Jimmy R. Calhoun stepped out of the bodega on 72nd Street while listening to “Creep,” by Radiohead through his earbuds. The Widow Finkelstein, coming from his left, stumbled as her foot knocked into his. The Widower Roth, coming from the other side, bumped his shoulder into Jimmy’s shoulder and then thrust an arm against the store’s awning to steady himself.

In the aftermath, Jimmy turned first one way, where the Widow Finkelstein was windmilling her arms and pulling her torso back upright after a worrisome dip, and then the other, where the Widower Roth was gasping for breath. “Sorry,” Jimmy said.

“‘Sorry?’ Do you know what that word means?” the Widow Finkelstein croaked, pulling at her dress. “If you’re sorry, if you possess any decency, you try to make something right. Sorry doesn’t mean standing there like a dead tuna.”

“Next time don’t wear those fibberdigibbets in your ears,” declaimed the Widower Roth. “There’s a real world out here, and some of us have to try to survive in it.”

The widow’s heart opened at these words, as will happen when you hear your own thoughts voiced by another person and they seem to be something true and elevated. The widower’s pulse quickened, as he sensed a deep commonality, a sharing of thought, experience, and moral outlook with another human being that made the world come into sudden focus.

Jimmy muttered, “Yeah. Sorry,” and walked away.

The Widower Roth approached the Widow Finkelstein and said, “Here. Here, let me help you. There’s a chair here, and you need some air.”

Within a few minutes, the Widower Roth had bought her a cold Sprite. Within another day, the Widow Finkelstein had cooked a good, wholesome dinner for him. Within two weeks they had spent a night together in the same bed. Within a month, they announced they planned to get married.

Their children recommended prenuptials and various schemes to keep their finances separate, but the lovers refused. They had found bliss in union. They were new people.

They never stopped to think that if Jimmy hadn’t stepped out of that bodega when he did, they would have collided with each other and shared only a moment of enmity.

 

More about Love and Coincidence:

–Sociologist Finds Absurdity Has Critical Role in Human Power Dynamics
–“Recipe for Fidelity,” by Tracy Elin
–“Stripped,” by Mark Wisnewski, author of Show Up, Look Good and Pushcart Prize winner