It was the late 70’s in Lower Manhattan.

We hadn’t been going out very long when one of my friends invited me to a party in a fifth floor walk-up in Tribeca. 

I wanted to show her a good time.

She took her time getting ready and we left my place about ten that night and walked downtown a block, crossed Canal Street, walked another block and we were there.

I was wearing black pants and a raw silk shirt with a red leather tie and a vintage 40’s dark blue jacket with silver threads running all through it. She had on tan bell-bottom pants, a white shirt, a dark green jacket gathered at the waist and black high-heel boots.

And red lipstick.

I don’t think I ever saw her without her lipstick.

We found the address on Walker Street easily enough, and I rang the bell and someone buzzed us up. You could hear the music playing from down on the street. I bounded up the stairs and she followed me as best she could in those boots. I think it was one of our first dates.

 

We got to the party, the door was open and we went in. There were eight or ten people there. I didn’t recognize anyone. The couch was empty except for one woman sitting alone so we sat down. I got up to go get us a drink. I was thinking she could talk to the woman while I was gone. Make friends. Then we would know someone. I was next in line for drinks when this guy  walked over to me and said, “Hey, Man–you had better go out there–something’s going on with your date. She’s getting into it with the host’s wife.”

 

I walked back over to where I had left my date on the couch and asked , “What’s the matter?”

The other woman was still seated on the couch casually sipping her drink.

 

“She said I had ‘blow job lips’” my date told me.

 

Just then, some guy I assumed was the host walked over to me and said, “I think you two had better leave.”  

Several people I did not know were now walking toward us to see what was going on. I quickly sized up the situation and said, “Come on,  I think we’d better go.”

 

“I’m not going anywhere, till I’ve slapped that bitch’s face,” said my date.

 

“Excuse me?” I said, while I tried to figure out how to handle the situation.

 

“I’m not going anywhere until I’ve slapped that bitch’s face,” she repeated.

That’s what I thought she had said.

 

“All right”, I said. Whereupon she took a step over to the couch where the woman was still sitting sipping her drink and slapped her across the face so hard that the woman’s head turned all the way to the right and the woman’s glass of white wine went flying.

Before the woman knew what hit her, my date then slapped her face back the other way.

Then I knew exactly what to do.

I grabbed my date by the hand and we made a beeline for the door. As we went through it and I pulled her down the first flight of stairs, someone threw a folding metal chair at us. It missed. Then another.  I held on tightly to her hand and the two of us jumped down eight or ten steps to the fourth floor landing and scrambled to our feet. A couple of half-full bottles of beer crashed to the floor next to us.

 

Just then, another couple coming up the stairs encountered us hurrying down the stairs. The man looked at me with a quizzical expression on his face. “Great Party!!” I told him as we passed by them and continued down the steps and out the front door.

 

When we reached the street I looked at her and she looked at me. Neither one of us said a word, we didn’t have to. At that moment,  at least, I knew she was thinking the same thing I was.

 

“This relationship has potential.”