the lost man chronicles
the daily chronicle


a gay day indeed (waiting for me)

Today was a gay one indeed.

I was so happy after work today that I went shopping just to smile at the clerks.

Giddier by the purchase, I let myself go and gave out compliments freely, doling them as if there were no tomorrow.

Only once did I have to hesitate to relate the moments of felicity and appreciation I was having, but I quickly mended my erring way and turned two steps back around to tell the shop girl, “You have pretty eyelashes.” She blurted a squeal, beamed and blushed all at the same time. Her lazy eyes suddenly perked up and with a vertigo of dilation it looked like she was about to have a big, explosive, splashy orgasm, but then she covered her mouth, and with a coyly cupped hand, giggled instead. I smiled back, flattered by the reaction.

Inspired, I joked with a few more cashiers as I bought presents for all my ears and eyes – three CDs of luscious, pulsating, sultry electronica and Amin Maalouf’s Balthazar’s Odyssey. Even though I still had to finish four other books that I was currently reading, Balthazar was next on the list, and I was in a debit mood. “Cash back?” Oh, yeah, give it to me baby.

It did not help that practically every salesperson that helped me was also seemingly in a good mood, a certain rarity in the City that rarely ever gets to sleep. So uncommon in fact, that I decided to be a martyr and took the brunt of the blame for this phenomena. “Oh, it must be my fault," I confessed and pleaded mea culpa. "It’s just this “everything’s fucking great” mood that I’m in, and I’m compelled to mercilessly impose it upon others,” I said to myself, goading me further into this vertigo of fun I was having.

Hence, with utterly shameless vigor I continued swimming through the streets of mid-town Manhattan, carried aloft on this bout of narcissistic delusion, feeling as if I had yanked day out of night, just heaving and huffing and pulling that sucker inside out.

The cute girl at the book counter chuckled with such sincerity that I just wanted to reach over and hug her. She had informed me that I could use my discount card at the coffee counter as well, I responded with utterly earnest glee, “Oh, great!” And then with a flash of sudden insight I added with innocuous sarcasm, “…great, I get to save a few pennies.”

Apparently no one had made her laugh all day, because she was ripe for taking advantage of and this bit of parting wit almost bowled her over. Once again I was delighted by the gleeful reactions I was engendering, but started to think that it was something other than my smart suit, my smiling good looks, the charm I’d cultivated over many trying years, my spritely positive demeanor, and these rosy colored glasses I was wearing.

Because, quite frankly, as long as I was paying, this went on almost all night. They were coming out of the brambles to bray like sheep on a funny farm for me.

Bahhh! I tell you.

At one point I turned into Bobolo’s, the raw food shop on 23rd that has a jovial monkey for a mascot, for a bit to eat. And there, standing quite alone, but not looking all-too lonely, was a sharply-dressed girl sipping samples at the counter.

Riding upon this monsoon of a whim that had overcome me, I spontaneously brushed up to her and with a sideways motion of my head towards her and a raise of my left eyebrow, I told the clerks across from us, “You better watch out, or she’s going to sample you out of business.” Everyone laughed cheerfully, especially the hungry girl standing perkily next to me, who reacted by saying with a wide smile aimed straight at me, “You’re funny.”

“No…you’re funny,” I retorted and as I looked back at the spectating, speculating clerks, I twirled a finger about my right ear, adding sibilantly with the same pointing finger, now hidden from her behind my raised left hand, “She’s crazy.”

She then punched me in the arm.

“‘Ouch,” I laughed, adding aloud “…and she’s strong too.”

The clerks were seemingly bemused, and one of them asked “I gather you two are quite familiar with each other?”

We both looked at each other and smiled, answering simultaneously with nods and an enchanted locked look, “No.”

Elaborating, I added, “We’re complete strangers—seemingly in danger of becoming acquaintances.”

And then, suddenly, in my dreamy midstream, with what sounded like a soft strike of an anvil, the boy on the other side of the counter blurted, “Miss, here is your order-to-go.”

Struggling to break free of the bewitching between us, Miss then turns to grab the plastic bag and turns back to me to say, explaining almost apologetically with her leaning eyes, “My order-to-go.”

Facing each other, I stood silently in awe, and for an obvious pause she seemed to do much the same before she stepped around me, and walked with a wide-stride in black knee-high Nancy (Sinatra) boots toward never again.

Almost incredulously, I turned about to watch her leave, hoping, wondering, wanting. When, at the door, she grabbed the handle and with a fell swoop turned her head to look at me one last time, and said, slowly, with resonating silence, “Bye.”

The sad twinkle in her eye flashed so brightly that for a moment I could not see or hear or feel anything outside this narrow tunnel between me and this sparkle, a circle of white light at the end of a destiny that was not for me.

This farewell was one of the longer goodbyes I had ever endured, and as the door swung back in this itchy-witchy, evil woman’s wake I felt as if I had somehow made a mistake, and in my err serendipity was shaking her head at me, in disappointed shame.

Subsequently, I ate my meal in silence, joyously reflecting upon another fleeting moment of visceral opportunity. The mish-mash mush of freshly chopped vegetables sandwiched between two crisp leaves of lettuce tasted clean and sanguine, and awfully tasty.

I sipped at my chai-enhanced young coconut water and was surprised by what a wonderful aphrodisiac it was proving to be – for this warm, slightly sludgy liquid slowly lapped over my tongue, the soft grit and pique of spice opening my eyes with a woozy, a swooning shot of guilt-free pleasure that for extra measure, also warmed and soothed my chest, and ensured a glorious gastronomic throe, an epicurean glow, a hedonistic thrill that was now spilling and lithely splashing all over my tingling, tantalized palate.

Needless to say, I was turned on. And brrrooom, broom, I was ready to go.

So, with my engine in full throttle and no destination in mind, I blindly placed my hand on that same handle and slowly pushed the door open, laughing self-deprecatingly, as I hoped, for a flashing moment, that She would be there, waiting for me…




in the beginning .00 the beginning return to thelostman.com daily archives daily archives


legal l.m