Playing With Matches

I got a text message at 2:19 a.m. saying, “Where you at cracka?”

I had no idea who it was from. I just googled the number — and it’s a guy I went on my very first JDate with. We went on one date, over three years ago — and now he’s texting me? 

But, since his date story is one of my friends favorites — I will retell it here. This is a guy who spoke on our date about how he hopes his grandparents will die soon so he can inherit their land in the Bahamas. His JDate profile said he was 5′11″ but his actual height is closer to 3′9″.

    The guy IMs me on Friday, gives me his number and says to call. I call Saturday afternoon. He says he’s bowling with his buddies. He asks if I have plans later. I have a couple of parties to go to, but I could meet for a drink. I’ll call you around 6, he says.

He suggests meeting at The Tavern.

Cool, I say. That’s near my house.

It turns out he gambles at the illegal poker game across the street from my apartment. He lost $500 playing on house credit last night and he needs to get some cash and take it by.

Don’t laugh; they might break my legs, he says. When you see a black Mustang, come out. Then we can walk to the bar.

Since I can’t see the poker house from my window, I take my dog, Zoe, out for a walk.

            He calls and says he’s here. I walk toward the poker house; there are some okay looking guys on the porch. He isn’t one of them.

My date is sitting in his car. I tell him that I’ll just put my dog inside. He says he’ll pull around. Our plan was to walk, but he doesn’t get out of his car. As I walk up, he unlocks the door child-molester c’mere-little-girl-let-me-give-you-some-candy style.

  I get in. 

 “We’re taking a detour,” he says, and suddenly swerves the car down a side street. He drives by the house he just moved out of with his ex girlfriend; he broke up with her in November, but their lease wasn’t up until February, and he didn’t want to move out since they were both on the lease because what if she didn’t pay the rent? And he couldn’t ask her to leave, since her name is on the lease. The landlord kept his security deposit because he painted the walls and he wants to drive by, look in the windows and see if they had repainted the walls. That was nice paint, he says. Ralph Lauren.

    “They kept my flag,” he says. “That’s a $600 flag!”

    Uhm, do you want to get it?

     As he drives, I notice that his arms seem really short. But, that afternoon, I had watched a Discovery Channel special on Little People.

    Am I? I ask.

    Because I KNOW I’m not taller than 5′11,” which is what his profile says. I know Jews tend to lie about their height — case in point, my driver’s license says I’m 5′6″ (and I’m barely 5′5″). But my friend Lisa’ s 9-year-old daughter is taller than him. I think her 6-year-old may be too.

    “Let’s get smashed!” he says. He throws his little arms up into the air and runs into the bar.

    I order a Shiner Bock, and Buffalo wings. He orders Coke with vanilla vodka; he complains that there’s no alcohol in it and makes me taste it.

            He looks at the blond, 6-foot waitress and says he’d climb her like a banana tree. I’d have to use a pole vault, he says.

              He launches into a monologue about how J-Date sucks, and he’s unlisting his profile and he hates all the women he meets on it. He says he wasn’t really with friends when he called me this afternoon; he was on a date with another girl. He’s been dating her for a few months and they always have a really good time — but there isn’t a spark, and he doesn’t know how to tell her. She wanted him to meet her parents today and kept talking about how her birthday is coming up. When she told him the date, he said, “Oh, I need to do my taxes that weekend.”

    He says he grew up in the housing projects and was kicked out of the house when he was 14.

    “Really?” I ask. “I didn’t think Jews did that.”

    “Well, I’m not really Jewish,” he says. “My mom is Catholic. And my dad is Jewish.” But he considers himself Jewish and twice a year — when he wants to talk to God — he goes to temple. His kids have to be Jewish. His parents got divorced when he was little, and his mom remarried and his step dad beat the shit out of him and kicked him out. He hasn’t spoken to either of his parents since. He won’t call his mother, ‘Mom’ or by her name. He just calls her “she.” The woman who birthed him, he says, is the spawn of the devil.

        He’s hoping his grandparents will die in the next five years, so he can inherit their land in the Bahamas, sell his divorce attorney practice, and retire. He wants to build a shack, do a little volunteer work and play cards.

      Then he told me about a girl who broke a beer bottle on his face, and he bled all over his $2,000 Dunhill sweater. (He buys a lot of $2,000 sweaters, he says, even though he can’t afford them.)

      When he moved to town, the ASPCA told him he wasn’t a good candidate for a dog. They wouldn’t give him a dog. So he bought a fox terrier from a breeder. He wants my silky terrier, Zoe, to meet his dog. He kept talking about how great it’ll be when the two dogs meet. His dog is really mad at him and won’t sleep with him anymore.

    “That’s too bad,” I say. (I don’t think I’ve ever said, “That’s too bad” more times in one conversation.)

    Throughout the date he kept taking phone calls, making plans with his friends for later. Maybe he knew from the start that it wasn’t going to work out. He had three drinks. ”Wow, I’m feeling it,” he says. I had half of one. He wanted me to finish mine so he could order another one. Do you need me to drive, I ask.

    He insists that he’s fine, and on the drive home tells me his two favorite foods are Krispe Kreme and Dom.

    What’s Dom? A Vietnamese dish?

    Dom Perignon, he says. I’m a champagne freak.

    I drink the $6.99 bottles of Freixinet. If champagne came in a screw cap – I’d drink it.

    In addition to his Mustang, he also owns a Porsche. He goes to Europe for the weekend all the time — usually Frankfurt or Brussels. Continental.com was having a special this weekend and he should have gone. He’s kicking himself that the amount he lost playing poker he could have spent on the trip. (Insert another: “That’s too bad.”)

I told him he should take the girl to Europe for her birthday. I told him that I think I think his girlfriend might not really be Jewish either, because her name is an Arabic name. (Generally, Jews don’t have Arabic names.) It means beautiful. (This girl in college wrote an article for the magazine I edited about how her name meant beautiful, but she always felt ugly…. )

       He pulls up at my house, I say thank you for the beer and the Buffalo wings. Good luck with everything, I say and give him a handshake. He limply shakes my hand.

On Monday, he e-mails me suggesting we make it a Blockbuster night.

No.

He asks if we can do it again.

No.

Then, three years later, he sends a late-Thursday night text. He needs to delete my number.