Disco Donny

A blind date is more than a simple meeting between two strangers, it’s a measurement of your character. It can be a measurement of your bravery or perhaps even your desperation. More than anything it’s a calibration of your willingness to take a risk. To throw caution to the wind and take a chance on a perfect stranger.

Everyone has a bizarre blind date story and I’m no exception. Mine takes place in the early 1980’s at the tail end of the disco era. Disco was dead by then but word hadn’t yet reached the suburbs of Portland, Oregon where gold lamé and platform heels still reigned supreme. Back then I lived in a two room apartment with a 6’2” model known as The Tall Chick. She was called The Tall Chick for obvious reasons.

The Tall Chick had no trouble finding available men to date, but most of them had to stand on their tiptoes to kiss her goodnight, a major turn off. My dates usually ended in the friend zone, which was fine with me as I wasn’t ready to settle down. I had no desire to find Mr. Right, I just wanted Mr. Right Now.

I don’t recall who set me up with Disco Donny and in light of all that went down, maybe that’s a good thing. I’d heard enough about Donny to know he ticked all the boxes. He had everything a girl could want: steady income, nice car, charming and exceptionally handsome. I knew I’d better pull out my A-game.

The night of our date I plucked everything pluckable on my body and even shaved my legs — a major concession. I spent hours slathering on just the right amount of makeup. Blow drying my hair into a feathered frenzy and then spraying it into submission with a can of Aquanet. I dug out my only disco dress from the back of the closet and fumigated it with half a bottle of Charlie cologne. That’s right, I said Charlie, “kinda fresh kinda wow, Charlie!” I wasn’t taking any chances.

At the last minute, I slid on my favorite sandals. Candie’s, like the ones Debbie Harry wore on the cover of Parallel Lines. They hurt like hell and I had curled my toes in a death grip to keep them on, but they looked amazing. So there I was stacked and shellacked. Look out Donna Summer, there was a new disco queen in town and she was ready to get down and get funky.

Donny arrived at my door appearing every bit the gentleman dressed to the nines in a cocoa brown three-piece suit, and shiny white shirt. He wore a gold chain around his neck and a Rolex peeked discretely from beneath his french cuff.

As he poured me into his brand new silver T-top Trans Am I almost swooned. Awed by the massive bird decal on the hood, I imagined it might just fly Donny and me to the moon. Okay, so I was easily impressed. But I was only 19-years-old, give a girl a break!

Donny flashed me a mega-watt smile as he jumped into his ride beside me. He revved the engine of the Trans and peeled out of the parking lot, his white-blond feathered hair blowing in the wind. Even his mustache was feathered. I swear to God, it was!

I know this might sound like the beginning of a perfect 80’s date, and it was, up to that point. Donny was everything a girl could want, but roiling just beneath the surface was a nightmare waiting to erupt. And erupt it did.

Donny and I had exactly one date. I knew thirty minutes into the date that I never wanted to see Donny or his Trans Am again. But it would take me another six months to convince him of that.

Donny liked everything fast. He drove his car fast. He moved fast. He talked fast. He was positively frenetic. But I passed it off as first date nerves. As we sped down the highway, Earth Wind and Fire blasting “Serpentine Fire” from the speakers of the Trans, Donny told me we were headed to the local disco known as Earthquake Ethel’s.

Back in the late 70’s and early 80’s Ethel’s was about as exciting as it got in the suburbs of Portland, Oregon. And this incredibly gorgeous, blond feathered god was taking me there. Life was good!

Donny had potential and I began mentally fast tracking him as we sped through the streets of Beaverton, picturing weekends at the coast and Christmas brunch with my folks. The fantasy lasted right up until Donny pulled to a stop in front of Ethel’s and offered me cocaine from a vile he’d dug from the pocket of his suit.

Turns out Donny liked cocaine. He liked cocaine a lot! As a matter of fact, I would soon discover cocaine was just about Donny’s favorite thing. But hey, It was the 80’s, people did coke, I wasn’t naive.

I declined his offer, claiming to have some kind of nasal congestion. I was still hoping to impress this guy and I preferred for Donny to think I had boogers than to think I was a prude. But my reluctance didn’t stop Donny. He stuffed the coke spoon under his giant feathered mustache and snorted a big wad of the stuff up his nose. A horrible thought occurred to me; what if Donny was a drug dealer? He’d mentioned he was “between jobs.” Dealing would explain the Rolex, flashy sports car and the lack of gainful employment.

After triple checking his feathered hair and ‘stache in the rear view mirror, Donny flashed me a Pepsodent smile that positively twinkled. For a moment, blinded by Donny’s smile, I wondered if I could overlook a cocaine addiction. Before I could say a word, Donny had plucked me from the car and whisked me through the entrance of Ethel’s. He was a mannerly drug dealer, I’d give him that.

Once inside Ethel’s, I tried to have a good time and forget about the vial in Donny’s pocket. Donny was a good dancer and didn’t seem to mind my somewhat klutzy moves as I teetered about precariously on my Candie’s.

Donny seemed very at home at Ethel’s, he knew a lot of people there and they all seemed to know Donny. Donny was the belle of the disco ball as he made the rounds, conducting business between dances. So much money was changing hands Donny looked like a carny selling tickets to the Tilt-a-Whirl. And in a way, he was.

Beneath the swirling lights of the mirror ball my romantic dreams were going up in smoke, incinerated by the disco inferno that surrounded me. The fact was I was under age and way out of my depth.

By the time Disco Donny drove me home, I was more than ready to say goodbye, but Donny refused to take the hint. Jacked up on cocaine and boogie fever he pushed his way into my apartment saying he needed coffee. Just what this guy didn’t need; more stimulants. Donny was so wired he could have lit up half of Portland if he’d stuck his finger in an electrical socket. Reluctantly I made him a cup of decaf and sat at my kitchen table, listening to Donny’s paranoid coke-fueled rant.

Under the harsh glow of the fluorescent kitchen lights, Donny’s looks lost some luster. There were deep grooves under his bloodshot eyes, telling of hard nights and too much coke. His feathered hair appeared yellow and dingy and trace amounts of white powder clung to his mustache.

I was growing fairly desperate to be rid of Donny when The Tall Chick stuck her head into the kitchen. It was obvious we’d awoken her and I used that as leverage to pry Donny out of the apartment. “She needs her sleep! You have to leave now!” I barked. At 19 what I lacked in diplomacy I made up for in bitchiness. Which makes what happened next even more bizarre.

Reluctantly agreeing to leave, Donny paused in the doorway. He looked down at me, gently cupping my chin in his hand and said: “You know, I could marry you.” Coming from Donny, it felt more like a threat than a proposal.

It was official: Donny was a full-blown nutjob. Either that or he’d indulged in way too much of his product. Either way, he had to go. I literally shoved the man to the curb and slammed the door behind him.

I heard later that Donny had been arrested for dealing drugs, which didn’t surprise me in the least. What did surprise me was when Donny called months later to say he was getting out of prison soon and we could finally be together.

The Tall Chick and I listened to his message on our phone recorder repeatedly. We were astounded. “Wow,” The Chick said blowing out a low whistle. There was no doubt in either of our minds that Donny was bat-shit crazy and he’d set his sights on me. How could one night at the disco and a cup of decaf in my crappy little kitchen turn into this Bonnie and Clyde nightmare?

What shocked me most was Donny’s total devotion. He said he’d been pining for me for months. Pining! Isn’t that what every girl wants? Love at first sight. A show of total devotion. A man who wants to marry them. A man who pines. I wanted all of that too, but not after one date and certainly not with Disco Donny the drug dealing deadbeat.

I tried to put Donny out of my mind, figuring as long as he was a guest of the state he wasn’t my problem. Until suddenly he was.

The night Disco Donny showed up on my doorstep, The Tall Chick and I had about ten minutes notice. Donny called and left a message on our recorder saying he was out of jail and heading to our apartment. Oh goody!

The Chick and I ran around the apartment, frantically locking every door and securing every window. We shut the blinds, turned off all the lights and waited. As plans go it wasn’t much, but we were still teenagers, hiding seemed like a good idea at the time.

Just as the last light was extinguished there was a knock on the door. Donny had to know we were there. The polite knocking quickly turned to brutal banging. Then the yelling began, he bellowed my name repeatedly like Stanley Kowalski in Streetcar Named Desire.

Next, he began circling our first-floor apartment, wrenching on each window. The Chick and I clung to one another, cowering in the corner of my bedroom. What had initially seemed almost comical had quickly turned nightmarish as Donny thumped repeatedly against the walls of the apartment, pulling on doors and banging on windows in search of an entry. The banging finally stopped and our racing hearts slowed. It was over, he’d given up and gone away.

Only it wasn’t over.

Ten minutes later the phone calls began. This was the pre-cell phone 1980’s and the nearest pay phone was less than a block away, well within view of our apartment. Donny must have had a fistful of quarters because the calls just kept coming. He left message after message, each one angrier than the last. He raved about our love and blamed me for ruining his life and breaking his heart. Each time the machine cut him off, he would call back to begin his rant again.

Finally, unable to stomach any more of Donny’s vitriol, I unplugged the phone for the night. The Chick and I had to brush our teeth and stumble to our beds in the dark because we could’t risk turning on a light. We both knew Donny was still out there. Still waiting. Still watching.

I could have stood up to Donny, told him off, but I was scared. Donny was unhinged and I was afraid the sight of me might drive him and his Trans Am over the edge. To this day I wonder why we didn’t call the police. I suppose deep down I felt more sympathy for Donny than fear. He was clearly misguided, but he’d had enough trouble with the law and I didn’t want things to escalate.

The next morning the phone booth was empty and Donny was gone. For whatever reason, I felt certain I’d seen the last of Disco Donny.

Recently I went on another blind date of sorts. My childhood friend, Angie, reached out to me after 50 years. We hadn’t seen one another since we were four, but thanks to the magic of social media she’d found me. We met for lunch and had a very sweet reunion.

A friend asked me why I’d agreed to this blind date, to meeting a stranger from the internet. I couldn’t disagree that after 50 years Angie and I were exactly that, perfect strangers.

But I explained to my friend that Angie and I had a shared history and that our parents had cherished memories of those sweet days in the early 1960’s. So we met to honor those memories. We met to honor our parents.

Perhaps it’s our current political maelstrom that’s made us wary and suspicious of others, it seems to have brought out the very worst in us. But I believe people are inherently good, so I’m willing to roll the dice and take a risk on a perfect stranger.

I hope we are all willing to roll the dice and take those risks. I’ve met my share of “Donnys” over the years, but more often than not I find the Angies. People brimming with infectious love joy and laughter. We need that now more than ever, and we’ll need plenty of it in the four years to come. I, for one, will gladly open my schedule and my heart to love joy and laughter every day of the week.