't finished telling you about my first date with April in the park and I just took a 4 day train trip across the country to a fat farm where I'm gonna fast and get colonics for a week for reasons I'm sure you can figure out based on my last little story. I'm a fat fucking cunt. My brain is already shutting down and it's only day one of the fast, so I'll tell you all about those adventures in a couple weeks. For now, a little history which you need and will want anyway. This is the perfect time to reveal since I need any remaining brainpower for gambling AS FOOTBALL SEASON STARTS TONIGHT PRAISE GOD! I know you understand. Unlike my last girlfriend, Liza. Not because she got fed up with the "never - allowed - to - see - me - on - Sundays - and - can - only - talk - for - a - quick - second - in - between - the - last - game - and - the - first - Sports - Center - around - midnight" rule, no, for something far worse. The gambling addiction she thought I had.

Before I get into that, let me just clear up why Sundays are out. The headline is, because it's my day. My day to just lie on the couch and go Neanderthal. I wake up at eleven so there won't be any chance of being bored until football starts. I turn on the pre-game shows and finish up solidifying my picks for the day. I already started the process on the previous Monday, allowing the various betting possibilities to percolate. The Jets -5 at Oakland. The Giants +3 at New England. Maybe a two-team six-point teaser. Maybe a parlay? No, too scary. I'm fond of 6 team 6 point teasers known as sucker's bets. They're just more fun because you have action on many games and the payouts are bigger than a straight bet because of the odds. So, I watch the pre-game shows for two hours finding out any last minute injuries that might impact the games and peruse my pre-picks just to see if I still have the same vibe I had on Tuesday or Wednesday. Around twelve, I order my scrambled tofu and oatmeal waffles with stewed apples and cinnamon, toast and extra miso spread. That's brunch. I also order a kale walnut salad with carrots and currents, no dressing, so that if I'm winning money and feeling good, I'll have enough self esteem to make a big salad with that as the staple, adding my own cucumbers, apples and homemade humus balsamic vinaigrette, garnished with sunflower seeds. But if I've lost and feel like shit, the kale walnut salad stays in the fridge and I order a bacon cheeseburger deluxe as comfort food.

Feeling secure with my picks, I call them into my guy who acts as a middleman for an off shore gaming site so I don't have to use the Internet. He's not technically a "bookie" since I get paid from Costa Rica so it's legal, well, as legal as anyone's decided offshore internet sports gaming is. It's a little sketchy. Once, in my infinite paranoia brought on by 20 hours spent in jail for felony bribery (a red light ticket, I'll tell you another day after the fast) I Googled the legality of computer gambling. I found that The Wire Act was as far as congress ever really got, using it in the early nineties to try and prosecute a guy who ran an off shore gambling site and it wasn't very successful.

But with my "Schaeffer's Law" theory, which makes Murphy seem downright lucky, I needed some further investigation. My friend Donny tried to convince me that even if they could prosecute, they would never go after small recreational gamblers like me but only the purveyors of the sites. Even so, I didn't want to be the first one, you know, they made an example out of. I couldn't find out online just what the law was. It seemed very ambiguous. None of my lawyer friends knew either. So after calling information to get the number, I picked up the phone and dialed. A mean sounding woman picked up. "District attorney of New York," she said coldly. I suddenly realized, "what are you doing you idiot! They can trace the call!" I hung up fast, knowing from TV that it hadn't nearly been long enough for the trace to hold. Or had it? It was a long time since I saw Colombo and with technology what it was ... well, they didn't know why I was calling so they probably wouldn't investigate. At worst they would note my file. I went to the payphone on the corner of 79th and Amsterdam. Though I lived on 110th and Broadway, I figured they could triangulate the signal or something if I used a payphone in my neighborhood and get me so I hopped a quick cab far enough away so I felt safe from their espionage capabilities.

"District Attorney's office," the same awful woman said. I disguised my voice just in case, making it higher and a bit effeminate, my racing heart and butterfly stomach probably making it even higher.

"Hi, is it illegal to gamble on sports on the Internet?" I was sure swat teams would simultaneously drop out of the sky and emerge from the manholes and have me prone on the hard, cold cement in a five-point restraint instantly! But so far so good.

"Excuse me?" She was incredulous.

"Is it illegal to gamble on sports on the Internet?"

"I can't give you that information."

"Why not?" Was it illegal just to ask the question? God, I'm such a fucking pussy.

"Because we don't supply that kind of information."

"But you're the highest court in the land or whatever. If you don't know the laws, who does?" I was proud of my gumption. Maybe I'm not such a pussy after all.

"I don't know, sir. Maybe a lawyer can help you." And she hung up.

Wow. Now what? Fuck it. I'll just continue to live dangerously and take my chances with my middleman. He lets me make unsecured bets. I don't have to leave money in some bank account with the off shore site as collateral for losses which removes wire transfers, credit card charges, you know, a paper trail. No money ever exchanges hands between he and I on American soil. That I settle up, via check, with the off shore people. I'm willing to pay taxes on winnings, which I have to do if paid by check, rather than risk IRS problems. I'm the only gambler who won't accept cash.

So, I call in my bets and eat my scrambled tofu. It's now noon. Occasionally there's a rare Knicks Sunday day game that starts before football. Once they had a "Knicks For Kids" charity auction during the game, which was the undoing of my previous relationship six years ago.

Throughout the game, they auctioned off different items. Whoever was the highest bidder when the final buzzer sounded was the winner. Autographed balls and courtside seats were big draws but I was after the grand prize. A one on one game against Walt Clyde Frazier on the Madison Square Garden Court. I mean... get... the fuck... outta here! Walt was my childhood hero.

In a frenzied flurry of phone calls, bidding against unseen opponents, I was last in at halftime at $16,500. I was so excited. I mean SO EXCITED. I was so excited my heart was flooded with love and I wanted to share it with my girlfriend Liza. Oh my God! It was Sunday. Football was about to start in three minutes and I wanted to leave, get in a cab, go to my girlfriend's house twenty blocks away and share the excitement with her?! I would miss the first half at least and I didn't care. This was serious. I had been praying for this kind of sign for two years. Should I marry her or not? If I was willing to give up the first half of football for any reason to share something with her? My heart raced even more, maybe I would ask her to marry me right there on the spot. I rushed out of the cab, up the five flights of her walk up and found her leaning in her half opened door jam, looking more beautiful than she ever had, a quizzical smile on her blonde face.

"What's going on?"

to be continued...

Posted by Eric Schaeffer at 1:19 PM

The Immaculate Cake-ception - September 6, 2006

So after conquering the Dom, I had to celebrate so I ate cake out of the trash. Or was it vegan chocolate chips out of the cupboard with peanut butter, vanilla rice dream, and a soymilk chaser? It's usually a bit of a blur, my 4AM kitchen rape and pillaging. I go to sleep at 2:30 or 3AM after watching my third Sports Center of the night, in between Howard Stern re-runs, a late game from the west coast and Nerve whoring. Surprisingly, I'm anxious when my head hits the pillow. Then, "all girls hate you. You'll never work again. You're going to die very soon because you're worthless and God, who doesn't even exist, thinks you suck. And you're gonna die of AIDS from Mistress Fiera. But I didn't do anything. Who knows where that fucking rod has been. But I watched her clean it with surgical scrub!"

I called the CDC, who barely will talk to me anymore I've called them so much.

"CDC AIDS hotline," the Jamaican man said in a think accent.

"Hi, yeah, is it possible to get HIV from... If a man had a steel rod inserted into... can you get HIV from an inanimate object if it's been doused in Betadine and in the air for a few seconds first?"

"What are you talking about, Sir?"

"If someone had, if a man had a steel rod inserted into his penis is there any risk of getting HIV."

"Why did you have a steel rod inserted in your penis?"

"Look, Sir, I don't need to discuss that. I just need some information..."

"Are you the guy that calls over and over all the time in the middle of the night?"

"Maybe I am and maybe I'm not but your job is to answer whatever questions I have whenever and however often I need them answered."

"Maybe a psychiatric hotline would help you more."

"Thank you for your counsel, but the only information I require from you tonight is if I can get..."

"No."

"No way?"

"No way."

"Even if the steel rod had old HIV semen or liquid on it from someone before it was stuck into mmm...y friend?"

"Your 'friend' is not at risk as long as it wasn't taken directly out of a warm body that was infected with HIV and somehow had semen or blood on it and then quickly was inserted into your 'friend' without being sterilized."

We went back and forth for another few minutes but then I felt safe enough to resume taking out my anxiety with just my eating obsession and not my dying one.

I rose from the computer (having got the CDC number off it) in a wonderfully familiar trance, one that carries with it the peaceful excitement of a child awakening throughout the night on Christmas Eve, and sleepwalk to the kitchen. If I'm in one of my "healthy phases" I eat an apple, and proud of my restraint, go back to bed. If I'm in one of my "unhealthy" - well, we don't like to judge ourselves too harshly so lets just call it one of my "doing the best I can" phases - I open the cupboard where the vegan chocolate chips are. Let's clear this up right now because you really don't want to be one of those people I hate who say "You mean carob chips?" No, I don't. Vegan chocolate chips are not carob. They are full-blooded chocolate; they just don't contain any dairy and are sweetened with malt extract rather than white sugar. They taste like regular chocolate chips.

I alternate mini handfuls of chocolate chips with little spoon, fork, or knife-fulls (in that order) of peanut butter. The weapon is contingent on what stage of dirty dish insanity I'm ignoring in my sink that has left the clean utensil drawer empty. I won't go to the final option of chopsticks though; even I'm not that crazy. I'll wash a spoon before I do that. I alternate the chocolate and peanut butter getting more and more parched, feeling more and more sublime with my eyes closed, trying to stay asleep like in a beautiful dream as I quietly devour the half bag of chips and the combined three tablespoons of peanut butter. I negotiate amounts which are acceptable for my night eating so as not to make me fat, calories I've carefully banked by scantily eating throughout the day so I can cash them now. More and more parched, salty-sweet, chocolatey-carby, like the best foreplay ever, all leading up to the last bite which I finish chewing as I put the peanut butter back in the fridge, about to cum as I grab the perfectly cold soymilk and just as the last swallow goes down, with the precision of a NASA launching ... cold soymilk. Gulp, gulp, gulp, pause, gulp, gulp, gulp, ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

That's the good version. The not so good version goes something like this: "I'm a fucking grown man with will power and I can have cake in the house and not eat it!" This is during the "experimenting with moderation" phase. It emerges every six months or so between the "healthy" and the "doing the best I can" phases. In this phase, after the "you can have cake in the house and not eat it in the night" voice has allowed unfinished cake to remain in the house, I wake up at 4AM and head for the kitchen, a fierce debate instantly beginning. "DO NOT EAT THE CAKE! You don't NEED it. But I WANT IT! I'm a fucking adult, if I want the God damn cake, I can have it! Don't you have any will power?! Do you want to be a loveless, alone, fat piece of shit? One of those pathetic people who goes through life 20 pounds fat just because they can't not eat cake in the night but they're not so fat that people point at them and go, "Look, there's a fat guy!" The kind of guy who will never know how it feels to have washboard abs like Brad Pitt? Hey, I'm not twenty anymore. Two things. First, you never had washboards abs, even when you were twenty. And two, Brad Pitt is forty like you are and he somehow manages to figure it out! EAT IT! NO! YES! NO!" Sometimes I eat it, sometimes I don't. When I do, at least I let myself enjoy it. Sort of. When I don't, I proudly march back to my bed, my stomach full with a glass of water, feeling like a fucking champion. Until the next night, when sure I've beaten it, take to the kitchen again, and scarf every inch of cake I can find.

This leads to the LIGHT BULB ABOVE THE HEAD IDEA. A sign to everyone else in the world that reads "Turn and run away!" but I see as the margin of my brilliance. The idea is... "If I throw the cake in the trash I won't eat it because it's garbage now." Mensa, baby! I know if I'm going to eat the cake out of the trash before my feet hit the floor. And if I've spoiled it with detergent, I eat around the detergent. If believing it isn't safe in my internal apartment trash, I throw it in the communal trash in the hallway, I still eat it. Once, the service elevator door opened and the porter, looking to steal away my trash bounty, caught me in full bite, chocolate smeared on my face when I didn't want to waste the time to go back inside and eat it. He just looked at me with a steely stare, "You done?" Pointing to the stinking industrial can of the seventeenth floor's waste, more affectionately known as my evening dessert. I made sure I got all my cake out. "Take it. And then just the check please." I didn't say that last part.

So, I rummage through the communal trash until I find my cake and take it back into my apartment. The only way it's safe is soiled with detergent, mutilated into crushed bits and scattered among other people's garbage. It has to actually be touching my neighbor's decaying chicken carcasses, not only safely touching my decaying chicken carcasses in the womb of my own trash bag or it would be totally in the game. Kind of like how you would touch your own inner child's shit if you had to for some reason but no one else's. The last line of defense is the "keep absolutely nothing in the house" strategy. Knowing the refrigerator and the cupboards are bare, I will always ransack them anyway hoping to find some forgotten gem from whenever ago. In twenty years of reconnaissance I've never found even a single chocolate chip. But one night, right there safely tucked on the right side of the shadowy fridge, I thought I saw a suspicious unknown plastic take-out container? What the hell was that? I knew everything in my fridge and I hadn't gotten any food that lived in one of those containers that week for sure. I cautiously opened it up. It was white on top. Some old moldy thing? Gross. I prodded it with a fork because I still wanted to detect its origin. The fork moved through the mold easily and softly. Strange. Is that mold? I turned on the light. I literally could not believe my eyes. A fresh piece of Boston cream pie? I don't think I've ever eaten a piece of Boston cream pie in my life. I'm not sure how I even know what it is. All I know is that that is a piece of chocolate pie with whip cream on it. Boston cream pie right? I quickly turned the light off in case it was a dream, I didn't want to wake myself up, and cautiously took a bite. OH MY GOD! It was the best tasting thing I had ever tasted in my life. I ate it slowly, savoring every bite of this immaculate cakeception until the only graham cracker crust bits remained. I smashed them onto the back of a fork, finished them off and went back to bed, truly feeling I had been visited by God.

Then I realized the maid had been there that day and she had left it, but unfortunately it didn't matter. I'm ruined, because every night now I am sure I will find something.

Posted by Eric Schaeffer at 2:54 PM