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Salt in the air, salt in my face, salt at my feet.

After I left Janice in Union Square on Wednesday, I decided to walk the forty-something blocks to the screening room. It was misty out, but not too cold, and it had been a few weeks since I had stretched my legs in Manhattan proper.

Around 40th Street I got a coffee at a Pax, a chain of delis. This one had a flat screen tv which advertised bargain meals, and the man who made my coffee wore a chef's hat, which made no sense at all. When I went to get sugar there was a man furiously scrubbing the counter. I did not remember Pax being so upscale when I worked in midtown but New York City is getting closer to a false sense of perfection every goddamn day.

I sat in Bryant Park for about twenty minutes reading from the latest Murakami story collection, which I had purchased in the San Juan airport for eight dollars. Citibank is setting up a huge ice skating rink in the park for the winter, and a bunch of suits who were responsible for its development (or marketing, or whatever) stood near me, waiting for a few last stragglers to arrive. I watched the one guy not wearing a sportcoat be shitty to his assistant. Finally the last two men arrived, and they were both wearing really awesome glasses so I assumed they were the architects or designers of some sort. You really can tell the difference between creative and non-creative corporate people just by looking at them.

Just after I passed the HBO building - in years past I have usually crossed to the other side of the street so I don't run into anyone I know smoking outside, but it's been five years since I've worked there and I'm pretty sure everyone I knew there is gone except for my friend Jane, who is too wise to smoke - an older man asked me how to get to 5th Avenue. He had a little bit of an accent. I pointed to the right.

He thanked me and then said, "Are you Italian?"

"No," I said.

"You look Italian," he said.

I took a look at him. He was smiling. He was a few years older than my father. I am very dark right now. I could look Italian. I smiled back at him.

"Nope, I'm American," I said.

He asked me what part of America I was from. I hesitated before I responded. Was he a nice older foreign man who was visiting America and just looking for a pleasant person to talk to? Or was he just some dude hitting on me on the street, like all the other dudes who hit on you on the street?

I decided to just let go of my New York attitude for a while, and embrace my Midwestern one instead. Sometimes it is just nice to chit-chat with people. On Vieques Sarah and Whitney were shocked by how much I didn't want to talk to strangers. I feel like all I do is talk to strangers, to tell them to go away. And I know I'm far too young to feel this way, but I often think I have seen it all before, or at least I have with men, especially men who talk to you on the street.

But I went ahead and talked to this man anyway. He told me about Venice, where he was from, and how much he liked New York. He had gone to see "Chicago" and had enjoyed that quite a bit. He was a computer technician of some sort, and every seven months he flew to New York to fix something. He asked me a few questions about myself, and when I told him I was a writer he said, "Well maybe someday you will write something important."

Maybe.

We hit the screening studio at 55th street.

"Well, this is me," I said.

"Can I pay for your movie?" he said.

"What?" I said.

"I'll pay for your movie. I just want to sit with you for an hour."

"No," I said.

"Just an hour," he said.

"No you have to be on a list," I said. "And anyway, no."

"Can I see you again? Some other time? I can call you?"

"No," I said.

"Ah you're too busy," I said.

"Yes," I said.

We shook hands and parted ways and it did not even bother me that much that the old Italian man had wanted to fuck me in the dark.

(10/26/07)