Fool In Love

By Mihir Sinha

I sort of liked that she was taller. It meant that sometimes my hands got to places before my eyes could. Although, I had this niggling suspicion that she peeked over my head at other guys while we danced at clubs.

There goes an insecure man with his insecurities, laugh the hacks. Well hacky, I didn’t care. Not so blatantly anyway. It was much stupider than that, especially when I tried imbibing an Elvis hairpiece, a top hat and a Samba head dress in my ensemble in my efforts to block her view past me when we got close.

The Elvis wig made her sneeze in my hair. Which was horrible – the gruesome snot splatter trickling from Elvis’ curls. She said sorry, and I was more than happy to avoid the rap on that one. Matter of fact, I can’t recall why she let me go out looking like that. But I do remember the peach brandy bottle she had in her purse, which got taken out intermittently from 4’o clock that evening all the way till bedtime.

The top hat was worse, but at least we were only in a park. That probably obviated the need for such pre-emptive measures. But I went with it anyway. Breezy Sunday ‘twas; a real nice one. I might have even whistled.

She looked primed for the day when she showed up in a flowery sundress. I’m no connoisseur of female paraphernalia, except when they’re embellishments for one of God’s finest. I didn’t get cheesy right away. You look good, I said. But I couldn’t close my mouth.

I kissed her. Somewhere between the fractured conversations, which were excuses to draw breath, I even got the hat on. Which is no euphemism for my sexual adeptness. I mean, I literally pulled the top hat out from behind me and proceeded to wear it. It was out-of-work magician meets park troll on a park bench.

There weren’t any forewarnings. She seemed to buy into the whole Willy Wonka gimmick – the Sunday afternoon, beach shorts version. We were on cue. And then the breeze blew.

When it blew, she was a couple of inches from my face. It caused a sudden shift of axis on the top of my head, and the rim of the top hat cleaved straight onto the bridge of her nose. Son of a bitch, she yelled. I’m sure she was talking about the hat.

I never got anywhere with the Samba head dress. Somehow, lost the nerve, after all that bleeding and sneezing. Now, it’s kept away for Friday nights.

By Mihir Sinha