Tonight at the Showcase

I belong to a writing community called Red Oak.

We don’t live in a commune or take a pledge or anything like that. Mostly what we do is show up to read our writing and listen to other people. In order to have that work in a good way, the people involved have to be generous. And they are – when the writing is glorious and when it’s maybe not so glorious.

There was a showcase tonight where Red Oak members signed up to read to the larger group. This reading was a Christmas party held at a local club and had eleven writers reading to the group. I was last.

I took a chance. I read a funny piece. I have plenty of what a friend calls ‘poignant’ pieces, and they are sure to please a crowd, but funny is harder. Reading what I thought was a funny piece, which had me laughing when I practiced, was a risk. It’s so easy to fall in love with one’s own stuff. But this was going to be different – people would either laugh – out loud so I could hear them – and not, which I would hear even louder.

They laughed. They may have been their generous selves, or it might have been funny.

Here’s the piece.

Lipstick Touchers

“If I was a big, tall guy, would I be a looming, space-taking, oblivious asshole or would I be nice?” I asked the question of no one in particular but my husband was within earshot. “Oh, you’d be nice.”

I had just crumpled my ticket to the football game in my hand like it was a gum wrapper I was about to throw out the window of the car if I was so inclined which I’m not. I never litter. Never.

It started with the giant men in line to get into Lambeau Field for the Green Bay Packers game. Big men with big parkas, hunting pants on, and boots thick as bricks. Each of them took up triple human space – their own physical bodies, their extraordinary garb, and their auras fueled by Miller Lite, begging the question, what is the point of drinking a light beer when you are already giant?

We waited in line to go through the metal detector. I held in my right mittened hand my phone and my lipstick. This is all I travel with these days – these two little items – having long ago left my beloved Coach purse in a heap under my desk. I can’t be bothered with satchels like some damn donkey. I just want to go on my way with my hands in my pockets.

The big looming man on my left reached across me and touched my lipstick. And then he murmured something that sounded like instructions or advice about the metal detector, I couldn’t discern the specifics because I was so focused on the question: Why are you touching my lipstick? Who touches somebody’s lipstick? Seriously, is this something that you would do? I would never. Especially a stranger’s.

So I shouted at him “I can’t hear you” which is my reflex response to people I have no intention of listening to and he moved forward, felling trees and scattering small wildlife as he clomped ahead.

Lord, I thought, my hatred of men is getting out of control. I was with a man, my husband. He is substantial but not looming and unfailingly polite and if he’s ever touched anyone’s lipstick, he’s kept it a secret all these years.

Finally, we are inside Lambeau just as the Packers are taking the field. We march up to Row 49 which is a major hike, and we get to where there are several men sitting in a row. We stand there, say excuse me and they stand but as they stand, their enormous, booted feet are covering all of the space in front of them so in order to get to our seats, we will have to swing from the zippers on their outsized parkas, one to the next. So I said, “Don’t make it too easy, guys” and we went to the row below, walked down several seats and then hoisted ourselves up to our seats.

It was then I smashed my ticket in my fist.

My husband, meanwhile, took his seat happily, he’s always happy at Lambeau, I could be propped up in a coffin beside him and he’d remark on his good fortune to be at a Packer game when the sun was shining.

After a while, at the end of the first quarter to be specific, I reminded him of his promise to get us something to eat after we got our seats. This meant leaving our seats and going to the concourse. Going back the way we came seemed fraught with danger because of my still percolating hatred of the looming, space-taking men at the end of the row, so we opted for the other direction. Magically, if on cue or warned ahead of time, all four men, also tall and excessively garbed, not only stood but walked to the aisle so we would have an unencumbered exit from our seats.

Oh my God, I thought. They’re so nice.

When we came back from the hot dog stand, the four men again stood up and moved to the aisle so we could walk to our seats without crawling over their knees. Thank you, thank you, we said, like they had sprinkled rose petals in our path. They’re real gentlemen we decided and it gave me hope that not all men think they can touch my lipstick.

Later, after my husband had chatted the nice men up, which he is prone to do, engage in conversation with other men at sporting events like they have been pals since 6th grade, my husband turned to me and said, “They’re from Nebraska,” intending that fact to explain everything. Which it did, in that moment