The Seduction Zone

Dave Sanfacon

Photo by Craig Whitehead

          I wanted a Boston girl but Boston girls don’t want Worcester boys. It’s always been that way. Worcester’s a tarnished city, forever dangling the promise of a forthcoming renaissance only to sabotage itself into perpetual mediocrity. In that sense, it suited me perfectly. But it wasn’t getting me any dates. So I changed my Match.com residence to Boston.
          I further identified myself as a social drinker and a non-smoker, if only because Match.com provided no category for binge-drinking borderline alcoholic who smokes only when drinking or suffering from semi-annual bouts of existential ennui. In truth, I was planning to moderate my drinking, quit smoking, and move to Boston, but not before satisfying a certain pre-condition clause: “I’ll get to that as soon as I figure out this.” In other words, I’ll quit smoking after I quit drinking after I’m happier after I live in Boston after I have a better paying job at which time I’ll quit drinking as soon as I quit smoking and move to Boston and become happier.
          The online me was so committed to this illusion that he made an appointment with a realtor to view several apartments in Boston over the course of a weekend; the goal being to transform the outright lie into a temporary deception by taking one small step toward its fulfillment. I told the realtor that money was not an issue and that I’d like to limit my viewings to Back Bay apartments with roof-deck views of the Charles River to the west and the Boston skyline to the East. This non-existent move designed to impress a girl I might never meet required a fabricated salary in order to cover the cost of the apartment I didn’t live in. At the time, my salary was hovering around $40,000; an amount I assumed sufficient for a Worcester girl, but borderline poverty for anyone living in Boston. I considered checking the $75,000 – $100,000 option, but settled for the box marked $50,000 – $75,000. Even my fabrications lacked ambition.
          What I lacked in real-life ambition, I more than made up for in my commitment to the illusion of a better me, some level of purity, creativity, wealth, and worldliness that would take hold once I shed my shortcomings. In that sense, I did not lie at all. I simply put forth the perfected version of myself that already existed in my head. I’d been on Match.com long enough to know that the secret to a good profile was not in the assemblage of truth but in the selling of an ideal. I knew the more a searcher coveted that dream the easier it was to insinuate oneself into the middle of it. Posting an honest profile would have been to place a No Trespassing sign around my romantic aspirations.
                                                                ***
          I don’t remember a time when I wasn’t trying to construct a version of myself suitable for public display. Or a time when I didn’t feel as if I were lacking in the essentials of something others seemed to have so easily at their disposal. As a young boy, the issue articulated itself in the language of the body, a gummy void in my gut, pliable and sticky, stretching itself at times to the point of breaking. I sometimes felt so empty, so hungry, so wanting, that I found myself walking away from whatever I was doing — at home, in the classroom, on the baseball diamond — in order to find a secret place to cry.
          I took my first drink at the age of thirteen, a glass of champagne with mom and dad on New Year’s Eve of 1980. As soon as they left the kitchen I emptied the bottle into a larger glass, which I emptied into my belly, which settled warmly inside of some unoccupied space. That’s what I remember most, how warm it made me feel, and slightly off kilter. A pleasant little wobble, everything taking just a second longer to register. All sense of worry, of fear, of absence, seemed to be swallowed up inside that disappearing moment. There was never any question but that more was necessary. It wasn’t so much a conscious grasping for more; it was more of an impulse, a reflex, a rhythmic pulse that had me skipping toward the liquor cabinet, grabbing dad’s bottle of London Dry Gin, pouring a glass, drinking the hideous liquid, pouring and drinking a second, third, fourth, and fifth glass and loping back to my chair in the den feeling utterly disembodied. That I then blacked out and threw up for two days was beside the point. I’d found a way to become something other than what I was, which — though I couldn’t recognize it at the time — is precisely what I’d been looking for.
                                                                ***
          After upgrading to Boston, the offers poured in — five, six, seven leads a day. And so long as they didn’t use the word sassy in describing their personality or look like Bilbo Baggins, I was up for meeting them all.
          Most of the first dates took place at the Boston Public Garden, a lovely spot adjacent to the Boston Common. I had so many first dates at the Public Garden that my friends and I dubbed it The Seduction Zone. It was, of course, nothing of the sort; first contact being more a process of deducing rather than seducing. Besides, I was ill equipped for seduction until properly lubricated, the seducer within being unleashed only after two or three drinks. The true seduction zone was a bar, any bar, preferably the closest bar — the trick being to get there as quickly as possible before the potentially seduced had sussed me out as a fraud.
          I developed a strategy of meeting my matches at the far Northeast corner of the Public Garden near the intersection of Charles and Beacon Streets. From there I’d subtly maneuver the stroll southward toward the trendy cafes and bars of Boylston and Newbury Streets. The tricky part was maintaining a certain base level of charm in the time it would take to cross the Garden, a mere couple hundred yards to be sure, but testing the limits of my non-lubricated wit. Upon reaching the giant Dutch elm near the corner of Arlington and Boylston Streets, I faced the quick determination of shall we continue or cut ties; if the latter, no sweat, no strings; if the former, my go-to suggestion was The Parish Café on Boylston Street, if only because it was the shortest distance between my lips and a cold bottle of beer.
          With formalities over and some level of mutual attraction confirmed, there came the chemically charged awareness in my brain that a drink was imminent. And if there’s anything worse for a drunk than no drink at all, it’s waiting for that imminent drink. The hundred-yard walk between the Public Garden and the Parish Café, a mere three hundred feet of city pavement, seems endless. With each step the woman beside me diminishes, blurring into an afterthought, a secondary attraction to the blessed Café. It’s only when I walk inside the café and sit down that the woman reappears. But I no longer have the distraction of movement, no more gardens, no more bronzed ducklings to make way for; just me and her, face to face, what to say and how to say it.
          The waiter is mercifully attentive, arriving at our table in a flash, perhaps sensing my need. The pretty woman orders white wine, chilled. I ask for a Heineken, silently imploring him to hurry his ass up before the pretty woman sees through me, which she probably already has. My eyes follow him to the bar, to the bottle of wine, the pouring and his reach into the cooler for my beer. I look back to the woman. Her face has become the face of all the other faces that sat in her chair. The waiter arrives with a glass of wine and a bottle of beer and a window begins to open, but I wait a moment before picking up the bottle, a moment that hides my eagerness — one-two-three — and then I slowly reach for the glistening green bottle and raise it over the table to the pretty woman sitting across from me, a slight tremor in my hand as I gently clink her glass. And then I drink, opening my throat wide so that the beer flows a little faster, a little fuller down the throat-the esophagus-the belly before settling into the bloodstream. And the window opens a little bit more. And I drink and talk, half of me engaging with the pretty woman, the other half monitoring the level of my drink as compared to hers, the frequency of my sips as compared to hers. And the waiter, whose eyes I’ve met several times but can’t yet give a tip of the head to because it’s too soon for another beer, arrives at our table and asks if I want another and it’s in his asking that makes it seem less desperate. But still, I hesitate, as if contemplating the question “Uhhh, yeah, sure.” And when he brings the bottle to the table I notice that the pretty woman’s glass is near empty and I silently implore her to order another order another order another and when she says, “yes, I’d love another,” I become happier than I’ve any right to be because her second drink gives me permission to order a third while also showing a level of romantic interest that a single drink and a no thank you to a second does not.
          Moreover, the second drink all but assures a second date which means I can luxuriate in the third drink because the pressure for that second date is off. And I know that somewhere inside that third drink I’ll lose my primary self and gain the ability to become whomever I choose to be. Maybe today I’m Cary Grant in Notorious, inside that scene where he seduces Ingrid Bergman into the longest kiss in cinematic history. It’s my choice. I’m no longer stuck with myself. That window is now fully open and I crawl on through to another world. Another me. I’ve reached that moment in every drunk’s night that is nothing short of a spiritual transformation. “Magic time” as Jack Lemmon calls it in The Days of Wine and Roses; that moment when the textures of the world change: the hues, the light — some combustible combination of beauty and possibility that ushers in an unwavering sense of self-worth. It’s something approaching perfection — the warm, pulsing flush of unselfconsciousness!
          I look at the Heineken bottle. Just two sips left. Jesus Fuck only two sips left! I pick up the bottle. I drink one sip. The liquid slides down my tongue — stale, warm, and slightly skunkish. I set the bottle on the table, but my hand stays close. One sip left. I stare at the nearly full glass of wine across from me and I think, how is that even possible? Beside her full glass of wine is an empty glass of water. Beside my empty bottle of beer is a full glass of water. It seems a small thing, a trifle, but it’s everything, really. My stomach tightens, as does my wit, charm, and sense of possibility. It’s an equal and opposite reaction to the loosening of the past hour. I drink the final sip, set the bottle down, and begin preparing myself for myself. I excuse myself, walk to the bathroom, piss into the bowl, splash cold water on my face, walk back to the table where the pretty woman is standing with the same look on her face as when we first met — vaguely curious, uncertain. I drop two twenty’s on the table, covering the $25 bill and the waiter’s keen sense of my desperation.
          And that’s it, I’ve arrived at that moment when the day stops and begins to rewind itself. I walk away from the table, away from the waiter and the Café, a church to my left, a woman to my right, me in the middle with my manufactured confidence decreasing in direct proportion to my blood alcohol content. The traffic lights, the quadruple lanes, the giant Dutch elm, the vague recognition of someone beside me — a woman — many dozens of them — from today, yesterday, tomorrow — all fading back into that revolving door from which they emerged, all looking vaguely disappointed in me before disappearing altogether. I look ahead, past the showering willows, the tiny footbridge, past the far northeast corner of The Public Gardens, straight on through to another day and another woman and another drink and another disappointment. I’m back inside my car, the black two-door Honda Civic with brake issues and an expired inspection sticker. I drive west on the Mass Pike, the car struggling to climb the short incline past the Newton tolls. At the crest of the hill I peek into the rearview mirror, the Hancock and Prudential towers diminishing in the distance, the horizon chewing upwards, the slow erasure of a city. My buzz is gone. My blood is uncomfortably pure. I pass the sign that reads Worcester Next 9 Exits and the hollowness of being in the company of myself becomes almost unbearable. I exit the Mass Pike onto I-290, the highway that cuts like a surgical scar through the heart of Worcester — a deep, insidious bisection that’s been a pox on the potential of this wounded city. I exit 290 onto Route 9, drive down Belmont hill, down Grove Street, down into the parking lot of North High Gardens, the old high school bought by a young developer and turned into condos, one of which I rent for $600 per month, the one that’s below ground level. I walk down one flight of stairs, down another, across the short dark hallway and the closed doors of the neighbors I’ve yet to introduce myself to. I step into my apartment, strip naked, grab a cold beer and take a hot bath and then I slump into an unmade bed with my laptop and return to Match.com.
          And I find Laura.
                                                                ***
          It’s all very familiar. Drinking myself into a photograph, falling for an image.
          In her profile pic, she’s sitting atop an old overturned rowboat, half-shadowed in the late afternoon sun. She’s wearing an oversized light blue sweatshirt and loose white drawstring pants cuffed below the knee, a slanted line descending from the top left of the photograph separating sunlight from shadow in such a way that the distribution of light and dark is almost perfectly equal. The composition of the image makes her seem part of the landscape, making it difficult to see where she begins and Nantucket ends; the overall effect being a portrait of happiness that comes with being exactly where one wants to be, exactly where one belongs.
          I stare at the photograph and drink Heineken and make up stories about this happy woman and me. I drink myself onto the island, drink myself into her: the beautiful, blue-eyed blonde with a Masters Degree from Harvard and the summer home on Nantucket, the pale-white boat resting along the backshore of ‘Sconset beach.
          I save her profile to my favorite’s list, a collection of beautiful, intelligent, well-educated and well-paid women with whom I have no chance. There are six women in the folder. I visit them when I’m drunk.
          I continue my dalliances in the seduction zone, but I’m beginning to hate the drive to Boston, walking to the bar with women I resent for not being better than they are and berating myself for being less than that.
          One night in February I send a message to Laura. I don’t remember what I wrote, I don’t remember sending the message, I only remember waking up in the morning with a ferocious hangover and a message in my inbox: Sure, I’d love to get together on Friday!
          I immediately visit my profile to remind myself who sent the message, to remind myself that she doesn’t have to be interested in me, only in him: the non-smoking social drinker from Boston who makes more money than I do. I review the facts of him, his photographs, little chunks of his past and his present. He seems impressive: SCUBA diver, marathon runner, cum laude graduate in economics from Clark University. I see photos of him running Marathons, diving in Playa Del Carmen, drinking wine in Montepulciano. There he is in Florence. There he is in Tulum. There he is at a sidewalk café in Boston, the city he lives in, earning a respectable income, drinking socially, not smoking. He inhabits the parts of me that I have to drink myself into, the parts I don’t yet trust without adornment and fabrication.
                                                                ***
          She’s sitting alone at the bar of The Ole Grille in Cambridge, some 2.5 miles northwest of The Seduction Zone. She picked the spot. I posed no objection.
          She’s sipping a Mexican Beer, shelling a peanut, chatting with the bartender. She’s still wearing her coat, something heavy and blue. It’s cold outside, below zero with the wind chill.
          I walk toward the bar, toward dozens of beautifully shaped tequila bottles lined up high and low behind the bar, toward the woman who will change everything.
          I notice that she’s almost finished her beer, which means I can drink freely, probably at least through the second beer. It’s reflexive at this point, these seduction zone games, looking for an advantage, a way to insinuate myself inside her approval.
          I first see her face as a reflection in the mirror behind the bar, framed above the beautiful bottles and beneath a dark amber light, a strange and beautiful color — like honey and blood. She looks precisely like the girl on the boat, her face a juxtaposition of sharp angles and delicate features, at once fierce and compassionate, and her eyes, the sparkling blue eyes, bringing everything together, tempering the fierceness and accentuating the warmth.
          She catches my eye in the mirror, turns around, smiles politely, as do I. But nothing is given away. I sit beside her and order a Negro Modelo, same as she’s drinking. We talk about the weather. Small talk, I guess, though it doesn’t feel like it. It’s just that it’s so fucking cold outside, it’s what everyone is talking about. I tell her I grew up in Northern Vermont; that cold is in my blood. She says cold is fine, but this is a bit much.
          There’s only one other couple in the bar, a young couple, drinking tequila. They seem a little drunk, ravenous. Kissing, drinking, laughing. The woman puts her coat on as Laura takes hers off. The guy says something about one more for the road and the woman says no, no way. The bartender drops a menu on the bar in front of Laura and me: Explore The World Of Tequila and Mezcal. Through the mirror I see the other couple walking out the door, the woman first, the man a few steps behind. A bitter wind swoops in, the man comically struggling to shut the door behind him as the woman walks away. Laura says Fuck or Shit or some such expletive and reaches out with her hand. She grips my arm against the cold, grips it for a moment — for a moment — before letting go. It was really something. The way she gripped my arm, for a moment, before letting go.
          We’re alone at the bar. The bottles are glowing. The light is warm.
          “I gotta tell ya’,” I say. “I don’t live in Boston.”