Date: Tue, 13 Mar 2007 16:43:26 -0700 (PDT) From: Alex Masters <lxmasters@yahoo.com> Subject: Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters Chapter 1 Until you've seen this trashcan dream come true, You stand at the edge while people run you through: And I thank the Lord there's people out there like you; I thank the Lord there's people out there like you. Chapter 1 The sun had just gone down by the time I got to the Observatory. I wasn't sure about the time, but sundown seemed appropriately cheesy. Or romantic, depending on your spin. I mean, it wasn't cheesy when Cary Grant or Tom Hanks did it. I wasn't either of those guys. And Jimmy himself would have ribbed me unmercifully if it had been my idea. "Cheesy" would have been the least humiliating of the insults he'd have thrown down. But it had been his idea. The guy who didn't believe in love. Thrown out casually, in self-discounting mode, lest I used it to ridicule him. Your typical charm-and-disarm. Above all else, never let them know it means anything to you. That seemed to be his motto. Eighty-six floors up, New York City seemed to sparkle. A collision of the trashy with the transcendent. Costume jewelry, maybe, but trashy or not, it took your breath away. Looking out over the metropolis, then down, I felt a momentary loss of place, an uncertainty about myself and my purpose. I wasn't sure what I was doing here anyway. Could you get more ridiculous than waiting for someone here? But ever since I'd gotten into town two days before, echoes of the summer I'd spent here followed me around and practically pushed me here. This wasn't entirely a pleasure trip, if that's what this part of it could be called. I was here on business, too: an academic seminar. But when I wasn't in a meeting, I was out sightseeing. And remembering. I sighed. I'd probably get stood up. We'd only talked about it that one time, and that was a long, long time ago. Two decades ago, to be exact. Hell, we hadn't even communicated in ten years. What was he now, 50? I was 43 myself, with kids to try to get through college and a "real life" to hold down. He'd probably forgotten about the whole thing. At the time it had been a bittersweet romantic coda to a painful interlude, an interlude in which we tried to pretend that we could make ourselves and our destinies from scratch; that we could pour our whole selves into that singular point of mutual attraction and desire. It was 2003, the September after I'd graduated from college. We were in an IM chat, months after United Airlines had put a safe distance between us. That contact was the first one after I'd gone back to my original plans, the ones I'd thrown out along with my caution, and my girlfriend, and my future, and my sanity, for an impulsive flight to New York, followed by a three-month question-mark we'd briefly attempted to call a relationship. We were chatting about one of his readers, one of the many who thought that reading Jimmy's somewhat-autobiographical tale gave him rights into Jimmy's intimate life. "Maybe I just oughta send him some dirty underwear," he'd typed. "You have that effect on people," I'd responded. The screen stayed blank for half a minute. "It wasn't my decision to end it. You had your life all mapped out." "Bullshit," I typed back. "You weren't ever even completely there. You just held back. And I was getting too deep into it. You made your decision before I made mine. I just went back to my original plan, because you were never serious." "You weren't either, " he typed. "I was just keeping it real." Then, after a pause, he added, seemingly out of nowhere: "So anyway, you need to come up here in twenty years. When we're too old for it to matter. Kate will just have to give you a free pass on this one. Twenty years from this day. Meet me at the top of the Empire State Building. I'll be there. Completely. Just one weekend, okay? I'll make it be what it should have been that summer. Then you can go back to your life." "Anything you say...just like always," I quipped in return. Then I moved the conversation onto something else. He'd told me earlier he was cutting-and-running on College Memories, his little Internet autobiography that had snared hundreds of readers. I decided to turn the subject in that direction. We got into a little online argument: I told him he was being a pussy not to finish it and he told me to mind my own fucking business. From there, we went on to other matters. Before long, the Empire State Building idea was just a false start that had gotten overrun by all the other conversation threads. But I never forgot. And in my secret wounded heart, right up to this night, I harbored a hope that he hadn't either. When I'd almost given up that hope, and had decided to leave, I heard the elevator doors open. I watched as he stepped out, and I felt that old feeling--the ridiculous, completely illogical, stricken feeling that had swept over me the first time I'd read the first chapter of College Memories. Incredible how that stayed with me, twenty-some-odd years after the first reading. I called out to him. "Jimmy." He turned his head and looked my way. When he recognized me, his greeted me with a cynical smile. "So you don't even have the guts to pick up the fuckin' phone and call me, but you can get on a plane and fly across the country like some desperate lovesick woman." "Yeah, I notice I'm not up here by myself, dickhead." I extended my hand, but he pulled me into a hug. We slapped each other on the back as we released; a totally pointless disclaimer, I thought to myself. And a lie, at that. I looked him over. God, the years had been good to him. My dick tightened in appreciation. He pulled me close to him again, leaned in slowly, and kissed me. Tenderly. And with love, this time. After all these years. "Remember what I promised," he said softly. I felt as if I were twenty-three again. And, as I smiled, my memories took me back twenty years: New York City, the summer of 2003. --------------------------------- Copyright 2007 by Alex Masters. Well, that's a start. Extended flashback to follow. What do you think? Should I keep going? lxmasters@yahoo.com