by Kyle Smith
But she says a beautiful thing.
“Yes,” she says. It’s the first word she ever says to me.
“I think I’ll have a gin and tonic,” she says, but she doesn’t take off her darling little yellow overcoat. “Darling”? Did I just say darling?
While I get the beverages, some barfly is chatting me up.
“You look like a writer or somethin’,” says the guy, who looks like every guy I’ve ever met from Long Island except he’s approximately two-thirds the size. “Sophisticated, right?”
“My socks match,” I say.
“You probably know all that stuff about similes and metaphors, right?”
“Sort of,” I say.
“So what’s a metaphor, when you compare something using like or as, right?”
“That’s a simile,” Julia and I say together, and we share a smile. I am endlessly impressed by a girl who knows grammar.
A thought: maybe I can keep her smiling. And by talking to this guy instead of her, I will be ignoring her. Being cool. Cool is the thing I am worst at. My close personal adviser Shooter is always telling me: Act like a guy who talks to hot girls all the time.
“I’m John,” the guy says.
“Tom,” I say. “The silent lady is my new friend Julia.”
They shake hands. Shake, shake.
“Thanks for the drink,” she says, lighting a cigarette and taking a sip of her G and T. “I’m going to quietly enjoy it.”
I don’t smoke. I don’t like smoking. I do like smokers. Most of the most interesting conversations I’ve had in this town could have been scraped out of my lungs the next day.
“You work at the Times,” John guesses.
“No, Tabloid,” I say. “Sorry about that.”
“Why not the Times?” he says, disappointed.
People often ask me this question. Why not the Times? I do all right. Make enough money. Does it really matter if I work for a paper whose first edition is so rife with typos that in-house wags call it “the rough draft”? Does it matter that the ink of the heds comes off on your hands so smudgily that you literally (as well as morally) feel as if you need a shower after reading it?
No, none of this matters: I do it for the love of the adrenaline, the freewheeling personalities, the take-no-prisoners attitude. Plus the Times’s editors won’t return my calls.
“The Times?” I say for Julia’s benefit. “Why would I want to take a forty percent pay cut?” Shooter say: Poor men don’t get laid.
“I thought you guys were kinda low paid,” John says.
“The Times pays you in prestige. You can’t eat prestige,” I say, although I have no idea what the Times pays except I’m pretty sure it’s more than what the cash-strapped Australian tax dodgers who own our paper pay. But Julia is new to this racket and for all I know, she thinks I get paid like a corporate barracuda.
“Oh, Tabloid’s a good paper,” the guy says, nodding. “I read it on the train.”
“Everyone reads it on the train,” I say. “As long as people shit and use mass transit, we’re still in business.”
Julia laughs.
“What do you do?” I say.
“Guess,” the guy goes. He has the striated arms and overdeveloped neck of a construction worker. The cast-iron palms of a construction worker. The sun-hammered skin of a construction worker.
“Interior decorator,” I say.
Julia chuckles.
“No,” he says. “Guess again.”
“Oh, sorry. How could I have been so dumb? Interior de sign er.”
“Nah, something totally different.”
“Symphony conductor.”
Another giggle from Julia.
“No,” John says. “Come on.”
“Tae Bo instructor?”
“Nah. Come on, I’m the foreman of a construction crew.”
“You put up buildings,” I say.
“That’s right.”
“I respect that,” I say, and I do. “You’re going to be able to walk around this city with your grandchildren and say, ‘I built that. I built that.’ But every word we wrote in the paper this whole year will be forgotten.”
Julia seems to approve of this. She’s done with her drink. I order her another.
“More of the Courage for you?” says the barkeep.
Sure. For all Julia knows, I could be an impressive individual. Forthright, sincere. A wit, keen dresser, and friend to the workingman. Now all I have to do is work in a few lines about my love for animals.
“Hey, where you from?” John says. “You’re from Manhattan, I’ll bet. I’m from the Island.”
“Actually, I’m from D.C.” I always tell people this, to make them think I’m a senator’s son from Georgetown, when in reality my dad was an air-conditioner repairman in Rockville, Maryland, a man who considered french fries to be vegetables. I had to pretend to live with my rich aunt so I could attend the Potomac schools, where the kids appeared born in their Tretorn sneakers and Benetton sweaters. Mr. Farrell’s wardrobe? Exclusively by the Husky Boys’ department at Sears, right down to the tan work boots that said “maximum dork” then and yet would become inexplicably cool with this city’s fashion-wise uptown kids by the time I hit thirty. (I, of course, can never wear them again, or corduroys, or flared-leg jeans—which means my cycle of uncool continues.) We couldn’t even afford real Oreos: we were one of those Hydrox families. Every drinking glass in our house bore the image of Hamburglar or Mayor McCheese. (Whatever happened to Grimace? Was he too gay? Or did he just reinvent himself as Barney?) Senior year of high school, I hoarded the ten-dollar bills my dad gave me every time I mowed the lawn and traded them for a cut-price Member’s Only windbreaker, only to discover that they had become about as fly as the canasta tournament at the Topeka Country Club. Thus did I learn my first lesson about fashion: by the time I can afford it, it’s over.
“So what’d your father do?” John says, calculating the size of my trust fund in his head.
“That, I’m afraid,” I say, “is a national security issue.”
Julia laughs.
And my hard-on is clanging in my pants.
Time for a break.
In the men’s room, I look at the mirror and think, It’s been an hour and a half. Julia is sticking. She could be planning to leave any second since she still hasn’t taken her coat off, but we’re kind of near the door and it’s kind of chilly and anyway she’s sticking. My God, my God: do I actually have a chance with this girl? The thing is, when I first saw her, I thought, No biggie. Just another beauty in her don’t-touch-me force field. She didn’t get to me that much. But now I’m thinking: this is it. Maybe every guy gets one chance.
Time for a chat with the man. The top dog. Mr. Underneath. My A-Rod.
—So.
—So.
—How do you feel?
—How do I feel? How do I look?
—You’re plumping like a Ballpark Frank.
—Swelling often accompanies fever.
—Settle down. That’s not what we’re here for. I can’t if you’re in that mood.
—Bullshit. We’re put on earth for one reason.
—This isn’t earth. This is a urinal.
—Get me in her mouth. Do whatever it takes. That’s all I ask of you.
—“All I Ask of You.” That was in Phantom of the Opera. Streisand sang it.
—You fucking pussy.
—Just trying to do a job here.
—I mean, have you checked her equipment?
—Mmmm.
—The lips on her? Dual air bags, amigo. So ripe they’re about to burst. And the softness. That color. Can you imagine how good I’d look wearing those lips as a sombrero? O-fucking-lay!
—You’re Ballparking again.
—I need, I need.
—I’m laying the groundwork.
—Lay the girl.
—Jump her?
—I would.
—You’re a dick.
—I will never ask you for anything again.
—Wrong. You’ll keep asking again and again. You’re never happy.
—I’m only human.
—Nothing’s happening here. She’s going to think I’m stroking you.
—Would you? It’ll only take a sec.
—Not appropriate.
—Bitchtalk.
—It’s a woman’s world. We play by their rules.
—Take her.
—Calm down. Barbara Bush.
—Ow. No.
—Hillary Clinton.
—Ugh.
—Camryn Manheim. Rosie O’Donnell. Oprah.
—Uma.
—Oprah.
—Uma!
—That’s it. Liza Minnelli.
—You win. You fucker.
—Ahh. Thanks.
Tinkle, tinkle little stud.
—Anyway, I can’t just jump her. What if I get slammed?
—Failure is not an option.
—You’re quoting Ron Howard movies?
—He did Night Shift.
—Shelley Long.
—That scene in her panties.
—You’re Ballparking.
—Her ass when she’s reaching over the counter.
—Ballpark. Stop it. Bea Arthur. Nancy Reagan.
—Jackie Kennedy!
—Jackie Mason.
—Faggot.
—It worked.
—The only constant is acting like a man.
—You have to be smart.
—A man doesn’t need brains. He needs balls.
—You need brains to earn money to spend on her.
—Stephen Hawking has brains. Hugh Hefner has balls. Who’d you rather be?
—You have too much balls, you wind up in prison, then you’re somebody’s girlfriend.
—Do not fuck it up.
—Doing my best.
—Your best? Like that time with Sabrina Klein?
—I know.
—You had her right there.
—I was being a gentleman.
—On her couch. In her bathrobe. She put her head on your shoulder.
—She was sick.
—You’re sick.
—I’m supposed to take advantage of a girl who’s been in bed all weekend?
—Her head. Your shoulder. The body on her. I would have gotten so deep in her I would have tickled her liver.
—I figured it would pay off in the long run. Being trustworthy.
—Trust, yeah. That’s fine. If you want to be her sister.
—She might have just slapped me.
—Her head. Your shoulder.
—You can’t tell with girls. Sometimes they’re offended if you make it a sex thing.
—Everything’s a sex thing.
—To you, maybe.
—I am the most powerful force in the universe.
—What about God?
—Yeah, but I actually exist.
—How did I miss with Sabrina?
—How close was the belt of her robe to your hand? One fucking tug would have done it.
—Oh God. Angela Lansbury. Ethel Merman. Jean Stapleton. Janet Reno.
—Okay, okay. We’ll talk later.
—When?
—About ten seconds after you get home.
—Right, buddy, done. Time for me to tuck you in.
—You are not my friend.
Back in the bar, John has wandered off. Julia hasn’t. What’s her last name?
“Brouillard,” she says, taking a puff of her Camel Light.
“French, huh?” I say.
“Un peu,” she says, exhaling.
“So what’d your boyfriend get you for Valentine’s Day?” I say. All casual like.
“Nothing,” she says.
I look at her. She looks at me. She doesn’t elaborate.
There’s a scene in Fort Apache, the Bronx (number four on my list of Greatest New York Movies, right behind number three, The Warriors; number two, Midnight Cowboy; and of course number one, Dog Day Afternoon) where Paul Newman is sitting in a car in a crappy neighborhood in the Bronx with this lady cop (who turns out to be a junkie, of course) he’s been flirting with. She asks him why he hasn’t hit on her. “I don’t go to parties where I ain’t invited,” he says. “Do you want an engraved invitation?” she says.
The mail has arrived.
Shooter’s ninja combat training is kicking in. Shooter say: As soon as you get a Moment, get her out of there. Just leaving a place and going to another place with her raises the stakes.
“I told a friend of mine I’d stop by his bar. Do you want to come with?”
“Yes,” she says.
Well that was easy.
On the way over she casually drops in a mention of how she “and my boyfriend” used to work at the Bridgeport, Connecticut, paper. It is unclear whether going out with the boyfriend is part of the “used to.” And Bridgeport is like the Bronx of Connecticut. So I just say, “Uh-huh.”
Shooter say: All hot girls have a “boyfriend” hanging around somewhere. Ignore this information. The brain of the hot girl is not wired to handle the concept of being without a boyfriend. So they hang on to the old until they begin with the new.
She doesn’t elaborate. I don’t press her.
Luck is on my side again at South, a ramshackle underground alcohole on Forty-ninth. Pete is on the door. He acts like a big friendly slobbering bear, as usual. Gives me a manhug (no contact below the chest, which necessitates sticking your butt out, which is an incredibly gay-looking pose, which is why the straight manhug is an exceedingly rare beast, the did-you-see-it-or-didn’t-you Sasquatch of social gestures). He’s the only bar owner I know in this town. Julia doesn’t know that. Pete loves journalists, always treats us to free drinks. We treat him to free stories in our papers. We would do the same for any saloon keeper. Why haven’t the rest of them figured this out? I get some drinks. Pete won’t let me pay. I don’t try very hard.
Time to show her the back room.
Hardly anybody hangs in the desolate overlit back, the empty place where the barbershop and shoeshine stand used to be. I let her pick three songs from the juke (an obscure Nirvana track, some Nick Drake, and Jane’s Addiction’s “Then She Did”). It won’t occur to me for months that two of these songs are by dead people and the third sounds like an extremely exhausting heroin trip.
We sit on a tattered orange sofa big enough for two, and only two. The light is garish but we’re completely alone in the room.
“What were you like in high school?” I say.
“I was such a dork,” she says. “No guys would ever go out with me. Till I was, like, fifteen.”
“You seem like a loner,” I say.
“I always have been,” she says. “I’m just, I don’t know. A geek.”
“You have very nice eyes for a geek,” I say.
She smiles. “I don’t know if I’m ready for the city,” she says.
“Where do you live now?”
“In South Norwalk. Connecticut.”
Wow. Now that’s a commute. “You can’t do that much longer,” I say.
“I know. It takes me an hour and a half to get to work. This week I’ve been staying with that girl who works in reception.”
“You can find an apartment here,” I say. “Just so long as you’re okay with urban squalor.”
She laughs. “That’s the thing. I don’t mind living in a dump, it’s just that there are too many people here. I’m a small-town girl. I just want to read books,” she says. “And be able to drive my car.”
We talk about old girlfriends. Mine. Hers. She had the Obligatory Lesbian Affair. And she’s not just saying it to turn me on. Her life is more interesting than mine. She’s so much younger than me, and so much older. Her face is at that age when girls have just lost their baby fat but haven’t yet put on the adult fat. Post-zit, pre-wrinkle. Her skin is perfect. Yet she’s about as young as Yoda.
I ask question
s about the things that made her. All of our personalities are just hot dogs crammed with bits and pieces of books and movies and songs, aren’t they? That thing you said because it sounded like something Bogart would say. That thing you wore because it made you feel like a character in a video you saw when you were fourteen. She loves Blue Velvet, but also Meet Me in St. Louis. The Virgin Suicides, but also Powerpuff Girls. She has read Sylvia Plath but never interpreted her writing as a call to stop shaving her armpits. She’s on antidepressants but doesn’t brag about it. She does not wear glasses but she wishes she did. She does not say, “You do the math” or “at the end of the day” or “don’t go there.” She lost her virginity in a tree house. I want to buy her books, and jewelry.
Being with her is weird and familiar at the same time, like a memory of the future. You know how when you’re young you always think you’re going to meet your Ideal? You know, a woman with great hair and clothes who doesn’t talk about her hair and clothes? A woman who does not believe “Whatever” is a sentence? A woman who eats steak? A woman who isn’t trying to meet Wall Street guys? A woman who neither hates her mother nor is obsessed with pleasing her?
“You should at least try living in the city,” I say, expressing my empathy with a sidle. “It may break your heart, but it’ll never bore you.”
She considers this, motionless as a cat on a warm windowsill. You couldn’t slide a Saturday edition of Tabloid between us. And, ladies and gentlemen, she. Is. Sticking. But she’s also lighting a cigarette.
I’m starting to be aware of my breathing. My pulse. My schlong. You know how a cute girl looks through extra-strength beer goggles? That’s how she looked when I was stone-cold sober. Imagine how she looks now that I’ve drunk a gallon of Courage.
“How old are you?”
“Twenty-two. How old are you?”
“Thirty-two.” Don’t act old. Don’t give yourself away. Most girls like slightly older geezers. More mature and that. Keep looking right into her eyes. Giving her a few signs of interest. Basking in her eyes and hair.
That was her last smoke, so I go back to the bar to see if Pete’s got some. He doesn’t sell, but he scrounges up a few singles and sticks them in my jacket pocket. I score some matches as well.
“Zat your girlfriend?” he wants to know.