Through various circumstances, I find myself alone, riding uptown on the subway, positively drunk as a skunk. I’m feeling woozy, sleepy, leaning against the shaky door as we slowly climb towards 137th street. I’m thinking about the past evening, one of those very long, winding, multi-tiered nights with several cleanly deviated chapters (bound together only be the residual alcohol in my blood from one location to the next).
There is a young lady standing next to me. This is not to say that I noticed her while I was riding- I was too consumed with my own thoughts, as well as the ebb and flow of the train itself. However, at a certain point, she initiates a conversation. I don’t remember too much about it, but I believe she was from The Dominican Republic (with an accent to prove it), hoping to attend Columbia to get her masters in something (don’t ask me what), and lives up around 171st and Broadway, a few stops past me. I do recall that her age was a bit of a mystery, even then. She could have been twenty-five or she could have been thirty-five, it was hard to tell. In any case, we talked on the train for awhile (for the most part, I believe, she talked; I nodded and tried my best to stay awake and disguise my slovenly state). Then, at the very end of the train ride, right as we were pulling into my station, I asked for her phone number. This ranks as just about the ballsiest thing I have ever done, and as I stumbled home I was exceedingly proud of myself.
I should try and clarify why this was such a momentous event for me. In all my life, every girl that I’ve ever dated (that vast, untold sum) has been someone who I knew, previously, as a friend. In fact, now that I’m thinking about it, I would say that this applies to not just any girl I’ve ever dated, but any girl that I’ve ever done anything with (besides, you know, sit next to on a couch and talk about Wes Anderson movies). For a time I was under the impression that this was just the way of the world, that a gestation period was a necessary component for me when it came to any kind of seduction (if seduction is the right term for this arduous process, defined more by perseverance and gamesmanship than anything resembling charm).
What I didn’t count on during that blissful, mildly nauseous stumble home was the next task at hand. I had to actually make the phone call.
After pacing around my room for about twenty minutes, an experience horribly reminiscent of High School, I dialed the number.
I heard the familiar click of a phone going to voicemail, and instantly felt waves of relief wash over me. Yes, I was feeling mighty good, for a whole two or three seconds. Then the actual voicemail came on. It was a man. A man with a very thick accent. I could barely understand what he was saying, but he sounded older. Definitely older. Certainly old enough to kick my ass, probably even old enough to kill me
I hang up. My heart is still beating pretty hard, and I’m confused and disappointed and relieved and, perhaps more than anything else, desperate to tell someone. Mike is home, so I let him know what happened. He asks, reasonably, what the message said. I tell him that I didn’t really pay attention. I ascertained that it was a male voice, and then hung up. But maybe this was a mistake. Mike assures me that it was definitely a mistake. Who knows what the voicemail actually said? It could have been anything!
Hi, this is Tony, you might not recognize my voice, but that’s because I’ve been through some sort of really awful tragedy and lost everything that matters to me, and now my really generous sister has allowed me to live with her and use her phone. She is also available and extremely attractive, even in the sober light of day. Leave a message.
After a very short deliberation, I decide to call again, this time putting it on speakerphone. That way, Mike and I can both listen to the message (after all, four ears and two brains are better than two and one, especially if the latter combination belongs to me). I call again. Put it on speakerphone. It rings a few times.
Then she answers.
Hello? I turn to Mike with a look of sheer horror. Hello? Answer it, Mike mouths to me, his arms in the air. Hello? I look to the phone as though it’s a ticking bomb, then back to Mike. His eyes are big and white and he looks ready to burst. Hello?
Hi, is this Katarina? I turn off speakerphone and yank the device to my ear. I throw out one possible pronunciation of her name, caution already in the wind. Hi this is Joel, we met the other night on the subway. It sounds so trite when I say it. But at the same time, my breathing has suddenly steadied itself. I’m talking calmly, confidently. Something has changed. In the old days, I would be shaking like a goose in preparation for calling a girl, but then it was the actual phone call that really tortured me. Pacing around the room, sweating, regretting everything I said the moment after I said it. I had been nervous as hell right before making the call, nervous in a way that really felt like High School, but now I was doing fine, hell, better than fine!
Oh Joel yes how are you? She laughs as she says it, clearly surprised that I called. Her accent is also a lot thicker than I remembered it. No wonder the details of our conversation on Friday night had been so foggy. She’s hard enough to understand without any alcohol. Images of us our dinner flood into my mind; every sentence she utters punctuated by a sharp “WHAT?” from me as I lean forward, cup my ear, and perform every other stupid perfunctory gesture to try and make it seem like the issue at hand is volume and not, in reality…
Well Katarina, I don’t usually do this, but I was wondering if you’d like to have dinner with me sometime? Not bad, not bad. I shouldn’t have said “I don’t usually do this.” That’s such a cliché, makes me seem unsure and weak. But other than that, I kept my voice steady, I didn’t garble any words or stutter or go up into a creaky falsetto on accident. I said it, the band aid was off.
Ok! She says. Why not?
There it is. Why not. She says this, and I pump my fist, because that’s what you’re supposed to do in these kinds of situations. But in reality, inside, I don’t feel especially happy. I feel uneasy. All that nervous energy and anxiety I had right before the phone call starts to come back. I still won’t be able to recognize her, I think to myself. And now I know for a fact I won’t be able to understand her. And there was a man at the end of her voicemail. And for God’s sake, she’s probably forty-five years old and married with a big family!
We talk for another thirty-forty seconds. She tells me that she’s at a bar with friends from the Dominican Republic, information that I didn’t ask for, so for a moment I’m terrified that she’s inviting me to meet her there. I try to set a night for the date (because at this point I am committed, the sweat caked my forehead notwithstanding). She says she'll call me tomorrow. I hang up the phone. That’s that.
The Rest
I wish I could tell you that this story goes on and culminates, as it would if my life had any kind of solid dramatic construction, with the actual date. But this mysterious young- slash-old lady did not call me the next day, or the day after. And say what you will, but at this point I wasn't going to reach out again.
I’m surprised that I wrung this much out of what, really, doesn’t amount to much of a story. Thinking back on it, though, it was definitely a memorable experience for me, at least psychologically speaking. I guess this is the closest thing to time travel that we have today, feeling like yourself eight years ago and yourself in an idyllic future and yourself today all in the span of a weekend. Sort of. Don’t think about that analogy too much, it starts to fall apart almost instantly.
