Garret is a Bully or The Night I Got Banned from the Dumpster Out Back in Philly on my 40th Birthday (work in progress)
On June 19th, 2026 my 40th birthday I attended a show I ASKED to attend. In retrospect this sounds so silly, all because I really wanted to see Kat Nzingha play. So, I asked if it would be okay if I went there, knowing some of ___'s closest friends lived at the Dumpster Out Back, and he said, yes! I understand you wanting to see Sour Spirit and Kat Nzingha, and I will make it easy for you, and it’s your birthday. I attended the show and saw some super awesome noise. I met a friend’s Dad! (I love other people’s parents)... had a good time.. I went outside at the end, maybe it was 11:30pm, and sat down on the concrete step of the next-door apartment. I said goodbye to those outside, felt really good.
Then, Garett spoke to me. Or I to him? I said, “Hi. How’s it going?” I was trying to be friendly. He said, “Alright” or some shit like that. Then, he called me over to sit down next to him OR I misinterpreted him and thought he was being friendly to me. I sat down beside him on that concrete step in front of the door of the apartments next door. On this little concrete step that faintly smelled of piss. There were about seven maybe five people surrounding us, standing up, smoking cigarettes, chatting, saying goodbye.
In a serial killer’s voice, low and deep, at a suddenly lowered volume Garrett started to talk to me, so that the people only 3 feet away could not hear him well enough to make out the words he was saying. He told me, “You are not welcome here. I know you used to be friends with ______ and you’re not anymore, so I don’t want you to ever come back here.” He said it slow and low. Slow and low. It was like... the way someone talks to you when they have a gun or a cock behind your back and you know you can’t move, or it will be worse.
And I said, “I didn’t know that. I haven’t been here in a long time.”
He replied, still quietly and still in a voice that I immediately felt scared by, “Yeah that’s why I’m telling you now, so you never come back here. You were mean to my friend, and I don’t want to see you here.”
“I hear you and I understand.”
I sat silently on that concrete step on Broad street, two doors down from my favorite cafe to write in, Solar Myth. I waited for Garrett to leave, a little stunned by being banned from a DIY venue, but more so freaked out by the way he spoke to me, and that it was done in such a fashion that no one around us knew. Like, he had the ability to say this to me secretly while in public. This guy had always been an asshole to me. And when he was, I tried to understand where he was coming from, I found ways to make sense as to why he was mean to me, why he felt he needed to be, and I tried to have compassion towards him.
So I sat down, quietly, and I BEHAVED and sort of, tried to be still and strong in some way. I pretended to be okay. BECAUSE I was scared. Because I was triggered, because that voice- just sounded so much like the voice of all the other times someone had tried to dominate me and keep it so quiet so no one else could tell.
And I sat still .. and told myself, “I will not leave immediately, this is a public sidewalk. I won’t let this person dominate me on the steps of an apartment he doesn’t even live at.” You know? I was on a public street. He could ban me from his apartment, but I did not want to feel like he owned the whole street.
So I sat there. Now I realize I was in a “faun” state. Everything is just okay, this is just, someone else putting you down. And you're used to that. Don’t move too quickly.
I went into my car. And I mechanically moved my left arm to put my seat belt on. “On-automatic,” I moved my right arm to put my car into drive, and I drove away. As I turned right onto Washington, for sure out of sight, I started to pour tears out my face. Just immediately. Continuously. My whole face, wet. I met up with a friend briefly. It shut up my crying, just like that. Just in a second, sucked them tears back up, composed myself, like I had been, like I’ve been trained to do. And I stopped, CALM FACE.
A friend: Hi How are you?
I blurt it out.
I WAS JUST BANNED FROM THE DUMPSTER OUT BACK BECAUSE GARRETT THINKS IM ANNOYING AND HURT HIS FRIEND
I DONT EVEN GO THERE USUALLY AND WASNT PLANNING TO GO THERE AGAIN, BUT IM BANNED NOW
The man responded with compassion under the bridge. He understood.
Then as soon as he left, tears started pouring pouring pouring, More wet face.
And that’s when I realized I was having a major trauma response.
That person had a right to unilaterally ban me from his own home, but it was clear to me that he also intended to intimidate me. Maybe he isn’t self-aware enough to notice that, I suppose he thought he was defending his friend. But.. Uh... It felt weird and vague and uncomfortable and like I was energetically attacked, like he took advantage of a vulnerability he noticed in me and used it to make me feel small. He saw a small woman not with anyone at night, all her friends had left, and completely ignored the way he seemed scary to me. He ignored how men are scary to women. The way he spoke to me, just felt like it was intended to PUSH MY HEAD DOWN INTO MY OWN PEE AS IF I WAS A PUPPY. Do you know that feeling of someone pushing you down? Do you know what I mean? That feeling? Of someone playing upon your vulnerabilities?
Maybe he didn't mean to. But maybe it doesn’t matter that much to me.
So then, I could not stop crying. I cried continuously for two or three hours. Very quickly, my emotional response was no longer about Garrett.
♥♥ ♥♥ ♥♥ ♥♥ ♥♥ ♥♥ ♥♥ ♥♥ ♥♥ ♥♥ ♥♥ ♥♥ ♥♥ ♥♥ ♥♥ ♥♥
(tw: rape)
I was transported to Wilmington, DE. A city somehow seedier than Philly.
My head was flooded with a memory of the time I was drugged and raped by someone I barely knew. I couldn’t help but see the images of the night (about 13 years prior) in my mind, as if I had never truly processed that moment in time, and it was all coming out at once. I even smelled the smells of that night. The feelings my body felt that night. AND I felt like I was on the drugs that I was drugged with that night. My heart racing. Not knowing whether it was GHB or a roofie. I sat in this feeling when I got home, on my couch while everyone else was asleep. I cried for hours. It felt so unusual. It felt surreal. Unreal. More real. The year 2026 and the year 2013 merged in my mind. Even without any emotion left, water poured out of my face and reminded me of that bittersweet feeling of being emptied, while simultaneously feeling euphoria and an ultimate sense of inner peace or even boundless joy- from whatever substance was in my body. Like, the combination of having no worries at all, and yet my body was this private place that was no longer private. I no longer possessed it, someone else did.
I have never had such a strong trauma response. I don’t know what it was exactly about Garrett’s voice; I assume it was the way he spoke in the soft and creepy voice of a psychopath. I assume it was because no one close to us could hear him. How it was hidden- But it was crazy. I totally felt like I was on drugs and I was transported back to that place in Wilmington, DE where I had woken up in a stranger’s bed and tried to fumble out the front door, yelling, “I need to go to work! I am late for work!” and stumbling out on Concord Ave unable to read the street’s sign, hours after I had two drinks, 8 hours prior. That feeling of realizing your brain wasn’t working and it wasn’t your fault. That your body wasn’t working and it wasn’t your fault.
What a crazy new thing to associate now with the Dumpster Out Back.
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