(but then look what i'd miss out on)
on the way home, i was leaning on a pillar on the subway platform at 14th street. a little man came up to me, leaning in close, and gestured at his folding subway map, pointing and looking questioningly at me and making little hummy sounds so that i realized he was a deaf mute and was asking whether he could get the train to bleecker here. yes, i nodded. he was grateful for the help but visibly repulsed by my breath, scrunching up his face and shaking his head no. then he pointed to me, did the universal gesture for drinking (jerking his fist with thumb out toward his mouth as a bottle) and then mimed someone being ridiculously staggering drunk and then pointed to me and shook his head no.
"no, i'm fine..." i said, shaking my head.
and he vigorously shook his head no and again did the town-drunk-style mime again, this time pretending to be me falling into the path of the subway and the train coming and me getting decapitated. shook his head no again, and gestured that for him, one drink, ok, two, ok. lots (like i apparently always have) NOT OK! i will fall into the path of the subway and get decapitated. not just that, but he gestured to his torso. what did that mean--someone will steal my kidney?
i felt the need to explain my perhaps misunderstood stench. i took out an envelope and wrote GARLIC.
he wrote, CAREFUL, underlining it multiple times. i nodded that i was fine, and he wrote, GUM.
ALREADY DID, i wrote, getting annoyed.
then he wrote, BEER EVERY NO, underlining it, and pointing to the CAREFUL again. i had the impression i was talking with a spirit through a ouija board. i was also getting pissed, and tried to gesture him away that i was fine. he gestured that i was pretty, and i thought, nooo shit. lucky me. the insulting deaf mute thinks i'm hot.
he continued showing me through gestures his certainty that i was a flailing drunk and was about to get decapitated. not only that, but while drunk i was also going to pass out and wake up knocked up.
"beh-by" he squeaked out, desperately trying to warn me.
PLAY NO STOP, he wrote.
OK, BUT YOU DON'T KNOW ME, i wrote, angrily.
NICE TO MEET YOU TOO, he wrote.
(!!!!)
AGE YOU, he wrote
OLD ENOUGH TO KNOW BETTER, i wrote.
42, he wrote, pointing to himself.
30, i wrote, for some reason allowing this to continue.
I LIKE YOU NICE GOOD he wrote, and i just kind of gave a "yeah great whatever" look and looked away. then he gestured for me not to be scared of him, that he's a good guy--thumbs up.
he took out a small paperback with some kind of affirmation title like Here is the Help You Need, and on the inside back cover he'd written two phrases. he showed me the first one, covering the second:
I AM SERIOS WITH YOU.
and then the second, I AM NOT STUPID.
(apparently he had to claim this a lot.)
i tried to ignore him as he continued pointing at me doing his impression of me as the staggering wasteoid, with my inevitable dual dooms of pregnancy and decapitation, and when the subway came i eagerly went to take a little step towards it, still a good three or four feet away, and he quickly held me back, thinking he had saved me from certain death. (i wonder how he supposed i lasted five minutes in this world without his direction.)
of course he tried to squeeze in next to me on the train but was forced to sit across instead. i carefully studied the ads, avoiding eye contact. at bleecker, he pointed at me and at his head, like, BE SMART, and i did the same--saying to him, no, YOU be smart.
for fuck's sake.
