by Amy Sohn
Maybe it was the same with the letters to the newspaper. If I was riling people up, I had to be doing something right. Controversy had worked for Madonna; why not me? As Dorothy Parker said, “Better to have people say nasty shit about you than nothing at all.” Or something like that.
Whenever I read a particularly scathing attack on me in “The Mail,” I wondered whether Faye was reading it too. But she never called to say she knew about my double life, so I assumed she didn’t. Of course, she never called anyway, since she was such a lousy agent. She hadn’t sent me on a single audition since The Two Gentlewomen of Vilna. One part of me wanted to tell her about my new career, so she could plug me to casting directors as The Controversial City Week Columnist, but the other part knew that would require her reading me. Faye would be horrified if she read the stuff I was writing. So I kept my mouth shut and hoped she wouldn’t glance twice at the green boxes on the corners.
After a month of writing “Run Catch Kiss,” I had become the vamp the city loved to hate. There was just one problem. I hadn’t actually done any running, catching, or kissing. I had earned a reputation without leaving my apartment—but I wanted to be leaving my apartment! All that mining had made me nostalgic. I needed some present-day play.
Maybe my fears about looking desperate were old-fashioned. It was the nineties; women could go to bars by themselves without seeming like hos. Besides, there was an advantage to the fact that Sara and I weren’t speaking anymore: I might look hotter without her sitting next to me.
The night “Glen or Glenda” came out, I changed into the same mini and tee I’d worn to show Faye my new body, and took the train to BarF. It was only about eight by the time I got there, so it wasn’t too crowded. A couple of hipster boys were playing pool, but they didn’t look up when I walked in the door.
I sat down at the bar and ordered a Jameson, trying to look like a confident, self-important sex columnist who frequented pubs alone all the time. But as five minutes went by, then ten, then thirty, without a single guy approaching, I began to get supremely depressed. What did I have to do to get some attention? Bare my breasts? Fellate my shot glass?
Suddenly a middle-aged guy with a white beard, a Harley-Davidson T-shirt, and a bandanna on his head sat next to me and said, “Can I buy you a drink?”
“No thanks,” I said. The state of my love life had turned out to be worse than I thought: the only guy I could get to come on to me was Uncle Jesse from The Dukes of Hazzard.
I glanced at the two pool players in the back. One was lining up a shot and had his ass to me, and the other was busy putting songs on the jukebox. I sighed, went out the door and headed down First Avenue to the F stop.
Run Catch Kiss
True Confessions of a Single Girl
ARIEL STEINER
The World Series Struck Me Out
I’m walking down First Avenue the other night when I pass a bodega. A bunch of Dominican men are clustered around a TV screen inside, so I go in to see what they’re watching. It’s Game Four of the World Series, the Yankees vs. the Braves. I lean against the counter and look at the screen, and within minutes I’m hooked on the game.
In the eighth inning, Jim Leyritz hits a homer that ties it—and the entire bodega erupts in loud cheering. I’m in the midst of giving a high five to the man behind the counter when a skinny V-necked boy comes in. with a beer in one hand and a smoke in the other. His hair is high, as are my hopes. He stands next to me, looks at the TV. and begins cheering and jeering with such goofy enthusiasm that the Dominicans laugh at him. I laugh too, and then I look at him for a second and go, “Do you really like the Yankees that much, or are you just acting?”
“Funny you should say that,” he says. “Because I’m in acting grad school. Tomorrow for class we each have to do an independent activity. I’m making an audiotape of the first part of the game, when the Yanks were losing 6-0. I’m going to play the tape onstage while I clip my toenails, and react with disappointment. But if the Yanks wind up winning, then there’ll be a whole underlying ironic truth behind my sad reaction.”
“Where’d you go to undergrad?” I ask.
“Williams?” he up-talks. raising his voice on the second syllable like it’s a question.
I hate up-talkers. Nothing irritates me more than people who raise the pitch of their voices at the end of declarative statements. So I say, “The way you just said that was so pretentious. If Williams were an obscure school that nobody had ever heard of, it would be justifiable for you to say it like that: ‘Williams? It’s a farming school? In Iowa? With two hundred students?’ But Williams is well known. So when you raise your voice like that—as if to say. ‘Williams? Are you familiar with it?’—it plays me for a fool. Which I most certainly am not.”
“Where’d you go to school?”
“BROWN!”
He raises his eyebrows like he likes how far I’ve flown off the handle. I’m glad my bantering style hasn’t turned him off, because if I can’t banter with a guy, there’s no way in hell I can have a future with him. As the game goes on, the two of us eye each other surreptitiously, and I start to think less and less about the Series and more and more about him. In the ninth inning, we introduce ourselves. His name’s Darren.
A shout goes up from the men in the 10th, as Bernie Williams gets walked and the bases are loaded. Then Wade Boggs walks too, so it’s 7-6 Yanks, and the guys whoop and holler like it’s the second coming. I think how baseball is kind of like sex, because it’s not a consistently high-energy sport. There are these intermittent surges of excitement every once in a while, followed by a steady lull for a few minutes, until the next surge comes again.
During one of the lulls I look at Darren and say, half sexy, half kidding, “You’re fun to watch the game with.”
He says, “Oh, Ariel!!” in a fake lusty voice, but I can tell it’s not entirely a joke.
The Yankees win the game and everyone embraces and cheers because now the Series is tied. I kiss this old guy who’s sitting on a crate, and then I look at Darren expectantly. But he doesn’t kiss me. He just smiles. We go outside and he lights a cigarette. I notice that he holds it awkwardly, like he’s not really a smoker, and I figure he probably picked up smoking so he’d fit in better in acting school.
I ask if he’ll walk me to the F, and when we get to the station I lean against the entrance and stare down the street, stalling for time. He looks at me for a while, then grabs my face with two hands and kisses me with the intensity and purpose of a line drive. Every few seconds while he’s kissing me, I get distracted and start thinking about the possibility of the Yankees winning the Series. I start to wonder whether Darren and I will celebrate the victory together and how romantic it will be if we do.
Suddenly he stops kissing me and says, “Maybe we should go somewhere.”
I decide to play hard to get. “I don’t know,” I say. “It’s kind of late. Maybe I should just get on the train and go home.”
“OK,” he says. “Nice meeting you.”
Damn, I think. Reverse psychology never works.
“Come to think of it,” I say quickly, “I changed my mind. Maybe we should go somewhere.”
He says he lives on Pitt Street and I say that sounds like a fine destination to me. We head toward his house, stopping every few blocks to make out. I don’t know if it’s the joy of watching the Yankees win or the unseasonable humidity in the air, but I’m in an incredibly romantic mood. Every time we have to stop for a light, we turn to each other and suck face. We’ve been walking for about ten minutes when we come to a wall with Streit’s Matzoh painted on it.
“Wow, a matzoh factory,” I say, stopping to stare at the wall. “Are you Jewish?”
“Yeah.”
Yes. “So am I. Can I kiss you against the matzoh wall? It would really turn me on.”
“Sure.”
I lean him against the wall and press myself against his boner. I’m Linda Florentino in a Jewish Last Seduction, kneading
the bread of his affliction. My Red Sea is parting for his rising staff and I hope this night will be different from the others.
He lives in a remarkably clean two-bedroom. When I compliment him on it, he says his roommate’s a dominatrix, so every couple days, a different man pays her to let him come over and straighten up. We go into his room and dive onto his futon. I slide my hand down his pants and pull out his dick. It’s large and pale and angled to the right. I pump it while he kisses my breasts. After a little while, he asks if he should get a condom. I say I don’t want to have sex and he looks sort of disappointed. That makes me feel guilty, so I say. “You can come on my chest.”
He smiles, goes over to a cabinet, and comes back with this white stuff in a bottle. “What’s that?” I ask. “Come that you saved?”
He laughs like that’s the funniest joke he’s heard in a long time and says, “No. Clinique.” As soon as the word “Clinique” comes out of his mouth, I find myself questioning his sexual orientation. But then I remind myself it’s the ‘90s, and in the ‘90s, all men are vain.
He props himself up above me, we rub the Clinique all over his dick, and I squeeze my tits as hard as I can around it, which isn’t easy since my hands are slippery from the lotion. He rocks back and forth between them for a while, then comes all over my neck. We lie on our sides looking at each other. I smile a Meg Ryan smile, stroke his high hair, and say, “Wouldn’t it be funny if someday we got married, then went back to the bodega, and all the men remembered the night we met there?”
He slits his eyes, rolls onto his back, and stares at the ceiling. You know something’s wrong when they turn from you to the ceiling.
“In case you’re wondering.” I say. “I didn’t mean . . . I wasn’t suggesting you actually marry me. It was just a momentary mindless fantasy I was sharing with you. I guess a girl’s not supposed to share those fantasies because it could scare a guy away, huh?”
“It sure could.” He stares at the ceiling a little longer, then turns his back to me and goes to sleep.
I don’t fall asleep right away, because I’m so worried I said the wrong thing. But then I tell myself I’m reading too much into it. I made him laugh. He stopped on corners to kiss me. We bantered. When you have that good a time with somebody there’s no single thing they could take as the Wrong Thing.
In the morning I kiss him a little and he kisses me back. I look for signs of the wanting-the-girl-to-leave thing going but I don’t see any. We trade numbers and get dressed. He puts on wide-wale corduroys. I stroke the wales and tell him how sexy wide-wale corduroys are on a good-looking man. He belts his pants and I can see the outline of his thing through them. I pat it and it gets firm. We start to make out again, but we have to go, so we go.
I link arms with him as we walk to the train station, and when we get there he kisses me good-bye. To insure that he doesn’t think I’m needy, I don’t ask him to call me. Instead I go, “See you around,” very casually and head down the stairs.
That afternoon I leave a message on his machine, telling him I’ll be at the bodega at night watching Game Five if he wants to come. The Yankees win again, but somehow the victory just doesn’t taste as good as before, because he doesn’t show up. I call him the next day and leave another message saying I’ll be watching Game Six Saturday night. He never calls back. I go anyway, and the Yankees win the Series. The city is jumping for joy. Cars are honking and people are drinking on the street. I stand at a pay phone outside the bodega, putting the same quarter into the phone again and again, thanking God for Tollsaver.
All day Sunday I think about the hookup, trying to figure out how one single comment could have sent him flying off like a foul ball. Every time I pass a pay phone I dial his number and hang up when I get the machine. I tell myself hanging up on the machine isn’t as bad as leaving a message because he has no sure way of knowing it’s me. but then I realize he has to know it’s me because who else but a woman scorned would call and hang up that many times in a row?
I finally decide to stop calling, but I still can’t get him out of my mind. Sunday night I watch a fight on TV, enjoying the blood and gore, and I realize boxing is a much better metaphor for sex than baseball.
The night the column came out, I decided to call Sara. I needed to talk to her about Aaron (his real name), but it wasn’t just that. I wanted to be her friend again. It seemed stupid to avoid her when I missed having her in my life.
When she picked up the phone, she sounded like she’d been crying. “It’s me,” I said. “Are you OK?”
“Not exactly,” she moaned. “Michael just dumped me.”
“Why?”
“He said he didn’t feel like we had a future, because he could only have futures with women who made him feel vulnerable, and I didn’t make him feel vulnerable enough!”
Suddenly I didn’t feel jealous about Michael anymore. I just felt sorry for her. How could I envy her when the cock she’d blocked had turned out to be so flaccid?
“I’m sorry,” I said. “And I’m sorry I was mean.”
“Why were you?” she said, sniffling.
“I had a crush on Michael, and when he turned out to be into you instead of me, I hated you for it.”
“Well, look what came of it!”
“I know. He sounds like an asshole.”
“But he’s an asshole I miss!” She blew her nose loudly. “I fucking went to his house and made him chicken soup when he was sick! I paid for all our meals because he never had any money! And now he’s ending it because I wasn’t evil enough? What kind of twisted world are we living in?”
“I know what you mean,” I said. “I recently had a similar experience.”
“Yeah, I read it. I could relate.”
“Maybe we should go out tonight. Do you have plans?”
“How could I have plans? I just got dumped!”
“OK, OK. Where should we go?”
“BarBarella. It’s on First between Seventh and Eighth. It’s my new living room.”
•
She couldn’t have picked a better meeting place. In the window were bright neon signs advertising different beers, and hanging from the ceiling were Christmas lights, holly, and crepe-paper balls. There was a sink in the back (the bathrooms were too small to have their own), two bookshelves, a few clunky wooden tables, and a jukebox. The clientele was a mix of new hipster and old dive—T-shirted boys rubbing elbows with haggard sixty-year-old women. The bartender was a tough-looking chick with large breasts, peroxided hair, and black glasses.
Sara ordered the drinks and I went to check out the jukebox. I selected a medley of sob-story music—Nina Simone’s cover of “I Shall Be Released,” Tom Waits’s “I Wish I Was in New Orleans,” and Dylan’s “You’re Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go”—then sat back down next to Sara at the bar.
“What do you think the solution is with these guys?” I asked her. “Are we supposed to be cold and abusive? Is that what they want?”
“I think so. Most men are really self-loathing. They’re looking for women who will hate them as much as they already hate themselves.”
“I don’t loathe men. I love them!”
“I know, but you can’t make that clear too early on. I don’t think it was the wisest idea to bring up marriage on the first date.”
“I wasn’t bringing it up seriously! It was a joke. A fantasy. A funny thought. If he didn’t get that, then he’s the fucked one!”
“Didn’t you read The Rules?”
“That book is crap.”
“It’s not. It picks up on a true dynamic. Guys love the thrill of the chase, so you have to watch your step. As soon as you start pushing, he loses interest. You already violated three of the Rules with that guy: ‘Don’t Call Him and Rarely Return His Calls,’ ‘Let Him Take the Lead,’ and ‘Don’t Open Up Too Fast.’ ”
“Do you really believe that stuff?”
“Yeah.”
“Are you going to be distant the next time you
meet a guy you like?”
“I’m not going to try to meet anyone new. I’m seeing Jon tomorrow night.”
•
The next morning at my desk, I thought about what Sara had said. Had I ruined everything with Aaron—all because I’d pursued him so aggressively? When lone Skye broke up with John Cusack in Say Anything..., he held up a huge boom box beneath her window and blasted “In Your Eyes” by Peter Gabriel. That’s how he told her to take him back. And of course, she eventually did. Why was it sexy for John to pursue lone that way, but insane for me to do so with Aaron? Why couldn’t he see me as a John Cusack, instead of a Glenn Close?
But then it occurred to me that I might not have to follow The Rules in order to make use of them. Maybe I could utilize them another way: by making my next column a scathing, bitter satire of the entire vomitrocious philosophy. I opened my top drawer, put a notepad on my lap, and started to scribble. By lunchtime, I had finished.
Run Catch Kiss
True Confessions of a Single Girl
ARIEL STEINER
The Drools: Time-Tested Secrets for Stalking Your Mr. Right
Drool #1: Approach strange men in cafés and bars. Walk right up to every guy you like and tell him you find him attractive. Very attractive. Explain that you have not been fucked in a very long time. Tell him you had a boyfriend once but he left you because you mailed him a lock of your pubic hair for Valentines Day. When he blushes or looks the other way, grab his face and say. “I’m talking to you, dick.” If he says he’s taken, snort and say. “Ha. You haven’t been taken till you’ve been taken by me.” If he tries to plow past you, throw yourself on his shoulder, holding fast to his waist. Beat his back and wail, “I’m no quitter!” until he brings you back to his house.
Drool #2: Spill your guts to him as soon as possible. On the first date, try to bring up your hopes for the future right away. Explain that he can move in with you whenever he feels comfortable; there’s no need to hesitate at all. Outline how important it is to you to have children, and suggest that the two of you get started immediately.
