In a Year...

 

 

Knight in Leather

He looked around at the other tables in the noisy, crowded bar. He had the typical Fonzie clothing and hairstyle. A black leather jacket, gelled hair, and long side burns. His look was out of place among the spiked collars and piercings. He didn’t appear to mind this, or even notice.

He lit a cigarette, while sipping his Long Island iced tea. The mixed drink seemed somehow wrong. The tall glass with a thin straw in it should have been replaced with a long neck of Corona with a wedge of lime.

Next to him was a pool table where a couple of young men played. They walked around laughing and making rude comments in the way that only young men can. He surveyed them silently, almost with contempt, as if he knew that their actions were just those of the male peacock trying to attract a female. Every once in a while, the boys would glance over to the quiet figure sitting alone at a table on the edge of the noisy room. His silence told them that he needed no such tactics.

He got up, and went downstairs, exploring the parts of the club, which he hadn’t yet seen. At the bottom of the stairs was a room lit by a blue-light. The eerie light made his eyes glow and his teeth look florescent yellow. He began going down the next short flight of stairs to where he had heard the bathroom was, when a darkness in the corner caught his eye.

He stopped, turned around, and walked over to the dark spot, which turned out to be a very large girl sitting quietly.

“What are you doing down here?” he asked the girl. He smiled, the corners of his generous mouth the only thing to curve up. His impassive face had rearranged itself completely into one of polite friendliness in one small movement.

“What are you doing up there?” the girl asked flippantly, desperately hoping that the very act of speaking wouldn’t start her crying. She had been very quiet sitting on the couch in the corner, which she had imagined was put there for that very reason, in the hopes of not attracting attention. She had done very well up until that point.

“Let me rephrase that,” he said, still smiling. “Why are you down here?”

“Because there isn’t anything for me to do up there,” she answered. Which was the complete truth. Her friend had basically ditched her to go talk to some guy who had been chasing her skirt. Sadly, she no longer had anything to do upstairs but watch people, since no one seemed at all interested in chasing the skirt of someone who wasn‘t a size two. She didn‘t know anyone else upstairs with whom she could hang out.

She winced when she felt the lump in her throat enlarge, but swallowed it back down. She could watch people downstairs, where it was more dimly lighted and would gather less attention in doing so. For some reason, people seemed to become somewhat uneasy when she stared at them.

All at once, he was beside her, his knees bent, his arm crooked, and his head tilted indicating that she get up. She did so. She placed her hand on his elbow, feeling slightly silly in doing so since it was something that she had never seen done in real life; only in movies. Forgetting the bathroom, he led her upstairs. “Come keep me company,” was all he said.

Her hand placed lightly on his elbow, and walking through the club, she saw him through a different light than she had just a few minutes earlier. Where before, he had been attractive, now he was beautiful; her knight in shining leather. A true hero. She followed him through the dim club, he glowing like a beacon for her. He led her up to yet another floor of the club, where there was dance floor and another bar. Finally, after so many years of being ignored and overshadowed by even the most uninteresting of people, was someone who made her feel special and worth knowing.

They made small talk, and his cool armor disappeared. The pedestal upon which she placed him began getting higher and higher. Slowly, he morphed from Fonzie into Ritchie Cunningham. He was smiling and laughing opening up in a way few ever did around her. His face transformed from cool heartthrob into an open, honest visage.

He told her about his poetry, and that he was in a punk band. He shredded the idea that his outer exterior gave in favor of a new, sensitive, and improved image. She was also a poet and wrote lyrics at times. He paid attention to her, which was something that automatically made him the perfect man. Someone she not only wanted to go to bed with and who she wouldn’t mind waking up to. Here was someone, she thought, that made you think not only of how sexy he was but also of how nice it would be if you could just get him out of the noisy atmosphere and into a nice quiet place where you could talk over coffee.

Occasionally, one or the other of them would wander away to talk to someone for a minute, or to order another drink, but they would invariably return, and the conversation would pick up where it left off.

He spoke of how he graduated high school at fifteen and his college years. He was quite a bit older than she, and she could feel the weight of his life experience pressing on her, making her feel horribly inadequate. Yet, somehow his smile, which was half self-depreciating and half pure charismatic charm, removed such negative thoughts from her head.

He sat with her and talked in the noisy room for quite a while, until her friend came looking for her. The guy who was interested in her friend was gone, and she was ready to hang out again.

The two girls walked off together, leaving the man sitting alone at the bar, back in Fonzie mode. She left him with a feeling of self worth that she hadn’t had in years. Though it was the wrong way to attain it, she knew that her meeting with her mysterious gentleman, someone who didn’t automatically overlook her, had given her more confidence than she had had in far too long. She left him, but looked back, catching one last glance of him sitting in front of the bar before the crowd closed back around him like a pool of disturbed water.

In a genuine cool guy fashion, he smoothed the top and sides of his hair back into place, lit another cigarette, and ordered another Long Island iced tea.

He sat back and sipped at his drink thinking, with a satisfied sigh, “More alcohol for your dollar.”

 

 

 

 

Copywrite 2002 Trudy Smock