I know I’m too old to come to these things now, but I love watching the new guys come through. Boys with peach fuzz goatees, baby teeth still wrapped in plastic under their pillows. It’s adorable, honestly. The older ones are entertaining in their own way, like beat-up old trucks fighting for life. No shame on me watching them cough through their last few miles.

Seats fill up steadily now that it’s only a few minutes till showtime. On the right side of the room, fifty men ranging from barely 17 to 50 sit dressed in various ways. Some wear suits, others wear muscle tees. Two or three wear spandex, and a few even brave skirts. Going for the confidence card, maybe, or humor. I can’t wait to watch those ones. They’re all clucking to each other like chickens, eyes wide and whipping their heads side to side. I love the nerves of it all, the rumbling in these guys’ stomachs. You can almost smell it in the air, the animal fear these men feel. They trade last-minute tips (as if those’ll make any difference) and the older ones particularly try to advise the younger ones, most of whom don’t listen. If they really knew what they were doing, those geezers wouldn’t be back here again.

On the far left, ten women sit looking bored, occasionally turning to make a quick comment before settling back into apathy. The atmosphere here is more like a line at the DMV than a show. One or two women’s bouncing legs betray anticipation, but the rest are steady, collected.

Spotlights hang from the rafters, aiming their beams at the stage at the front of the room. There’s a microphone in the center of the platform and two guitars (acoustic and electric) sitting on the right edge. Besides those, the stage is a black void gaping at the audience, daring the desperate to fill it.

As the hour strikes nine, a man in a navy blue tuxedo takes the stage, his eyebrows bushy and his shoes immaculately shined. He could be a cartoon magician but for his dingy, depressing surroundings. On second thought, I suppose that makes him more like a real-life magician. He plucks the microphone from its stand and turns to face the audience.

“Gentlemen and ladies,” he says, waggling his eyebrows at the left side of the room, “welcome to Mating Call Monday at North Star Bar and Grill! Ladies, are you ready for a show?”

The women applaud politely. One of them coughs.

“Gentlemen, are you ready to show these ladies your stuff?”

Some of the men stay silent, hands resting in their laps, but others jump to their feet and shoop. A couple wink at the women, who continue staring at the host.

“My name is Nate Honey, and I’ll be your master of ceremonies tonight. I was a Mating Call success story myself,” Nate pauses to blow a kiss to his wife in the back row, who doesn’t stir, “and tonight it’s your turn. Whether it’s your first try or your twenty-first, the mating call open mic gives every woman a chance to find the man of her dreams.”

A bartender tiptoes into the room and hands a redheaded woman a glass of wine. She downs it in a gulp. Once in a while, I do wonder why any women come to these things. Judging by their silence, few seem to enjoy watching random men from the street strut around. Then again, the fear of loneliness can drive a person to do crazy things. My wife tells me all the time how desperate she was before she came to the open mic. To her credit, she then hastily tacks on how much she loves me.

“Without further ado, please welcome our first performer to the stage, the very talented Aidan Bolton!”

A boy in his late teens takes the stage, his mop of black hair gleaming like oil in the spotlights. He’s wearing a tight red tank top and skinny jeans, the bulges of his shoulders jutting out like cliffs over his also considerable biceps. He snags the microphone and turns to face the crowd in one swift motion.

“What’s up North Star Bar!” he shouts, raising his left arm like a DJ and bringing the microphone to his face. As much as I want to hate seeing him week after week, he really has perfected this style. “My name is Aidan Bolton, and this one goes out to the cute brunette in the front row!”

Three brown-haired women in the front row blush before looking side to side and noticing each other. Two cross their arms, but the third one never takes her eyes off Aidan. All three keep listening.

Putting the microphone back in the stand, Aidan puffs out his chest and flexes his arms like a silverback gorilla, every muscle in his upper body straining against his shirt. Bringing his head back to stare directly into the spotlights, Aidan begins chanting, quietly at first but growing louder as he goes.

“Young and hot, young and hot, young and hot!” He starts stomping now, punctuating every adjective with a foot strike on the stage. The whole room fills with the sound, pounding like a heartbeat, steady and sure of itself. The bartender walks through and drops another glass of wine beside the redhead. Captivated by the display, she doesn’t touch it.

After thirty seconds or so, the one brunette who didn’t cross her arms gets up and walks to the stage. Aidan goes silent and bends his knees, stretching his arms out before him. The girl jumps into him, and Aidan walks her out of the bar like a groom on his wedding day.

Nate Honey takes the stage again, tugging on his bowtie as he does. “Biiiiiiiig round of applause for Aidan Bolton, everybody!” The men clap wildly, realizing what Aidan’s success means for the rest of them. They really could bring someone home tonight.

“God, that was so attractive I was about ready to sleep with that guy!” Nate gets a few chuckles among the men; his wife glowers. The rest of the women, though, tap their feet expectantly. Aidan was cute, they realize, and maybe there are others like him here. “Now, for your next performer, please welcome someone who I haven’t seen in quite a while but I think you ladies are gonna like. The one, the only: Allen! Ramirez!”

An early-40’s man with gray hair and a gorgeously-trimmed mustache takes the stage. His mustache is pointed at the ends; he looks a bit like if Salvador Dalí had worked at a used car dealership instead of going into art.

“Hello, my name is Allen Ramirez, and the only thing I’ll cherish more than fine wine and literature is you. I believe Foucault put it plainly when he wrote that to truly love someone is to…”

Nate clears his throat loudly and Allen stops his commentary.

“Right,” he says. “I’ll now start my mating call.”

Allen pulls a hand up to his face, fingers curled over his chin while his thumb softly strokes along his jawline. He furrows his brow and squints off into the distance.

“Sophisticated,” he says in an even tone, measuring each syllable as he produces it. “Sophisticated, sophisticated, sophisticated. Sophisticated…”

Allen goes on for about two minutes, but not a single woman stirs. The men glance over at each other and shift in their seats. Maybe this crowd isn’t as hot as they thought.

Slowly, almost apologetically, Nate retakes the stage. Allen hands him the microphone, his other hand dropping slowly off his chin. Allen walks back to the right side of the room and takes a seat. The other men pat him on the back and comfort him, but he just keeps staring at the floor.

“Aaaaaaand a big round of applause for our friend Allen!” Nate says. “That’s alright big guy, you’ve been out of the game for a bit. You’ll get the hang of it again.”

I cringe, more from my own memories than secondhand embarrassment, as the women fall back into their stupor. Nate’s wife snickers at the display.

“Next up to the stage, we have ourselves a newcomer! Please give a warm welcome to Tristan Price!”

A teenager in a navy blue suit takes the stage, one of the youngest in the room. I even wondered for a second whether he might be too young for a mating call open mic, but then again, he had to show ID at the door. Whoever he is, I haven’t seen him at any of the other mics in town either.

“Hello,” he says, twisting the microphone cord nervously around his fingers. He looks like a mouse in a hawk’s nest, and it’s almost endearing. Almost. “My name is Tristan, and today I’m here to read you a poem.”

Tristan produces a piece of notebook paper from his pocket and unfolds it, pressing it to his pants to smooth out the creases. Men and women alike start buzzing.

“Can he do that?” “What’s a poem?”

“Is that some kind of hippie mating call?”

Tristan clears his throat, and the crowd falls silent once again. He’s brave, I’ll give him that, and he does know how to control the room.

“Falling acorns hit things on their way down, Like branches And leaves And hard-packed earth. It sounded like the squirrels had taken up trebuchets As you and I laid under open skies Hunting shooting stars. I asked you what would happen if one hit us, And you said the acorns never would. I said I meant the stars, And you batted my arm And turned back up.”

Nate stands up near the front. “Alright, this may be fun to listen to, but gibberish only gets you so far. Are you getting to a mating call or what?”

“Well… I mean, it’s not really a mating call,” Tristan stammers. “It’s really more of a–”

“Let the kid read,” I say. The room whips around to see me, a lone geriatric in the back. I smile, my gold tooth glowing in the red lights cast over the audience. “I’d wanna hear what he’s got to say.”

Nate sits down.

“A star slashes the sky like tripwire,

But by the time I point,

It’s already gone,” Tristan continues.

“Finally you saw one,

And you clutched my shoulder, pointing at an empty black sky.

‘Tristan, Tristan, did you see that?’

Your fingernails are sharp

And your grin is wide;

You look like you met Gandhi, Babe Ruth,

And the woman you’re going to die with

In that one brief glimmer.”

At that, the women’s heads jolt up at the stage, then over to Nate, who sits there transfixed. The man couldn’t stop this if he tried. Finally, some drama.

“The rest of the night,

Comets shot through your irises

And died in your pupils,

Till an acorn smacked you Right in the center of your forehead.

Thunk.

I knew it.”

I stand and clap. It takes everything I have not to whistle and shout, too. The men and women of the mic stay silent, but Tristan, the microphone still to his chin, smiles sheepishly at me.

“That was… not a mating call,” says Nate, scowling alternately at me and Tristan. “This is a place for young people to find their future spouses, a palace of romance, a battleground of love. You can take your jabbering outside, young man.” Nate wheels over to look at me. “And you, sir, are enabling our children to lose sight of what’s important. I’m going to have to ask you to leave as well.”

Tristan and I walk to the street outside without complaint. Our breath clouds in front of our eyes, turning the street lights behind it a rotten shade of yellow, drifting up toward the sky.

The bartender walks up to us, silent as ever. He’s tall, steady on his feet. From the streetlight, I can finally make out his face. Good God, he’s handsome – you could make a living on that jawline. He hands Tristan a double shot of whiskey in a stout glass glimmering with what looks like diamonds. He puts a hand on the boy’s shoulder and shakes his head, the faintest hint of a smile on his lips. He walks back inside without a word.

“I met my wife Charlotte at one of these things, many years ago,” I say. I can’t tell if Tristan cares, but I figure he can walk away if he wants to. “My mating call was something about chivalry. I held a rose between my teeth. I was a brilliant, stupid kid. What my dad would have called a romantic – used to fall in love with my own shadow.”

Tristan studies my face like there are answers hidden in my eyebrows.

“I stayed true to my call on that stage. Char and I eloped three weeks after the mic, and we bought this little shack by the train tracks. God, the whole place used to rattle when the trains came by, then again when the two of us got going.” I take pleasure in the way Tristan’s face glows red. “That was nice for a while, and then we bought a bigger house in town. Charlotte and I drifted apart a bit, and I started showing up to these open mics.”

“Why?” Tristan asks.

“Well, it’s normal, you know, to drift a bit as the passion wears off. Our boy Aidan did well for himself tonight, but that won’t last forever.”

“No, I mean why did you start coming to these open mics?”

“I missed it, I think,” I confess. “The strange thing about a great love story is it never has much of an epilogue, and mine was boring. You feel this roaring, animal thing inside you, until all of a sudden you’re just reading books and taking long walks with a friend. Sometimes it’s worse. Sometimes you find out you aren’t even friends.”

“Are you getting a divorce?” Tristan asks.

“You know, I think I probably should have realized she hated me when she kept screaming even after the sex ended.”

Finally, I get Tristan to crack. The two of us are belly laughing on the sidewalk, our heads bowed like we’re just a bit ashamed of ourselves. Nate probably wouldn’t like that joke. His wife would.

“A lot of them end like that, these open mic marriages. Tough to pick a best friend in a dim theater.”

“So what do we do then?” Tristan asks.

“I thought you were the one who didn’t need a mating call,” I tease.

“Well no,” Tristan protests, “but I could eventually use a life partner. Just to have her there at the end. Even a suicide pact would do, to be honest.”

“I might take you up on that,” I say.

“Nah, we can’t make any widows today.”

“Maybe we can make an ex-wife, though.” Tristan passes me the glass of whiskey, only half gone.

“How do I find my ex-wife, though? I mean, hopefully, my forever wife.” Tristan clarifies.

“Think of these open mic couples as the shooting stars in your poem. We happen all the time, you just gotta show up and watch ‘em go.”

“Alright, then what are the acorns?” Tristan asks.

One of the brunettes Aidan failed to woo walks out of the bar. She’s alone, her long red dress swaying side to side as she walks. She smiles over at Tristan and I swear to God I can hear his knees buckle before she turns and disappears into the heart of the city.

“Thunk.”