Never A Dull Moment

First thing Thursday morning, A. emails and asks if I want to go to a party with some of her friends. And I’m thinking sure, why not; only so many nights you can head to the gym, do freelance stuff, read James Agee, maybe stare at the wall for an hour in existential ennui. Unbeknownst to me, however, this party was:

a.) At an adult toy store.
b.) At an adult toy store in the Village
c.) At an adult toy store in the Village advertised as ‘singles welcome.’

Hours later and I’m bracketed in by two massive pipe-workers describing in loving detail their technique for ‘tapping hos’ while in the background two toothless obese geriatrics with fanny packs grind to an 80s pop hit, in a room filled with all manner of buzzing/leaping/twitching plastic items whose function could only be properly delineated by reading a three-page instruction manual in poorly-translated Japanese. The mind, out of self-preservation, simply refuses to comprehend. Here I was thinking a West Side Chicago bowling alley was the world’s most dysfunctional location after midnight, but that was before some androgynous hipster with enough metal in her face to give a TSA employee a panic attack tried to solicit me for acts that get you burned at the stake in Kansas. Meanwhile the rest of my crew found themselves approached by a variety of men who made Stuntman Mike in Death Proof look like a model of clean mental health; lacking tasers, we almost had to arm ourselves with oversized Rabbits (no, don’t ask) to battle our way out of there.

Then we went for fries.

Afterwards, on the subway, an orange-haired Chinese woman decides to engage me in some sort of dialogue. It is 2am and I am simply not in the mood. “Coney Island!” she yelps.

“Yes. Coney Island,” I say, pointing to the floor of our train, before turning to point at Coney Island on the wall map behind us.

“Coney Island?”

“We’re on the right train. You’re fine.” I smile and nod.

”Coney Island.”

“You don’t understand a word I’m saying, do you?”

“Coney Island!”

“Swearengen! Swearengen!”

“Coney Island.”

“I have a full bladder. If I start giggling I’ll leak piss. Please, stop.”

”Coney Island!”

The train hisses to a halt, and the doors slide open. The Chinese woman shoots bolt upright, staring at the platform. A couple of construction workers are hunched there, beating on some oily piece of machinery with their tools. Something clicks in her mind; one-point-five seconds later she’s off the train and heading for the workers as fast as her generously plump legs can carry her, her last bellow of “Coney Island!” lost in the ding and boom of the doors mercifully sliding shut again. As we plunge back into the tunnel my last glimpse is of her trying to explain whatever predicament to a burly Brooklynite whose eyes say that he’s seen it all before.