More by: Karen

I met Mark the week after I moved into 218 Warren Ave. First thing I noticed is that he had a tattoo of a four leaf clover with the flag of Ireland on his calf. He wore basketball jerseys frequently. He wore flip flops too. Although Mark was 30 years old, he talked like he just returned from some frat party where he probably did something shady with a girl and drank a keg of beer by himself.

            The thing about Mark though, was that his personality totally made up for any off-putting first impressions anyone got of him. He was the dude on the block that let you borrow his car to drop off rent, or helped you vacuum your living room before guests arrived. He was always super positive too.

            Mark took me on some weird adventures sometimes. Every time he took me out somewhere, I almost always came home with a story to tell.

                        Everyone gave me a hard time once when Mark asked if I would go to a movie with him. I said sure, because I felt safe knowing that nothing would ever happen between Mark and I. We went to a movie, and then afterwards he said, “Do you want to go visit my friend with me? He’s such an awesome dude. You’ll really like him.” This friend of his (lets call him Jeff) lived on the west side. The west side at that point in my life was like a big black hole. It seems to get darker there in the evening hours before the other parts of Grand Rapids did. I didn’t really want to go, but Mark was so persistent on me meeting this friend of his.

            We pulled up to the front of a house, where there was a light in the living room. We knocked on the front door and Mark walked right in to some couple watching a movie in the living room. This was not Jeff, but his roommate and his girlfriend. Mark asked where Jeff was, and they said he was in his room. Mark walked to the door as Jeff’s roommate says “uh dude I think he’s sleeping.”

            Of course this doesn’t stop Mark. He opens the door. Its pitch black in the room. The windows have thick blankets covering them to stop as much light coming through as possible. I can’t see a thing, but am guided by the sound of Mark’s voice. “Jeff! Jeff! Wake up. Wake up, dude. It’s mark.” I hear some grumbling noises and shifting of a body in a bed, and hear “Mark….what are you doing here? I’m sleeping….”

            At this point i’m feeling extremely awkward because i’m in some strangers bedroom (a stranger I can’t even see) while this guy is in a vulnerable situation like sleeping. I’m not saying anything because, really, what do I say?

            “My friend Karen and I wanted to stop by and say hi. Yeah, we went and saw a movie and were already on this side of town, so just wanted to stop by and see what the word was.” Jeff mumbled for a bit longer, paused, then said “Wait, Mark…are you trying to say that THERE IS A GIRL IN MY ROOM RIGHT NOW WITH US?!?!?!”

All Mark says is “Karen, say something.” So I say, “Uh…this is kinda awkward….”

Jeff flips out. He sits up in bed, but doesn’t get out.

I feel even more awkward. Mark keeps the same level of calmness, talking to Jeff in the same tone he would if he was telling his roommate how well he did in last night’s poker game.

After 30 seconds of scolding Mark, Jeff kicks us out and we go home.

            Another time, I was reading on my porch, enjoying the nice weather. Mark is walking down the street and, as soon as he sees me, starts running towards me. His flip flops are flopping away, so any sort of quietness he was trying to achieve wasn’t happening. He gets up on my porch and yell-whispers “Get down! Get down on the ground!” I protest at first, but he insists that my life depends on it, so I lay down on my stomach on the porch. Mark does the same, but peaks up every couple of seconds and looks across the street.

            My porch was made out of brick, with little holes on the bottom for water to run out of on rainy days. I peak through the hole to see if there’s anything across the street that I’m clearly missing. One of Mark and I’s other neighbors, Danielle, is leaving her house. She locks the door, gets into her car, and drives away.

            I question Mark on the weird behavior, and he say’s “I totally crunched her panties the other day, and i’m trying to avoid her.”

I had no idea what “crunching panties” entailed, but with Mark being a fairly big dude, I could imagine that Danielle’s panties were indeed crunched, even if there was no official sexual acts happening in that house.

            Mark lived in the house across the street from me for almost the entire time I lived on Warren Avenue. He decided one day that he wanted to move randomly to some suburb in Arizona with a family that was willing to take him in. I found out later that his car broke down somewhere in Oklahoma, and he sold the parts for a bus ticket for the rest of the way. He’s working at a TGI Friday’s outside of Phoenix, which he loves.

            I talked to Mark one or two times since he moved, but stopped calling after that. I never thought that I would be friends with a guy like him, but thinking back, I kinda miss him and wished that there were more people like him in the world, minus the whole skeezy “crunching panties” business.