So there I was, walking down the 10th floor hallway of my building, with Bill Murray; who happened to be wearing a white dinner jacket that had been stained red with wine. It was either very late at night or very early in the morning, depending on how you want to look at it. For people like me that habitually work late nights, most of us are calling it a day by this time and going to bed. And for the early risers, 4am is usually too early.
Then there are the rest of the people who live in my building, the 75% majority where 4am is just too absurd of a time to even consider being awake, especially on a weekday. My point is, this is not the time or the place to have a raucous party by any means. Unless Bill Murray is in town, I thought as I noticed he was now taking swigs from a bottle of Harveys Bristol Cream.
We get to the apartment at the end of the hall. We knock and are greeted by a lively, middle-aged Hispanic man who, for some reason, was wearing a LeBron James jersey over a wrinkled gray golf shirt. “Oh! It’s… FUCKIN’ BILL MURRAY!” he shouts, eyes wide open in surprise as he sets a bottle of Becks down on a table to shake the actor’s hand. He shakes my hand too, almost as an afterthought.
I look around the room and realize the apartment is laid out exactly like mine. One large, open room with a high ceiling that functions as the living room, dining room, and kitchen. A row of large, waist-high to ceiling windows line the far wall, providing a view of the riverfront exactly two floors lower than mine.
Although the living room is not unlike any other living room in the building, one notable difference is the over-sized hot tub set up in the far right corner. This immediately reminds me of the Seinfeld episode where Kramer puts a hot tub in his apartment, as I watch Bill Murray climb up onto the kitchen island a few feet away.
The room, which was filled with an assortment of people I later found out work with our Cavaliers jersey-wearing host, went silent as Bill Murray stood above everyone on the granite countertop. Everyone, myself included, watched with awe as he slowly bent his knees and vaulted himself through the air, tucking in his legs as he touched down in the middle of the hot tub.
Everyone present screamed and cheered as a now soaking wet Bill Murray climbed out of the hot tub, waving his fists triumphantly in the air after a successful cannonball in the remarkably shallow water. A drunk, young, shirt-untucked man wearing boat shoes turned to me and slowly shook his head, saying No one will ever believe you as he downed the rest of his drink.