Red Jello

Articles

Chris Falcon
(Welcome To ChrisCam) Red Jello
Aug 1, 2003

The Boston-flirt is puzzled.

He types to me several states away from his laptop in Boston, "You wrote me into your column? You haven't even met me yet. How can an unknown go into your column? Why don't we have some Sangria and then put me into your column?"

I skip over the question and type back to him, " I scarcely ate today or yesterday. Talk to ya later. I'm going out for something to eat, okay?"

I, of course, haven't mentioned to him that when I am having in-love feelings, I scarcely have an appetite. It's been happening for weeks now.

He types back to me, joking, "Sure. I have to go have dinner with Irene anyway. We will be back around 11 tonight."

He's having dinner with Irene? A female? But she is here with me and he is in Boston.Very funny.

Irene is my friend. He is doing the flirtatious jealousy thing again. Do I take the bait? We just went through this whole thing last night...awfully soon for a re-run. But maybe it's just nervous jittery stuff before we meet for the first time Saturday.

Irene is my Boston-flirt consultant.

One night, when Irene and I were eating at the same magical Mexican restaurant where I am meeting him this Saturday, my cell phone rang. It was him. But there was Irene, sitting there in a big red sweater with an "Irene" necklace around her neck.. so....I passed my cell phone to her and they talked.

Irene hung up afterwards and said, "You HAVE TO meet him. And soon. Stop putting it off. Three months is long enough to talk. If you don't take him I will."

Very funny.

She surprises me and says in a serious, warm, tender voice, "Chris, can you see yourself old with him? When he is in a squeaky wheel chair all skinny and wrinkly and shrively and shaky and bent over.....the smell of vapor rub...ex- rays...tests....in a nursing home..................brown pills and tiny plastic cups of water......can you see yourself feeding him spoonfulls of red jello? "

I wait. I think. I picture.

"Yes."

"Yes?"

"Sure".

"You can?"

"Yes. I can totally see us laughing at the jello shaking on the spoon...and laughing at the red jello falling into his blue bathrobe .......and the smelly ben gay squirting in the wrong irection...and coming up with unique ways to fix the squeaky wheel chair....getting it all set just right and then dropping the replacement jello just like the first one.......yeah...definately. I can see him when he's old."

Irene explains to me that she wasn't expecting me to say yes.

"You know what your answer means, don't you?" She asks me gently.

But I don't comment.

I have the nervous knot in my stomach NOT because I may not like him when I see him Saturday. I have the nervous knot because I like his character THAT much. I know now, that when he first wrote to me on line last May, he really DID have a gut feeling about me. And I have it about him too.

There is danger in this. Well, as dangerous as these things are. Not exactly a plane crash.

And anyway, normally, I can be completely smooth.

But not with the Boston-flirt. He's too good at this. He's either a seamless Don Juan or the genuine article.

Too witty. Always saying exactly what makes my heart elate..or brings me to tears, moved over what he said.

So, last night late, at work, we were talking...and he wasn't saying anything hot...or anything..he doesn't...he transcends that even.....he goes beyond....he was being his witty self....and then just shooting the breeze....he was fun to talk to and it was comfortable....

He was in Boston and I was in the newsroom several states away...working late....we were talking on the phone...the newsroom was empty except for me.....the phones had hushed their ringing....the faxes were still....and the clean up crew, all dressed in blue,were vaccuming loudly around me. They'd brought their children in that night and so their kids were dancing around the newsroom with log pink feather dusters.....when the Boston-flirt suddenly said to me, "Can you see us growing old together?"

Silence. That was a surprise. Can ya say that to someone you haven't met yet?

Isn't there some kind-of code against that?

It's totally letting me know how he feels.

And it is, inadvertantly of course, doing what Irene had subtly told me is "the" sign. Very odd coincidence that he says such a similar thing to what Irene said the other night. I balk and say nothing.

He prompts me again to answer the question.

I say, "Sure." But I cover it with laughter.

He says,very tenderly, without joking, "What can you see us doing together old?" I soooooooo want to say, "I can see myself feeding you red jello and laughing when it jiggles and falls into your bathrobe."

But can ya say such things? To someone you are just talking to on line and by phone late into the night for a few months? Does this make us Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks? Or does this make us two insane people who are typing nonsense?

We are just a reporter and a flirt, right?

Tell you more tomorrow.

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About the author: Chrissa Falcon is a newspaper reporter in the New York Metropolitan Area. Chrissa may be reached at ChrisFalconColumn@hotmail.com

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