Rite of passage

I had just left my credit card in the leather wallet on the table and waited for the waiter to pick it up, so I could square the bill as usual. That was when we started to argue. She was impatient and our petty tiff over some bit of nothing escalated quickly, like a tiny border dispute that turns into full-scale war. After only moments she got up and left.

I watched her go, rigidly stuck in place although every muscle was straining to eject me from my seat, but the parking brake was still on. I could not follow her just yet. I needed to resist the impulse to tear after her, and as much as I was intoxicated by the urge to act, some proto-mature part of me held me back. Yes, I would remain calm and sit at the table until the waiter returned with my credit card. I would contain my burgeoning response within a layer of civility and I would most certainly not explode. I twiddled my thumbs while a bead of sweat trickled down one temple.

“You know, you could always rush after her, maybe grab her arm and spin her around and buy more time to talk and calm her down. You can always come back for your credit card later…”

Thoughts, suggestions… ambiguous rumors from a parallel version of me who wanted to demonstrate that there was a more amicable, grown-up way to deal with her angry tantrums. She liked to do it this way, get up and leave, off like a shot, her shoes all staccato with attitude, insect determination and no looking back. It wasn’t so much “Talk to the hand,” as, “Talk to the back of the head, I’m gone.”

We argued, we even fought sometimes, not physically, but it was a power struggle for something that we couldn’t have described. It didn’t have a physical shape. We could not quite understand this thing, but it was there all the same. Maybe it was status, identity. This constant question of who I was had been a persistent part of this connection with my girlfriend of 3 years... for 3 years, so maybe it was that.

The waiter brought the check back with my credit card. I looked around as if expecting to find some recognition of all my turmoil in the eyes of those strangers sitting quietly around, but they were conversing, exchanging smiles, obeying social cues, pausing their eating to give their partner across the table their full attention.

With its dim atmosphere, this intimate style Japanese hole-in-the-wall affair offered a welcoming rusticity. Brick walls, large, open bar with only a few seats, love-seat wooden benches that held two people on each side of the table, all occupied by people engrossed either in their conversations or their dishes. Waitresses running back and forth taking orders and bringing anything from sweet potatoes to hibachi yellow tail to sizzling portions of temptations covered with bonito, and dispensing bonito flakes.

The paraphernalia of social interaction, colorful décor and customers as props as if this was the brochure for that unique NYC ambience. Dazzling and alluring, it preoccupied a little, but not enough to ease my tension. Inside, the wheels were spinning, and I was now more eager than ever to give chase.

At last: through the door and on to the street, a quiet, warm September night was the backdrop to this urgent chase to find her. A female silhouette stormed ahead, going nowhere fast. She didn’t live in that direction, but this was her role. The script said that mine was to chase her down the street, so, I ran after her.

I soon started to reel her in because she wasn’t walking fast enough to vanish into the night. She was only walking fast enough to show that she was walking fast. She left a trail of bread crumbs behind her meant for me, a wake made of bits and pieces of memories, reminders of our life together.

This narrow street with its little shops, its brownstones with cute fences and bikes catching a breather against the street signs, were a perfect a west village tableau in boisterous NYC.

“Terry”, I called and it came out as a moan, from a voice begging pardon, not one commanding her to stop. “Please wait”, I said, and you could hear him, this meek little asking-for-forgiveness young boy within me who projected his voice just enough to be heard and no more since he knew the game. I hated him, but I needed him at the same time… She would not stop, not now when she knew that she had got me.

The silhouette marched on, just like it had all the other times. It felt as if I was drowning in shallow waters and drowning of my own volition. I could have stopped and walked the other way, but I wanted to be drowning. It was like I needed this moment of weakness to take place, so I could collapse in her arms later and she could save me from myself… so I kept on running after her shadow and the night felt stale.

This was our unspoken arrangement, this dance. Maybe we both needed it, even if we didn’t know why. I just knew that I needed to catch up with her, “Terry, please wait!”  I screamed it this time, and my words filled the street.

As I was getting closer to her, there he was, a random guy sitting on a brick stoop, reclining effortlessly with his one leg extended. A man at ease, smoking. One arm was bent at the elbow and leaning on his folded leg, the other one that was holding the cigarette was extended, pointing upwards to the sky, releasing smoke signals to the Gods of the night. As I stormed past him he giggled, so I stopped.

“Why are you running after her? She is just a flusy… there is so much flusy here, go find another one…” Thanks for the wisdom, drunk-sounding agony uncle. I could have spared him a second to offer sarcasm or longer if I’d felt like it, but he was not sex and she was.

Sex was the next stage in this little drama. I wanted it, she wanted it, and the drama wanted it, because it pressed reset on all the tension, like a thunderstorm always does. A good bang always cleared the air, the scores in the great game always went back to 0-0 and we were ready to restart the power struggle on an equal footing.

With hindsight I can see this event and all the others like it for what they were. A rhythmic cycle of boyish responses to girlish actions, all necessary hurdles to jump over on the way to becoming an adult man. And maybe also all those little dramas were part of the surreal mysticism which cropped up in practical life. Maybe I needed to follow the vulgar man trope through that stale night towards the silhouette of a woman who I thought meant comfort, until I finally found a way to get past her and carry on going towards something better. The man on the wall could have been my future Self, trying to remind me that I have to shrug off my old ways and cut the umbilical cord, although he could have tried to sound a little more dignified about it.