An edited version of this piece was used for my application to the Biography and Memoir program at the CUNY Graduate Center.
In that version, I still kept every ‘fuck.’
“Okay, you see that?” I point to the Nathan’s Hotdogs on the boardwalk. The newish one.
Allyson glances at it, “I’m not hungry.” She says it as if she’s neither interested nor disinterested. Factually, she’s just not hungry.
We connected on OkCupid a few days ago, and then met in real life a half hour ago at the Stillwell Avenue train stop. On her profile she mentioned that she had an 'inscrutable face.' I thought that it might be cute, but what she meant was 'impossible to read' and unnecessarily snide.
“No, I mean…” It's getting dark, and she's still wearing her mirrored sunglasses. In its lenses I can see I look as stupid as I feel.
“Well, what then?”
“There used to be something cool there is all. There’s all sorts of fun weird bits of history here.”