Mitchell's Story Pt 11

Mitchell kept talking, offered his thoughts on differences between men and women, spoke of a baseball game he played. Not a real game, he said, just fun. "One batter hit and everyone else played the field, me too. But I got most of the balls. The others, all women as it happened, looked at me in wonderment.

"I explained, 'I can see where they're going to hit.' By the look in their eyes or some other giveaway, I meant, it was possible for me to guess which direction the ball would go and move that way in readiness.

"Not true, of course," Mitchell said to me and explained that he was positioned deeper than anyone else. All the women were gathered on the infield cut-out area, seemingly drawn by the presence of others there, following the crowd. Mitchell alone- because a man?- had acted independently, stood in the outfield behind the rest. Being farther away from home plate gave him more time to react to the hit, run and catch it. The distance did, he meant.

Women were easily fooled, he concluded. But did those with him on the baseball diamond really believe his story about being able to see from the batter's movement before they hit where the ball would go? I wondered about that, also whether Mitchell really thought women are easily fooled. Maybe he was only joking. Sometimes it's hard to tell. And maybe not always important. You live with someone. Does it matter if you know what they're thinking at every moment? Of course not. Impossible anyway.

One thing led to another as it does with him. His talk about "group dynamics" on the playing field was succeeded by a description of the difficulty he had with colleagues at work one day when they tried to arrange a visit together to an art museum (the Metropolitan). It was a Saturday and he and the other teachers finished class early. They were busy and seldom found time for socializing, agreed on the spur of the moment (before classes began in the morning) to seize this opportunity to enjoy themselves as people, not only as coworkers. The group was small, just five or six planning to join the excursion, but getting them all set to gather at the same time and place ready for departure proved challenging.

"People will go where they will," Mitchell said, comparing the teachers' independent movements to those of celestial bodies, asteroids or planets, each on their own course.

He'd make contact with one or two. Then they'd set off to get the rest. He remembered saying to a colleague who shared his impatience, exasperation with the delay, needless complication, "No time. Already three." They were finally about ready to leave but what after the subway ride they'd arrive at the museum with hardly any time to stay there.

Talk of art and outings in the city (Which? Both?) led Mitchell to bring up photographs, the walks he likes to take in the city with his camera. He mentioned a trip to the zoo, a place he would never bother with except to shoot pictures. He said camels made good subjects, the dun color of their coats nearly matching that of the wall behind them. Outdoor enclosure, he described, large space. The photos that resulted would be interesting he thought because for a moment, at first glance, it would be hard to distinguish the light tan soft fur of the animals from the light tan of the concrete wall they stood before.

He said their coats were frayed in places, as if moth-eaten, and that the resulting patterns looked almost decorative like sandstone relief from antiquity (which camels bring to mind in any case since they're from the oldest sites of human civilization). He seemed to associate those forms, patterns he saw or imagined on the animals' fur with Byzantine artifacts he'd talked about seeing on his trip to Bulgaria with coworkers.

One camel looked young, he said. A keeper was in the enclosure (to feed the beast?) and as he talked to someone else, another zoo worker, taking his gaze away momentarily from the task at hand, Mitchell and the young camel seemed to make eye contact. Mitchell wondered if its response to him was friendly or if it instead saw him as an enemy and would have attacked if he'd come close. You can't tell with animals, Mitchell said.

With people either, I said. After all, he doesn't know my thoughts, my feelings all the time any more than I know his.

The encounter reminded Mitchell in turn of one with humans! A new couple moved next door recently, same floor as us. He said he felt something for the young woman, wanted to seduce her, take her away from the young guy and sensed he could, that as an older experienced man he had more to offer her than the person she lived with and that she would see he did and respond.

Not joking but talking only of his feelings rather than planned actions. I like his honesty but sometimes wonder.

He spoke about meeting the pair one day when they were returning home and he going out. They exchanged greetings in the hall with him while entering their apartment, about to close the green door the guy first young women behind. Mitchell remembered the detail and the grey or oatmeal colored dress the young woman wore- was it like the color of a camel? The couple must have been out at an event. The fabric of the dress was "nubbly," he said and clung to the curve of her lower back to her waist and beyond.

Does Mitchell sound to you like a strange person! Lol. He's not a painter like me but has the photographer's eye of an artist. That may have been something about him that interested me.

He said he liked to make eye contact with the young woman only, enjoy the understanding between them, which the boyfriend hadn't seen, a rapport she enjoyed too, one that could develop. He liked the curl of her hair. It fell in waves, nearly the same color as the dress (wool did he mean by "nubbly"?) but darker. Did she linger a moment before disappearing into their apartment to look back at him?

Mitchell looked at me as if I might have the answer.

Mitchell said that he might not have noticed her if she were alone, an ordinary young woman starting her life as an adult in the city but that meeting her as part of a couple piqued his interest, made him want to act, said that betraying the dull boyfriend (as Mitchell imagined him) and coming into her own as a woman she'd be extraordinary. I really don't know why he told me this so frankly. He laughed. Just joking though the feelings he described were clearly real.

She had dark, hair, glasses, "mousey or maybe horsey" slightly buck teeth in a cute, appealing way. Her protruding front teeth made her eyes look wide, her expression seem open, emotion ready to brim forth. Her look wasn't exceptional, one you'd remember, but if you looked longer, got closer, uniqueness would appear, as with everyone.