Cutthroat

It was an exciting evening trip to the UPS distribution center on 43rd st to pick up my cappuccino machine. As I approached the entrance, I noticed a biker locking his bike to a pole. He was cute. I decided to try to chat him up when we got inside.

We all filed into line, eventually giving our tickets to the dispatcher. The place was so new york, I wanted to burst out of my skin. A tiny office in the front area of a humongous warehouse with a stout pot bellied middle aged Italian with a thick new york accent trying to shuffle the wildly diverse patrons through the assembly line as they buzzed with impatience. People were generally civil but after something around 30 years of "Where's my package?", the dispatcher was only marginally interested in anything other then collecting tickets and sending gofers to fetch the corresponding boxes.

I glanced at the good looking biker but didn't have the courage to make eye contact so I grabbed a seat, watched the commotion, watched the tv on the wall, gestured at the deaf patron who couldn't understand the questions the UPS dispatcher was asking of him and in general tried to soak up the moment.

A crazy looking toothless guy would occasionally take to complaining at the crowd at large. He had the jerky body language of a long time cocaine user. He had tattoos all over his emaciated body including a strange tattoo across his throat. I saw the word "cut" and what kind of looked like "throat". Cutthroat? No wonder people were backing away. He yammered at the dispatcher and the other patrons something about waiting for two-and-a-half hours for his package. Everyone including the dispatcher ignored him. He seemed not to notice and carried on about how lucky they were that he isn't a younger man since his younger days would have carried more spit and fire.

I know that the druggy crazy stuff should have put me off more, but you have to feel for a guy who has been waiting for a package for 2.5 hours with someone telling him it will arrive in 10 minutes every 10 minutes for an hour and a half even if he did have "cutthroat" tattooed across his throat. I offered him my sympathize and the next thing I know, he is sitting next to me telling me that he stopped using drugs after he got AIDS 25 years ago. Oh no! Did I ask for this?!

He went on about how the best thing about surving AIDS was seeing his grand kids grow up, how he wished they had told him it would be such a long wait since he needed to get back to finish a job he was doing free of charge for a friend, that he is by profession a general contractor who can build or install any part of a homes interior, about his dad insisting on teaching him everything from carpentry to electrical wiring, how he truly loves his job to the point of perfectionism, loves executing his vision of the perfect finished bathroom and wont take a job were he cant control the outcome, how he learned to play the conga drum and piano while working as a roady for Latin bands.

Then a backroom worker handed me my package. I stood and moved toward the door. Last chance to make contact with the cute biker. Whats this? Whats happening?! I dodge eye contact with hot biker to turn and wish Cutthroat luck with his package. He smiled and returned some pleasantries as I stepped out into the muggy night.

I love new york. Anywhere else, I would have gone to my neighborhood UPS store and sat silently with a bunch of other self absorbed, impatient, college educated white collar drones breaking the silence to sigh loudly about the long wait.....not that theres anything wrong with that............except that it makes for a very uninteresting life.