Desperately Seeking Sasquatch

The longer we were together, the more I was convinced that Sasquatch and I were the perfect match. 

We met at a speed-dating event for lonely singles in the area. Make fun all you want, Susan, but it works! These upstate New Yorkers, so gruff and serious; I guess growing up on farmland with no one to speak to for miles will do that to you. I swear, they’re nicer to their cows here than they are to each other! 

Anyway, I’d called a friend, like I’m doing now, with you. I had a glass of wine in my hand, and the main purpose of my call had been to complain about men and the supplement containers that filled my kitchen, which I still needed to sell. And somehow Kathy said what she always said when we started drinking, bless her soul, which was that I needed a man who could “provide” — the air quotes are mine, not hers — and this place was known for self-sustaining men, if you ignored the drug-addled junkies (you know I’d never say that out loud! But Kathy gets away with it) the hillbillies, and the homos that flocked here, and that would solve all my problems lickety-split, just like they had for her (before her divorce, at least, between you and me — he had actually been one of the homos, we found out later, though nobody talks about that. “God rest his soul,” she says instead, though last I had heard he was just dating some “twink” in New Jersey.)

Which of course is what precipitated my Googling at 3 a.m. for “lonely single men in my area”, which brought me to a Facebook advertisement for the speed-dating service.

I laughed at first, of course, when I woke up the next day. You know me, always a little loose when I drink the red. So, I shut the laptop and went about the day, laughing — hah, hah, Carol-of-the-past, very funny — and thought about the kick that Kathy and I would get out of this the next time we chatted. I did my chores, but strangely, in the downtime, I have to tell you, I found myself opening the laptop back up and staring at that screen. Innocently, at first, until I realized that I wasn’t laughing about it anymore. The house had been so quiet lately — at that very moment, the birds tittering in the backyard were the only audible sound, aside from my breathing — and Kathy’s argument suddenly, and with force, made a lot of sense.

So I went, God help me. The address listed led me to a little bar in the woods, and I loitered in the small, recessed doorway of the church across the street for a moment to get my bearings. The bar seemed almost pagan — mysterious and dark, woody and antithetical to the church a few steps away. When a group disappeared through the doorway, I hurried across, absurdly trying to blend into the shadows. The street was dark, and the moon poked through the trees on either side of the building, leaving sparse patches of light that seemed to delve into the deeper blackness of forest behind. A streetlight or two flickered. Looking back, it felt like a night where fate had a say, I think.

I straggled my way into the bar from the street. The overhead lighting illuminated the booths and not much else. It was surprisingly busy; there were clearly people from several nearby towns here, who on their own late-night surfings had come to the same conclusions that I had. A host stood near the bar with name tags and a timer, smiling as people approached. She must have been 75 or so, and her gray hair was almost translucent. A light, centered directly over her head, made it seem as if a halo floated there. Despite my half-hearted attempt to remain a fly on the wall, she spotted me and ushered me over. My feet obeyed her beckoning like a lost child.

“Hello, dear. Are you here for the event?” she said, her voice sweetly timbered. Her name tag had “Dolores” written clearly across it in Sharpie, all caps. Her wide, wet eyes stared into mine.

“Well, yes … I suppose I am,” I said, laughing a bit out loud, uncomfortable now that it was out in the open. Which she must have sensed, as she handed me my own name tag and told me to write something down. I copied her style and wrote “CAROL”, my hand shaking.

“Don’t worry, dear. It’s not even half as scary as you think.” She patted my back, tutting. “No monsters here, only friends! Now off you go!” she said cheerily, her smile plastered on as she gently pushed away on the shoulder she had, only seconds before, been gently massaging. “The only way to learn is to do, that’s what I always say!”

I cursed Kathy then, I must admit.

I was sucked into the vortex as the timer rang. I slipped into the sticky seat and immediately began sweating under the interrogation-style light of the booth. Dolores hadn’t explained the rules, and the paper in my hand didn’t make it any clearer; it was some kind of ranking system I was trying to understand as my first match sat down. As he sat down across from me, he spat into a small pail on the table as if it had been expressly put there for that occasion. The liquid inside was brackish, and I thought, absurdly — oh dear, his dentist must be quite wealthy — all before he looked up and I saw the bulging spot where the tobacco rested in his cheek. I smiled weakly at him, already imagining the horror of spending my life with such a sludge-spitting buffoon. I debated leaving, though it felt rude to excuse myself so soon. So silly, I thought. Why did I think this would work?

My head rested on my neck in a top-heavy way, the urge to storm off filling me up. And then the bells above the front door jingled.

He walked in — tall, and shaggy, and mysterious — and the room got quiet, as shocked by his beauty as I. Where was he from? I wondered. Some exotic locale, where they eat strange food and live by strange customs, probably. From across the room, his eyes and mine locked for a split second. And I knew.

We were meant to be.

My head swiveled towards Dolores, whose smile, I noted, seemed even more plastered on. Now she seemed to shake, just above a visible frequency, though it was probably a trick of the light. He was so tall that he had bumbled a bit into one of the overhead lamps as he walked across the room, causing a rippling effect that made him look especially magical. He hesitated for a moment — already so alike, he and I — and approached Dolores. Her eyes were frantic. Though she and I had only spoken for a moment, it came to me in a flash that a wedding ring had been wrapped around her finger while she gave me that pep talk. 

Well, well, Dolores. You can’t have this one, no matter how much you may want him! Leave some for the rest of us! I know, not very Christian of me, but a woman's gotta think about her future, all right, Susan?

My eyes were glued to them. It seemed that many of the booths had also paused to stare. He was just that good-looking, I swear, Susan! His voice was deep, sultry, and Appalachian, with a wistful quality to it that reminded me of the air that passes through the trees and leaves them creaking. Somehow, it seemed to echo across the walls, coming from every direction. Oh, I just felt lost in it, in the best way …

“I'm here for the matchmaking thing?” he said.

“Uh … uhm,” Dolores replied. Her face was turning a purplish-red, and her neck was bulging. After taking a deep gulp, she handed him the same materials — name tag, Sharpie, and scorecard — that everyone else in the room held. She took a step back, her back pressed against a chair, and gestured wildly at her chest, as if he couldn’t understand (I know I should think the best of people, but that Dolores, I did not like her one bit! Thinking all country folk are illiterate, for God's sake!). Meanwhile, he was writing something down that I couldn’t see yet. He handed back the Sharpie and forced out a chuckle.

“I’m sure you see folks as nervous as me all the time, right? Well, my mother always told me, ‘The only way to learn is to do,’” he said. “Off I go, I guess.”

With a thunk, Dolores collapsed into the chair as he walked away, fanning herself with the extra scorecards. I registered it only peripherally; the sludge-spitting hillbilly, too, didn’t look my way for a long moment, his eyes glued to the long-haired gentleman. When he did turn, his face was white; he didn’t say a thing as he stood up quickly and hustled out the door into the night. I thought to myself that he had probably just learned something new about himself, just as I had. (Maybe he was intimidated? Or was he going to meet Kathy’s husband in New Jersey? Oh, I’m sorry, Susan, I’m so bad. Don’t tell her I said that.) Probably that tobacco had made him sick.

Some other girl got him first, and I was just burning with jealousy. Even from two tables over I could see she wasn’t his type. I tried to listen in on what they were saying so that I would have a headstart when he got to me. For a moment, I fantasized. He looked familiar, but surely I would have recognized a movie star. Artist, then? Entrepreneur? The world was so full of possibilities.

The next round passed in quick succession. The room had cleared out quietly, as if certain people had fallen silently through trap doors in the floors. Finally — finally, Susan, the wait was truly unbearable — he thundered to my table, his footsteps echoing out on the cheap linoleum. As he approached, I could smell his cologne — an unmistakable musk. I wasn’t sure of the exact type (not an on-brand, Jean Paul Gautier or Versace kind of guy, I gathered). It reminded me of a rainstorm. His name tag was nearly illegible, a blob of text, as if he hadn’t known what he was going to write. Chicken-scratched on and very nearly stretching off the side, if such a thing would have been possible: some indiscriminate letters and then “ … atch,” just visible. He sat down across from me; his legs were too long to fit under the table. He reached out a rough hand — Oh, Susan, you know how I feel about men with rough hands, built for work — and the coarse hair on his fingers, so masculine, made me swoon even more. I took it, suddenly quite shy. 

“Hi,” he said. “My friends call me Sam.”

“Oh,” I said, surprised. He and I, already friends? This was going so well! “Is that an abbreviation, then?”

He looked strained for a moment, as if he’d heard that a lot.

“Yeah,” he said, grimacing. “For Samsquatch.”

I laughed again, nervously, which I think was the wrong reaction. He looked upset, as if it hurt him physically to hear. 

“Oh? That’s a lovely name,” I said, cringing.

I scrambled for another thought. Here he was, finally across from me, and I had nothing to say! So unlike me, really, you know how I jabber on. I decided that I could break the ice with a joke.

“What did the Loch Ness Monster say to its friend?” I whispered.

“What was that?” he replied.

“Long time … no sea.” I smiled weakly and tried to seem less awkward than I felt. His pupils, two dark spots of black against his hair, reminded me of apple seeds as he blinked.

“I don’t get it.” He said. “Was that supposed to be a joke?” 

“S-E-A,” I said. “Like the ocean. Because she hasn’t seen the ‘sea’ in a while?”

He blinked again, and rolled his eyes. “Oh,” he said, while picking at his fingernails. “Right. Good one. Hah, hah.” 

(He laughed, Susan! Now we’re on track, I thought. I had to make an impression; already I could hear the timer ticking away in the back of my ear like a hammered nail. I didn’t have all night.)

“Well, anyway, what do you do for work?” I said, hoping that my curiosity seemed subtle.

“This and that. I’m kind of doing the freelance thing right now.”

I oohed and awed and demanded to know more, of course.

“I mean, my work is kind of avante-garde. You probably haven’t heard of it,” he insisted, looking at me straight on with that intense, consuming gaze. “But it kind of runs in my family. You probably know my great aunt, Patricia?”

Of course, I didn’t understand, at first. Why would I know his aunt, let alone his great aunt? I said so, trying to mask the confusion in my voice as politeness.

“Sorry,” he threw back. “My family is kind of famous. I thought everyone knew. She was big news on the West Coast in ‘67, I guess. Never knew the lady, but she was the star of some film there. Directed by this guy named Patterson?”

When he mentioned it, the idea faintly rang a bell. He continued as I tried to grasp the thread that held the image in my mind. “We migrated around here soon after that. I’ve got to be honest, the weather is just awful, but I guess the food is okay … ”

And then it hit me. A picture of him had been making the rounds. “Oh my god, I knew you looked familiar. That picture of you is — ”

He groaned. “Ugh, I hate the paparazzi. Like, they couldn’t catch me on a day where my bedhead was a little better?” I stared at him, in shock. Handsome, famous, and funny? I had found a rare gem, and I wouldn’t let him go.

“So,” I said, to pretend it wasn’t a big deal — though to me, it certainly was, Susan — “Tell me some more about your family, then.”

“Hmm,” he shifted in the seat, and tried to jam his legs under the table. When that didn’t work, he stretched out across the side, his arm resting on the table like Michelangelo’s David. “There’s me, you know, the baby of the family. My mom … who I kind of live with at the moment,” he said, shaking his head. “Bad investments. It’s temporary.” 

“Of course,” I said, nodding my head, no stranger to a bad investment.

“My brother — WRAAGH! — he’s always off in the woods somewhere.” At this, he waved his arm in the air. “Seriously, he’s always puffing his chest up and charging around. It’s really annoying,” he interjected, before continuing. “And my dad, well, he’s around somewhere. ‘Getting milk’ or something.”

“Hmm,” I said, cautious about going any further.

“We don’t have a very good relationship,” he said, darkly. “Anyway, then there's the Himalayans.”

“Wait,” I said. “The mountain range?” 

He looked at me, as if I was simple in the head. A soft-boiled egg.

“They live there? You might know my cousin — he has this dumb nickname. The Abominable Snowman, I think?”

  “You mean you’re related?”

“Well, sure, yeah. He’s my first cousin on my dad’s side. But we’re really nothing alike.”

“Of course,” I said. I could feel my cheeks getting warm.

“Harry’s kind of the bad boy of the family. I haven’t seen him in a couple of years, but whew! You should meet that kid. And people call me a monster?” His belly moved up and down as he laughed. The hair there looked comfortable, I thought to myself. (Don’t you dare judge me, Susan! You’d have thought it too.)

“They’re moving this way, too, last I heard, actually, so you might have a chance. The weather is crazy over there.” He looked at me with what I can only express as genuine concern. “Snouses — snow houses, sorry — melting left and right. They had to file for climate asylum and everything. Not a good situation.”

“Definitely not,” I agreed, shaking my head, distracted. My eyes kept turning back to his chest, so manly and strong. He could provide — he could probably carry me around. I could never walk again, and it would be fine. What more could I want?

“The climate is actually really important to me,” he said. “I went vegetarian a few years ago.” He sat up straighter, brightening. “Well, except for steak night. And lamb, on special occasions,” he said, listing off preferences on his fingers. “And trout, when I can catch it.”

Suddenly, the timer rang out. In a panic, I looked around. From across the room, conniving Dolores stared at me — that bitch! — and as he began to move, extricating himself, I blurted out the first thing that came to mind, anything to keep him here for a moment longer, to leave my mark. 

“You know what they say about big feet … ”

He snapped his head my way. I got him, I thought, this is the moment where he falls in love. But just as I opened my mouth to say the second part of the joke, as seductively as I could muster, his words rushed ahead of me.

“Okay, first of all, I’m really sensitive about them. Didn’t anyone tell you growing up that you shouldn’t comment on other people’s bodies? They’re actually a very normal size for my height.”

“Oh,” I said, my jaw slamming shut like a hinge. “I didn’t mean — ”

“Ugh, I wore my best suit and everything,” he said. “You know, since I’m leaving, I’ll just say — that Nessie joke was actually deeply offensive. Not a good start,” he turned, struggling to get up. “God, my mom was right,” he said, pushing up from the seat with a rumble. “Humans are all the same.”

“Wait,” I called after him. “Can I get your number?”

But he had already disappeared into the night, and the door swung shut behind him with a lonely sigh.

Oh, don’t worry. He’ll be back, Susan. Playing hard to find — just wait. Carol’s still got it.