A View from Above

She lived alone in a ninth floor apartment. 

Her Apartment was 9I.

The sounds of Fifth Avenue street traffic – yellow checker cabs, office workers, and late-night party people, could be heard on some nights when her window was cracked open.

I showed up half in the bag for our first date. 

She opened the Newspaper – “What Film shall we see?” she asked. I took her into my arms and we made our own damn movie.

Going out was canceled. 

I stayed at Shay’s for several nights in a row before going home. We spent a lot of time not going out after that.

Her Mom was pissed. “He’s not even Jewish!” she complained.

True. I was a twenty-five-year-old “White Boy” from a shitty little town nobody had ever heard of before called Cupertino. Embarrassed I told people I was from San Jose.

New York beckoned. I thought I was going to be the next “James Dean.”

New York disagreed. 

Still, the dream stubbornly clung on for a while.

When we went out it was to eat. No one cooks at home in Manhattan. Everybody eats out – that’s how it’s done in the City.

I always ordered  barbecue ribs. Chewing meat off a bone – satisfied my primal self. 

Like a feudal lord, I’d mockingly toss chewed rib bones over my shoulder.  Shay would crack up.

“Bobbie, you have sauce all over your face!”

“Yeah, so?”

“You look funny.”

“Good. Man needs meat. Meat makes Man happy. Order Man another beer, Woman.”

Smoking cigarettes and drinking coffee later. I’d gaze out her Apartment window. A Maxwell House Coffee Billboard lit up the skyline. Shay said the sign was in Queens.

I smiled. 

I was a long way from Cupertino.

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