A Man in New York City.
Russell had lost his shirt and he knew he was going to freckle. His pink skin had been hot to the touch upon entering the F train, but the icy blast of air-conditioning now had him chilled, which wouldn’t normally be a problem, except the cold made his rosy pink nipples more pronounced than usual. He was only concerned for a moment, until he remembered he was on a New York City subway, where just last week, he and a handful of tired rush hour commuters completely ignored a public masturbater, because no one wanted to move.
Russell pretended to read his iPad and watched the guy from the corner of his eye to avoid being hit by liquid shrapnel. As he would be first to admit, Russell likes cock, but the man’s sad pumping just went on and on, until Mister Jerky finally gave up, tucked his penis back into his skinny jeans and started reading Running with Scissors.
Russell concluded that the gentleman couldn’t come unless someone was looking, and none of them was going to give him the satisfaction, not even the twelve year old hispanic girl that was sitting across from him. She was too busy on her Mom’s iPhone swiping through eligible men on Tinder. She was very discerning, left-swiping a handful of men Russell would have definitely swiped right for. Maybe she’s looking for a new daddy. Aren’t you looking for one too? Russell couldn’t argue with that and left the girl to her manhunt.
Russell had started his day in Prospect Park, sitting alone under a dead tree. Being mid June, the park was a dirty green, and this gray leafless tree rebelled like a bald goth teenager. Russell liked being alone. He had spent his twenties trying to have friends, but they proved too much trouble. He found himself staring at people’s mouths not wanting to hear what was spilling out of them. He fixated on the size of the talker’s teeth, the shade of white, noting dental work, crookedness, caps, fillings, saliva or lack thereof, making the talker smack their lips in some un-kissable way. Now mid thirties, he found the dialog in his head much more engaging, so he sat alone, finding solace in the patch of gray in a field of green.
A man came up to him and asked, “Would you like to throw?” He was a tall man, handsome, holding a baseball. Russell nodded, not really knowing why.
Russell knew how to throw a ball. Everyone from Apple Creek, Ohio did. Baseball, bowling, dipping, and a little cow tipping was pretty much his teen years, so when the man threw him a fastball, Russell threw one in return.
A few throws in, summer sun beating down, Baseball Guy removed his shirt. As if they were playing a game of Simon Says, Russell removed his shirt, and tossed it on the ground with a cavalier flick of the wrist. Porn scenarios sprung into his head, (out in the brambles, back of a car, inside a rent stabilized two bedroom in Nolita) until a soccer game encroached their game of catch, ending the merriment.
Russell walked the ball over to the Mr. Baseball and said, thanks. The man started to walk away, but Russell followed (porn scenario 3). “Going to the train?”, he asked. Russell nodded as he tried to remember how much money he had on his Metrocard. He had no idea where he was going, because he lived only a block away.
“Didn’t you have a shirt?” the man asked, as he tugged his snug fitting polo over his abs. Russell looked over to where he was playing catch, to see a homeless woman stretch on his way overpriced, ironic, 80’s dance dance dance, tee shirt over her fat sweaty tits. I need that back. You need that like you need bed bugs. His non-confrontational germophobic side won over and he turned to walk away.
“Nice tat,” the Baseball Guy said, looking at the eight pointed buck tattoo burned on Russell’s chest. It was large, with the deer’s face positioned where Superman’s emblem rests, majestic antlers extending diagonally upwards towards each clavicle. Hunting was what Russell had forgotten about Apple Creek. Everyone had to kill things and then put it on their bodies. He was seventeen, and still known as Rusty, when he had gotten that tattoo. Dad called it a right of passage. He was becoming a Man. That was the last year he had spoken to his father. Becoming a man who likes men wasn’t a part of God’s plan. Everybody knows that.
Baseball Guy was very nice, and in the span of the walk to the train, Russell mentally married him in a grand yet tasteful ceremony. Everyone came, even his dad, who gave him away. His best man was Shane from Walking Dead, but after he was turned into a Zombie, so he pretty much grunted the whole wedding toast. It caused tears, nonetheless.
Russell found that he did not stare at the guy’s mouth, or inspect any of his teeth, though they were white and quite straight. He was actually listening to him talk about a book he was reading, some agoraphobic ne’er-do-well who gets kicked out of his apartment when his mom sublets his room to a city of people. It didn’t make any sense, but Russell smiled and nodded and wondered if he could smile and nod until death do us part.
The train was cold, but somehow Russell decided that the best move was to ride north until the man got off, then take the southbound train back home. Fingers crossed, the guy doesn’t live in the upper east side. As the train rattled down the track, it dawned on Russell that he was never going to see Mr. Baseball again. He was just a guy with a ball in the park. Probably straight, not single, not on Tinder or Grindr. As the thought of a triple decker red velvet cake topped with two grooms faded, Russell stared past Baseball’s white veneers to the smoke stained teeth underneath. He fixated on a ball of spit, the size of a pepper flake, that dance dance danced between Baseball’s upper and lower lips, as he talked about, oh god, who cares about the snacks they have at your job? Thankfully, he interrupted the description of his cubicle to note that he was getting off at the next stop.
With nothing left to say, they both nodded their goodbyes. Mr. Baseball added a perfectly executed wink, one of those things that handsome people do, just because they can. Russell had long since given up on winking. It make him look like he was having a stroke. He watched the Mr. Baseball disappear into the crowd as the train pulled away.
Four stations from home, Russell was lost in thought, reliving a moment earlier in the day when some lady cut the line at the bank. In real life, he did nothing, but in his cerebral reenactment, he said something bold and witty, causing onlookers to smile, and the woman to flee in shame. He was brought rudely back to reality by a smell that was related to ass and mouth and hair and sweat and bacteria. It was a big smell that had its own time zone. He looked around to sleuth the source of the smell and concluded that it was a large homeless man who had sat down at his end of the car with a blanket on his lap and possibly no pants. Russell retreated from the smell, while some woman with no sense of smell direction, held her nose and started walking towards the smell. Russell had to get off. He was afraid the smell molecules were so strong that they would take root in his nostrils and solidify.
Walking out of the station, a rude man wearing an ill-fitting suit, elbows past Russell to be the first one to reach street level, as though the top step was the finishing line of some weird urban decathlon. His prize was a shower of birdshit. It literally rained birdshit, as if a court of a dozen pigeons saw the discourtesy and rendered due punishment. Russell thought, this is going to be a great day.
I’m a writer living in Los Angeles, making emojis of faces I find on Instagram. When I get a moment, I paint portraits on canvases I build from reclaimed wood.
