at exactly five o'clock the curtain closed and the bell sounded, marking the intermission between halves of the notoriously lengthy 'gone with the wind'. i left the michigan theater and and walked the the fifteen steps or so to Border's, across the street. as i walked into the bookstore a man passed me on the left as he walked toward the exit door.
i break paragraph here because although my initial appraisal of this guy was simply the perfunctory check-out that one affords any cute guy, most of the people who read this diaryland- straight kids- might need to know that i definitely did pay him more attention than most of us do when walking by someone in a shop. a short-ish, broad-shouldered and well-built guy somewhere betwen 28 and 32 with closely cropped dark hair, he wore brown sandals, green cargo shorts and silver-rimmed ray-bans. the thing is- i noticed that he had nice legs. really beautiful legs. good enough to compensate for the really stale Teva sandals he was sporting. i guess maybe it would be fair to say i looked him over. i continued on to the magazine rack where i picked up a newer issue of surface. a moment later i felt that i was being watched, so i looked up from my magazine. there, standing near to the information desk, was the guy who'd been leaving several minutes before. i felt a flutter of excitement as i realized that this guy, who i hadn't thought to have noticed me, had decided not to leave and was now looking intently at me. he looked away. suddenly i remembered the reason i'd come to borders and headed up to the restrooms on the second floor.
upon entering the stall i naturally draped the toilet seat with a hermetic, virally impenetrable layer of toilet paper strips in the rough shape of an oval. i sat down and the bathroom door opened simultaneously. someone walked in, strode to the door of the stall and pushed on the door, then jiggled the handle, oblivious to the apprisal of occupance that i delivered via a small cough. i looked down and saw brown sandals.
i did not put two and two together.
rattled by the experience, i counted my losses and left the lavatory, unsuccessful. it was then that i noted that RayBans from downstairs had left the first-floor information desk and was now browsing through the scond-floor 'postcards' section. not wanting to appear overly interested, i walked as far as the stairs before glancing back to see that again, i was being watched.
back on the ground floor, i was alone again- or so i thought until i looked absently over to the philosphy section where, once again, RayBans was standing- now without his sunglasses- looking in my direction. he stood with a book in one hand, the other applying very light but questionably necessary pressure to his crotch. this is where i got really confused. what a weird dichotomy...the thing is, i really did think he was cute (he sort of looked like a business or advertising type who'd been in the workforce for a few years) and earlier, i wouldnt have have been averse to a request for a date or something, but at this point, i felt things were decidedly fucking creepy....and the intermission must have been almost over, i figured, so time to head back.
i crossed the street again and asked the ticket-counter cashier if the movie had begun. still early. i decided to have a cigarette. i must admit that some sort of morbid/vain curiosity compelled me to keep my eyes on the borders doorway. as i stood there, hidden by a crowd of german-speaking smokers, my suspicion of being mightily cruised was confirmed. i watched as he exited the bookstore and walked half a block east, stopping at david's books before turning around to walk toward the kinko's on the opposite corner. it seemed to me that he was looking for something.
as he reached the corner, one of the germans stepped back to avoid an errant cloud of smoke, blocking my visual lock on RayBans. it must've been the aforementioned vain curiosity that forced me to step forward to see if the guy would just give up on the Hunt for Head October or if he considered the endeavor worth redoubled efforts. regardless of my rationale for the move, it was instantly clear that i had made a PRETTY FUCKING DUMB mistake. spinning around suddenly, he immediately spotted me.
shit.
a little scared (justifiably? one could make an argument that i sent mixed signals) i ducked behind the germans and grabbed the doorhandle. the attendant, some longhaired indie-rocker who seemed to recognize me, waved me through the ticketstub checkpoint without incident. inside, i hid behind the bannister of the enormous marble staircase that leads to the theater's restrooms and took one last look through the glass doors to see what, if anything, would happen next.
my stomach dropped and i completely froze as, ignoring traffic, RayBans ran across the street and up to the ticket counter where he proceeded to open his motherfucking wallet and hurriedly secure a ticket for the last half ot the movie!
DOUBLESHIT!!
i raced up the stairs and barreled into the empty bathroom.
despite being convinced, at this point, that i was being followed by a maniacal, sex-starved, bloodthirsty dennis cooper devotee hellbent on raping me in a bathroom stall and eviscerating my despoiled corpse as part of some NAMBLA induction ceremony, the call of nature reverberated stronger than ever in my head. the bathroom empty, i locked myself in a stall and rushed to complete the business transaction i'd foregone at the bookstore.
listening to the quiet reverberation of the intermission music echoing off of the tiled walls, i willed myself to calm down. i fastened my pants, put on my shoulder bag, unlocked the door, and stepped out.
i was no longer alone.
TRIPLESHIT.
there, at the far end of the row of urinals, stood RayBans, pretending to piss. i walked to the sink and washed my hands, which were shaking with a strange kind of nervousness. looking at my face in the mirror (what a fucking great polaroid that would have been-- 'wish you weren't here'), it was at this point that i realized what the problem was. here was- honestly, a really physically attractive guy (dare i say- my 'type'?) who was pursuing me in hopes of achieving an immediate, unapologetically sexual encounter- the very same 'bathroom quickie' that i, despite limitless exposure to the romanticization of that encounter on the part of the porn industry, avoid on account of the obvious physical and emotional inadvisability of such an experience. i couldn't decide which was the more difficult choice to make:
a) to get all scared and keep running around trying to avoid this guy all day and the anonymous sex that, i guess, has always meant to me an embrace of the anachronistic perception of homosexuals as amoral, uncontrollable sex-driven beings, devoid of the ability to form relationships due to an overriding character flaw *or* the public's simple unwillingness to recognize such a union, or
b) to eliminate the element of fear from the situation by switching the control of power from the pursuer to the pursued. as i watched myself in the reflection, looking at this guys face, turned away from the wall-mounted urinal and staring at my face in the mirror, i understood at once that if i simply aquiesced and invited RayBans into the bathroom stall, he would effectively be under my control for the rest of our time together. all i had to do was turn and give him one of those steely 'glenn-close-in-dangerous-liaisons-smiles' and the lioness, having played dead before the hyena, would suddenly wake and turn the tables. at least that's how it works on tv.
fortunately, this was a choice i didnt have to make at all, because i simply left the bathroom, descended the staircase (making sure to watch the mirrored walls for a figure who never appeared) and reentered the theatre, walking to my chair and slinking low in my seat. as scarlett o'hara and melanie wilkes struggled to find a way to rebuild Tara i simply tried to put the incident out of my mind. people go to the movies to escape, and that's exactly how i planned to spend the next two hours. i mean, yeah, of course i'd some moderately fucked up experiences for the day but i just figured that i'd think about it later. tomorrow, perhaps. after all, tomorrow is another day.