I'm No Batman

Upon leaving my apartment this morning, I was immediately met with a band of children roughly six to eight years of age. They were a bicycle gang, very much unlike the kind you find in Cambridge or Brooklyn where seven-year olds already have decals depicting their cousin’s band and “Life is Good” stickers adoring their bikes. This is Harlem, and these bikes are hand-me-downs and yard sale purchases – some are even dumpster diving acquisitions.

But I’ve never been one for material things. I had a rather large comic book collection and I gave it away for gin and poutine (I was hot and starving). Mine has, and always will be, the language of events. A boy of maybe eight was perched atop the garden wall in front of my building, a young black Moses calling edicts down from Sinai to his brethren below as they toiled helplessly with the bicycle in question. When I appeared, his voice that had been shrill and scolding of his peers became soft and articulated. He turned to me from atop the parapet:

“Mister, do you have a screwdriver?”

“I’m so sorry, no,” I replied.

Then, the world’s greatest, most innocent non sequitur:

“Hey, mister, are you single?” he asked lightly.

I am single, I thought, but how the hell did this kid know that? The sheer fear and awe in my face had to have been so clearly visible because even I could see it without even looking at myself. Consequently, this is when I began to run.
These schoolyard mystics had divined my secret and all I could do to stand up to their inquisition was run. Sensing my discomfort, the questioning then grew malicious.

“Hey, mister, are you gay? Mister! Are you gay and single?”

I didn’t stick around long enough to answer, mostly because I was terrified if I did how they might respond. In my heart of hearts, I hoped that if I responded “yes” to both they would accept me into their fold and I, being the only one with an allowance, would have gladly gone to the hardware store for them, purchased a screwdriver and even tried my abysmally feeble hand at fixing the communal bicycle. They would have lauded me as a demigod and continued their line of questioning, only this time the question would be:

“Hey, mister, why are you single?” Their shock and disbelief underscoring my own at how this could be. How could anyone “cool” enough to buy some street kids a screwdriver be single? My sentiments exactly.

By the time I realized I hadn’t actually gone and bought the screwdriver like I thought I had in my waking daydream, I found myself on the A train. Still single. Still gay. And, still without a clue as to how these babies could so easily cut me to the quick. I guess people in relationships carry utility belts, like Batman. Now partnered, they have tools that us single people don’t, such as confidence and duct tape. If I were to fashion my own single’s utility belt its contents would be as follows:

-wine key
-pepper spray
-an umbrella
-comfortable shoes to change into
-a Michael McDonald album
-and a vintage copy of “Honcho”

So I’m no Batman, and much less do I have a Robin of my own. What troubles me most, however, is the idea that I was tortured by the innocent ramblings of some sniveling children. It was in processing my emotions in and around this event that I came to realize that religion will always exist. Prayer preys, and it most often preys on the weak. And in a week, I hope to not be so weak as to let a happening as this catch me off guard.