May 2015 - Citizen of the Month

I’m a third generation New Yorker, but Â I’ll be the last in my family to live here. My son has other plans.

“Lift me up so I can see the stars,” he said to me on Second Avenue at night, and I put him atop my shoulders like an Indian prince.

“It’s hard to see the stars here,” I told him. “Too many lights, too many tall buildings.”

He never took an interest in the Art Deco Chrysler Building or the majestic Brooklyn Bridge like I did at his age. Â He is intrigued by loftier heights — space, the final frontier.

“One day, I’ll take you to Montana,” I said. “I went there with Grandma and Grandpa when I was your age. Â When you look up, you won’t believe how many stars are in the sky.”

“But will you still lift me up so I can see the stars, even in Montana?”

“I’ll always lift you up to see the stars.”

“Even when you’re gone?” he asked. Â The maturity of hisÂ question surprised me, as if he already understood the concept of death.

And I had no answer for him. Â Luckily, he changed the subject at whim, as boys his age tend to do.”

“I don’t want to go to Montana,” he said. Â “I’d rather go to Mars.”

“Mars, well, well! Daddy can’t lift you up all the way to Mars. Â For that, you’ll need a super-duper rocket. Â And you’ll probably have to go on your own because Daddy doesn’t like heights.”

“OK, I’m not afraid,” he said about his future journey in a rocket ship, a trip that he would someday take without me supporting him on my shoulders.

“Will you miss me up in space?” I asked.

“Nah, we can still Skype,” he said.

I was watching Murder She Wrote with my mother. Jessica Fletcher was helping an old friend, a golf professional, who was falsely accused of murder. The local police thought it an open and closed case, but Jessica Fletcher steadily poked holes into the evidence. After all, the victim was shot by a bullet that entered the right side of the body, which means the shooter would have to have been left-handed, and the main suspect, her dear friend, the golf pro, was right-handed, and unable to be the killer. The only other suspect capable of the crime was the owner of the pro-shop, who WAS left-handed, and had a motive – she was once jilted by the deceased on her wedding day, and she had vowed revenge. The owner of the pro-shop was cornered; she confessed.

Case closed.

“Eureka,” I cried out loud to my mother. “I don’t masturbate too often!”

++++

Every male has one female friend who is the ONE WHERE IT NEVER HAPPENED. She could be a friend from college, from work, or a neighbor. She is the woman with whom the opportunity once arose to move to the physical, but for some reason, guilt, fear, shyness, or just common sense, the step is never taken. The moment of temptation usually happens on a night when there is drinking, and the light is just right, falling on her like a Rembrandt painting, and maybe an extra button is open on her blouse, and you look too long at the curve of her breasts, and the way her body breathes when she laughs drunk, and then she sets her gaze on you in a moment ofÂ lust and indecision thinking about whether she is making your cock hard, until the click-clack of a waiter clearing a martini glass breaks the connection, and all returns to normal, never to be mentioned again. But it never does go back to complete normal; the night is always there, just hidden, like a tattoo on the shoulder that was poorly removed. You remain friends, but an aggressiveness builds, mostly visible only in language, as words are the best way that humans suppress forever that unfortunate minute in time when you desired to fuck a platonic friend.

++++

I didn’t fall. I didn’t bump into any blunt or sharp objects. The only medical explanation for the pain in my arm was my three months using Tinder. At night, despite to end my loneliness, I would lie in bed, holding my tablet up in the air with my left hand, and swipe right and left on the dating site with my thumb, the direction of the movement depending on whether the woman in the photograph passed my criteria. She must smile. She must have a bio. No bikini shots. No mountain-climbers. After three months, I began to notice a pain in my shoulder. I went to an orthopedist. I even came up with a medical term for my condition — Tinderitis. Â I thought I was uber-clever and shared my diagnosis with Facebook, hoping to get some LIKES.

++++

“I wouldn’t tell everyone on Facebook that you injured your shoulder through Tinder,” she said, later that day.

She was the ONE WHERE IT NEVER HAPPENED.

“Why not?”

“Because it’s ridiculous. No one believes that you injured yourself by swiping.”

“It makes sense. The pain happened three months after I started using Tinder.”

“Let me tell you what most people are REALLYÂ thinking.”

“What are most people REALLY thinking?”

“That you injured your shoulder by masturbating too much.”

“What? No one is thinking that.”

“That’s what I thought when you first told me you hurt your shoulder.”

“What?! Â How much masturbating do you think I do?”

“Well, I don’t know. You’re looking at all those women on Tinder and maybe you get off on it?”

“Do you REALLY think I am masturbating to the women I see on Tinder? Most of them look crazy to me. They scare me!”

“That never stopped men before from masturbating.”

“I don’t think you really understand men.”

“Oh, I do.”

“If you understood men so much, why aren’t you dating anyone?

“I don’t date because I know men too well.”

“Eh, bullshit. You hate being alone.”

“I LOVE being alone. Why does everyone think a woman needs a MAN for her to be happy?”

++++

The killer on Murder She Wrote was the left-handed owner of the pro-shop.

Jessica Fletcher had saved the day.

“Eureka,” I cried out loud to my mother. “I don’t masturbate too often!”

I called my friend to tell her the news. That I was right and she was wrong. Â My injury happened to my LEFT shoulder. I swipe on Tinder with my LEFT hand. But I only masturbate with my RIGHT.

Case closed.