Love Among the Crickets

By Rick Horowitz

He was a man with a sense of duty. She was a woman with an eye for a bargain. Who knows what they might have been together?

He's still trying to find out.

In fact, he's taping it to the streets:

ARE YOU THE WOMAN IN GREEN WHO WAS ON HER WAY TO A TAG SALE?

The message was stuck right to the middle of the sidewalk, a large sheet of white paper with a strip of masking tape in each corner. The handwritten words were all in capital letters, with "WOMAN IN GREEN" and "WAY TO A TAG SALE" highlighted in green, naturally, the better to catch that certain person's attention. Then came the plea.

"On Saturday morning, October 3, you were on your way to a tag sale (clad in green turtleneck or sweater) when you encountered me and my friends tending to a fallen cricket on North Carolina Avenue.

"With admirable aplomb you inquired as to what exactly we were doing and as to where you might find the tag sale. With unreasoning literalness I explained that we were tending to a fallen cricket and directed you to the tag sale.

"For some days, I've regretted my lack of imagination in responding to your friendly inquiry. But I'm hoping to have a second chance.

"Since I am too sheepish to say more, and cannot credibly resort to the stratagem of holding my own tag sale, may I suggest that you reply in kind (i.e. by posted notice in the bagel bakery or wherever you happened to see this?)

"Reply not, and rest assured I will intrude no further."

There was no name, no phone number. She would reach him with a note of her own or not at all. But would she? Suddenly I cared. This wasn't, I knew, just another case of "Boy meets girl, boy saves cricket, boy loses girl." This was different.

For one thing, he was absolutely smitten. He hadn't put up--down--just the one note I saw. There was another at the bagel baker, blocks away, and who-knows-how-many ("wherever you happened to see this") on the sidewalks, in the stores, in between.

Then there's the praise he lavishes on her. Her "admirable aplomb," he says. Her "friendly inquiry," when she may have said no more than "Hi--I'm looking for the tag sale?" and "What's that?"

And see how hard he is on himself! She has "admirable aplomb"--all he's got is "unreasoning literalness." She asked what he and his hunched-over friends were doing; he told her. She asked for directions to the tag sale; he got her there. That wasn't "unreasoning literalness"--that was polite helpfulness.

But he senses that isn't good enough any more. He's been to enough movies, watched enough television, where the only thing that works is the snappy comeback, the smooth innuendo. It's not enough to explain about the cricket, and hope she'll be taken for his compassion for one of nature's victims. No--he's supposed to say, "Why don't we rub our legs together some time?"

Poor guy--the woman of his dreams walks down his street, and he has nothing special to say to her. He's got a vocabulary that fills sidewalks with phrases like "cannot credibly resort to the stratagem" and "Reply not, and rest assured," and he winds up kicking himself for his "lack of imagination." He deserves a second chance.

Of course, they may not even be close to right for each other--he such a tongue-tied romantic, she so practical. But maybe, just maybe, she's kicking herself every bit as hard, back at home with a half-price nightstand and no one to share it with. Should she have taken the same route back? Could she walk by next weekend? Maybe he'll be outside again.

Or maybe she'll find the message still taped there to the sidewalk and know that they're meant to be.

I can see them living happily ever after. He's running an animal hospital. She's selling cricket figurines in the front yard.

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