I Just Want My Pants Back

by David J. Rosen

  * * * * *

  And then there I was, in a bar again. Moo-shu chicken followed by vodka, yep, my nights were damn predictable. After partial digestion, I had met Tina for a civilized drink. Just a quick one. She had to run to catch a band with Brett; I assumed I was invited but it turned out I wasn’t. I don’t know, she was a little weird about it.

  “So,” she said, smoothing down her hair, “what’s happening with Mr. Fantastic?”

  “You know, just being that guy. What about you? I mean, other than going to see bands without me, what’s new?” I poked the lemon in my vodka soda with my straw.

  “Oh my God, you are such a girl!”

  “I’m a man, just look how hairy my arms are.” I held one up to her face. It wasn’t that hairy, actually.

  Tina shoved it away. “Sheesh, I don’t care, you can come. Brett has just been crazy busy, and I wanted some alone time with him.” She stirred her drink. “You know, I’m still figuring out what I think. So far so good, though.”

  “I’m just messing with you. What’s he so busy with?” I wasn’t quite sure what Brett did every day. All I knew was that he was a couple years older than us and had finished up NYU film school around January.

  “It’s really exciting. It looks like he’s going to direct this film. A real film, not like some student one. He’s got funding and everything.”

  “Wow, impressive. How’d he manage that?” I was a little jealous.

  “Honestly? Chutzpah. This guy who lives on his block, Donnie Sherman, had a novel come out last year called Chase Me. Ever hear of it?”

  I shook my head.

  “Supposedly it got good reviews. Brett liked it a lot, anyway. So around five or six months ago, he saw the guy at a café, walked over and introduced himself. Then he just put his dick on the table.”

  “The old dick-on-the-table, eh?”

  “Works every time, from what I hear. He said, ‘I’m a director. I’m sure you’re talking to other people, but I loved your book and I really want to make a film of it. Can I buy you a drink?’ Anyway, they hit it off. They wrote the screenplay together. Donnie knew a producer and he got them money somehow, and then Brett found a few other investors. Pretty nuts, huh?” She glanced around the bar, which was starting to fill up. “I haven’t read the script yet; I’m scared if I don’t like it I’ll have to break up with him. But I think it might be a really good movie. They have a couple of great theater actors lined up, that girl from Rent is the lead. And Chris Makepeace is also going to be in it, you ever hear of him?”

  I laughed. “Isn’t that Rudy, Rudy the rabbit, from Meatballs? He was in My Bodyguard, too.”

  “He plays an aging former porn star who’s just moved to Park Slope. Who knows, maybe it will be his Pulp Fiction.” She polished off her drink. “Anyway, they’re just really getting started casting and figuring shit out, and he’s pretty obsessed with it, which makes sense. But that’s why I wanted to see him alone tonight.”

  “Well, it sounds pretty fucking exciting. Seriously, it’s huge. Tell him I say congrats.”

  Tina bought us a second round, two more vodka sodas. I brought mine to my lips and took a deep swig. “Ugh,” I spat, “yuck, tonic!” I put the drink down and took a step back, stumbling right into a smoky little girl wearing a jean jacket and a scarf. “Oh, sorry!” I said, pulling it back together and offering a half bow.

  “No, qua, it was my fault,” she said with a French accent and a crooked smile.

  I smiled in return and turned back toward Tina. Then my half-pickled brain caught up. French, huh? Tina raised her eyebrows and smiled. She put her hand up to my ear and whispered, “Body odor. I guarantee it.”

  Tina downed her drink, it was time for her to go. She went to the ladies’ room to make sure she looked pretty for her man. I finished off my drink, despite the tonic, and looked around. It was early yet. It seemed like the French girl was checking me out, and she was only a few bodies away. I was just drunk and confident enough to make an approach. It was certainly worth me buying one more drink, in the interest of foreign relations. I reeled toward her.

  “Hi,” I said. “I’m Jason.”

  “Hello, I am Isabelle.”

  And soon I found myself ordering us two more drinks, a Bass for her and another vodka soda, this time with soda, please, for me. I was pretty buzzed; the last thing I needed was more alcohol, but unfortunately it was also the first thing I needed.

  Suddenly we both had arms draped over our shoulders. “Hi!” said Tina, freshly made up and grinning ear to ear. “So, I’m off.” She turned her head to Isabelle. “Hi. Bye.” She turned to me, and glanced down at my Levi’s. “And you, keep an eye on those slacks, ’kay, sport?” She pinched my cheek and moved on.

  “What she say?” Isabelle asked, furrowing her brow.

  I shrugged.

  Isabelle and I talked for a bit and I learned that (1) yes, she was from France, here on vacation with her younger sister Esther who was back at the hotel, (2) her English was slightly less than so-so, and (3) she was sassy as all hell. A variation on a pageboy haircut, flirtatious eyes, the crooked smile, and that damn accent all arranged perfectly around a body a drunken Brit might call “fuckin’ fit, mate.” The clock struck two; where all the time went, who knew? We left the bar behind us and lit out into the early-morning chill. We walked and talked, where oh where could we possibly be going…oh, surprise! We were outside my building. Apparently, there was just enough chum left in the water.

  The rest is exactly as I wrote it on my computer early the following morning, thinking it needed to be preserved for future generations, as Isabelle still slept in my bed:

  ME: So, do you want to come upstairs?

  FRENCH GIRL: Yes. Why not I think.

  ME: Très bien. (I raise eyebrows, “Aren’t I clever? That’s French.”)

  INTERIOR, APT.

  ME:

  Want a drink?

  FG:

  You have beer?

  ME:

  Yes. (I open fridge and hand her a Stella.) Here you go.

  FG:

  Can I put on music? I love this Radiohead.

  ME:

  Rock out

  FG:

  What?

  ME:

  Oh, nothing. Turn it on, it’s that button…no, the other…you got it. (Music begins to play loudly.)

  FG:

  I love this music. “Carmel Police…mmm mmm mmm…” You want dance?

  ME:

  Not just yet. (I open another beer for myself.)

  FG:

  You have mariwahnah?

  ME:

  Yeah—you want to get high?

  FG:

  What?

  ME:

  Smoke?

  FG:

  Sure, why not. (She dances and smiles, as tempting as Easter chocolate.)

  (We get high and begin to dirty dance. We continue to talk while dancing.)

  ME:

  Sometimes when I get high I talk a lot, you might notice.

  FG:

  What you say? (She starts speaking rapidly in French.) I think I cannot talk English right now. (She kisses me.)

  ME:

  Mmm. Do you French people take classes for this when you’re little, because I think, it’s really a good idea. Fuck math.

  (Cut to bedroom. We are naked and things are happening.)

  ME:

  (breathing hard) I just want to say you are a good ambassador of your country.

  FG:

  Ohh good. Mmmmph!

  ME:

  Magnifique! Right?

  FG:

  Mm! Mm!

  (We continue having sex, briefly pausing to switch positions with acrobatic grace.)

  FG:

  (quite loud) Oui! Oui! Oui!

  ME:

  You mean “Yes, yes!”

  FG:

  Qui lenipomonique! (something French and unintelligible)

  ME:

  (close to orgasm and punctuati
ng each thrust with a shout) U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A!

  FG:

  Vive la France!

  (We lie side by side, satisfied.)

  FG:

  Mmmm, that nice, Jason.

  ME:

  I guess you haven’t learned the word “stupendous” yet.

  FG:

  What that mean, “stuuup…”?

  ME:

  It means like…it means “Welcome to America.”

  (She lights a cigarette.)

  FG:

  You funny.

  10

  Somewhere back around New Year’s I had promised myself I would try to write a sentence or two every day in a journal, which was really just a Word document on my dusty computer cleverly named journal.doc. I was big on it when I was traveling, and it was something I was trying to bring back, but so far it hadn’t been brung. After having typed in my French connection yesterday, it seemed like now was the perfect opportunity to get the party started again.

  It was after work on Wednesday. I was killing a little time at home before I had to head to the rabbi class, and I had been staring, frozen, at the journal document. The cursor blinked and blinked, but I couldn’t think how to start. I was stumped. I knew it. It knew it. I punted and flicked the computer off.

  There were few times lately when I felt I had to get something that happened written down, lest I forget it. My days had become routine, somewhat indistinguishable from one another. Lots of small funny things happened, sure, but nothing major. In school you had semesters and finals and spring breaks to delineate time; out here in “the real world,” every day was sort of like the one before. I guess that’s why people freaked out about birthdays: Those at least put a stake in the ground, somehow ended one chapter and opened a next. The last big chapters for me were quitting bartending and taking the JB’s job, mostly because I went from working nights to working days; before that was graduating from college and coming to New York. These events were worthy of lines on paper, of contemplation over an afternoon beer alone or of reinterpreting song lyrics as specific advice written just for me, just for my life-altering moments.

  I wrote constantly while I was traveling; I was one of those super-clichéd scruffy twenty-two-year-olds scribbling furiously on the train, one eye guarding my “rucksack.” I was always seeing new things or waking up in new cities. Sometimes I’d get lost and caught in the rain and end up in an absolutely shady hostel listening to mice scamper and sleeping with my passport in my underwear. Other days would reveal secret parts of the Spanish countryside. One time an Italian schoolteacher in Prague kissed me in the back of a beer hall while her colleagues were sitting outside at a table, all because a guy I was traveling with had lied and told her my father had written Twin Peaks. Apparently, back in the day it was a huge hit in Rome. A graph line of my life then would have shown a lot of modulation. If I wrote every day now, all entries would be something like, “Woke up, went to work, drank soda, e-mailed, went out for drinks with X, and did/didn’t have my bathing-suit area touched.” The graph line had become far flatter. There were fewer highs and lows, and less need for written commentary. Just a lot of dittos.

  Even during what were supposed to be the most fun times, in a bar, drink in hand, life was starting to feel repetitive. If every day was a rerun of the day before, then the nights were one long uninterrupted blur. And The Fear the following mornings seemed to be getting worse.

  That lack of modulation weighed on my mind when I blew off work to go to brunch with Isabelle, the morning after our Franco-American summit. We ate some eggs at the Galaxy and then strolled around Chelsea, popping into the occasional gallery, before she went to meet up with her sister somewhere in Midtown. It was refreshing to move through the familiar streets with someone from out of town, someone seeing the city for the first time, wide-eyed, like I was during my own travels. She was amazed at the little things. A woman picking up her dog’s poop in a bright pink bag, the man who sang opera as he sold small illustrations on the corner of Twenty-sixth Street. We kissed good-bye outside the entrance to the E train. First on the mouth, then both cheeks. She was flying out later that night. She gave me her e-mail and invited me to visit her in France sometime. As I walked away, I considered if that might ever happen, or more likely, if this was the last time I’d ever see this particular human being. Real good-byes eluded me; it was hard to grasp the finality, hard to escape whatever else I felt at the moment, the heat of the sun on my neck, my lips dry and chapped. I looked back and caught a glimpse of her head as she disappeared down the stairs. I thought about calling after her, I didn’t know if she knew the right train. Instead, I took a breath and mentally wished her good luck and a good life. Then I slumped off toward work, thinking “dentist’s appointment” would be the appropriate excuse for my tardiness.

  Now it was time to away to the rabbi class. Temple Beth El, where it was being held, was on the Upper East Side, a bit of a trip from the West Village. I grabbed my iPod, took a swig from the two-liter Diet Coke in the fridge, and headed out of the apartment.

  I hit PLAY, shut out the city, and walked toward the L train. After only three blocks, though, the damn battery died and I was back in cacophonous reality. I sighed, took off the headphones, and pocketed the player. I grabbed a free Village Voice from a red plastic dispenser and made my way to the train.

  Twenty-five minutes later I resurfaced on the Upper East Side. I walked past a steady stream of chain stores—Baby Gap, Old Navy, Victoria’s Secret, Baby Gap, Toys “?” Us, Baby Gap. I looked down Lexington: This was fro-gurt country, there were frozen-yogurt outlets as far as the eye could see. Expensive knobby-tired baby carriages boxed me in as I moved along. It felt like a PG-13 version of the city. I checked my phone out of habit; I had a text message. Stacey, reminding me about tonight. Was she neurotic or was I that untrustworthy? I was pretty sure it was her personality flaw and not mine, so I texted her back. “Totally forgot! Drunk downtown. Shit!”

  I arrived at the temple on Seventy-ninth Street, on time. I was a little nervous as I opened the door and walked down a long narrow hall in search of the rabbi’s study, where the e-mail said we’d be meeting. The hall was decorated on both sides with framed paintings of various biblical scenes, along with black-and-white shots of Masada and the Wailing Wall. I sort of wished it was more like a Jewish Hall of Fame, or like an athletic stadium tunnel leading to the field of battle, and that there were framed 8x10’s of Sandy Koufax, Sammy Davis, Jr., David Ben-Gurion, all our biggest stars, lining the walls. I could see a rabbi and a cantor walking down a hall like that, getting pumped to go out on the dais and give it their all. Someday, if they pushed themselves, their photos would be wedged onto that wall, perhaps in the coveted spot between David Copper-field and Leonard Nimoy. (Indeed, Mr. Spock was a Jew.)

  The rabbi’s study door was ajar, so I poked my head in. Two women and a guy about my age sat in folding chairs around a wooden table. Suddenly I wondered if I should have been dressed nicer than my jeans, faded Yoo-Hoo T-shirt, and hoodie. Or if I should have maybe brought a pen and a pad.

  “Hi, is this the, uh, class for, um…” I wasn’t sure what it was even called. “Learning how to preside over a wedding ceremony?”

  “Yep,” responded the guy. He had silver metal glasses and wavy blond hair, and he was wearing a light-blue shirt with a loosened maroon tie. “That’s why we’re all here. The rabbi hasn’t arrived yet, though.” He extended his hand. “I’m Mark.”

  “Hi, I’m Jason.” We shook. “Jason,” I said extending my hand toward the first woman, who looked to be around forty, with short gray hair and a belly that tested the buttons of her beige blazer.

  “Nora,” she replied. “Hi.”

  I leaned toward the other woman, who looked to be about my age. “Hi, I’m Jennifer,” she said, smiling. She had blue eyes and thick curly dark hair, rabbi’s-daughter’s hair. And, I was embarrassed to notice in shul of all places, simply fantastic tits under her tight black V-neck swea
ter. Light, fluffy, perky, kissable. Mazel tov, my dear.

  I took a seat and unzipped my sweatshirt. A man entered the room wearing a green sweater-vest over a white shirt and sporting a beard and a yarmulke. “Hi, everybody, I’m Rabbi Stan. Glad you all could make it.”

  We went around the table and introduced ourselves to Rabbi Stan. Every rabbi I had ever met, which wasn’t a whole hell of a lot, went by his last name. Rabbi Pearlman. Rabbi Feldstein. Rabbi Bassen. Rabbi Stan, who looked to be in his late thirties, must have been some kind of New Age rabbi, the kind that let you call them by their first names and knew how to juggle.

  “So, Jason, tell me what brings you to this class,” Rabbi Stan said.

  “Um, well, two good friends of mine are getting married, Stacey and Eric, and they asked me to preside at their wedding.” Why else did he think I was here?

  “To marry your friends, that will be wonderful. Do you know what type of ceremony you’ll perform?”

  “No, I’m pretty much a novice,” I said, grinning. “I was hoping that I’d learn all about that here.”

  Rabbi Stan scratched his chin. It seemed like he might still be getting used to the beard; it was a bit patchy. “You will hopefully learn a lot here, but the ceremony design will be yours. Rabbinical teaching that is not.”

  I wasn’t exactly sure what he was getting at, but that might’ve been because I was fixated on how he sometimes spoke backward, like a Jewish Yoda. Maybe he was trying to sound than his years older. “I’m sorry, what do you mean?” I asked.