lower case i

(a hipster romance fiction)

I met him at the Toy Division listening party. Toy Division is my roommate Erin’s 8-bit Joy Division cover band. Erin and I were toasting the end of a long summer copy-editing Arthur magazine for nickels on the dollar to pay rent on our Southeast Williamsbushwick studio. This album was going to make us rich a little less poor.

While we got drunk on un-ironically chilled cans of ironic beer, news travelled from the bartender (what was his name again?) that a helicopter piloted by a Yankees pitcher had just crashed into the side of a building on the Upper East Side.

And I love moments like this; when news of a jerk dying outpaces the jerk turning in his proverbial grave. An Al Qaeda Steinbrenner joke was inevitable but sometimes it’s the simplest form of sarcasm that gets the biggest job done.

“I guess he really hated the Yankees.”

We said it at the same time. I looked up to see the face of my Romulus… or is it Castor? Anyway, I looked up. The bartender I’d taken for granted. My bartender…

You could hear an iPhone drop. Love was taking place.

Oh and his name is Victor.