I felt a bit lonely after moving back to New York from Boston when I changed jobs. I had recently broken up with my long-term boyfriend, so when my sister asked if I was interested in meeting a friend of a friend, a divorced man from San Francisco, I eagerly told her to have him call me. She told me his name was Filbert and that, according to the friend who knew him well, he was a bit eccentric. I told my sister that I did not mind minor eccentricities in any man. He called my cell the same day she gave him my number.

      When we spoke, I noticed a slight accent and I was immediately attracted to the strong timbre of his voice. We did not talk long, only long enough to make a date for the following evening to meet in person. Filbert suggested a steak restaurant at the outer edge of the city. He asked if I had a car, and when I said yes, he asked if I could pick him up at his house so that we could go to the restaurant together. I found this odd, since most first dates usually begin at designated locations, not at someone’s home. He told me the restaurant was too far from his house for him to walk to, and that his car was in the shop. I agreed to pick him up. 

      At first, I thought he had given me the wrong address. The only building on the street looked like a defunct electrical warehouse plant with tall windows and a fortress-like exterior. I rang the bell on a large door that was set deeply into the thick stone walls of the structure. After a minute or two he answered.

      “Filbert?”

      “Yes, I am Filbert. So nice to make your acquaintanceship.”

      I found his speech to be rather formal. As we shook hands, I tried to peek around the half-opened doorway to see inside the house, but I could only see an expensive-looking cobalt blue Persian runner in the entrance way extending down a long hall. I told him that his home was very intriguing. He said he would be happy to give me a tour of his place after dinner. I was not sure how I felt about getting an after-dinner tour, but since I had committed to driving him back home after the meal, I smiled acknowledgement of the offer, and walked with him down the outside brick staircase to my car.

      I immediately noticed his aftershave when he got into the front passenger seat, a combination of pine and eucalyptus. He was tall, so tall we had to adjust the front seat to keep his knees from bumping the dashboard. As he started giving me directions to the restaurant, I did a quick inventory of his looks. He was tall, he was dark, and he had intense brown eyes the color of the earth when it rains. So far so good. After a few minutes of driving, he began playing with the front passenger seat window. He rolled it up, then rolled it down, then rolled it up and down all over again three more times. While some women might have found this behavior annoying, I did not mind. I, too, could be a bit obsessively compulsive—especially during the times I needed to shake my head incessantly to get rid of the jangling in my eardrums.

    It was not until we were seated in the back of the restaurant that I saw some issues with Filbert’s behavior. At first the host seated us near the kitchen. Filbert became angry at this seating arrangement and demanded that the host take us back to the front of the restaurant by the window. He did not ask if the front table was available, he simply ordered staff to comply with his demands. Once we were seated up front, he decided the table was too close to the front door, and again he demanded a different table. By this time, my head started shaking and the jangling in my ears became a loud clanging.

     Finally, we settled in at a table to his liking, a table which was not too close to the drafty front door, a table which was also far enough away from kitchen noise, and a table that was not in the pathway of any bathroom traffic. Filbert left the table momentarily to wash his hands. When he returned, he saw that the waiter had placed bread and butter on the table. He called the waiter over and told him that the butter was cold. He insisted that the waiter warm up the butter and toast the bread. 

      In the brief time we spent together I found his obsessive behavior rather extreme. He did not like the placement of the knife next to the spoon. He wanted the ice removed from his water glass. I felt anxious and hoped we could have a decent conversation in order to get to know each other better. I started to speak in a stream-of-consciousness manner about my family, my parents, the places where I grew up. I then asked him if he had any siblings. He answered no. I asked if he had any relatives in the area and he told me that he had no relatives at all. Really? No aunts or uncles, no distant cousins? He repeated that he had no relatives. I was tempted to make a joke and ask if he had done away with all of his relatives, since I felt certain that everyone in the world had at least one distant relative, but I did not inquire further.

      I rambled on about my life and my job. He was not forthcoming with information about himself. What I knew about him was only what my sister had briefly mentioned before he asked me out on the date, and what he disclosed on the phone about being a hedge fund broker. I soon realized this date would most likely not lead to a further relationship, so I was eager to end the evening early. Once my steak arrived, I ate quickly, without taking the time to savor every bite of my meal. I drank my wine in gulps. When I was out of small talk, I asked for the bill, and suggested to Filbert that we split the tab. Filbert became extremely irate at my suggestion. He began to shout, loud enough for the next table to hear, that he was the one who had invited me out to dinner, and that he was the one who would pay the bill.

     I insisted on paying the tip and told him I would do so no matter how much he protested. He snarled when I reached for my wallet. As I opened up the wallet, I suddenly remembered that I had forgotten to go to the bank earlier that day, and that my wallet contained absolutely no money. I looked at Filbert and said, “ I don’t appear to have any money in my wallet. No matter.”

      I then took both my hands and began to twist my head counterclockwise off my neck. I twisted and twisted until my head unscrewed all the way off. I then held my head upside down with both hands and shook it until the multitude of coins that had caused the earlier jangling in my head fell out of my ears and onto the table. This maneuver left only small traces of blood splatter. I saw a kind of horror in Filbert’s eyes as he looked at me. I was glad that my actions caused only one tiny drop of blood to hit the front of Filbert’s crisp white shirt. I watched as he ran out of the restaurant screaming. 

     I screwed my head back onto my neck and shoulders and asked the waiter if I could bring home Filbert’s leftovers in a doggy bag. Although I did not have a dog, I knew how much my sister always enjoyed gnawing on old bones. I waited patiently for the leftovers, which the waiter eventually brought to the table in a Styrofoam container. I then began to think that Filbert was actually not such a bad date after all, and that I probably should have given him more of a chance. He was good looking, had great taste in restaurants, and was not, thank god, a vegan. I left the restaurant and started searching for him on the street outside. The night was young, and I knew that Filbert still needed a ride back home. I thought how nice it might be to take him up on his offer of a house tour.  

     When I found him standing on a street corner up the block looking at his cell phone and waiting for an Uber, I called out to him, “Goin’ my way, Good Lookin’?” 

Filbert walked directly up to the opened car window where I sat. He appeared to have recovered quite nicely from whatever had bothered him earlier inside the restaurant. He, too, appeared to be rethinking our date. It made me feel good when he placed both of his hands on either side of my face and twisted my head a little bit, adjusting it so that I could face him directly. Then he smiled at me and got inside my car.