Brett and British Mike
NBA
(Neurotic Bar
Attraction)
Wednesday, 11/1/06. Emma Lee is fending
off the genteel but persistent advances of British Mike when I get to the
upstairs bar around 7. When he heads to the men’s room, she turns to me and
says “I just don’t like him that way,” which is pretty funny, considering what
happens ninety minutes later. Brett is at the bar, along with Lara Jane, an
actress who was in a revue at the 13th Street Theatre last month;
after every show, the cast and crew took over the lounge and corral, and they
fell in love with the place, as almost everyone does. She’s pretty, so of
course Dave flirted with her; and here she is flirting back, getting a sushi
date for Saturday out of Dave before she leaves.
British
Mike hangs around for one more drink, Emma Lee sandwiched between the two of us
and chattering away like tongue between two old pieces of white bread. We talk
about Margaret Sanger, with whom I am becoming obsessed. “She lived to see the
birth control pill,” Emma Lee says. “She underwrote the research that created
it,” British Mike points out, “by raising $150,000 for it in the Fifties.” “And
it went public when again?” Emma Lee asks, and British Mike and I say in
unison: “1960.” Gotta love a foreigner who knows US history. We start talking about
all the advances Sanger lived to see. British Mike points out that she died
three years before we landed on the moon, and I talk about my favorite example
of someone’s lifetime embracing what feels like ancient history and modern
times: Elizabeth Bacon Custer, who was born when John Tyler was President
(1842), and died three months after Hitler was made Chancellor of Germany
(1933). I don’t know about you, but my definition of “boggles the mind” is
realizing that a woman who shook hands with Abraham Lincoln lived to hear
Hitler rant on the radio. “To Libby Custer,” says Emma Lee, and we all clink
glasses.
When
British Mike leaves, Emma touches my shoulder and says: “I’m sorry you couldn’t
make it to my party.” “Me too,” I reply, because the only other thing I can say
is, “Well, I could have made it, but I decided to come here and drink instead.”
She tells me that, after shooing the stragglers at her place out into a local
bar around 2:30, she got a call from an alcoholic close friend who needed
someone to talk him out of having a drink, so she jumped into a cab and ended
up sponsoring him through the rest of the night, crashing on his couch at dawn
and sleeping till like 2 PM. I tell her about Stacy’s wedding, giving her the
abbreviated version of The Stacy Story, and Emma Lee cuts to the chase. “So was
it unrequited love or failed love?” “I don’t know,” I reply, “I’m still trying
to figure out which one is the better story.” “Failed love,” Emma Lee says
without a moment’s hesitation. “Failed love is always a better story because
it’s active. Unrequited love is static. It doesn’t go anywhere. You don’t risk
anything. It’s passive. People who always feel unrequited love would rather say
‘Why me?’ instead of ‘Why not?’ Did you and Stacy ever date?” “Never.” “Not
once?” “Not once.” “Then both stories suck,” she says, and we laugh; and Emma
Lee heads for the finish line.
EMMA LEE:
So who are you dating these days?
ME: (uh oh
. . .) I haven’t dated anybody since 2002.
EMMA LEE:
You’re lying.
ME: No I’m
not. Diane. She had a nervous breakdown. (True story.)
EMMA LEE:
And nobody since then? I find that hard to believe.
ME:
Nobody. Outside of the odd NWA.
EMMA LEE:
NWA?
ME:
Neurotic Work Attachment. Other than that? Nobody. Wait—no—I’m forgetting
Heather. She’s divorced, she has a pre-teen son, and because of our schedules
we could never get together more than once every two weeks, so we never got
past first base.
EMMA LEE:
What is first base these days?
ME: First
date; sorry.
EMMA LEE:
Kissing? Tongue kissing?
ME: And it
wasn’t our schedules. It was her schedule.
EMMA LEE:
And what’s second base? (Getting shirty:) A hand up her shirt?
ME: All I
know is, it was like constantly having to reboot a computer.
EMMA LEE:
That’s too bad. (Beat.) You know, Matt, . . .
ME: (uh-oh
. . .)
And
this is where God starts chuckling. Barely 90 minutes after deflecting the
double-barreled charm assault of British Mike, Emma Lee brings her own set of
guns to bear on me. She talks about how we haven’t seen each other in a while,
“and I don’t know whether it’s your schedule or my schedule or both,” but when
she gets my Friday pictures she thinks to herself, “Oh yeah—Matt.” (And I’m
thinking, oh dear, I wish there was some way of keeping this on a friendship
footing because I just don’t feel that way about her.) She talks about how she
doesn’t meet that many people, especially in bars, who qualify as people she
likes, never mind friends, but that I am one of them. (Her use of the word
“friends” makes me wonder if I’m over-reacting here, but I don’t think so.) And
she talks about us keeping in touch once the Pine has closed, and getting
together every now and then, and the part of me that’s expecting her to say
“Because I really like you” is totally disappointed. She doesn’t say that; she doesn’t
give a reason at all. She just throws it out on the bar, and I pick it up and
reply “Of course we will.” Because what else can I say?
There’s
a cowardly part of me which is totally overjoyed that I have somewhere to be at
10 PM, which means I have to leave around 9. I say my goodbyes to Dave and Dan
the waiter and Melissa the waitress, and then wait for Emma Lee to come out of
the Ladies, because she’ll be really upset if I leave without saying goodbye.
It’s a good five-minute-long wait, with me just standing there and, ever the
doubter, thinking to myself, “Am I reading her wrong? Is this not what I think
it is on her part? And if it is what I think it is, what kind of signal am I
sending by waiting to say goodnight to her like this?” Finally she comes out of
the Women’s Room and smiles. “Waiting for me?” she says, as if she doesn’t
deserve the attention, but I can tell she’s loving it. (So that answers one
question, right?) Which leaves all the other questions to bounce around in my
head as I head up to Broadway and then down to Great Jones, where Matt Mays and
El Torpedo are playing a 10 PM show at Ace of Clubs.
By the time the show starts, my brain has absquatulated, so
I don’t really think much about it when I glance around at the crowd and see somebody
who looks like Dominic off to my right. Dominic’s got That Look which you see
everywhere in this city—olive skin, dark wavy hair, two-day growth of beard,
eyes like gray marbles, and a closet full of black clothes—so it’s probably my
inner facial recognition software that matches up this guy, whoever he is, with
someone I know. Happens all the time. Two songs later I glance back in his
direction, and he’s necking with a young lovely in skimpy jean shorts and a
striped man’s shirt that’s tied up above her waist, totally exposing the
palomino tattoo racing across her midriff. My stomach does an
Olympic-medal-winning backflip and I hear Sunday saying “He puts the ick in
Dominic” as I watch him grope her ass and stick his tongue down her throat. Hi
ho Trigger.
Alcohol:
Guinness (2)
Ace of Clubs:
Sam Adams Octoberfest (2)
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