Dear Ms. _________? March 30, 2013
I find you intriguing. I know it would be best if we were formally introduced but I can’t arrange that. You may have to accept the document below as my best introduction:
Go
And do not linger
Unfulfilled, my dream and hope.
Burst, bubble.
Burst
Or freeze and crackle.
Be a bauble I can hold and show
Without a fear
Of shattering.
c.1969 J. S. Manista
Perhaps we could meet over coffee at Le Petit Triangle after work someday if tonight isn’t available?
Whatever your decision, know I mean no offense.
[Epilogue:
Today, after numerous trips to the library this last week to pick up or return DVDs of various movies I had charted to see, having missed them the first time around, she was at the desk. Regrettably I had already placed La Strada and Get Carter in the section listed "Place Returns Here." Quickly I looked about among "Recent Arrivals" displays and nervously grabbed one on artificial intelligence and another on cyber-hacking.
I returned to the checkout desk only to find she had disappeared while my back was turned. Behind the counter now was a young black man who offered to help me. I couldn't quite refuse--"No, I'll wait for the white girl," would have sent the wrong message entirely. She was nowhere in sight so I let him register my selections. Confounded and unable to forge Plan B, I left--which made it a short without a story.
Back home I went through the mail, trashed the waste, paid a bill, leashed Loki, and resigned to think it over as together we searched nearby Fairview Park for those precious golden nuggets of recycled dog food that were due. As we walked--Loki darting after chicken bones in the grass, me pulling him away--the lines from one of my earliest poems came to me as just the vehicle to engender in any woman sufficient curiosity about my intelligence, sensitivity, taste, and passion to--at a bare minimum--give me the time of day. I hoped at least to alter the paradigm of library procedure enough to get my rather miserable foot out of my mouth and into the door--so to speak.
Home again I crafted the letter and planned to place it into one the books I had so hastily chosen sticking out enough to merit its removal, hopefully, its examination. I wouldn't have had to say a word. I even considered including check-off boxes:
Yes. Meet me at 6:15 PM tonight at the cafe.
Not Tonight, but call me at (___)___-____ this weekend
Never in a Million Years. Get out of my life, you filthy old sot.
But I really wanted her to keep the poem so I thought about putting the boxes below a tear line with advice "Keep the poem as a souvenir of this egregiously laughable event."
I went through a zillion apprehensive scenarios from the instant of conceiving this plan--each outcome getting grimmer--right up to the point of delivery:
Nice poem, but I prefer women.
Poem stinks; makes me prefer women.
My boyfriend will meet you for a boilermaker, in the alley, behind the bar.
If you're the best I can do on a Saturday night I should kill myself now.
Intermittently though I also imagined a few positive responses:
She reads the letter, winks, folds it carefully, tucks it into her bra, and tells me to wait
in a chair in the reading room with the others.
She reads the letter, bursts into uncontrolled laughter, agrees to meet saying,
"I love weirdos."
She reads the letter, tells her colleague to take her line as she is leaving early
and to tell her boyfriend she has met the man of her dreams and will be sending for
her clothes sometime over the weekend.
[Epilogue:
Today, after numerous trips to the library this last week to pick up or return DVDs of various movies I had charted to see, having missed them the first time around, she was at the desk. Regrettably I had already placed La Strada and Get Carter in the section listed "Place Returns Here." Quickly I looked about among "Recent Arrivals" displays and nervously grabbed one on artificial intelligence and another on cyber-hacking.
I returned to the checkout desk only to find she had disappeared while my back was turned. Behind the counter now was a young black man who offered to help me. I couldn't quite refuse--"No, I'll wait for the white girl," would have sent the wrong message entirely. She was nowhere in sight so I let him register my selections. Confounded and unable to forge Plan B, I left--which made it a short without a story.
Back home I went through the mail, trashed the waste, paid a bill, leashed Loki, and resigned to think it over as together we searched nearby Fairview Park for those precious golden nuggets of recycled dog food that were due. As we walked--Loki darting after chicken bones in the grass, me pulling him away--the lines from one of my earliest poems came to me as just the vehicle to engender in any woman sufficient curiosity about my intelligence, sensitivity, taste, and passion to--at a bare minimum--give me the time of day. I hoped at least to alter the paradigm of library procedure enough to get my rather miserable foot out of my mouth and into the door--so to speak.
Home again I crafted the letter and planned to place it into one the books I had so hastily chosen sticking out enough to merit its removal, hopefully, its examination. I wouldn't have had to say a word. I even considered including check-off boxes:
Yes. Meet me at 6:15 PM tonight at the cafe.
Not Tonight, but call me at (___)___-____ this weekend
Never in a Million Years. Get out of my life, you filthy old sot.
But I really wanted her to keep the poem so I thought about putting the boxes below a tear line with advice "Keep the poem as a souvenir of this egregiously laughable event."
I went through a zillion apprehensive scenarios from the instant of conceiving this plan--each outcome getting grimmer--right up to the point of delivery:
Nice poem, but I prefer women.
Poem stinks; makes me prefer women.
My boyfriend will meet you for a boilermaker, in the alley, behind the bar.
If you're the best I can do on a Saturday night I should kill myself now.
Intermittently though I also imagined a few positive responses:
She reads the letter, winks, folds it carefully, tucks it into her bra, and tells me to wait
in a chair in the reading room with the others.
She reads the letter, bursts into uncontrolled laughter, agrees to meet saying,
"I love weirdos."
She reads the letter, tells her colleague to take her line as she is leaving early
and to tell her boyfriend she has met the man of her dreams and will be sending for
her clothes sometime over the weekend.
Between punishing myself with the thought that I would deserve everything I would get as no one but an old fool would even try this stunt and challenging myself with the thought I've always looked 'way younger than my age and that I wouldn't be able ever again to face a mirror if I chickened out, I hemmed and hawed but ultimately printed the letter, waited out the time just before closing, considered turning around as I ascended the library steps, peered through the glass to confirm her presence, opened the door now flying on automatic pilot.
Both she and the black clerk were checking books out. Each had a patron. I chose to wait in her line. Of course his patron finished first and again he offered to help me. I smiled and indicated with a hand gesture I really wanted to stay in her line. He got it, gave me a smile in return, and busied himself until other patrons came up.
As her patron walked away I stepped up and felt it necessary to say, "This is not a usual circumstance," as I looked her dead in the eye. She replied, "You're returning these?" as she observed the note stemming provocatively from the top book. "That's for you to read," I said diffidently.
She read it and smiled: "No." She took the books as returned.
Again, I thought to speak: "I couldn't live with myself if I hadn't tried."
"No harm," she said. I felt people were watching us intently especially the nearby staff. I thought she blushed and smiled as I walked away.
I think she kept the poem. I hope she keeps the poem. I hope she Googles "J. S. Manista" and comes across this blog. If she finds and reads this I want to tell her, "You are admirably well-mannered for letting me down so graciously. It only adds to the 'intriguing' I first mentioned. I hope we still smile should we see each other again."
When I visited my daughter Emily in Manhattan last year she chided me about approaching young women and asking, "Do you date older men?" Would I want other men of my age so publicly lusting after her? "Emily,"I offered, "I'm not dead even though I am harmless." This wasn't enough; she wanted me wrong and to know I was wrong. I shut up and let her have the last word.
What I should have replied was, "To lust, you have to be capable of lust." I wouldn't have her offended by some coarse remark. She doesn't wear a ring and if some guy is drawn by her beauty (she is beautiful) and wants to get to know her further, she shouldn't be offended by the attention, especially if it's clever and respectful. It's a privilege of beauty and I can't think of a woman who wouldn't be flattered by an occasional appreciation.
But I think I would draw the line at nuns except so many don't wear habits anymore.]
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