Romance, Take Two...
There's been more death in my neighborhood. I first saw the headliner scrolling under the manicured nails of the CBS newscaster last night. It said two men were found shot to death in Harlem. It was accompanied by other boroughs' news. (A borough is what we New Yorkers call one of the five sections that make up New York City. Manhattan is the chief cook and bottle washer of the Five). It made me wonder if I would have seen those headliners scroll if I were watching the CBS news from Trenton. After all, it was still the New York station which I was getting through cable TV, but I never really noticed how city-specific the CBS news is until I moved here. I guess it's due to the fact that I am so much more affected by events here.

Anyway, tonight on NY1, I got the details on the deaths. They were found dead with bulletholes in their heads in a building only one mere street away from me. The broadcaster refused to mention how drug-related that sounded. I'm telling you, reading Grace Edwards' Mali Anderson mystery books are doing NOTHING for my sense of security. Yes I picked up another one, called "If I Should Die", which actually came before the one I already read. Again, the police are given quite a nasty once-over, even though the protagonist's love interest is a detective. Ms. Edwards asserts through one of her characters that Harlem was known as the 'Gold Coast' because the police all knew that they could get rich if they managed to come to Harlem by busting drug traffickers and pocketing some proceeds. Well, in typing that out, it actually seems like an okey-doke to me. I don't care what the cops do with the money they find, as long as they bust up the drug rings. As long as they do their jobs.

But I guess what Ms. Edwards is saying throughout the rest of the book is that the police aren't doing anything long-term to solve the crime and clean the streets--they are just making easy targets of lowlifes. They are portrayed as people who dislike the population they "work for", therefore do crappy jobs and protect no one and nothing but their own financial futures.

I'm not trying to hear that.

The other night I was hanging with some city friends who all happen to share the distinction of being white, and they brought up the incident of the housing cop shooting the kid on the roof of the projects a few weeks ago. Being the loud opinionated guys they are, and having no small amount of booze in them, they proceeded to say how they'd have done the same thing if they were in the cop's position. This wasn't a unanimous opinion. Others tried to offer 'shoot to wound' as an alternative. When I am--and very often I am--the only black person in the group and a discussion like that begins, I feel comfortable enough to take the unpopular and probably expected counterpoint. When I was in Missouri, I actually was able to educate some of those good ol' boys. But through all that re-educating, I learned that some people never learn. So I try to do less of that, and mainly just get off my chest what I want to say. I figured since the conversation was freely started with me there right there in the midst, they want to hear my opinion.

I do try to be even-handed, since I do want to keep these myriad of white people as friends. But I had to ask them, "When has there been a white guy shot by the police before any weapons were drawn? Just name one." There was a cinematic silence before the defenses began. "The black deaths get more press," was offered.

I think they genuinely did not want to believe the worst of the police. Just as I genuinely do not. These cops are patrolling my neighborhood right now, 2 x 2. This is supposed to be a good thing. I WANT to be safe. I DON'T do any drugs.

But if there's a possibility that I'm going to get destroyed by a hail of police-issued bullets because the police see a criminal when they look at my skin color, I want my white friends to KNOW that. If the account of my death scrolls across the screen one night, I want my white friends to curse the police--not defend them and wonder aloud if I was actually running drugs in my spare time.
Why did I start this topic with an account of racism and fear? That has nothing to do with romance, does it?

Hehe. For me, I guess so.

I quit my 2nd job finally. I was able to let it go when my client got a replacement for me. I had to work an extra month longer than I planned to, but today was my first real weekend day free. So I took off walking through my old neighborhood on Riverside Drive, and kept going as far south as Grant's Tomb. I think of the area between 145th and 125th on Riverside as Spanish Harlem because of the overwhelming culture there. When it gets to Riverside Church and Grant's Tomb, though, it turns into Soap Opera Row. That is, it seems like only Soap Opera stars live on Riverside Drive below 125th. They are such beautiful, athletic people constantly jogging along there. Both women and men. And they are predominantly white. Well, can I tell you that they were out there jogging today too?
I mean, it IS Valentine's Day. And it WAS below 45 degrees. But something I've noticed along my travels--white people will strip in a New York minute. I made this comment to a white buddy of mine on moving day a month and some days ago, and he could only laugh. (I was trying to identify white people in the neighborhood for him so he could feel safer while helping me. Whenever I saw light-colored skin, I'd point them out to him, but he'd say, "That's a Puerto Rican." Until I saw one white guy in shorts. I said, "Now you know THAT'S a white guy. Only white people wear shorts when there's the slightest hint that the weather is going to be above freezing." He could not deny!)
White people seem to be so comfortable with themselves in public. I envy that. I guess it's us that makes them uncomfortable.

Anyway, on to the romance.

There was a woman playing a bongo in Riverside Park as I walked. She seemed angry, though. She was awright--I wouldn't say she was as good as some of the Subway performers I pass in my travels. And she seemed to be beating some frustration out on that bongo skin. After all it IS Valentine's Day. Why was she alone on Riverside Drive, playing a lone bongo in 45 degree weather? When I made eye-contact, I got no hint of smile from her. Now, I can coax a smile out of most people when I maintain eye-contact with those I stride by. (Time was I'd avert my gaze, but I figure, hey, I want to look at all these beautiful people, and when they look back, they want to look at me too. So let's look at one another. And while we're at it, let's smile. Why not?)

Listening to her bongo receding as I walked on, I reckoned she might have thought the same of me. Where was MY honey? Why was I strolling along with nothing more intimate hugging me than my headphones? At least if I were jogging I'd have an excuse. In hindsight I realized that she was right to be suspicious. I was obviously as lonely as she was.

Funny, at that moment, CD 101.9 was playing Tina Turner's version of "Let's Stay Together". So although I wasn't growing depressed, I was thinking of all the who's I would be singing that song to on a Valentine's Day. There wasn't anyone. I didn't want to stay together with anyone. With one half a brain I thought, 'Yes, it's sad that I'm alone on this holiday', but with the other half I thought, 'I'm still somehow having a good time. I'm not under any performance pressure today, unlike the male half of every couple I see.'

I stayed wrapped up in my jaded and cynical cocoon for quite a few hours after that. The sun was shining, people were smiling, lunch in my favorite restaurant on 110th and Broadway was delicious, and I'd scored two old valuable comics for only $6.00 at a sidewalk vendor. Haaaa-CHA!

Then my cellphone buzzed just as I hit the corner of Duke Ellington Blvd. and West End Avenue.

Mind you, I had already wanted to call many buddies today to find out what amusements I could get myself into on my first free Saturday, but then realized that all those who had honeys would be busy today, all day. At least, they would if they knew what was good for them. So I had taken off walking instead.

I couldn't guess who was calling me, but in my gut I knew it had something to do with the holiday. It felt like it was too scripted to be real--that is, if I were writing the scene in a book, I wouldn't have made an ex-girlfriend call the protagonist during a lonely, taciturn Valentine's Day on Broadway, for fear of the cheese factor.

Well, first of all, it wasn't my last girlfriend. As I discussed previously, she has other plans today, which mainly consists of getting on with her life after me.

But it was a girl who was a friend of mine about two years ago. I had met her at the wedding of another childhood friend for whom I was Best Man. She had come away from the event thinking indeed that I was the Best Man there. It was a sleepover event for all involved, so we had time to do the midnight-hours talk in the stairwell of the hotel. The next day, I drove her home from Mid-Jersey to Brooklyn, so we had another hours-long conversation. It was very nice and I found her to be vivacious and funny. Very intelligent and spirited. Everything that makes me lose myself. We chatted on the computer for days and days after, and telephone conversated for hours. Certainly had the makings of a nice start.

But then she dropped the L-Bomb on me.

See, you thought I was being an egomaniac when I made the "Best Man" comment! But she really told me that she had fallen in love with me.

Scared me to death. I disengaged like a scalded rodent. I am disgusting like that.

I can't recall how much I've already blogged about my emotional abilities but I can give a summary. When it comes to "fear of commitment" I am a SuperMale. Most guys can focus in on a goal they want to achieve with a woman and fight their fear long enough to 1) get into a relationship and, 2) marry their chick.

But I am no ordinary man.

If someone is afraid of heights, what do you think their reaction would be if they woke up on a window-washer's scaffolding 80 stories above Manhattan?

If someone is deathly afraid to fly, would skydiving be a hobby they'd choose?

So after two or three weeks of getting to know a girl long-distance, what do you think my reaction would be to hear her tell me she is in love with me?

That's the best I can explain it. Yes, I know women are more emotional than most men. Yes I know "love at first sight" is a valid, acceptable concept. Yes, I know I overreacted. So too do I know that there are many window-washers in Manhattan who swing thousands of feet in the air with very little mooring them to safety. But none of them are ME.

I can't do it like that. I'm a scarred person. (No, not "scarred" like southern rap's "Don't be scarred--I like the way you do that right tharr." "Scarred" as in Christ on the cross in Mel Gibson's "The Passion.")

Nevertheless, she called me today. She had many kind words to say to me about what she remembered about me. On the surface, she wasn't calling for a romantic hook-up because she has recently suffered extreme losses in her life, and she sounded as though she was swimming back to the surface of sanity. Somehow, I was in the mix of that. I had probably left her with some strange aftertaste because my withdraw tactics are legend. Unfortunately, I've left many a lady puzzled in my wake due to my near-psychotic relationship escapes. I've gone emotionally catatonic, drawing into the foetal position, and begging God to just let them go away so I don't have to cause or feel any more pain. Worked well for me, but for them, not so much. I never cared that the women needed to talk about whatever's going on, especially when it means that the one they love wants out.

Having realized all this about myself a few months ago due to some therapy I underwent--Yay therapy! I'm for it!--I offered this gal my e-mail address so we could reconnect.

Why did I do this?

Me at 2/14/2004 09:20:00 PM

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