Posted on 2004-10-08 07:19:33 by Denver | |
Seed | |
I†m meeting her at 5pm but she will probably be late. In my experience women are usually late for the first date. I will have time to drink a beer, relax, and observe the characters in the bar. And I will also be showing her the respect of being there at the agreed upon time. With the advent of cell phone technology it has become common to delay traveling to a meeting and to call and make an excuse for your lateness. These phones have obviated the idea of punctuality. People now have an ambivalence about showing up on time- yes, promptness is respectful to the person you†re meeting but on the other hand, you don†t want to appear over eager. You never hear anyone whisper enviously †Oh, she†s soooo prompt.†The latecomer also wants to communicate that they have very important things to take care of before they meet with you and that your meeting is an †interruption†in their itinerary. In the business world, the last person to walk into the meeting is usually the most powerful. The latecomer gets to make †an entrance†. As a theater person I recognize the symbolism of this gesture and try to diffuse it by always bringing reading material (today I have brought The Economist) so that I can appear not to be †waiting†(with all of the attendant metaphorical reverberations) for their entrance but instead transform their late arrival into an †interruption†of my own activity. The woman I†m meeting, Cecile, is tall, slender, and dark skinned. She has a beautiful smile and short, soft, braided hair. Two weeks ago I stood on the dance floor at Niagara at 2am and spied her and another tall black woman enter a seething crowd of white, twenty-something year olds. At my friend†s urging I approached her and we had a drunken conversation of which I don†t remember too many details except that we discussed the culture of the borough of Queens, drank from the same wine glass, danced in each other†s arms, and kissed on the lips. At four am we stood enwrapped in front of a mural of Joe Strummer on the corner of 6th and A, my hands tracing the muscles along her spine, her phone number scribbled on a napkin in my pocket. Cecile works out of town frequently. We exchanged voice messages and finally arranged an evening of sober conversation at 5pm at the Lotus Club tonight. It is 4:59 pm and I†m almost at the intersection of Stanton and Clinton when I pass these two Hispanic girls twelve or thirteen years old. One is short and thin. The other is heavy set. They are standing in a pile of loose gravel that has been sprayed over the sidewalk and gutter- debris from an ongoing construction project. I am wearing a bright lime colored dress shirt untucked over a pair of black jeans. †Caw. Caw.†The girls are cawing at me. I ignore this and continue down the street toward the bar. Pum A small pebble hits the back of my ear lobe. Pum. Pumpumpumpumpum. Pieces of gravel are ricocheting off my head, back, arms, and legs. I turn and see the girls laughing and trailing me ten yards away. I make several more strides toward the intersection when a spray of tiny rocks comes cascading down around me. I am at the end of the sidewalk waiting for the light. The girls are behind me camouflaged by hipsters strolling to their next appointment. As I cross the intersection I wonder why it is that I am being persecuted. Why was I selected? I can only figure that my shirt and my height resemble a brightly colored lure for teenage female predators. My foot is on the doorstep of the bar when I turn my head and see that my attackers have followed me across the street, and the heavier one, with dark curls and long braids falling down her back, is right on my ass, fingers dripping gravel. I swing around. †You know, you really shouldn†t throw rocks at people.†I say. †SCUSEME?†she shouts in my face, †DO I KNOW YOU?††No. You don†t. That†s why you shouldn†t throw rocks.††And who R YOU?††Doesn†t matter who I am. You shouldn†t do that.††Maybe you should go home to yo mammy.††Maybe you should go home.†I snap back. †You should go home.††You should go home.††You should go home.††You should go home.†Out of the corner of my eye I see Cecile walking up to the bar. Right on time. †You should.†the girl barks at me. †You should.†I volley. †You.††You.††You.††Bye.†I say to her and turn and face Cecile, who is staring at us. †Denver?†she asks hesitantly. †Hello Cecile.†We kiss awkwardly, on the cheek. She is more beautiful than I remember, with question marks in her eyes. †Who†s that?†she asks. †That†s my little rock throwing friend.††Ah.††Is that your mammy?†The little fat girl yells at me. †Yeah, my mommy.†I mutter at her. †Take him home Maaamy!†she yells with glee as I escort Cecile into the bar. The Lotus Club is crowded for a Sunday afternoon. I find us a table by the windows, glancing nervously through the glass as we settle into our seats. Astral Weeks is playing on the sound system. She is wearing a green striped top with jeans and high heels. Her hair is short and bursts forth in a spray of thin brown braids. I can remember the thicket of people on the dancefloor and threading my fingers through her coils. †How are you?††I†m good,†she replies, †How are you?††Oh.†I think back to the anticipation of this date that I held inside all day. Before the rock throwing incident. Before the angry couple arguing on the subway. Listening to R. Kelly in my living room. Trying on different shirts. The memory of my fingers on her skin. The moist kisses. The bass thump and the tinkle of keyboards. †I†m good.††What was that all about?††Oh. With the girl? I†ll tell you what happened. You want something to drink?††White wine, please.†I get the drinks and then tell her about the girls. She tells me about her career and a short history of her life growing up in Jamaica and moving to Brooklyn at age nineteen with three of her sisters. Her parents are still in crime ridden Kingston. I am so overeager to impress her that I use the Y word twice, in describing my lateral journey from theater manager to grad school at that priggish Ivy league institution to office temp at Citigroup with writerly ambitions. She asks me what I want to be doing in twenty years. She asks me about marriage and children. I tell her I want one or two kids and marriage seems like an attractive prospect. She wants to know where I desire to live eventually. I don†t have an answer for this; Jamaica? Kentucky? Brazil? I cannot tell if she wants to flee New York within the next five to ten years like most of the women I†ve dated. Then she asks me if my parents would have a problem with me marrying a black woman. †They†re hippys†I say, †They wouldn†t have a problem.†And then I add, as if I had given too pat an answer to this thorny issue of race relations in America, †My grandparents, on the other hand, they†re from a distant generation.†After I have clarified this a bit more she asks me how I feel about homosexuality. She tells me that West Indian culture is very homophobic but that she has come a long way in dealing with this. I do not elaborate on my own views except to say that I do not have any desire to kiss a man. But then I mention the incident with Armando. †How far did it go?†she asks. †Well he kissed me.†Even as I say it I feel tiny dagger pricking my gut. †And that was it?††Well, I, he tried to get on top of me.††And then? †He tried to get my pants off.††He did?††Yeah. I don†t have any desire to be anally penetrated.†This is kind of a non sequitur. I am trying to conclude this conversation without appearing to slam the door. I search for a transition but my mind is scanning a vast, empty network. Tap Tap Pebbles bounce off the window next to my face. I look out and see the little girls hiding behind a phone booth across the street. One of them is pretending to make a phone call. †So where do you like to hang out in the city?†she asks I mention some bars, some dance spots, a few restaurants in Chinatown. †On the weekends," she replies, "I like to go to dinner in Soho â€" Mercer Kitchen, Canteen, Aqua Grill.†I wince at the mention of Aqua Grill â€" the pathetic week-long audition there for a waiter job during my unemployment, then my mind circles the culinary routes of my own downtown travels â€" the two dollar Indian cab stand meals, the twenty cent dumplings, the three dollar Thai sandwiches. And I try to remember that I like eating dinner in expensive restaurants. We both mention that we have absolutely no expectations for any romance. She shares some of her bad date stories including the lech who stared at every other woman in the restaurant on their first date, and the cheapskate who left her with a huge bar tab. I share one of my own. About a month ago, I tell her, I took a woman out for drinks at the Sidewalk Bar & Cafe. She is a friend of a friend. We had six or seven gin and tonics and I walked her home to her apartment building on the lower east side of manhattan. As we stood on her doorstep she motioned down the street to an awning several doors away. Three homeless men were there drinking, talking and preparing their bedrolls for the evening in a recessed doorway. "Christ!" this woman says to me, "I pay good money for this apartment and it is sooo frustrating to have these homeless guys drinking and camping out there. I don't know why they can't move them somewhere else." It was a pretty shocking thing to hear, I tell Cecile, and I never went out with her again. ††It†s interesting to hear this stuff.†Cecile says, †Some of my girlfriends go on these dates and everything seems fine and then the guy never calls them again.†There is an awkward pause. †Hey, do you like Redd Foxx?†I ask her, †He was in Sanford and Son.††Yes, I know who he is. I am a black person, remember.††Yeah. Well, I was telling these secretaries at my work a couple of his jokes, and they didn†t like â€~em. I thought maybe he wasn†t so popular anymore. Do you wanna hear â€~em?††Sure.††Okay. Two girls were talking. One of em says †Do you smoke when you finish? The other one says, †I don†t know. I ain†t never looked.†A smile spreads slowly across her face. Slim slow slider, sings Van Morrison over the chatter of the bar crowd. I am checking under the hood to see if she is a prude, though the groping of a stranger in the middle of the night in an east village bar would already seem to have ruled that out. †Here†s another one. Prudes are always getting mad at me, but I say the words â€~shit†and â€~fuck†for only one reason. Because that†s what people do. If you†re never fuckedâ€Ã��shit. (pause) If you†re never shitâ€Ã��Fuuuck!†I make Redd Foxx†s googly eyed stare. She laughs. A fusillade of gravel pellets smash into the window. †Christ.††I think they must have a crush on you.††Or they want to hurt me. Eggs, dirt clods, rocks â€" I threw all that stuff at people when I was a kid. I don†t remember being this aggressive.††I used to throw tomatoes at kids.†she says. †You did? I used to bash my neighbors†pumpkins with a baseball bat.††One time I stole the cane of a blind man.††Oh yeah? I launched a five pound water balloon out of catapult into the cab of a speeding pickup truck and almost caused a five car pileup on the main street in my town.††You don†t want to know what I used to do to my sisters.††Yes I do.††Well I'm not going to tell you. This is our first date.†The girls are gone when we leave the bar and walk to the Pink Pony on Ludlow Street to have dinner. After the meal we walk west across Soho towards the Hudson River to have a drink at the Ear Inn, the oldest bar in Manhattan. We talk about food. She asks me if I like tripe. I had it at Babbo once, I say, smothered in tomato sauce. It was edible. She tells me about the stew her father used to make when she was a child, with whole chicken feet. "Can't eat those anymore" she says. I urge her to eat more raw vegetables, especially avocados. †Avocados are not a vegetable.†she corrects me. "What do you mean?" "Avocados are a fruit. They have a seed." "Yes. That's true. What's a vegetable?" I ask. "A plant that you eat that has no seed." The conversation turns to Jamaican music â€" Sizzla, Buju Banton, and reggae dancing. It is almost midnight when my fingers graze her back and I gently grasp her lapels and we kiss each other greedily on the subway platform as she waits for the F train uptown to Queens. | |