I’m hardly what you’d call superstitious. Prone to erring on the side of caution, perhaps. Careful to a fault, well yes, at times…but flat out, full blown superstition? Never heard of it. Still there are some things that I believe you should never recount, for fear of consequence. Thoughts you do not seek out once they have buried themselves in the recesses of the mind. Memories that only a fool would revisit, pursue, dwell upon, and take out for dinner and polite but telling conversation.
And I’m the King of Fools.
I met her on the Subway back to my aunt’s apartment in Queens on a rainy night in August, where I was living temporarily, after a long afternoon of apartment searching in the city. I was due to start my sophomore year at NYU in less than a month, and my desire to get a place of my own was equivalent to the collective desire of the thousands of college girls milling about in the Village to consume their body weight in cheap alcohol the moment the sun goes down. I was thinking of a place I saw that day, a nice three bedroom flat on Waverly and Gay, and was wondering how many of said alcohol filled college girls would my flatmates and I actually see mill about the house in the months to come, when she caught my eye as I sat down across from her. It was pouring that night, an obnoxious, spiteful rain which pelted grumpy New Yorkers, making them grumpier, and I thought at first that my not too subtle wringing of sleeves had raised her ire, which would be terribly unfortunate because she was without doubt the prettiest thing that had ever stepped foot onto a cold, wet and grumpy R.
Now for all the wonderful and glorious accomplishments of the Male Gender, the Alpha Ones, the Dominant Species, the Dudes that will Inherit the Earth, we are without a doubt fundamentally flawed. And by fundamentally flawed I mean stubborn as fuck. It does not matter how many Adams, Romeos, Vronskys,Orpheuses or Marios have had their lives irrevocably changed by the introduction of a female into the equation. Men throughout time and space will throw history, caution and sanity to the wind, in that order, and be immediately drawn to the presence of a fetching female. It’s in our nature, it’s in our blood.
And thus it was my genetic wiring that made me look up, embarrassed and catch her eye . The edges of my cursed male mouth arched uncontrollably, and I smiled as charmingly as a bundle of nerves could smile. My heart pounded like a drum as she noticed, processed and reciprocated the gesture with her icy red lips, the ghosts of a million men dancing behind me, offering toasts to what we all thought was imminent victory…
(to be continued…)
And you’ve got me waiting in anticipation for part 2.