Wigging Out

Story Sent in by Maria:

Dave wrote to me online. He mentioned that he was going to a concert, the same one that I was planning to hit up with some friends. I asked him if he wanted to meet up there, hang out, and possibly do a proper first date sometime over the following days. He went for the idea.

As an added detail, he told me, "You'll know me when you see me." I wasn't sure what he meant by that, but I soon found out.

When my friends and I arrived at the concert, I looked around for Dave. There was no sign of him at first, but the place was packed. A really great band was headlining, and it looked like most of the city was stuffed inside. There were bodies pressed against bodies, the smell of pot, a guy in an enormous rainbow clown wig head-banging and smashing into everyone around him...

Clown wig guy looked up. It was Dave. He shoved through the crowd and came up to us. Over the din, I yelled, "Hi, Dave! What's with the hair?"

In reply, he head-banged headlong into us. We shouted at him and moved out of the way, but he was like a bucking bronco, and definitely high on something.

I yelled his name a few times, and he barreled into a bouncer, nearly knocking him over. Another bouncer jumped over and the two of them threw Dave out of the club. There was scattered applause from some folks nearby.

One of my friends asked me, "That was the guy you were meeting here?" I shrugged and we absorbed ourselves into the crowd and enjoyed the show.

The next day, in the afternoon, Dave called. "Hey," he said, "Did you ever come to the show last night?"

I replied, "You don't remember? You were a crazy man in a clown wig."

"I wore the clown wig? Well, that explains it," he said, "It makes me crazy. That clown wig, I swear, is cursed."

"That's great, Dave. I have to go, so—"

"You put it on and it turns you into a raving lunatic. Here, I'll put it on now."

"Dave, I'm hanging up."

A shriek came from his end of the conversation. I heard loud thumps and shattering glass. Dave screamed, "Get it off! It's on my head! It's in my brain! It's in my braaaaaaaaaiiiinnn!"

"Bye, Dave."

"Braaaaaaaaaiiiinnnn!"

I hung up. He called back and I let it go to voicemail. All told, he left me three screamy messages over the next day and a half. He stopped after it must have become apparent that I wasn't going to call him back.