Of Mice and Other Mice

This isn’t a story with a moral. In fact, it isn’t important that you know any of this. You might just leave worse off than you came, knowing nothing more than the face I am a pitiful, hapless person. It is an account of what happened to me yesterday at dinner. 

I was on a date. Like every other I can recall within the past, say, five years, it wasn’t going so well. Some nice restaurant called La Famiglia’s. Pricier than I’m comfortable with, but not so pricy I can’t pretend it isn’t a big deal when I offer to pick up the check. We began and I tried serving the usual continental platter. Where are you from? Oh, do you like it in the city? How do you like your work? and, of course, all the other transient, meaningless questions you bring up with the intention of answering in a way that makes you sound young. Favorite color, favorite band, favorite movie, whatever else. All the stuff you hope to be quizzed on a year later when it all turns out for the best. Tinderella wasn’t biting. 

The poor girl was too smart for my act. I think from the moment I gave the waiter a nasty look for spilling a negligible amount of wine on my shirt, we were both feeling ashamed that she ended up across the table from a guy like me. I kept up the charade of cleanliness and decency to the best of my ability, but I’m getting old and my bones are growing weary. I’m a schlub, and the Banana Republic suit— the only suit I have owned for twelve years— simply couldn’t cover that up. 

It’s something a relationship is powerless to change anyway. I used to have faith in that idea. Faith in the strength of a willful woman to come along, sweep me off my feet, and make me into a worthwhile man. It was probably the only reason I’ve been actively dating as long as I have. By now, all my principles and convictions have been jumbled and flipped and crossed into oblivion. I can act like I stand for something, just don’t ask me where I do my research. It’s a marvel if I even make it to the date these days. But everybody is a little lonely, aren’t they? That’s what I am: I’m a benchmark for how lonely the average single girl in the city is. 

“How’s the arrabbiata?” I asked her.

“It’s too spicy.”

“Oh.”

Silence.

“Would you like mine? Or we could order you something else? Is there something else you want?”

“Not really.”

Silence again.

We were halfway through the main course. The intervals between either of us speaking up from our food grew longer and longer. I could feel the malaise of being in a social situation gnawing at me under my skin, and I already clocked the glint of regret in the young lady’s eye. 

The noise-vacuum between us was shattered by a shout from the opposite side of the restaurant. A whiny, rat-like voice started hawing curses as the rest of the floor went quiet. Glasses and silverware clattered as the man stood up from his seat. A double-breasted navy jacket with a lapel the length of a half-marathon appeared, stretched over the chest of a six-foot-tall beefcake. Greased hair, alligator shoes, gauche hand jewelry— the spitting image of a wise guy. 

In his right hand, he held the collar of another smaller man at his table. There were about six others sitting around the table, some mortified, others trying to calm him down. The aggressor was spewing some unintelligible insults at the little one in his grip.

I remember it half in slow motion and half at lightning-speed. The left arm of the big guy reached around his back, and from under his jacket he brandished a shiny six-shooter. It was pointed at the little guy’s head. Nobody had time to gasp before it fired.

I practically rolled out of my chair, and the next thing I know, I am ten paces from the front door of the restaurant. Behind me rose a cacophony of screams and shuffles. I made it outside and, instead of ducking for cover, just kept running down the street. I sped across multiple intersections and wove through a crowd of pedestrians, on and on until I had to stop and catch my breath. I tried to find my bearings. Nineteenth avenue. I was one block away from my apartment. 

Should I have gone back? The police would show up. Would they need my eyewitness account? Could I get in trouble for running away? No, that’s silly. Still, going back would be the right thing to do. 

Only then did it occur to me: my date. I had left her there. Without a second thought I bolted for the door. And you know what next thought wasn’t? I hope she’s okay, or I should go back and find her to make sure she is alright. No, the next thought that came to me was Fuck, fuck, no way, she’s totally going to think I’m a coward. Instead of facing that and all its hairy implications right there on the street corner, I shrugged and slunk back home. 

I peeled off the threadbare suit which now had a fresh tear in the elbow from my daring exit. I stepped into the shower and sat down with my head in my hands— a common ritual for me after something particularly embarrassing happens. I processed my emotions in the shower (another way of saying I got bored and started singing soul classics) until the water got cold. Then I made myself a cup of Sleepy-time to soothe the jittery nerves with pesticide. I noticed while I was bathing my face in the steam from my mug that I the emotions I had been processing didn’t matter at all. I was so worried about how my date would react to my cowardice that I forgot I just watched a man’s brains fly out of his skull. That image I decided to deal with later.

What was I supposed to do? What would a man— or, rather, the hyper-masculine idea of a man that my seventy-five year old James Bond mega-fan of a father put into my head when I was a child— have done? Probably dive across the table, grab the woman, and take her to safety. Where would I be right now if I had done that? Kissing her passionately as her windswept hair filters the ambulance lights and her toe points toward the sky? Not likely. 

I mulled this over for a time, and when I got tired of being introspective I went to bed. Didn’t lose a wink of sleep last night. In fact, I don’t feel terribly shook up by the event vis-a-vis. It did wake me up a little bit, though. It became clear to me that, in every regard, I am a total failure. I have a job, a place to live, a loving family—a support system, all fine. I still hate all of that stuff. I don’t have a reason; I think I’m just incapable of feeling grateful for anything. Maybe it’s a defiance disorder. I know if I saw a shrink and got a diagnosis for something like that I would cling harder to it than my boxers to my ass on a hot summer day. 

Where does this put me right now? I don’t know. I’m tired of feeling bad for myself the same way I’m tired of not giving a shit about anything. Today, I truly do care and hope that my date is okay. The part that kills me is that I don’t care enough to follow up with her. Or else I am still too embarrassed to say anything. Either way, I won’t be calling her, and, either way, it’s pathetic. 

Oh, and I hope the fella that got shot is okay, too, but I won’t kid myself on how likely that is.

The signs were there all along the way. I’m hopeless. Why did it take a man being shot in front of me for that to sink in? Constantly oscillating between self-pity and self-loathing is just exhausting. Even so, I know I’m not helping anybody out by giving up on myself, but what other options do I have? I run all this around in my head, and I’m only left to wonder: how many times am I gonna look into the mirror and promise myself I’ll change? 

Shit, who am I kidding? I guess one more can’t hurt.