I get dehydrated quickly when I go on walks, I replied, and hoping that she’d slip up and tell me the area she lived, I asked, You don’t get out much either do you?
I’m not agoraphobic, but I am a bit of a homebody.
One day, when I casually mentioned that I had a birthday coming up, she wrote back, Let’s do something for your birthday.
Like what?
A visual date, she proposed. At 6 p.m. tonight, I’m going to be on my rooftop holding a wine glass, toasting the western tower of the Bridge. You do the same.
Which bridge?
The Brooklyn.
It’s a date, I replied.
That afternoon I dropped a hundred dollars on a high-powered pair of field glasses. Because she said the western tower I thought that perhaps she was in one of the new high-rises around the South Street Seaport in Manhattan. I arrived a half an hour early and when I walked across the bridge toward the western tower, I spotted a middle-aged woman also holding binoculars. She was in her forties, small, dehydrated, in drab clothes. Nothing to look at, easy to kill. All I could think was, she had the same idea as me. When I approached to make small talk, she suddenly lifted her spy glasses and yelled, “Holy shit!”
When I turned to see what she was looking at, I saw a gentle cascade of grayish feathers.
“What happened?”
“The falcon just grabbed a pigeon.”
“What falcon?” I asked.
“A peregrine falcon nest up there with a fledgling.” She was pointing to a small stone doorway high above the second pillar. By her general demeanor, I knew this Audubon member wasn’t her
I still had fifteen minutes before her toast. I spent the time scanning both sides of the river for any glint of a wine glass. After an hour, feeling empty and pissed, I headed back to Brooklyn and walked to the F train stop at York.
A teenage girl was waiting all alone at the farthest end of the platform. I seriously considered dragging her a few extra feet into the darkness of the tunnel. But before I took a step, I realized the token clerk got a good look at me. If she screamed, there would only be one escape route. I was actually relieved when someone else finally showed up.
Upon arriving home, an e-mail was waiting for me: Happy birthday to you.
I wrote back that I was in agony for her.
Agony?
I know this sounds odd, but I think I’ve fallen in love with you.
That’s funny. Tell me another.
I’m serious. I can’t get you out of my head. I’m always thinking about you. Can’t we just put all the bullshit aside and meet somewhere like two adults? We’ll just have coffee and if you like what you see, we can go on a proper date.
To be quite honest, I’m nothing special to look at. Right now, you claim to be in love with me and we didn’t even meet. I’ve gone on dates with guys who’ve used me in the most degrading ways and then decided never to call me again. Frankly, I don’t even like sex. (I only like what it symbolizes.)
Me neither! We don’t have to have a sexual relationship. I can love you as a friend.
We can be friends on the Internet.
In order to assuage my obsession, and allay my fears of rejection, I need to meet you face to face.
And by meeting you, I stand to lose everything, she replied, as though we were corresponding in some goddamned nineteenth-century epistolary novel like two star-crossed lovers.
I promise, even if you’re old, fat and limbless, if you got bad skin or an overbite, if you smell awful or can’t dress, or your eyes are too close together, or your ears stick out, whatever irregularity or infirmity you got, I will forever maintain our friendship.
I’m sorry but no.
Are you a man? Is that it, because if that is the case, even that I will not mind, but I need to see you.
Please try to understand — I just can’t.
I feel that this is cruel and manipulative on your part and I resent it.
I’ve only adhered to the stated rules of our friendship.
You led me to believe that this relationship would eventually lead somewhere.
And so it has. I feel I know you, and here we are arguing with all the intimacy of old lovers.
Are you married? Or in a relationship?
Not that it matters, but no. Please try to understand that anonymity is for both our sakes.
That is so fucking patronizing! And I resent this mock legal formality as if you have some bullshit authority!
You’re right, I’m sorry, but frankly you’re scaring me.
I don’t mean to, but if I can’t find some resolution to this, you’ll leave me with no recourse other than to cease this relationship as it presently exists.
When did you become such a needy person! The thing I always found most attractive about you was that you always sounded so firm and strong. I took you to be a lone wolf but here you are a braying little lamb.
I didn’t respond.
Perhaps we can work something else out.
I didn’t respond.
Perhaps I can speak to you on the phone. Would that be acceptable? You can give me your number and I’ll call you at some specified time.
I didn’t respond.
What exactly is it you hope to gain from our meeting? If anything, I believe it will kill the love — a word I don’t use lightly — that does exist.
I didn’t respond.
Do you want me to be more vulnerable, is that it?
Though I wanted to respond, I didn’t. I really was half hoping she’d just go away — for her own sake.
Suppose I send you a nude photo of myself — deleting my face of course — my nudity will be fully vulnerable for you to see. If you respond to this, I will e-mail the photo. I will also trust that you won’t simply laugh at my less than perfect body and then never return my messages. This is my last and best offer, and let me assure you that even if we were to meet (which we won’t) you’d never get such a candid view of me. If you don’t reply to this final offer, I will be compelled to bid you farewell and give up this e-mail address.
I finally responded: I am inclined to accept this offer, but I suppose I must do so with a word of caution. In matters of the heart, there are no lies, nor is there right and wrong. Despite all the cliches to the contrary, the heart is a shark. It consumes what it must, and turns its back on what it cannot use. This photo might very well do the trick, and satiate the hunger of obsession, but there is a chance that I will still find myself pining for you. If so, then I’m truly sorry.
Spare me the bad Tennessee Williams prose. If I am going to stand naked before a mirror, and snap a goddamn polaroid of myself, then scan it into my computer and e-mail it to you — some whiny clown whose name I don’t even know — I damn well insist that I get some assurances for it. Specifically promise me that you will continue our correspondence without any more bullshit. Otherwise, goodbye forever.
It wasn’t exactly like I had a lot to lose. Still, in an effort to drive a hard bargain, to get the very most I could, I said, All right, but let me begin by saying, I can spot a phony picture right off. If you do take a self-portrait, I expect it to be well lit, well focused, and in color. In addition to your body, I will require your hair — not just pubic, but head hair. And if you dye your hair or put on a wig, and I sense that too, the deal is off. I understand you don’t want to show your face, fine. But a woman’s hair is very important to me, it allows me to grasp some sense of her character and identity.