the way we weren't

On Monday night, I sat on a Russian ex-mental patient’s bed under his childlike drawings of Tupac while he serenaded me with Metallica’s “Enter the Sandman” on a $1,000 electric guitar. It wasn’t a date, but if it were I probably wouldn’t have minded.

The scene was essentially straight out of “American Movie,” but Mike Schank’s lethargic Midwestern intonation was replaced with a heavy Russian one and a beard a bit more a propos to some wintry steppes.