Date night. Driving along Mohawk Ave to pick up the lovely Michelle for an evening at the cabaret (fabulous blues singer, so-so magician).
Mentally adding a boardwalk stroll to the itinerary when, suddenly, there's a call from Little Jacob. He needs someone to tail a dope pusher, waste his buddies, then car-jack a ride home.
Sigh. Sorry, Michelle.
This kind of nonsense is always getting in the way of a nice evening in Liberty City.
When you visit Liberty City, people will tell you that you simply must steal cars. Maybe you've heard of the city's most popular guide, Grand Theft Auto IV? It's sold more than 5 million copies since its release on April 29.
People will say you simply must beat the living snot out of shady Russian gangsters, that you haven't truly lived until you've taken a joy ride in a stolen cruiser through Liberty City's five boroughs. (Oh, this is all done virtually, via a PlayStation3 or Xbox 360, by the way.)It's true, to a certain extent.
But if you plan to be in town for more than 30 hours - the minimum visit required to get through Liberty City - or if you're simply a pacifist, then it's entirely possible to have a pleasant weekend of entertainment with minimal illegal activity.
Start by vegeing in front of the TV at your cousin Roman's.
Get acquainted with the city by watching Weazel News, a Fox-spoof network ("furry and balanced" coverage) advertising three categories of news: sports, weather and the war on terror - plus occasional plugs for Dateline-esque specials.
Are you a sex offender? Find out tonight! Catch an episode of Republican Space Rangers, in which cartoon astronauts annihilate peaceful green men (We are agrarian and do not have much, but what we do have, we share. Pow pow blam pow pow).
Or tune in to The Men's Room, where real-life fighting champ Bas Rutten gives advice on navigating everything from casual walking to consensus politics. Hint: Beat people up.
But spend an hour in front of the TV - after that, the content begins to loop - and you begin to appreciate the slyness of it all, this world that is not so different from our own.
The TV's mockery of modern society skewers the viewer as well. In one episode of the reality show I'm Rich, the hosts salivate over a flat-screen TV that installs in your toilet bowl, specially designed for bulimics.
Heh heh. Time to get out of the apartment. There's a lot of live entertainment in Liberty City. The stars that get top billing around here are the animated versions of Ricky Gervais and Katt Williams, both playing at Split Sides.
Back outside, head to an Internet cafe, where the network of sites seems bottomless, containing at least 90 different addresses. Some sites are less comprehensive, but you can cruise the personals on Love-meet.com and even set up a date. Note: You have to complete more of those hack 'n' whack missions to go on that date.
Not that you'd necessarily want to date these people, anyway.
One love-meet specimen: the Euro-obsessed Matte Black, who says he seeks someone "Who doesn't have cholesterol where their soul should be". You wouldn't even be looking at his profile if it appeared in real life.
As with most of the entertainment here, Matte Black is worth a look partly because he's not real, and he's not the main event.
He represents a parallel - and in many ways, richer - world to the grand theft auto going on throughout the rest of the city.
And that's the down side to taking the pacifist's tour of Liberty City. The longer you spend hanging out in bars, surfing the internet and people-watching on the boardwalk, the deeper into it you'll want to go.
The idea of yet another car chase may seem not quite so interesting.
It turns out the most compelling aspect of this place is the human underbelly of the seedy city. - Monica Hesse
