Pals

I saw my new favorite friend at the gym yesterday.  I don't know what else to call her.  We are not really friends.  Gym pals, I guess.  The tall ex-college athlete one.  Forty-nine.  Two children who are both college athletes, and the husband who is her physical equal, tall, lean. . . but not nearly as friendly.  They have money, and I am absolutely certain our ideologies lie at opposite poles.  I was talking to The Judge when she walked in and grabbed the bench between us.  

"Hey, how are you doing?"

"Better now.  This is the best part of my day so far.  I'm glad you are here.  You're fun."

I said this last part in reference to our previous conversation concerning my mother and her dying father.  Not fun.  But, you know, we kind of bonded a tiny little bit then in a small way.  

"Well," exclaimed The Judge, "it's not everyday you get a greeting like that!"

The Judge has an appreciation of feminine beauty.  

So we kibitzed and worked out, and in a minute, one of the real Gym Characters came over.  It is T's fault.  Before he left town, he sicked her on me, told her all sorts of lies, and now she assumes we are tight.  More than.  She wears the most hideously revealing clothes.  She is close to my age, and her skin has been left to dry and wrinkle in the sun.  She is a very dark brown, with bleach blonde hair, and xtra large breasts.  She wears brief, wide legged shorts that shows everything up to her hoo-hoo, hobbles with a bad knee, and just wants me to hug her.  Maybe not just.  She told me she wants to move into my apartment, said she would pay double what I am charging now.  I told her I didn't like to hug a few days ago, said I was a germaphobe, but that hasn't stopped her.  

"I don't have any germs," she said.  

Her outsanding feature is a bottom tooth that grows up about 3/4" above the rest.  It is there my eyes always light when she speaks.  Otherwise she is a mess of makeup, blue eyeshadow, etc.  She is, in every way, New York to Miami in the 1980s.  

Very.  

Having said all that, she is absolutely the nicest woman you would want to meet, sweet and really caring, so I am always sweet as apple butter back.  What can you do?  That is really all you can ask from someone, right?  Just be nice.  

I was sitting on the bench when she came up and hugged my head into her big ole bosom.  Out of the corner of my eye, I could see the tall woman smiling, her head straight ahead but her eyes cutting toward the scene.  Oh, it was a great and not too subtle smile.  She was really enjoying the show.  

The lady with the tooth kept on talking for quite awhile before she waddled away.  Sweet woman, as I say.  God love her.  

Then I turned to my New Pal.  

"What?"

"I think she wants a date," she giggled.  

"You think?"

"I can make that happen for you," she laughed.  

"Thanks, pal.  She likes to hug.  I told her I wasn't a hugger, that I was a germaphobe."

"Really?  I'll keep that in mind."

O.K.  At this point I was trying hard not to think what I was thinking, but it only barely worked.  

She ran with the whole scene for awhile.  Maybe she was enjoying this too much.  Maybe I wanted to prove something. . . so I told her the story about the pretty twenty-six year old who asked me out followed by the story about the McDonald's girl thinking my mother was my wife.  

Yea. . . I know.  

"Well," she said when I was finished, "your mother is closer to your age." 

Again that evil grin.  

So I told her more.  I'm shy, I said.  I can't take rejection. 

"Really?  We'll have to work on that."

Hmm.  

I didn't want her to get the wrong impression, though, so I explained that I had never asked a woman out.

"They always ask you out?" she queried.  

"Yea. . . but don't think it happens much.  There are years and years. . . ."  

Alain came up while we were talking and joined in the conversation.  

"She's saying she can get me a date with The Tooth."

No, I don't call her that other than here.  I used her name.  

I told him. . . oh hell. . . I'll make one up-- that Lucy said she wanted to rent my apartment. 

"Your tenant's moving?"

"No."

Something came up and I made a jab at my New Pal.

"Oh heck no. She's as old as you."

Alain was taken aback, eyes wide, lips pursed.  

"Oh, it's o.k.  She's one of us."

I took the chance.  

When I said I had to hurry now, that I had a 12:30 lunch date, they said in unison, "How old is she?"  Alain was impressed.  

"She got that out quicker than I did."

"He's my age," I said. 

And with that, I tore myself away.  I like having a new female friend.  I much prefer them to men.  

I showered and made it to the restaurant right on time.  C.C. had yet to arrive.  The place was fairly empty.  I told the barmaid that I had a friend coming and ordered a beer.  In few minutes, C.C. walked in.  We ordered the prix fixe luncheon special as usual.  C.C. had brought me a present from Ohio. 

"Is it groundhog?  Possum?  Is it a toy?"

It was a 1926 edition of "Tarzan of the Apes," the first in the long series of Tarzan novels written by Edgar Rice Burroughs.  C.C. explained how he came upon it, and said, "When I saw it, I thought you would like it.  I read the novel online at Google Books or something.  The writing is crude but pretty good." 

I told him I had read the series when I was a kid.  I've told him (and you) before that the Johnny Weissmuller film is an absolutely brilliant classic, an existential study of man and nature.  It is hardly what you would expect.  

We ate and drank, the only two at the usually crowded bar.  Only two tables were occupied.  The place, once a hotspot, didn't seem to be doing so well now.  The lunch was subpar.  

"Things are going to hell here, it seems," I said. 

"It's the economy, stupid." 

By two, we had paid up.  C.C. needed to get home.  There were things to do before he left for NYC in the morning.  He would be out of town, mostly, for the rest of the year and much of the spring, too.  I probably wouldn't see him again for another year.  Maybe more.  Who could tell?  

We walked to the parking lot and said our goodbyes.  I sat inside my car.  The air was warm and I was sleepy.  I wanted to get home and lie down.  

When I wije up, it was almost time to go back to my mother's.  I had a call.  It was the tenant. 

"I just wanted to see how you were doing.  How's your mom?"

Same old conversation I have everywhere.  

"If you ever need anythin with your mother, I'll be glad to help."

"How about October."

"What?"

"Can you do October?"

"The whole month?"

"Yes.  October would be helpful."

I despair of ever going out of town again.  You can have no idea.  It would be impossible to even try to imagine.  And so I focus on small things: having lunch; making a new friend.  

And so this is my life, like the photos, just an empty sign in a threatening sky, a blankness full of nothing, "with no expression, nothing to express." 

But I am doing the best I can turning nothing into something.  I have to lie a little and perform some slight of hand, but all writing is lying anyway, by and large, if it is to have any flavor.  

And sometimes, though not as much as once upon a time. . . there is music.