Oh, Sweet Morning...

"All girls really want

is someone to want them back..."
- Anonymous

By Patrick Alcatraz
Editor

NEW YORK, N.Y. - She would leave a note on my desk and say she would be stopping for shrimp at a bodega near her place on the Upper East Side, E. 85th Street, halfway up the block and across from a fire station, third floor. I grew to look for those notes from Kathy that year when I wrote some sensationalistic stuff for The New York Post - a tabloid newspaper most New Yorkers picked up on their way into the subway and threw away when they exited. I must say it was a fun time traipsing up and down crowded Manhattan, with friends and new faces - all the possibilities imaginable.

I'd call her from the newsroom and ask, "Wok, right?" and she'd say, "Yep...you bring the wine."

She worked as a copy editor in the Features Department of The Post. Katie had come to me by way of a copy editor friend on the news side, David Bartlett, who'd walked over to introduce himself to me as a fellow Texan my first week on the job. I went on to write about wild Mafia murders, hit men on the loose, boozing teens in neighboring New Jersey, etc., etc. After deadline, we'd usually hang out at some bar. Katie would show-up sooner or later and we'd chat, always somewhat cooly. One night, David called from Greenwich Village and said he had tickets to a Willie Colon concert and would leave one at the door for me. I popped out and took the subway all the way down, walking into the club to find it filled with smoke and tough-looking Puerto Ricans. David and his wife Melanie waved me over and we grabbed a few beers while waiting for the music to burst out.

I hadn't seen her walk in, but a half-hour later, Katie was standing next to me, poking me on the shoulder. I turned to see her smiling. The music was savagely great, inspirational and making me want to work the whole night. Clubs in NYC do not close at 2 Ayem, so that always was an idea to think about. She wore a fashionable black leather jacket, thick sweater, short skirt and ankle-high boots. I watched her when she walked off to the bar and knew this one would be a fighter in the sack.

Katie's Jewishness included a certain joy for life. Her apartment was no bigger than a North Dallas closet and her bed was a futon she folded out out at night time. We took a cab back to her place, me kissing on her exposed legs right above the knee while the cabbie whistled some annoying tune. The walk up the stairs and down the hallway that led to her apartment was lost in the anticipation.

We were making love 15 minutes later, going great guns after the fondling and the groping...when the fire station alarms across the street tore at the silence of the cold, winter night. In a way, I grew to like those fire response interruptions, perhaps because it elongated the pleasure...

- 30 -