Dan x Dan in Rhode Island: Day Three Disastrous Danny Dan

3 October 2017
I woke up today filled with excitement. I was doing a meet-up for one of my books, I was getting a new tattoo and was planning on having some kick-ass Italian grub whilst watching Dan Howell's live show. Little did I know that when I walked out the door that I stepped out into a world of trouble.

I've never been that big a fan of Google Maps; it gets me where I need to go usually late or a long-arse way round, but today it was completely off the mark. I make it to the bus stop it tells me to go to with 10 minutes to spare. Feeling the anticipation of the day racing through me, I can't help but dance around. The sun is rising high into the sky, there's a decent breeze, I'm about to do a meet and greet and get some fresh ink. Ink-I've not been inked since the 11th of June. Ah, I can't wait to feel the needle again. Halfway through the second take of the moonwalk, I watch the bus go by me and head around the corner. Wot. I can't fucking believe this. I can't connect to the maps since I don't have internet. I know the direction that I need to go and I have no idea when the next bus is supposed to come, I think they run every 20 minutes, 30 minutes...I have to walk. I can't just stand here. I need some walking music. Oasis will do. Fucking Liam Gallagher. Legend. Liam's rocky, grungy and somewhat whiny vocals accompany Pork Chop and me down the winding roads of suburbia. I make it to the next bus stop on the route, knowing I can catch the bus here.

I can wait a few minutes. I have some time. I gave myself a small window in case something happened. I can make it to the book event. 10 minutes go by. Then 15. I'm getting increasingly pissed off. A large black raven settles in front of me on a post box and looks in my direction. As if it knows how stressed I am, it starts to laugh. The annoying, cunty, squaky laugh they do cuts through me like a surgeons blade. I can't take this shit. I pick up a large rock and hurtle it at the bird. He's too busy laughing at me to notice the rock and it hits it square in the chest, knocking it to the ground. I don't even bother looking for traffic; I race across the street to observe my victim. He's dead. Good. Fuck him the little cunt. Let that be a lesson.

I'm about to rip the bus stop sign down when I hear the bus coming around the bend in the road. Fucking finally. I swipe my card and flop down on the bus, only to see the woman I'd seen a day before. I'm not in much of a mood to be friendly but I need help figuring out where the 69 line stops and if I could get off earlier to transfer. "Where can I catch this bus?" "Where are you trying to go?" "Ah, the Barnes and Noble up on Bald Hill Road." "Who told you to take that bus?" "Google..." I allow my voice to trail off, feeling unease creeping into me. "That's not the right way. It's a big waste of time." "Where the hell should I get off?" "Right up here, you can connect to the 29 and that will bring you right up there. You can get off at the stop and walk to the bookstore from there." "Oh, cheers!" We make small talk about why I'm headed to the shop and her eyes light up when I say I'm an author. "I'm nothing special. I'm not like a Stephen King. I do alright for myself. I blog, I'm doing a bakery and I...I clean things." She pulls the cord and tells me this is the place I need to get off. Before I can climb off the bus, the driver hands me some maps and time tables for the routes. "Cheers mate!" "You're welcome. You're going to want to cross the street to catch the 29 in the direction you want to go. Good luck." The bus pulls away, leaving me in what appears to be Hickville. Why did I agree to do this? Ah, don't worry. You'll get there, you'll have a good time and then you'll get inked and then you can watch that liveshow. You've got this Danny boy.

I look down at the timetable. 40-minute fucking wait?! IS THIS A FUCKING JOKE>S}E L
PJ@£!! Anger explodes in me and I kick the bus stop sign. "FUCKING HELL!!" My rugged scream cuts through the early morning air scaring a squirrel a few feet away. What the hell am I going to do to pass the time? I turn up the volume on my headphones so that I can almost feel the bass in my skull. Work out the aggression. Don't destroy city property. There could be a witness. I allow myself to get into the groove and before I know it, I've dropped my back to the ground and I'm singing along to Nirvana and dancing down the side of the road.

Just as the bus pulls up a German track comes on and I'm caught up in it, twirling around. I pull out my card and hop onto the bus and ask the driver about the direction, not realising that I'm speaking German. "What?" He stares at me and I realise what I've done. I chuckle. "Oh, haha. Sorry about that. Does this bus go toward Bald Hill Road?" "Yeah, where are you trying to go?" "The Barnes and Noble." "We stop about two miles away from it. You can walk it right down the street; Well up the hill then down a bit. A straight shot." "Thanks."

It takes an hour to get there. I'm going to be late. There's no way in hell I can walk two miles in 5 minutes. Fuck my life. I jump off the bus and start power walking up the hill. I'm getting too hot. I shouldn't have worn this hoodie. 
My goddamn underpants keep sliding down. Them being a bit too big, all the walking and the heat is not doing me any favours here. I need to take them off. There's no way around this. I see the Barnes and Noble sign appear in the distance and a Satanic choir begins to sing in praise. Fighting the desire to run and have my underpants slip all the way down, I speed walk to the intersection up ahead so I can cross the motorway.
I'm sweaty in places I didn't think I could even sweat. Why are you doing this to me weather?! Before I can take care of the underpants situation, I need to get something to drink. There's no Starbucks line which baffles me, so I slide up to the counter. "You look warm." What the hell kind of an observation is that? "Well, I am." "What can I get ya?" I scan the menu looking for something cold and hydrating. "Can I get a venti iced lemonade-black tea?" "Sweetened or unsweetened?" "Unsweetened and one of those pizza pretzels there. No need to warm it up. I love to crack open a cold one." He offers me a brilliant smile. "Coming right up, let me have your name so I can write it on your cup." I glance around. I'm still the only one here. "Um, Dan." He rings up my book and scans my card. "Happy Birthday!" He exclaims. "Ah, thank you. I guess the Barnes and Noble card tells them. "How'd you know?" "I saw your ID there. What brings you to the area?" "Meet up. I'm an author. I'm doing some blogs and stuff." "That's pretty cool." "You have a great day now!" He hands me my change and my pretzel. I mutter thanks, my cheeks burning and shuffle to a corner. You can do this. You can eat here. No one's around.



I know I'm late but Jesus Christ. Someone should have stuck around...the voice in the back of my mind starts to giggle. "I told you, you were a fucking loser." Surely not. Someone's going to come. Someone...

I sit almost two hours with no one showing up. I can't fucking believe this. People said they were coming on Facebook. I don't understand what's gone wrong. I can't sit here all day, I've got to get tattooed in an hour. Fuck this shit. I'll deal with the underpants and then head off. I've got another 2-mile walk ahead of me.  
Diving for the public toilets, I poke my head in to see if there's anyone inside. I'm all alone. Let's do this fast before someone comes in and catches me. I shuffle into a stall, drop my bag on the floor and set my drink on the toilet roll dispenser. I picked the wrong day for skinny jeans. I get my trainers off and I'm struggling to get one foot out of the jeans when I hear the door open. Fuck my life. I freeze, holding my breath. 'Don't let him notice me.' He says nothing as he walks into the stall next to me until he notices my shoots next to my feet. "What the hell are you doing in there?" "Getting ready to fuck your sister, what are you doing in there?" "Freak." I shift over to the other side of the cubical and slip one leg out of my jeans to the sound of a steady urine stream. My bathroom buddy doesn't say anything else as he heads round the corner to wash his hands and I'm grateful. I slide my other leg out of my jeans and pull my underpants down in less than two seconds. I'm a free agent now. I stuff my underwear into my bag and quickly wiggle back into my jeans. I can't afford another unwanted viewer to this private show. When I emrge from the toilets a thought strikes me. I hope an employee doesn't think that I was in there too long and that I was stealing merchandise. They'll want to see my bag and find Pork Chop, rubber gloves, pills and my balled up underpants. If that wouldn't be an alarming sight. Jesus. 

I start walking down the street and then I notice that it merges into US route 2. I can't walk down the motorway. What am I going to do? I've got 45 minutes until my appointment. The restaurant has free wifi! It's only about a mile and a half journey from here to the tattoo shop. It won't cost much and I'll be there on time. Fuck yeah. The restaurant is cold when I walk in and smells of chicken and lemon cleaner. It's almost empty. Perfection. I ask an employee to use the phone telling her that I need to ring a cab. She offers me a shy smile and hands me the phone. "Thanks." Using my iPhone I pull up a cab company number and ring. The guy says he can send someone out and it should be about 15 minutes. Thank the Heavens. I hand the phone back to the girl with a warm smile. She watches me as I return to my corner to wait. More than once I see her sneaking looks at me. It's not been 15 minutes yet, but I head outside to see if the taxi is here yet. Nope.

10 minutes more go by. Then it's a half hour. I'm going to be fucking late. I hate lateness. I borrow the phone again to ring the company. "I sent someone and you weren't there." "I fucking was! I never left the goddamn spot!" "It will be a while, but I'll send another guy." "Thank you. Jesus." I wait another 20 minutes and still nothing. I don't even care about the appointment now, I'm already late and there's no way they'll have room for me at the shop. Can't I just have one fucking day? I feel my blood pressure rising. I'm just going to go back to the rental. Fuck this shit. Fuck this day. Fuck my life. The next bus comes in 2 hours. OH HELL NO. I'm not waiting in this chicken fuckary any longer. I'm just going to take a taxi home. I ring the company again. "Are you going to bother fucking coming out here?" "Everybody is busy, maybe wait or you can call someone else?" "I've waited long enough! How hard is it to do your fucking job?" I slam the phone into the table and growl. "CAN'T ANYBODY DO THEIR FUCKING JOB IN THIS COUNTRY?!!" My outburst scars the two women sitting next to me. I offer then a cheeky smile and head outside. 
That's it. I'm going to kill someone in the car park behind Chik-A-something. It's some sort of chicken-themed restaurant. This is how the morning is going to end. I didn't think this was the direction that I was going to head in when I woke up this morning. I feel the anger in my muscles and them screaming for release. Must control temper. Focus, Daniel. Do you really want to go down in history as the Chicken Sandwich murderer? Well, they are delicious...NO! Focus! Get the aggression out in a helpful way.

I talk to my mate on Facebook to centre me. I'm still murderous, but I'm focused enough so that I can order a taxi from a different company. The woman arrives a few minutes after her promised time. She's got bright red lippy. red hair and cool sunglasse. I like her. I'm oddly drawn to her. As soon as I got into the taxi I felt the warmth of her personality swallow me up. I was compelled to talk to her. We chat the entire 20-minute ride back to the property talking about our interests, tattoos, books and our jobs. I've not had a free-flowing conversation like this in the longest time. She asks for my book information so she can check them out. I really want to hug her. And I don't want to get out of the car. She gives me her number and tells me to look her up next time I'm in the area or if I need another lift anywhere. I think I've made a friend. I made a friend. What a revelation.

I head into the rental and order pizza. Somethings got to be good. I settle in to watch the live show, anxiety and excitement making it hard to think. The pizza arrives early so I watch an epsiode of Dexter while I wait. Nothing beats Dexter. Well, the live show from Dan does, but whatever, you know what I mean. It hits 4:30 and it notifies me that he's live. I drop the pizza and focus on him. Whenever I watch his videos it's like someone's tasered my brain. It goes all fuzzy and empty. He's my only focus.

>>>>


Every time he makes my head spin. I lay back, my brain flooded with oxytocin, serotonin and dopamine. Goddamn him, he's so lovely. Without meaning to, he gave me the best birthday gift I could have ever asked for; his shy little smile and his giggles. Those two things do things to me that make me feel both like a human and a regulation moron. If Melfi saw this part of me she'd think that I'd blown a fuse or two and want to have all sorts of tests run.

My thoughts still heavily perfumed with his laughter and the sparkle in his ochre eyes I step into the heat of the shower. Just what the doctor ordered. The searing heat of the water starts to relieve the tension of the day in less than a minute and I'm able to exhale. 'What a fucking day.' I whisper to the steam as I start to work the shampoo through my soaked curls. I mull over the events of the day, scrubbing myself clean with a lemon and mint body scrub. I find a smile creeping onto my face when I think about him and his excited energy. Goddamnit, what's happening to me? He's making me soft. I try and swat his smile out of my mind but fail miserably; like methamphetamine, he's eating a hole in my brain.
>>> 


I crawled into bed next to Pork Chop and laid there looking at the ceiling. Just once I'd like to have a nice birthday where nothing goes wrong. This year it was missing my tattoo appointment and being stranded. Last year it was getting ill and having to cancel my Eastern Euro tour that cost me a fortune. The year before that was dealing with a bitch who was stealing my tattoo drawing. (I'm cool with sharing just tell me, Jesus.) The year before that I was stranded in Berlin and spent the night on a park bench. The year before that, I technically missed it since I was flying through Europe on the second and arriving in New Zealand on the fourth. I froze my ass off the entire light. And before that, I was chasing an art thief down the streets of Hammersmith. I think this is a sign that I shouldn't have a birthday. That's it. No more birthdays for Danny. It always ends in a letdown and or trouble. 

Should I do a Halloween candy blog? I'm thinking that I might do one with the candy I got here in Warwick. Speaking of Warwicks, I actually found out there is a Warwick in the UK today. Didn't know that. Guess you can learn something new every day. 

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