Blindly

Acting blindly can lead to unforeseen ends (isn’t that what "blindly" means?). Blind dates are no exception.

So, I agreed to be a “filler” date to make a foursome for a blind date my female friend arranged to introduce her friend A to my friend S. We all got together and went to a “Big Band” club, where we had drinks, conversation, and a generally good time.

A was strikingly good-looking, and I thought, “Damn the torpedoes, S, full speed ahead!” I hoped S got her number when we split up and headed home. Well past midnight, my phone rang. When I answered, whoever called hung up. I thought little more of it.

Come next weekend, S went out with her. Later, he told me she just asked him about me. At that point, he had no emotional investment and told me, “Go for it.”

An attractive woman seemed interested in me, and there was no conflict with my buddy, so I set up a date and met her at the large, subdivided house in Montrose where she lived.

She was very beautiful, more so than I’d remembered. And, well, she had an intense relationship with her cat. She covered her eyes with her hand and said, repeatedly, in her Brooklyn accent, “Quit staring at me!”

You’re my date for the evening, and you want me to not look at you? Hmm…

I don’t remember what we did on that first date, but we did go out more over the next several weeks. At Thanksgiving we were invited to the home of the friend who’d introduced us, and that left an image that’s with me to this day. We entered the home, and looking down the hallway into the kitchen, I saw our host sitting on a stool in front of the oven, a blazing fireball inside. She was crying and holding a bottle of bourbon. We had Thanksgiving dinner at the House of Pies.

Anyway, A just became a little stranger, and the hang-up calls increased. At that time, I lived on a one-block street that was a shortcut to nowhere, and I saw her driving down it. A wave elicited no response. “Ring-ring” went the telephone.

OK, it was all, um, not fitting together very well, so I called it off and went about my life. The hang-up calls went unabated. One night I got up to get a glass of water and didn’t turn on the lights; she was parked across the street from my house, motor running, parking lights on. I don’t think she saw me, but she suddenly took off. “Ring-ring!”

Time went on, and I began to hardly notice the hang-up calls. One day I came out of work, and she was in her car across the street. She took off when I looked over at her, as she had another time when I had seen her parked by the building’s loading dock.

One night I went to a nearby pub, and while standing at the bar, I turned around and realized she was standing right behind me. Surprised, I said hello and realized she was hyperventilating, and she quickly exited. It was a rainy evening, and I found a soggy, unintelligible note under my windshield wiper. “Ring-ring!”

So this situation bubbled along for about a year. Then I went to a party hosted by the same friend who had arranged the now-long-ago blind date. Not surprisingly, A was there, having come with a couple of guys from her work (travel agency – if that dates the story some). While I avoided her, she nevertheless eventually came and told me her ride had left, and asked if I could give her a ride home. I really didn’t want to, but agreed, telling her up front that I was just dropping her off at her home.

We hardly spoke on the way, but – and this was the only time she spooked me a little – she just half turned in her seat and stared at me.

At her house I pulled in the driveway, and she grabbed the steering wheel and announced she was not getting out of the car. Well, I got out and went to the passenger side door, opened it, and began trying to physically remove her. She wasn’t giving up, and I realized that it’s late at night and here we had a guy trying to pull a woman out of a car, and if a cop happens along, well, I know who’s going to jail. So, she won that skirmish.

I told her I was going home, and she was not coming in, and she’d have to walk back home. When I got home, I said, “Good night,” and walked to the stairs leading to my second-floor loft. Just after I heard the car door, she was on me like a monkey backpack. She was relentless and trailed me up to my loft bed. Once there, she – clumsily – commenced “activities.” But I just couldn’t bring myself to engage and went to sleep.

In the morning, little was said, and I took her home. A few days later, I received a card with a long, sentimental poem I didn’t really understand.

I did feel sorry for her. But there wasn’t anything I could do for her.

I never saw her again.