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James Brown - September Song_________________________________________________________
Oh, Miss Black.
My fuel light came on last night as I rolled to get Coneys. Sweet, sweet Coneys. More correctly, it popped while I waited in the parking lot with a sack full of greasy wieners while a friend was securing dutch chocolate ice cream from the grocery store next door. I remarked to my friend that I'd have to get gas first thing in the morning. He looked at the Coneys.
By lunchtime today (yesterday) the "low fuel" light seemed to be glowing more brightly than ever, and since my noon-hour battle plan covered a good amount of ground, I surrendered cash to Sinclair and surrendered vapors for liquids that oddly everyone calls gas. Then the Baja de Tulsa commenced as I was off to secure a signature from my ex, trap some lunch, and deposit my stimulus check with my money people.
The first part of the trip was plagued by sh!tty cell phone reception that almost torpedoed twp-thirds of the whole excursion. After finally connecting a hand to a pen to a check, I was headed off south on Harvard in search of anything digestable. I headed straight for the most likely suspect, Jim's Coneys (Never On Sunday).
Now, a word search of this blurb up to this point would reveal a disproportionate number in the use of the word "Coneys", but I can openly state that I have not declared a war of attrition upon my tract (or "sh!t-sluce", as my redneck uncle called it). Only a fool visits Jim's for the Coneys; not that they're bad, but there are many items on the menu that shame anything offered up from the mixture of chili, cheese, and hot dogs.
The chicken oreganato is one such variant at the restaurant renouned for its Greek chow. I have a pair of pants that after two years still have a grease stain from where a small piece of the bird landed. Experience has taught me that consuming the oreganato (which is half of an entire chicken, tabouli and salad) would result in a long and sleepy afternoon of me doing my impression of a head-banger in slow motion. No, the meal in the cross-hairs was the yeros plate, a pile of roasted lamb, onion, sour cream and rice, shoved next to green beans and salad. Bliss.
I drifted through traffic further south, and arrived at the money changers' pavillion while still picking onion out of my teeth. It was turning out to be a hot afternoon. The elevator ride up to the eighth floor was interrupted only by a gentleman pushing an empty cart on at the second floor and off at the seventh.
Then I hit the eighth floor and beheld the lovely Miss Black.
I was just a bit shy of oblivious at first, fishing out the check and mumbling something about needing to deposit it. When Miss Black looked up and asked me what account I wanted it in, her baby blues stuck me like a butterfly. I stammered that I really wasn't sure, and asked her if maybe the account number was on my checkbook somewhere. She glanced at it and set to work. A fraction of time later she turned back to me and asked me if I wanted to deposit in my IRA or RMA. By this point I was almost fully hypnotised by Miss Black's beauty, only retaining enough of my faculties to note her name and investigate her left hand.
"IRA, ... RMA...?"
Those lips were ... well, Miss Black would never have to make a living mopping floors.
Full-tilt dumb strikes me at this point, and in an attempt to see her computer monitor and discern which account I need to select ("RMA", as any non-smitten Kreg can tell you) I try to cram my skull through a large verticle slit in the teller window. Image a full grown man trying to stick his head through a five-inch gap between two giant panes of glass; that is the calibre of jacka$$ to which I had regressed.
"RMA" I finally utter. I stand silently trying to cling to any remaining dignity I might possess until Miss Black hands me my receipt. Definately no ring on that left hand. Hmm. "Thank you."
Back on the elevator, my ride down is again colored by the same gentleman with the same cart, only this time getting on at seven and off at two, and this time with a plant on his cart. "Stealing plants?" I ask. He pretends not to understand, or at least I think he does.
The heat outside knocks me flat, but doesn't burn the thoughts of Miss Black from my head.
...
And even late this evening as I sit recounting this long day and all the miles I've driven, I think that one aspect of it all electrified me more than anything in the past few years. Not that I think Miss Black had any interest in me, or that I think something may have happened. I have no such misapprehension that Miss Black would have to settle for the likes of me. No, what truly and deeply thrills me is that I found myself attracted to a person today (yesterday), and I haven't felt that in a long time. I don't know if I haven't thought I deserved to be attracted to someone else, or if I haven't found other people worthy. But I haven't felt that pull in a long time and it felt fantastic.
And I want to thank you Miss Black, for doing nothing more than sitting on a chair, pushing some buttons, and reminding me how it feels.
