by Walter Giersbach © 2007
All rights reserved Wild Child Publishing
Who's to say where love will turn up? Charlie Benson would've had the answer. Love lurks around every corner, he was fond of saying. Trouble is, love usually spotted him first and took off running. Love was a turnstile jumper, a character that would steal his heart and disappear before he realized it was missing.
Charlie was an inch or two shy of average height, wore heavy, black-framed glasses, and kept his hair neatly combed back. He had come of age in that decade before wide ties replaced skinny ones, before Nehru jackets took over suits with narrow lapels, and Boone Farm wine coolers banished brown whiskey. America's floodgates had broken loose culturally, politically and sexually. Charlie realized sometime in 1969 that the world was bigger than his neighborhood in upstate New York, reached escape velocity that summer, and crash-landed on the Lower East Side where I met him. Emerging from culture shock in less than three months, he landed a job at Time-Life and moved to the Upper East Side.
Midtown was where we stayed in touch, and one of those fabled two-hour lunches at Bloomingdale's department store on 59th Street and Lexington was where the unexpected happened.
The quiche Lorraine was the best thing on Bloomingdale's menu at the nine-stool counter on the third floor. That, and a chilled Chablis, was what the too-bronzed, impossibly thin young matrons would order as they dropped their shopping bags and surreptitiously slipped off their high heels. The scent of Chanel and Guerlain and Lancome drifted heavily over the counter.
Charlie was all bubbly and upbeat.
"I got a great tip on finding women," he told me while we were munching our triangles of quiche. "Attend a women's liberation meeting and tell them you're gay." He pursed his bow-shaped lips in satisfaction, the way you might suck a grape off of the vine.
I almost choked when Charlie blurted out that tip. It's not that talking about sex at a public lunch counter makes me anxious. Just terribly alert.
"Charlie, desirable women don't go to bed with gay men." I noticed someone at the end of the counter had nearly dropped her fork. She had Park Avenue money written all over her face, with a touch of South Hampton insouciance around her lipsticked mouth.
"Sure, they do. It immediately gets you over the hurdle of trust. Since gay men aren't a threat, it means you can get right down to establishing a relationship."
"Seems like that would prevent anything from happening. Wilbur Wright got airborne faster at Kitty Hawk than you will with a line like that."
"No, when they learn you're a gay guy, they'll try to cure you of your affliction." Charlie's voice rose as his enthusiasm increased. "This fellow I met at Dorian's bar on Saturday also said he goes into ladies' rooms and writes his telephone number on the stalls. He gives himself four stars, a kind of Zagat rating. I don't think I'd have the courage to do that. Suppose a girl called and she was a disaster, maybe a former weight-lifter at UConn with a dozen roommates."
The woman at the end of the counter pushed her dark glasses back on her auburn hair, cupped her chin in her open hand, and stared directly at the back of Charlie's head. The sundress she wore invited the sun to visit all the right places. A bemused look played cat and mouse with her glossy pink lips.
"This guy you met at the bar," I asked, "he actually makes these lines work?"
Charlie beamed, and his voice grew louder describing each new gambit. "He has over a hundred proven methods for picking up girls. For example, you can go into the waiting room at Planned Parenthood and see which of the girls looks like she needs a shoulder to cry on. Then, you just approach the girl, speak softly, and offer sympathetic support."
Charlie was what you'd call an okay-looking guy, but women examined him the way they'd pick out living room furniture. Was he durable, well-constructed and of reasonable value? More importantly, would he go well with the drapes? This is where Charlie failed. Faded chintz doesn't match mid-century modern.
"Women, Charlie. They're women. Don't call them girls. You're not in Utica anymore." The woman's eyes flickered over mine and then settled on Charlie's back. I wondered what was going through her mind. In fact, a small part of me wanted to explore all of her body parts not exposed by the sundress.
Charlie ignored my advice and went on.
"My friend warned me the Planned Parenthood pickup isn't for someone just looking for a one-night stand. There's the emotional condition of the client, and most abortion clinics recommend a girl wait two weeks before having intercourse."
I was beginning to get an emotional condition myself. One called acute embarrassment. The 1960s were the decade of open-hearted love, just as the '70s were filled with polyester, and the '80s with brash people chasing money and power. But, perhaps because I was a year or so older than my friends or was raised prudishly, I was never able to discuss sex dispassionately, analytically or detached from love. I needed to find an exit road out of this conversational cul de sac.
"Let's get an unbiased opinion, Charlie. I don't want you to make a fool out of yourself. Needlessly." I raised my head toward the patron at the end of the counter. "Miss, I wonder if you could answer a question?"
She lowered her sunglasses and guided them to the tip of her nose, looking awfully like Audrey Hepburn.
"Yes, why not? I was beginning to think this day was a total waste of makeup." Her throaty voice enunciated syllables precisely so they marched out from those lustrous lips in close-order drill.
"Is it a good way to find a date by visiting a feminists' meeting pretending to be a gay sympathizer?"
She thought for a moment. "Let's turn your question upside down. If a woman went to a men's bar pretending to love NASCAR racing and said she'd love to take a man's carburetor apart...."
"See, Jake!" Charlie crowed. "You have to think strategically or you'll never get to first base with a girl."
The woman rose from her stool and came over to sit down next to Charlie. "My name's Nöelle. I'm interested in your social theories. I'm also out of Chablis." Her husky invitation wasn't lost on Charlie. She blinked once, slowly, and her large brown eyes sent a semaphore signal to Charlie's communication center.
I knew I was out-voted on this one. Sensing that my opinion wasn't needed, I figured the cost of my meal, dropped a fiver on the counter, and got up.
"See you around, Jake," Nöelle said and flashed me a thousand-watt smile. As I walked down Lexington to my office, I guessed I'd hear from Charlie in four hours, more or less. Three hours if he scored and five if he didn't. It turned out to be three, and I was wrong.
"No, we didn't make it." The scorn in his voice was palpable when he telephoned. "Nöelle's a cultured girl. She went to school at Bryn Mawr and she's into haute couture. How can you be so crude?"
"How haute is her couture?"