I saw him standing in my kitchen in his big wooly winter coat. I swore he was smiling. Why was Richard Gere in my apartment?
I scrunched my eyes, they were heavy with sleep. The light changed from that cool blue to something resembling sunset. Richard was gone. Maybe I had fallen back asleep.
When I pulled myself out of the armchair, I could see the afternoon croissant I left out sitting on a white plate on the stove. The burner was set to medium-low. I tapped the edge of the pastry and its chocolate puss shot out, scorching through my skin as it clung to my index finger.
Was Richard Gere trying to kill me?
I checked online to see if this had happened to anyone else before. “Richarc Gere in my apartment;" “Richard Gere following me;” “Richard Gere stove” — no results, just news of charity talks and clips criticizing the government. More generic searches yielded information about people seeing dead presidents on the sidewalk, or Elvis in the grocery store, but none with my Gere-problem.
Turning to Reddit, I found no community either. On the nature of the croissant-stove, r/Dreams referred me to r/Sleepwalking, which in turn called my predicament “creepypasta” and “trolling.” “Everyone knows Richard Gere is a pacifist,” they said.
I tried to reach out to the seriously afflicted on r/Gangstalking. “They’re usually just, like, normal people.” “Yeah, they wanna be anonymous even though they’re NSA.” “More often than not, they drive Hyundais and Kias because they’re easy to steal.”
But what if it was Richard Gere?
“That doesn’t really sound like him.”
I typed up another post: “AITA for thinking Richard Gere is trying to kill me?” When I clicked “Post” I got a pop-up saying my account was suspended.
I went to Paul Schrader’s Facebook page. He wrote Taxi Driver and Bringing Out the Dead and made that movie where Nick Nolte is a cop who goes crazy. And he knows Richard. If anyone could tell me why Richard was doing this, it would be him.
I commented on his latest post—something about THC drinks—and asked him to help me: “Mr. Schrader, your friend Richard Gere came into my apartment and turned on the stove while I was taking a nap. Is he trying to kill me? Why? Thank you.”
Paul blocked me, which felt like a new knife in this whole series of stabs—he was the only one who could understand, and he turned his back on me too.
Maybe Richard would come back, maybe he wasn’t finished with me yet.
I checked the locks. Back door, hall door, front of the unit: everything was working fine.
The Wednesday paper hadn’t come (or had Richard taken it?), but an envelope stuck out of the mailbox, one of those flat rate things. It had my name on it, but no return address. I pulled the tab on the back. The trifolded paper had a nice texture to it, as if it was threaded.
“This is a notice to cease all online libel against RICHARD GERE [hensforth: CLIENT]. All attempts to further slander or otherwise besmirch the character of CLIENT will be met with actions both legal and punitive.”
The signature was illegible.
Hunched over on my porch in that warm morning glow, I cried. I didn’t know what to do anymore. Under my convulsions, I let my feet move from under me. I started to walk. I walked across town and out. I walked along the highway and the river. I walked all the way from the gorge to the estuaries. I walked until the sun changed sides and back again. I walked on the little path in the park. I walked past people walking their dogs. I walked past Richard Gere, who was still smiling. His gloved hand let out a friendly wave. I walked along the bridge. I couldn’t help but think, “This is what he wanted.”
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Alex Lei is a writer, filmmaker, and programmer in Baltimore. Usually, he’s just a bartender. He is the Crit & Culture editor at BRUISER.