Part II: The L train doesn't only lead to Hipsterville

And so follows Part II...

Let me continue to paint you this bizarre picture: we (aforementioned male specimen and I) are on the platform at the Bedford Street stop in Williamsburg, gaggles of buzzed and drunken hipsters in skintight black jeans, oversized cooler-than-Rayban sunglasses, gobs of black eyeliner and awesome retro jean jackets surround us, and we continue to argue back and forth. I want to go home. Again, he asks me to go back with him. "I promise, nothing will happen," he says, and sounds truly genuine when he says it. When the kind asking doesn't work (I can be pretty stubborn), he reverts to frustrated anger, "What's wrong with me? I bet you've gone home with guys before. You don't like me. Why don't you like me? You said you would; what did I do that now you say no?" It retrospect it is wholly manipulative, but I stood there on the platform and attempted to reason with him: I was tired. Maybe I had, maybe I hadn't gone home with people before, but why did that matter? This was now, and I was respecting my sentiments at a given moment (ok, ok, maybe it wasn't quite so eloquent. Maybe I overused the word "like" and blamed it a little more on being tired and wanting to sleep than I'd like to admit, but I certainly did explain the whole this-is-my-decision-and-it-doesn't-matter-what-I've-done-in-the-past thing). When angry manipulation wasn't working, he turned to pathetic self-deprication and sadness. And that is what got me.

Warning: minor amounts of emo-talk to come. Prep yourself slightly. Here we go: I have spent so long building up walls of defense and protection, that part of my "thing" when coming to New York and trying out OkCupid was to let some of that fall by the wayside and open myself up to potentials and possibilities. Instead of preemptively acting defensively, my goal was to go with the flow and to give people a genuine chance. Which is why - when Unnamed Creepshow pulled the sad/self-depricating card - I think I caved. The Manhattan-bound L train approached. He made piercing eye contact with swarthy Mediterranean eyes. People unloaded. Commuters loaded. I stayed where I was. The doors closed. I guess I'm going deeper into Brooklyn.

Now, in my mind the L train stops at Bedford Street. The L train is what you take to Hipsterville. So when he said he lived several stops off the L train, I just figured it was in pseudo-Hipsterville. Was I ever wrong. From the Bedford Street stop, it was about another 20 or 25 minutes to his stop (Walker Street). At this point, the train is above-ground, and we walked out of the station to find old school drug dealer Cadillacs, dark, unkempt streets and nothing save for a window selling some manner of late-night food. Put it this way: I'm a tough cookie, I walked in Zambia in the dark alone (sorry mom, I wasn't going to tell you that) and I would NOT have felt comfortable strolling these streets by myself.

We walked about a block or two to his apartment. The narrow stairs up to the second floor of a split level were dirty but not dilapidated, and truthfully it was too dark to see anything in particular. We enter his house and me - needing to "pee like a racehorse" - made a beeline for the bathroom. Wrong move. Not only was slightly dirty, but it was downright nasty. The green corrosion in the bathtub from old, unclean water trailed a third of the way up the tub. The dirt and crud encrusted around the faucet and sink made me gag. I wanted to go home. I hadn't seen the worst of it.

I tentatively peered my head out and questioningly called his name. The apartment smelled like stale weed. Granted, he had told me his roommate was Jamaican, but that's no reason for an apartment to smell like a smokehouse. Following the sound of his voice, I found him in his bedroom. Now, I've seen dirty rooms before. I went to college, I have two older brothers, I've been in boys' bedrooms; I know what messy boy's room looks like. This my friends, was above and beyond. There were rumpled clothes on EVERY. SINGLE. SURFACE. Tossed there and left to gather dust. The room was completely undecorated save for one poster with rolling and frayed edges. In the corner of the large room was a massive old wooden cabinet. The kind that was actually quite beautiful and would likely sell for a lot (it reminded me of heavy wooden doors in Zanzibar), but that was definitely a hand-me-down from the previous owner, too lazy to take it when he or she moved out. There was no headboard, no box-spring, no bed-frame, just a mattress on the floor, sheets crumpled in the corner. One desk chair rolling in the corner was in fine condition. the second was missing part of the back. A large computer screen rested on an Ikea desk that had seen better days. The mouse was on the floor near the mattress. A Kleenex box was nearby. I tried really hard not to think about it.

Now, where was that tea he promised? He ran off to make it, and as I sat there momentarily, trying to finagle my way out of the situation as quickly as possible, I realized that I should definitely not let him make me my drink without me there. I went into the kitchen and sure enough he was making us tea, but he had put three teabags in a crusty, stained coffee maker and was letting the hot water drip through. I let it go - I'm sure I've imbibed grosser things. When he finally handed me the tea (he had made himself some too) I took a sip and found it sickeningly, unbearably sweet. "What is that??" I asked.  "Oh, it's sugar," he replied, "It's sweetener. Don't worry, I'm helping you watch your figure." Really, dude? Go f%*! yourself. I didn't ask you to do anything of the sort. I swallowed down the overly metallic concoction as quickly as possible, while he tried to get all psychoanalytical on me again.

White spittle that had slowly been forming at the corners of his mouth throughout the night had finally hardened into a pale yellow crust. My tea was finished. "I'm going home," I announced. "I want to go home." "Won't you stay? I just want you to stay. I promise I won't touch you, just please stay." Really? He was going that route again? At this point I wasn't having it. "I'm going home. Thank you, but no."

He was kind enough to walk me to the station. He came in and waited with me until the train came. And when it did, do you want to know what he said? "Can I come with you?" I wanted to scream, NO YOU CANNOT COME WITH ME YOU PSYCHO! But instead I said, "No, I'm sorry, you can't." I don't think I've ever been that happy to board a train in my life.

What about the fallout? Oh that's a whole other story. Just you wait for Part III...