A Work of Fiction

We met at Park Bar after a brief exchange on Match. She was quirky and cute, just my everyday type, the perfect quick date. The dark bar struck the the right balance of pretension and conviviality. In a New York minute, I grabbed two seats vacated by financial types (hard to isolate—the bar’s full of them). Checking my phone for texts, I scanned the room, making sure I knew where the hot girls to keep my eyes from straying.

Inadvertently eavesdropping on an Aussie’s Myth of Origin and other ex-pats’ bland tales of world travel, I awaited my date. She arrived shortly after I did, looking cute as a button in the I-just-got-out-of-college-and-have-the-acne-to-prove-it way. We slipped fairly comfortably into a fairly predictable line of questioning. Another Jew from the South. Always fascinating.

It was a half-hour into our chat when something was afoul. Now, I’d been eating free food pretty much from the time I’d entered the office shortly after 9, when I polished off several pastries, till sometime around 6:30, when I was sinking my gluttonous teeth into a bag of Chinese fish snacks. In between were several sandwiches, wraps, salad, and fruit. And some more pastries.

Back at Park Bar, there was no doubt—something foul was in the air, and it wasn’t the usual: snobbery or liquored-up fratboys. With swift sangfroid and aplomb, I calmly continued the conversation. Until a Senegalese immigrant ordering a drink over our heads shouted, “Who sprung dat leak, man?” Only two suspects. Deciding not to cop to the charge, I hung my head—in my mind, anyway. On the outside, I was cool as a flatulent cucumber.

Truly, what could I do? The popular middle-school option of blaming an anonymous loser was closed to me—lest I wanted to open the possibility that my date was the culprit. Apologize? It’d be more acceptable to confess to a murder at that point. I had no recourse—so I kept sipping my glass of California Pinot and playing twenty questions with my companion.

Then, just as I thought her confidence had been restored, I smelled it again! Are you fucking kidding me? I asked my gastrointestinal tract. This time, a more sportsmanlike yuppie stood, extending money over my head in exchange for brews, keeping the mockery to a polite chuckle. But the damage was done. Fart once, shame on your oblivious ass. Fart twice, shame on you, asshole!

Looking at the clock, I decided to call it a night and save the poor girl from the burden of courteously lingering. I even walked her home to her West Village domicile. I figured we could both use the fresh air.