Unrequited (of a feeling, especially love) not returned or rewarded)
Mutual discontent:
Walking down the street. I see Malcolm (of course that's not his real name) sitting on a plastic chair. Some other men are here and there on the pavement in plastic chairs, one a few feet away.
Hi Malcolm, I say. "Have you recovered from that sweet kiss I gave you off my fingertips last week?" (I had kissed my own fingers and applied my fingers to his temple.)
He looks at me. He doesn't remember.
"I have something to say to you," I say. (I don't know why I didn't have the bravery back in the day.)
He looks up at me. Malcolm has thin gray hair that he periodically doses with black dye. He's Italian and Mexican in heritage. He's younger than me. He looks up through his-bifocals and I see the same glimmer and flash that was there years ago.
"I want you to know that back in the day you had me for a moment. I don't know why I didn't use my writing skills and write you a damn long letter." With my hands I ran over an invisible document, a long scroll."
His eyes flash and he smiles.
"It was because you were so sincere with me. But you lied about the two wedding bands you wear." (I had asked him about the rings. Asked him if he wore them to ward off women. Still in love with your ex? I asked. He said he just liked to wear them When I found out - for sure - that he had been married twice.)
I noticed that the man sitting closest to him was earnestly trying to not listen in but that got him.
"But I hate your friends." I said.
"I hate them too," Malcolm said. "T.J.? He shook his head." (T.J. (not his real name) was a tough Native American man who it was rumored had five children with various women he did not support. Had worked as a bouncer. Had been in jail with Malcolm when they were younger. For what I don't know. Rumors had it T.J. had a baby with an underage girl.)
"That one guy... he told me his problems...that woman...her mother threatened him and told him to get out, her brother held a gun to his head..."
"They got married," Malcolm said. "And got their little place."
"Well one day he looked at me and said,"You're nothing but some woman in a hat."
"He did?"
"And I said, "Most Certainly Not," and that surprised him.
"And someone else told me that you ran a brothel," I continued. "But then someone else said you don't charge."
Malcolm laughed. "They did?!"
Yes, I nodded.
"Look, I'm just an entertainer," he said. "That's my job, to keep people up."
"Yea, but there's a point there where it's a tease - a mean tease. Like that time you sang me the song."
"What song did I sing to you?"
"Well, T.J. went past me one day and said "That Malcolm sure has the biggest crush on you." And then a couple weeks later you stood up and said "I'm now going to address the rumors that have been going around here about me. Then you looked at me and said "I'm going to sing you a song and when I asked you what you were going to sing to me you said "Under My Skin" but when the time came you sang "Hooked On A Feeling."
"Hooked On A Feeling, I know that song," Malcolm said.
"It has that horrible oooga booga."
"Yea, everybody hates that part."
Malcolm was still smiling but also looked like he swallowed a goldfish.
"And then you ran."
"Where did I run to?"
"Before I could talk to you, you ran, all the way down the street, and I saw you run into this place."
"There was another karaoke"
"No, you ran, as if you were embarrassed." (After his feat, Malcolm really never talked with me again. I would see him sitting in a plastic chair on the sidewalk and stay on the other side of the street. Yet for a moment there was no doubt about it, Malcolm had a crush on me and for a moment there was no doubt I had a crush on him too.)
"Maybe if things had been different I would have gotten married and had a lot of babies," he said.
