I’ve known EJ since high school. Sort of.
We went to Stuyvesant, which is this extremely competitive New York City public school where kids would cry because they got two questions wrong on the PSATs. I responded to this high-pressure environment by barely doing my homework and hanging out after school on this giant wall with the other kids who smoked weed. EJ was one of those kids.
He was very old-school New York. I mean, I was born and raised here, but he was really of the city. He had an accent you don’t hear young people have anymore. Irish roots. His father was a cop, and apparently the NYPD had some kind of boxing club that EJ joined when he was young. By high school, he was already boxing seriously and supposedly starting to go pro.
He was also a poet. So obviously I was intrigued. A boxer poet? That’s a great character. Very Kerouac.
My creative writing teacher actually suggested I ask him to prom. My father had died, and I had written a story about it from my mother’s perspective. She told me EJ’s father had died too and thought we might connect.
I was like, absolutely not. I barely know this person. I’m going to prom with my gay best friend. Years later, I would learn something that suggested EJ’s father maybe had not died. I think EJ said something like, “Oh, my dad didn’t die. I just said that so I could get out of school.”
And I was like, Wait, what?
But somehow I didn’t ask a follow-up question. Now too much time has passed. I can’t be like, “Hey, remember 25 years ago when everyone thought your father was dead? How’s he doing?” This is kind of how it is with EJ.
After high school, he didn’t go to college. He became the superintendent of a luxury apartment building. Initially, I was like, Oh, that sucks for you. Then I found out they gave him a free apartment; he got paid, and there were extra rooms in the basement he used as his art studio. Because, right, he was also a painter. I was like, Oh. He hacked life.
Over the years, we kept drifting in and out of each other’s lives. I was always attracted to him. Boxer. Poet. Painter. Thick neck. Blue eyes. Real New Yorker. He knew all these weird New York institutions and characters that I knew.
Every few years I’d think, Maybe?
Eventually, when we were around 30, he finally asked me to dinner after we ran into each other. He suggested a particular Mexican restaurant. A few hours before the date, he texted, “Is it okay if I bring a friend?”
I said sure. I assumed that maybe they’d been hanging out together before and the friend would have a drink with us and leave, because who brings a friend on a date? There I was all dressed up, thinking maybe this was the night, and EJ showed up with a 15-year-old boy. Okay.
Over the course of the dinner, EJ explained that he belonged to an Afro-Cuban religion, Santería, also called Regla de Ocha or Lucumí, and went to Cuba a lot. The kid’s father lived in his building and was part of the same religious community, which was very family-oriented. So that sort of explained who the child was. It did not explain why he was on our date. But okay.
The three of us had dinner. The kid fully participated. Then afterward, instead of somebody saying, “Well, this has been fun, good night, kiddo,” the kid started pitching where we could go next.
His number one pick? The Pyramid Club on Avenue A. He said he knew the guy at the door. Again: okay. We went to the Pyramid Club, where our 15-year-old third wheel had some trouble getting in because he was, in fact, 15. Against all odds, he eventually sweet-talked his way inside.
There were older women flirting with EJ. The kid was there. I was there. I don’t remember how the night ended. I just remember thinking, Yeah, this probably isn’t going to work. And yet, somehow, EJ has remained a “maybe” for decades. Every few years he pops back into my life, and I think, Should I give this another chance? Then I learn something new about him.
For example, he runs barefoot. This made a certain amount of sense when he lived near Central Park. Barefoot running is a thing. Grounding. Whatever.
Then he moved near me, and I saw him running barefoot down Park Avenue. People, and I’ll include myself among them, were staring at him. He stopped to talk to me and said, “People give me such weird looks for not wearing shoes around here.” And I was like, “Yeah, I could see that.”
At some point he also told me he drank turpentine medicinally. Just a few drops in water. He didn’t tell me what he hoped to achieve with this. Okay.
I ran into him last year. He still boxes and trains other boxers. He has a place where he works out that he calls “the Weather Room.” I don’t know why. He’s always inviting me to the Weather Room. I’ve never gone.
I also eventually learned that when we were in high school, EJ and his brothers had a public-access television show and tried to make a movie. Of course they did. This is what happens every time I think I finally understand EJ. Another piece of information arrives and throws everything out of whack.
Boxer. Poet. Painter. Building superintendent. Barefoot Park Avenue runner. Possible medicinal turpentine drinker. Member of an Afro-Cuban religion. Former public-access television personality. Man who brings a 15-year-old boy on a date. And somehow, still, every few years, I think: Maybe?
On the one hand, he’s this deep background player in my life. Yet, he’s taken me out for my birthday a couple of times. Once, I randomly bumped into him while I was going out for my birthday, and he was sitting at the table next to me. We kissed once. I don’t even think there was tongue. That’s as far as we’ve gotten in all these years.
EJ is like a cameo Romeo. He suddenly appears, does something that feels very leading-man, and then disappears back into the background before anything can actually happen.
And honestly, that may be why I still find him attractive. I never get enough information to rule him out. I just keep getting completely different information.
