Karen’s Superman. She’s a well mannered professional during the day, but take her to a club with a live band and her inner Faye Dunaway appears. I know; I’ve seen it. She’s thin, slippery and attractive and her moves draw attention not shunned but played with like matador and bull.

At The Lucky Dog in Worcester, watching “The Wretched Souls,” we sidled up to a pillar on the dance floor. I leaned against the left side and she the right. Following her face and figure, a young guy of modest build and dark hair walked behind her and pinched her left buttocks, the buttock nearest me. She turned, smiled, waved one finger and mouthed, “No, no.” Her lips, her shape and her dance floor moves said yes, only her finger said no. He grinned at her and pointed at me, as if it were I with the roaming hand, and minutes later touched her again. Again she smiled, wagged that finger and again he pointed at me.

At Sweet Bites, our friendly neighborhood coffee shop, Karen’s more complex. The smile that rarely says no attracted attention from a-soon-to-be newly acquired friend, John, who stopped at our table  to tell her how compelling a figure she presented, framed in the lattice work of the large window,  bathed by early morning sun.  Sipping coffee, black,  she’s the confessor with heart on her sleeve, the professional on her way to work, and the friend of many who easily swaps hugs. Then there is this other Karen.

“Karen, why are you so aggressive with those guys?”

“I’m not aggressive.”

“Okay mean.”

“I’m not mean.”

“Look, Ken and Ray sit down and ask you easygoing questions and you snap back at them.”

“ I do not.”

“Is your vocabulary limited to no and do not? I’m telling you you’re like a third grade teacher telling the fidgety boys in the first row to sit still. How come you’re so much more docile with me?

Karen: Because you’re not a guy.

I peer down between my legs to rebut her point, to reassure myself,  and to be funny. Ray, sitting next to me, follows my eyes and says,

“Mine is longer than yours.”

I look up, catch his eye and say,  “ No, mine is longer than yours.”

“Mine’s longer.”

“ I remember you talking about yours and I know mine is longer. Karen, who’s swims with me, can back me up.”

Karen, looking around at the crowded café and aware that for whatever reason our table is sometimes viewed as a sideshow, waves her cape.  She reaches over and tousles my hair believing this argument is staged and knowing the end. Surely, she thinks, they’re about  to compare the length of hair on their heads.  But she’s not totally confident because she knows I’ve been wandering the perimeter of civilized society for the last three years.

I’ll prove it to you. Mine is longer.

Whereupon we both stand up, not yet the absolute center of attention, but soon to be. Ray reaches for his belt, me for mine, and Karen begins waving her arms and yelling that we can’t possibly be about to do what it sure seems like we’re about to do. Her decibels have gone from slightly above normal conversation to Aretha Franklin’s restaurant  scene in Blues Brothers. “You better think (think) think about what you’re trying to do to me.”  She slows me down as I fumble for my belt, as Ray unbuckles his. Karen yells, “No, no, stop,” with her left arm outstretched, palm towards Ray and Me,  while hiding her eyes behind her other hand. Ray he’s smooth, real smooth. He yanks his belt out of his pant loops and  says, “See, mine is longer than yours.”