I Get Off on Christopher Street

I ride a PATH train underneath the Hudson River to get from my home in New Jersey to the sinister island of Manhattan, where I am employed. I detrain at the Christopher Street station and walk to my SoHo offices. In the evenings I reverse the route. (I assume most of you are familiar with going places and returning, so I won't get any more specific about the process.)

And thus, I headed home tonight. Not to be a working-stiff cliché, but I was very happy to be done with a long, tiring week. Had been popping Airborne tablets all day in a vain hope to ward off whatever illness has felled a variety of friends and colleagues up and down the eastern seaboard. I couldn't get home soon enough.

Was about to cross Hudson Street, a half block from the train station, when a rubbery-faced older guy said hello to me. It was a very friendly hello, so I figured I must know this man. But who was he? A several-times-removed cousin? A freelance illustrator I've worked with? My tax guy's part-time helper during the busy season? I hoped his identity would be cleared up shortly; we were halfway across the intersection.

"Where do you live?" he asked.

"Uh....across the river," I replied. My spider-sense was tingling.

"Oh, thought you might be local, was going to invite you back to my place."

"Uh...no....I'm too beat," I said, and scurried down the steps to the train platform.

I'm too beat?!? This is my reply to being propositioned by an old queen? Wow, I guess I really don't like to hurt people's feelings. Why, I could've gone with:

• "I'm not gay, but thanks just the same, good fellow. Best wishes for your cruising."

• "You know what, friend? Even if I was gay? I wouldn't be interested in a dried-up, quarter-century-my-senior old husk like you. No, I fashion myself more the Emile Hirsch type."

• Puzzled expression, disappointed shake of head, exit stage left.

There were really any number of more accurate replies. But no, I tend to avoid confrontation whenever humanly possible. Heaven forbid he feel rejected as a sexual entity. And I certainly don't want to come across as pooh-poohing his lifestyle. So if Quentin Crisp here wanders off into the West Village night thinking, "Darn my luck, had this been a Tuesday rather than a Friday, I'd be making sweet love with that devilishly handsome boy-toy," well, then, that's OK with me.

I guess I could use the 9th Street station. The walk is about the same.