You will find short stories on this site. Most are autobiographical. Some are fiction.

VIOLATING MORES

I had lived in New York City for about six months, having come from Eugene Oregon. I was a small-town boy seeking to fit into the lifestyle of the big city. Little did I know of the big city ways. I would smile, at people and get scowls back. One day the secretary, where I worked, asked me “Why do you smile all the time?” She seemed irritated. As if to say “Get cool, we don’t do that here.” So I quit smiling. I went around with the same disinterested face as all the others, never looking at another person, watching the sidewalk or the narrow strip of sky sliding between the towering buildings.

I was meeting no one, I was lonely. I especially wanted to meet a young woman. I decided to violate this code of cool and do what was natural for me. I decide to smile at pleasant-looking people and even strike up a conversation with a stranger now and then. The first time I tried this I was riding on the south bound Metro bus which goes down the west side of Manhattan. It was rush hour and the bus was packed. There was a young woman ahead of me. Talking to her back, I had not seen her face, I said “I like the way that you have tied your ponytail with leather.” Her back stiffened. She began to squeeze through the crowd, trying to get away from me. Seeing this reaction to my first attempt at being friendly, I decided This isn’t going to work. I will only become an offensive weirdo.

Then from a safe distance, she glanced back over her shoulder quickly and again turned away. In the moment that she was looking at me, I smiled. It was my natural response upon first seeing her lovely face. After a minute, she turned to face me and smiled back. As people left the bus at each stop, she and I moved closer. We began to talk. Small talk at first, “Where are you from?” etcetera. Few of the young people I had encountered in Lower Manhattan were from New York. We both got off the bus in Greenwich Village. A small bar was on the same corner as the bus stop. I offered to buy her a glass of wine and was pleasantly surprised when she said “OK”. We carried on our conversation in the bar. It was dusk by the time we left the bar. She was from a small town in Pennsylvania. Like me, she had come to the Big Apple to experience metropolitan life. We had similar experiences in the city, such as the feeling of loneliness among throngs of people.

By the time we stepped out of the bar, the sun was setting and yet it was still warm. I offered to make dinner. She shrugged and said, “Why not”. We walked across Manhattan, through Washington Square Park to my apartment on the East side. We had dinner and she stayed the night. I remember waking in the middle of that night, with this lovely young woman sleeping next to me, and thinking “Violating mores, can be a good thing”.