Sunday – A Roof Somewhere In Williamsburg, April 13, 2003

“So I’m organizing a night at this place in Brooklyn.”
“What do you mean by night?”
But she was busy scribbling on a little Paul Frank notepad and didn’t hear me at first.
“So,” she said, capping her pen. “Would you be interested in something like that?”
“Sorry, what’s a night?”
She let out a sound somewhere between exhilaration and exacerbation, a kind of shrill, windy sigh. Were I to guess, I’d think she was expressing something like: Here We Go Again! But I’m not a mind reader. She hooked the pen on the cover of the pad and closed her eyes before she continued.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “What’s your name again?”
“Aimee,” I said.
“Aimee, oh yes. Aimee. Well, Aimee, I’m trying to organize a forum for artists and musicians to meet and, you know,” here she fluttered her waify hands in the air above her head. “Network and hang out and,” she clamped her hands into little fists and pulled them toward her, like one might do during a tug of war, “get together, and network. And I only want the absolute best that Williamsburg has to offer. You see, I walk around here, and I look at people and things and I just think,” but she stopped short and whipped her pen again from the pad.
“Oh, I just remembered somebody I need to call!”
Again engaged with her sparkly ink, she drew funny little circles around crabbed little notes and flipped back and forth seemingly pell-mell through pages of addresses and so forth. Synergy, I suppose.
“Oh, I’m an absolute mess!” she said, by way of apology.
“It’s okay,” I said. “I know how ‘nights’ are.”
“Psshh! Tell me about it!” she said.

How did I happen to meet this bizarre woman? How did I happen to find myself all alone with this bizarre woman? I was asking myself this question, among others, during the thankfully short time that I spent with her. I was invited down to Williamsburg by a friend several weeks ago, on a Sunday, mind you, to enjoy a beer and a barbecue. And I happen to posses the singularly disadvantageous and increasingly disheartening habit of arriving unfashionably early to nearly every rendezvous. I was even born early; it’s in the genes I suppose, I can’t help it. Anyway, I arrived early and whilst my hostess was busy as a bee preparing the evening’s victuals I was pleasantly introduced and obliged to have an informal, or so I thought, chat with Geena, who was also early. She was on the roof, ready with pen and pad in hand, when I sat down. Also, you’ll no doubt notice that only in Geena’s speech do words get italicized, which some might say is unfair, or at least the slightest bit suspect, calling my motive into question. To those people, I humbly ask that you please withhold any hasty judgment on this issue, legitimate as it may be, until the full conclusion of this mini-story, that is to say: My turn will come
“I’m soo sorry,” she said, capping her pen even more expeditiously than before. “Where were we?”
“Oh, I guess we were, and still are, in fact, on April’s roof in the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn.”
At this, she burst into such a terrible fit of laughter, followed closely by a disturbing coughing attack, that I was genuinely weighing whether I had better continue.
“You!” she said, pointing at me, from her doubled over post-laughing, mid-coughing position on a lawn chair opposite mine. “You are soooo funny! Absolutely hilarious!”
she sat up and moved her hands gingerly over her hair.
“Sheesh!” She said.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
Apparently I could do no wrong by Geena, because with this seemingly innocuous comment another laughing/coughing fit seized her and shook her body until it looked as though she might actually fall to pieces right then and there.
“You have got to stop!” she said, lighting a cigarette. “How am I supposed to get any work done with you here, my gosh! So where were we again?” she asked, readying her pen and pad. “Wait wait! Don’t say it!” she said, her hands all a’flurry again. “Let me re-ask: What was I talking about?”
“You were saying something about why you want to start a ‘night’ I think. Something about walking around Williamsburg and …”
“Oh yes, oh yes!” she broke in. “I remember. Okay: I walk around and I see people and things and I just think: Gosh, we have got to get all this great shit together into a whole, big, networky thing!” she was chewing the end of her pen now and staring off a little abstractly, I assume, envisioning her planned night. “And that’s when this incredible idea just sort of came to me. I thought: Geena, you are going to create a night: a giant network of young, hip, smart, fashionable, intellectual, youthful people and then, you know, like in Dances With Wolves: If you build it, they will come!”
I was loathe to point out this minor factual error to her.
She seemed to take great solace in stating her mission aloud. She took a long sigh and jotted another something, a very small something, whatever it was, on a page of her pad. Then she looked up very businesslike at me.
“So Aimee is this something you think you’d be interested in? Hmmm?”
“The night?” I asked.
“Umm-hmm,” she said.
“Well, lemme see here … well, what night, exactly, is this night going to take place on?”
“Good question,” she said, flipping voraciously through her pad. “That’s really still up in the air at this point. We’re really still in the planning stages with this project.”
“Oh, well, I don’t really know then, but when you know you should just…”
But before I could finish whatever stammering reply I was conjuring, Geena leaned over very chummy-like and rapped me lightly on the knee.
“Look,” she said. “I really want to include all of my friends on this thing, ‘cause it’s really gunna take off when it gets going, and since you’re a friend of April’s, well, I just don’t want to shut you out.”
“Oh, okay, thanks,” I said. “But what exactly do you see me doing, at your, night?”
“Oh, there are all kinds of possibilities. I mean, that’s really what this whole thing’s about you know, possi-bility.”
“Sounds like it,” I said.
“Wow,” she said, again jotting something down in her pad. “I really need to get to work, how am I ever going to get the network going just sitting up here on my ass?”
She pulled a cell phone out of her pocket and began, apparently, transcribing information from her notepad into her phone. After about five minutes of this, and a nice stroll around the roof, a nice breath of fresh air, and a nice mental reprioritizing on my part, I sat down again in front of Geena.
“Oh!” she said, looking up at me. “You’re still here! Gosh, I was so busy working on the night that I hardly noticed.”
“Yep,” I said. “Just enjoying the view.”
“Ummm-hmmm,” she said, peering down into her pad. “So, Aimee. It is Aimee, right?”
“It sure is, Geena,”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I am just so horrible with names.”
“It’s okay,” I said.
“So, I don’t think I ever got a definite answer from you on the whole night thing … so, are you in or what? Because, if you want to get in on it, you might want to sign up now I mean, because, it’s going to get preety crowded.”
“Look, Geena,” I said. “You know it’s Sunday right?”
“Oh, is it?” she asked, capping her pen. “I’ve just been so busy that I guess I totally forgot. I’ve just got so many things going on that I just can’t be bothered with it.”
“I think you need a little air. Here,” I took her hand. “Come check out the sunset with me for a second. You could really use some air.”
She agreed hesitantly, but when she tried to bring her notepad along, I took exception.
“Just leave the pad here for a second, all it takes is a second.”
“Oh, alright,” she said. “But I don’t know how I’m ever going to get the night together like this.”
We headed off to the edge of the roof.
“Just forget about the night for a second,” I said. “And think about …”
“What?” She asked. “Think about what?”
“Think about how it’s Sunday, and Sunday is supposed to be the day of rest, and …”
She tried to move away from the edge at this point, but I was holding her firmly by the arm.
“Wow dude,” she said. “You are like totally freaking me out.”
"Likewise, my dear."
"But what about the ..."
But before she could continue, I broke in. And this time, I leaned in, very close to her ear.
“So, Geena, pay close attention to me now, because I’m going to show you the greatest time-saving tip, so you can get some air, while at the same time, get on the fast track to the the biggest, longest night you ever imagined! Doesn't that sound great?”
“What? What is it?” she asked, rather calmly, I thought, considering the situation.

Then I pushed her off the edge of the roof.