A True Love Story-Stevie and Mike

by Stevie Sigan

It was a rainy day. Nothing new for a day in Syracuse, New York. I lugged a camera, tripod and lights back to the equipment room from my car, all appendages tucked safe and snug and dry in their cases while water dripped from my hair into a puddle at my feet, as I waited for everything to be checked in by the student working behind the desk. Then, shoes squeaking, I trudged upstairs to the editing suites to spend my rainy Sunday afternoon enclosed in a soundproof box of a room behind three computer screens, logging and capturing footage for a production assignment.

A private hallway lined with twelve doors, segregated by program: Avid and Final Maker Pro. This is, essentially, the edit suites. Each room is stocked with a computer, and one, two or three monitors, keyboards, mics and a large-formatted book specially designed by the student employees of “the Suites” to answer your every editing question (or at least attempt to in order to keep you away from bothering the limited staff for as long as possible).

That afternoon I signed in at the front desk. My best friend’s boyfriend, Pete, was working. They had just started dating and I hadn’t met him but for a few occasions so we talked a bit. While we were talking, another guy walked up. Now, this guy happened to be a long-time distant crush of mine…. I’d seen him around the suites before, around campus, but we had never met. One of those types you gaze at from afar and want so badly to meet if you could only find the rhyme or reason to make the meeting happen in a natural sort of way. So, Pete and I spoke and I watched my crush out of the corner of my eye as we talked… and prolonged the conversation hoping he might join in. Sure enough, in due time, Pete introduced me to my boyfriend that day. Ironically, my best friend and Pete broke up later that week, but anytime she mentions him in any kind of negative light I remind her that he was good for at least one reason: Mike.

Four hours later, eyes spinning, tired and hungry, I was heading out from my four hours of labor. Pete stopped me on the way out and pointed over to Mike.

“He’s having a sausage party next weekend,” he said.

Totally confused and presuming I was about to be part of some weird dare or joke, I simply conceded.

“Okay...”. I continued walking.

Pete stopped me. “No, really, he’s having a sausage party,” he continued. “Do you want to come?”

I glanced up at Mike, who was now smirking. “It’s true,” he said. “I am. I am having a sausage party,” were his first words to me.

“And… what’s a sausage party?” I asked, inevitably, strange thoughts formulating in my head. Some kind of guys-only get together? I was a bit dazed as I racked my brain for some dirty reference I didn’t know…

“Well, it’s a party where we cook sausage,” he continued. “People come over and eat it, we play music and we dance.”

Still in disbelief, I turned back to Pete. “For real? This is a real thing?”

“Oh yeah. The last one was great.”

“The house smelled like meat for days,” Mike added. “You should come.”

He gave me his number and address, and I told him, still hesitant, that I might stop by.

I pondered this sausage party for a week, questioning the legitimacy of the event. My roommates thought it was a bit bogus, but I convinced one good friend to go with me despite the unknown. But come Saturday, something came up and my friend backed out. I didn’t push it, and I was too skeptical to show up to a ‘sausage party’ alone. So, I didn’t go.

A week later I found myself in the editing suites again, trying to read this guy further. A few days later, the same. And again, the same. Mixed signals, mixed smiles, mixed words… I agonized over all of them for a week or two—pining for him, then stopping myself due to his lack of making a move. I figured it must have been a joke—the sausage party. But then he’d say something to make me think otherwise again… I finally got my act together one day and asked him out to dinner to find out for sure one way or the other whether he was interested. He was.

He told me that night that he thought I wasn’t interested when I didn’t show up at the party. That he had been waiting for me to come all night.

“I didn’t think it was a real thing—a sausage party,” I told him. “It’s a bit strange, you know.”

“Yeah, I was thinking that might have had something to do with it,” he said.

Our first date was at a Middle Eastern restaurant just off-campus that same night. We’ve been together ever since. I’m still waiting for him to throw me a sausage party.