The monotony of it was occasionally overpowering. Little things became very important — taking my shirts to the laundry was a big thing, even if Toy Lee didn’t have much to say to me when I handed him my shirts or picked them up. A haircut was a big deal. I never bought much of anything, but I window-shopped constantly, furnishing an apartment mentally and buying a whole new wardrobe in my mind.
It wasn’t enough.
There were needs, basic and human needs. The need for a woman, of course. I hadn’t had a woman since Mona left. I suppose there were opportunities for that — lonely women nursing cups of lukewarm coffee at the lunch counter, whores walking up and down Broadway, that sort of thing. But I hardly knew where to begin.
I was out of practice. Two years of marriage plus a year of courtship added up to three years without another woman than Mona. The role of wolf was a foreign one; I would have felt ridiculous approaching a girl.
The need for someone to talk to was even more important, actually. Living alone, eating alone, never talking about anything more far-reaching than the weather or the murders in the tabloids — this didn’t make for the world’s most stimulating existence. I didn’t know anybody, didn’t get any letters or write any.
But no single need seemed to be important enough for me to do anything about it. If I had needed a woman badly enough, I suppose I would have found one who would have been obliging. If I had needed a friend badly enough, it’s logical to guess that I would have found one over the counter at Grace’s or over a beer at Green’s. I read somewhere that a man gets anything in the world if he wants it badly enough. But I couldn’t even want anything, not deeply enough for it to matter inside, where it counted.
So it was mid-June, and I dried myself with warm air from the window and boiled water in the teakettle on the hot plate. The water boiled and the kettle whistled. I spooned instant coffee into a white china cup and poured water on it. I stirred it with a spoon, set it on the sill to cool and looked out across the courtyard at somebody’s washing. When the coffee was cool I drank it, then washed out the cup in the bathroom and put it away.
I walked down three flights of stairs as usual, stole a look at the heap of mail as usual — which was silly, since no one on Earth knew my address — and, as usual, walked out of the building and down the steps.
Outside, a damned fine day was finishing up. There’s a line in a song that goes I like New York in June. How about you? and it makes good sense. New York is eminently likable in June with the air warm and the skies generally clear. Later in the summer it gets too hot, far too hot, but in June it’s better than any other time. The sky was clear as good gin and the air even smelled clean. I took deep breaths of it and felt good.
I walked around the corner to the candy store and exchanged a dime for a copy of the Post. Then I wandered over to the park and found an empty bench to sit on while I made my way through the paper to find out what if anything was new in the world. Nothing much was. Some politicians were trying to decide to cut out nuclear tests without managing to accomplish much of anything, some local crime commissions were investigating some local crime, God was in his heaven and all was wrong with the world.
There were only two stories that I read all the way through. One told about a young mother in Queens who had meticulously removed her husband’s genitals with a grapefruit knife; the other reported on a teenager in Flatbush who’d gotten jealous over his girlfriend and then cut off her breasts with a switchblade. I thought that the two of them ought to get together, and then I thought that the New York Post ought to be ashamed of itself; and then I thought that maybe I ought to be ashamed of myself. I threw the paper in a trashcan and left the park before dark. Only mad dogs and Englishmen walk in Central Park after the sun goes down.
I bought a bag of peanuts from a sad-looking peanut vendor at the 72nd Street gate. It was an ordinary day, this time an ordinary day with peanuts. I ate the peanuts and threw the shells in the gutter. I kept walking.
I thought about things. Maybe Dr. Strom had either shot his wad or accomplished his mission in life. Maybe it was due time for me to get the hell out of New York and back to Louisville where I belonged. The Police Beat at the Times was infinitely more exciting than slinging hash at Grace’s Lunch. The house on Crescent Drive was far more livable than the brownstone on 73rd Street. Ted Lindsay, Reporter was a considerably more exciting individual than Ted Lindsay, Nobody.
Perhaps I was cured. Now I could go back to my home and settle down again, take an apartment a few blocks from the Times Building and get my old job back: Hanovan would find work for me, even push some deserving bum out in order to get me back where I belonged. All I had to do was ask him.
I thought about this, and I thought about other things, and I thought about how nice it would be to feel alive again. And then I saw the girl.
2
The impact of the girl defies description. It wasn’t just the femaleness of her — she had the effect that anything impossibly striking and beautiful can have upon a person. I suppose a sailor who hasn’t seen dry land in years might react the way I did when he catches a glimpse of shoreline. She was all the seven wonders of the world rolled into one, a symphony of beauty, and for several eternal seconds I couldn’t breathe or move. I could only look at her and be happy that she was there.
How do you describe something lovely? Summarizing the various components doesn’t do the trick; in this case the whole is a great deal more than the sum of its separate parts. I can tell you that her hair was black as sin, that she wore it short and pixyish. I can tell you that her skin was as white as virginity personified, white and clear and pure. She was wearing plaid Bermuda shorts that showed enough of her legs to assure me that her legs were good from top to bottom. She was wearing a charcoal grey sweater that let me know that legs were not her only strong points.
But that doesn’t do her justice. It shows that she was pretty; that the various parts of her were in good order. It doesn’t show the girl herself, the beauty of her, the radiant quality that reached with both hands across the width of 73rd Street like a human magnet, reached me and grabbed me and would not let go.
You have to get the picture. I was on the downtown side of 73rd Street on my way back from the 72nd Street entrance to the park. She was on the uptown side of the street, walking west the same as I was, going from God-knew-where to God-knew-where. She was walking fairly quickly. I couldn’t walk because I was too busy looking at her.
Then I was able to walk again. I followed her — not consciously, not purposely, but without even being able to think about it. She walked and I walked and my eyes must have burned two small holes in the back of that sweater that so intimately hugged the top half of her body.
She waited for the light at the corner of Columbus. So did I. But I didn’t look at the light. I looked at her, and when she started across the street I crossed in step with her. My eyes stayed with her.
Her walk was poetry, her body music, the toss of her head pure ballet. I found myself hoping she’d go on walking clear over to the Hudson so that I could go on with her. I think if she had walked to the edge of the river and had proceeded to hotfoot it across to Jersey I would have followed until I drowned. For the first time I understood how those rats and mice felt when they followed the Pied Piper of Hamelin. They simply couldn’t help themselves.