Elevator Encounters

This is why cities are fun.

I walk back to my apartment at 12:15am, after seeing Green Zone in the movie theater that is two blocks from my hose (score one for expensive Manhattan apartment). There is a guy who has walked behind me for an entire block who also enters. The doorman appears to know him. He’s about forty, dressed in a black leather biker’s jacket, black T-shirt, and black jeans. He’s got grey hair under a bandanna, a moustache, and a little bit of a beer belly. He’s carrying what appears to be an entire shrub of lavender branches in one hand, and a plastic grocery bag in the other. We enter the elevator together silently and I reach past his bouquet to press the button for my floor.

Unable to help myself, I ask: “Someone sent you out at midnight for flowers?”

I intentionally keep my personal pronoun gender-neutral because it’s quite possible he’s bringing all this back to his African-American lover who is waiting behind one of the apartment doors somewhere in my building at this very moment, dressed up as an Indian.

“And a tub of ice cream,” the guy responds nonchalantly.

“Ah, a midnight craving for ice cream, I understand. Flowers, a little less.” I say.

“I’m trying to make an impression.”

“That should do it. Good luck.” I say as the elevator doors open and he steps purposefully out.

Sometimes I love New York.