Back To School
For most of a year I'm a real dandy of a worker; the housepainter of your dreams; a super employee. Once a year though there opens a window of opportunity for me to express that undeniably less than stellar part of me that best expresses itself bluntly thusly--fuckit. I see those portals, the one in southwestern Virginia, and that one in Utah, and I can see myself walking towards them as those that trusted me shake their heads sadly and reduce me verbally to "a flake" of a man. I wish I knew what they meant. Its so true the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.
What a hand I've been dealt, I don't know what to do with all my jokers.
Now I remember why I sat down here. I wanted to tell a story. It was going to be a story submitted to mrbellarsneighborhood.com, a site accepting non-fiction stories with a NY theme, and I only have a few, although Edgar Oliver swears I picked up a rat and threw it out his window on E. 10th (or Psilocybin ) and that's not even one I remember so who can say how many stories exist. But what's to be gained really by becoming a dot on the bellar map, or the many others, no disrepect, but the telling is all that matters, and where it ends up is truly secondary.
This story contains no sex whatsoever and I'm not protecting the lady's name I simply cannot remember it. She was pretty though, and kissing her on a bench at The World on Ave D (?). was heavenly, which is an adjective or adverb meant to make this more a spiritual piece because like I said, there is no sex in it. Before that we were somewhere else which is where we began to show an interest in each other, but there was another guy playing too and although he was the loser, in the end I did have to wonder if maybe he would have been better off as the winner, and it is my impression he might have played my part better than I played my part. Plus he was a New Yorker and perhaps more familiar with local customs, and I was, I don't know, probably a Texan.
Pausing after some more real fine kissing in the cab on the way to her place somewhere in the forties, she said, "I hope you're not one of those guys who's gonna come to my apartment and hassle me for sex."
I'm a real naive guy even to this day so its no real surprise that this was my first clue that me and this young woman were not on the same page. Which at the time in the back of that cab I tried to see as a sunny side and responded simply, "I won't hassle you."
But that query in the cab did me in I think because once up the many elevator-ed stories to her less than modest apartment I only wanted to be non-threatening and polite. Which I was, sitting by myself on her plush couch as she excused herself with seductive implication to the boudoir. She came back once, it seems, just to make sure I was still there and then she quickly disappeared again and came back with a deck of tarot cards. I did what she instructed as non-threateningly as possible--picked a card, any card--and the card I picked was a doozy according to her and she quickly disappeared again. When she returned she was in a nightie. Not the image of pure seduction but she did have my polite attention. I gazed noncommittally at her waiting for a more direct clue as to how I might meet her needs. She answered my polite patience with an obscurely seductive gesture--she curtsied and then lifted her short nightgown to show to me that perfectly desirable and well groomed enigma which earlier I had been admonished not to hassle her for.
I followed her to the bedroom and gleefully accepted her suggestion that I give her a back rub. Every positive suggestion, however, had a stop sign on the other side and she was right when she said "you seem tenative," for I surely was, and the both of us knew that was unlikely to change. It was the other guy (the so-called "loser") that would have appreciated her rape fantasty, or whatever syncopated love symphony she was trying to orchestrate that night, and while I paused supinely pondering where went the simplicity of mutual passion, she fell asleep, or pretended to, and I went back to my couch and slept for the few hours into morning. By a long shot she wasn't the best piece of ass I never had but she was so very sweet in her own way and making that long walk back to the east village, or tribeca, on a winter morning that required little more of me than putting one foot in front of the other, I couldn't help but wonder if I should start attending classes, or something, you know, to get in touch with my bad self.
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For most of a year I'm a real dandy of a worker; the housepainter of your dreams; a super employee. Once a year though there opens a window of opportunity for me to express that undeniably less than stellar part of me that best expresses itself bluntly thusly--fuckit. I see those portals, the one in southwestern Virginia, and that one in Utah, and I can see myself walking towards them as those that trusted me shake their heads sadly and reduce me verbally to "a flake" of a man. I wish I knew what they meant. Its so true the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.
What a hand I've been dealt, I don't know what to do with all my jokers.
Now I remember why I sat down here. I wanted to tell a story. It was going to be a story submitted to mrbellarsneighborhood.com, a site accepting non-fiction stories with a NY theme, and I only have a few, although Edgar Oliver swears I picked up a rat and threw it out his window on E. 10th (or Psilocybin ) and that's not even one I remember so who can say how many stories exist. But what's to be gained really by becoming a dot on the bellar map, or the many others, no disrepect, but the telling is all that matters, and where it ends up is truly secondary.
This story contains no sex whatsoever and I'm not protecting the lady's name I simply cannot remember it. She was pretty though, and kissing her on a bench at The World on Ave D (?). was heavenly, which is an adjective or adverb meant to make this more a spiritual piece because like I said, there is no sex in it. Before that we were somewhere else which is where we began to show an interest in each other, but there was another guy playing too and although he was the loser, in the end I did have to wonder if maybe he would have been better off as the winner, and it is my impression he might have played my part better than I played my part. Plus he was a New Yorker and perhaps more familiar with local customs, and I was, I don't know, probably a Texan.
Pausing after some more real fine kissing in the cab on the way to her place somewhere in the forties, she said, "I hope you're not one of those guys who's gonna come to my apartment and hassle me for sex."
I'm a real naive guy even to this day so its no real surprise that this was my first clue that me and this young woman were not on the same page. Which at the time in the back of that cab I tried to see as a sunny side and responded simply, "I won't hassle you."
But that query in the cab did me in I think because once up the many elevator-ed stories to her less than modest apartment I only wanted to be non-threatening and polite. Which I was, sitting by myself on her plush couch as she excused herself with seductive implication to the boudoir. She came back once, it seems, just to make sure I was still there and then she quickly disappeared again and came back with a deck of tarot cards. I did what she instructed as non-threateningly as possible--picked a card, any card--and the card I picked was a doozy according to her and she quickly disappeared again. When she returned she was in a nightie. Not the image of pure seduction but she did have my polite attention. I gazed noncommittally at her waiting for a more direct clue as to how I might meet her needs. She answered my polite patience with an obscurely seductive gesture--she curtsied and then lifted her short nightgown to show to me that perfectly desirable and well groomed enigma which earlier I had been admonished not to hassle her for.
I followed her to the bedroom and gleefully accepted her suggestion that I give her a back rub. Every positive suggestion, however, had a stop sign on the other side and she was right when she said "you seem tenative," for I surely was, and the both of us knew that was unlikely to change. It was the other guy (the so-called "loser") that would have appreciated her rape fantasty, or whatever syncopated love symphony she was trying to orchestrate that night, and while I paused supinely pondering where went the simplicity of mutual passion, she fell asleep, or pretended to, and I went back to my couch and slept for the few hours into morning. By a long shot she wasn't the best piece of ass I never had but she was so very sweet in her own way and making that long walk back to the east village, or tribeca, on a winter morning that required little more of me than putting one foot in front of the other, I couldn't help but wonder if I should start attending classes, or something, you know, to get in touch with my bad self.
- jimlouis 1-03-2001 3:21 am