We'll Call Him Vladimir
One time, I was thrown into contact with a dangerous man. We’ll call him Vladimir. I didn’t know he was dangerous because he was presented as normal. I was young at the time and took everything at face value. When I first met him, he was hiding under the basement steps in his mother’s house with some cats, smoking pot. I was told this was a habit of his and not to pay any attention to it, he was just shy around strangers.
Our paths would cross from time to time and when I was no longer a stranger, he became more sociable. Though peculiar, he seemed intelligent. He loved smoking pot and petting the cats. He was obsessed with car repair and automotive tools. At times he’d disappear for days at a time. But it was all normal.
I was with him when he went into the downtown library and bypassing the line of people waiting, asked the librarian for the repair manual for a 1978 Toyota Corolla. When she said, “Sir, there’s a line, you’ll have to wait your turn,” he became indignant and started shouting, “But this is more important, goddamn it!” Security asked him to leave.
I remember hearing him yell out of a car window at an overweight woman jogging down Roland Avenue, “Keep going! Another 5000 miles and I’ll call you for a date!” I also recall how he, stoned, would chant, “Lonely horny dudes, lonely horny dudes! The world is filled with lonely horny dudes!” and then drop to the floor and start doing push-ups saying, “Women can be fat, ugly, stupid, and still get laid, but men must stay in shape; it isn’t fair!”
He argued that life was meaningless. He’d roll a huge joint and lay out his theories. He’d always win these debates. I’d try to present my 18-year-old perspective, which was like entry-level Nietzsche. My general thesis was that we construct meaning through our actions and that this in turn creates metaphysical value. But then he’d take another puff and counter, saying no, all our efforts amounted to nothing. Though it didn’t feel right, I couldn’t logically counter his argument.
Once, while driving, he picked up a girl who was hitchhiking at three a.m. on South Hanover St. He said she kept hysterically saying, “Where are my greens, where are my greens?” with a sort of hillbilly patois. Greens, I learned, are a form of amphetamine. He said she grabbed the keys in the ignition with such force that the circular key chain was straightened, adding that if he hadn’t had an erection, she would’ve torn his penis off his body. Then I understood they were naked in the car. He said she then went berserk, and he had to wrestle her to the pavement. He ended the story saying how thankful he was that no police passed by because he probably would’ve been shot. That gave a hint as to what he’d do when he’d disappear for days. He related this story in a very normal way, it could’ve happened to anyone.
But any facade of normalcy rapidly fell away. Once my brother asked him to play a small role in a film we were shooting at Towson State University. The campus police showed up and asked him what he was doing there. My brother explained that he was acting in our student film project. What was the problem? The police, making an exception because we were students, said he was banned from the grounds. He’d been caught in his car near the dorms jerking off when female students walked by. After this incident, we lost contact.
Years later, I heard he’d been arrested for rape. I found the court transcript online. He’d seen a young woman in a bar one night and became obsessed. He started following her around. Finally, he snuck up the fire-escape into her bedroom and raped her. He then fled in his car; he was on the FBI Wanted list as a fugitive. He was arrested when, due to serious infection provoked by incessant masturbation, he’d gone to a doctor. He was identified and taken into custody. He pleaded not guilty. For the trial he shaved off all the hair from his body including his eyebrows, pubic hair and scalp, supposedly to show he had nothing to fear. This was interpreted as a sign he was trying to hide genetic evidence. His mother tried to defend him. It didn’t work. He was given 40-years-to-life. I thought back to his winning our arguments on the meaninglessness of existence. He was now paying the price of victory.