Boys Life

“OK…”

I leave, and after walking a few blocks I text Veronica. 

It was amazing to meet you text me when You’re done…

I remember walking on First Avenue, waiting for a response to that text, a response that never came. A flower blooms in stop motion photography, crisp reds and greens against a black night, and my mind is revealing the night’s truths. And I am ashamed. Here was someone, an answer, an actress on her way. Some connection was there, and I got over eager and fucked it up. I’m walking south and I can’t wait to get across Houston. I can’t wait to be on Ludlow, or Orchard Street. I need to see one of the girls that calls me cute and flirts with me. Or to see some of my friends, to be around forgiveness. Run south, away from this implosion, to the Fish I’m sure, regular coke then, free, with a dollar tip. I had fucked up tonight, but maybe I’d get another chance, a text tomorrow, perhaps. Christ what a mess, we were not even acting on the same stage. I was off off Broadway, an angsty, indy, musical type thing scored by Morrissey/Marr. She was playing in some big budget disaster, ‘Vodka Soda and the Pursuit Of Success’ starring her and Russle Crowe and fucking, well, NOT ME. 

I read this thing in, I think, Vice Magazine. It was by a girl, maybe it was a Dear Diary before Lesley Arfin took over, or one of those quirky book reviews where they talk about anything but the book being reviewed. I remember the story, the author got hit in the face with a Hockey Puck as a teen and her face was some degree of fucked up for a few years after. She described how she’d had to learn to be funny and attractive to men in ways that had nothing to do with appearance. And that when things finally kinda came together in the first half of her twenties she had a leg up on other girls. For some reason this story stuck with me. The tone of it conjured the girls of my fantasies. The teens of the nineties, Pixies fans, with glasses, and quirky lunch boxes as purses. They were still pixies fans, but now they worked in fashion, stared in indy films, or wrote articles about self-discovery for cool magazines. When I got to New York it seemed like they were everywhere, all in different states of that self-discovery. For a little over two years I looked under every Bauhaus t-shirt I could get my hands up. After so much searching I’d discovered there was no magic, no Daria all grown up. So many of them only cared about pecking order, others wore the clothes, but were little more than cheerleaders masquerading in Maiden T’s, artists the new quarterbacks. I met a few of the genuine article, but things never clicked, I never fell for them. By the time I met Veronica I didn’t give a fuck anymore, I was just lonely. Adrift downtown, avoiding work, sucking at skating, just edging closer to oblivion.  

When we first exchanged greetings I thought I could maybe fuck Veronica right away. There could be magic. I remember the night abstract like a feeling, reckless potential. Here was someone I felt something instant and substantial for. I was open and unapologetic about my feelings. Embarrassing myself, following her across town like a fucking puppy dog. Pissing on the carpet, standing there, smitten and oblivious. Enamored with some girl I’d have once dismissed on clothes alone. She got trashed on Vodka Soda and tried to advance her career, and she could be the answer.

I got in touch with Veronica the next day and we made plans for the day after. Maybe she had felt a little of what I felt, seen the life raft, the promise of rescue.