My very first DATE-KATE! And I am elated to report that it went quite well. Excluding, of course, the middle-to-the-end part where the police report was filed and I hired a man to break into my rental car.
First off, a little background: I have no idea who came up with this idea first or when it came up. I am pretty sure that it happened over cocktails with Eeez and Keeez. Those cocktails must have been tasty, because this one was a stunner …
Rather than go on match.com or one of those douchy websites, I could create my own website, to elicit responses from interesting people, to go on one or two, and only one or two, dates with me in New York. The stranger the date, the better! I mean … I have been dating/monogamous/married practically since the age of 15. I need some carefree adventure, a little innocence, and the challenge of doing things I would never otherwise do, but now can, and will. Trade in the awkward silences for some awkward limbs dangling over the side of a cliff. And that’s just what I got on my first date-kate.
Oh No, What Have I Gotten Myself Into?I was impressed and excited when James, an anthropology student and friend of Eeez’s cousin, invited me to come rock climbing with him in the Catskills. After I responded “yes!” he wrote back, “Oh, no! What have I gotten myself into?” Poor guy.
I had no idea what to wear for the date. I had some idea that James might be a great-outdoors kind of fella, so I nixed the skin-tight jeans and Nancy Sinatra boots that I might typically don in anticipation of a date with an absolute stranger (you never know). Instead I tried to dress as friendly as possible, in a pink sweatshirt and white keds (ha!)
I drove up from the city and met James at his friends’ house. At first impression I was pleased to find my date cute, shy and totally prepared. His friends were around, kind of smiling at me like there was some secret that they and I both knew but James didn’t. It seemed to me like these guys had a pretty sweet life. They were all shaggy and flannelled and smiling, residing in what felt like rock-climbing dudes’ paradise. (Who needs a vacuum cleaner when you have an indoor bouldering wall?!? )
James got me all the equipment I needed and we drove to the nature preserve. To get to the climbing spot we had to hike up what felt like four hundred rocky steps. These James nimbly scaled while I tripped along behind in my cheerful keds, huffing off all the cigarette smoke from the night before.
CHAPTER ONE: My heart skips like a pair of squirrels frolicking over a pianoBefore I had prepared myself even remotely, we were standing at the base of the first climb. The two of us stared up at the rock, James measuring it evenly and saying, “So no worries, this is a relatively easy one.” My heart meanwhile was jumping out of my chest.
My stomach was feeling pretty acidic; my hands were sweating. Not only was I afraid of looking like a fool, I was also afraid of dying. James’ friend joked that in all ten years of climbing James had only dropped two people, and only one of those guys ended up in the hospital**. All great things in life come at a price, I thought, and if I really wanted DATE KATE to work, I have to go for it. That didn’t mean just showing up, that meant going all the way … tie that rope on and pray to god that it doesn’t snap.
I put on all my cute equipment and James tied me up (not in a kinky way). Wow, I look so athletic! I thought. “Alright,” James said, “You’re ready to go.” I took a deep breath, and took my first, littlest step.
I found myself finding my way, not gracefully exactly, but inch by inch. I had climbed in a gym before, but this was different … it was actual rock, hard and alive. I was hanging, dead weight, from a rope secured by tiny metal objects that had been hanging from James’ belt a couple of minutes earlier. This to me was incredibly unbelievable and more than a little bit troublesome. As I was unclipping my rope I accidentally displaced one of the little guys (James called them cams) and it went tumbling down the face of the rock.
What!?!? I had never been a great student in physics class and it seemed impossible that I was not minutes away from death on the hard ground below. “But just because you don’t know how it works doesn’t mean it doesn’t,” I kept telling myself. “How do planes fly? Who knows? They just do.”
It was hard. At times I white-knuckled meager inches of rock, forgetting that I was attached to a rope and not hanging off the side of a tall building. Both hands flat on a ledge, I pulled myself up with my meager upper body strength, my legs dangling beneath, a little like a crash victim crawling out of a mangled car. “There has got to be a better way to do this,” I thought to myself.
When I felt like I’d had enough, I squeaked out, “Help!” I was terrified that James would have to climb up there to get me down, or worse, I could never get down, and he would just ditch me there. But he was amazing. He calmly explained to me, “Look to the right of your left foot, there’s a nice ledge there, you can’t see it, but it’s underneath.” Or he would say, “Use the crack! You can wedge your hand inside, just like I showed you before, it should be a good grip.” And more and more, I was doing it. I found my grip wedged inside the long crack, which was cold and dark and mossy (I loved it). I pushed hard against a rough edge with the sturdy toes of the climbing shoes (which look like ballet slippers), getting myself just a tiny bit higher. I groaned, let go, shook out my hands, took a deep breath and started over.
The last climb was the greatest. My arms were limp from the effort as I finally found myself at the top of the rope, looking out over tiny houses, rivers and roads, over miles and miles of treetops, their leaves colored bright orange, flaming red and yellow. It gave me a heartache – it was so beautiful, and I could hardly believe that I made it up there by myself.
“That was awesome!” I said as James unhooked me.
“It’s even better the higher up you get,” he replied. Higher?!?
CHAPTER TWO: Waiting for the Rock Cops The sun was going down as we walked back to the parking lot. We were talking about the Maasai tribes in Africa and how they are the healthiest people alive, eating more beef than anyone and drinking cows’ blood after that. I was totally wrapped up in the conversation when we got to the car and James said abruptly, “What?” I looked over in disbelief and saw the pavement covered in broken glass. Someone had smashed in the rear side window of James’ car.
It took me twenty more minutes to realize that my coat was no longer in the car and an extra five minutes to ascertain that indeed my wallet, apartment keys, and rental car keys had been inside the coat. James was smart enough to hide his wallet and ipod and the thieves had missed them. Damn.
There was a neatly written note on the windshield left for us by the ranger of the parking lot, a friendly guy named Kevin wearing a puka shell necklace. The note read, “If this was a result of criminal activity please call police. If owner did this to their own car please clean up the glass.” For some reason I felt completely calm, just sitting in the passenger seat minding my own business. In some other context I might have screamed and cried, pounding the pavement with my fists or some other business, but I was on my first date-kate, with James. I mean, I don’t know what impression James had of me up to that point, but in terms of appearing to be a normal, run-of-the-mill (well-adjusted?) girl who bore no threat to anyone, I had the cards stacked against me from the beginning. I mean, soliciting bizarre dates off the internet through some off-beat survey whose questions include, “Grammatical errors irk me, true or false?” At the very least I could make sure he didn’t think I had some sort of mood disorder.
We called some backwoods police force and waited in the freezing car for them to show up. “I’m cold,” I said, now coat-less. He let me borrow his coat, which felt a little bit like creepy dating etiquette from the 1950’s, a thought we both must have shared because James sort of threw the coat at me and I hesitated before putting it on. All of the previously appropriate get-to-know you questions like “where do your parents live?” and “what was your major in college?” now seemed to fall a little flat. “There must be a shitty economy here, people losing jobs left and right. No wonder people are robbing people,” I said. “At least they didn’t steal the car,” James said.
Maybe an hour later the rock cops finally showed up, wearing kind of ridiculous gray uniforms with purple ties. “We looked all around the parking lot for any other cars that might have gotten smashed into. But nope, it was just you,” Officer Dunham* said to us. “Wait, that’s why we were waiting so long?” James whispered to me.
We both gave the cops our names and addresses, and Officer Skirby asked me to describe the contents of my wallet and coat. I was unsure how to proceed. Did he really care about my receipt from Angela’s Laundromat, and that Angela is an absolute bitch when you show up without it?
“We hope this guy uses your credit card,” said Officer Skirby. “That would be much better for us.” Then he laughed in this kind of sadistic way. I didn’t really feel like asking him to elaborate, in an attempt to keep our interaction as brief as possible.
It was getting darker, and it started to sink in that the only way I was ever going to make it back to New York was by relying on James’ goodwill, a person I had only just met.
I pride myself on having moved to New York at the age of seventeen, at working hard and paying my own rent and being totally independent from pretty much anyone. Here I was at the total whim of fate, sitting in a cold car next to what appeared to be a very nice guy who in a few short minutes I would have to ask for money and a bus ticket, maybe to disappear out of his life forever. I hated it. I squirmed in my seat, just wishing I could be eating tacos and drinking beer in the comfort of people who knew me well and who didn’t have to loan me anything.
And I did get my wish, partially. James bought us some tacos and we went back to mecca where we sat and drank a beer and talked to one of James’ old roommates. I scoured the phonebook for a locksmith and called a nice old white-bearded man who for $60 broke into the rental car without scratching the doors (amazing) so I could get out my backpack (lame!). I was feeling a little bummed that our date had started so well, proceeded kind of unfortunately and was now soon coming to a close.
James must have read my thoughts, because then he asked me, “Do you want to hang upside-down?” He pointed toward the dining room area, which was gleefully equipped with a full-size inversion table. “Yesss!” I said, wedging my toes under the metal foot holders as James flipped me completely vertical. I sighed with relief as my vertebrae stretched apart and all the blood came rushing into my head. At that moment, it still felt like the perfect date.
*law enforcement officers names changed to protect the innocent (?)
**this was a joke, of course. James never dropped anyone.
Photos of other, more talented people climbing, courtesy of Elizabeth Riley
