Randy

Cody’s friend Randy will tell you that his longest and most recent boyfriend lasted three months. It’s an odd lie. Were this the complete story, he could advertise his fidelity, and a relationship that lasted eight months. An eternity in my mind, and well beyond my estimation of Randy.

We have some caveats that artificially expand the time frame.
A) Randy has never met his boyfriend. They have, however, spoken on the phone.
B) Randy met his boyfriend on myspace.

These alone are enough to explain Randy’s ability to hold this down—something of a mail-order long-term where real-life interaction can never get in the way. This is likely the utmost of what Randy is emotionally capable of. I know I’m treading the limits of your confidence in my empathy here. This isn’t an insult, a cruel thing I maliciously wish upon Randy. It is my honest and albeit unfortunate estimation.

I’ve been stuck on how to phrase what happens next. How do I phrase, “Randy’s boyfriend faked a suicide to break up with him?” Should I note that the stress of ending an internet relationship was too great for this invisible man, so he invented a grieving sister and (a second bevy of) deep-rooted emotional problems? That Randy wasn’t convinced of a break up delivered via more traditional means?

He discovers another myspace profile, and the same pictures under another name. And chats with his dead boyfriend again that next week. You might lose, in the flurry of information, an observation of how Randy deals with this. Randy’s attitude is more than casual, less than cavalier: He acts as if these things should happen to him all the time. As if, “oh, men.” There’s no embarrassment about it. He does not delete the facebook posts that underline his grief. He is unconcerned with public image. There is both ignorance and innocence in him.

Cody. 2

One night Cody and I went out to dinner at a neighborhood place called Joy’s, where they sell cheap noodles. Cody confessed he had slept with someone whose name he could not remember (or never learned) at 5 AM the night before. I asked him how he could live so unromantically. Was he absent-mindedly pursuing aborted emotional connection after aborted emotional connection? We made a deal: if Cody could go out with someone, learning their telephone number and name and not sleeping with them, then I would do the opposite.

Cody quickly made a date despite not having one in two years. He was clearly excited and so was I, to see a project come to fruit so quickly. I think his name was Alex. I never saw him face-to-face. The night of the date, Cody returned to the apartment before he should have, in full make-u, upset and ostensibly to pick up a jacket. He had clearly been drinking, and was heading back out to do more of the same. He had left his car in the street with the emergency lights on. I chased after him, saying ‘Wait.’ The drive was frightening. He wove down alleys and one-ways angrily and with increasing fervor, as if daring me to say, “when.” But we drove in silence, except for the time I stopped him from driving into a person crossing the street.

Walking down the street and over cigarettes, I got Cody to tell me that he had abandoned Alex at a restaurant out in Andersonville, telling him to fuck himself. In the bar next to our house he told me about a past relationship he had that, I pointed out, was clearly brought to bear over this date situation. He was angry and pounding the floor like a boar, but he agreed. Cody continued to drink heavily.

Cody was eager to sell me off for my side of the deal. We ran into Randy and his friend Megan, who talked with me as Cody went around the bar asking older men if they’d like to have sex with me. I am pleased to announce that I had a bite on the second go. Megan, Randy, and I talked with the man as we discussed the terms of the bet. Megan stopped the game for me. But I gave the man my number so he wouldn’t feel bad. I noticed Cody had disappeared and asked Randy. He said Cody had likely gone to “Steamworks.” Steamworks is a bath house, so it surprised me. Megan, Randy and I went back to the apartment to watch some of Cody’s golden girls dvds.

Later Cody returned and it was hard to look at him. When Megan and Cody were in the kitchen talking, I kissed Randy. I really did. I think Megan suspected. She and Cody came back into the room. Feeling mercurial, I implied, asked really, giving words to his anger, if Randy could be my side of the bet. He and Randy got into a fight. He literally said that he told Randy never to touch me, and he threw Randy out of the house. Megan chased after him.

I was shocked and delighted. People fought over me! And really for no reason, but it was dramatic. Cody went on another date with Alex the next day, who had never heard the “fuck you” and simply did not know where Cody had gone. But later, Alex “broke up” with Cody, after five dates, by simply ignoring him at a bar.

Cody. 1

The first time I saw Cody I thought I wouldn't live with him. I had walked a long time, mostly my own fault for being lost, and I remember being addled by him, and then chastising myself. I got drunk off the apple martini he gave me as we discussed my backstory, which was a complete lie.

He gave my friends a toaster when he met them.

We went through his old roommate’s things: a pair of drop-seat pants, two complete sets of schoolchildrens’ hand bells, and all his old computer files. The roommate married someone he dated for six months and moved to California, and I think it’s because he’s dying. One of his files was a doctor’s report he had sent in to work about his undergoing a surgery that one in five people survive. Cody hated him.

After Cody went to work I checked out his room. Anyone would notice all the teddy bears and pornography. The pornography was of a very low grade. Teens from 1990.

Cody will often ask me how to spell things. I wondered what it would mean when he wrote me out my “depoist.” Now other friends will call Cody to have him ask for a spelling. One time he became very sullen when he thought, through a misunderstanding, that I had said “irregardless” was a word, when it wasn’t. …I thought he’d asked about “irregular.”

Cody took me out to his favorite bar and introduced to me his friend Randy. Randy told me he’s slept with over 200 people. He was innocuous though. It excited me to meet him. I tried to get him to show me how he would talk to men, but he wouldn’t do it.
We went to dinner with his pregnant friend Pauline. There I became drunk again after a single martini. I liked Pauline. Early social success with them was ultimately damaged by their observation that I had a little interesting fact to add into almost any conversation topic. Afterward, we went shoe shopping, at 9 PM, and then out for some drunk driving.

The Raft