Ergo, the Ogre

 

When the sudden thunderstorm began to taper off, “Fly Me to The Moon” was playing on my iPod.  I love that song.

All that money spent on a professional make-up artist, streaming down my cheeks like an insane child’s finger-painting. People hurried past, concerned with their own affairs, scarcely glancing at my psychedelic face. That just goes to show you how self-absorbed people could be nowadays. If I passed someone whose face looked as if it had been mauled by a rainbow, I’d at least offer them a tissue or call 911. Clearly, people from Nebraska were more attuned to their fellow human beings than New Yorkers.

Crap: a stoplight. I stood on the curb with 24 (I have an OCD that forces me to count everything) New Yorkers, when a 3-legged tabby— who was either pregnant or had a jam-packed belly full of worms—tried to scramble up my right leg. My Gucci nylon was a bloody (in every sense of the word) shred.  Watery carmine snaked down my leg, (anemic, again?). The song, “Cat Scratch Fever” wound through my mind. A man decorated in a three-piece-suit who reminded me of the guy on the Quaker Oats box stared at me as if I were a freak of nature. He opened his mouth to speak but apparently had second thoughts and closed it. Smart move, oatmeal-man.

The red light finally turned green and some moron offered me a Hello Kitty! umbrella which I politely refused. I wanted to be wet, and so did my face. Wet and clean. There went my theory regarding New-Yorkers. Maybe the moron was from elsewhere  and new to the city, like me. No matter. The cat was hopping after me like a spastic bunny rabbit. I scooped her up to ensure she wouldn’t get smashed by a careless, mean shoe.  Anything can happen in a place like this.

Oh, geez! I had five minutes to get to my interview at the “Ouí Chic Unique” modeling agency. I scanned the numbers on the brown buildings for 1110—the address that would change my life.

Spotted it!

Of course, I was on the wrong side of the street. I hated crossing streets—no good ever came of it. The cat grew antsy; annoyed by the lingering rain that had turned into a shower, and burrowed inside my coat. It turned out that rather than a pregnant girl, this was a little boy: a glimpse of his dangling modifiers gave it away.

I ran across the street, forgetting to look both ways as I am wont to do.

Vroom! Vroom!

An old Indian motorcycle with a suicide shift on the side (that’s how I knew it was an Indian motorcycle) ran over my left foot. There went the brand-new magenta Prada shoes. Well, one of them anyway. The right pump was free of tread marks but of what use is one magenta Prada? Nothing was going right, but at least I had a new cat: Moon-Doggie.

My toes were beginning to swell. They pounded a heartbeat inside the squashed Prado. 

Safely inside the building, I hobbled to the elevator only to discover that it was “Out of Order.” There was no choice but to ascend the five flights of stairs to Ms. Abrams’ office. Halfway there, I met her on the staircase. She was humming “Fly Me to the Moon.” 

I wondered if she was from Nebraska, too.