Weird Date: The Homeless Guy

We went back to my place.

by Jami Attenberg

March 7, 2008

In the mid-'90s I lived in Seattle in a 350-square-foot studio apartment on Capitol Hill. I had no furniture except for a bed and a lawn chair I'd found in an alley. I held a variety of terrible jobs, and I worked infrequently. For the first time in my life I was irresponsible with my credit card. My friends and I got high and picked mushrooms off the land in front of the Seattle University campus chapel. They were not exceptionally strong, but three or four would induce an hour-long high followed by a restful sleep.

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I slept a lot those days.

I spent my nights in bars and my days in cafés, favoring the Speakeasy, a massive, high-ceilinged internet cafe downtown. One had to dodge the homeless drunks — who at that time dominated downtown Seattle — to make it through the front door, but it was worth it. They had gallery shows and a performance space in back, and a clientele composed mainly of artists and computer geeks. I thought they were all hot, but I never talked to anyone because I felt I had nothing to offer.

This is where I saw him, the man in the suit jacket and the ever-changing array of vintage shirts. He was put together just so, which I admired. Also, he was slightly worn in the face and at least ten years older than everyone else. He always had a book open in front of him, just like me.

He spoke to me first. He told me he liked my book. I was reading Cathedral by Raymond Carver, which was sort of like reading A Confederacy of Dunces in New Orleans, which was sort of like reading Bright Lights, Big City in New York; they were all books that could make someone young feel like the world at that very moment had been invented specifically for them.

"I like it because everyone around here sounds like Carver's characters," I said. "Up north, especially." I had gone thrifting in Everett a few weeks before, and every conversation I heard in the Value Village was clipped and mournful.

He looked down and clenched his hands together. His fingernails were dirty, but not so much I minded it.

We talked about books for a while. His name was Davy, and he used to own a bookstore. Mainly first editions, but they sold records and comic books too. I had graduated from college two years before so I had a fresh enthusiasm about literature.

"It was right down the street," he told me. "Closed six months back. We'll get it going again." He looked down and clenched his hands together. His fingernails were dirty, but not so much I minded it. Just a thin line of dirt under the top of the nail, as if he had traced the shape with a ballpoint pen.

"Everyone said they loved my shop, but no one ever bought a goddamn thing," he said. He was angry, and then he calmed himself. "This city's changing. Look at this place." He waved around. "Everyone's got their head glued to a computer instead of a book."

I hadn't embraced the internet yet, so I was with him on that. Computers were what you used in an office. We spoke for an hour. He seemed relieved to have someone to talk to, and so was I. I missed having a book person in my life. My last boyfriend — the one who was missing the tips of two fingers, a detail that had played out a little oddly during sex — had worked at the university bookstore and was writing a novel he would never show me. He had dumped me for no apparent reason. Dumped by a bookstore clerk — I still sighed about it.

Davy asked me if I wanted to meet him for a drink. His tongue ran over his lips. He seemed thirsty. I said yes. I didn't get asked out a lot on dates; I mostly just got picked up in bars and had sex with men who I never saw again. So this was what happened when you met someone sober. Interesting.

"Do you want my number?" I said.

He shrugged. "I'll trust you'll meet me there."

"Well here it is anyway." I really wanted to give someone my phone number. I ripped a page out of my notebook.

"My phone's shut down right now," he said. "I ran a little short this month. But thanks."

"I understand," I said, and I did. Running short.

I met him two nights later at the tiki bar down the street. He was wearing a vintage suit and his hair was combed neatly to the side. There was an empty glass in front of him. He greeted me loudly. He was showing off, I thought. That made me feel special.

We both drank up. We talked some more about his bookstore. It was all he wanted to talk about actually. He knew the bartender (which impressed me) and waved her over.

"Tell Jami here how great my bookstore was. People loved that store."

"You know what I want?" he said. "To take a shower. I haven't showered in days."

"It was a great store," she said kindly.

"No one ever fucking bought anything, but it was a great store," he said.

He finished his drink in one gulp. The bartender stared at him. "One more Davy?"

He put his hand on my knee. "What's your place like? I want to see it."

"It's really small," I said.

"I want to see it," he said. "I mean — I want to go there with you." He leaned in and kissed me, a peck on the lips. He stank, I thought of liquor and aftershave. I didn't like him, but I didn't not like him and I liked fooling around a lot and I thought maybe he liked me.

I drove up the hill to my place on Nineteenth Street. Davy was manic, howling at the moon. "This is going to be great," he said. "Is your place really nice?" I ignored him. "I'm sure it's nice. Just like you." He rubbed his hand on the back of my neck and I looked at him. Then he squeezed my breast and I shrugged him off. "I'm driving," I mumbled.

Up the stairs, the dingy stairs: he bounded, I struggled. I didn't want him anymore. Suddenly I was regretting every decision I had made that night. In fact, every decision I had ever made. I was bright. I had gone to a good university. I had blown off the job-interview day on campus my senior year, and I remember sitting on the quad, watching my classmates, all dressed in new business suits, walking to meet people who would hire them. Was I supposed to sign up for interviews? The world moved too fast for me.

Inside my apartment he looked at my bookshelf, then at my walk-in closet, with lovely French doors, the one shining feature. Then he turned and smiled and pushed me up against the wall.

"You know what I want?" he said. "To take a shower. I haven't showered in days." He stopped himself. "I mean, since yesterday."

He really did smell, I thought. Not just the liquor.

"That's okay," I said. "I don't need to shower."

My refusal didn't faze him.

"Got any beer?" he said.

"Yeah. You sit there." I pointed to the bed. I didn't want him on my bed necessarily, but I wanted him to stop touching me. In the kitchen I grabbed a handful of mushrooms and gobbled them down. Then I opened two bottles of Red Hook.

I handed him a beer, and he patted the bed. I sat far away from him.

"Playing hard to get, huh?" he said.

"I don't know if I want to," I said. I was afraid he would say, "Well then why did you invite me here?" as several men had in my past, me often acquiescing in the end.

"That's okay," he said. "We can talk about books more if you want." He was smiling.

We had another conversation about his bookstore. Well, he talked. About neighborhood and community. About how people had failed him. The crush of the small businessman. He was on a loop. I knew that loop myself. It was enough that I had been in a holding pattern for the two years since I graduated college. I could not bear to watch it in someone else. It is a terrifying thing, to face yourself in someone else.

Finally I said, "I kind of feel like I need to sleep."

"I just want to crash anyway," he said. "So that'll work."

"No, I mean alone," I said.

He looked over at the closet.

"Listen, I'm kind of between places," he said. "I don't even care about sleeping with you. You don't have anything to worry about."

The final indignity: he didn't want to sleep with me in the first place. He just wanted a place to sleep.

"I could crash in there," he said. He pointed to the closet. "Not just tonight, even. For a while."

"I could crash in there," he said. He pointed to the closet. "Not just tonight, even. For a while. I could pay you a little bit of money." He pulled out a fistful of bills from his pocket.

The mushrooms started to kick in. He looked like a wolf.

"I mean, otherwise it's the streets for me," he said.

"I can't do it," I said.

"It's cold out," he said.

"I think you should go." It was completely urgent that he leave.

"It's not like anyone else is using the closet," he said.

"My clothes are," I slurred. "My clothes live there. They live there." His hair was mussed. Were there pointed ears under there? "You have to go." I got up and opened the door. "Right now," I said.

He sat there and stared at me. Everyone had betrayed him. His world had collapsed and he had fallen into a bottle and all he wanted was a place to stay. He said, "Well, what if I don't want to go?"

He didn't mean it, though. I can tell you right now it was not a threat. It was a plea for mercy.

But I couldn't hear it that way. Something was wrong with me then. And it wasn't just the drugs.

"Then. I. Will. Scream."

He left. He went down to the lobby. He hovered in the cold for a while. I know this because he kept buzzing my apartment. By then I was scared. "Just go," I said into the intercom. He gave up after fifteen minutes. I called a friend and went and stayed with her at the big group house three blocks over. "I met a crazy man," was all I said, and we snuggled together under her covers until we both passed out.

In 2001, the Speakeasy burned down in a two-alarm fire, but it carries on as a national internet-service provider. Things happen like that in Seattle. It's a pioneer town; people survive and transform. Now everything is slick and new. Last time I was in Seattle, the downtown was all chain stores and the homeless were relegated to the waterfront. I didn't look for him, though I thought of him. He knew so much about books. He's fine now, I believe that. Someone took him in and helped him to get his act together. Someone. But not me. n°

©2008 Jami Attenberg and hooksexup.com