Sex and Crime: Oliver's Strange Journey Page 5

  After a little while we both relaxed a little. We drove to the park that was one block away from her house and sat in the grass and talked. She was finally her old self and yelled at me for surprising her like that. But she was really happy that we finally met and we were laughing and kissing and having a great time. Once we got used to sitting in front of each other and not just talking on the phone, we both realized that we really did know each other very well after talking to each other for a year.

  It was getting really late so I had to drive her back to her house. On the way she asked me to pull over. It was dark. She said she wanted to sit in the backseat with me and hang out for a little while longer. She took a map that was lying in the rental car and covered the window that was facing the sidewalk. Then she opened my zipper while we were kissing. She started to stroke my dick until I got hard and then gave me a blowjob. After over a year of knowing each other, this was the first time we had real sex, not just talking about it on the phone. And the way she sucked me was exactly like she had always described it: Slow and tender, with feeling. It felt amazing. But I was so nervous, I couldn't cum.

  When I finally drove her back to her house, Jeff came out, yelling and screaming. He had obviously been waiting for us by the window. After Donna had finally told me the truth about being married, she told me that she and Jeff were married on paper, but not really. She said she had met him a few years ago and they were both lonely, so they decided to get married for financial reasons and live together, and split the rent and bills, but that they were really just roommates. She said they slept in separate rooms and never had sex. She emphasized again and again that she and Jeff weren't really married married.

  Apparently Jeff didn't get the memo. He was pretty fucking pissed that his wife was out all night with some guy from Germany. He confronted me and told me to get out of the car. Donna kept yelling at him not to make a scene. I was pretty startled by the whole situation. This was the first time I was in America, the first time I was in New York, and here I am, on the first day, entangled in a street brawl, about to get my ass kicked, because I just had sex with a married woman. What the fuck just happened?

  Jeff asked me if I knew that Donna was with him. I didn't really know how to answer that. So I said, "yeah, I guess." I was gonna go into how she had told me that they were not really together, but before I got a chance to say anything else, I already had his fist in my face.

  Everything after that was just a blur. I'm not a street fighter. I'm not a redneck or a thug. I'm a thinker. I grew up living a pretty sheltered life. Well, apart from the FBI raids and my dad almost killing me. I went to an elite private catholic school. I lived in a good neighborhood. I didn't go to bars or clubs. So I was almost never in any kind of situation that would lead to a real fight.

  Up until that point in my life, I had really only been in three actual fights, and all of them were over in a split second.

  In junior high, some bully, who was two or three years older and a lot bigger than me, kept picking on me every chance he got. One day he tried to choke me from behind, so I grabbed his arm, threw him over my shoulder with some kind of Judo move that I had seen in a movie somewhere, and when he landed on the ground, I punched him in the face as hard as I could. I knocked out one of his front teeth. After that, neither he nor anyone else at that school ever bothered me again.

  My parents moved a lot, so I had to change schools a few times. At the new high school I didn't know anyone yet, so during the 5 minute breaks inbetween classes, I just sat quietly at my desk and drew comics. The jocks in that class used to take the cloth the teachers used to wipe the chalk board and make it wet and tie it into a tight knot, so that it became almost as hard as a baseball, and then threw it at the smaller kids in class as hard as they could, to torment them. They thought it was hilarious.

  I was still sitting at my desk in the back corner of the room, drawing, and politely asked them to please not throw it at me. Of course that only made them want to do it more. So next thing I know, that wet hard cloth ball suddenly landed on my drawing and ruined it.

  I had seen some prison movie, where some new inmate had learned that in order to get respect in prison, you should pick a fight with the biggest, baddest motherfucker as soon as you get there. That way everyone will think you're a loose cannon and leave you alone.

  I figured that sounds like a good idea right about now. So I took that cloth ball, walked up to the biggest jock in class, who had thrown it at me, and shoved it in his face as hard as I could. He flipped out and tried to beat the shit out of me. He was a lot bigger than me, but I held my own and managed to wrestle him to the ground and hold him down in a headlock. I was scared, because I knew if the teacher for the next class didn't show up soon, I was gonna get my ass kicked bad.

  The jock was screaming for his buddies to help him get me off him, but they actually stayed out of it and laughed. They told him that he started it by throwing the cloth ball at me even though I asked him not to. When the teacher finally came, he separated us. The jock gave me some dirty looks during class, but afterwards he came over to me and we shook hands. He said that he respected that I stood up to him and that we were cool.

  After that little incident, nobody at that school ever picked another fight with me and I got along great with everybody. Apparently the things you learn from prison movies really do have real world applications. Who knew?

  My third and last fight in high school also happened during one of those 5 minute breaks between classes. We were all standing in a narrow hallway in front of the chemistry lab, waiting for the teacher to get there and unlock the door. We were all bored, so a bunch of the halfwitted knuckle-draggers in my class started to shove each other against the walls and other students.

  When I was born, I had a hole in my heart. The oxygen-poor blood in one half of my heart mixed with the oxygen-rich blood in the other half. So there wasn't enough oxygen in the blood that was circulating through my body, and my lips and fingernails were blue. Some doctors told my parents I would die, unless I get surgery to close the hole. Other doctors told my parents that a baby cannot survive that kind of heart surgery, so if they put me under the knife, I would probably die from that. So my parents took their chances with the less invasive option, and decided not to put me through surgery. The hole finally closed on its own.

  After that my heart still went out of rhythm sometimes, for no good reason. From one second to the next, it just shifts into overdrive and starts pounding like crazy, like I just ran a marathon. Even when I'm sitting perfectly still. It can happen after I drink soda that has a lot of caffeine, or I eat chocolate. Or it can happen if someone shoves me.

  So while we were all standing in that hallway, waiting for the teacher to get there, I told the knuckle-draggers not to shove me, because of my heart. Of course that only made to them want to do it more. You'd think I'd have figured out by then that telling a teenager not to do something always has the opposite effect.

  Anyway, some guy shoved me against the wall as hard as he could, for laughs. So I grabbed him, turned him around so he would face the opposite wall, and shoved him, as hard as I could, face first against that wall. I broke his skull by accident. He had to go to the hospital. I was suspended for a week. Luckily the other kids vouched for me and told the principal that I didn't start it and that I specifically told the other kid not to shove me because of my heart. After that, once again, nobody ever messed with me again.

  But let's get back to Jeff and Donna. So here we were, standing on the sidewalk in New York, and this guy took a swing at me. I'm 6 feet tall and not exactly scrawny. Although I don't ever start a fight, I can defend myself, if I have to. And Jeff was a lot shorter than me, and he was really just a little wet noodle. That fight was over in less than 10 seconds. Somehow I grabbed him, knocked him to the ground with a leg sweep, and sat on his chest with his head between my knees. I had no idea what I was doing, but I sure looked good while doing it.

  I grabbed h
is hair with one hand and made a fist with my other hand and was about to bash his face in, while screaming at him that I was gonna beat the shit out of him. He got really scared and backed down. It's not like he had much of a choice. Since he didn't try to fight back any more at that point, I didn't punch him in the face and got off his chest.

  He got up and walked back in the house without saying another word. My adrenaline was pumping like crazy. What a bizarre night this was! Like I said, I lived a pretty sheltered, well-mannered, calm life as a teenager in Germany. Especially after my dad had died and my mother had married my stepdad. The most exciting thing that might happen on any given day was that the grocery store at the corner had a new milkshake flavor. I definitely wasn't used to having sex with a married woman in New York and then getting into a street fight with her husband.

  Donna followed Jeff into the house and they had a talk. He told her that he would file for divorce and move out as soon as he finds a different place to live.

  So he was still there for the next 2 weeks, while I was visiting Donna in New York. I stayed at a hotel a few miles away, but Donna never wanted to go there. It took me a few years until I realized she had agoraphobia. Anyway, while I was there, we hung out all day every day and had sex every night. At first we did it in the car, in the same dark corner we had done it that first night. But that got old after a few days.

  So then we had sex in the park near her house at night. Right in the middle of the lawn. Until a police cruiser drove through the park and put their spotlight on us. Luckily we weren't doing anything at that moment, but we were about to. Donna wasn't wearing any pants or panties, and while we were squinting into the police lights, and they told us to stand up, she asked me if her T-shirt looked like a dress. It didn't. But I said it did. The cops didn't arrest us. So it was all good.

  During the second week, we just brazenly hung out at her house, and we had sex there while Jeff was at work. It was really strange. Even when he came home from work, I was still there, and Donna and I sat on the living room couch, watching TV, while he was hiding in his room, fixing a VCR or something. Occasionally he walked through the living room, right past us, without saying a word, to go to the bathroom. I kept expecting him to storm into the living room one day and pick another fight with me, or pull a gun on me or something, but he never did.

  Donna told me that after the fight, Jeff had a lot of respect for me, because I didn't beat him to a pulp, although I could have. Suddenly I had street cred in New York, because I let him get up without hitting him back, after he suckerpunched me.

  Eventually I had to fly back to Germany. But after that first trip I was hooked, and I kept flying back to New York every couple of days. Jeff did move out after a few days, so then Donna and I were able to just hang out at her place whenever I came over. No more crazy sex romps in the park.

  All these transatlantic flights were getting pretty expensive, and then my mom and stepdad had figured out that I was constantly on the phone with America, so they wouldn't let me use the phone at the house anymore. At that point I had to keep going to phone booths to talk to Donna. It couldn't go on like this. Especially after I caught pneumonia and almost died.

  So I decided to move to New York and live with Donna, instead of going to college to become a special ed teacher in Germany. My parents flipped out. They thought I was throwing my life away.

  HOW TO BE A REALLY BAD CARTOONIST

  "Do not correct a fool, or he will hate you. Correct a wise man, and he will appreciate you."

  Proverb

  Every time I flew to New York, I came with a tourist visa, which allowed me to stay in the US for three months each time. After those three months were up, I had to leave the country for at least one day, or I'd be an illegal immigrant.

  After I completed my mandatory civil service in Germany, I had no reason to fly back anymore. But after I stayed with Donna for almost three months, my visa was about to expire, and if I got caught overstaying my legal welcome, I could be deported and banned from re-entering the States.

  So something needed to be done. I figured the easiest thing would be, if I fly back to Germany for a few days and come right back. Then I'd have a fresh three month tourist visa. But Donna was afraid I wouldn't come back, so she didn't want me to go. She told me if I fly back to Germany, for even just one day, it's over.

  But what else could we do? She suggested we get married, because once I'm married to a US citizen, I could apply for a green card and they wouldn't be able to deport me, no matter how long the paperwork would take.

  Even though we had known each other for well over a year at this point, we had only lived together for about 3 months, and I really didn't want to get married so quickly. I was only 20. I told her I wasn't ready to get married, and flew back to Germany. I told her I'd be back soon, but she was so upset, she said she never wanted to talk to me again. We didn't talk to each other for two weeks or so. I was miserable. I kept trying to call her from Germany, but she wouldn't answer. I wrote her a letter. Finally she called me, and asked me to come back.

  When I arrived in New York the next day, I saw that she had fresh scars on her wrists. She had tried to kill herself after I left. Now she tried to trivialize it and said that she was only playing around and accidentally cut deeper than she meant to.

  I felt so bad for her, I agreed to marry her. And it really didn't seem like such a terrible idea. We did love each other, and hey, if it didn't work out, I could always get a divorce later.

  But in the meantime, every nice day together would be a gift that nobody could ever take away from me afterwards. And how fucking awesome is it that some little computer geek from Germany is marrying this hot woman in New York? I felt like one of those two kids in that movie Weird Science, who created the perfect woman on their computer and then brought her to life.

  A few days later, on February 6th 1993, Donna and I ended up getting married. In the living room. By now the money I had made producing video games was running out. I needed to find a job, but while my green card application was being processed, I was technically an illegal alien fresh off the banana boat. Legally I was not allowed to work, because I didn't even have a social security card yet.

  In school, I had always drawn silly little pictures, cartoons and comics, to pass the time when I got bored. Donna knew I could draw pretty well, so she asked me to draw her a picture of a knight fighting a dragon. It came out pretty good, and she suggested that I should try to make a living drawing cartoons or comics.

  That seemed like a pretty cool idea. After all, if Mikey Mouse and Bugs Bunny can make billions of dollars, I should be able to make at least a little bit of money with my own cartoons. It was worth a shot. I had no idea at the time how tough it is to break into that business.

  I drew a batch of 10 single panel gag cartoons, similar to Gary Larson's The Far Side. Since everything in Europe is a lot more liberal than in the States, they have a much darker, edgier sense of humor as well. I was used to the uncensored cartoons in German humor magazines like Titanic, which often included nudity and very bad taste, like graphic dead baby jokes. Not the kind of stuff any American magazine or newspaper would ever publish.

  I sent my first batch of cartoons to King Features Syndicate, the largest distributor of newspaper comics. They supply thousands of papers across the country with daily comic strips. I was so oblivious, I had no idea how remote my chances were of actually selling a cartoon to King Features. It's kinda like a kid writing a movie script with crayons and then sending it to Universal Studios, hoping to get a movie deal. It just doesn't happen.

  And then it happened anyway. King Features bought one of the cartoons from the very first batch of cartoons I ever drew and published it in thousands of newspapers. I thought, "Hey, that was easy. Fame and fortune, here I come!"

  It wasn't until a few months later, that I found out how lucky I had been. It was almost like winning the lottery. I was told that every year, over 3000 new artists submit their
cartoons to King Features, hoping to make a sale and get their cartoons syndicated in thousands of newspapers. And from what I was told, only about three or four new artists get lucky each year. And here I was, selling a cartoon to King Features at my very first try. Woah!

  I figured, making a living as a cartoonist would be a piece of cake. But after that first lucky sale, I didn't sell anything for a while, because my sense of humor was just way too dark for American magazines. It took me a while to understand the different sense of humor in America.