I dropped into my garden on my way to the office the other morning to soak in some of that lavender love, and one of those grizzled old veterans of the reeds caught my eye from afar for a split second. You've got to keep your eye out for suspicious characters around there, that's for sure. But sometimes signals get crossed. Glares and leers get lost in translation. Eff-off is interpreted as a come-on. Some folks don't understand that not all eye contact is an invitation for other kinds. People have eyes, sometimes they meet. It's a statistical reality.

When I was looking at available gardens in the Fens three years ago, the first one they showed me was down by the Muddy River, a couple yards from the reeds, in a very cruisy section of the park. I politely declined. Not because it would have been tempting being so close to the action, trust me. Not to be a snooty Judy, but it's not exactly a catwalk crammed with supermodels down there. It's something closer to a circus sideshow.

Don't get me wrong: I've got nothing against the circus.  But there are those who go to see it when it's in town and then there are those who run off to join it.  I'd done a short stint, but I knew even then that my days on the flying trapeze were numbered. I can't even claim a spot among the acrobats anymore. I'm not Sting. I can't turn myself into a tantric pretzel.  My autofellating days are over. I pulled a muscle the other day double-clicking my mouse, for chrissake.  The show must go on, of course, but without me.  I don't want to end up in the clown car, or worse, cleaning up after the elephants.

Plus, I was afraid I'd never get any naked gardening in if I took up residence on the edge of the action with the suckerazzi stalking me all day and night. There are worse things than having to garden in your rugby shorts, but why do it if you don't really have to? The garden I finally settled on and have nicely settled into is on higher ground, literally if not figuratively, and far enough from the muddy-kneed, madding crowd that I can commune with Nature the way Nature intended.

Now, I still like to stroll around down by the river, just to take in a bit of life's rich pageant. And who knows? I might join the scrum again one of these days, although it hasn't happened in the last couple of years. I'm ashamed to say that recently I was tempted by a forty-something bodybuilder known locally as Big Gulp, because he always brings his Super Big Gulp with him so he can spend the whole day strutting back and forth shirtless along the Walk of Shame, weaving in and out of the reeds showing off to the homeless crackwhores and toothless meth-heads.

My temptation came back in early April, I think, before I realized he was there most every day, all day. He's got a great set of pecs on him, but there was something about that Big Gulp that just... I was like, he's in it to win it, man. It's not casual sex if you bring a Big Gulp. And then, you see that Big Gulp, and you start looking closer, and you notice the highlights and the tan from a can, and all the pulleys and wires that seem to be keeping things in place, and you realize the poor dear gets up in the morning and fusses over his elaborate toilette. FOR THIS.

Big Gulp wanders the reeds like a wraith, but I've never seen him in the interior, where the gardens are. In fact, I've always been impressed at how, at least during the daylight hours, cruisers for the most part stick to their section of the park, and leave those of us in the interior alone. Most seem to register that the park has many recreational uses, and at least from Dawn to Dusk, is not their private Pleasure Dome. But occasionally, out of boredom with their endless wanderings, some venture beyond.

Unfortunately, this time of the year, those of us in the interior don't have much privacy because the foliage is still filling in everywhere. A couple of weeks and I'll have plenty of coverage, but right now it's a little like gardening on a bar top at the Roxy. Except none of the lowlifes in the Fens is gonna shove a fiver down your shorts. We should start charging cover. That's about the only way the Garden Society's ever gonna raise enough cash to get their water pipes and perimeter fences fixed.

Point is, when I'm in my garden this time of year I'm sort of a sitting duck. Most cruisers have some idea that it's not cool to cruise a captive. Yes, there are those out there who really think the bartender is hitting on them, and that the only reason he hasn't asked them out is he's at work. But "cruising" waiters and store clerks, who can't escape you, is a little like teasing animals in their cages at the zoo. Flirting is one thing — but cruising takes it to a whole nother level.

Assumptions are made when cruising that both parties are actually looking for sex — not that one is looking for sex and the other for tips, as in a bar, or one is looking for sex and the other for money, as on Beacon Hill. That's why there are de facto cruising spots in most cities: places you go when you want to cruise. Cruising is much more focused on the immediate objective (hooking up) than on the object itself. The higher your standards, the lower your kill rate. Love and war, baby. That's how a lot of cruising can actually take place in the dark, or in steam saunas. 

Flirting is less outcome-oriented. You don't usually flirt thinking anything will come of it, although sometimes something does.  What I'm getting at here is not that one is better than the other, but that cruising and flirting standards are different. After you get over the queasiness, cruising is actually easier than flirting, because flirting takes a certain charm. Flirting is layered interaction. It takes social skills. There's some subtlety involved. Flirting, you might say, is an art.  Cruising is a craft.  Cruising is stripped down to the animal essentials.  There are a set of signs: leering, a little lip-licking perhaps, a grunt, a crotch-grab. But they're not very nuanced. They're primal — not to say primitive — things we associate with sexual predation.

Cruising in the Fens basically involves standing around in the right spot for a while (how long "a while" is depends on weather conditions, and how unemployed you are), leering at people who pass by, and occasionally grabbing your crotch. Or alternatively, walking back and forth for a while, staring at people who are standing around, grabbing their crotches. Eventually, if you're having a good day, someone grabs your crotch or you grab theirs, and nobody gets hurt. But if you try this on the T, or with the sales clerk at Lord & Taylor, or your local Starbuck's barista, you'll probably get a different result. It might involve some of that jail sex you've been fantasizing about. 

Admittedly some people flatter themselves in thinking that any scrap of human kindness tossed in their direction is a come-on. And some people don't even need the kindness.  Any scrap will do.  You can be minding your own business, doing whatever it is you do, not even notice them particularly, and they think you're all over them.  It's like thinking you've been made love to by your doctor after a routine rectal exam.

Years ago, right out of high school, I had a summer job at an "antique mall" — basically a big barn with consignment stalls full of junk — off of the Ruel W. Steele Memorial Highway in Southern Indiana. One day a hill-billy middle-aged gay couple came in (they turned out to be brothers, go figure). I happened to be wearing an open collar button-down shirt, unbuttoned to the second button, probably — not too risqué, really — but when I leaned over the counter to write out a receipt for their junk du jour, they got a little show, I guess. I was oblivious.

Half an hour later they phone the mall asking for me. They'd interpreted my casual attire as a coded message meant just for them.

And hey, I was horny and hadn't had any good hillbilly sex in a while. And the dude had a mustache and a Camaro. I was like, "I get off at five, and if you buy me a bacon, beef, and cheddar melt at Arby's you can to." 

So, you never know. It's worth a try.  (Wasn't the best Motel 6 sex I've ever had, but wasn't the worst, either.  Damn good sandwich, though.)

For the most part, if you think the bartender wants you, or the waiter's making a pass, or some kid behind the counter at Burger King is sending you secret sex-vibes with your Whopper, you're probably mistaken. The creature that crawled out of the Muddy River the other day and circled my garden for half an hour sure was. 

I don't care whether you believe in this sort of thing or not, but I'm here to tell you, people do have auras. Mine is mother of pearl with gold sparkles — don't call them jimmies! — and it plays Handel's Messiah at the most inappropriate times. His was muddy gray with mottled brown overlay. You can't really blame him for being drawn to me.  Like a moth drawn to the light.

All it took, like I said, was that millisecond I'd glanced in his direction from at least a hundred yards.  He circled around, slowly, in tighter and tighter spirals, until he was close enough to pounce.  Meanwhile I was crouching in my beds, hiding behind my peony, trying to undo whatever my errant glance in his direction had done.  Next thing you know I peep out from behind it and he's standing at my gate, ten feet away, staring silently at me. 

Now, let me stress again:  there's nothing inherently wrong with two or more consenting adults making eye contact in a public place, and then double-checking (how often must I say it? "Doveryai, no proveryai"), and if it's a go, going with it.  But a vague acknowledgment of your existence by means of an absent glance in your general direction is not — repeat: NOT — love at first sight. 

I gave him a good scowl — a real rictus of horror — a face I'd picked up in my extensive studies of Japanese B-movies.  I didn't think he merited a full-on Majin, Monster of Terror...


...which may have unleashed B-Movie forces, frankly, beyond my control.  The last thing you want is a troupe of kaiju showing up for no good reason and stomping on your poppies.  So I opted for a face I'd seen once on Shinto God of Rice Inari's kitsune...


I chose a sidelong kitsune reflexively, because the intruder was approaching from the Northeast, and, according to feng shui, kitsune can neutralize evil energy coming from that direction.  

I guess I was not convincing enough.  Admittedly it was a sidelong and not a full-on kitsune, and it has been a long time since I have done my kitsune face, but even when I'm half-assed about it, it usually has some noticeable impact.  This time: nada.  Apparently no amount of hinting around about it was going to free me from The Leer.  He stood leering harder, hoping to catch my eye again, and suck me into interaction. 

Because we have been taught not to ignore people once we have acknowledged their presence with eye contact, this is one method unscrupulous cruisers use to rope you in.  But cruising, as we've discussed, is another realm, and the rules of polite society don't really apply here.  When you think of the types of people who abuse eye contact it's usually crazies, clipboarders, and cup-rattlers.  If they're abusing social etiquette, you should not feel obligated to follow its mandates with them, either.

But he was obviously willing to wait me out, and my mood had turned, and I didn't feel much like gardening anymore.  So I locked up, jumped on my bike, and pedaled furiously down the path away from him. 

If there's one thing I have learned in life, it's this: when all else fails, run.