Post #3: The Weirdness Starts at Night: plotting my escape

You know, it’s come to my attention that some of you seem to believe that my quarantine experience isn’t all that rock bottom, that it sounds more like a dream than a nightmare. Oh you poor baby, I hear you saying, stuck in a house by yourself to do whatever you like… instead of being trapped in only a handful of rooms with three children and a spouse, all of whom are either crying or screaming at all hours of the day. (Note, nobody has actually said this to me, but believe me, it’s implied in the tone, and you know who you are…)

And to that I say… fair enough. I would be lying if I tried to say this isolation has been one hundred percent awful. When not suffering from bouts of loneliness and helplessness, there have been some amazing moments during all this. So I figured, instead of yet another post about how bad things are right now, let’s go into an example of the good times I’ve had. For this quarantine has provided some beautiful, thoroughly enjoyable, and, otherwise unattainable, moments for me. Especially in the nighttime. So let’s lift up our drinks and cheers to one of the good nights of quarantine. But as you drink from your drinks, consider this, a fun Randy night during quarantine might be just a bit different than what some of you had in mind…

So buckle up, cause shit’s about to get weird. 

It’s the last night of the first week of the craziness, and I’m cooking myself dinner. And I’m using the stove. This is rare for me, as before the quarantine I rarely explored dinner options that required something more than a microwave. But look at me now. I’m on my third home cooked meal in three days! Right now I’m working on an ambitious meal of vegetables and properly cooked chicken. Last night, I enjoyed a meal of vegetables and overcooked chicken. Which was a small improvement from the night before when I enjoyed a meal of vegetables and undercooked chicken. (I never thought I’d have such eclectic culinary tastes, but here we are…) 

Now I really am trying to focus all my attention on the sizzling meat in the pan, but I find myself distracted by my wrist and lower palm, which are currently wrapped in brown packing tape. About twenty minutes earlier I was cutting up some mushrooms when I somehow accidentally sliced into my palm near the wrist. Fortunately, this was not a deep cut, but it was obnoxiously long, about two good inches, I’d say. And the gash bled a good deal. Just picture me pressing down on my tiny bloody wound with my other hand while cursing wildly and frantically searching for bandaids. It was here that I realized I was completely out of band aids. I’m pretty sure I had stored some under the sink, but they were nowhere to be found, and more than a small part of me believes my former roommate, J, jacked them as he moved out. Every day I find more and more stuff missing, stuff that wasn’t exactly mine, but wasn’t exactly his either. The bastard. 

Anyway, without any bandaids, and all stores closed at this hour (9 FREAKING PM) I had no choice but to MacGyver my way out of this problem. So I grabbed some paper towels and packing tape and got to work. Seven minutes, eight tries, thirty expletives, and at least four feet of wasted tape later, I find myself with a wound sufficiently treated and dealt with.

 (Just look at me now mom, in one week I’ve turned into a chef and a nurse. Not too shabby…)

The unfortunate thing though, I discover, is that there is really no way to dress a wound on the lower palm with packing tape without it looking like you’ve made an attempt on your life. So everytime I go and reach out with the spatula to move my chicken bits and veggies around, I see my homemade bandage I can’t help but think of that one goth girl from the movie Empire Records who shaves her head and bandages her wrists so it appears as if she tried to kill herself. With my shaved head and bandaged wrist, I can honestly say I’ve never felt so close to this particularly movie character before. 

But this comparison seems rather bleak to me, and I prefer to think of something more fun while cooking. So as I move my pieces of chicken on the pot, letting them soak in the bubbling oil around the edges, I think back to that video an old roommate sent me a few hours ago. It was a video shot on a phone of a bunch of cops in some South American country, all dressed in yellow hazmat suits, who are heading in one straight line into some park. They are walking in a steady determined manner in unison. But as they go further in the park their pace picks up, and before long they are jogging, which soon turns into running, which evolves into sprinting. And as they sprint the camera moves forward and we see the cops are launching themselves at a large group of park revelers who are clearly ignoring any and all social distancing rules. These poor sons of bitches barely even notice the sprinting hazmat figures until it’s too late. Those who aren’t tackled and taken to the ground end up fleeing in every direction like a herd of terrified cattle. 

The whole video is rather unsettling and just reeks of post-apocalyptic chaos, but it reminds me of why this crisis is so unique. It’s affecting every corner of the globe. From Los Angeles to Tokyo to every place in between. That can’t help but send a chill up most people’s spines. 

And to me, it very much resembles a zombie movie. And let me tell you, there are few things I enjoy more than a good zombie movie. So much so that I start thinking about an actual zombie outbreak, which gets me to thinking about that bandage wrapped around my hand. I decide the bandage is not actually hiding one of the most pathetic kitchen injuries of all time, but rather, a zombie bite. Yes, it’s the zombie apocalypse and just a few hours ago I survived a tussle with a group of zedheads in my backyard, and I only got away after one of them sank their teeth into my wrist. Now, I’m preparing for my fate, cooking the last meal I will ever enjoy as a human, before I turn into a member of the undead. 

(I realize that to some of you this does not seem any more uplifting than the empire record girl with the shaved head and bandage wrists, but these are the thoughts that keep my warm at night, and you’re just gonna have to accept that.) 

Anyway, playing this fun little mental game makes me realize how I will begin my escape tonight. I am very much looking forward to my escape. I’ve had three so far in the past week, and each one is better than the last. (I know, I know, three escapes in one week? Yeah those are some quarantine stats right there.) I’m starting to get this down to an artform and I couldn’t be happier. 

I have all the required supplies. A half full bottle of Jameson, and a classy tumbler glass to go along with it, about twenty Coors Light left in the fridge (I’m on that gnarly domestic beer diet, remember?) and a couple of bottles of water. There’s a pipe full of the green in the bedroom if I need that too, but that really just depends how the escape goes. Some escapes call for the green, others don’t. 

Now I know some of you (or quite possibly, all of you) are wondering what the hell an escape is. Obviously I’m going to tell you, that’s what this whole freaking post is about after all, but first I want you to just appreciate that I’m even talking about it at all. Before the quarantine hit, this was my dirty little secret that I never could quite explain. But now? Now I simply have no fucks left to give, so let’s just get into it. 

I like to think all artists have an escape. It’s what God gave us instead of a retirement or dental plan. Sure we may grow holes in our teeth by the time we are fifty, but we have a way to launch off this earth and into the stratosphere in our own unique way. You might assume my escape would be through writing, but no not really. I love writing, I’m passionate about writing, but it’s something I have to take on with a great deal of focus and determination. To quote Cypress Hill, it’s a fun job, but it’s still a job. 

No, my escape is through dance. Oh yes. Specifically, dancing at night, alone, in complete darkness, with my earbuds wedged in my ears, killing all the sound of the real world. 

This does not mean I am in any way a skilled dancer. I have found very little rhythm in my life, I must admit. But that’s not the point. The point is to escape. It’s to worldbuild. It’s to vanish the planet you are on and go off into some new, imagined existence. I’m telling you, that perfect combination of whiskey, beer, an empty dark room and some Tupac can take you to amazing places. 

At least it does for me. And a lot of times, these new places I go to help me with my stories. I’ve come up with entire concepts, arcs, and characters through my escapes. So I guess that’s partly why I do it. But another reason, the bigger reason I suspect, is because it’s just so much damn fun. Escapes come with a sort of euphoria that’s hard to put into words. In all honesty, there have been weekend nights, back in what I call the Beforetimes, where I would leave my friends at the bar just so I could go back to my room and escape. Yeah, it’s weird. But yeah, it’s also an amazing time. 

Anyway, back in the Beforetimes I had to hide this side of me from most people. It turns out that no matter how much humans promote expressing yourself freely and acting like no one is watching you, people are still put off by a full-grown red-bearded man dancing (mostly) silently in the night, alone, occasionally muttering every other word to the lyrics that only he can hear. Fuckin’ hypocrites, man. 

But now! Now, baby, thanks to the quarantine, I have a whole house to myself! An entire palace of weirdness that no one can touch. Hell, there isn’t even furniture to get in my way now! The only way I can describe this change in fortune is to imagine yourself as a mouse, a small, innocent mouse, that lives inside an apartment wall and comes out only at night to feed off the crumbs on the floor that the humans who live there leave behind, but whenever a light comes on, or the pounding of incoming footsteps is heard, the mouse must scurry back into his hole in the wall to safety. Imagine you’re that mouse in that harsh setting, and then one day you wake up to find yourself in Willy Wonka’s Chocolate factory and there is no one there but you! (Let’s say it’s during the pandemic so Willy and his loompas are all social distancing at home). So you, this little mouse, have this entire factory of chocolate to eat. Imagine how amazing that would be. Imagine how free you would feel. 

Well, that’s how I have felt, basking in the good times of quarantine. 

So now I’m at my desk, enjoying my dinner of vegetables and chicken that is oddly overcooked in parts and undercooked in others, and I’m thinking about the playlist for my escape. In case you don’t know, nothing is more crucial for an escape than a playlist. You need at least four of five good songs ready to go to maximize your enjoyment. Sticking to one genre or artist really isn’t an issue. I’ve gone from outlaw country to hip hop to classical music in a single escape. It’s really about how the mood strikes you at that particular time and what music gets you in the moment. 

Right now, I’ve been reveling in that Queen song “Somebody to Love”, a hit song that somehow escaped (ha!) my knowledge until only recently. But now I can’t get enough of it. Yes, I decide, Somebody to Love will be the main course of tonight’s escape. Also, another track that somehow missed my attention was Lil Wayne’s 6 Foot 7 Foot which I’ve discovered has one of the best flows for an escape. Finally, I figure a dash of MGMT and perhaps some Meatloaf (you simply have not lived until you’ve escaped to A Bat Outta Hell) would round things off nicely. Of course, this seems to imply an escape only last about twenty minutes, which is not the case at all. Usually they go on for a good hour or two, if not more. It’s just that I have tendency to listen to the same songs over and over and over again (I know, I’m crazy). 

I’ve finished my chicken and most of my vegetables, and I feel a tingly sensation inside me because I know the fun is about to begin. I walk into the kitchen and put my plate in the sink, before making myself a whiskey on ice in my tumbler glass before making my first music selection of the night. Of course I go with Lil Wayne because if I’ve learned anything it’s that rap songs are generally the best to start an escape because a high energy , repetitive beat is exactly what you want to get yourself going.

My earbuds are now in my ear, my hand reaches over and turns the kitchen light, the only light in the house that’s on, off, and I’m standing in darkness, waiting for Lil Wayne to do his thing. And he does. I head out to the hallway, what I’ve renamed the Strutway, which is sort of like a launching pad for an escape, where you strut a good ten feet before bursting into the living room and letting it rip. 

It’s an odd thing, you know, being allowed to strut as much as you want without worrying about whether anyone is staring or judging you. It’s rather god damn amazing, to be honest. 

But before we get into what’s coming next, let’s stop right here so I can tell you two things you need to know so you understand how big this is for me. 

One, I have never lived alone. Ever. From birth ‘til now, I’ve always been in a house or apartment with someone else. 

Two, from college ‘til now, I’ve had exactly (and I mean exactly) forty roommates. Yes forty. 

4-0. 

 I know some of you don’t believe me so I’m gonna list them below (first name only to protect the innocent). Ready? Here we go:

Rob

Aram

Dan

Luke

Mark

Mark (different Mark)

Jordan (RIP)

Topher

Scott (douche)

Lauren

Sarah

Ryan

Alex

Matt

Brad

Greg

Kayeln

Justin (went to prison)

David

Steve

Victoria

Andrew

Logan

Laura

Kim

Cormac

Alex

Gabe

Nena (pyscho!)

Carlos (don’t get me started) 

Ariadne (girlfriend, but we were pretty much roommates at this point)

Emmet

Winnfield

Caleb

Max

Will (also psycho) 

Christine

Roshaun

F

M

J

Now, is that a list, or is that a list? I mean be honest, have you ever seen a list of first names that long since the bible? You pepper in some begats in there and it’s practically Genesis. 

Yes, in an odd sort of way I’m both proud and ashamed of that list, although I’m not sure why… 

And this list breaks down into three basic categories: College, Los Angeles, New Orleans. Twelve roommates from college, fifteen from Los Angeles, and thirteen from Nola. (pretty evenly distributed, eh? Yeah, I just noticed that too, not sure what that means.).

Now again, I know what some of you must be thinking. How on earth could someone have so many roommates unless they were a horrible person to live with and sent people fleeing for the hills? Well, let me just tell you, that is not the case here…I’m pretty sure. I’m not nearly that bad of a roommate… I think. Weird? Sure, I’m weird. But terrible, no sir. In fact, just going over that list now I only spot four people on it that I know for a fact legitimately don’t like me. Four out of forty! That’s one out of ten! That ain’t so bad. 

I think if we further break this list down it’s easy to find what is really going on here. College was, well, college. So you basically got just a bunch of friends moving in and out of your apartment or house at all times for four years. So boom, that explains that first twelve. 

Then you got LA. And LA, well, that was a revolving door of big dreamers turned into disillusioned quitters. Wide-eyed, bushy tailed, youngins who moved in with me proclaiming that “they are going to make it big!” only to realize six months later that they were just kidding about all that, and promptly move back home. So there’s another fifteen. 

Finally, you have New Orleans. Well, I can’t really explain New Orleans, but who can?

The point I’m making is, I didn’t go through forty roommates because I’m an awful one, but because of a mixture of reasons that have absolutely nothing to do with me (I feel like I’m being defensive at this point, is that right? Am I being defensive? Sorry, I’m still coming to terms with the fact that I’ve had forty roommates).

With all that being said, I would be lying if I didn’t admit that some, perhaps most, maybe even all but a few, have been rather, shall we say, caught off guard by my escapes. There are a few highlights I can remember off the top of my head. Like in the beginning of my third year of college, when my buddy Luke and I were arguing over who should get the big secluded upstairs room and he told me he should get it because he had a girlfriend and I didn’t and he would need a place away from the rest of us when she came over and get busy where we couldn’t hear them. And I told him I should get it in case I needed to dance (I hadn’t come up with my escape term yet) and he crooked his head a bit and looked at me confused. 

“Dance? You mean like bring a chick home and dance with her in your room?”

“No…like, if the moment hits me and I need to get an idea out so I start… dancing.”

The rest of that conversation did not go well, but I did end up getting that room.

Or in LA, when my roommate Steve found me at three in the morning, dancing in the living room with headphones on, and just stared at me until I noticed him. I tried to explain myself but he just kept on staring and staring without saying a word, until I finally slunked away to my room so I wouldn’t feel judged anymore. (He was a good guy though. A big fan of pro-wrestling… never could understand that).

Then there was Nena, who was the one that keyed the shit out of my car one night after we got into an argument over the dishes. This doesn’t really have anything to do with escaping, but I’m still really bummed out about that and think about it often. 

And of course, there was my last roommate J who loathed and despised my escapes, as he did all my other weirdness too. I remember being on the front porch one night, jamming out to LCD Soundsystem, when he barged out and told me for the love of god to stop. 

“Why should I stop dancing,” I asked him, “how is it bothering you?”

“No, not the dancing, the fucking clapping. It’s driving me crazy.” 

“I don’t clap.” 

“Yes you do. You do it all the time when you listen to your music.”

“No…”

“Yes…” 

“Alright look,” I tell him, “give me five minutes out here alone. I’m gonna pay attention to what I do. If I so much as clap once, I owe you an apology.”

It was then I discovered that I do clap a great deal while escaping and was forced to offer J a number of apologies and to promise to stop this habit in the future (which I did, after a good deal of difficulty). That’s the thing about escapes, it’s hard to really know what you’re doing in the physical world because you feel so far removed from it. 

Anyway, now you see why all this is so big for me. Suddenly, I am free of all social expectations and am allowed to get as freaking weird as I went. Hell, I’m not escaping in the corner anymore, I’ve turned my house into an Escape Prom! Every night is my big night to get creative while showing my moves to the ghosts within these walls. 

So there I am, strutting to Lil Wayne in the dark hallway, feeling the excitement build inside me. I take a few sips of my whiskey, and then reach out for an unopened beer sitting on the pantry shelf. I have strategically placed beers around my beautiful empty house so that I can pick one up in any room I am in without having to carry one around like a schmuck (I’m a thinking man, don’t you get it?). 

 I continue to sturt until I hit the entrance to the living room, and just like that, I break out into a flurry of elbow pumps, foot twists and oscillating head tilts, completely out of sync with the beat but completely in touch with my needs. To give you some idea what this looks like, imagine Forrest Gump as a child dancing to Elvis while he has those leg braces on, combined with the Elaine Benes dance, and topped off with the Heath Ledger’s Joker sticking his head out of the moving car in The Dark Knight and you’ll have some basic idea of what is going inside my tomb of cool. 

Meanwhile, inside my head things are absolutely incredible, as I’m completely submerged in my zombie story, the walls around me have transformed into a war torn city landscape, with herds of the undead coming right at me and my fellow survivors. This is the point of the story where all my main characters either need to make it out to safety in just the nick of time, or only some of them do and others die a terrible nasty death of gnashing teeth. I don’t have the answer yet, but Lil Wayne’s ultra fast flow is helping me find my way. 

Occasionally, I’ll be stricken with this fear that one of my roommates is gonna walk in and see my flailing in the dark and get upset, but then I remember I’m living through a global pandemic and the virus has become my own little security force, keeping all the riff raff out, and I can’t help but laugh and laugh at all this unbelievable freedom I know have. 

Ten minutes later, the song ends for the fourth time in a row and I feel sweat dripping off my forehead and rising up inside my shirt, so I grab one of my strategically placed beers and go out to the front porch for a break. Breaks are important for an escape, otherwise you blow your load early in the night. And you can’t have that, can you? 

But when I go out I try to turn the front porch light on, only to find flipping the lightswitch on does nothing. I try a few more times but again nothing. I go to the light itself, wondering if the bulb became ajar somehow. Instead, I find under the yellow ceramic lamp that the bulb is missing entirely. I feel myself go hot with anger. I know for a fact that there was a lightbulb there at least a week ago.. 

That motherfucker, I realize. That motherfucker J swiped the god damn lightbulb from the porch. That cheap, petty bastard. I can hear just him justifying his actions to himself. “Randy’s such a weirdo, who cares if I steal this lightbulb.” 

The bastard! 

I get the sudden urge to send a nasty text to him, but I stop myself. No, I think, revenge is best served by doing all the weird shit they hated about you as hard as you can in the place they used to live. 

So I rip my iPod from my pocket and go for the big guns. I’m skipping right past Queen and MGMT and head to the operatic granddaddy badass of them all. Meatloaf, motherfuckers. Bat Out of Hell. I finish my whiskey and head back inside. I proceed to twirl, shimmy, and oh yes, shake my way through the living room, dining room, the kitchen, the Strutway, and back to the living room in what can only be described as a circle of madness. In case you don’t know, the song is damn near ten minutes long and I let out all my freak in those ten minutes as that unrelenting chorus kicks my ass. 

Like a Bat out of hell I’ll be gone when the morning comes. 

When the night is over, like a bat out of hell, I’ll be gone, gone, gone!

Yes, my hips are out of control, my shoulders know no bounds, and my escape has turned into something of a grudge match, and I’m loving every second of it. I recall every moment where a roommate of my past berated me for my odd behavior. Where are you now, assholes, where are you now? 

But when the day is done and the sun goes down and the moonlight’s shining through, then like a sinner before the gates of Heaven I’ll come crawling back to you! 

As the song reaches its last two minutes, I retreat to the far back room that was once occupied by J, and I let loose in ways I never have been. Weird in a way that I’ve never been before. Weird in a way that would absolutely horrify J. And as it all comes to a glorious end I find myself clapping. Clapping hard enough so J might hear it in his new spot blocks away, clapping for the song, for the escape, for the impossible series of events that have led me to this great gift. And as Meatloaf sings his last line and my headphones go silent, I continue to clap, hearing the sound of it echo off the empty walls. The euphoria is still all around me, soaking in this empty room that used to be filled with hostility against me. I can’t help but smile as I realize that sometimes, just sometimes, this quarantine thing ain’t such a bad thing. 

UP NEXT: The last Haunted Pub Crawl Tour in the French Quarter