Joe slid through the crowd on the street, not in a hurry, just enjoying it, like it was some kind of game, call it Body Avoidance, a challenge of finding the gaps just large enough to pass through untouched while the bodies continued moving in somewhat predictable ways, though the unpredictable could always happen, adding to the challenge and the fun, that quick burst bypassing the unexpected shift. He loved this game ever since moving to New York, at first when he worked at a copy place in Grand Central Station (nearby where he happened to be sliding through at the moment), especially busy streets around there, especially at rush hours and lunch, and further challenged when he carried heavy packages of copies destined for publishing houses, often pocketing the cab money given to him to walk even farther through more busy streets carrying those burdens. And then when he became busboy and then waiter at the restaurant at Max's Kansas City, a punk club with the music upstairs and the restaurant where he worked downstairs, sliding through crowds of kids his age on weekend nights. It felt like a kind of dance, especially at the club, even with his own special tempo.
This time though, for the first time ever as far as he could recall, he collided with someone who seemed to appear out of nowhere, his height of six and a half feet always helping his vision and his traversing perhaps missing her much smaller frame, at least a foot shorter, probably closer to a foot and a half, but more it seemed like she stepped into the narrow passage he'd found as if on purpose, finding the perfect moment for collision. But of course that would have been impossible, her knowing when to get in his way, when he'd happen to be sliding through at that very moment, unless fate could be considered purposeful.
"Asshole," the young woman growled from the concrete in which his impact sent her, landing on her ass and a hand that prevented something worse like concussion and scraping it for the trouble. With him stopped standing over her, the crowd flowed around the sudden impediment like cattle somehow avoiding stampeding, though less animal and more human since the flow went both ways.
He looked down at a blonde waif, skinny and frail, her t shirt and jeans too big for her and looking well past new, the t shirt white with a band logo he was unfamiliar with showing every stain, and there were many, the jeans showing a small right kneecap where the cloth had frayed. The navy peacoat, too warm for the balmy, almost summerlike weather unusual this early in the year, splayed open.
"I'm so sorry," Joe exclaimed, and when his stretched out hand was avoided by her, he insisted, "Let me help you up." She finally allowed his large hand to take hold of her small slim one aiding her to standing. "I didn't see you," he added.
"Obviously," she smirked, adjusting her stuffed and scuffed red backpack on her shoulders.
"Hungry?" he asked.
"I could eat," she half smiled.
He guided her across the street and to the end of the block where one of the last of the Horn and Hardarts automats existed and put coins into the slots for her tuna sandwich and chips and for his egg salad. He bought her a Coke and he got coffee. She used the toilet there to clean her scrape amongst other things since she took a while, which worried him, thinking she might have run off, but of course she didn't, having food waiting for her.
"I'm Joe," he told her.
"Jenny," she replied before filling her mouth with a bite of sandwich.
They said nothing for a while since she devoured her food, obviously needing it.
"Anything else?" he asked.
"Maybe a pie? The lemon meringue looked tempting."
"Okay if we share?" he asked.
"That's fine."
"Uhm, are you going to stay?" He looked at her, saw her eyes pooling and she sniffled. "Please?"
Her smile nearly broke his heart when she replied, "Nowhere better to be."
"Good. After we eat, let's get that scrape taken care of."
"Okay."
They stayed, talking over the small empty plate.
"Where are you from?" he asked.
"The Twin Cities. Minneapolis."
"No shit! Me too!"
"No shit!"
"No shit. Where?"
"Robbinsdale."
"Golden Valley."
"No shit?"
"No shit."
The two suburbs were neighbors, Robbinsdale more middle class than Golden Valley, which tended to be more upper middle class, a lot of professionals, doctors, lawyers and professors, his dad being of the latter type.
Fate.
"You work around here?" she asked, since Joe had dressed up in a jacket and tie, the tie loose around his neck.
"I used to," he told her. "I'm actually applying for jobs presently."
"Presently," she giggled.
"Sorry. I tend to talk like I have a stick up my butt."
"No, it's cute."
"Glad you think so," he chuckled.
"How's the job search going?" she asked.
"Not great unfortunately. My uncle's an executive at the William Morris Agency, and I hoped that might help, but I guess he's against nepotism. It's possible I'll get a job in their mail room. I applied at other offices, but I'm making a career change, or hoping to, and have got little experience."
"From what?" she asked.
"I used to be a waiter at Max's Kansas City."
"No shit!"
"No shit."
"Why not stay there?"
"I needed a change," he murmured, unconsciously stroking his arm.
Jenny sensing Joe's discomfort regarding the subject wisely ended that line of inquiry. "What's the William Morris Agency?" she asked instead.
"It's one of the largest talent agencies in America," he told her.
"Cool."
"Yeah. It's had its perks. Getting turned on to Bowie early because my uncle wrote the contract that signed him. Meeting cool stars at a party at his house upstate. Going to openings like the movie Hair and Apocalypse Now, the last a brand new print and sitting close."
