We met on a morning commuter train, the 6:45, all reserved, Lincoln Express from New York City to Washington D.C., and it was packed, with well dressed businessmen and a smattering of women, who looked every bit as buttoned down and self important as the men, with their soft leather briefcases, and impeccably tailored suits, as alike as they could possibly be given the constraints of biology and good taste.

What brought us together, me and Alice Antonioti, was the simultaneous realization that we were equally out of place on that train, she in her brightly flowered, low cut, sleeveless, hippie dress, her firm little breasts peeking out both sides and the top, pretending in that wide eyed way of hers not to notice the looks she was getting - sidelong leers from the men, and taut disapproving frowns from the women. And me, in my blue jeans, my red flannel shirt, and my green hi top sneakers, trying to be inconspicuous, but also ready to glare back at anyone I thought might be staring too hard or too long in my direction.

When our eyes met we both laughed, mine a barely audible snort that attracted virtually no attention, except from a slender, stone faced young woman standing to my left, who glanced briefly in my direction then abruptly adjusted her underwear and shifted as far away from me as possible, while Alice’s was a loud staccato grunt, that caused an immediate uproar in the crowded, sweaty car, with papers shuffling and snapping, pompous eyebrows being raised, and several distinguished looking grey heads shaking disapprovingly at her disruptive outburst.

It took us a while to maneuver through the dense crowd and get close enough to talk, and several more minutes of awkward mumbling before our conversation hit its stride, but once it did it flowed, as it rarely does for me with strangers, except when I’m drunk.

I had an odd feeling about Alice right from the start. First I kept thinking I knew her from somewhere, although that was impossible since she’d lived on the west coast all her life and had only moved to New York six months earlier. And then I could swear she called me by my name, first and last, before I’d even told her what it was, though she insisted I HAD told her, and that I must be losing my mind or going senile. But what really spooked me was that she kept finishing my sentences for me as if she knew what I was gonna say before I did.

“That’s just vibes,” she said. “You know, chemistry. Our minds must be tuned in to the same channel.”

I didn’t know what was going on, but I started hoping that the train would slow down or better yet come to a complete stop, one of those mechanical failures that Amtrak’s known for, so I’d have enough time to figure out how to keep Alice from getting away. Instead it seemed to pick up speed, and I became more and more desperate and agitated and as we raced past Wilmington towards Baltimore, struggling to keep her interested and amused enough so she wouldn’t rush right off when we got to Washington. But I failed miserably the way you always do when you try too hard, and I felt like she was just pretending to be in such a hurry when she strode off purposefully as soon as we arrived in Union Station, waving, and flashing me a transparently phony smile. I was sure that I’d never see her again.

But…I had her card.

She had given it to me early on as we passed through the bleak prison town of Rahway, New Jersey:

“ALICE ANTONIOTI”, it said, in bright red letters on a soft pastel background: “Performing Artist.” And in the lower right hand corner there was a tiny picture, that on close examination turned out to be of Alice herself, dressed in a skimpy and very revealing mini dress.

She never did say exactly what it was she did, though she adamantly insisted she was not a stripper:

“They’re not big enough for that, “she laughed, giving her breasts a quick, dismissive squeeze.

“This could be my big break,” she said a little later, looking shyly at me and kind of glancing downwards towards where our legs had been gradually pushed together by the momentum of the train and the press of the crowd.

“I have a meeting with the owner of the ‘Braying Jackass’ at noon,” she said. “It’s a new improv club downtown, I’m sure you’ve heard of it. And if Irving, I mean Mr.Gordon, if he likes me, he said he’ll put me on as a warm up act this afternoon, and if I do well, and I know I will, he said he’ll give me a regular job.”

With that Alice stepped back to take a bow, but there wasn’t enough room in the overcrowded car for such theatrics, and she crashed awkwardly into a surly old man, who groaned as if he’d been shot, and angrily shoved her back in my direction. But Alice was unfazed, and showing the first glimpse I’d yet seen of one of her many talents, she spun gracefully around as if the whole thing had been choreographed, ending up with her face inches from mine, at which point she winked provocatively at me, looking for the moment like a cross between Marilyn Monroe and Carol Burnett.

Alice never did tell me where the Jackass was, and when I called information the operator thought I was a prank caller and hung up. But somehow, despite my lack of familiarity with the D.C. streets, having gotten hopelessly lost on both of my previous visits, among all the winding and turning northwests and southeasts, and streets that zig and zag and curve around with no apparent pattern or purpose, I knew I’d be able to find her. And I was right.

But first I had to take care of my own business, which consisted of a brief and ultimately fruitless meeting with Malcolm Davies, a big jovial black man who was purportedly my literary agent. Malcolm had once been a heavyweight boxer, but was now, I couldn’t help pointing out to him, a decidedly lightweight agent, though he insisted that I shouldn’t be concerned about his lack of progress in finding a publisher for my second novel:

“These things take time my boy, these things take time,” Malcolm kept saying as he wrapped a still muscular arm around my shoulder and ushered me out of his office, an assertion I found somewhat dubious given the fact that I’d sold and marketed the first one myself in half the time that he’d already spent doing God knows what with the new manuscript.

After that I took to the streets in search of Ms. Antonioti. My simple, or more accurately my simple minded strategy was to ask random people for directions towards, “where the cool clubs are,” but surprisingly, after only two or three hours of more or less aimless wandering, which included rest stops in a number of seedy bars and grilles along the way, I looked up and there it was, a big glowing pink neon sign for “The Braying Jackass”, featuring the silhouetted forms of two scantily clad young ladies with droopy mule ears, down on all fours inviting me in.

The place wasn’t big, but it was chic and very elegant, and after paying a ten dollar cover charge: “You’re lucky, it’s twenty after five o’clock,” a snooty, horse faced young blond woman at the door informed me, I was directed down a short hallway lined with stark black and white curtained walls and big potted palm trees. I felt dirty and sleazy and underdressed, which I was, but I had gotten pretty drunk in the course of my cross town meanderings, and by the time I stumbled in around four fifteen I didn’t much care what anyone thought or said.

At the end of the hallway to the right was a very small and tres fancy dining area, complete with chandeliers and candelabras, where a crew of surly Hispanics bustled around noisily, apparently setting up for dinner. And to the left was a bare twenty by twenty foot room, with a bar in the back, tiny wooden tables lining the walls, and a small stage up front. As I walked in, a large and surprisingly raucous crowd for that time of day, was slowly quieting down as a short fat bald guy in a tuxedo, presumably the Mr.Gordon that Alice had spoken about earlier, was in the process of introducing the next act:

“Let’s hear it for a newcomer to our club,” he intoned over the din, “with a unique act that I know you’ll enjoy, the lovely and talented Alice Antonioti.”

As the crowd grew silent, the exotic softness of what sounded like a Middle Eastern beat began piping out of the huge loudspeakers that hung from the ceiling in all four corners of the room. Alice looked very small and nervous up there, like a little girl who had to pee but was too shy to ask.

And then, after nodding and smiling briefly at the audience, she closed her eyes and began swirling and spinning slowly across the stage, waving a pale blue and pink silk around her face and body like a belly dancer. She wasn’t speaking or singing, though it appeared from where I was standing well back in the crowd that her lips were moving and I could occasionally hear what sounded like faint muttering coming from behind the silks. Every once in a while she would violently thrust her arms out to the side or over her head as if she were fending off invisible attackers.

God, look at alla them out there, probably half drunk already, at what is it four thirty in the afternoon? I bet they think I’m gonna take off my clothes and really give them a show.

Woaw…almost lost my balance there for a second.

If they only knew what I’m really doing up here, under cover of this bogus Madame Salome routine, reading their minds like surfing the net, till I find one with a story good enough to perform for the crowd.

Could I be sued for invasion of privacy or slander or even copyright infringement? I wonder if people own the rights to the content of their minds?

Personally I think I’m doing a public service, bringing out what’s really going on inside people’s heads, instead of the usual polite crap they say to each other. And most of them love being the center of attention, the star, even if only for a little while.

But I do have to be more careful, make damn sure that whoever I choose is happy about it, not like what happened last week when that old guy went berserk and started screaming: “It’s about me, it’s about me. The whole thing is about me.” Of course it was about him. I was trying to help the poor guy out, give him some insight into his miserable existence. Never again. Who knows what would’ve happened if he hadn’t have been taken for a drunken fool and dragged out of there by the bouncers.

Hmm…this is a pretty rough crowd. I can’t seem to find a good story anywhere, and this dancing thing’ll only buy me so much time till they start getting restless. I need to get down below the surface, find that true energy, and let it take over my body and tell the story for me. Otherwise it’ll all come out sounding like some half ass romance novel, or worse, a bad porno movie…. Yeah right asshole, I’d just love to snuggle up to that fat gut of yours.

But what if I really can’t find a story worth telling? It’s never happened before, but I’ve never done this shit in front of such a big hostile crowd. I guess I could do some sort of generic song and dance act.

It was so easy this afternoon with Irving. Of course what he was thinking about was pretty obvious- getting in my pants. You didn’t have to be clairvoyant to figure that out.

But underneath all that his life turned out to be pretty interesting. He misses his daughter, seems like his ex-wife was a real bitch. Then again I haven’t heard her side of the story. It’s like eavesdropping on one end of a conversation, except it’s all going on inside someone’s head. I bet Irving wasn’t quite as innocent in the whole thing as he seems to think.

I liked him and wanted to help him out mind to mind, but I don’t think my powers go both ways. That would be cool if I could get inside people’s heads and give them advice, kind of like lucid dreaming once removed, an unsolicited, intracranial Dear Abby. Nah, that would be too dangerous. And what do I know anyway?

YeahIrving just turned out to be a lonely old guy needing someone to love him, just like the rest of us, though he’d certainly have a much better chance of finding someone if he’d drop all that lewd, crude, leering bullshit, and just be himself.

And he did end up treating me with respect, once he realized that I’m not some dumb bimbo, that I’ve got real talent.

It’d be so easy to find a tragic story. Everyone has one, like that short guy up front, what a fucked up life he’s had, and all because his sister had to take out her own misery on him when he was 13. But no, I can’t tell that story. He’d get all pissed off and storm out, and even if he didn’t he’d never admit at the end that it’s his story. Or the old guy next to him, whose baby daughter died in a house fire and he felt responsible for it, even though he wasn’t, and his wife never forgave him, and because of that he was afraid to get close to his other kids, and now he’s all alone.

Okay here’s one. Wow, it’s the guy from this morning. He really went through a lot to find me, and he looks much cuter from a distance. Or maybe it’s just that he’s been drinking and isn’t so nervous and jittery like he was on the train. There’s some pretty good stuff going on inside his head. But that would be sorta cheating wouldn’t it? Like he was a plant and the whole thing’s just a parlor trick. Course he didn’t actually tell me anything about himself, not even his name, though I did find that out for myself, which kinda creeped him out. Hopefully he’ll be smart enough to play along at the end, pretend we never met. First I better do a quick background check, make sure he’s not an ax murderer or child molester or something. Nah, just an ordinary neurotic.

Abruptly the music stopped, and the spinning and the muttering too, and Alice opened her eyes, blinking a few times to get used to the light.

I felt a little dizzy and disoriented, as if they’d spiked my $12.50 martini with LSD or mescaline, and I wasn’t sure just how long her strange dance had been going on, although there was a restless buzz in the crowd like maybe it had been a bit TOO long.

Then she started to speak, and now it was in a clear, almost melodic voice. At first I couldn’t figure out WHAT she was saying, but then I realized she was telling a story, or rather putting on a play, and she was doing all the characters, bringing them to life by description and inflection and an impressive array of facial expressions. Her whole body seemed to change, not just her voice, when she switched roles, getting younger, older, shorter, taller, skinnier, fatter, though that seems impossible, and it occurred to me that maybe I was under the influence of something stronger than gin, or else that it was true what she’d said on the train about our minds being tuned into the same channel.

It was a sad and lonely tale Alice was telling, about a troubled main character given to momentous mood swings, and much of the action consisted of contentious and sometimes amusing exchanges between him and various members of his family, in particular his loud and overbearing father with whom he seemed to have a pure hate-hate relationship.

Periodically she would break into song, which I found somewhat annoying, since I’m not a big fan of musical theatre. But her little verses, that sometimes rhymed and sometimes didn’t, were always brief and to the point, and invariably moved the narrative forward:

“Clean your room you little prick, and everything that’s in it,” she sang in the father’s husky baritone, to the tune of the old Mr. Clean jingle, in the midst of a particularly heated exchange between him and the teenaged main character.

In the climactic scene, the father flew into a rage over the length of his son’s hair, and it all of a sudden struck me that the story she was telling bore an uncanny resemblance to my own childhood, right down to the names of the characters- Seymour and Florence and Darryl and Gary, and the setting-a deteriorating neighborhood in the South Bronx in the late 1960s.

And then I remembered that the night before I had dreamed about that very incident, which had ended with a bloody fistfight between my brother and my father, though I was sure I hadn’t said anything about it to Alice on the train, and in fact I couldn’t have because it hadn’t found its way back into my consciousness until right then.

When I looked up the show was over, Alice was taking a bow amid a polite smattering of applause, and Irving had joined her onstage:

“I believe there’s someone out there,” he was saying in his best carnival huckster’s voice, “who found Alice’s little play particularly interesting… BECAUSE IT WAS THE STORY OF HIS OWN LIFE.” He bellowed out the last part even louder and more emphatically than the rest, making him sound like an overcaffeinated Bob Barker inviting another lucky “Price Is RIGHT” contestant to “COME ON DOWN.”

“You see, ladies and gentlemen, the little lady here is not only beautiful and sexy, she also has an amazing psychic gift.

“Now come on, who was it? Don’t be shy. You were the star of the show. Step forward and take a bow.”

With that he began sweeping a handheld spotlight out over the audience, and when it landed on me I didn’t know what to do. The last thing I wanted was a barful of assholes knowing my business. But I knew if I didn’t say anything Alice would look bad, and they would all just drift away not believing she was anything more than a half ass singer and dancer, and then she’d be out of a job. So I raised my hand and said, “Yeah, yeah, it was me.”

The crowd started applauding again, first quietly, then louder and louder, until they were stomping and clapping rhythmically and chanting, “A-LICE, A-LICE…,” and then “DAR-RYL, DAR-RYL…,” presumably thinking it’d been me instead of my brother who had decked the old man.

And then I heard Irving shouting again above all the noise:

“I assure you ladies and gentlemen, that these two have never met before tonight, isn’t that right sir?” And I shook my head yes, even though it wasn’t technically true, but in substance it was, cause I knew I hadn’t told her about any of that on the train.

Alice was mobbed when she walked off the stage, and thankfully I was largely ignored, though a few people did come over and slap me on the back and laugh, but it was all in good fun and I didn’t mind. After a few minutes the crowd began to thin, and then it was just Alice and Irving huddling at a side table, smiling and laughing and having a good time. I tried to catch her eye, but each time she looked away, and just as I was about to give up and leave, she hugged him one final time and stood up and walked towards the back door where I was standing. I wasn’t sure what to do, so I just stood there not knowing if she would even acknowledge me much less stop and talk, which I could understand since that might give away our little secret.

She didn’t even slow down as she passed me, though I did feel a slight pressure in the vicinity of my pants pocket, which I took as the first stirrings of an erection, cause she looked really fine up close in her clingy black dress like the one she was wearing on her card, warm and glowing and still sweating from all that dancing and acting. I decided as she headed out the side door that there was no way I was gonna follow her, not again, that she’d had her chance, so I sat at the bar for a while watching the next act, a pair of fiddle playing midgets, set up. But as I got up to go, I put my hand in my pocket like I always do to make sure I have my wallet and there was a business card in there, Alice’s card, another one which she must’ve slipped in as she was strode by.

It said: “See you on the train. I’ll know which one.”