I met him on the dance floor.
Well, I don’t know if “met” is even the right word. It’s just that one minute he wasn’t there, and the next minute he was everywhere. He was up, he was down. He was in front of me, he was behind me. He grabbed my hand and wound me towards him like a yoyo, shouting “HELLO, MY NAME IS -“ and then spun me back out. In and out I spun, never quite able to figure out what exactly the name he kept repeating was. “YOU REALLY WANNA DANCE?” he yelled over the roaring music. “YES!” I yelled back, giddy with bass and beer and the feeling of being a girl wearing all black on a Friday night in New York City. “YES, YOU WHAT?” he screamed, dipping me on to the floor and lacquering the tips of my hair in puddles of beer and sweat. Inhibitions forgotten somewhere in the ladies room with my my purse and phone, I screamed back: “YES! YES, I REALLY WANNA DANCE!” Suddenly, his voice got impossibly quiet as he whispered, “Well, ok then.” And in an instant, I was in the air. Above the dance floor I floated, a beautiful bar ballerina. I was Clara in the Nutcracker! Sandy in the flying car! Amelia disappearing above the Pacific! I WAS FLYING! Three times, he spun me above the noise and the motion before lowering me back into reality. Three rotations around the disco ball sun, a planet pulled by the force field of a stranger.
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I met him in the dressing room.
“What do you think of this one?” a thick accent spoke into my space, clouding my concentration. Annoyed, I looked up. Less annoyed after seeing his smile, I looked him up and down. “Honestly, I think it’s your color.” “It does bring out my eyes right?” I laughed, for the first time that day. I was working a job I hated in a city that seemed to hate me. At the entrance of the dressing room every day, people made it clear that to them, I was just a big, annoying clothes rack standing in between them and their chance to look at themselves in a full sized mirror. And now here was this broad shouldered, green-eyed stranger asking my honest-to-God opinion about whether or not those cargo pants made his butt look big. It wasn’t just refreshing, it was exhilarating. He stood by my dressing room station for over an hour, telling me about the place he was from, the place’s he’d been and the places he wanted to go. He was a true adventurer and the most genuine hippy I had ever met. And when we met for tea the next day, to swap adventure stories and tear off little pieces of ourselves and hide them in each other’s pockets, I decided that this might be one of the purest souls I had ever encountered. Every time his long hair fell in his eyes as he was listening to me tell a story, he’d push it back quietly and quickly. And maybe I’m just silly, but somehow I got the notion he was always pushing his hair back because he was honestly interested in seeing me tell my stories. I met him on the L train.
He was wearing neon orange parachute pants, a Cartoon Network graphic tee, and bright white platform sneakers. Everything about him screamed “CREATIVE” - even the way his fingers danced a chorus line kick against the railing he held on to. Was he looking at me? I couldn’t tell. Was I looking at him? I bet he could tell. We both had our headphones in, anyway. And this is New York, anyway. Why would anything happen, anyway? So I settled for a game of eye contact roulette. You know how to play- everyone knows how to play. You make sure to look away every time he looks over, that way he’ll never even possibly be able to guess that you’re checking him out. In fact, every time he looked over I made a big show of fixing and tightening the straps on my overalls. In the end, it turned out to be more effective at giving me a monster wedgie than an alibi for ogling, ‘cause moments later he slid me his phone, opened to the Notes page. He had written: “I like your overalls. And I think you’re really pretty.” ME? He pretties my overalls and likes he thinks me?? Wait, what? My face grew hot as I released a smile and probably a little drool. “Thank you”, I mouthed, to which he smiled the kind of smile that made me think I should wear overalls more often. And then we were at his stop. As I watched him saunter off, I thought, “MAN, that was probably the one. And there he go...wait a second, isn’t this my stop too?” I squeezed through the wall of angry commuters and onto the platform just in time to catch the tip of his brilliant, bold head disappearing up the stairs! I had to catch him! So I raced up the stairs, barreling through the clasped palms of lovers, knocking over teetering old ladies, stepping on children’s tiny toes. And there he was, standing on a platform, drawing on the tiled wall with a sharpie. He drew an abstract face, checked over each shoulder, and ducked back into the crowd. A street artist? A vandal? I was more determined than ever. So I did all the math I always told my geometry teachers I’d never be able to do, and with just the right speed and force, I “accidentally” bumped into him as he crossed Union Station. I met him in a pub called “The Craic”.
The bar itself was sleek and modern. Leather love seats and huge mirrored walls whispered to patrons as soon as they walked in: “Your beer is going to be $12, so drink it slowly.” Nothing about the bar felt particularly Irish at all. The flocks of Colleen’s and Padraig’s fleeing from the rain and into the Craic’s dimly lit quartets, however, were delightfully authentic. I would have been able to pick them out anywhere: the girls with their high hair and higher heels, the boys with their football shoulders and armies of freckles marching clear into their hairlines. The sweet lilt of Dublin mixed with the incomprehensible muttering of Tyrone and for a minute, I considered quitting drinking all together and putting the money instead towards a trip home - but then something caught my eye. There it was, it’s cheek pressed miserably against the sticky bar ceiling: a shiny, gold cellophane balloon shaped like a 3. “Ah” I said a little too loud, “some poor sucker must be turning 30. Another good one gone too soon.” I climbed atop the loveseat, teetering on my stilettos and reaching for the elusive 3, deigning it my treasure and yes, in my beer-addled mind cheered, my destiny! Shiny, mine! 3, mine! Stretch! Almost there! Just four more feet above my head! And then, just like that, it was in my hands. My prized 3, clutched against my rapidly beating heart. Did I really just do that? Was this the true power of girl power? Can I do anything I set my mind to? “You’re welcome”, laughed a cocky Leprechaun from somewhere above me. An impossibly tall Irish man, stood next to me, the real retriever of my beloved 3. I craned my head to get a good look at him in the dark pub. I met him the only way New Yorkers really can meet - drunk, at a bar on a Friday night. Getting drunk on a Friday night in New York is important, because it allows everyone a moment of rest from the constant need to be hard and fast and mean. It gives people an outlet to release some of the hometown energy that they’d been suppressing the rest of the week - their Michigan smile, their Alabama Twang, their Ohio dance moves. Like some sort of reverse masquerade ball, Friday nights allow New Yorkers to take off their masks and see if anyone might be interested in whatever’s underneath. I hadn’t planned to go out at all that night. I had worked a 60 hour week and was planning on working through the weekend as well. But Lia persuaded me, and I agreed to meet with her and April for one drink. Well, one drink turned into two drinks and two drinks turned into taking big sips from a water bottle filled with tequila - and before I knew it, we were at the next bar. A lawyer and another very, very boring man were talking to my friends and I, so I just gave up and sat down. Rolling my buzz in my hands, I looked up and realized I had sat in someone else’s conversation. I asked for a cigarette because, well, a cigarette is one of a drunk girl’s most basic human rights, dammit. The men I had sat down with we’re changing between English and Spanish and in my drunken mind, I was pretty sure that I was doing the same. This came as a hugely exciting breakthrough, as I have never spoken Spanish before. I thought briefly of the water bottle tequila I had gargled in the bathroom. This new tongue must be it’s gift to me. “Thank you, Tequila”, I whispered. Time ran the way it does when you’re drinking - sloppily but quickly, with terrible form but alarming speed. I don’t know how and he doesn’t know how, so maybe nobody know’s how - but I found myself holding the hands of the man next to me, in two sets of interlocking pinky’s. The double pinky promise was intended to keep each other totally honest as we shared about the ways we saw the world and how scary New York is and how far away the people we love are. “I’m just going to run to the grocery store and grab us some wine and cheese! There’s a store on the other side of the bridge.”
Lia looked up from her phone and paused - “Ok, just be safe.” I returned her sincerity with a wink, and headed out on to the dimly lit Parisian streets. It was getting dark, but at least the full moon was already hanging above me. As I headed onto the footbridge, a man approached the opposite side. Nothing about him was threatening at all - honestly, the first thing I noticed about him was how handsome he was. But as I began to descend on to his end of the bridge, he opened his arms to block the exit of the bridge. His unassuming lips twisted and tore into a hungry grin and before I could understand what was happening, he had started towards me, swiping his ragged claws at my waist. He missed me by an inch, and I ran the rest of the way to the store. All I could hear as I ran was his howling laughter. Manic and manged, he had found joy in my terror. I found refuge in the fluorescent light of the grocery store. “Man can’t change to animal under megawatt lighting”, I assured myself. So I purchased my items, and with a deep breath, stepped back into the moonlight. When I reached the bridge again, I took the steps two at a time, to match my racing heartbeat. Just as I was about to bound off the last step towards safety, I heard a male voice call after me. I looked over my shoulder with horror. It was a different stranger now, handsome as well. “Just because he’s cute, doesn’t mean he’s not a carnivore”, I whispered to myself in a moment of inane whimsy. He caught up to me and introduced himself as Adrien. He had noticed me in the grocery store and wanted to say hello. I stared at this seemingly innocuous creature, trying so hard to see him as man instead of beast. My first encounter that night had painted all of the men predators, adding pounds of matted fur and snarled tooth to even the gentlest of strangers. But as Adrien stepped into the street light, I watched him transform back into a man. More skin then hair, more opportunity than threat. The street light smiled sincerely, and the full moon just winked. He turned his empty beer bottle upside down, emptying the last drop . Holding the bottle neck to his eye, he peered at me through his makeshift spyglass. “Aye matey, fancy a bite to eat?”
I rolled my eyes and hopped off my peg-legged barstool. The sticky floor seemed to rock below me. I swayed along with the churning waves in my stomach. He reached out and caught each of my arms in a hooked hand as I teetered dangerously close to the edge. “All hands on deck”, he chuckled. “Choppy waters”, I offered in apology, steadying myself against him. The bartender returned with his receipt and he threw his debit card carelessly back into his pocket. I wanted to quip about how we might need a Visa for the journey, but thought better of it. Better sailors had had their tongues cut for much less, so I held mine. We disembarked and crossed a cracked sidewalk plank to our next vessel. Call it a fisherman’s tale, call it a siren’s trick - but I know what I saw. There on Second Ave: a yellow taxi cab floating in the salt water seas of the Lower East Side. He held the porthole door and motioned for me to go first, a gentle reminder that pirates are gentlemen before they’re anything else. I laid my hand in his, dark mark meeting dark mark. “Where are we going?” He smirked and told the driver to row east. I looked past the bow, through the window-shield and full mast. Our destination became clear as we turned off of the Second Ave Sea and onto the Silk Road: our sails were set for Chinatown. I peaked around the corner before heading up the first flight of stairs. There she was, floating in a cloud of cigarette smoke and coffee stains.
At first she didn’t recognize me, which was fair, because I had been gone for a full month. But then all of her wrinkles reassembled into recognition and she grabbed my face with both hands, narrowly missing my cheek with her lit cigarette. “MY CLARE!” I sat down cross-legged as my 84 year old land lady filled me in on all the gossip I had missed while I was gone. She asked me how I had liked “nasty old Florida”. I told her how much I had loved it, and in a moment of vulnerability, I told her how much it had meant to me to have Catholic community down there. She took a drag and asked without a hint of malice: “Are the Catholics in New York mean to you because you’re a pole dancer?” I couldn’t help but grin. Despite knowing that I run a religious education program for a living, Kathy believes that I earn some extra cash...another way. She had first let me know that “she knew I danced for men” a few months back and in a moment of mischievousness, I hadn’t corrected her. And truthfully, I’m glad I didn’t - and not just because Kathy is the only person in the world who thinks I can dance. Kathy and I go to the same church. She even prays the rosary with me - but she’s never once questioned whether or not the “stripper” in Apartment 19 has a place in her Church. I’ve had people in the Church treat me so cruelly for a million much smaller offenses against modesty or purity, but my octogenarian landlady treats me kindly despite her suspicions. I tell myself that I still haven’t corrected her because it would just be too confusing at this point, but truthfully, I think I haven’t told her because I crave her radical mercy and constant invitation. I needed someone to tell me that as long as there’s room on the stairs for coffee, cigarettes, and conversation, there’s room in the Church for broken people who love God. For strippers and their clients. Tax collectors and their debtors. Addicts and their suppliers. For land ladies and their tenants, praying on creaking stairway pews - radical mercy extends to all. The other day, Kathy asked me why I moved to New York.
The idea of explaining spoken word poetry to an 84 year old was a bit daunting, so I eased in. “Well, I actually moved her to -“ She pressed one finger against my lips, drawing an exclamation mark against my pout. “Sweetheart”, she whispered. “I’ve known since the day you moved in here. You never had to tell me.” My mouth opened in shock and my teeth grazed against her finger. It tasted like cigarette ash and coffee grounds. I pulled back, incredulous. “Kathy, how’d you know?” I couldn’t believe that she had taken me for a poet from the moment she met me. I felt a giddiness coursing through my veins. “Oh, Clare.” She smiled. “I’ve known you were a -“ she lowered her voice and looked both ways. “I’ve known you were a dancer, always.” I felt the blood in my arms and legs start to flow in reverse. Less giddy, more confused. “A...dancer?” “Oh yes, dear.” By the why she was whispering and smirking, it was clear she didn’t think I was a ballerina. “And I’m all for it, dear. I wanted to dance when I moved here. I was twenty-three and beautiful, but too short for the stage.” I pressed the giggles back down into my stomach, not wanting to break the illusion. The wicked glimmer in her eyes told me that this was one of the most exciting things that had happened in her building in awhile. So, I went with it. “Do your parents know?” “Yes, they’re very supportive.” “Good. It’s honest work - don’t let anyone tell you differently.” “Do the men tip you well?” “Well enough.” “Ok well, if they are ever get fresh, you just call me and I’ll be over there to break some knees faster than you can say Brooklyn Bridge. I know how to - I used to date a Gambino cousin, you know.” She asked lots of questions and I made up lots of answers. The customers are wealthy. The establishment, honorable. We agreed that it wasn’t one of those sleezy places - not a “strip club”, but a cabaret. It was clear that in this fantasy, I wasn’t just dancing - I was dancing in 1958, when Kathy wanted to dance. We sat there and gossiped like a couple showgirls for an hour or so, until I realized it was it was time to go to work. “Be safe”, she whispered while squeezing my hand goodbye. And then she followed her warning with a wink - “but be young!!” |
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