That Look

It was cold and gray as an old witch's tit in the wake of an ice storm, and I was on my way to City Hall for death certificates. Off to my right the Hudson churned southward in angry, muddy slabs, jostling and pushing their way to the sea as a squad of imperial crows waited in ambush just ahead. From their position in the upper branches of a small oak they squawked and threatened with unusual vigor even for their kind. Normally skittish by nature, they held their tree like a lynch mob as I cautiously approached on the footpath. There, little more than an arms length from my face, a very large Red Tail hawk glared down at me with a ferocity and hatred that can only come from fresh kill and hot blood. Powerful talons pinning a pigeon to the branch on which he hulked, the hawk had torn open the dove's belly and was feasting on its innards. Harassed mercilessly by the crows just over his head, he now had to contend with a human intruder from below. He was not happy with my face. There we stood, frozen, facing each other for a long moment in a surreal snapshot of Troy life, when the predator suddenly flew off across the river with his slaughtered prey. The tormenting crows dove at him the entire way before finally turning back on the far shore, satisfied to have driven him off into Green Island.

And then it hit me:

I'd seen that same look just an hour before, at my work, at my very cubicle! Seated at my desk, sipping coffee peacefully in the contentedness of government employment in winter, a younger co-worker had stopped by in a state of extreme agitation. Looming over me as she leaned on the low wall of my cube, I looked up innocently as she detailed the acute anxiety she'd been experiencing in the aftermath of a new migraine medication she was taking: "And so, I'm like standing in line at the post office, waiting to mail a letter, when all of a sudden I just get this monster panic attack! The sweat is just like pouring off of me, ya know, and I feel like everyone's just looking at me, angry because I'm like not shuffling forward fast enough or something. It was soooo random! So I go home and tell Tim, and you know what he says? You know what he says? 'Ah, you just need a good nipple-tweaking.' A nipple-tweaking! Can you believe it???"

You must understand, Tim is large. He's burly, a man's man. He drinks mid-level European imports for his beer. He renovates things. My God, he snowplows. What danger could he possibly be in! I, on the other hand, am just a bureaucrat approaching fifty, with a choice to make, a horrible, terrible choice to make. I wanted to back up slowly, as I thought to do later that morning, thinking all the while, "Just let me keep my face...," but I can't. The casters on my ergonomic chair bump up against a miniature file cabinet behind me, and there is no escape. I can feel my insides turning all soft and vulnerable, like moist Christmas date balls. Nature gets the better of me though, and I laugh. Out loud.

And then the look. That fearsome, ancient visage of furrowed brow over designer frames, a look that can only come from the deep bowels of tired young motherhood and misunderstood hormones. The exact, same look the great feathered hunter would later stab me with. The huntress stared down at me for a long moment, unspeaking, and then flew off to her own lonely place on the far side of our pod cluster. As for me, I breathed a large sigh of relief before heading for the urinal, thinking how brave Tim must be, extraordinarily grateful that I didn't say what immediately came to mind at the moment of impact: "Yeah, that IS crass. I would never have suggested such a thing as nipple-tweaking. Most times a woman just needs a little whack on the ass..."