There’s a block near my house that consistently smells like dogshit. I really find myself looking around and wondering if/where the urban legend “apartment of the crazy lady trapped under a six-foot stack of 1967 newspapers” is. And are the dogs eating the flesh from her limbs yet?

-----------

What a strange time right now. Two of the most beautiful women I know, both of which I’m pretty sure I’ve been in love with, are pregnant. An old friend is moving back to Memphis. Another friend has finally, after 10 years of school around the globe, finally made it TO New York. Mitch just got married. Pete just got engaged.

Shira is the first New York woman I ever met. She’s also the first woman to ever make me feel attractive. I’d been with girls before; I’d dated before. But this was the first woman I ever met that was confident, attractive, secure, cosmopolitan, aggressive, strong, beautiful. In other words, completely out of my league. But she made me feel like I could maybe, just maybe, be in the same category.

When Men’s Health ran an article where they talked with four “real woman” about what they really want out of life, and they ran photos of Shira looking gorgeous, all my friends freaked out about how hot she was. And then they teased me about the fact that her ideal man was Jewish.

Nonetheless, I wasn’t her ideal man, but I still love her to death. And I’m excited for her and her husband to be having twins.

I am feeling like more of a kid than ever.

a sign in a store window the other day. seemed worthy of photographing.

cashed in for $200, lost two pair vs. set. bought in for another $200. hit a nice hand and doubled up.

couple of hands later i get JJ on a straddle, somebody raised to $20, three callers, it comes to me and i make it $125. first raiser goes all in for like $117, next guy calls, two guys fold.

flop comes 2 4 K. i'm first to act, and i go all in for $248. guy thinks about it for a while and calls.

turn comes a J (third diamond), river comes a blank. all in guy turns over his AK, i drop my JJ, other guy turns over his AK. one of the guys that folded said he had KJ.

one outer, but after what happened to my KK earlier in the day, i don't give a care.

so i got $900 in front of me now. pick up a couple of hands, make a really nice bluff at a $225 pot with a $125 river bet that i'm sure i was losing.

get red KK on the button. small blind, big blind, straddle to 5, somebody early makes it 17. get 2 callers, guy immediately before me makes it 50. it looks like he only has about 85 behind him, so i smooth call kinda hoping early raiser might put him all in? although my smooth call should probably look pretty fishy.

anyway... one of the blinds cold calls (yikes), originally raiser calls, and one of the other callers calls (one folds). so... there's like $275 in the pot preflop.

flop comes 2 8 10, two spades.

check check check guy to my right goes all-in for almost $200. i really didn't think he had that much. but i'm not really worried about him. i put him on a lower pair like JJ or QQ. although i do worry about 10 10, but... if he hit it, i'll just lose my money and i'm not too worried about it, except the fact that if he DID have 10 10 and i had went all in pre-flop i'm sure he would have folded for another $200. big mistake (damn green chips).

first to act thinks about it a little bit and folds, next guy folds, next guy thinks and thinks and thinks. he's the other big stack on the table, also with about $800 in front of him. thinks and thinks and thinks and folds.

the guy to my right is reaching for his wallet and muttering that as soon as i went all in so quickly he knows he's fucked, so i know i'm winning. I turn over KK, he shows QQ.

it holds up.

the other guy claims he laid down 10 8, but i don't believe him for a second. but... i guess for $800 with two all ins in front of you, you would be worried about a set. it turns out that the turn and river come 6 6

and i ended up with Kings Up and would have beat his 10s Up, but... i'm not sure i believe him anyway.

but... a nice little $400 PROFIT hand. i play another uneventful 30 minutes, and cash out with $1410.

which means i only made $250 for the day, because i dropped $200 at BBBB last night in 15 minutes after work flopping top two vs. somebody flopping a straight and then missing a nut flush draw in a three way flop with me as small stack.

but... yeah... FINALLY.

whew.

At the club, when somebody asks about Joe Cash (“Whatever happened to Joe Cash?), Scott responds “I see Joe Cash all the time.” Mike asks “How do you see him all the time?”

Scott says “We both live in Staten Island” as if it’s obvious that everybody that lives in Staten Island knows each other and sees each other daily.

I’m sitting at work. We get here at 5:30 so that we can clean the cards and get ready for the night. We technically open at 6:00 PM, but players hardly ever get here until 7:00 or 7:15. Sometimes the dealers start a game early and then players join (maybe) as they filter in. The tournaments start at 8:00 PM. I’m going to sit here for another hour and a half, and then get cut if not enough players show up. There aren’t gonna be enough players tonight. I know it.

Ordinarily I would just play the tournament once I get cut. But… I have $60. The tournament costs $110 to enter tonight. And if I lose, I have ZERO dollars for the rest of the week. Not that $60 is a whole lot better. But I’d have to borrow fifty bucks to play the tournament which I would probably lose anyway.

Quite a lovely situation.

I worked Saturday night until 4:30 AM. Then went to Broadway to play 10/20. At one point I was even like 2 hours into it. Then Jay went on a $1200 rush over the next hour. And halfway through his rush, and then for another half hour, I just lost every pot I was in.

Final straw: I have $50 left. I call a raise with 55. Four players in the flop, and the flop comes A 5 7.

check check. Raiser bets, I call, one of the blinds folds, and the other one starts to call when the dealer burns and lays down the turn card. It’s a 3.

The player says he was going to call, but the dealer says “this card is going to be shuffled back into the deck.” The players calls, and the dealer puts down the card that would have been on the river on the turn (the proper procedural thing to do, I might add.) He puts down a 2.

the first player checks, the original raiser says “I can’t bet that card”, and I go all in for my last $20. the small blind folds, the original raiser calls. I turn over my 55. he turns over 46. he was open ended on the flop, and would have hit the lower end of the straight with the 3. I feel good. I have a set vs. open ended. I’m way ahead. He has 8 outs. And he had already hit one of his outs once before on the turn, and I HADN’T hit my boat with the original cards (I have 10 chances to improve to a full house or quads.), so… while not statistically true, I’m thinking that LUCK should dictate that I have a better chance of hitting a good card for me this time, or at least that he won’t one of his outs.

The river.

I give the dealer my last $1 as a tip, and walk out the door having lost $600 and having $42 in my pocket.

Granted, if I had won, that would have only been a $170 pot, but… still… I would be happy with that, and obviously then I could play a few more hands and see what happens.

Instead I walk home at 8:45 AM on September 11th. And it’s a lovely morning. And it’s a little before 9 AM on September 11th, and it’s impossible to not think about THAT September 11th, and the 4 years in between. The worst four years of my life.

Which is completely true. They HAVE been the worst four years of my life. But after two horrendous nights at the 10/20 table, and with that anniversary, and with knowing that I just blew the rent money in like 6 hours at the poker table…. Well… yeah. It’s all a bit more obvious and despairing.

I spend the day Sunday wallowing. I drink a lot. I eat very little. I watch like nine episodes of “Arrested Development” and send text messages with an 18 year-old virgin who is probably a lesbian who just got her nipple pierced and a 30 year-old girl who is on a “cross cuntry strip”, stripping her way across the USA.

Classy. I’m a classy guy.

When did this become my life?

And now I’m sitting here today… I slept all day, then did nothing. Getting ready to get in the shower and head to BBBB. I’m just scheduled to deal the tournament, but I’m positive I’ll get there and get cut. And I don’t have any money to play or anything, so… I guess I’ll just turn around and come home.

Maybe I should contact my girlfriend that I’ve completely ignored for the last 36 hours, even though she has called me twice and texted me three times, and who I can tell is not texting or emailing or calling me today because I’m an asshole and she’s sad and I’m leaving for a month and she can tell that it’s going to be weird.

And all I want to do is figure out a way to borrow $40 so I can play the $110 tournament at BBBB tonight if / when I get cut from working.

Pathetic.

It looks like a late-night lover’s fight. Like she was just sitting here with her boy having a drunken late night meal when they fought about something, and he got up and left. Left her there all alone. To cry, and probably to pay the bill. And to think about walking back to their apartment alone and cold and crying.

That’s my guess.

It’s Veselka… it’s 6:00 AM. I’ve seen it before. I’ve been a part of it before. Both the leaver and the one left behind. It’s not fun, this drama. It sucks, and it’s sad.

She’s sad. I guess it’s that kind of sad.

-----

I get the desire to walk back there… to say something. I don’t order my food. I just sit there at the counter for a bit. Drink some water.

Then I see some guy walk up to her. She shakes him away. She looks bothered… Maybe a little embarrassed, like she doesn’t want the attention.

She’s tall and blonde and pretty. She wears a peach sweater, and reminds me of a girl I went to college with forever ago. Stephanie Brown. She looks so much like Stephanie Brown… it’s uncanny. If I didn’t know Stephanie Brown was married with two kids and living in Indiana, I would maybe think it were her, although this girl in Veselka is younger, I do believe.

So she seems to deflect this other guy coming up to her. I think I hear him offer to buy her dinner or to join him… something along those lines. She sends him away.

I order some food… not my usual order, and not to a waitress I’ve ever seen before. I’m in Veselka 3 or 4 nights a week. The short order cook asks me if I want “the usual” or if I want something else.

It took me 10 years, but… I’ve finally got them trained. Egg sandwich – two scrambled eggs, bacon, cheese, on wheat toast. They usually don’t ask, but American cheese if they do. The only question is whether I do or do not want a coffee milkshake with it.

Tonight I go with potato pancakes, a side of sausage, and a coffee milkshake. The waitress has to repeat it three times before she gets it right, but I see the short order cook is listening, and I know he’ll get it right even if she fucks it up.

I’m not feeling myself. I just dropped $1600 playing poker. Playing three different games, really. $700 in the first game at Stan’s house. Then I lost $400 playing $1/$2 No Limit at 72nd Street. Then I take my last $500 to the $5/$5 table, and eventually lose that, even though there was a chance I could have gotten even for the entire night. I did have $900 in front of me at that table at one point, and that put me at being down $700 for the night. I should have just walked away. Instead, I punish myself by taking the subway home, and then go to Veselka. I haven’t eaten anything since 9:00 AM, I realize.

I lied. I just remembered that I ate a sub at Stan’s house. And I also just remembered that I never paid him for the delivery. Oops. That makes me feel like a bad loser, and I feel guilty. Shit.

I decide to not bother the girl. No need to be a hero or whatever. I turn up the ipod and I open up the collection of short stories I’m reading.

She gets up to walk by to pay her bill. Dressed smartly in a nice black and white checked coat with a blue scarf. She’s very tall. She looks familiar, but now not like Stephanie Brown. But still sorta like Stephanie Brown.

She goes to the register, and I take off my right earpiece to listen. She starts talking to the register guy… and getting a bit worked up. I hear “I can’t believe I was treated like this” and “you should be ashamed for letting this happen.” Or at least that’s what I think I hear.

Now I’m kinda shocked… Was it bad service or was one or the waiters rude to her? Was that a waiter that was just offering to buy her dinner, and was she just being hit on by him while she was sitting there all alone minding her own business? I’m curious as hell, I’ll admit.

I can also see that she’s a little drunk, but… still. I’m curious.

She walks out.

She crosses the street… It looks like she might go into Starbucks, but she doesn’t. But she is walking slowly.

I’m struck by the impulse… I tell Chris (the short order cook) that I’m going to run home, and that I’ll be right back. That I’m leaving my bag and my book. I almost leave my ipod sitting there, and I really don’t think anything of it, but… I decide even if I know everybody there, I should still take it. But it was interesting to feel the comfort and safety and trust that I would just leave something like that lying on the counter. It made me realize that this is my home, and that Veselka is my neighborhood, and it made me realize even more clearly what I was doing.

Whatever happened to this girl… It happened in Veselka. I felt intruded upon by outside forces. This is my place, and somebody is fucking around with a girl alone, and I can’t stand for it.

I run across the street and down 9th. I finally see her at the corner of 3rd, standing at the light waiting to cross. She is still crying. It looks like she might be talking to herself. She looks upset, and angry.

I call to her. “Excuse me. Are you OK? I was just in Veselka, and I saw you leave and…”

“I just got hit with bacon. Bacon. Maybe I’m a spoiled rich bitch who deserves it, but.. I just got hit with bacon. It never happened to me in high school… Maybe other people it happened to all the time, and this is just what I finally deserved, but… I don’t think I did. That’s just fucked up.”

“I’m sorry. That is fucked up. What happened?”

“They threw bacon at me. And then when they left they mooned me. Both of them.”

“What?!?!? Are you kidding? People in the restaurant?”

“Yeah… when they left. They went outside the window and they mooned me.”

I kinda laugh a little, of course. It IS a little funny, and I can tell the girl is a little drunk. And I can see she’s starting to work it out for herself, of course, as well. She’s starting to come to terms with what happened.

I say, “I’m sorry that happened. I live right there… I’m there four nights a week… I felt bad, and that’s why I wanted to see if you were OK.”

She’s starting to calm down a little bit. But also getting more angry, but I think that’s a step in the right direction.

She says “I know! My sister used to live on that block for three years, and I was in there all the time. I’ve been in there so many times. It’s not what you’d expect. There was a guy sitting there who saw the whole thing, and he was writing in his journal.”

“And probably laughing a little bit.”

“Probably not… he looked like the kinda guy that got hit by bacon in the cafeteria.”

I ask her what really happened.

She says that some kids were in there throwing food, and she asked them to stop. Then the next thing she knows she’s having food thrown at her.

I realize that she doesn’t live in NYC. I apologize again for what happened to her. I ask her if I can walk her home. She says “I’m already there. This is where I’m staying.” We’re standing at the white high-rise at 9th St. and 3rd Avenue.

I ask where she’s from, and she says Austin.

She starts going on a bit of a tangent… Talking about how she’s thirty years old and that this is all kinda silly… I believe she’s feeling a little embarrassed, but now also feeling a little more concrete with her indignation. She works for Dell, she recently broke her foot and wasn’t able to do anything except sit on the couch and eat bon bons for three months. “And this from a girl that usually runs every day.”

I guess this is all by way of saying she wanted to come to NYC for vacation. I ask her if she’s going to see the gates in Central Park, and she says tomorrow, and that her sister used to work at the MoMa and that she hasn’t been since the renovation.

A bit scattered… A few non-sequitors.

She was out with her friend Katie who lives in this building, but they separated. She went to get some food with a Nicaraguan guy who barely spoke any English. They went to get a burrito and she said to him that the burrito sucks and that she was going to go to Veselka. He actually said to her “Adios.” And that’s how she ended up at Veselka at 6 AM getting bacon thrown at her.

I’m obviously getting a bit more than I bargained for, but… She is nice and smart and it’s good to talk with somebody. Somebody new especially. Even if it’s freezing and it’s 6:30 AM and she is a little bit crazy.

She notices that the sun is rising. I tell her that now’s the time she should be in Central Park to see the gates.

At some point I do put my hand on her shoulder. I don’t necessarily know why I do it. I mean… I do it to be comforting, to be comradely. I don’t think I do it to hit on her. But I do feel that perhaps she thinks that. Sure enough, within 90 seconds she mentions her boyfriend. But she also mentions Katie again. That Katie is getting her Masters at Columbia in Social Work. How great she is.

She says you should meet Katie.

I say I knew one person that used to live in this building, and that’s Joey Ramone. She says she can’t wait to tell Katie, that she’ll be excited to know that.

Again she says I should meet Katie. I say I’d love to, somehow.

She thanks me for taking the time to talk with her and to see if she was doing alright.

She reaches out her hand. “What’s your name?”

“Chris.” I give her my hand. “What’s yours?”

“Seal.”

“Seal?”

“Cille. Short for Lucille.”

“Ah… I get it. I like it.”

“What do you do?”

“I do music industry stuff… Some tour managing, I work at a small label. I’m bummed I won’t be going to SXSW this year for the first time in forever.”

I’m awkward about answering the “what do you do?” question, I realize. I tell her I don’t have a card, but that I would be happy to right down my info for you. I realize that all I have is a Brooklyn Player’s Club business card, and that probably won’t look so good, but… whatever. I write down my name, number, and email.

She says again “You really should meet Katie.”

I say “I’m not dumb… you’re telling me about a smart cute texas girl that lives a block from my house. I’d love to meet her.”

“You’re right… she’s smart and cute. You should meet her.”

“OK… I’m sold. Send me your info. I’d love to meet her. Call me if you’re bored at all.”

“I’m only here for another 24 hours, so I doubt if I’ll get bored. But, Katie...”

“So, yeah… Katie. Definitely. I look forward to it. It was lovely to have met you, Cille. I’m sorry again for what happened at Veselka.”

“Thanks… you’re very sweet to offer to walk me home. It was very nice to have met you. If you’re in Austin...”

“Drop me a line. Be well. Goodnight, Cille.”

“Goodbye, Chris.”

---

I go back to Veselka, finish my food that Chris kept waiting for me under the heat lamp, I read some more. I pay my bill. And I come home to write this down.

I steal the title from an Alice Munro short story called (I believe) “How I Met My First Husband” but I can’t seem to find which book it’s in so I can’t verify.

I get ready to write the fictional part. About where Cille really does call or email. About where Katie and I do email each other and agree to meet up at Telephone Bar or Black And White. About how she really is beautiful and funny and smart, and how I’m so fucking happy that I made that one impulsive random action.

Maybe even throw in some stuff about how I might feel guilty because I maybe wasn’t doing the act of kindness for any reason other than to specifically get some good karma… because I had a certain feeling that I should talk to this girl.

But then I justify it by saying… Well… it clearly wasn’t selfish. There really was something drawing me to this woman. And that if I hadn’t listened to that voice telling me to run down 9th Street that I wouldn’t have met her, and therefore I wouldn’t have met Katie.

Katie the love of my life. The woman that I can’t live without and who makes everything OK and that I can’t believe I lived a block from for three years and hadn’t ever meet her.

Katie my future wife.

---

And then cut to 45 years from now. This is all just some sort of story I’m telling around the fire to the grandchildren at Christmas. Katie and I wearing matching sweaters and still in love in our seventies. All the grandchildren rolling their eyes at the corny story that they’ve heard a million times. All wrapped up in the same old schlocky vehicle you’ve seen and read a million times. The romantic flashback to a story of coincidence, of courtship, of one-in-a-million luck, of refined-by-repetition lies and white-lies.

---

But that’s all just silly. It’s 8:39 AM. This all just happened two hours ago. The sun that was starting to come up has just now become fully morning.

The events of two hours ago are fresh in my head. Everything else is a crazy extrapolation. And not really a very good one, quite honestly. It’s standard, at best. It doesn’t cover any new territory. It’s all been done before, and done better. It’s NOT good writing.

Cille hasn’t called or emailed. Katie hasn’t called or emailed. Neither probably will. This is positively the end of it, I’m sure.

And if it’s not… could I ever show anybody this story anyway? I really don’t think so. Who would believe it?

---------------------

Written 5/10/05:

the funny footnote, is that a couple of weeks later i get an email from Laura saying "you met my friend Lucille the other day, and she gave me your contact info"

i think... weird... where did i get katie from? whatever. so... i email with her a bit... she's pretty square but i figure what the hell... we agree to meet up for drinks.

we meet up at a bar right around the corner (we live 1 block away from each other.)

she's nice... cute but not really. she's one of those people that's 33 going on 49. dresses like a mom, acts like a mom. is clearly Looking For A Husband. at least that's my guess.

we chat. it's fine. we get along, but no sparks or anything. she talks about working at the parks department. i'm a little confused... i mention something about columbia... that Cille had said something about Columbia.

she says that that's her sister. Her sister named Katie.

i was a hand-me-down. or i got bait-and-switched.

either way... unbelievable.

maybe katie started dating the guy that she had met that night that she abandoned Cille. or maybe Katie just thought i was weird or whatever.

i don't really care... but it's pretty fucking funny.

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