He was 1st generation Irish, and made me laugh so hard I would cry. It was winter, freezing, a bitter bitter season – a winter so cold it is still discussed in New York. He and I would careen down Houston Street to get pizza, teeth chattering, shouting about our frostbite, bundled up against the wind.
He had to ask me out on a date three times before I actually realized that he was asking me out on a date. The signs of interest he was giving me would have been completely obvious to anyone who HAD A BRAIN IN HER HEAD, but I was coming out of the grad-school cloister, unused to picking up pheromonal firefly signals.
“I really want to see Shakespeare in Love.” says he.
“Yeah, me too.” says I. Oblivious. End of conversation.
3 days pass.
“Have you seen Shakespeare in Love yet?” says he.
“No. You?”
“No. I really want to.”
“Yeah, me too.” says I. Oblivious. End of conversation.
4 more days pass.
Finally, poor man asked once more. “I really REALLY want to go see Shakespeare in Love. Have you seen it yet?”
I laughed. “No. You’ve asked me that, like, 10 times.”
He said, as though he were dealing with a half-wit (which, in fact, he was), “I know. Have you seen Shakespeare in Love?” Said with direct meaning and significance.
Then came the long-overdue “A-ha” moment.
“Ohhhhh!” I said. “You want to see Shakespeare in Love with me??”
He shouted at me, “YES.” He had had it. During the Shakespeare in Love date, we started laughing about my cluelessness and how hard I had made him work (inadvertently) just to get me to go to the movies.
The situation beteween us seemed to self-perpetuate. It was beautiful. My overriding memory of it is how friendly we were together. A true warmth and humor enveloped our times together. We went to Ear Inn (a great Irish pub in New York), and drank Guinness, and played hangman, and talked and talked and talked. All of that seemed easy with him. Talk, I mean. We could just keep going. He had the Irish gift of the gab, and also that pro-active humor thing that I love. I still remember some of his stupid jokes. For whatever reason, the silliness of his humor really appealed to me. He “got” me and I “got” him.
He bought tickets for us to go see Brian Dennehy do Death of a Salesman on Broadway. He had never seen the play, and everyone was talking about Dennehy, and the production, so I was thrilled to go. He bought the tickets, set the whole thing up, it was our night out. He wore a suit, I wore a dress, heels. It was a frigidly cold night. We sat high up in the nosebleed seats, hunched forward, watching the play. We didn’t speak much. Afterwards, he walked me to my subway stop and we stood there for a second talking.
All I remember is him saying, “It’s weird. I’m thinking about my dad right now. I guess that play made me think about my dad.”
We said good night, and I went down the subway steps into the drafty tiled station. I stood alone, my mind and heart full, thinking, contemplating, reliving the evening, the play. Dealing with the fact that I suddenly seemed to be dating someone. Here we were. Dating. And it didn’t feel weird at all.
I glanced across the subway tracks to the station on the other side, the uptown station. And there he was, glimpsed between the pillars, standing alone, head down, thinking about … was he thinking too about our night together?
I called across the tracks to him. He looked up, saw me, and we both started laughing. So close, and yet so far. I said, pretending I didn’t know him, “So what did you do this evening?” He said, picking up on the game, “Oh, you know. Saw a play. I think it was a comedy.” Death of a Salesman a comedy? I can’t explain why he was funny, I can just say that he was.
My train aprroached. It roared and thundered down the tunnel, and you could see the beam of light coming out of the darkness. I waved across to him, and he raised his hand to me in farewell. And because he had turned his back to the light, he suddenly looked like a black-paper cut-out. With one hand raised.
I felt a sudden soul-chill. I didn’t know where it came from. We had had a wonderful night. But suddenly I felt a sense of foreboding, of something being not quite right . I had no idea why the black-paper cut-out would make me uneasy, make me shiver. That’s the worst feeling – when something is not quite right, only you can’t locate the source of it.
I came home that night, and drew a picture of the black silhouette in my journal. I didn’t know why I drew it. I didn’t ask myself why. I just drew it.
About 5 days later, he broke up with me. Bringing on what I have referred to here as my “winter of discontent“. We dated for six weeks. It took me forever to get over it. Part of the reason why it took me so long is because of how embarrassed I was to be so upset over it in the first place. I felt like I was going mad.
I didn’t know the break-up was coming when I saw the silhouette. We had only had 5 or 6 dates, we were still getting to know each other, and we had a great time together. A matter of humor and chemistry. That night of Death of a Salesman was special, dressing up for each other, seeing this event. But a memory was jogged loose in my brain – brought on by the image of that arm-raised black-silhouette pose, and although I couldn’t locate the memory – and couldn’t for some time – I knew.
Somehow, on an unconscious level, I knew that I wouldn’t see him again after that night. The silhouette was the clue. That’s why I drew it in my journal, I think. The words I wrote in my journal were all: “We had a great time. I really like this guy. I can’t even believe this is going on … It’s really cool, and we had a great time.” But the illustration told another story. It was a message from 5 days in the future: This will be the last time you see him.
And it was.
