That time I met Kevin Spacey

So, I wrote this piece awhile back, totally true story by the way,  but it was written before the truth was known about Mister Spacey's... to use the parlance of our times...gayness. A few clues emerged as I revisited the experience and I now see the experience with completely renewed illumination. I will unpack all that after you read the original piece. It goes a little sumfin like dis:

It was a Saturday or maybe a Sunday in late July too many years ago, now, to pinpoint exactly. My boyfriend, at the time, worked as a mechanic at the local Harley Davidson dealership and I was waiting in its ugly manila waiting room. As is the custom in such a room, I was waiting, impatiently. My fella was soon to be let off his leash and I was salivating thinking about the Thai food we would soon be beast eating in front of our small thrift store television. 

It was your typical run-of-the mill waiting space, nothing particularly special about it, except, of course, for the events that were about to transpire within it.  Like most waiting rooms, it smelled like burnt coffee and carpet cleaner, but the combination wasn't wholly unpleasant. The scent was comforting the way a siren is comforting, if you live next to a police station. It was familiar, and therefore welcome, despite its unsavory compulsion to be everywhere at once. The television was set to a news station displaying horrific current events in a bland non-regional dialect. 12 identical grey chairs stood obediently against the window, facing two vending machines full of candy and preservative rich god-only-knows-what. 

After what seemed like way longer, it was 8:45; he was late, and I was STARVING. Which is to say I was hungry; exaggeration is an important staple of youth. 

The television sputters something about the economy, but I still get most of my money from my parents and therefore have no space for such abstractions, however newsworthy. The commercials are too loud so I pull one of the grey chairs beneath the television, climb on to it with all the awkwardness and grace of a baby giraffe and eventually negotiate the volume to a more agreeable level. 

Still facing the now whispering television, I could feel someone enter the room. I turned, still awkwardly atop the chair, to see a man in leather chaps, a leather jacket and dark I'm-cool-as-fuck sunglasses. This set off the 'hmm that's fuckin weird' alarm bell in my mind because the sun was pretty well set and we were super indoors. But I was standing on a chair looking as though I was trying to get a closer look at a Geico commercial, so not in a particularly good position to be judging anyone based on appearances.

Maybe he is blind, I remember thinking. Maybe I should dismount this chair and help him find a place to sit down. Maybe he would find that patronizing. Maybe I could stand motionless rendering me invisible like you're supposed to do in front of a T-Rex. Maybe I should stay on the chair and turn up the volume on the television so he can use Eco-location to determine an appropriate place to sit. I didn't know what the fuck to do. Thankfully, he removed his sunglasses and he was not blind at all, he was Kevin Spacey. 

He didn't look at me in a way that said he was wondering why I was standing on a chair. Instead, he didn't look at me at all and promptly took a seat on the fourth of the eleven remaining available chairs. There were no smart phones at this particular junction in human history so he just stared respectfully at the vending machines, presumably to indicate he was not prepared for any interaction with me, the television or my rouge chair. 

I jumped down off of the chair and sat perfectly upright, with both hands on the arm rests like I was doing my best, but very shit impression of the Lincoln memorial. Inside I was shouting... OH MY GOD! It's motherfunkin Kevin spacey! K-PaX mutherfukkah! Whaaaaat?! But outside I was the picture of calm awkward stillness, sweating slightly, affixed to a grey wobbly island with no hope of rescue. The television above me seemed way too quiet now. 

I looked at the vending machines and they began to glow with the possibility of my salvation. I formulated a plan. I would get up, casually, go to my purse, retrieve one dollar and twenty-five cents from its contents and with it, I would approach the vending machine. Once In position, I would place my dollar twenty-five in the savior machine and press E7, which would produce a snickers bar that would occupy both my hands and mouth until I could formulate a better use for them. More importantly, prevent them from doing anything spastic or weird, as they reliably do in most situations. 

I stood up, made a break for my purse, fumbled it, recovered it and then searched its sandy bottom for loose change. Kevin Spacey sat in the fourth of eleven remaining available chairs and watched me, with no remarkable expression. I made my way to the vending machine, inserted my dollar twenty-five and pressed E7, seamlessly and exactly as planned. The silver coil labeled E7 twisted and out came the snickers bar, but not entirely. Instead of dropping into the retrieval receptacle at the bottom of the machine it simply leaned against the glass as if to whisper, "not this time, blondie, not this time". It was then that my hands started to panic, not sure what they were expected to do next. Just as I feared they might, they went rouge. They feverishly pressed buttons, they shook the sides of the machine, they banged on the front of the glass. They were in such a frenzy that they did not notice Kevin Spacey leave the fourth of eleven remaining available chairs in order to approach the vending machine. 

"I was thinking of getting a snickers bar, actually" he said, as if responding to a question I hadn't asked, in a conversation I didn't remember starting. He was a magnificent leather clad unicorn and I was a smelly frozen turd. "Maybe... We can knock it loose if I try to get another one." Talking about the snickers bar, of course, and glowing. 

It was as good a plan as any, and I had nothing left to lose. Who was I to doubt the wisdom of a unicorn? "Go for it" I said in the kind of voice you usually have when you've got a mouth full of taffy you haven't quite swallowed yet. The E7 coil twisted once more and my snickers bar dropped into the retrieval receptacle at the bottom of the machine. We were saved; and Kevin Spacey had saved us.

But the celebration was only momentary as the second snickers bar... Kevin Spacey's snickers bar, took the place of mine, paralyzed and mocking against the glass. Our hands and hips were quick to action, jolting and shoving the machine every which way in an attempt to liberate the snickers bar. When brute force didn't work, we tried to coaxing it out with swear words and then again tried to take it by force. The attack was erratic and from the side this time, trying to catch the machine by surprise. When our efforts failed, we thought of unplugging it, but could not find a power source. After that, we became drunk with violence and for a moment, it seemed as though we would never tire of the battle.  We charged the machine like rabid bulls on meth, each taking turns running and smashing into its face with our shoulders, laughing like deranged school children tormenting the neighborhood cats. 

But, when our best efforts yielded no results, we retreated, panting, to the third and fourth of eleven remaining available chairs and decided we would split the first snickers bar in half. We did not discuss our defeat, nor did we discuss anything at all, really. We did not exchange names or pleasantries. We did not talk about the beigeness of the room, nor the volume of the television. We did not discuss the smell of burnt coffee and carpet cleaner. Instead, we sat side-by-side and ate chocolate, facing the vending machines that had bested us, laughing periodically, falling silent for a bit, only to start up laughing again in one wave after another. This went on for either four minutes or four hours. There is no way to know for sure.

When my boyfriend finally emerged and it was time to leave I did not say, "it was nice to meet you, Kevin spacey" because technically I hadn't. Instead I said, "fuck you E7!" and pointed accusingly at the vending machine. Kevin Spacey nodded, smiled in acknowledgment, walked out the front door and out of my life forever. My boyfriend, at the time, looked confused and said something like, "I'm gone for one hour and you have inside jokes with Kevin Spacey!? What the fuck just happened!?" He didn't wait for a response. Instead, he gushed about how great his day was because he got to work on Kevin Fucking Spacey's motorcycle and he was so goddamn happy that I never did tell him the story of how K.S. and I beat up a vending machine and ate candy together. I guess I didn't want to be a one-upper. I didn't want to ruin his buzz and honestly I just wanted my fucking Thai food. Which was delicious, by the way.  I suppose there wasn't much to tell anyway. It was just candy, just waiting room and just Kevin Spacey, no big deal, right?


So that was the original piece I wrote. A few things... 1. I did end up telling my THEN boyfriend that story, and he totally didn't believe me, but I think he was just jealous because my story ended up way cooler and also after we broke up he got fat and I got amazing. So ::fart noise:: I don't care if you believe it, dude,  I get the gift of knowing it's true and of also not being fat. So there. 

And 2. leather chaps and leather vest? Oh my gawd it makes WAY more sense now. It was a clue this whole time! I didn't even realize it at the time but he was wearing the gayest outfit ever! He may as well have been wearing an actual unicorn costume with matching rainbow butt plug. I mean, how did I not see it? Now I imagine Kevin Spacey at parties wearing that same outfit holding a riding crop in one hand and a vodka cranberry in the other while he screams, "yaaaazzz queen" and orders some hunky twink to turn up the music. It's a shame about the sexual harassment though, that was pretty damning. For what it's worth, (not much) I still think House of Cards was a pretty badass show. But I guess in the end all our heros turn out to be big gay monsters. Sigh. Oh well. At least I got half a snickers and a blog out of it.