here is much to say about their last evening together.
        Six p.m. found Johnson Griffin waiting restlessly in the kitchen of his one bedroom apartment for the doorbell to ring. She had rung five minutes before from her car phone and informed him she was going to find parking in the neighborhood and “would it be a convienent time to stop by to return his keys and compact discs?”
         “Of course,” he’d said indifferently. “I’ll be around.”
        His first intention was to meet her at the door, but then hastily decided it’d be better if he buzzed her in. Allow the dog to greet her first with his dubious affections. She would then wander in to find him loitering idly in the kitchen.
        He smoked a cigarette, waiting for the bell. As with many of those in between moments in life , he randomly focused his attention on the Marlboro noting for the first time in his life the mechanics of it. The curious spotting in the filter where it then met a perfectly drawn line which led up to the chaotic ebbing and flowing of embers. The smoke billowed up and off the ceiling and then oppressed him suddenly.
         She rang shortly after and he paused before pressing the button that would let her through the front door. After what seemed like hours, Johnson, hearing no footsteps in his living room and knowing the door was open, relinquished himself to the fact that she was waiting for him to let her in.
        He abruptly opened the door and took her in. She appeared, doubtful and beautiful, qualities he both despised and adored in her.
        “Come in” he attempted to say in a tone that might as well have asked a stranger in a market where the onions were.
        Rosemary glided into the room carrying a small white saks bag which she immediately presented to him - making clear the purpose of her visit.
         “Here are your cd’s” she said.
        Johnson nodded and slowly set the bag on a chair before he turned to absorb her.
        Their eyes met for a moment, both pairs almost ashamed, then she turned away.
        “Do you mind if I use the bathroom?” she asked.
        “Of course not,” he replied and took the opportunity of her absence to rifle through the small bag which contained five or six compact discs, an airline ticket, and a book he’d lent her - none of which interested him in the least.
        When she returned from the bathroom, he offered her a seat and a cup of coffee.
        She accepted without the resistance he thought he might have faced, and he made himself busy in the kitchen for a few moments before returning with two mugs of coffee. The pair sat idly and awkwardly opposite each other. He on a chair trying his best to look completely relaxed, she perched on the edge of his couch as if to say - “I should be going now but there’s something I must stay for.” Her body language was closed off, as she inadvertently clutched and protected herself.
         He had prepared himself for this encounter. She’d abruptly called an end to things a few days before, without much ado. She hadn’t wanted him around for the Christmas and New Years holidays and he concurrently decided that, with this new information, he’d rather go on their planned trip to France alone. “Why go with someone who doesn’t want me around?” he’d asked himself.
        When she’d ended the affair on the phone, she seemed a bit but not overly disappointed, while he worked hard maintaining an air of nonchalance. He noticed however that what Rosemary seemed disappointed about most, was not going on the planned European excursion. No apparent remorse at the imminent loss of his companianship, his love, his sex. But she was looking forward to that trip. This infuriated him at the time, and Johnson had firmly made up his mind that no matter what - this girl did not deserve him.
         Nonetheless, moments later as the two sipped their coffee came the decision they’d spend one last evening together amid the Christmas lights of Rockefeller Center.

        Johnson Amory Griffin was born into a family of confident parents and hidden money. His mother suddenly became an invalid when he was four years old, and he grew up, heavily involved in the church, essentially taking care of her and his father.
        “I’ll make a good wife someday,” was one of his favorite expressions during his formative adolescent years. Johnson grew up proud and tall, and was blessed with an unusually high IQ and transient blue eyes.
        He was of the sort that had “real” self-confidence. Not the feinged confidence of so many but of the sort that truly thought they could do anything - tackle anything. If someone had seriously challenged Johnson to become president of the United States he might have patterned his life after that goal and might have attained the office.
        He walked everywhere clothed in superiority for Johnson believed life and fate were easily manipulated with the right tools and happiness was to be attained by sheer will. He’d taken flight to New York City immediately after his high school graduation and never looked back.
        Here he found a city that fed his very essence. New York , a vulture that swoops down and hoists its newfound prey up into the sky - shows the beauty of new perspective - then releases its clutch - allowing its prey to fall in the outstretched cup of a beggar somewhere on West 14th Street. Only Johnson hadn’t been eaten or dropped yet.
        Full of optimism, he had had a few meaningful relationships in his five years on the sordid island. He’d lost one - pathetically chasing after something he didn’t want because if felt like the right thing to do - won another. He’d left the latter when he felt their passion had attained its peak and he’d anticipated the slow, unmercible decline surely ahead. He’d met Rosemary literally two days after his last relationship had ended with a striking finality and they’d dated casually at first, but more seriously after she flew to Rome to meet him. From Tuscany to Venice to Lake Maggiore, they’d seen and made lust in some of the most beautiful parts of Europe.

        Rosemary was born in Atlantic City on a cold March evening as furious spray chased petty overweight gamblers off the boards into the glittering casinos. Her father had split shortly after, and moved to the west. She’d never met him but had spoken to him often during recent years. It appeared he was a poet, but as she told Johnson one night, “I’ve nothing to say to him.” Johnson would later find out exactly what she meant.
       Her mother was an overbearing woman who remarried, and left the scars of an abusive childhood deep in Rosemary’s life. It seems so many now come from dysfunction and disillusion that it’s quite difficult remembering those speeches Mr. or Mrs. Hall gave in the 5th grade about the nuclear family.
        After moving from New Jersey to South Philadelphia, her mother and stepfather separated, and Rosemary had gone off to Temple University. A vivid symbol of understated beauty, someone here or there had put her on to modeling one day, and by and by she’d turned up in New York City to make her money.
        She’d met Johnson on a arid July day in a small coffee shop on Union Square over breakfast and bloody Marys.

        On this last evening, Johnson had asked her to kiss him while they were hurtling crosstown in a cab, and she kissed him abruptly and unwillingly before turning her head away sending him reeling into a place of doubt and uncertainties. It had seemed to Johnson the most natural thing to do at that moment - just a kiss. She’d looked so peaceful to him and his mind begged for her lips while hers undoubtedly begged for space between them in the cracked vinyl seats of the taxi.
       He quickly recovered and firmly decided there would be no more of that nonsense. After a quick stop at a beauty store in the east village, the two crawled towards Rockefeller Center amid a smear of yellow and the profanity of honking horns.
        Exiting the cab, Johnson found the air monstrously bitter. A host of foreign tourists and local businessman clutched futilely at their garments as they ducked their heads and scurried by. Department stores and designer stores alike had adopted the christmas rouge for their window displays, engulfing fifth avenue in a sea of blood.
        Gucci’s cold and minimalistic glass made Johnson shiver but he found Rockefellor Center was afoot with a frantic energy as hundreds tried to win the race with Christmas. The enormous tree glared down upon the rink, towering over hundreds who paused to leer over railings and point at the happy skaters as if witnessing an execution.
       Neither noticed the moon overhead which was content to be observed by one small man, pausing for a cigarette, who glanced up and pointed before dissolving into the teeming mass.
       They talked about the tree, the size of its trunk and the chill of the night, as they walked briskly back to 5th then entered the Plaza Hotel. She remarked facetiously,
       “My, you’re chatty tonight.”
       Johnson hid a smile and noticed that he had put her slightly off guard.
       He decided they’d eat at the Oak Room, which would put an elegant final stamp on their shared time. It was humming this evening, and an obseqious waiter sat them after a short wait.
       The meal began in silence and distractions, Johnson looking over her shoulder into the lobby beyond, where everyone seemed to glide along happily, Rosemary looking down at her lap, her body closed off to her former lover. They talked trivially and briefly about their New Years’ Resolutions and future aspirations. Johnson told her he wanted to fall in love in the coming year and she smiled as if she found the statement silly.
       They both escaped to the toilet during dinner - eager to avoid the haunting silence of the table with its fine glass and soft candlelight.
       As Johnson returned from his trip, the corridor was alive with young girls in ball dresses and young boys in tuxedos. A group of teenage girls mistook him for a celebrity and asked him his name before asking him where the bathrooms were located. He smiled as he passed as if they represented his youth that could have all the wonderful things in life. Except the one sitting at his table.
       The Chistmas season intensifies emotions. It’s been said for years that there are more suicides around Cristmas than any other time, but there are more joyful and triumphant people as well. There are also times when a man can maturely realize his need to be alone for awhile. Perhaps after a serious relationship is splattered, perhaps when ambition calls in a long outstanding debt. There are also times where man is ripe for companionship. The inability to share lifes joys, discoveries and trivialities with someone he loves can become unbearable and brutal. Johnson believed it was such a time for him.
       He desperately didn’t want to be alone this Christmas. He wanted to share his life, his feelings with the girl sitting across from him with sad and beautiful eyes. But this evening, this evening that could have been remembered fondly by both, her heart was with someone else and deep inside he knew it.
       Her heart was not with him and he knew this was the night where Rosemary would seal up their relationship with a clarity and inevitibility that he would find difficult to face and overcome in the coming months.
       Johnson and Rosemary had missed each other by some small distance. Almost as if one was too late or too early or perhaps they were just at different events. He’d first realized that concretely when he made love to her through the keys of a piano one night. While other girls had simply melted as he struck the keys - sometimes masterfully, other times clumsily but with passion - she listened unaffected. It has seemed to him at the time as if he was shouting to a deaf person, and it unsettled his confidence in his music for a fleeting moment.
       What kept them together then? Johnson had asked himself this question a million times and received no answer. He sensed a certain kinship with her he found difficult to explain. Perhaps a mutual kindness, perhaps an invisible hand that pushed them unwittingly together and was reluctant to let go its grasp.