SEARCH ENGINE OF LOVE

By Henry E. Panky

Dear Z

I woke up this morning to the desperate scrabbling of some critter trapped inside my bedroom wall - and that reminded me of my recent Match.com date with Daphne. As you know, we have been trading increasingly tender emails and photos. She's a "well-rounded (!), late thirty-something Vice President of healthy appetites (!), ready to settle down and raise a passel of rusty-butted kids with a stable, romantic and tax-protesting Libertarian." And I, of course, am a "boyish, salt-of-the-earth go-getter of independent means who loves to laugh, play the didgeridoo on my sailboat with my golden retriever, breed snow-white Lippizaners, and buy expensive unmentionables for my assy biffer." Oh, we wrote back and forth as excited as teenagers, burning up the ether with our ballooning passions.

Regarding the "independent means" part - don't forget, Z, I still have two weeks of unemployment left. I felt the vasectomy conversation was best left to later, I do love lacy undies and the white lie about Lippizaners were for the sake of her fantasy life, not mine. You know how women like horses.

But then, when we finally met, things somehow went awry from the very moment I snuck up behind her at the restaurant, squealed like a pig, and reached up under her skirt to smartly pinch her bottom (nice!). Spinning around, her lovely eyes had been filled with a rich turbulent mélange of mixed emotions, though horrified terror was unquestionably predominant (if I've seen it once, I've seen it a million times). At first, she pretended not to believe I was me! She waved around my Match.com photo, sobbing and jabbing it with her forefinger - this was a slightly Photoshopped promo shot of Russell Crowe (whom I'm told I resemble: in fact, it was Daphne who mentioned the resemblance). I responded with hearty, Santa Claus-like hilarity.

So then, she tried to disavow being herself! It was a case of mistaken identity! Ultimately, I had to playfully grab the driver's license out of her purse.

"Voila! Now what do you have to say for yourself, sugar dumpling? Stop your fussin' and come give daddy some belly to belly, wet, sloppy tongue action!"

Her handbag also yielded a 12 pack of condoms which I waved about teasingly to the immense hilarity of some sanitation workers at the bar. "Hubba, hubba, our first date! I like that in a woman!" Wanting to make her feel comfortable, I then tried to include her in the applause by having her jump like a circus seal to snatch the ribbed, jumbo-sized lube-tips back out of my hand, "Isn't she the hopeful one?"

Honestly Z, I thought we were having the time of our lives, but D became sulky and barely responded to the goofy faces and silly walks I performed at the bean salad bar. Hmmm, I knew I looked hot in my low-cut, white leather bell-bottoms and fishnet tank top with the gray chest hair curling through. So I tried another tack: I jammed my entire right fist inside my mouth (this usually gets a reaction) - but Daphne still refused to look at me or acknowledge my theatrical gargling.

What was up? Maybe she just had a hard week at work, or was tired from the 800 mile drive.

Then I made my first mistake. In all the excitement, it totally slipped my mind that I had intimated on my dating profile, to being a highly decorated Brigadier General in the Blue Angels on temporary assignment to the Special Forces. So, I suppose I looked a bit blank when she began to ply me with military questions. "What the hell are you talking about, Daffy? What do I know or care about an SR-71, Mach 3 Blackbird in Baluchistan? And there's a piece of veggie-burger stuck between your canines, sweetheart - which is really putting me off my pot pie, ok?" When it finally dawned on me what was up (oops!), I shrewdly covered my tracks by mentioning - off-handedly - that several characters in "The Right Stuff," "Top Gun," "Blackhawk Down," and "Operation Dumbo Drop" were based on me, but that it was "very hush hush" and certainly not something I could discuss on a first date.

At least "not until I knew her a lot better" - and here I licked my lips, nose and chin with my thick, moist, battle-scarred tongue, and waggled my eyebrows and ears in a highly meaningful manner. Yep, that's right, Z, I gave her the "look of love." I probably mentioned "my desperate hunger for transcendence" as well, since it inevitably slips out after a couple pints.

Of course, all throughout the evening, I was also performing the drop-the-fork-knife-napkin-under-the-table for the quick-peek-under-the-skirt trick (Xanadu!): Whoops a daisy! In fact, one too many times - she finally flagged down the waitress for an extra tablecloth to drape over her knees. The vexatious how-many-is-too-many dilemma is a ticklish conundrum, which like the Riemann Hypothesis, continues to stump better men than I.

You know, Z, if I was a modern woman, I'd personally find such subtle, old world gallantries both flattering and titillating. Sometimes, hombre, I candidly don't know what the fuck women want. Perhaps the important thing is just to be me, even if that's never worked in the past.

In any case, to deflect any awkwardness, I deftly turned the conversation to my favorite "All Natural & Unshaved" website. Starting out in contemplative, carefully modulated tones, this quickly escalated into shouting, spittle-spraying enthusiasm, my arms waving like Stravinsky conducting "Rite of Spring" or "Peter and the Wolf." Daphne stared transfixed, a rabbit in the headlights. Dessert lay forgotten, congealing before us. Oh, I sang that aria like Pavarotti. Other diners turned in their seats. I mopped the sweat from my face and armpits. At the last moment, I remembered to specify that my affición did not run to unshaven legs and underarms.

In the ringing hush of the dumfounderment that followed, Daphne, the other customers, the restaurant staff and I took a pregnant moment to quiet the impassioned breaths rasping from our flushed, heaving bosoms. And then with a modest tilt of the head and the barest of Marcello Mastroianni-like waves, I acknowledged the shocking roar of acclaim that broke over me in seemingly endless waves. Men crowded around to pump my hand and pound my back, tears streaming unnoticed down their grizzled cheeks, as they hoarsely choked out their gratitude. Wives, daughters and waitresses wiggled fingertips, blew kisses, licked breadsticks and made clacking, chomping motions with their teeth. Shy, downy-lipped sons were ushered forward like young rams for my Godfatherly benediction.

Sensing that ripe and pendulous moment had arrived, I discreetly plucked a nose hair to give my eyes the requisite, wetly emotional sheen (it hurts like hell!), and maneuvered in for the coup de grace: "Daffy, you are my dream, my heart, my soul and my universe. It's like my mother used to sing to me in Arabic when I was a little boy in Cairo Yi yunni, my eyes, Ya hyyetti, my love, Ya elbee, my heart, and Ya umree, my life." And here I looked soulful, sincere, somewhat melancholy but definitely up for a little rumpy pumpy on the indoor/outdoor carpet of the Motel 6.

I gazed straight into her black pupils and brought old man tongue out for a second victory lap.

Unfortunately, Daphne had read the Times article regarding the army colonel of Middle Eastern ancestry who proposed to hundreds of women over the internet using the exact same lines. Damn! That's six out of the last nine.

After that, I was fucked, and she only laughed unpleasantly when - as she climbed into her SUV - I serenaded her with a Benny Goodman/Kenny G hit parade medley on my six foot didgeridoo. Out spat her last bitter words, "You're a real bad pony, Mister, and I'm not going to bet on you!" Huh? Bad pony? Isn't that from David Mamet's "House of Games?" And she's got her lacy panties (nice!) in a twist about a little borrowed Arabic?

The engine roared, I leapt into the pet-befouled shrubbery ... and she was gone. Now, you tell me how I'm going to learn to live without her.

Eventually, I used the hatchet in the underwear drawer to liberate the rodent dying between my wall studs. The horrific scrabbling of the otherwise doomed creature reminded me far too much of my own existence of destitute inanity and rutting bestiality - besides impacting the tranquility of the morning's General Foods International Coffee. I locked the cats in the pantry, tipped over tables and mattresses to create an escape corridor, put on goggles, rubber gloves and shower cap, and then, heart in mouth - who knew what maddened, guinea pig-like monster lurked within? - leaned over to chop a hole in the sheetrock. Nothing stirred: had I hallucinated the whole thing like Ray Milland in "Lost Weekend?" Then suddenly - Eek! - out popped the sleek, racing-striped head of a peevish chipmunk in high dudgeon (I froze in alarm). It eyeballed me and my axe with disdain. It chittered menacingly (I staggered back, yelping for protection from any compassionate divinity so motivated), then hopped through the ragged hole, down the passageway and out the open door.

And Henry Panky, filled with a vast and uncontainable loneliness, stepped out upon the sun-blasted courtyard: a balding, desolate Kerouac of the new millennium sipping his vanilla hazelnut Café Parisien, hatchet dangling forgotten from his fingertips. He squinted out upon that existential patio, the harsh, over-exposed light slowly dissolving its grievous metaphors into nothingness, and he whispered to an empty sky, "Yi yunni, Ya hyyetti, Ya elbee, Ya umree."

Fade out ...... Roll the credits. Play the Enya song.

Then I burp-talked the alphabet just to prove to myself that I still could.

Tell it to me straight, Z - do you think I'm a bad pony?

By Henry E. Panky

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