Before he leaves the bar he asks for my number and I’m just drunk enough to give it to him, no questions asked, and even agree later in the night to meet him this weekend for a drink.
He is late, and I am one drink in.
If I were him, I’d be late on purpose. I’m much nicer one drink in, one un-chilled cask of Macallan 14 with a little eye-dropper of water and my little finger flailing off the side of the glass.
He is taller than I remember, which is good. I don’t remember anything else. I had written his first name down good but his last name looked like a small K followed by a long scribble. His eyes laugh. I hate that sentence, but it’s true. His eyes laugh even when he is serious, even when we bring up maybe things we shouldn’t bring up because we are too smart to play that game. Smart people invented games and refuse to participate in them.
He used to be in politics. That explains the eyes.
That explains the height.
We kiss outside of a funeral home, our backs pressed against the marble, our foreheads lit by overhead florescence and the passing glow of cell phones. We kiss slowly at first. I lean my head up in such a way he is kissing me more than I am kissing him, my feet arched on toes, my hands on his neck, supporting myself against the funeral home.
He asks me if I smoke. I tell him I quit. He doesn’t smoke either. We bum a Dunhill off an old man and split the cigarette in half, right down to the filter, blowing extra hard because we can’t tell if it’s smoke or if it’s our breath in the cold air.
I wish I didn’t smoke, he says later, his arm around me, his fingertips skimming up and down my spine. Our foreheads press together like ink blotters.
I don’t smell anything, I say. And anyway, I quit.
His fingers trace my collarbone. Yes you did, he says, his eyes laughing.
subway philosophy 