Not a Lengthy Visitor
Preparing from my move from Texas, I googled “How to not look like an annoying tourist in New York,” and I took notes. I'd never been, and at twenty-three my understanding of the city consisted almost exclusively of the fact that Saturday Night Live happened there. One of my sister's friends had told me he'd moved to New York and become a writer. Just like that. And so I decided I ought to do the same. A few weeks later I added “stand up comedian” to the explanation of why I would soon be moving to The City.
I needed to prepare. The internet taught me that some avenues had names and numbers I needed to memorize, that Houston Street was not pronounced like the city I was born in, that wearing an I <3 NY shirt was lame, that walking with five people hand-in-hand down a sidewalk was unacceptable, that New Yorkers call standing “in line” standing “on line,” and something confusing about which lights to look for on a cab to know whether it was available.
Now prepared, I booked a flight and moved to a place called Brooklyn.
Two months later I was pretending to read a book on a bench across from the Reading Room area of Bryant Park. The afternoon's light drizzle misting my face belied the plausibility that I just happened to feel like reading there right then. Adjusting my large, still LaGuardia-tagged gym bag next to me, I did try to actually read, but every three seconds I looked up at the famous woman thirty feet from me. Just an hour before, I had discovered from the Time Out New York website that Samantha Bee, the adorably satirical genius and, at the time, only female member of the The Daily Show team, would be giving a reading from her book I Know I Am, But What Are You? in Bryant Park.
But I had arrived too late. It wasn't easy getting anywhere from Bed Stuy. Samantha Bee was still sitting in the canopied Reading Room area of the park, though, chatting and smiling with a few people and autographing their books. A table of purchasable copies stood nearby, and a few people who seemed to be affiliated with the Reading Room series were slowly tidying up and taking down umbrellas now that the sun was coming out.
I didn't have a copy of Samantha's book, and I was sure the copies sold at this book reading would be too expensive for me. I would put myself on the hold line to check out a copy of the book from the library, or perhaps one day I'd pay $.01 plus $3.99 shipping for a copy on Amazon, but I couldn't be shelling out $25 for a shiny new hardback. I considered that it might be reasonable behavior to approach the table to look at the copies of her book and thus get closer to Samantha. I knew, though, that I'd inevitably put her book back down and then be embarrassed that my cheapness was now out in the open. I would feel all the more like I didn't belong there. If I was too poor to pay top dollar for a book, then I oughtn't dare to approach a famous person and ask for her autograph.
I was sure I couldn't approach her empty-handed, but I couldn't leave that way either. This was how I'd settled on plunking myself down on this bench. I was holding out hope that after Samantha finished at the reading she would happen to come my way, or that she would take an interest in me and approach me herself, perhaps intuiting the entirety of my dilemma and coming to my rescue.
Perhaps she'll help me with my writing and stand up careers! Or, let's be more realistic, she might offer some wise and poignant advice that will inform my life and which I'll always look back on fondly as the seed that spurred my brilliant comedy career and my successful and happy life.
Two or three minutes into my shifty reading session, a very tall black man in a tan suit (but no tie) walked over and stood in front of me. “Now what could a pretty young woman like you have to look so sad about on a beautiful day like this?”
Oh good lord, he's going to flatter me long enough to make it more awkward when I turn his grifting sob story pleas down. Though, this is a relief from the awkwardness of just sitting here. But what does this tall, black, stranger man want? Does he think I'm just a tourist and not a New Yorker so he's going to try to steal something from me? My wallet is tucked away safely, and there are enough people around that he won't be able to just grab my whole bag and dash off. Does he see me as easy prey, like he thinks he'll be able to talk me into going with him to somewhere private where he can rape and/or rob me? I may be from Texas, but I'm from a big city and I'm plenty street-wise. Or perhaps he thinks he can sense that I'm one of those white girls who wouldn't dare question a black man's intentions because it would seem racist. It's possible he really is just a nice man though, and I could use the company right now. No harm in talking for a bit.
Such was the thought bubble of the moment between his question and my response. “Oh. Do I look sad? I guess I...”
As I trailed off, unsure what to say regarding my desire to approach the woman thirty feet from me, the man sat down next to me. “I'm Michael.”
“Arielle,” I said as my hand entered his large, smoothly calloused hand.
“Pleased to meet you, Arielle. Now you just tell me all about it,” he said in a tone that indicated he would completely understand whatever I told him. I figured this was a well-practiced tone of his, perfect for the set up of whatever magazine subscription or elaborate panhandling story he would be trying to sell me after he pretended to care about my concerns.
Still, explaining to him was better than sitting there alone like a weirdo.
“Oh honey, don't worry about a thing,” he said as I finished explaining about the book reading, “You just come with me.” With that he stood up, took me by the hand, and led me toward Samantha Bee and the others. My face flushed - I could hardly believe we were doing this, that we were actually just going to go right up to her. But this man was so confident that I started to think maybe he knew Samantha, that he must work with her.
Hell, perhaps she works for him! You never know who might be some rich media mogul in this town! Maybe his suit color and lack of tie are signs of the kind of casual leisure his wealth and status allow him. She'll greet him, “Hey Michael! Who's your friend?” He'll explain about my adorable shyness, and soon we'll all be going to a second location for lunch together. Years later I'll tell this part of the story to people, ending with “and the rest, of course, is history.”
But as we approached, she didn't greet him that way. He simply extended his hand to her. “Hi, I'm Michael, and this is Arielle.”
She shook our hands in turn. “Hi, I'm Sam. Pleased to meet you, Michael. Hi, Arielle. Good to meet you.”
From the taking-in-new-people look in Sam's eyes, my hopes that Michael knew her were dashed. Ah well, maybe he's still rich and powerful. Maybe he'll say what he does in the entertainment industry and we'll all hit it off and make friends.
“Arielle here was being shy about approaching you,” Michael explained.
I was a silly child who'd snuck downstairs, thinking I could join the adults' party.
“Don't be shy! Nobody should be intimidated by big ol' pregnant, dorky me.” Sam's smile was genuinely warm and made me feel a bit better.
“I feel just like I did when I was six,” I began, “and wanted to meet the stars in my oldest brother's high school musicals but couldn't bring myself to approach them.” I despised my voice and body for their betrayal as they noticeably shook.
“Oh I'm the same way,” Sam said. “When I'm going to interview famous people for The Daily Show I still start to hyperventilate sometimes thinking about it.”
“Really?” I marveled that she, so funny and successful and famous and wonderful, could be intimidated just like I was. Realizing that Michael was hanging back and didn't seem on the verge of stepping in and impressing anybody, I saw that the impression I made on Sam would be entirely up to me. I desperately wanted to say something funny, hoping that she would see me as a kindred spirit with great potential as a comedian. “You know, I haven't really been watching The Daily Show much lately,” I began, mentally slapping myself that the only amusing thing I had thought of to say began with this uncouth premise and wasn't even funny enough to make up for it. It was too late to do anything but soldier on. “But when I last saw you on there about a year ago, I feel like you were about the same amount of pregnant.”
Despite the faux pax in the set up of my observation, Sam laughed good-naturedly. “Yep, this is a different one.”
“Ah, I was beginning to wonder if a state of full blown pregnancy had been added to your contract.”
“It does seem that way lately,” she said, laughing again, but I cursed myself for not coming up with anything more impressively clever and witty.
Afraid of overstaying my welcome, I moved hastily along down what I assumed to be the only acceptable script for meeting a celebrity at an event. “I feel really bad that I got here late and missed your reading, and I don't have a copy of your book for you to sign-”
“Say n' more!” She said, cutting me off to spare me from furthering my embarrassment. “I'll sign anything you want. Hell, I'll sign your boobs if you prefer.”
I probably would have preferred, and I reddened yet again, wondering whether she'd gaydarred me and was teasing me or was just being silly to make me feel at ease. I felt that she was expertly and warmly trying to convey to obviously shy and awkward me that I didn't have to be so intimidated by people, that we were really all the same, that I needn't be ashamed of who I was or where I was at in life. Perhaps she sees a young version of herself in me.
For my autograph, I attempted to drive our kindred spirit home to her by handing her a notebook labeled, “Jokes,” but this apparently didn't trigger her curiosity in me. She just scribbled something in it, and, to prolong this experience, I saved the treat of reading it for later.
“Let's get you some pictures!” It was good that Sam prompted this because I wouldn't've asked, afraid it would be obnoxious, unbecoming of Sam's potential new best friend.
Is this what he wanted all along? I thought as I had no choice but to hand my phone over to Michael, who'd now gone back to being a suspect. I briefly imagined Michael yelling, “Ha-ha!” while running swiftly away, and then I realized this was improbable because there were too many people around who might have yelled, “Stop that thief!”
Though giddy that Sam had thrown her arms around me in a pregnant belly bear hug for this picture, I was already concerned that she and I were now clearly into the scripted part of a celebrity-fan interaction. My attempt at engaging her conversationally had fallen short of the mark. I could see that we were falling down an autograph-photograph-thank you-goodbye hole. Since I was being too shy and starstruck to impress her with my wit, perhaps there was another option. There was a very real possibility that Michael had bad intentions. I needed to get her to follow us or send somebody to follow us or intervene in some way to make sure I was safe. This would lead to her hugging me and asking me, “Are you okay?” and realizing she had to become my mentor. I tried to think of how I could – unbeknownst to Michael – signal to Sam that I needed help, that I wasn't safe with this man.
But this was New York. Even if you wonder what a twenty-three-year-old white girl in shorts and a t-shirt who's carrying a gym bag is doing with a 6'3”, fifty-ish, black man in a tieless tan suit, you certainly don't question it. New Yorkers are not that small-minded and are used to weirder.
Now that the whole official fan script was over, I felt sure that I was now expected to leave. And I needed to exit on a high note rather than risk saying or doing anything embarrassing that would leave me rehashing the scene over and over again in my mind for the rest of the day and, every now and again, for the rest of my life. The three of us mentioned the goodness of meeting each other, and Michael and I walked away.
I might've beat a hasty retreat in response to Michael's suggestion that we get a glass of wine together in the park, but, high off of successfully meeting Sam and not wanting my meeting-her moment to end, I agreed. A voice in my head that I would've called The Holy Ghost if I had still been religious made some noise about how this was exactly the kind of offer one ought to turn down. But perhaps the Holy Ghost was just being a provincial racist. The bold new me who could just walk up to celebrities found it difficult to imagine what could go so wrong in broad daylight in a public park.
And it would be ungrateful of me to turn down his generous offer to buy me a glass of wine after we've just met Sam Bee thanks to him.
If I found it a bit red-flaggish that Michael seemed alarmed at the eighteen dollar price tag for the two glasses of shiraz at the Bryant Park Cafe, I didn't let it show. It did seem to me that, if his suit-wearing and helpfulness in my hour of celebrity-meeting need came from a place of wealthy magnanimity and worldly savvy, he could have predicted the price inflation at an outdoor midtown park bar. Perhaps he's used to everything going on a tab that his accountants deal with and only rarely handles cash himself and is now shocked at how prices have risen since he last bothered with the petty stuff. Right, Arielle, or perhaps he's not some generous wealthy man but just a guy who thinks that your acceptance of a glass of wine indicates your receptiveness to his forthcoming advances.
He took the shirazes and started to walk away from the bar, and I kept my eyes on those glasses in case he thought he was going to perform some roofie-ing sleight of hand. I started to sit down at one of the nearby tables, but Michael kept moving.
“That one's not very good,” he said. “Let's go... here.”
Nullifying the congratulations I'd just been giving myself about not having been born yesterday as I kept my eyes on the wine, he had steered us to a table suspiciously further away from people than my selection had been.
We began sipping the shiraz, and he asked me the one or two questions it took to get my mouth off and running. I explained my basic life history, my aspirations, and my insecurities, happy to have an audience and jittery from the excitement of meeting Sam.
“...and just like that I decided to move to New York,” I said.
“Ahh, how adventurous,” he praised. “Had you ever been here before?”
“Never. I'd never been here, and I knew no one.”
“How interesting. You say you're shy, but you're doing fine talking to me.”
“Well, I'm less shy than I used to be...”
I was quite enjoying myself.
Approximately five minutes into our conversation, I decided I needed to divert a small fraction of my attention, which had been split solely between myself and my surveying glances around the park for Sam, to monitoring Michael's activities. This was when I realized that Michael had very slowly reached over, taken my right hand in his left, and begun stroking it. I continued talking, however, without the moment's silence that would've betrayed my wariness with the direction stroking pointed us toward.
“...Because when I first thought of moving to New York, it was to be 'a writer,' whatever I meant by that, but then, as I was running along the beach one day...”
Meanwhile, my Holy Ghost neurons assessed the security threat. Aha! See what he's doing? I told you not to get a glass of wine with this strange man!
Oh, phooey, stroking my hand is no big deal. He did just spend ten dollars on a glass of wine for me. Leaving before I finish this wine would be rude. Anyway, quiet down – I'm trying to explain why Rihanna's “Hard” inspired me to pursue stand up.
As Michael began gently guiding my right hand closer to him, the pundits in my head compromised that I should probably start drinking my wine a bit faster and that I'd make my retreat as soon as I finished the glass. I began condensing my life story while with with my left hand I brought my wine glass to my mouth more and more frequently. Focusing on those two tasks, I ignored the attention being paid to my right hand, figuring I'd block it out until I finished my wine and could make my leaving excuses. Perhaps sensing he was on a deadline, Michael must have subtly sped up his own plans. As I finished explaining what I thought of the standup comedy environment in this city, I finally checked in on my right hand again, where I discovered it to be lying atop a soft, wool-covered swelling.
Michael had outsmarted me. He'd found a way to cross my line in public without my even realizing it. The opportunity to be horrified presented itself but was quickly dismissed. Being a dupe held no interest for me. With my left hand I drained the remainder of the wine glass while I moved my right hand back to me only slightly less subtly than Michael'd brought it to his lap. I didn't want to make any abrupt movements that might cause an explicit confrontation between us regarding the nature of our interaction. Maybe I was moving my hand away because I just wanted to take things a bit slower. It was best to keep everyone guessing.
I had purposefully, for instance, not mentioned the fact that I’m a lesbian. I often neglected to mention my sexuality to men. I always claimed this because it just didn't come up, but the truth was that I was always either angling to get them to buy me things or sometimes trying to trick men into friendships.
As it was, I didn't know whether Michael knew he was doing anything against my will with his hand drift. I thought he must know he was taking advantage of me, yet I didn't want him to know that I knew that he knew this. Better to let him think that he might be able to get what he wanted from me with a little patience and his questionable version of romantic persistence.
This is what makes me a comedian and a writer, that instead of a conventional victimhood response, I'm actually glad I'm touching this man's penis because this makes a much better story.
I wasn't particularly upset with Michael because, after all, what was the story here? Was this an older man taking advantage of an innocent young girl? The New Yorker taking advantage of the foolish Texan implant?
Not only did I have no interest in playing either of those roles, none of them rang true. I had known, when he offered to buy me the wine, that accepting indicated my receptivity to his advances. I was pretending to be so naïve that I might believe that some gallant man had nothing better to do with his time than to help some shy girl meet a celebrity and then buy her a celebratory glass of wine and listen to her life story, wanting nothing in return. But I had known better, knew that he would hope for something for his troubles. I had just thought I'd be able to cut and run before I had to pay up. Then, in this vast city, we'd never see each other again, and I'd have won.
We were both selfish humans with our own agendas. My contemplation of whether or not my unwitting wood-handling constituted sexual “abuse” per se was solely in pursuit of a way in which I could take advantage of being taken advantage of in order to find some way for this incident to connect me further to Samantha Bee. This had been what I'd wanted all along, something that perpetuated and enhanced my relationship with Sam. The fact that he'd gotten something out of it, well fair's fair as far as I was concerned.
Perhaps if I made my excuses quickly but convivially, I could leave him fast enough that Sam might still be under that canopy. All I had left to figure out was why it was to her that it would make sense for me to go for “help” in this situation, thus cementing our bond, leading to a friendship and, inevitably, catapulting my career, a career which in reality had not even begun.
No, I wouldn't go to her for help but would act like I just happened to be walking away from Michael in that direction, and seeing Sam, I'd stop and tell her the whole story of who Michael actually was to me, what he'd just done, and what I'd thought about it. She would find me to be wackily interesting, and our friendship would begin.
I told Michael I had to be moving along in order to have time for my plan for the rest of the day. By now this consisted entirely of going by myself to a vegan restaurant in the Upper West Side that looked interesting, though I referred to this as “a prior engagement.” We stood up, and, much to the disruption of my plans to search for Sam, he walked with me. I felt that he was escorting me to the train station to ensure that I didn't run to the nearest cop and report him. A kidnapping victim being taken to a drop off point. This was too public a place for him to have actually hurt me; the only gun he held to my back was the possibility of the situation getting really awkward and time-consuming if I made a scene. I didn't have time to waste since Sam, if indeed she was still in the park, might leave at any moment. I walked very slowly, hoping with every step that Michael would decide he'd walked me far enough, so that I could double back to where the Reading Room event had been. I cursed my total inability to communicate, within the confines of our game of non-mutual knowledge, that I could not care less about him and his pathetic, swelling penis and cared only about the possibility that I might be able to use this weird experience to befriend a famous person.
When Michael removed a pack of Newports from his jacket, I asked for one. I wasn't drunk enough to actually want or even be able to enjoy a cigarette, and I don't even like menthols, but I knew he wouldn't deny it to me. I resented his chaperoning me to the train station and wanted to take something more from him in an attempt to get the balance of this interaction tipped more in my favor.
“Let's split one,” he responded.
While I was mentally debating whether this was the cheapest sexual predator on earth and he was screwing with me in order to win the game of who was using whom or if he simply found the amount of saliva-swapping inherent in sharing a cigarette to be arousing, Michael asked, “Can I take you out for drinks tonight?”
“Sure,” I said, in order to make the remainder of our interaction continue to seem genial, as if, rather than slowly running away after being violated, I was merely bidding adieu after a pleasant afternoon of wine and penis-stroking with a stranger in Bryant Park. And I loved every ridiculous thing that he did and said, all of it more details for my future storytelling.
“Let's meet in Union Square, across from the Whole Foods. At eight,” he said handing me the cigarette after lighting it and puffing it three times.
“Sure thing,” I said, taking the Newport. As we walked along, I took four drags before handing it back to him. When after five more puffs of his own he offered me another go, I turned it down.
If he had seriously thought he was making a date with me, I figured he would have asked for the number to the phone he knew very well I had on me. I found it a little over-the-top in our game when he embraced me at the 41st and 7th street train station as if we were new lovers, pained to take leave of each other. But at this point I was so close to freedom that I decided if this was what he needed to win, then so be it. As we held each other loosely, looking into each other's eyes, my only real concern was that someone might see me, size up the entirety of the situation, and see me for the naïve fool that I was. Fulfilling my greatest fear at the time, they'd think, “Well, she's not a New Yorker.”
Holding me close, Michael leaned in for a kiss, which I smoothly turned to receive on my cheek. As his lips and rough stubble lingered a few seconds too long on my cheek, he must've known he was pushing it. He was probably one-upping me for the cigarette, showing me he would always beat me in a game of advantage-taking. After our nine-second hug, I finally pulled away, said, “Bye!” and hurried down the steps, smiling as I considered that he was probably actually rather poor and didn't have a monthly Metro pass and thus would not be following me.
I had escaped Michael forever. Unfortunately this meant I could also no longer go back and walk around Bryant Park in search of Samantha unless I really wanted to go to the other end of the station to remerge aboveground several blocks from the Reading Room area, which she had probably left long ago. I'd already spent an hour more than I'd planned to at the park. I gave up on re-meeting her for now, consoling myself with the idea that one day she would read this story.
On the train, I brought out my notebook and read what she had written, “So nice to meet you! Thank you for braving the weather... XO Sam Bee.”
If only she knew what I braved because of meeting her.
I considered Michael's a particularly interesting predatory tact to take, if this sort of thing was indeed the kind of the activity he regularly engaged in. It struck me as a brilliant move on his part, hovering near free book readings, scanning the surroundings for shy tourists who not only would allow themselves to be taken by the hand to meet the celebrities but would actually hope for it. And the plain fact of the matter is that had it not been for Michael, I would not have approached Sam. I would not have found out how different than the rest of us she doesn't feel. I wouldn't've have gotten her autograph, the picture, or the hug. I also would never have enjoyed a glass of wine on a beautiful June day overlooking Bryant Park.
But more than that, without Michael, I would still be looking back on that day embarrassed at the depths of my timidity and regretful that I had sat awkwardly nearby, waiting for something to happen until it didn't. When a year later I decided to move to Boston and, at least for now, pursue my writing to the exclusion of stand-up, my memory would probably have alighted on that pathetic moment, and I would've had to rationalize away the fear that, had I only been bold enough to approach Samantha Bee, everything would have turned out differently and I'd be halfway to prodigious comedy stardom by now.
I preferred to think of Michael as my guardian angel or the patron saint of the shy, would-be celebrity-meeters. All he asked in return was a fleeting, above-the-clothes dick graze that felt to me like petting a suited hamster. Given the choice again, I'd make that deal a million times.
But something has never been right with this story. From the moment I discovered Michael's arousal, I was excited to have a story. But I've also always been looking for what exactly the story was that this strange afternoon presented. Previous listeners to my tale have said they were horrified for me or thought I seemed kind of racist. My ex-wife laughed at me, called me crazy and said she felt sorry for Michael.
“Or maybe he was just some guy who thought you were cute and wanted to buy you a glass of wine to be nice. You said yourself that you made no resistance to his hand movements. He probably thought you were just fine with it! He probably did show up for that date, and he probably didn't own a phone, because he probably was poor. Cigarettes are about $10 a pack in New York City! Of course he wanted to share. The poor guy thought he'd met an interesting young woman who might be interested in him back. Then you ran away and stood him up.”
And this is why I'd had to leave New York City. This was the story of the day I started to become a New Yorker, at least in the way I ever did become a New Yorker. The city increasingly, it seemed to me, became a city where I and everyone I met were wanton opportunists, engaging with every new person with the sole aim to figure out what we might be able to get out of each other. I've always said the city made me and everyone who lived in it a bit crazier every day we resided there, and maybe that's true too, but it was also making me into someone I didn't want to be. It was I who was the villain of this story, and it wouldn't be the last time.
