For Meriweather

She just pretends to be clumsy, so she can grab mens' packages as she falls. She's done it twice today already, once at the coffee shop, where she fondled a young, brainy bike messenger type. The second time she was entering the elevator where she worked as a receptionist in a law firm. She spotted on the of senior partners in front of her and sprinted to catch him. The opportunity was too good to pass up. She often used speed as a guise--she was running too fast and slipped over the threshold, or she was flailing to catch the bus and bumped into some obstacle, usually a trash bin or potted plant.

The surprising thing was how differently each man would react. For example, the lawyer pretended not to notice. Or maybe he really didn't notice, his package shrivelled with disuse from too many long nights curled up with a law journal instad of his wife. Married men--she could tell by a quick glance at their left hand--seemed to enjoy it. They would always yell out something like, "Hey! Watch the goods!" with a wink and a snicker.

It was the men her own age who got mad. They'd shrink from her touch and scowl harshly yelling "Watch out!" or "What the hell?"

"The technique" as she had come to call it, was a method of quickly achieving a very intimate knowledge of a man. Whether one side was bigger than the other, or one side had been removed, or there were piercings--she knew something about that man that few others knew. It was a kind of power, because they didn't know she knew it. They would adjust themselves and walk off, never guessing that a complete stranger had peered into the depths of thier lives, like a ten year-old peers into a hampster cage, observing the way the hampster nibbles on pellets or runs on the wheel.

She considered trying the technique on women, but it seemed that groping a breast or pubic area wouldn't return the same kind of information. Maybe she was less objective, being a woman herself. Or maybe women were just less puzzling in general. You could already read so much about a woman from her handbag, her hairstyle, or the way she glanced (or didn't) at her reflection in a shop window. Men hid their secrets better. It was only after giving one a full, body-checking grab that he revealed himself.

There was one man, however, that she hadn't been able to get a read on. She'd see him frequently as she would walk to her bus stop after work. He must have worked downtown too, or perhaps lived nearby. He would always be wearing khakis and a non-descript, plaid button-down. It was the male uniform--what men wore when they really didn't care about clothes, but still believed what their mothers had taught them about looking decent in public. These were the same sort of men who happily stripped down to their boxer shorts at home. She see him everyday at just about the same spot. She would be walking past the newsstand, and he would be coming in the opposite direction.

One day, she saw him approaching and purposely lingered to look at the headlines. He was three steps away from her when she turned and caught her foot just-so under the newspaper rack. She made a wild gesture of swinging her arms wide to the side as if she were trying to catch her balance, but her oversized handbag swung out just enough to pull her over, depositing lipsticks and old receipts onto the sidewalk at the same moment she extended her arm and cupped her hand.

And then she had done it, but felt nothing. No spark of intuition, no glimpse of soul. Just spongy flesh that yielded to the side. He was silent, and looked straight ahead in a blind manner. He didn't even seem to notice she was there.

She scrambled up and made her standard apologies while collecting her purse. "Oh...I'm so sorry...two left feet..." and moved down the block. On the bus she closed her eyes and tried to get a sense of him. There was nothing. "Maybe he's an alien...a zombie...a pod-person," she wondered.

And so today, she decided she was going to do something she had never done before. She was going to try the technique for a second time on the same man. She knew she risked revealing herself because the clumsy act would only work once. But she couldn't free herself from thinking about him until she was certain there was something there, or he really was as blank as she first sensed him to be.

All day, she obsessed about how and when she would do it. She needed to position herself in a way that would produce the optimum read. It needed to be something that would give her the maximum amount of contact time and allow for the greatest surface area to be covered. Halfway through the day, she noticed she had been doodling penis shapes on the "While You Were Out" notepads she used to give phone messages to the lawyers. And then it came to her: she was going in from behind.

After work, she waited at the newstand once again nervously fingering El Pais and the New York Times, and looking for him out of the corner of her eye. When finally he passed, she counted to five and then took off after him, carefully keeping far enough behind him that she wouldn't be too obvious. He was wearing a grey t-shirt and shorts today, which seemed out of character for him. He was looking ruffled, a little grungy even. His pace was brisk, and she found herself taking two steps for every one of his.

They walked two blocks and then he started to slow down. His hand entered his pocket and he pulled out a ring of keys. She saw him sifting through for one and knew her moment had arrived. This was where he lived. In just a moment he would unlock the door to this squat, brick apartment building and dissapear. Her chance would be gone. So she sprinted and lept head-first, like a baseball player diving for a fly-ball, both arms outstretched, palms exposed and fingers wide. She grabbed hold of his crotch, closed her eyes tight, and clenched her grip.

And she felt nothing, except the scraping of her own elbow against the pavement and her ribs making a heavy thud as she hit the ground. She realized he was screaming in pain and writhing on the ground in front of her. Her hand was still between his legs. He kicked her in the head and she let go. She felt no pain, just blind confusion. Nothing. Still nothing.

"What the fuck is wrong with you?" he screamed. She could feel people staring at her as they walked by. She had just outed herself to the world, all for nothing.

She sat up, and looked at him. He was breathing hard and his shirt was stained near his shoulder where he had hit the concrete. He struggled to sit up, and faced her. He loomed in and she braced herself for a slap or punch. She deserved it. But all she felt was a wet touch on the lips.

He had kissed her? She opened her eyes and looked at him. And then she saw it, the thing she had been waiting for, the feeling she had been waiting to feel, a tiny object placed on the horizon, so small it was hardly there, and just a movement away from vanishing altogether. She found she was staring at herself. Like standing between two mirrors, where the reflections were endless, she had felt nothing because he had been thinking of her. He pulled away and looked hopefully at her.

"Ya'll are fuckin' crazy!" she heard someone say. They both turned and saw a grizzled man with a plastic bag full of empty soda cans watching them, one hand still searching the garbage can. She couldn't help but laugh, and was happy to see that though he was still holding himself, he was laughing too.