and now, a story about something other than coronavirus

And now, a story about something other than Coronavirus. Because we need it.

I used to work in Midtown Manhattan. For those of you who’ve never been there, Midtown is a trip, the slab of city least inclined to be comfortable, in my opinion.

Midtown is where you find your 34th Street Herald Square, home of the flagship Macy’s, a swamp of sadness in which we are ALL Artax.

Come on, boy. I’ve got a coupon for a duvet set…

You’ve got your Times Square, a Bermuda Triangle in which out-of-state human beings bafflingly and without exception lose the ability to walk unless they are standing four or five across. Seriously, the choices are a) just stand there like human hot dog carts in the middle of the sidewalk, or b) stage what could be a performance art version of Red Rover: the McClendons of Indiana versus Holy Mary Mother of God Youth Choir from St. Louis.

The avenues are interminable hallways walled by skyscrapers that house law firms, ad agencies, staffing agencies, modeling agencies, and every manner of Dunder Mifflin you can imagine. A thousand feet in the sky, people are sitting in cubicles not doing work because they’re Slacking each other about the new office manager’s hard-to-place accent and Lars’s new haircut that he thought made him look like a K-pop star but really makes him look like a Nazi.

On the street level, you’ve got your grab’n’go “I’m so busy” lunch joints - Chipotle! McDonald’s! Bagels! Delis! Bodegas with multi-ethnic salad bars and an entire wall of cold drinks! Salads in 30 seconds or less! 2 slices of cheese and a Coke for $5 if you take it and get the hell outta here, bub!

Also on the street level, you can find anything a worker bee could need to stay at work: a bank, an optician, a dry cleaner, a cobbler, a chiropractor, a florist. There’s a nail salon, a cheap barber, and a dry bar. There’s an off-brand “working person clothes” store with signs in the window like “2 suits for $40!” That store is so chock-full of flammable fabrics that you’re not allowed to pull out your cell phone in case the static electricity sends the whole place up in smoke.

There’s an electronics store for your chargers, batteries, and “oh shit I didn’t bring the right cable for my presentation” emergencies. There are Duane Reades (or they used to be anyway), and a fleet of scungy Irish pubs named something like O’Houlihan’s, O’Seanagans or The Scabby Fiddler’s Knickers.

I used to work for the Princeton Review in Manhattan. I was a private tutor for SAT, ACT, some of the SAT IIs, and a college admissions counselor. TPR (as the cool kids called it) had some office space in Midtown where we taught classroom courses, met up with tutoring students, and proctored practice tests on the weekends. It was just a couple of blocks from Grand Central terminal, which is the one part of Midtown I always kind of liked. There used to be a bakery in there with bangin’ black and whites.

Anyway, one time I was walking from the train to work and I saw a gentleman in day-glo orange short shorts, the kind that cut up high on the hip in the French style, power-walking down 42nd street, toward me. Midtown isn’t much of a jogger’s delight, but New York City sidewalks are notoriously unpredictable (except in the aforementioned case of Times Square sidewalks, which, again, could and often do drive Zen Buddhists to battery).

I didn’t stare at him because he was exercising.

I didn’t stare at him because, good Lord, Alan, that sure is a lot of thigh meat for daytime hours.

I didn’t even stare at him because he was doing a bang-on impression of Billy Crystal in When Harry Met Sally.

Reader, I stared at him because that man’s left testicle was fully out of his shorts.

Like a water balloon that had been slammed in the door of an Uber, his nut bulged from ‘neath the elastic gusset of his short-panty.

Like a can of Pillsbury cinnamon rolls, the flesh exploded from its restraints, moist and glistening.

Like a nard squeezed out the leg of a pair of tight running shorts, the meat knob dangled in the evening breeze, there on 42nd Street.

He made no eye contact as he strutted down the busy sidewalk, chin up, elbows swinging, in a pair of insufficient shorts and puffy headphones (complete with a baby antenna). Those headphones were his armor against the muttered “pal… pal… hey buddy, get the mouse back in the house”s and “well that shit ruins your day”s and “oh my god I just saw that guy’s thing”s.

Was this his kink? His fetish?

Or was he merely beasting it up? Caught in the flow of a gnarly hustle for the muscle?

When he returned home, invigorated and smelling of the outside city street, and slipped off his damp headphones, and caught a glimpse of his exposed huevo in the hallway mirror, would he be mortified? Or would he flash a small smile at the lobe of his brain bag and whisper, “Well done, old friend.”

I wonder whether he has hobbies (or perhaps I should say “other hobbies”) or a pet. I imagine he has a one-eyed cat named Bubbles that loathes him and he keeps trying to abandon but always finds its way home, and now he’s built up a grudging respect for the demon cat even though it pisses on all his favorite shorty shorts and bites his ankles while he’s peeing. Either that or a creepy ferret named after his high school girlfriend that lives in a fanny pack. (“Would Jennifer Dabrowski like some num-nums?”)

Anyway, sir, if you’re reading this, I want you to know I do not think of you often but I do think about you sometimes, and whenever I do, you get worse and creepier. Get the mouse back in the house.

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Instead of asking you to hit my tip jar today, I’m asking you to send those bucks to your local food bank, or mine. The one I just linked to is making sure that kids have food even though they’re not in school right now.

I know, it can feel like “What’s the point? My $5 can’t make a difference.”

But wait! Are you ready to have your MIND BLOWN?

Because food banks like Feeding America work directly with food manufacturers and wholesalers, every DOLLAR you send them translates to TWELVE POUNDS OF FOOD.

That’s roughly TEN MEALS.

So your $5 = FIFTY MEALS.