Jane and I went to see the Magritte show at the Museum of Modern Art. She was wearing one of those new retro high school letterperson jackets with a hood and this skirt that looked short from the side view but was long in the middle, as I recall these were called ‘bondage’ skirts though this one was not particularly kinky or leathery or anything like that, however when we repeatedly got on and off the escalator, I could not help but look down and once again marvel at the conscious shaping of her behind.
In addition, she had these blue gray stockings and these obvious imitation Doc Martens hipster black boots except they also were a bit blue gray and as pseudo simulation-ist as the jacket, she totally matched as always everything about her was thought out, put together, a real professional actress. She had showed her boots off to me earlier in the afternoon, lifting her leg up and calling my attention to her perfect ankles, bragging how she only paid ten dollars for them; I struggled to hide my foam.
We had walked up Sixth Avenue together and it was a lovely afternoon. The street was quite generic midtown – it lacked the character of Fifth Avenue and the skirt and the jacket forced her walk to be a bit like 19th century or certainly like the women in Seurat’s paintings. We had had Korean lunch and she got a bit wired up. I was in a state of passive ecstasy and I realized I was sporting a very ‘shit eating grin’ with my mouth gaping open that often reminded me of my older brother. She talked and talked on:
“Well, I want to start my own theater company and direct plays I wrote…of course, that’s after I sell my paintings and sculptures. I need to have my own building. My intern is so great she is only 18 can you believe it, I should get her to have lunch with you while I am away so you can teach her it would be real easy for me to just go back to LA and be a successful actress. I mean, I already have done that – I have been in movies and I kind of really know the business. That’s what my father says: why don’t I just work at that, you know you don’t realize that I am established in the business in California and I could…”
I calmly piped in, using the moment as a well timed excuse to stare into her eyes warmly.
“It is very obvious Jane,” I kept the voice in the bass range, “you so have that down.”
She stopped realizing she had been in a long run-on sentence and twisted her head around to make sure her hair was still neatly pined up this was what I call the ballerina headset move. She only seemed more lovely and my humming mind fell deeper into the spell of being fully mesmerized by her. By comparison to all the others so far, this was more intense and also I was neither stoned nor drunk, it was the daytime and the feeling was quite pure. “You come off like a professional actress. So impressive…”
She smiled as if to say ‘really?’ but it wasn’t necessary. Again, unlike the Alexis and Eliza model, she appeared to be completely self confident and exuded self love. That glow she had was probably what made her so attractive and she knew it and worked it like a well cleaned machine. For a second, she looked up the avenue and acknowledged how aware I had been of all the attention the two of us were getting from men in suits walking by us. Of course, she seemed well adjusted to this too, so perfect.
“That is my question, why do you want to come here and struggle being an artist when you already are so much further along than so many people who want to get into the movie business?”
For a moment, once again, time seemed to stand still. The conversations of passersby slowed down. It was nothing like the Buffalo Stance seizure, it was a passing glance. She could get angry at this moment.
“I know, I ask myself that all the time…” she took it very well, it seemed. “I don’t know, I just have to do it!” For a second, she seemed to take my hand, she had been brushing up alongside me and I wanted to insert my arm into hers just for the efficiency of walking together but I was shy of course. I thought that something had just happened, that for a second we had bonded internally and that she too was aware of it. There was no point to telling her how lovely she was. I had said it ten times already, it was pointless. I thought maybe the conversation pace would slow down considerably, but no, she continued
“Once I get established in New York than I can go back to LA and make my own movies and…”
I stopped bothering to remember what she was telling me. I looked around Sixth Avenue and I slowly grabbed her arm with my right hand, feeling the wool of her jacket. She looked at me and smiled to tell me this was acceptable behavior. I can’t remember anything from that moment on, I visualized all the women I had been in love with when I was younger, walking down Sixth Avenue with them on the way to the Museum, listening to them go on about their artwork and their careers and their plans. I was overwhelmed with a wonderful sentimental euphoria. I felt like I had never been so happy in my life.
We got to Fifty Third Street and suddenly, all hell broke loose in a very small way: There was a long line of tourist looking people, it went all around the block. We had both forgotten that it was Free Friday and folks were intending to take advantage of it. At first, we agreed that we simply had to make another plan but then we parallel agreed to give it a try anyway. We walked into the Museum lobby and it was obvious we would be able to get in with no problem since I had two membership cards. We checked our stuff, I checked everything whereas she chose to keep the coat on. I was becoming hard to not look at her now as we walked up the staircase, I could see the eyes of so many people on her it was too much.
For many years I had been taking dates to the Museum. I would walk through the same exhibition three four even five times, getting a different take on the show depending on the person. Of course, I love to brag and show off my knowledge of 20th Century Painting but in the last few years, the women would take the bait and see the walk through as a sort of ‘oral exam’ as if I was their Graduate School professor. Without any prompting, Thu Tran had volunteered to take a flash card test, correctly identifying every painter in the permanent collection, one after another, adding her opinion as well.
Well Jane went in another direction, spurting out intellectual aesthetic comments all the way. She was damned smart and comfortable with her intelligence, it was not being presented in a compensatory manner it was in line with her appearance: neat, calculated, quietly elegant and yet a bit understated. This only served to aggressively deepen the hole I was rapidly falling into. Again, unlike all the others who have appeared so far, this time I suspected I was going to fall in love. While it was ludicrous and destructive and infantile and hopeless, it did not matter, I had set my mind on it and that was that.
At some point while looking at the Magritte paintings, I found myself directly behind her and I felt very sexualized, briefly. I peered over her shoulder and let go of my rigid self control for a moment. I put my left hand on her shoulder very tightly gripping it for a second and lining myself up against her back. For the moment, I felt as though I was going to conventionally ‘take her’ and saw us from outside looking down, our two heads staring at the painting and my waist rubbed against her behind of course it never got this far but was only a brush an allusion to what I desired but she turned and smiled with no pause.
As we were leaving the museum, we were moving towards the revolving doors. It was getting that early darkness of the autumn when you become aware that the days are rapidly growing shorter and shorter. I wanted to become sentimental, I started to get that falling in love feeling again I quickly resisted it all and the substitution became the start of an erection and before I could switch that off she did her own version of reciprocating on my earlier move: she put her arm around my shoulder and she forced me into a fast hug kissing my cheek and saying ‘this has been one of the best days of my life! It is so good to hang out with you, I really enjoy spending time with you Howie! Thank you so much…’
I was stunned and as time resumed again I realized that I had a very large erection but more importantly I was seized by a freezing lovely feeling that I was dreaming that I had just won a contest that my ability to control my behavior had lapsed for a moment and that while it might not have meant a great deal to her, it had changed me completely. I wondered what cued it and why she did it. I put my arm around her shoulder and moved her over to kiss her cheek. I realized that my mouth might be wet and I pulled back. For a few paces as we got back onto 53rd Street, we were silent, I was unable to speak. It took me a full sixty seconds before I stopped panting. It was too late now, I was overboard. I was in love!
We walked down to the Rockefeller Plaza station. I bought her a big bottle of Poland Spring and I got my can of seltzer. Other than the Metro Card, I would never let her spend any money. I wanted to give her all of my money at that moment. I knew she was aware of this take advantage thing where she would pretend for a second to look into her purse. I had gone through this with almost every younger woman but with Jane I wanted her to think I was rich or at least demented enough to spend lavishly. The more that I seemed foolish and churlish and taken by her, the deeper my emotional commitment came on.
We were waiting on the northern end of a very crowded subway platform. All the other trains came and went and it was obvious that there was a delay on the F train. Usually, this would make me nervous but it just meant we had that much more time together so I was delighted. Her hair was still up and she was a bit nervous and we went in and out of bouncing up against each other and feeling embarrassed. I did my usual bit about growing up on the subway and about all the tourists in New York. We seemed to be struggling to get back to the moment of intimacy we had had in the museum but yet it appeared futile.
“You know, I have never been in love.” She sprung this out of nowhere again I felt as though she had been sharing my mind briefly and indirectly telling me not to fall in love with her.
“Really?’’ I said.
This came as a bit of a shock. Logic set in for a bit, she is twenty-three she mentioned a big break up she said relationships were too much work now that she had no time for romance but why come straight out and open a can of worms on a crowded rush hour scenario knowing we were going to say goodbye in a few minutes anyway? I wanted to tell her what a romantic I was. I wanted to tell her she must have been in love at least once. I actually thought about and even saw myself saying to her,
“You know Jane, that’s so funny that you just said that because I was about to tell you that I think I am falling in love with you?”
I ‘think’ I am ???
What is this disclaimer shit?!! I was about to tell you?!! I want to tell you…
I was not going to say anything like that. I am not really anywhere near being in love. I am addicted to the feeling of romance, to the unfolding of falling in love as a repetition compulsion that is the whole point of why I am writing this whole damned thing. Even if I am developing serious feelings for the young Ms Rosenthal I would be a complete fucking idiot to say anything. She is leaving for three months in less than a month and she is involved with other guys her age and it is not going to do any good in any case anyway. So, instead I explain what I just said about being into the process of romance
“Well you have seen me dance but I don’t think you have ever seen me sing and I really focus on capturing the hook line, the feeling of falling in love that is the secret of my performance in order to convey that feeling of romance, I have to exude it myself, I become that feeling look at me now.”
I concentrate briefly and turn on the be my baby attack, I know that she gets this at least objectively it is picking up right where we left off acknowledging how she is a master actress and knows it she smiles but in a contained professional manner as a response. There is no reference to her in my romantic nod.
“I get that but I have never felt it.”
“You have never felt it, where nothing else matters…where you want to abandon everything?”
“No…I don’t know what its like. Can you tell me what it’s like?”
“I can’t tell you what it’s like but if you don’t…then you are correct, you have never been in love!”
Again, I want to stop and scream and tell her that I am crazy in love with her. “You know how in musicals, there is that moment where you can tell the guy is about to start a song?”
Before she can answer…I start a song:
“You ask me what it is to love in love…”
We both giggle, my voice is still down. I forgot to mention how she makes up songs and sings the entire time we were on the escalators in the Museum. So don’t go thinking that she thinks I am crazy, she is a musical nut and that only makes it more odd that she has never been in love. Maybe she has really been in love but had to repress it, deny it, maybe this is some elaborate manipulation to get the subject up since she has been sensing my feelings and wants to reject me with ease and caution and respect.
I imagine: well obviously I can’t feel love so it would be stupid for you to fall in love with me okay?
But the song ends after one line…I allude to some Judy Garland staging and she giggles again in that deep voice but it sends. The F Train comes in and it is crowded as hell. We struggle on standing in the back corner of the last car. I continue on about the musical and my romance with the musical. I look around the car for a second and I turn back. She has let her hair down literally. She runs her hand alongside of it to loosen it. I put my hand on her hair and tell her how lovely she looks now that she let her hair down. She thanks me. Again, I see the crowd lining up suddenly and my song begins:
Ms Rosenthal, the F train is delayed. Unfortunately we need to stop again…so I can tell you something you need to know…and New York City will act as though…
But alas, this does not happen only the choreography in my mind. The usual what are your plans for this weekend as we move to hold onto a pole after the next stop…Fourteenth Street and once again, I have to get off the train…we kiss on the mouth and then she turns and I kiss her cheek. She gives me that look that she has every time we say goodbye and I can’t tell if it is just good business or if she really is giving me a perfume ad glance. As I turn, I realize calmly that I will probably not see her again.
It is as though nothing happened. I never met her. She is a friend of an acquaintance, a woman I was introduced to and promptly forgot. She is someone I saw at a gallery once and thought I would never forget but I did as soon as I left the gallery. She is the girl painting the wall at Little Skips. Her work is not even mediocre…you have dismissed her…each time she has sunglasses on and I never have gotten to see her eyes. She is probably an airhead anyway. She is not really that good looking…so fuck her.
A year in bushwick 