I don’t get home until seven and I’m not out of the shower until 7:15 and I stub my fucking toe on one of my typewriters and there’s blood but I won’t see this as an omen. The typewriter—Hector, an ’82 Smith Corona I found in an alley off Bushwick—was in the way, but I’m nervous and maybe a little bloodshed’s good for the nerves and fuck, maybe Hector’s nervous too. You’ll meet them all soon, Beck, all the typewriters I collect because one day, the computers will all blow up and I’ll be the man with twenty-nine (and counting) beat-up machines and everyone will be standing in line to get into my apartment and buy one. Because obviously, one day, the world is gonna reverse and I’m just waiting.
You like that movie with that guy who pulls a rickshaw around Canada and that dude’s mostly about the white T-shirt so I’m going for a classic white V-neck tee and jeans and the belt I found at the Army Navy store. The buckle is big, but not in a bullshit Ryan Adams kind of way. It’s the real deal and it’s old and dented and you’re gonna wanna touch it when you see it because it’s just like the one the cowboy in your story wears.
I get onto the subway and I text you:
Running a little late.
You text me right back:
Me too.
The road goes by in a slow flash because I’m not really on this train. I’m so excited to see you that the world doesn’t even exist right now. I get off the train and send a tweet from Benji: I’d fuck Miley Cyrus. For the record. #deepthoughts And I’m done with my work and the air is perfect and when I arrive in Union Square I hide behind a kiosk and watch you arrive at the steps and look around for me and sit down and wait for me. It’s 8:35 and you were lying, you weren’t running late. You were just as excited as me. I text you: Sorry. Be there by 8:45.
And I watch you text me back:
No worries. Me too! See you at 8:45.
You care what I think and you’re nervous and I’m nervous and at 8:52 I take my first step toward you and I can hear my heart in my throat, I can’t believe it’s happening, us, together. You see me coming and you smile and wave and you stand up to greet me and you look so fresh and clear-eyed and ready and you bite your lower lip and you smile with every part of your body and you play. “You’re late, mister.”
“Sorry about that.”
You can’t stop smiling and I let you wait the right amount of time where you think I’m cool, not rude, and you take a deep breath and look up and then down. “You also said we’d go somewhere when it got dark and, well, it’s already dark out.”
“I know,” I say and I sit down and pat the concrete and you plant your sweet little buns beside me. This is nice. This is it and I deliberately waited until it was dark to walk up to you. You are a woman and I am a man and we belong in the dark together and you smell good, pure. I like this.
“You really should try cleaning your shoes once in a while,” you say and you tap your ballet flat into my brand-new white Adidas.
“That’s why I was late,” I say. “Had to shine these puppies for an hour.”
You laugh and we fall into talking so easily, about Paula Fox and sneakers and the weirdo homeless dude who’s talking to a trash can. There is chemistry. We win! We’ve been on the steps I don’t know how long but there’s no rush to go. You like it here.
You like to be on display. And whenever there’s an unexpected silence, we joke about my sneakers.
“Now those are seriously white, like Ben Stiller white.” You laugh.
“Yeah, I’m gonna tell my shoe-shine man you said so.”
“Well, I should hope so. He did a bang-up job, Joe.”
You said bang and you said Joe and that has to mean something, it does.
“I tipped him,” I say and you start telling a story about accidentally stealing shoes from an outlet and we’ve been on the steps for almost twenty minutes and you’re so nervous and excited that you keep talking about shoes as if you have to keep talking about shoes or you might jump me right here, on the steps. I chose this spot because my whole fucking life I’ve walked by these steps and seen couples that make me feel alone, rejected. And now there are loners passing by you and me, jealous, and you’re still talking and fuck, it’s hard to listen when I can smell your body wash.
“So I’m like, I didn’t steal these. I accidentally kept them on. I mean who steals from a shoe store on an island, right?”
“A very brave and lovely lady who goes by the name Beck, apparently.”
I said lovely and you smile and it was just right. You think I get you and all my reading was not for nothing.
“You must think I’m a psycho,” you say. “Why did I even tell that story?”
“Because it’s a first date. Everybody has an anecdote they tell on a first date. It’s always funny and it’s always based in truth, but it’s always a half-truth.”
“So I’m a lying bitch,” you say, and then you smile and you cross your legs and even though you’re in jeans two motherfuckers check you out as if they can see through denim. New York.
“No,” I say. “You’re a thieving, lying bitch.”
You laugh and you blush and I laugh and you stretch and you’re in your red bra and your white tank and your Thursday-night jeans and your pink cotton panties teasing me as you reach for the sky and uncross your legs and lay back and rest your little head on the cement and I want to mount you right here on these steps, at this inappropriate hour, in front of the motherfuckers checking you out and the Rasta hawking hemp bracelets and the angry bitches going home to read Doctor Sleep on their iPads. I want you here, now, and I can’t get up when I’m this hard.
“You seem young,” you say and just like that I’m soft.
“Huh?”
“No, no, no. Don’t get upset, Joe. That came out wrong.”
“Good, because I just turned seventeen and I’d hate to think I look sixteen because then you’d look like a pedophile and that’s no good.”
You slap my leg and you like me more all the time and you hunch, you bite your lip the way you did at your reading, when you’re about to make a little revelation. “I just mean that a lot of my friends are in a rush to be settled,” you say. “They seem old to me sometimes, like they lost that thing, that openness that makes a person seem young.”
“How much weed did you smoke before you got here?”
I get what I wanted, another light slap and I love to make you laugh and I love you for giving me what I want without losing your focus. Like a laser beam, you go on. “See, I started to feel old my junior year of college. I was gonna go to Prague and I backed out at the last minute and a lot of my friends, they made me feel old, like I’d missed out on something I could never get back, as if Prague was going out of business. As if that was it, forever, as if you have to be in college to go abroad.”
“We could go now,” I say and my joke isn’t funny and please stop talking about college because it makes me lose my game.
“Anyway, my point was that you have a young vibe. It’s good. Like anything is possible and we could still theoretically run for president or learn sign language or visit every castle in Bruges.”
All I heard was we and I smile. “You want me to gas up my NetJet?”
“I’m serious,” you say and you move your body closer to mine. “What about you? What did you want to be when you were little?”
“A rock star,” I say and I follow your lead and lean back, closer to you and now we’re both looking up at the sky. I bet we look great from above, lit by stars, in love.
“When I was little, I wanted to be a singer.” You sigh.
“Is that why you like Pitch Perfect so much?”
You turn your head and sit up. I fucked up.
“How do you know I like that movie?”
“I was just guessing.” Fuck. “I know it’s really popular.”
“Huh,” you say and fuck. “Do you like that movie, Joe?”
“I don’t know,” I say and I’m beet red and fucked. “I haven’t seen it. But if you like it, I mean, it’s probably good.”
“Note to self,” you say and you’re not looking at me. “Become less predictable.”
You don’t say anything and I don’t know what to say and fuck that Anna Kendrick, it’s on her. I can’t tell if you feel bad about yourself or creeped out by me. How could I be so careless? I worked so hard to prepare and I blow it on a movie when you finally look at me there’s new sadness in your eyes and it’s my fault. I did that. And there’s only one way to fix it.
“You’re not predictable, Beck. You’re just on Facebook.”
“So you’re stalking me,” you say without a trace of sadness and you smack my leg, you like me, you do.