RETURN OF THE BAD BOY

“I thought you were dead,” I told the bad boy over the phone. Remember him? He’s the same bad boy who went missing a couple of months ago. Frankly, I had written him off as officially missing, possibly dead at the hands of some vengeful druglord.

“Did you miss me?” he asked, with a cocky bravado that nearly made me forgive his suspicious absence. “I was in North Carolina with my cousins. When can I see you?”

The question was, would I consider seeing him again in spite of his suspicious behavior? I have to admit that I was instantly enamored again by his reappearance. He was a bad-ass, after all… disappearances came with the archetype of a shady character.

“I cannot wait to worship you,” he said, cackling like a madman.

So I let him worship me, on and off for a while, and at first I felt an odd tenderness for this mouthy, tattooed smack-talker. He amused me, with his interesting, slightly violent stories, and whenever I went to his tiny apartment there were semi-famous rock stars smoking on the couch telling their own crazy stories.

I also enjoyed the moments when he would hold my hand or kiss the back of my neck. I imagined myself as the moll to his modern-day gangster persona. He’d been in prison, after all.

But there was a major problem. He was completely unreliable.

“I’ll be downtown in meetings till 8, then I’m free – call me,” he would text message.

But at 8 p.m. when I called, his phone was off.

I would receive an apologetic text the next day: “Sorry, babe, my phone went dead and I got really drunk and passed out.”

The next time I saw him he said, “I can tell by your eyes that you’re furious with me.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I’m not the kind of girl who waits around. Don’t stand me up again or there will be hell to pay.”

He disappeared for another five days, and then called me from Beth Israel Hospital, begging me to visit. “I had a bad bout of tonsillitis – my throat closed up, I was on an IV but now I feel better and I’m STARVING! Please, bring me a Gatorade and a sandwich!”

How could I refuse such a cry for help? I waded through the hospital guards with Gatorade in tow, and went to see my grey-faced bad boy.

“I gotta talk the nurse into giving me some more Percocets,” he said when I walked in. “I love those things – I take them all the time with whiskey!”

He was wearing a blue gown. He smelled like dusty cigarettes and sweat. “Thanks for coming,” he said. “I really needed my bitch here with me tonight.”

His bitch? Wow…

We watched depressing television together and I started to wonder why it was necessary for me to be there as he spent a lot of time on his cell phone telling people about his dramatic hospitalization and I wasn’t exactly into crawling into his twin hospital bed to be close to him.

At one point, to my horror, he stuck his hand underneath his gown and rubbed it around his nether region, holding his fingers up towards the sky.

“This is potent manliness,” he said. “It’s toxic, man – I haven’t showered in 3 days! Go ahead, smell this!”

“Forget it,” I snapped, completely revolted.

He was obsessed. “You don’t care about me then,”

“Uh, maybe not.”

He started whimpering like a wounded animal.

We were interrupted by the nurse. “How are you feeling?” she asked.

He moaned. “Oh god, the pain is horrible. I can hardly swallow. Can I please have two Percosets?”

“Two?” She frowned. “That’s quite a strong dosage. Are you used to taking these?”

“Hell yeah, I take them all the time. Tonsillitis, you know.”

The nurse relented, and by the pure expression of bliss on my bad-boy’s face, I realized he was a total drug addict.

“What else do you take?” I enquired casually.

“I do a lot of Meth, actually,” he said, coughing lightly. “But I get the good stuff, not the street junk.”

“Doesn’t Meth leave holes in your brain?”

He laughed. “I warned you I was crazy. I like Percs mixed with booze and weed the best though – it’s the hardest stone.”

“Oh.” I suddenly realized why his complexion was grey.

He was released a couple of days later and called me to make plans to come and hang out at my place. I’m not sure why I agreed, as I was tired of broken dates and Gatorade runs, but nevertheless I did. This would be his last chance to be normal and impress me.

At 7 p.m. he text-messaged me to say he was having dinner with his parents and would be an hour.

At 8 p.m. he text-messaged me to ask my address, and say he was delayed for another hour.

At 9 p.m. he text-messaged me to ask whether I missed him and if I was hot for his body.

At 11 p.m. he text-messaged me to say he was on his way.

I responded with: ‘This is your last chance, you know.’

Two hours later, he had not shown up. He was only 30 blocks away.

In the end I realized that I never did crave him the way he promised I would. Despite all the boasts about his infinite powers of seduction and “potent manliness”, his efforts fell flat. I sent him a text containing some expletives and saying that I never wanted to see him again.

Of course, I did run into him downtown eventually, and he acted like nothing had ever happened. His face was swollen, he looked pale as death, and his badass charm had turned to pathetic, substance-addled weakness.

I walked away, feeling nothing, and vowed never to date another bad boy.