Fiction

Notes on How My Irrational Fear of Organ-Harvesting Has Been Killing My Chances of Random Hookups in N.Y.C.

Schiller’s Liquor Bar
Saturday night, 1 a.m.

Problem: Stylish woman, late 20s, slightly Eastern European accent. Black mini-dress, heels. Drinks white wine. Likes my “style,” thinks I look “healthy.” Accurately guesses my age, height and weight.

Conclusion: She wants to take me home and drug me to harvest my kidneys.

Result: I go home alone.

Cavatappo Wine Bar
Tuesday night, 12 a.m.

Problem: Sexy Thai girl, late 20s, long black hair. The bar is closing but she suggests we go back to her hotel, where she has wine and wants to take a “sexy bath.”

Conclusion: She will put drugs in the wine and I will wake up in a bathtub covered in ice, feeling intense pain in my lower back, only to discover later that she has flawlessly removed one of my kidneys. Also, she would skip town and sticks me with the hotel bill.

Result: Fake a headache, go home alone.

Angels & Kings
Wednesday night, 2 a.m.

Problem: Pete Wentz invites me to come to a loft-party where Fall Out Boy is going to “jam on some covers.” Says there’ll be some hot emo girls there, Ultragrrrl.

Conclusion: Emo girls aren’t all that hot and strike me as largely unhealthy, likely in need of liver transplants. Sketchy about whether or not there would even be a bathtub to wake up in, let alone ice. Slacker hipsters probably aren’t even that good with opening Bud bottles, much less wielding scalpels.

Result: I wisely decline the offer.

The Modern
Thursday night, 10 p.m.

Problem: Tall, elegant blond who resembles a young Jerry Hall offers to buy me a glass of champagne. Is in town on business and a little lonely, “just wants some company.” Says she thinks short guys are “cute,” and is “intrigued” by me. Has to fly to Paris in the morning and wants me to join her back at her hotel.

Conclusion: Totally worth losing a kidney for, as I’m beginning to think I’ll never get laid again and women like this don’t fall out of trees. Still, she’d easily overpower me and take all of my internal organs and sell them on some elegant high-tech black market, like in The Island. Probably staying in some chic hotel with a bathroom filled with medical equipment.

Result: Go with her in a taxi back to her hotel, making out on the way there. As she’s staying at the TriBeCa Grand, I take off running as soon as the cab stops. Hit the A train, breathe easy like those guys in The Warriors when they make it to Coney Island. Crisis averted.

Peculiar Pub
Friday night, 11 p.m.

Problem: Two blond girls from N.Y.U., both drama/film students, are drunk and flirty and strike up a conversation about Belgian blonde ales and horror movies. They both loved Saw and Hostel. Plan to move to L.A. after graduation. They ask me to join them in making a “homemade indie film” which they want to put on YouTube or Facebook or something: “We just wanna live dangerously and make this year the most unforgettable year ever! ”

Conclusion: All actresses are crazy.

Result: I’m out of the woods on the organ-harvesting thing, but I leave anyway. They talk too much.

Bemelman’s Bar
Tuesday night, 9 p.m.

Problem: Ten bucks for a Heineken?

Conclusion: With no women under 70 here, I’m safe.

Result: Stay for two more, go home alone.

Duff’s Brooklyn
Friday night, 1 a.m.

Problem: Shitfaced and leering at the hot bartenders, Tracy and Laurieanne. The place is packed, thrash metal is blasting, but the only girls here tonight are behind the bar. I tell the girls about my fears of hooking up and having my organs harvested. Laurieanne says that it’s an epidemic worse than AIDS and there is nervous laughter because I can’t tell if she’s joking. Tracy goes out for a smoke and someone grabs her ass. She breaks a beer bottle and threatens to cut off the guy’s dick and sell it on eBay.

Conclusion: Don’t mess with Tracy.

Result: Drink ’til 4, stagger to the subway and get home by 6 a.m. Safe again (for the time being).

Tir Na Nog
Saturday Night, 9:30 p.m.

Problem: Secretaries and soccer moms: it’s cougar heaven tonight and I’m up to my neck in forty-something divorcées. Janet from Minneapolis thinks I look like Michael Bolton. I cringe, but … three beers in and I’m immune to her perfume and willing to overlook her bad taste in music. She doesn’t want to tell me what she does for a living, but after two SoCo & limes she slurs that she’s an E.M.T. and wants to give me “mouth-to-mouth.”

Conclusion: All single women are potentially lethal knife-wielding black market butchers who want to seduce me and harvest my organs.

Result: As Janet will undoubtedly leave me dazed and bleeding in a bathtub filled with ice, I run out of the bar and think about moving to the suburbs. Where it’s safe.