The Fan Part VI (from my New York diaries)

Ewing and the Girl in the Bar
by rick olivares

After working for some Filipino-American shithead in Princeton, I decided the time was right to head back to New York. The Ateneo Alumni Association of New York hooked me up with some people and since it was post-9-11, it was hard to get a job. I worked at Burger Heaven, a Friday's type of resto on 5th Avenue and East 49th. I hated it at first thinking, "WTF am I doing here? Atenista ako!" Once I got over my self-pity and went about it, I started to do better and eventually it paid off with getting a nice job. Something I held until I went home. Here is an entry from my diary; something I sent to some friends via email. It remains unchanged as I wrote it back then.

Autumn 2003
Julie works at Saks on 5^th Avenue and East 49^th. She comes in around 5pm after work about twice times a week either for a light dinner or maybe a glass of wine. Then she’s off in the New York night leaving her light perfumed scent floating in the air.

Sazzad (pronounced Sah-jahd) would joke with Julie. If you ask me, the transplanted Bangladeshi was flirting with her. I can’t blame him though. There’s something about her that's like a computer prompt asking, “would you like to know more,” then you’d click it without thinking twice. She’s 5’8” with long blond hair that curls naturally at the edges. She puts on very little make up with some eye liner that accentuates her beauty. But what makes her so appealing is the way she dresses up so simply yet the word “looker” screams so loudly. As Frank Miller put it (in Sin City), she is a dame to kill for. When she’s off to the Stadium, she’d put on a baseball cap that fits her so nicely that I’m sure that were George Steinbrenner to see her, he’d sign her to replace Kevin Brown on the Yankees’ pitching staff. She could surely send a fastball in the slow 70’s and still strike out Manny Ramirez looking. Think of her as a young Tea Leoni who could play hoops.

Sazzad wasn’t on duty that day and so I was at the bar and I had her all to myself.

“Hey, you going to the Knicks game,” was my icebreaker.

She momentarily averted her eyes from Sportscenter on the above telly and looked at me in the eye. She took a sip of her Chardonnay then answered: “Umm, yeah. Reggie Miller’s in town so you can bet the Garden will be rocking, you know? You going?”

“I’d love to but I don’t have tickets. ‘sides I got the night shift at Virgin (Records in Times Square). I’m DJ tonight (I played music usually indie rock stuff and reggae). Honestly, I don’t root for the Knicks.”

Now I’ve done it. Me and my big mouth. Any chance of getting to know her anymore went out like the Garden faithful after another assassination by Michael Jordan. Maybe I should have lied.

“Serrriousllly…..” The white wine glistened on her lips and her eyes didn’t have that “Oh-you-poor-pathetic-out-of-towner look” that stuck up Noo Yawkers gave fans from Boston. “Let me guess. You’re Asian and it looks like you know your hoops. Chicago’s pretty big outside the US, huh?”

I nodded. “Bulls fan it is,” she said with simple deductive guesswork. “So am I right as a John Starks three?”

Olajuown would love you for that statement, I said.

Now I had her full attention.

I fessed up. I rooted for the Denver Broncos because I was a John Elway fan when he was QB1 for Stanford. I commuted to Nassau to watch the Islanders, and the red in my soccer veins was reserved for Liverpool rather than the Red Bulls. If you asked me right there and then, the only reason why she hadn’t gotten out of this heathen’s face was one, I was a hardcore Yankees fan and two, she hadn’t paid the tab yet.

“Get thee Satan away from me,” she giggled as she waved some imaginary wand. “Ewing is my favorite Knick.” She pulled out a Knicks #33 jersey from her bag and held it up like some good luck charm. “I’ll wear it tonight at the game.”

“Ewing -- the unconventional favorite but that’s me,” she said as she raised her wine glass and clinked on my bottle of Pelligrino.

“He’s a warrior,” I offered hoping to win some brownie points for my audacity to be contrary to her norm.

But it’s in a way true. I liked Ewing when he was the Hoya Destroya. Jesuit school loyalties die hard and so I rooted Georgetown. You can also thank Tom Clancy for that as well. He was the franchise for New York but the “fan favorite” status went to Starks or Charles Oakley. My only Knicks jersey was for another hellion in high tops – Latrell Sprewell. But Ewing. Wasn’t it him who dispatched Larry Bird’s Celtics? Or who took the fight to Scottie Pippen as the Knicks finally beat my Bulls in 1994?

Yet he was and is still underappreciated in New York. He only holds highs in almost every statistical category for the Knicks. He could be the all-time best had he won even one NBA title.

My ode to the Big Fella impressed Julie. And I refilled her glass. Turns out she was from Albany but moved to the Big Apple 10 years ago and she never looked back. “It’s a bleepin’ long time ago, but I like it here.”

Just then the door opened and some matinee idol (no he wasn’t but he is the type girls go crazy for) walked in. “Let’s go, babe,” he said and he gave her a wet kiss. “Game time’s in a bit.”

“I’ll see you ‘round, Rick. Nice talking to you. Keep the change,” she said as she handed over $30. She shook my hand and disappeared into the New York night.

The door closed and the autumn chill was gone. I thought of Michael Jackson’s “She’s out of my life” then closed up the bar.

What I was listening to on my ipod on my way home tonight:
Lions In My Garden - Prefab Sprout
Here Comes My Girl - Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
That's Entertainment - the Jam
All The Things She Said - Simple Minds
Be Gone - British Sea Power
17 Berlin - My Favorite
Tracks of My Tears - Big Country
Slo-motion - Paul Hardcastle and the Jazzmasters

Post script:
I never saw Julie again as in a few days I moved to a marketing job for a top New York company on West 36^th just a stone’s throw away from the Garden. But I did wait on tables on weekends (this time at East 86^th and Lexington) because it kept me grounded. Believe me it does.

When Patrick Ewing was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame a day ago, I remembered that conversation with one of the prettiest girls I’ve ever seen. And as much as I think of Georgetown, the Knicks, and even Michael Jordan’s Bulls when the Big Fella’s name is mentioned, I still remember Julie and her light scented perfume that still permeates in my nostrils.