I don't despise a lot of people. I get irritated very quickly (I'm a Capricorn – we're capricious!), but generally people don't bother me, and, aside from murder, I'll probably be able to hang with you regardless of what you do to me. Life's too short, amirite?
But life is not too short for one individual.
In gay world, people kind of show up. You'll be at a friend's house you've been to 500 times and suddenly their friend "Keith" appears and you're like "Who's Keith?", but it won't matter because after that party, Keith will never be seen or heard from again. If you played a fun game of King's Cup with Keith and ask about him two months later, there will most likely be some bizarre long story about what happened to him.
"Yeah, Keith joined the Navy, but it didn't work out, so now he's actually a DJ in Nova Scotia."
This has led me to be one of "those" gays at parties. I will probably forget your name if we meet, because the first thing I think when I see someone random is "Next time I hear about this guy he will probably be running a microbiology research excursion to Siberia."
When Oogie Boogie showed up at a party once, I was hoping that he would go the way of the Keiths (he eventually did but not before being present for way too many events). My friend, Jim, and I decided that he doesn't deserve a true Christian name because he's such a slug. The most appropriate namesake we could choose for him was the villain of The Nightmare before Christmas – the sack that when unraveled is full of lice, insects, and parasites.
The first time I met him we were at a bigger party. Everyone was drinking and hanging out. I was single and Oogie Boogie is very, very attractive. He walked in the door, and I was like, "Well, okay."
But, I kid you not, from the moment he opened his mouth I was horrified.
He immediately walked into the party and announced that he had a story.
"Yeah, I'm traveling a lot. and I have got to tell you about this Grindr hook up."
I didn't know him, and I assumed this would be a hilarious tale of a hook up gone wrong – i.e. someone smelled bad, a roommate walked in, Keith drove in from Nova Scotia, you know, the random stuff that can happen.
What followed was something like this:
"Yeah, so I was driving to the coast and stopped halfway and saw this 20-year-old on the app, so I like called him and he came over and we banged. Then, I'd told him I'd stop on my way back and see him again. So he like texts me all week about how much fun he had and how he was looking forward to seeing me – how pathetic is that? So, like I played with him and told him I had fun, too, then on my way back home never texted him again. Oh my god. Like, can you believe it?"
I was very confused about this story because… nothing about it was funny. Also, choosing to actively mess with a young kid's mind is – well, it's disgusting (this kid was in college and Oogie was nearly 10 years older).
He continued regaling the crowd, but I had to leave the room because I felt slightly ill. I got another drink and, while I no longer harbored any amorous interest, I thought that my first impression had to be wrong. No one enjoys making others feel like garbage, do they? That's not a thing? People can be narcissist and not think about others' feelings, but no one is actively trying to emotionally hurt people, especially young, vulnerable gays, right?
Because I'm a literary nerd, the character that came to mind was Roger Chillingsworth from The Scarlet Letter – you know, the warped doctor who seeks to destroy the pastor's soul out of revenge and spite.
Unfortunately, the first Chillingsworth impression held. He continued telling self-indulgent stories, making fun of people's looks, and generally being every stereotype of a catty, gay man.
A few days later, I told Jim about him, who didn't have the pleasure of meeting him at the party, which caused his name change to Oogie Boogie.
Oogie Boogie continued to show up and be awful. My second prolonged interaction with him was at the Pride parade. Unknowingly, I ended up the float he was running. My friend needed volunteers, and I thought it may be fun to do.
A bunch of us showed up for the parade, met each other, shook hands, talked about the day – it was really nice. Then…
My gawd… Oogie comes late with about a bunch of shirtless, attractive homosexuals in tow. He called us all up to him and then told us how we ranked.
"Okay, so float models will get to be on the float. Everyone else will run support. Second-tier people can have the banner and the signs. We'll also need you to unravel beads and hand them up to the models."
We then took a picture where the float models were front and center and everyone else was shoved behind.
A highlight of that 3-hour parade march was when one of the float model garbage gays reprimanded me for not unraveling beads fast enough.
"You're disappointing people. I need you to untangle these faster."
I was so flabbergasted by the whole exercise, that if you see me in pictures in that parade, I probably look like I'm a hitman looking for my target. OOGIE BOOGIE RUINED PRIDE. How does someone even do that? I mean, we expect drunk college students to be obnoxious on the parade route, but do we really need sabotage, in-fighting, and belittling on the floats themselves?
By this time, Jim had had the opportunity to meet Oogie in-person, so he also shared the true, I've-met-him-in-real-life disdain that I felt.
We finally got an opportunity for vengeance when another friend organized a Nintendo party. Basically, we'd get together, drink, and play Nintendo in a tournament style. It was always a lot of fun…
…But this time we were out for blood.
When Oogie showed up at the party, Jim and I held a council to discuss his demise.
"Will it be obvious that we're after him?" I asked.
"Who cares?" Jim said casually.
Eliminations for the day were straightforward – 4 people would play a match and then the 1st place winner would take a "life" from one of the other three players. Everyone got 3 lives.
Throughout the day, Jim and I would side text as the rounds went on. Jim had the pleasure of getting one of the first elims on Oogie. The second came naturally from the group.
The third was going to be tricky. As people whittled down, there was an unspoken gentleman's agreement that when you won the match, you would choose the weakest/last-place player to eliminate.
I'm not very good at the games. I’m very average and assumed that Jim would be the one to give Oogie the final boot. But the great thing about Nintendo games is that they can be random and chaotic, and victory can come to anyone at times. (Please see the 'socialist' stars given at the end of a game of Mario Party.)
In one such game, I emerged as the winner. There were only 3 or so people completely out of the tournament at that point, and our gentleman rules dictated I not choose to Oogie who had come in second place to me.
But, I remembered Jim's words of advice regarding our targeted approach to the game:
"Who cares?"
Usually I am very much a pleaser (I'm the youngest of 6 kids) and I would hate the idea of anyone thinking I didn't like them – but, as I reviewed the monstrous actions of Oogie, I felt absolutely no remorse.
"Tedd, who do you choose?"
Oogie thought he was safe because he was second place, and the other 2 players actually had "lives" left in our tournament. I pretended to look at the screen and make a decision – I called up all my high school drama faculties as I let my eyes sweep the room and reflect on each of my rivals. I pointed at Oogie's character on the screen and said his name instead of Oogie's. I figured that made it seem like less of a direct attack.
Our host laughed and took the note down on the paper. I moved through the group to sit down, but Oogie stood up.
"Why'd you pick me?" he asked. Had I believed he was human, with feelings, I would have said there was a hint of hurt in his voice.
I turned to him, then looked at the screen. I shrugged. "You were my closest competition.”
After taking a seat, I texted Jim something like: Mission accomplished.
The irony is not lost on me that I had, in this scenario, become the Roger Chillingsworth to Oogie Boogie's Hester Prynne. But I felt justified that this act of vengeance was a win for all of us: the 20-year-old scorned lover, the gays who had to spend the Pride parade in servitude to the float models, and anyone else Oogie belittled or stepped on his life's journey of narcissism.
I'm sure Keith had some beef with Oogie, too. We'll discuss it over another game of King's Cup when he's back from Nova Scotia.