A Saga of Unwanted Pants, in Three Chapters

My friend Brad (the Harry Potter pusher) lives in the west village, a fact that inspires awe and jealousy in all his impoverished, urban-dwelling friends. As budding real-estate whores, we just can’t help ourselves. We are religious fanatics, fundamentalist apartment-hunters, and Greenwich Village-- with its twisting and oddly-plotted little streets that have actual names rather than numbers-- is our mecca.

But I now know that life in Greenwich Village is not all fun, nor games, nor hours spent idly wandering in and out of cute shops co-owned by hot gay men. Put simply, living in the Village means subjecting oneself to some sinister shit.

Aside: Prior to telling this story, I should explain that “My friend Brad” is actually code for “my newly-minted boyfriend Brad”. Not because I want everyone to know every last detail of my personal life, really, but because this story ends with me running up three flights of stairs on a sort of covert mission while wearing Brad’s pants. And I wouldn’t want you to think that I ordinarily hang around the apartments of my friends playing pants-swapping games, because I don’t. I am Not That Kind of Girl.

Anyway, if this were an episode of Are You Afraid of the Dark?, which was the best show ever that I was allowed to watch at the age of 11, I would be throwing sand on the fire and saying,

"Submitted for the approval of the Midnight Society, I call this story...

THE TALE OF THE TWISTED TROUSERS."

Throughout our long friendship, Brad has always complained about one neighbor of his – a Weird Old Gay Guy (WOGG) who would turn up, apparently by coincidence, every time he was entering or leaving the building, cornering him with questions like, “Do you like opera?” or “Do you like movies?” that developed into uncomfortable (and unwelcome) offerings of tickets or dvds, and which always included the (even more unwelcome) suggestion that they exchange phone numbers, leading to hurried excuse-making and graceless exits. I admit to being skeptical about this.

“It just doesn’t sound that bad,” I said. “I mean, if my neighbor were offering me free opera tickets, I don’t think I’d be complaining.”
“I don’t think you’re understanding the weirdness, here,” he said.

And I didn’t. Until this past Sunday afternoon.

Chapter 1

I was sitting alone in the West Village apartment, waiting for Brad to come back from buying beer, when I heard some muttering outside followed by the unmistakable sound of my boyfriend, saying, “Did you just ask me what my waist size is?”

Suspicious, I opened the door, and there, in all his glory, was the WOGG. He was small, bald, and pinched-looking, and I am about 95% sure that he bared his teeth at me.

“Hi,” I said.
The WOGG said something that might have been “Hello”, but which might also have been, “Fleaghhnnt,” and then turned back to Brad.

“So,” he said, sweatily,“Yes, your…er, your waist size. It’s just that I, er, have all these pants. I mean, lovely Brooks Brothers pants, that I, er, bought? But I never hemmed them, and I… er, I mean, I think they’re probably your size. If, you know, you’d like to try them on.”
“Um,” said Brad.
The WOGG looked expectant and shifted awkwardly back and forth from one foot to the other.
“Um,” said Brad, again, “I…. um.”
“Tell you what, I’ll just leave them by your door,” said the WOGG, “and you can try them on, and if they fit, well, then… I mean, you know…Brooks Brothers pants, and all.”
“Yeah,” said Brad, who then pushed me back into the apartment and shut the door, and locked it.

“Do you see what I’m talking about???” he whispered.
“Ok, yes, that was fucking weird,” I said.
“Shhhh!,” he said, and then, “Oh my God, I hope he doesn’t really bring me those pants.”

Chapter 2

On Tuesday, I came back to the West Village apartment, walked in, and promptly tripped over a large plastic bag.

“Guess what’s in there,” Brad said.
“Lovely, unhemmed, Brooks Brothers pants?”
He nodded.
“Well, are you going to try them on?”
“Are you kidding?”
“Why not? Maybe he just wants you to… like.. have pants.”
“Or maybe he wants me to, like, try his pants on, because he has some kind of creepy fetish.”
“Or maybe… well, no, you’re probably right. That’s kind of gross,” I said.
“I know,” he said.

Brad – tormented by the possibility that the WOGG was upstairs at that very moment, masturbating to the idea of him strutting around the apartment with his manly bits slapping and scraping against those finely-tailored pants – was uncharacteristically quiet for the rest of the night.

Chapter 3

On Thursday, I visited the West Village apartment again. Brad was sitting on the couch. The bag of pants was still on the floor. He was staring at them.

“What’s up?” I said.
“You have to help me bring those pants back,” he said.
“What? No way, dude. Look, I just don’t want any part of this mess with the pants.”
“Come on, you have to! I can’t do it, what if I run into him on the way?”
“You? What if I run into him?! Would that be any less weird?”
“Just leave them on his door, it’ll take, like, two seconds!”
“If it’ll take two seconds, why don’t you do it?”

Four hours and several beers later, just as I was on the verge of going to bed, Brad pointed to the bag of pants.
“Do I have to do this?” I said.
“Yes.”
“I’m in my underwear.”
He gave me the pleading look again.
“Alright,” I said.

Unwilling to re-clothe myself in the oxford shirt/sweater/tights/skirt combo that I’d worn to work that day, I pulled on an undershirt and a pair of Brad’s track pants that were roughly two feet longer than my legs, and moved cautiously toward the bag. Brad was holding the door open.

“Which apartment is it?” I asked.
“5B.”
“Ok.” I moved to pick up the bag, then hesitated.
“What?” he said.
“What if there’s, like… something in here?”
“There isn’t.”
“But what if there is???”
“Pick up the bag!”

Five minutes later, I was climbing the stairs to the fifth floor and discovering that the West Village building, WOGG nonwithstanding, is home to some considerably creepy people.
On the second floor, there was urgent whispering.
On the third floor, someone was using a power drill and babbling in tongues.
On the fourth floor, somebody was moaning and – I swear I am not making this up – rattling chains.

Halfway through tiptoeing up the fifth-floor staircase, I realized that 1) it was suddenly, eerily quiet, 2) the fluorescent lights were broken and flickering in a menacing way over the darkened corridor, and 3) I was three-to-five seconds away from a serious case of the screaming meemies.

In the flickering light, I could see the door of apartment 5B. I was almost there, and despite having the creeps in a major way, I was not about to go back downstairs without depositing the pants. My heart was pounding. I steeled myself to climb the final four steps.

A second later, there was a sort of skreeeeeet noise from the hallway above.

I jumped about three feet in the air, hurled the plastic bag toward the door of 5B, pulled the waistband of the way-too-long track pants over my shoulders, and fled down the stairs. I rounded the corner in the second-floor stairwell and saw Brad, still in the doorway, looking confused. I, convinced that I was being chased by either the WOGG or a malevolent ghost, barrelled past him and hurled myself onto the couch.

“Lock the door!” I shrieked.
“What? Why? What’s going on?”
“DO IT! LOCK THE DOOR!”

Ten minutes later, I was drinking another beer while Brad patted my leg in a reassuring way and tried to reassure me that his building was not, in fact, home to anything more sinister than the WOGG.

“Whatever, your building is haunted,” I said. “I heard rattling chains.”
“You did not.”
“Did too.”

Epilogue

Brad and I are on the couch, watching TV.

“Hey,” he says, “I saw that guy with the pants.”
“Oh yeah? What’d he say?”
“He said, ‘Uh, so, I guess those pants didn’t fit?’”
“And what did you say?”
“I said, ‘You know what, man, I just really don’t need anymore pants.’”

I consider pointing out that, had he just said that in the first place, I could have been saved from a pants-pissing episode of terror at the hands of the West Village building ghosts. But then I decide not to.

The End.