>2010-03-14<
A Comb In The Snow
Winter in New York City. Late December, 1967. I was alone again naturally and had another small suitcase to carry - but to who knows where.
I met a handsome stranger and we spent New Year's Eve in a small hotel nowhere near Times Square. Instead of revelry we hugged and kissed and talked and made sex. He was disappointed, which is almost always the case with me. Not wanting to bang somebody's ass or have somebody bang mine, I take the path of least resistance and for the most part compensate pretty well for my lack of a more committed sexual preference.
Okay, I'm a wimp. I don't commit myself enough.
Whatever. In the morning he was bound for a train somewhere. I had the American Airlines ticket that I stole from Ronnnie's father's dresser drawer a month or so earlier. His company had a credit card type of ticket generation. You put the card in a slider, zip the slider over the carbonized form and swoosh - you're on your way.
So I had this by now rather dilapidated paper thing that would supposedly take me anywhere on the American Airlines menu.
I had absolutely no money, zero dollars, zero cents, as I made my way to the midtown airport shuttle bus depot. I was scrappy. Not dirty. Just scrappy. I needed a haircut, but I wasn't showing much stubble in the face. I would be able to get by for now without the haircut and the shave - but I was desperate for a comb.
There was plenty of snow on the ground, you know, city snow. City drifts that hung between sidewalk and road. It was not out of character for me to include looking at the ground as one more focal point as in my survey of the world around me.
And there it was. The comb. My own private blankie. Perched all alone atop of a drift.
I felt much less uncomfortable, a bit less self-conscious, and so I had a little surge of confidence as I found the right bus to the right airport gate. When the driver asked for the fifty-cent fare I managed to blush and a lady already seated paid the man. I sat next to her for the but trip that was my gateway to "anywhere."
>2010-03-14<
