shine bright at Grand Central

Michael has a stand of high chairs with foot-rests all built upon a sturdy oak wooden frame with arm-rests. He is a shoe-shine guy. He is standing under the shelter of the overhang of Grand Central Station on 42nd and Lex. where in front of his shoe-shine booth. This makes sense for it provides shelter for anyone who wants to get their shoes shined even while it's raining out, so the weather has no affect on Michael's business.

I'm standing outside of the station, waiting to meet my friend M.  I have on a silk dress, flat ballerina flats, and to top it off, a not-so-elegant Yankees cap on (although it is white and sort of matches my black and white dress). I light a cigarette and stand beneath the awning and the yellow glow of the round light globes of the station. He asks if I have an extra cigarette. I offer him the rest of the pack, which he says "No no no" but i make him take them anyway. Besides which, I only smoke when I am away from home, so I won't be needing them for too much longer. It is this brief exchange that gets us to talking.

He tells me I have an accent, which is sort of funny because he has a thick accent from somewhere deeper in North Carolina (he tells me he is from there). He says he is from "deep in Carolina". I listen carefully in some attempt to capture every word, just as he listens to me, but we're having an accent problem, which means we may as well be speaking two different languages. I love the lilt of his accent. He tells me he loves my voice and the way I speak. I am a novelty.

My brother ran a shoe-shine stand back in the day, also at a train station. He did this for years to make some extra money for school and he did quite well. I tell Michael this. He likes that story. He tells me he likes people who work their way 'up'. So what do you do, he wants to know. I tell him I am a writer, a journalist. That I am here to interview a well-known film-maker who rarely (if ever) gives interviews. That this is what I do for a living and professionally. I am a member of the Fourth Estate and I take my job, my work, and the responsiblity that comes with it very seriously. It is my job to report the truth: not to skew it. It is my job not to spin, but to be the mouthpiece, to be the frontman. It is my job to get into other people's heads so that I can in this way, allow others access to the minds of those rare among us who are true geniuses.

Do I write anything else, he wants to know. Yep, i tell him. I write novels too. So what's the one you're doing now about, he asks. I hesitate for a moment, but then, one day this book will be published and the world will have it there for the reading and if I can't tell Michael, how can I tell this story to anyone. So I decide it's okay to tell him. It's a love story, I tell him. It is about how two people can love once, fully, and forever.

You believe that, he asks. Sure I do, I tell him. Yes, absolutely. It's rare, but should you be one of the lucky few, damn, you hold onto that. If you do not, then you are a fool. Anyone can "love" but a deep and kindred love is rare indeed. He tells me he loves his wife, but perhaps not as deeply as that kind of love. He wants to know more. Here comes the tricky part, I think. I tell him that the story is about childhood: about growing up: that it is about two first cousins who fall in love in childhood and as they get older, find themselves fully in love and have an affair. Nothing sordid, I tell him, for true love is and never can be sordid. Sure, an affair - a cheap affair - this can be sordid. But two people in love, no. This is not sordid. That is love, regardless of what anyone else may say, it is the two people involved who know and in the final account, it does not matter what anybody else says or thinks. It is between the two and that is it. A third party may pass judgment, in this case, they will use the word "verboten" (forbidden). They will use pejorative terms that are absolute like Right and Wrong and Good and Bad. These judgments, I tell him, only matter or count if you buy into them. Life is neither Black nor White, it is all shades of grey. And grey - grey is more intimate than anything in color. All love affairs are shades of grey, never in colour, unless they are garish and sordid, then they are painted in vivid and ugly colours that scream at us. True love never shouts. It is a quiet thing and it is shared. The two involved live in a microcosm. They live and occupy their own world, and that's more than okay.

That's really in-eresting, he says with that accent he has. I never heard of that, he tells me. In the South, sometimes distant cousins love each other, Michael says, but he's never heard of two first cousins who fall in love and if they do, they never get involved in it. "Why?" I ask him. "Do you think it is Right? Wrong?" He tells me he doesn't know. Says, he needs to think about this some. After some discussion about the rarity of a real and lasting love - a true soul connection - symbiosis, then no, he doesn't think it's wrong. It's a rare thing, he says. Right, I say. And when you, if you, should you be lucky enough to find that thing, you don't let it go. You hold onto it if you're smart. You don't listen to what others think. We're socialized a certain way to believe that some things are absolute. Nothing in the world is really absolute, I tell him. Or if they are, few things anyway. He agrees with that.

How'd you get the idea for this very in'ersting story, he asks. Here it comes, I think. Now I must reveal the truth because I see no reason to lie and I hate lying anyway, and what's the point. He is genuinely interested and this is one of those chance meetings that only happens in New York City. "I loved my cousin when I was younger," I tell him. "I still love him... never stopped." Shit, he says. Wow. You still love him? Yep, I say. But you're married he says, looking at my hand. That's right, I tell him. But that doesn't change the fact of what is. Don't get me wrong, i say. I love my husband, it's just different. Entirely different. One can love just as much but it is a different thing entirely. I believe there is one right person for all of us and maybe we wind up with that person, maybe we do not. I tell him, that is regret. Regret is when you fail to act or failed to act and left something, a situation, unrequited. "Yeah," he says. Then, "You should be with him." That's hard, I tell him. Nothing is so simple. Like I said, It's all shades of grey. It was family that kept, or tried, to keep us apart and though they never succeeded for many years, ultimately, things changed. Never did that love change. The love lasted, but we were forced in opposite directions and by "forced" I mean truly forced. That said, I tell him, it still doesnt' change the fact of what still is. Nothing could change that. As I said, It is possible to love once, fully, and forever.  Try though they may, nobody can change this.

"You're right," he says, then "Wow". He says, You got a really good story here. I bet Oprah will pick it up once your book comes out. It's so honest, he says. Nobody is this honest. i agree. Some people are, but they are few. It's rare to write even this much. It's rare to have that conversation with a complete stranger, but again, I am a journalist. I write, I report. It is a compulsion and one I refuse to harness. I like that I write openly. Others seem to like it too. i recently read from the book, "Unnaturally Close' and it was a big success. The reception was tremendous. Nobody thought, "how sick", everobody thought, as he did, 'wow, that's incredible' and they wanted to know the end. So what happens in the final account for these two. That is the question on everyone's lips.

I tell Michael they may marry other people. Probably they will. Therein lies the tension. But they will always see each other. Nothing can change that. As adults, they are free from family issues, but now the issues have changed. Same issue, only now there are others who want answers. That's the thing. Everybody wants to know Why. Everybody wants to come between the two. It's understandable... to a point. How does it end then?, he wants to know. Ahhh, can't tell you that right now, I tell him. Can't tell you that because I'll probably go home and write about this exchange, I tell him, then I would be giving away the ending. All Michael wants to know is whether or not they have a 'happy' ending. I see in his eyes he wants them to have a happy ending. I tell him this much: They certainly deserve a happy ending. After a live of self-denial and being dealt a rough hand  this and always giving to others and rarely taking for the self, in their case, these two deserve something just for them. And that's okay. Nothing selfish in that. Spend your life in the service of others, denying yourself this one true thing, then yes, you deserve to have what is by rights, yours. Love can prevail. It prevails in the story ultimately, for nobody can change that love. The most they can do is keep them apart. But that changes nothing. So burn love letters, break every last thing, it changes nothing. Those things are no more than token objects. What matters in the final account is the feeling between these two and you can't change that. "You're right..." he says.

I reach for another cigarette as lightning lights the sky and a thunderous roar. A summer storm. I like it like this. It's intimate. It's a warm rain, not a hard rain. It's soft and almost erotic. I feel flush talking about this book. I remember everything. This is both a curse and a blessing.  Memory can kill you, because you cannot rewind. You must move forward and pray that perhaps what was may come around again, only the next time, it will be better and will not end. This is the best we can hope for in this situation. As Lewis Carroll said, Last week is finished. Next week will be a different thing entirely..." Seems so simple a statement, but it does put the fine-point on how quickly things can change, for the good, for the bad, and even for the  seemingly 'steady' which is never 'steady' for even that changes and morphs and grows or shrinks. It becomes "other" in ways both good and bad. This is what I tell Michael.

We smoke a few more cigarettes, each time, he takes my lighter and insists on lighting mine for me. A gentleman, I think. It's about five fifteen p.m. and commuters are beginning to file into the station. I'll have to get going in a minute, as soon as I've finished this smoke, I'll go in to the Grand Concourse and meet my friend M. for a drink. I'll order a Ricard and before he arrives, I will take notes. I know this.

Michael says, What are you going to write about tonight? I tell him, About this. About you. About this moment right now because that's what life is. A series of pivotal moments strung together and somehow I think this is a pivotal moment. I can't put my finger on why, I only sense that there is some importance in this exchange. It seems so simple on the face of it, but there is a deeper force at work here. He is the Confessor and I am the Confessee, although I am not penitent. I have no reason to be. This is tacit. We both get it without saying a word.

He looks down at my shoes. They are black patent-leather ballet slippers with grosgrain bows tied neatly at the front and made for dancing. "I like that..." he says, looking down. "Patent leather...that's classy." He would know. i'm sorry they can't be shined, I tell him. They're already so shiny. No problems, he says. Next time. I don't have the heart to tell him that I am always wearing ballet flats or Converse sneakers, none of which ever need polishing. He tells me he is going to go home and tell his wife about this. That he met a 'great writer'. I tell him, I am not a great writer. I am a relative unknown. "But you won't be," he tells me, as if he knows. Some prescience. I wonder if he is right. Decide he is probably wrong, but so what? That's okay. If the book sells and does well, then I have made my point. At last I have made my point.

The rain falls heavy. The lights of the awning light the mauve, bruised sky. Grand Central looks warm and inviting and beautiful. We shake hands, Michael and I, and we part ways. "Later," I tell myself, "Later, i will write about this and someone will care. Or maybe they won't. But it's a moment in my life and somehow, this is important.

Maybe it's even important to someone else.

Thanks for listening,

S.R.P./July 2008