September 23, 1999

While at a cocktail party in an old, historic town home on Gramercy Park, I observed a young woman dressed in black who epitomized style and grace and beauty. Dark eyes, dark, boyish hair, porcelain skin, and dark plum lips. I didn’t speak a word to this woman, nor did any words pass over those plum lips to me. I never learned her name, nor she mine. But looking at her, surrounded as she was by old wood and glasses of red wine and Persian rugs and salmon-colored walls was quite pleasant. A more perfect picture of youth and beauty I could not paint.

As if put there as a prop for me to use, I found an old, leather-bound copy of Byron in a grand bookshelf on the living room’s south wall. I read to myself as I watched her.

She walks in beauty, like the night

This girl certainly did that. And as this nameless ingenue glided easily from conversation to conversation, she beamed with the smiles that win, the tints that glow. Laughing at appropriate levels. Charming every man with whom she spoke.

Beautiful. Absolutely beautiful. A woman from a different era. Not from this Age of Ajax, where everything seems so abrasive and unpleasant.

Take this morning as an example. While Jack the Beagle and I were out on a walk, we heard a loud argument going on around the corner. We proceeded to investigate.

There, in the middle of the sidewalk, was a man and a woman screaming obscenities at each other over the head of their crying little girl. Any notion I had of just quickly moving on was killed by little Jack, who decided that spot was a perfect place to discharge his Dog Chow from the night prior. As Jack assumed the position, the couple stopped arguing long enough to shoot me a nasty look.

"Sorry" I said. "I’ll just be a minute."

With that, the couple resumed arguing and the little girl continued crying. Always an ambassador of love, Jack, after finishing his business, walked over to the little girl and started licking her hand. After a few seconds, she stopped crying and started to laugh. The angry couple, however, was not so amused.

But rather than apologizing again, I said, "Would you two mind hating each other inside?"

"What?" the man asked me incredulously. (It is worth noting at this point that he was both shorter and skinnier than I was, so the fear factor was not that high.)

"I just think you two are being kind of loud. And it is pretty early in the morning."

"Man, why don’t you mind your own business?" the low-life sneered.

"And you really shouldn’t subject your daughter to this" I continued, ignoring his request. "She’s going to carry this scene with her for the rest of her life." Believing what I said to be true, I then turned to the cute little girl with dark brown hair and big brown eyes and porcelain skin and plum-colored lips and said, "Everything’s going to be okay, little person."

"I hope so" she said in a voice that broke my heart.

I hope so too, I thought.

Broadway Jim Jenkins