We lie there, facing one another. One of my hands is lazily intertwined with hers, the other runs along her side, exploring a multitude of tiny cuts and scrapes. When I’ve finished mapping the terrain, I switch from geography to astronomy, slowly tracing circles and stars on her skin. Her breath is soft against my face. I am struck by the incredible novelty of sleeping with someone I actually like, and feel a twang of remorse. What will she think if she ever finds out what I’m really like?
We’re standing on the balcony, hours ago. I offer her a cigarette and she accepts. “Parliament Lights?” She makes a face of mock disgust and smokes it anyway. She’s wearing a loose turquoise sweater over a black button-down. Her hair is blonde, with the faded remnants of a months-old pink dye job coloring the ends. She’s a mess. She’s beautiful. “So what do you do?” she asks me.
“I’m a writer. Fictions, mostly. I make things up.”
“I don’t like those,” she says, taking a drag. “Made up things. I like things that are real.”
“Well, all good fiction has an element of truth to it. After all, everything that can happen has happened, somewhere. I believe that truth is beauty, and beauty truth.” She smiles.
“That’s very pretty.”
“So are you,” I think. But I don’t say it.
He puts his hands on her shoulders. She tenses up. He says something I don’t hear. Five of us are walking back to the house. The party is winding down. As people leave, he mentally calculates which girl is most likely to sleep with him and settles on her. I’d be jealous, or aggressive, but I saw the look she gave me when she lit that last cigarette. He doesn’t have a chance. He puts his stupid farmers’ hat on her head, a lame attempt to mark his territory. She accepts it out of politeness.
We reach the door, and she hesitates. Her cigarette is not yet out.
“I’ll wait out here with you,” I say. She puts the hat on my head. “I don’t want this,” I say and put it back on her head. I give the brim a few playful tugs this way and that, and she sways as I pull. I pull her close, so close that our foreheads are almost touching. She doesn’t resist. The moment is now. I kiss her, lightly at first, then with more force. She puts one hand on the small of my back, and another on the back of my head. I place my hand against her cheek and pull her in for another kiss. The hat falls to the ground, and we leave it there when we go inside.
We shift positions. Now I’m on my back, arm around her shoulder, her head on my chest. The weight of it is comforting and lovely. The bulges of her stomach and breasts press against me as we share warmth. Soon I’ll have to leave and catch the train back downtown. Soon, but not yet. She moans something softly, and I kiss her forehead.
We’re in an upstairs bedroom, illuminated only by soft moonlight. Both of us are undressed from the waist up. She pushes me down onto my back, and I sit up to catch her with a kiss.
“Is something wrong?” she asks.
“What? No, no, nothing’s wrong. Why, what’s up?”
“You’re trembling,” she says.
I’m discussing religion with a highly driz Bard student who does not refute my description of his school as “hipsters in the woods.” It’s his birthday, which is why we are partying tonight.
“Jesus never talks about hell, you know,” I say. “He talks about heaven a lot, of course. Heaven is to live in God’s presence. Surrounded by God’s presence. Originally, hell had nothing to do with torture. Hell was simply the absence of God’s presence. And if you look at it that way, you could say we’re already living in hell.”
“I need another drink,” he says and stands. She walks up to me.
“How long are you in town for?” She asks. She’s already been told about me.
“Just tonight and tomorrow. I’m leaving on Wednesday.” I say.
“That’s not very long, is it?” Her slight British accent makes it come out “is eh?” and is extremely attractive.
“Enough time for tonight,” I say.
She shifts again. Now we’re nestled like spoons. One arm is underneath her, and it lightly grips her fingertips. She’s so soft and warm and I am happy. She sleeps, her breath soft and steady, her heartbeat slow and even. Life is absolutely still, and sunlight peeks in through the window shade. It’s almost 7:30. I’ve been up for 24 hours. I drift away, holding a girl beautiful in ways delightfully her own.
I don’t throw away the condom wrapper until I get back to Philadelphia.
Thursday, August 21, 2008
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Everything Is Ruined, or A Long Swim in Lake Cocytus
Midford is the Third Circle of Hell. I am standing on line, and it is cold and I am sober. I am here to attend my school, the mildly prestigious Vanhallen University’s annual Fall Ball for reasons I am unable to properly articulate. The line stretches for miles ahead of me and miles behind me. Underneath my coat, I am dressed head to toe in black, except for the white undershirt beneath my sport jacket. I open another pack of cigarettes, the smoke calming my nerves and burning at my hatred of public events. I can see the disapproval steaming off of the girl ahead of me as I blow smoke into the back of her head. Stu Hoyte stands next to me; he is wearing tie-dye and his hair is a stoner’s crown of glorious neglect. I look at Stu’s watch; it’s quarter to eleven. I can already tell this is going to be a long night.
Stu takes a bolt from his flask and offers it to me. “No thanks,” I say, “I’m back on the wagon.” I can hear the delicious whiskey sloshing around in the flask, like the call of some 80-proof siren. “I’m taking it easy tonight,” I reiterate. I think back to how I ruined last year’s Ball. Long story short, I told one of the Vanhallen Vikings that I had had a black man’s member transplanted onto myself, and that I had then used said grotesque anatomy to have intimate relations with his mother. His vengeance can best be described as ‘swift and terrible’. The good news is, hospital trips get you out of problem sets. The bad news is, I had to climb three flights of stairs on crutches for a month.
Stu Hoyte slumps against the railing with an unfortunate creak. “The mushrooms, man,” he says. A sudden calm comes over his face, as if he’s just had some grand realization about the incredible vastness of life; how we are all as motes of dust clinging to the back of an insect; that the cigarettes, the school, the state, everything we know is a speck in the eye of an uncaring, otherwise occupied god; that God himself is just a holographic reflection of light in an infinite, wonderful geometry. The moment passes and he vomits on my Doc Martens. I hear yelps and OMGs and sure enough within minutes VEMS arrives. The flask is thrust into my hand. A paramedic hands me a towel and carries Hoyte away. I start to worry; I don’t want to be here alone. And I really like these shoes.
After about a week of waiting, the rent-a-cop at the door lets me in. She doesn’t frisk me; smart cop. I hear the thudding bass of smash hit “Dat Ass (U Got It Gurl)” about 35 feet down the hallway. My organs gnarl into a tight knot. I show my ID to some brown-nosed freshman with Gatorade-colored Ray-Bans and enter the Ball. It looks like the gym has been given a glitter enema and a follow-up prescription for strobe lights. The dance floor is crammed full of souls writhing in the mindless ecstasy of loud music and flashing lights. Small secessionist groups rotate half-heartedly around the perimeter. There is a familiar giggle behind me and I know without looking that it’s my cock-mouthed ex-girlfriend Pearl Necklace. It was optimistic of me to think that I wouldn’t run into her; I should know better. She walks past me, radiant on the arm of whichever Jerkwad McDouchelicker she’s with tonight. Shooting stars dangle from her earlobes. I bought her those. Bitch. She turns towards the coat rack and notices me. Her eyes say the following things, in this order: “I recognize him,” “Oh God, it’s my ex-boyfriend,” and “Is it too late to ignore him?” Her mouth says nothing. I send her daggers and keep walking. I have nothing to say to that twice-a-whore, jizzbrained slooby tonight. Maybe I’ll remind her about all the cheating, or should I simply find a knife and publicly carve myself? These thoughts multiply like bacteria on a wound and soon I become so incensed at both Pearl and myself that I can barely stand. When did I get so bitter? I need a cigarette. I ask an overweight, badge-wielding doorman, “Is there anywhere I can smoke in here?”
“I’m sorry sir, no smoking.”
“All right, if I go outside can I come back in through this side door?”
“No sir, there’s no reentry. You’re gonna have to wait.”
I need to clear my head. I go into the bathroom for some stillness and quiet.
I sit down on the toilet, close the door and massage my temples. There is fun to be had here tonight. I do remember fun, yes? I just need to sit down for a minute. Something in my jacket pocket clinks against the toilet tank. Ah, the flask! I had forgotten it. I swig, and the burn in my throat and the warmth in my gut make me sharp and focused again. I overhear two bros talking at the urinals.
“My boy over in West got Rock Band,” one bro says, “Dude, that shit is straight as shit man.” I already want to bash my head against the toilet paper dispenser.
“Yeah, I’ve heard how straight it is. I gotta check that shit out. You know I am the grandmaster of Guitar Hero 2. I lay fags to waste,” says his friend. He sounds like a lab rat doped up and forced to watch MTV Jams.
“Yeah fuckin’ right. I don’t believe you for one second; I watched you get schooled by Hawkins last week.”
“Not true man, I gamed on Hawkins like we are gonna game on this party! Have you seen the girls here? We are sailing a sea of fine, fine sloobies, bra. I saw Pearl on the way in and she is looking especially fine tonight! When I see that rack I just want to skeet skeet skeet all over it!”
“Oh dude, that reminds me, did I tell you about her and Steve?”
All of a sudden, against my will, I am paying rapt attention.
“Steve your roommate?” the lab rat asks.
“Yeah dude. I’m sitting in my room practicing Halo, right? And Steve rolls up with Pearl, who’s acting mad faded and blinking a lot and shit. He says he needs the room so I say to him, ‘Fuck no, I’m busy, go to her place.’ This was in November right before the snow fell, and it was fuckin’ freezing even in the hallways.” I try to cover my ears. There is no way this story ends well. “Long story short, he couldn’t, and, well, let’s just say we took her to Paris.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“You did not!”
“I did, dude.”
“You Eiffel Tower’d the bitch?”
“Fuck yeah we did!”
This revelation is greeted with joyfulness and pride by the bros and dry heaves by myself. In November Pearl and I were still dating. I wash my hands and look at myself in the mirror. A basset hound stares back at me, and I reconsider this whole Fall Ball thing. Well, fuck it. I take a second swig. A kid I almost know trips over me on my way out of the bathroom. He garbles out some faded excuse. There’s a couple making out against the barricade. A girl curses at her cell phone as she tries to text her friends. Jesus Tittyfucking Christ: I am the only sober person at Fall Ball. I wash down this terrible thought with my good friend Mr. Beam. You’ve met Mr. Beam. I pace the edges of the dance floor, desperately seeking someone as miserable as I am. My friend CJ is perched by the snacks, arm around his blindingly hot new girlfriend Izzie. He is wearing a black dress shirt and a tie the same color as The Grimace. I like CJ because he is an absurd human being; I like Izzie because she’s fucking crazy, in a good way. They’ll have a smile and a handshake for me, and I need it. CJ’s face widens into a wicked Irish grin and he lets out a friendly “Yo!”
“What’s up man?” I ask him.
“Yo, I am drunk as shit and I am loving Fall Ball! I drank, like, a han’le an’ a half of fuckin’ Jaeger tonight dude. I am cooked!” CJ says, and then, turning his head towards the fallen angel at his side, “Id’n that right, baby?”
“Mm hmm,” she agrees, equally driz.
CJ goes to talk with one of his lacrosse team friends, a meathead who I personally wouldn’t spit on if he were dying of thirst. CJ is the only man I know whose social circle spreads so far: meatheads, dweebs, artfags, alcoholics, we all love CJ because of his one major defining trait: ballsiness, the kind that leads one to break Beirut tables, consume entire 30-racks, and run through the hallways exposing oneself. Like I said, CJ is an absurd human being, but he is also quite entertaining. Izzie, on the other hand, has the wonderful tendency to shamelessly flirt when she drinks, and she has most definitely been drinking. Her arm slithers across my shoulder.
“Hey,” she slips into my ear, “why are you looking so down? There must be something I can do to cheer you up.” God, just look at her! Still, I know better than to take her seriously.
“Sorry Iz,” I say, “I don’t fuck guys.”
“I’m not a guy!”
“Oh yeah?” I ask, pressing my luck. “Prove it.” She lifts up her dress, showing me the white lace she has hidden underneath it. If there’s one thing that turns my veins into a speedway, it’s lace. I poke her crotch. It is squishy and for about three seconds I imagine myself in paradise with her, on a king-sized bed with soft white sheets, her in lace and I in nothing. It is a noble fantasy but then her dress comes down and reality falls back into place. This place becomes even more unbearable. She asks me about Pearl, and I don’t want to talk about it, so I take a hearty swig. The last few drops cling to the mouth of the flask for dear life. I shake it and they tumble. The back of the hall is a pathetic scene: some Asian kid with an absurdly broad nose is shoveling handfuls of pretzels into his mouth; a girl who I think lives in my building smiles at me so wide she shows more gum than teeth. She has the shiniest forehead I have ever seen. I need to get the fuck out of here. My only recourse: the dancefloor. Perhaps now I am drunk enough. Let’s fucking hope.
The bodies crowd thick around the outside. I find a way in and then it morphs from a group of people into an ever-changing labyrinth. The gap closes behind me and all I can do is keep moving forward, onwards, forwards. Someone’s elbow clocks me in the head. In minutes I find myself dead center, writhing drunk bodies all around me. A man sways pendulously with his date, and in doing so rubs his ass cheeks against mine. Three meatheads have some poor froshie penned in and are doing whatever they please. I try to dance, but it’s hard to get into it. I don’t know anyone. They’re all having so much fun, but what am I doing? Why am I even here? No one is talking to me or even looking at me but they’re all saying the same thing: GO AWAY. YOU DON’T BELONG HERE. WE DON’T WANT YOU HERE. GET OUT. What else can I do? If I have to be alone, I sure as hell don’t want to be alone here. I stagger off the floor in an monomaniacal daze and I know, with absolute clarity, I know that if I stay in this place for one more minute my heart will explode, my brain will leak out my ears, and I will collapse dead to the gymnasium floor.
Some drunken fool has knocked over the coat racks, spilling everyone’s jackets into a huge chaotic pile. Somewhere in that Kilimanjaro is my coat. I dive in, burrowing through the pile like a crazed mole, squinting and flinging other people’s jackets with complete abandon across the floor. Fuck this. Fuck all of this. I find mine and stumble out the side door. Goddamn it, it is so cold outside. I need to go somewhere, there has to be somewhere to go – somewhere with liquor. My phone says I have a text from Jacob Shiner, who we sometimes call Shiny. It reads, “i kno yr not at fall ball. party here.” I love it when things work out.
Shiny plays bass in the only decent band on campus, The Passive Fists. I’ve known him since freshman orientation, when I helped him draw moustaches on pictures of the RAs in the hallway. We got to talking about music, life, the usual. He’s a pretty cool guy, just a little too much pretty and not quite enough cool. But, he will talk to me, and at any given time he’s probably holding several interesting drugs. All in all, a good friend to have.
Shiny lives across campus, on Crane Road, but it’s worth the walk. Besides, what else am I going to do, sleep? The walk to Crane Road is long and cold so I light up to keep warm. Thing is, I can’t stop thinking about Pearl. I can’t stop thinking about Pearl with an enormous black cock in her mouth. It’s completely irrational; I don’t even think she likes black people all that much. I throw my cigarette to the ground in disgust, but it’s too goddamn cold so I light another one. But I can’t get that cock, that enormous, monstrous black cock out of my head. Her lips, those great lips, running up and down that cock and not mine and it’s driving me crazy! It’s too much for me and I toss my cigarette again. But it’s still too goddamn cold! This continues all the way to Shiny’s and it is unbearable. A miserable fate indeed, haunted by a porn star’s huge black cock. Christ, Poe’s man had it easy. I shouldn’t even be feeling this way. Fuck Pearl, what do I care who she blows? She’s gone, and it’s not my problem any more. Shiny’s house comes into view like a ship out of the fog. Save me, 44 Crane Road! Save me from the cold, and the throbbing of the hideous cock! A few scattered snowflakes run recon behind me as I walk up the steps.
The door opens onto a glorious chill scene. Shiny is there, of course, and so is Daniel, Alex, Penny, Veronica, Dallas, and everyone else who calls him Jake. They look posed, static, beautiful. Dallas’ Zippo clicks as she lights a joint. There’s a table with various boozes and they all look delicious. An old Velvets record chugs away on the stereo, and a dusty mirror sits temptingly on the corner table. Shiny comes up to me all smiles and greetings and a hearty, “Hey, what’s up, man! Glad you made it!”
“Oh, of course, man, wouldn’t miss it for all the whores in Harlem,” I say, unsure why. He asks me how I’m doing and I lie and tell him I’m fine. He nods and his frizzy black light-socket hair sways in accord. He offers me a welly rail, which is the best news I’ve heard all night. Shiny crushes the small orange pill under his Vanhallen ID and hands me a pink snooter. Wellies have that punch to them, a certain citrus tang in the drip, and then all of a sudden things are flashing all around you and your nerves start to glow and quiver and the edges of the room sharpen and it’s all you can do not to start jumping and screaming about how great you feel.
Somehow through the spin cycle of my drug experience I realize that Shiny is talking to me, and I feel a strange urge to tell him the truth. My hand lands on his shoulder and I lean in towards him. “Why?” I ask, only halfway addressing Shiny. “Why is it, when you let…when you let someone take hold…they always twist? They always twist, why?” I think I know what I’m trying to say, but I can’t quite get it out. Must be the wellbutrin. Jacob gives me a look somewhere between understanding and frustration. He takes my hand off his shoulder.
“Listen,” he tells me, “you can’t let this shit hang you up. Not Pearl. Especially not Pearl. We went to high school together and the truth is, ask anyone who went to Charter and he’ll tell you, she spreads for anyone who can string three sentences together.” No, don’t tell me these things. “I mean, she’s a decent person or whatever,” Stop it, Shiny. Don’t you know I care? Can’t you understand? “but she’s just loose, dude.” I’m starting to boil. You shut up or I will make you shut up. “Pardon my Swahili, but she’s a dirty fucking whore.”
My tendons snap like rubber bands and my fist launches out towards Shiny’s face. I feel bones against my knuckles and before I fully realize what has just happened he falls to the floor. I look at my fingers while I clench and unclench them. They are red. Didn’t know I had it in me. I look back up and the whole place has gone Deimoiselles on me, twisted inhuman faces staring me down, unmoving unblinking unspeaking. An eerie silence holds the room. There is no way to fix this. I calmly walk over to the table, pick up the largest bottle I can find, and leave. The door slams shut behind me.
It’s a liter and a half of Stolichnaya and after about ten minutes in the Massachusetts night it’s nice and cold. The snow is really falling now and I feel like a Russian dissident on his way to the Gulag. The sky is black; the asphalt glows with light pollution. The air is restless. Frozen air particles attach themselves to me. I feel sick, and then become so on somebody’s driveway. Is this punishment for something? Is this whole awful night a form of divine retribution? Where’s my lighter? These are the questions that run through my mind as I move blindly through the back streets of this frozen pissant college town, bridges burning behind me. Thick black tendrils of smoke drift up into the air, becoming one with the other pollutants. I have never in my life felt lower than I do at this moment. I am scum; I am a leper. I might as well be covered in boils and smell like mold. Everything turns to shit in my hands; anyone who looks at me turns into a pillar of salt. It would all have been so much better if I just didn’t go to that stupid dance. Stupid! For no reason! No. That’s not true. I know what I really wanted. I wanted someone whose name isn’t Pearl to touch me. It’s another fine mess my balls have gotten me into, another man led astray by his selfish desires. I punched Shiny in the face! What did I do that for? What, exactly, did I gain? The weight in my hand reminds me. I look at the bottle, now half-empty, and wash away my thoughts with cool clear Russian Comfort. I careen sidelong into a shrub and the branches moan like vacuums as they scrape against my coat.
***
My foot misses the next step and I slide down a whole flight of fire-escape stairs on my face. The metal is wet and cold and when I look in the mirror the next day I see dark bruises on my cheek and forehead. I lie there, on the landing, dazed, for a minute or two, then slowly pick myself up and get my bearings. I’d somehow made it almost all the way up to the third floor before slipping, which is just as well because I live on the second floor of the building. My door is just over there, on the right; yes, the one someone who better not be my roommate keeps drawing penises on. Once, it was ejaculating swastikas onto stick figures with skirts and pigtails. I appreciate the artistry, I guess, but can’t he do that on his own door? I hear groaning animal noises from inside the room and decide not to investigate, instead making my way to a strategically placed couch around the corner. I slump down onto the cushions and the room begins a lazy spin. Look where I have brought myself now: The walls are the color of Pepto-Bismol, and there is an eerie preschool vibe to the place, especially with the empty swings and jungle gym visible from the window. My stomach complains but I am far from functional. I need bed, I need sleep. My eyelids start to drag and for the first time in my life I am completely lucid and aware at the exact moment my dream begins.
I’m walking down the street in San Francisco, down a hill, in fact, when I notice that there is a trolley right behind me. I start to run, barely keeping ahead of the front of the trolley, which is twisting and stretching and trying to grab me like an old toy robot’s claw. I run as fast as I can and I start to pull away from the trolley when suddenly I trip and fall. I see the tire roll towards my ankles in sickening slow-motion, unable to move, or to do anything at all. I try to ready myself for unimaginable pain by repeating to myself, oh dear god, this is real, this is real and there is nothing I can do to stop it, but when I open my eyes I am of course still on the couch in the hallway.
Across from me, on another couch, there is a girl wrapped in a pale, worn blanket reading a book. I look at her and take off my coat. I see long black bangs poking out of her hood, which is gray, and a small pointed nose, and I realize that she is probably very pretty. I ask her what she’s reading, and she looks up at me. The soft predawn light flatters her eyes, which glimmer like aquamarine crystals. The book is a Portuguese tale of a city overcome by an epidemic of spontaneous blindness. I tell her that it sounds terrifying and she agrees, but it’s also fascinating, she says. I make a Stevie Wonder joke, and she laughs, softly, like morse code.
“You’re funny,” she says to me.
“Thanks” I say. “Can’t sleep?” I ask her.
“I was asleep about an hour ago,” she says, “but then my roommate came crashing in, drunk off her ass, really upset about something some asshole frat guy said to her, and then she started yelling and throwing things.”
“What did you do?”
“Well, I calmed her down, got her some water, put her to bed, you know, roommate stuff. But then she starts snoring! This loud disgusting bubbly Ppppbbbbllll. Ugh. There’s only so much of that you can take, you know? So, uh, now I’m out here. Got my book, got my blanket. I’ll probably go back in an hour or so and, you know, pass out.”
“Not a bad idea,” I say.
“What did you do tonight?” she asks.
I groan. “It’s been a long night,” I say. How do I tell her that all I really did was stumble from place to place and feel shitty? “I went to Fall Ball,” I say.
“Why?”
“I’ve been asking myself the same question. Hope, I guess? People are supposed to go there and enjoy themselves, right? Isn’t that what they do? They go and they drink and dance and act stupid and everyone has a great time. Except me, I guess. Everyone except me.”
She lets this hang for a moment, and then says, “You talk about people like you’re not one of them. So what if they do those things. What do you do?”
“Do?” I ask. “I don’t do anything. I’m just here. I’m always here. No matter where I am, it’s still here and I hate being there.” Keep in mind that I am still far from sober. “I just need to go somewhere, to see something, anything worth seeing! I need to be where it happens, but when I get there I’m either too late or too early and it isn’t there or it wasn’t ever going to be there. There’s nothing there! And when there’s nothing there, you’re nowhere. You aren’t anywhere. You’re just there, all alone…” My incoherent ramblings have started to worry my new friend. She places her hand on my forehead and her brow furrows.
“I’ll be right back,” she says, and she is, holding a glass of water. I sip the water and it is cool and clean but my stomach isn’t ready for anything clean, or for that matter any liquids at all, and I violently expel Christmas-colored bile onto the carpet. She yelps and pulls over the trashcan. I cling to the plastic rim and empty myself. I’m sweating. A filthy acrid smell surrounds me. I convulse and retch and make disgusting noises until everything in me is gone. The last bit of matter makes a “plop” sound as it falls onto the trash, and I have the unmistakable feeling that something on my face is dripping. There’s a towel in my hand, and I wipe off with it. She lies me down and makes me drink more water. I’m overwhelmed by her kindness, and my own dizziness.
“Hey,” she says, crouching in front of the couch to look me in the eyes. “You’re going to be alright,” she says. I smile weakly, and she returns the favor.
“Glad you think so,” I say. “Sorry for making you deal with me.”
“Don’t worry about it,” she says before she leaves, “Just go to sleep now.” Outside, the sky is a shade lighter. I stare out the window at the gray dawn and wait for the sunrise. I’m still waiting when I fall asleep.
Stu takes a bolt from his flask and offers it to me. “No thanks,” I say, “I’m back on the wagon.” I can hear the delicious whiskey sloshing around in the flask, like the call of some 80-proof siren. “I’m taking it easy tonight,” I reiterate. I think back to how I ruined last year’s Ball. Long story short, I told one of the Vanhallen Vikings that I had had a black man’s member transplanted onto myself, and that I had then used said grotesque anatomy to have intimate relations with his mother. His vengeance can best be described as ‘swift and terrible’. The good news is, hospital trips get you out of problem sets. The bad news is, I had to climb three flights of stairs on crutches for a month.
Stu Hoyte slumps against the railing with an unfortunate creak. “The mushrooms, man,” he says. A sudden calm comes over his face, as if he’s just had some grand realization about the incredible vastness of life; how we are all as motes of dust clinging to the back of an insect; that the cigarettes, the school, the state, everything we know is a speck in the eye of an uncaring, otherwise occupied god; that God himself is just a holographic reflection of light in an infinite, wonderful geometry. The moment passes and he vomits on my Doc Martens. I hear yelps and OMGs and sure enough within minutes VEMS arrives. The flask is thrust into my hand. A paramedic hands me a towel and carries Hoyte away. I start to worry; I don’t want to be here alone. And I really like these shoes.
After about a week of waiting, the rent-a-cop at the door lets me in. She doesn’t frisk me; smart cop. I hear the thudding bass of smash hit “Dat Ass (U Got It Gurl)” about 35 feet down the hallway. My organs gnarl into a tight knot. I show my ID to some brown-nosed freshman with Gatorade-colored Ray-Bans and enter the Ball. It looks like the gym has been given a glitter enema and a follow-up prescription for strobe lights. The dance floor is crammed full of souls writhing in the mindless ecstasy of loud music and flashing lights. Small secessionist groups rotate half-heartedly around the perimeter. There is a familiar giggle behind me and I know without looking that it’s my cock-mouthed ex-girlfriend Pearl Necklace. It was optimistic of me to think that I wouldn’t run into her; I should know better. She walks past me, radiant on the arm of whichever Jerkwad McDouchelicker she’s with tonight. Shooting stars dangle from her earlobes. I bought her those. Bitch. She turns towards the coat rack and notices me. Her eyes say the following things, in this order: “I recognize him,” “Oh God, it’s my ex-boyfriend,” and “Is it too late to ignore him?” Her mouth says nothing. I send her daggers and keep walking. I have nothing to say to that twice-a-whore, jizzbrained slooby tonight. Maybe I’ll remind her about all the cheating, or should I simply find a knife and publicly carve myself? These thoughts multiply like bacteria on a wound and soon I become so incensed at both Pearl and myself that I can barely stand. When did I get so bitter? I need a cigarette. I ask an overweight, badge-wielding doorman, “Is there anywhere I can smoke in here?”
“I’m sorry sir, no smoking.”
“All right, if I go outside can I come back in through this side door?”
“No sir, there’s no reentry. You’re gonna have to wait.”
I need to clear my head. I go into the bathroom for some stillness and quiet.
I sit down on the toilet, close the door and massage my temples. There is fun to be had here tonight. I do remember fun, yes? I just need to sit down for a minute. Something in my jacket pocket clinks against the toilet tank. Ah, the flask! I had forgotten it. I swig, and the burn in my throat and the warmth in my gut make me sharp and focused again. I overhear two bros talking at the urinals.
“My boy over in West got Rock Band,” one bro says, “Dude, that shit is straight as shit man.” I already want to bash my head against the toilet paper dispenser.
“Yeah, I’ve heard how straight it is. I gotta check that shit out. You know I am the grandmaster of Guitar Hero 2. I lay fags to waste,” says his friend. He sounds like a lab rat doped up and forced to watch MTV Jams.
“Yeah fuckin’ right. I don’t believe you for one second; I watched you get schooled by Hawkins last week.”
“Not true man, I gamed on Hawkins like we are gonna game on this party! Have you seen the girls here? We are sailing a sea of fine, fine sloobies, bra. I saw Pearl on the way in and she is looking especially fine tonight! When I see that rack I just want to skeet skeet skeet all over it!”
“Oh dude, that reminds me, did I tell you about her and Steve?”
All of a sudden, against my will, I am paying rapt attention.
“Steve your roommate?” the lab rat asks.
“Yeah dude. I’m sitting in my room practicing Halo, right? And Steve rolls up with Pearl, who’s acting mad faded and blinking a lot and shit. He says he needs the room so I say to him, ‘Fuck no, I’m busy, go to her place.’ This was in November right before the snow fell, and it was fuckin’ freezing even in the hallways.” I try to cover my ears. There is no way this story ends well. “Long story short, he couldn’t, and, well, let’s just say we took her to Paris.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“You did not!”
“I did, dude.”
“You Eiffel Tower’d the bitch?”
“Fuck yeah we did!”
This revelation is greeted with joyfulness and pride by the bros and dry heaves by myself. In November Pearl and I were still dating. I wash my hands and look at myself in the mirror. A basset hound stares back at me, and I reconsider this whole Fall Ball thing. Well, fuck it. I take a second swig. A kid I almost know trips over me on my way out of the bathroom. He garbles out some faded excuse. There’s a couple making out against the barricade. A girl curses at her cell phone as she tries to text her friends. Jesus Tittyfucking Christ: I am the only sober person at Fall Ball. I wash down this terrible thought with my good friend Mr. Beam. You’ve met Mr. Beam. I pace the edges of the dance floor, desperately seeking someone as miserable as I am. My friend CJ is perched by the snacks, arm around his blindingly hot new girlfriend Izzie. He is wearing a black dress shirt and a tie the same color as The Grimace. I like CJ because he is an absurd human being; I like Izzie because she’s fucking crazy, in a good way. They’ll have a smile and a handshake for me, and I need it. CJ’s face widens into a wicked Irish grin and he lets out a friendly “Yo!”
“What’s up man?” I ask him.
“Yo, I am drunk as shit and I am loving Fall Ball! I drank, like, a han’le an’ a half of fuckin’ Jaeger tonight dude. I am cooked!” CJ says, and then, turning his head towards the fallen angel at his side, “Id’n that right, baby?”
“Mm hmm,” she agrees, equally driz.
CJ goes to talk with one of his lacrosse team friends, a meathead who I personally wouldn’t spit on if he were dying of thirst. CJ is the only man I know whose social circle spreads so far: meatheads, dweebs, artfags, alcoholics, we all love CJ because of his one major defining trait: ballsiness, the kind that leads one to break Beirut tables, consume entire 30-racks, and run through the hallways exposing oneself. Like I said, CJ is an absurd human being, but he is also quite entertaining. Izzie, on the other hand, has the wonderful tendency to shamelessly flirt when she drinks, and she has most definitely been drinking. Her arm slithers across my shoulder.
“Hey,” she slips into my ear, “why are you looking so down? There must be something I can do to cheer you up.” God, just look at her! Still, I know better than to take her seriously.
“Sorry Iz,” I say, “I don’t fuck guys.”
“I’m not a guy!”
“Oh yeah?” I ask, pressing my luck. “Prove it.” She lifts up her dress, showing me the white lace she has hidden underneath it. If there’s one thing that turns my veins into a speedway, it’s lace. I poke her crotch. It is squishy and for about three seconds I imagine myself in paradise with her, on a king-sized bed with soft white sheets, her in lace and I in nothing. It is a noble fantasy but then her dress comes down and reality falls back into place. This place becomes even more unbearable. She asks me about Pearl, and I don’t want to talk about it, so I take a hearty swig. The last few drops cling to the mouth of the flask for dear life. I shake it and they tumble. The back of the hall is a pathetic scene: some Asian kid with an absurdly broad nose is shoveling handfuls of pretzels into his mouth; a girl who I think lives in my building smiles at me so wide she shows more gum than teeth. She has the shiniest forehead I have ever seen. I need to get the fuck out of here. My only recourse: the dancefloor. Perhaps now I am drunk enough. Let’s fucking hope.
The bodies crowd thick around the outside. I find a way in and then it morphs from a group of people into an ever-changing labyrinth. The gap closes behind me and all I can do is keep moving forward, onwards, forwards. Someone’s elbow clocks me in the head. In minutes I find myself dead center, writhing drunk bodies all around me. A man sways pendulously with his date, and in doing so rubs his ass cheeks against mine. Three meatheads have some poor froshie penned in and are doing whatever they please. I try to dance, but it’s hard to get into it. I don’t know anyone. They’re all having so much fun, but what am I doing? Why am I even here? No one is talking to me or even looking at me but they’re all saying the same thing: GO AWAY. YOU DON’T BELONG HERE. WE DON’T WANT YOU HERE. GET OUT. What else can I do? If I have to be alone, I sure as hell don’t want to be alone here. I stagger off the floor in an monomaniacal daze and I know, with absolute clarity, I know that if I stay in this place for one more minute my heart will explode, my brain will leak out my ears, and I will collapse dead to the gymnasium floor.
Some drunken fool has knocked over the coat racks, spilling everyone’s jackets into a huge chaotic pile. Somewhere in that Kilimanjaro is my coat. I dive in, burrowing through the pile like a crazed mole, squinting and flinging other people’s jackets with complete abandon across the floor. Fuck this. Fuck all of this. I find mine and stumble out the side door. Goddamn it, it is so cold outside. I need to go somewhere, there has to be somewhere to go – somewhere with liquor. My phone says I have a text from Jacob Shiner, who we sometimes call Shiny. It reads, “i kno yr not at fall ball. party here.” I love it when things work out.
Shiny plays bass in the only decent band on campus, The Passive Fists. I’ve known him since freshman orientation, when I helped him draw moustaches on pictures of the RAs in the hallway. We got to talking about music, life, the usual. He’s a pretty cool guy, just a little too much pretty and not quite enough cool. But, he will talk to me, and at any given time he’s probably holding several interesting drugs. All in all, a good friend to have.
Shiny lives across campus, on Crane Road, but it’s worth the walk. Besides, what else am I going to do, sleep? The walk to Crane Road is long and cold so I light up to keep warm. Thing is, I can’t stop thinking about Pearl. I can’t stop thinking about Pearl with an enormous black cock in her mouth. It’s completely irrational; I don’t even think she likes black people all that much. I throw my cigarette to the ground in disgust, but it’s too goddamn cold so I light another one. But I can’t get that cock, that enormous, monstrous black cock out of my head. Her lips, those great lips, running up and down that cock and not mine and it’s driving me crazy! It’s too much for me and I toss my cigarette again. But it’s still too goddamn cold! This continues all the way to Shiny’s and it is unbearable. A miserable fate indeed, haunted by a porn star’s huge black cock. Christ, Poe’s man had it easy. I shouldn’t even be feeling this way. Fuck Pearl, what do I care who she blows? She’s gone, and it’s not my problem any more. Shiny’s house comes into view like a ship out of the fog. Save me, 44 Crane Road! Save me from the cold, and the throbbing of the hideous cock! A few scattered snowflakes run recon behind me as I walk up the steps.
The door opens onto a glorious chill scene. Shiny is there, of course, and so is Daniel, Alex, Penny, Veronica, Dallas, and everyone else who calls him Jake. They look posed, static, beautiful. Dallas’ Zippo clicks as she lights a joint. There’s a table with various boozes and they all look delicious. An old Velvets record chugs away on the stereo, and a dusty mirror sits temptingly on the corner table. Shiny comes up to me all smiles and greetings and a hearty, “Hey, what’s up, man! Glad you made it!”
“Oh, of course, man, wouldn’t miss it for all the whores in Harlem,” I say, unsure why. He asks me how I’m doing and I lie and tell him I’m fine. He nods and his frizzy black light-socket hair sways in accord. He offers me a welly rail, which is the best news I’ve heard all night. Shiny crushes the small orange pill under his Vanhallen ID and hands me a pink snooter. Wellies have that punch to them, a certain citrus tang in the drip, and then all of a sudden things are flashing all around you and your nerves start to glow and quiver and the edges of the room sharpen and it’s all you can do not to start jumping and screaming about how great you feel.
Somehow through the spin cycle of my drug experience I realize that Shiny is talking to me, and I feel a strange urge to tell him the truth. My hand lands on his shoulder and I lean in towards him. “Why?” I ask, only halfway addressing Shiny. “Why is it, when you let…when you let someone take hold…they always twist? They always twist, why?” I think I know what I’m trying to say, but I can’t quite get it out. Must be the wellbutrin. Jacob gives me a look somewhere between understanding and frustration. He takes my hand off his shoulder.
“Listen,” he tells me, “you can’t let this shit hang you up. Not Pearl. Especially not Pearl. We went to high school together and the truth is, ask anyone who went to Charter and he’ll tell you, she spreads for anyone who can string three sentences together.” No, don’t tell me these things. “I mean, she’s a decent person or whatever,” Stop it, Shiny. Don’t you know I care? Can’t you understand? “but she’s just loose, dude.” I’m starting to boil. You shut up or I will make you shut up. “Pardon my Swahili, but she’s a dirty fucking whore.”
My tendons snap like rubber bands and my fist launches out towards Shiny’s face. I feel bones against my knuckles and before I fully realize what has just happened he falls to the floor. I look at my fingers while I clench and unclench them. They are red. Didn’t know I had it in me. I look back up and the whole place has gone Deimoiselles on me, twisted inhuman faces staring me down, unmoving unblinking unspeaking. An eerie silence holds the room. There is no way to fix this. I calmly walk over to the table, pick up the largest bottle I can find, and leave. The door slams shut behind me.
It’s a liter and a half of Stolichnaya and after about ten minutes in the Massachusetts night it’s nice and cold. The snow is really falling now and I feel like a Russian dissident on his way to the Gulag. The sky is black; the asphalt glows with light pollution. The air is restless. Frozen air particles attach themselves to me. I feel sick, and then become so on somebody’s driveway. Is this punishment for something? Is this whole awful night a form of divine retribution? Where’s my lighter? These are the questions that run through my mind as I move blindly through the back streets of this frozen pissant college town, bridges burning behind me. Thick black tendrils of smoke drift up into the air, becoming one with the other pollutants. I have never in my life felt lower than I do at this moment. I am scum; I am a leper. I might as well be covered in boils and smell like mold. Everything turns to shit in my hands; anyone who looks at me turns into a pillar of salt. It would all have been so much better if I just didn’t go to that stupid dance. Stupid! For no reason! No. That’s not true. I know what I really wanted. I wanted someone whose name isn’t Pearl to touch me. It’s another fine mess my balls have gotten me into, another man led astray by his selfish desires. I punched Shiny in the face! What did I do that for? What, exactly, did I gain? The weight in my hand reminds me. I look at the bottle, now half-empty, and wash away my thoughts with cool clear Russian Comfort. I careen sidelong into a shrub and the branches moan like vacuums as they scrape against my coat.
***
My foot misses the next step and I slide down a whole flight of fire-escape stairs on my face. The metal is wet and cold and when I look in the mirror the next day I see dark bruises on my cheek and forehead. I lie there, on the landing, dazed, for a minute or two, then slowly pick myself up and get my bearings. I’d somehow made it almost all the way up to the third floor before slipping, which is just as well because I live on the second floor of the building. My door is just over there, on the right; yes, the one someone who better not be my roommate keeps drawing penises on. Once, it was ejaculating swastikas onto stick figures with skirts and pigtails. I appreciate the artistry, I guess, but can’t he do that on his own door? I hear groaning animal noises from inside the room and decide not to investigate, instead making my way to a strategically placed couch around the corner. I slump down onto the cushions and the room begins a lazy spin. Look where I have brought myself now: The walls are the color of Pepto-Bismol, and there is an eerie preschool vibe to the place, especially with the empty swings and jungle gym visible from the window. My stomach complains but I am far from functional. I need bed, I need sleep. My eyelids start to drag and for the first time in my life I am completely lucid and aware at the exact moment my dream begins.
I’m walking down the street in San Francisco, down a hill, in fact, when I notice that there is a trolley right behind me. I start to run, barely keeping ahead of the front of the trolley, which is twisting and stretching and trying to grab me like an old toy robot’s claw. I run as fast as I can and I start to pull away from the trolley when suddenly I trip and fall. I see the tire roll towards my ankles in sickening slow-motion, unable to move, or to do anything at all. I try to ready myself for unimaginable pain by repeating to myself, oh dear god, this is real, this is real and there is nothing I can do to stop it, but when I open my eyes I am of course still on the couch in the hallway.
Across from me, on another couch, there is a girl wrapped in a pale, worn blanket reading a book. I look at her and take off my coat. I see long black bangs poking out of her hood, which is gray, and a small pointed nose, and I realize that she is probably very pretty. I ask her what she’s reading, and she looks up at me. The soft predawn light flatters her eyes, which glimmer like aquamarine crystals. The book is a Portuguese tale of a city overcome by an epidemic of spontaneous blindness. I tell her that it sounds terrifying and she agrees, but it’s also fascinating, she says. I make a Stevie Wonder joke, and she laughs, softly, like morse code.
“You’re funny,” she says to me.
“Thanks” I say. “Can’t sleep?” I ask her.
“I was asleep about an hour ago,” she says, “but then my roommate came crashing in, drunk off her ass, really upset about something some asshole frat guy said to her, and then she started yelling and throwing things.”
“What did you do?”
“Well, I calmed her down, got her some water, put her to bed, you know, roommate stuff. But then she starts snoring! This loud disgusting bubbly Ppppbbbbllll. Ugh. There’s only so much of that you can take, you know? So, uh, now I’m out here. Got my book, got my blanket. I’ll probably go back in an hour or so and, you know, pass out.”
“Not a bad idea,” I say.
“What did you do tonight?” she asks.
I groan. “It’s been a long night,” I say. How do I tell her that all I really did was stumble from place to place and feel shitty? “I went to Fall Ball,” I say.
“Why?”
“I’ve been asking myself the same question. Hope, I guess? People are supposed to go there and enjoy themselves, right? Isn’t that what they do? They go and they drink and dance and act stupid and everyone has a great time. Except me, I guess. Everyone except me.”
She lets this hang for a moment, and then says, “You talk about people like you’re not one of them. So what if they do those things. What do you do?”
“Do?” I ask. “I don’t do anything. I’m just here. I’m always here. No matter where I am, it’s still here and I hate being there.” Keep in mind that I am still far from sober. “I just need to go somewhere, to see something, anything worth seeing! I need to be where it happens, but when I get there I’m either too late or too early and it isn’t there or it wasn’t ever going to be there. There’s nothing there! And when there’s nothing there, you’re nowhere. You aren’t anywhere. You’re just there, all alone…” My incoherent ramblings have started to worry my new friend. She places her hand on my forehead and her brow furrows.
“I’ll be right back,” she says, and she is, holding a glass of water. I sip the water and it is cool and clean but my stomach isn’t ready for anything clean, or for that matter any liquids at all, and I violently expel Christmas-colored bile onto the carpet. She yelps and pulls over the trashcan. I cling to the plastic rim and empty myself. I’m sweating. A filthy acrid smell surrounds me. I convulse and retch and make disgusting noises until everything in me is gone. The last bit of matter makes a “plop” sound as it falls onto the trash, and I have the unmistakable feeling that something on my face is dripping. There’s a towel in my hand, and I wipe off with it. She lies me down and makes me drink more water. I’m overwhelmed by her kindness, and my own dizziness.
“Hey,” she says, crouching in front of the couch to look me in the eyes. “You’re going to be alright,” she says. I smile weakly, and she returns the favor.
“Glad you think so,” I say. “Sorry for making you deal with me.”
“Don’t worry about it,” she says before she leaves, “Just go to sleep now.” Outside, the sky is a shade lighter. I stare out the window at the gray dawn and wait for the sunrise. I’m still waiting when I fall asleep.
An Ignoble Exchange
Kelly and I decided to go record shopping that day. We went to a store we had not been to in a while. The store was small, full of classic rock, and run by three metalheads who dressed all in black and constantly discussed which recent Catharsis Records release was the most “brutal” or some such conversation incomprehensible to me. I was flipping through the S’s – Steppenwolf, Stevens, Cat, Stevens, Jeff – when she finally said it.
“Do you make out with all your friends,” she asked me, “or just Melissa?”
“I don’t make out with you,” I said, not looking up from the records, “so I don’t see how it’s any of your business.” An orange record sleeve one box over caught my eye. It was Louder Than Bombs, a record sorely missing from my collection for some time. It was only seven dollars. I had struck gold.
Kelly was flustered. “When two of my best friends start hooking up, I think it is my business. Are you embarrassed or something? Why do you want to keep it a secret?” I pulled the record out of the sleeve to check for damage. My own face looked back at me from the shiny black vinyl, flat and expressionless. Side 1 was fine, though a little dusty.
“Clearly,” I said, turning the record over, “it’s no secret, unless what I had for lunch is a secret too.” Side 2 was clean as well. There had to be something wrong with this record, or it wouldn’t be so cheap. I put the first disc back in the sleeve.
“It’s not like that, and you know it. Come on, Gordon. Why didn’t you tell me?” Side 3 revealed to me the album’s fatal flaw: a small scratch across “Golden Lights” and “Oscillate Wildly.” I can live with that.
“I was afraid you’d get jealous.” Kelly called me a liar in that pissed off (not pissed off) tone girls are so good at. She was right. I didn’t tell her because I knew Melissa would blab anyway. “There’s not much to say,” I tell her, tucking my new crown jewel under my arm. “We were both lying there, listening to music, and I wanted to kiss her. Then I kissed her. It wasn’t anything amazing, nothing fantastically passionate about it. It was nice. It was a nice kiss between friends.”
“A kiss with tongue,” she corrected me.
“Yes, it was first base between friends.” I gave the record another once-over. I was very happy with it. “Are you ready to go?”
“No, I’m not done yet,” she said. She was deciding between Peter Paul and Mary’s first and second albums. “Do you want to be her boyfriend?”
“I don’t know.” I thumbed through the “New Arrivals” box. Hey, Let’s Get It On for five bucks! “I’m open to it, I guess. I’m in no rush.”
“Gordon, you can’t just make out with someone for no reason.”
“Can’t you?” I said. I was getting tired of this conversation in a hurry. “Come on, are you ready to go?”
I paid my seven dollars and left. Outside the sun was shining. Birds were chirping. There was a single white cloud above us.
“Do you make out with all your friends,” she asked me, “or just Melissa?”
“I don’t make out with you,” I said, not looking up from the records, “so I don’t see how it’s any of your business.” An orange record sleeve one box over caught my eye. It was Louder Than Bombs, a record sorely missing from my collection for some time. It was only seven dollars. I had struck gold.
Kelly was flustered. “When two of my best friends start hooking up, I think it is my business. Are you embarrassed or something? Why do you want to keep it a secret?” I pulled the record out of the sleeve to check for damage. My own face looked back at me from the shiny black vinyl, flat and expressionless. Side 1 was fine, though a little dusty.
“Clearly,” I said, turning the record over, “it’s no secret, unless what I had for lunch is a secret too.” Side 2 was clean as well. There had to be something wrong with this record, or it wouldn’t be so cheap. I put the first disc back in the sleeve.
“It’s not like that, and you know it. Come on, Gordon. Why didn’t you tell me?” Side 3 revealed to me the album’s fatal flaw: a small scratch across “Golden Lights” and “Oscillate Wildly.” I can live with that.
“I was afraid you’d get jealous.” Kelly called me a liar in that pissed off (not pissed off) tone girls are so good at. She was right. I didn’t tell her because I knew Melissa would blab anyway. “There’s not much to say,” I tell her, tucking my new crown jewel under my arm. “We were both lying there, listening to music, and I wanted to kiss her. Then I kissed her. It wasn’t anything amazing, nothing fantastically passionate about it. It was nice. It was a nice kiss between friends.”
“A kiss with tongue,” she corrected me.
“Yes, it was first base between friends.” I gave the record another once-over. I was very happy with it. “Are you ready to go?”
“No, I’m not done yet,” she said. She was deciding between Peter Paul and Mary’s first and second albums. “Do you want to be her boyfriend?”
“I don’t know.” I thumbed through the “New Arrivals” box. Hey, Let’s Get It On for five bucks! “I’m open to it, I guess. I’m in no rush.”
“Gordon, you can’t just make out with someone for no reason.”
“Can’t you?” I said. I was getting tired of this conversation in a hurry. “Come on, are you ready to go?”
I paid my seven dollars and left. Outside the sun was shining. Birds were chirping. There was a single white cloud above us.
Thursday, July 17, 2008
The Lakes Affair
So there I was, in Connecticut, gunning around the curves on the road, the cold wind throwing my busted passenger-side mirror against the side of the car with a repeated irregular smack. It was dark, but I could see ahead of me the hill I’d have to drive up to reach the mammoth Lakes estate at the top; It must have been a hundred feet high, at least. The road was well-lit and recently repaved. When I got there, a man in a small red vest took my car and put it somewhere out of sight. The wooden doors of the Lakes residence stood open before me like the lips of a yawning giant. Like any mouth, this one was full of amoebas and parasites; these ones happened to be wearing thousand-dollar cocktail dresses. I anxiously tried to brush some of the poor off my shoulders, but it didn’t help. In a place like this, you’re either money or you’re nothing. The weight of the camera against my chest was reassuring. A fancy-looking SLR is the ultimate press pass.
It was hard to adjust to the light inside; every surface in the place was reflective. I replayed the message in my head, over and over, trying to figure it out. I’d never heard her sound so scared, but it was a quiet desperation, like the British have. I’d made a point to stay out of Connecticut, but I threw on my best dress and drove out there. A woman’s pleading voice on my answering machine will drive me to do almost anything. It’s my main weakness. She couldn’t talk about it on the phone, she said. I’m the only one she could trust, she said. But I didn’t like the sound of it, not at all. Allison Manderay wants me at the Lakes’ soiree? What for? I don’t know what Old Man Lakes did to get this house, but I’ve never seen one without a whole barrel of blood mixed into the foundation. It’s a structural thing. She wants me to rub elbows with these leeches? I’d rather have teeth drilled.
Two years had passed since the last time I’d seen Allison eye-to-eye. I was fresh out of journalism school, she was picking through the produce at a Super Fresh in Baltimore. We were close, more than close really, back in the Maine Photographic Workshop days, but we’d drifted apart in the years since. I noticed a gold ring on her left hand as she squeezed a grapefruit. The rock was big enough to choke a guinea pig.
“Oh, this thing,” she said, and smiled. It was good to see her happy. The ring was, as I’d suspected, of the engagement kind, with the wedding planned for the next spring. We got to chatting about the elegant bachelor himself, one G. Bradford Lakes, a man in a collared shirt on his way to becoming a man in a suit. A Yalie, as a matter of fact. I sneered a bit, involuntarily, but she wasn’t offended. She had known me in my revolutionary heyday, before the war, and she knew how I felt about blood with even the slightest hint of blue in it. Still, I was happy for her. Love will do that to people. The wedding invitation never got to me, but it seems the whole thing went off hitchless; I can’t imagine any other way she wound up with guest-list privileges at his palatial estate. I scanned the room restlessly.
Finally I caught sight of her at the end of the hall. She was stunning, moreso than I remembered. Her dress was red and black, with swooped shoulders, elegant as a Mondrian. She’d traded up pretty well. Some blue-haired blueblood said something to her and she laughed. She almost looked like she belonged there, a far cry from the restless suburban girl I used to know. I snapped a picture from across the room, for posterity. This caught the attention of another blue-haired blueblood and darling I just had to take her picture next, and so on and so forth around the room. The rich love having their pictures taken. Cheeses were said and smiles were flashed, and it wasn’t long before Allison noticed my arrival.
“Thank Christ you’re here,” she whispered in my ear, “The bullshit in here is thick enough to clog a sewer.” I smiled. There’s the girl I knew. “Come on. There’s something here you need to see.” Off we went. There was a door behind the stairwell that led to another stairwell. A couple furtive glances to make sure we were unseen, and we descended. I was reminded of the musty basements where we snatched away moments back in Maine. We went down and down, one stairway after another, and soon I smelled a distinct chemical odor. At first I thought of the old darkroom, another site of carefree passionate embraces, but no, the smell was far more sinister, less sweat and developer and more blood and bile. I became uneasy.
“Allison, where are we going?” I asked.
“Shh, you’ll see,” she replied, but it was so dark down there that I barely could. At last we came to a large metal door, lit only by a tiny red LED light above a keypad. “This is it,” she said, and entered the code. There was a hiss, and the door cracked open. The fluorescent lights inside were nearly blinding, and when my eyes adjusted I saw a long hallway with white walls. There was a hospital quality to it, and the same sense of it not being quite clean enough for comfort. My trepidant heart trembled as I followed her in.
“I’ve been exploring the basements since we moved in, and I found this place by accident last week. There’s almost as much below ground in this place as above it, if not more,” she said.
“Like an iceberg,” I helpfully chimed in.
“Yes, like an iceberg. Almost as cold, too.”
“How’d you figure out the code?” I asked.
“Oh, everything in this house has the same code. Brad’s father is a little forgetful,” she said.
“I see.” We continued walking. Finally we came to a sliding door, with portholes on each side. I tried to look through, but it was dark inside. She opened the door and turned on the lights.
“This is what you need to see,” she said. Inside the room was jar after jar of what appeared to be human organs, some I recognized and a few I didn’t. I’m no doctor, but I saw livers, kidneys, a lung or two, and I think some spleens, and that was just the first row.
“What…what is this?” I asked incredulously. “You could build a whole man with this stuff!”
“It’s an organ bank of some kind, I think. I think my father-in-law uses them to replace his own organs when they go bad…with enough money, you know, you can live forever. He told me that once. With enough money…”
“You can get away with anything,” I finished for her as I readied my camera.
“This isn’t right, right?” she said, “This shouldn’t be here. This isn’t right. You need to take pictures; you need to tell someone about this. I can’t trust anyone around here. I mean, who knows who’s in on it?”
“You were right to call me,” I said, “This could be huge.” My God, I thought, is that really a human heart? This party sure got weird in a hurry. I snapped all the pictures I needed, and turned to leave. That’s when I saw it: a tiny red light. On a tiny metal security camera. “We need to leave. Now.” I said. We made trails out of the basement. We made it back into the house proper with no trouble. The party was still going, empty tuxedos swilling champagne like there was a shortage. A heavy voice called Allison’s name, and we turned to face it. It was Old Man Lakes himself. He looked pretty healthy to me. A wiry, muscular hand attached to a bony wrist protruded out of each elegant sleeve of his tuxedo, which was crisp and sleek and very expensive-looking. His hair was tinfoil-gray, but full and vibrant and he stood with the confidence that only comes with boatloads of money. I hated him instantly.
“And you must be Allison’s photographer friend,” he said. My stomach sank: we’d been made. His eyes were such pale blue that they looked nearly white. If ever there was a man who pillaged and gutted his way up to the top, there he was. “I trust you haven’t found our gathering too…stressful?” he asked. I wanted to tell him that my eyes were about to fall out because I’d seen the fucking Mutter museum in his basement, but I kept my composure, for Allison’s sake.
“No, it’s lovely,” I replied, “In fact, I was just leaving.”
“Oh, no, no, that won’t do; that won’t do at all.” His cadaverous lips twisted up into a sinister grin. “I think you should stay.” I noticed some big suits circling round. It didn’t look good. Clearly, it was now or never.
“Come on!” I yelled and grabbed Allison by the hand. I bolted past the goons and made a beeline for the front door. A red-vested driver monkey was handing a BMW off to some diamond-studded country club couple. I barreled through them with every ounce of my wiry frame and dove into the car. Allison strapped herself in as I gunned the throttle. The engine roared as we hurtled down the lane.
“Jesus Christ! What do you think you’re doing?” she gasped.
“Sorry, A, I’m not ready to be a kidney in a jar. In case you didn’t know, human organs don’t grow on trees.”
“But…but… my house! My husband! My life!” she said. The woman was becoming hysterical.
“Hey, I just saved both our lives. Cut me some slack. This is all Bradley’s problem now.”
“Bradford.”
“Whatever,” I said, and we drove off into the night.
It was hard to adjust to the light inside; every surface in the place was reflective. I replayed the message in my head, over and over, trying to figure it out. I’d never heard her sound so scared, but it was a quiet desperation, like the British have. I’d made a point to stay out of Connecticut, but I threw on my best dress and drove out there. A woman’s pleading voice on my answering machine will drive me to do almost anything. It’s my main weakness. She couldn’t talk about it on the phone, she said. I’m the only one she could trust, she said. But I didn’t like the sound of it, not at all. Allison Manderay wants me at the Lakes’ soiree? What for? I don’t know what Old Man Lakes did to get this house, but I’ve never seen one without a whole barrel of blood mixed into the foundation. It’s a structural thing. She wants me to rub elbows with these leeches? I’d rather have teeth drilled.
Two years had passed since the last time I’d seen Allison eye-to-eye. I was fresh out of journalism school, she was picking through the produce at a Super Fresh in Baltimore. We were close, more than close really, back in the Maine Photographic Workshop days, but we’d drifted apart in the years since. I noticed a gold ring on her left hand as she squeezed a grapefruit. The rock was big enough to choke a guinea pig.
“Oh, this thing,” she said, and smiled. It was good to see her happy. The ring was, as I’d suspected, of the engagement kind, with the wedding planned for the next spring. We got to chatting about the elegant bachelor himself, one G. Bradford Lakes, a man in a collared shirt on his way to becoming a man in a suit. A Yalie, as a matter of fact. I sneered a bit, involuntarily, but she wasn’t offended. She had known me in my revolutionary heyday, before the war, and she knew how I felt about blood with even the slightest hint of blue in it. Still, I was happy for her. Love will do that to people. The wedding invitation never got to me, but it seems the whole thing went off hitchless; I can’t imagine any other way she wound up with guest-list privileges at his palatial estate. I scanned the room restlessly.
Finally I caught sight of her at the end of the hall. She was stunning, moreso than I remembered. Her dress was red and black, with swooped shoulders, elegant as a Mondrian. She’d traded up pretty well. Some blue-haired blueblood said something to her and she laughed. She almost looked like she belonged there, a far cry from the restless suburban girl I used to know. I snapped a picture from across the room, for posterity. This caught the attention of another blue-haired blueblood and darling I just had to take her picture next, and so on and so forth around the room. The rich love having their pictures taken. Cheeses were said and smiles were flashed, and it wasn’t long before Allison noticed my arrival.
“Thank Christ you’re here,” she whispered in my ear, “The bullshit in here is thick enough to clog a sewer.” I smiled. There’s the girl I knew. “Come on. There’s something here you need to see.” Off we went. There was a door behind the stairwell that led to another stairwell. A couple furtive glances to make sure we were unseen, and we descended. I was reminded of the musty basements where we snatched away moments back in Maine. We went down and down, one stairway after another, and soon I smelled a distinct chemical odor. At first I thought of the old darkroom, another site of carefree passionate embraces, but no, the smell was far more sinister, less sweat and developer and more blood and bile. I became uneasy.
“Allison, where are we going?” I asked.
“Shh, you’ll see,” she replied, but it was so dark down there that I barely could. At last we came to a large metal door, lit only by a tiny red LED light above a keypad. “This is it,” she said, and entered the code. There was a hiss, and the door cracked open. The fluorescent lights inside were nearly blinding, and when my eyes adjusted I saw a long hallway with white walls. There was a hospital quality to it, and the same sense of it not being quite clean enough for comfort. My trepidant heart trembled as I followed her in.
“I’ve been exploring the basements since we moved in, and I found this place by accident last week. There’s almost as much below ground in this place as above it, if not more,” she said.
“Like an iceberg,” I helpfully chimed in.
“Yes, like an iceberg. Almost as cold, too.”
“How’d you figure out the code?” I asked.
“Oh, everything in this house has the same code. Brad’s father is a little forgetful,” she said.
“I see.” We continued walking. Finally we came to a sliding door, with portholes on each side. I tried to look through, but it was dark inside. She opened the door and turned on the lights.
“This is what you need to see,” she said. Inside the room was jar after jar of what appeared to be human organs, some I recognized and a few I didn’t. I’m no doctor, but I saw livers, kidneys, a lung or two, and I think some spleens, and that was just the first row.
“What…what is this?” I asked incredulously. “You could build a whole man with this stuff!”
“It’s an organ bank of some kind, I think. I think my father-in-law uses them to replace his own organs when they go bad…with enough money, you know, you can live forever. He told me that once. With enough money…”
“You can get away with anything,” I finished for her as I readied my camera.
“This isn’t right, right?” she said, “This shouldn’t be here. This isn’t right. You need to take pictures; you need to tell someone about this. I can’t trust anyone around here. I mean, who knows who’s in on it?”
“You were right to call me,” I said, “This could be huge.” My God, I thought, is that really a human heart? This party sure got weird in a hurry. I snapped all the pictures I needed, and turned to leave. That’s when I saw it: a tiny red light. On a tiny metal security camera. “We need to leave. Now.” I said. We made trails out of the basement. We made it back into the house proper with no trouble. The party was still going, empty tuxedos swilling champagne like there was a shortage. A heavy voice called Allison’s name, and we turned to face it. It was Old Man Lakes himself. He looked pretty healthy to me. A wiry, muscular hand attached to a bony wrist protruded out of each elegant sleeve of his tuxedo, which was crisp and sleek and very expensive-looking. His hair was tinfoil-gray, but full and vibrant and he stood with the confidence that only comes with boatloads of money. I hated him instantly.
“And you must be Allison’s photographer friend,” he said. My stomach sank: we’d been made. His eyes were such pale blue that they looked nearly white. If ever there was a man who pillaged and gutted his way up to the top, there he was. “I trust you haven’t found our gathering too…stressful?” he asked. I wanted to tell him that my eyes were about to fall out because I’d seen the fucking Mutter museum in his basement, but I kept my composure, for Allison’s sake.
“No, it’s lovely,” I replied, “In fact, I was just leaving.”
“Oh, no, no, that won’t do; that won’t do at all.” His cadaverous lips twisted up into a sinister grin. “I think you should stay.” I noticed some big suits circling round. It didn’t look good. Clearly, it was now or never.
“Come on!” I yelled and grabbed Allison by the hand. I bolted past the goons and made a beeline for the front door. A red-vested driver monkey was handing a BMW off to some diamond-studded country club couple. I barreled through them with every ounce of my wiry frame and dove into the car. Allison strapped herself in as I gunned the throttle. The engine roared as we hurtled down the lane.
“Jesus Christ! What do you think you’re doing?” she gasped.
“Sorry, A, I’m not ready to be a kidney in a jar. In case you didn’t know, human organs don’t grow on trees.”
“But…but… my house! My husband! My life!” she said. The woman was becoming hysterical.
“Hey, I just saved both our lives. Cut me some slack. This is all Bradley’s problem now.”
“Bradford.”
“Whatever,” I said, and we drove off into the night.
Flowers For Shiksa
To be honest, my family is boring. Conservative, both socially and politically, although charitable, their main life goal seems to be puttering along, making money and never doing anything creative or interesting. This has frustrated me to no end. “That’s because all of the interesting ones are dead,” my father once told me, somewhere between an explanation and a warning. The stories we tell are pretty dull as well – an aunt who liked to drink (gasp!), a lovely Bar Mitzvah, whose in-laws screwed over whose. The far better stories, I have found, are the ones we don’t tell about the relatives we don’t talk about. After several years and careful prodding of elderly relations, I have pieced together most of the story of my Uncle Robert. The Jewish religion is a funny thing; although Robert is, as far as anyone knows, still alive, he is officially dead to us. You see, Robert, alone amongst my extended family, has left the faith.
Robert Merenstein, my father’s brother’s wife’s brother, was born in 1954 in Merrick, Long Island, two years before my aunt Estelle. In early pictures of my aunt’s family, Robert seems like a typical happy-go-lucky child, although he does have the strange tendency to not quite look directly at the camera, as if there is something perennially interesting just over there. Robert’s mother, my great-aunt Julia, was raised Orthodox, but was not nearly as strict with her children as her own parents. My aunt was, for example, allowed to leave the house on Friday nights and rip her own toilet paper during the Sabbath.
In the summer of 1971 Robert got a job working in an ice cream truck. The truck was old and hadn’t been properly serviced in years. Heat was a major trouble because, although the ice cream was kept cold, the exhaust from the refrigerator blew not out of the truck but into the cabin. Combine that with a typical 80 degree Merrick summer, and you have an extremely sweaty situation. Robert often drove with no pants on and a battery-powered fan between his legs to help him stay cool. In a picture from that summer, my aunt and her parents stand in front of the truck eating ice cream, and Robert is sticking his head out the window. Out of all the admittedly few pictures that remain, he looks the happiest in this one. Perhaps, being a bit of a prankster, he thought that secretly not wearing pants in a family portrait was funny, and he was right. But I have a hunch that there is another reason.
Robert’s ice cream route took him nearly halfway across Long Island, from the Jewish neighborhood of East Merrick out to the gentile-filled West Merrick and beyond. This is roughly equivalent to having a paper route that takes you from Rome to Gaul, or Malibu to Compton. It was along this route that Robert met Irene. Not much is known about Irene Campbell, or at least not much is remembered. When I asked Julia, she told me never to speak that name in her house again; I would ask my great-uncle Oscar, but he can barely remember to button his pants. That fall Irene had been the year ahead of my aunt at Mepham High School. As she remembers it, Irene was “nice enough,” although “not the prettiest girl in school,” but she did have a “developed figure,” so, uh, way to go Uncle Rob.
That fateful meeting went a little bit like this: Irene Campbell, in a fit of heat-induced ice cream craving, ordered a double chocolate ice cream cone from Uncle Robert. But the overheated truck took its toll, and the chocolate that day was a little bit too soft for its own good. The glob of dairy soon tumbled onto the lovely dress of its owner, and then straight onto the sizzling pavement, leaving behind a messy brown spot. “Oh no! My dress!” Irene said, “What am I going to do now? You don’t have any stain remover back there, do you?”
“No, ma’am, we don’t, I’m sorry,” said my Robert with the reflexive formality that had been bred into him. “I feel awful about ruining your dress, though. Here, let me give you a ride home,” he said, perhaps forgetting that the inside of the truck was hotter than the street, and he was in his underpants.
“I don’t know, it looks pretty hot in that truck. Besides, I don’t think I should be accepting rides from strange ice cream boys.” A long second passed as Robert desperately searched his brain, looking for a way to persuade her into his truck. It was not a skill that came easy.
“Say, don’t you go to my high school? You aren’t one of those ‘pirate pride’ girls, are you?”
“Ugh, I hate sports. They’re so pointless. And we can’t even win.”
“Yeah, I wouldn’t be all that upset if their bus had an accident either, but I think they might expel us if we don’t cry at the funeral.” She smiled against her will. “Come on. Aren’t you curious about the inside of an ice cream truck? I’ll show you where we keep the scoops.”
“Scoops, huh? Throw in a Klondike and you’ve got a deal.”
Despite the awkward beginning, it must have been one hell of a ride; the two hit it off instantly. She became a regular customer, and then she started seeing my uncle outside of an ice cream truck. It wasn’t long until word reached Robert’s family that he was running around with an outsider. A Merenstein boy chasing some shiksa, the women murmered, unspeakable, unthinkable, disgrace upon the father and the father’s father, a black spot on the tallis. It was simple enough: Oscar forbade his son from seeing her and from leaving West Merrick unsupervised. Stripped of both girlfriend and car, Robert became despondent, but there was nothing he could do. He waited and as soon as he got his car back he drove straight to the Campbell house. This lead to stricter punishments, which Robert snuck around whenever he could. Things continued this way for two years; Robert was essentially a prisoner in his own home. Tensions grew, and in June of 1973, they reached a breaking point.
It was a Saturday, the day of Mepham’s graduation ceremony. Estelle caught Rob picking a handful of daisies out of the garden. “Hey, what are you doing?” she said, “Those aren’t for who I think they’re for, are they? They better not be, Dad’ll kill you.”
“No, they’re not for her,” her brother said. She iced him. “They’re not! Don’t look at me like that. Now get out of here, it’s none of your business.” She stared him down. She had grown just as tired of Irene as her parents; it was nothing personal, she just wanted to end all the fighting. So she started the biggest fight they would ever have. “MOM!” she cried with a calm, strong voice. “Robby’s messing up the garden!” Julia demanded to know why he felt the need to rip up and ruin her garden like he was 8 years old again. Robert’s formidable skill at lying to his mother fell through that afternoon, and he confessed that the flowers were for Irene. Robert’s father was called, and an all-out screaming match ensued in the garden.
“Where do you think you’re going with those flowers, son? The goyeh’s place? You can forget about it!” he roared, frightening away a few mid-afternoon clouds. “Give me those flowers, right now!”
“No, Dad. I’m taking them. And that’s not all I’m taking.” That’s when he pulled a diamond ring out of his pocket. Oscar was astonished; how could his boy possibly have enough money for a diamond ring? Robert had been saving up for over two years. He was going to propose to Irene and that was that. The price for his betrayal was excommunication. Robert was to be cut off: no money for college, no money for an apartment, no money for anything.
Oscar thought his son wouldn’t last a week. In fact, he lasted six months. Finally, though, he came back to his parents with his pride in his throat and asked them to take him back. He told them he had broken up with Irene, that it hadn’t worked out. They believed him and welcomed him back with open arms, because they were his parents. They never saw Irene again. But, the truth is, Robert continued to see Irene behind his parents’ backs, going so far as to bring home other girls for the holidays to throw them off the scent.
Three weeks after Robert’s graduation, his family received a letter. It was a wedding invitation. The wedding was to be Protestant. Not a single person Robert invited even showed up; Estelle wanted to but her parents wouldn’t allow it. And from that day to this, no one in my family has spoken to or about Robert Merenstein.
Robert Merenstein, my father’s brother’s wife’s brother, was born in 1954 in Merrick, Long Island, two years before my aunt Estelle. In early pictures of my aunt’s family, Robert seems like a typical happy-go-lucky child, although he does have the strange tendency to not quite look directly at the camera, as if there is something perennially interesting just over there. Robert’s mother, my great-aunt Julia, was raised Orthodox, but was not nearly as strict with her children as her own parents. My aunt was, for example, allowed to leave the house on Friday nights and rip her own toilet paper during the Sabbath.
In the summer of 1971 Robert got a job working in an ice cream truck. The truck was old and hadn’t been properly serviced in years. Heat was a major trouble because, although the ice cream was kept cold, the exhaust from the refrigerator blew not out of the truck but into the cabin. Combine that with a typical 80 degree Merrick summer, and you have an extremely sweaty situation. Robert often drove with no pants on and a battery-powered fan between his legs to help him stay cool. In a picture from that summer, my aunt and her parents stand in front of the truck eating ice cream, and Robert is sticking his head out the window. Out of all the admittedly few pictures that remain, he looks the happiest in this one. Perhaps, being a bit of a prankster, he thought that secretly not wearing pants in a family portrait was funny, and he was right. But I have a hunch that there is another reason.
Robert’s ice cream route took him nearly halfway across Long Island, from the Jewish neighborhood of East Merrick out to the gentile-filled West Merrick and beyond. This is roughly equivalent to having a paper route that takes you from Rome to Gaul, or Malibu to Compton. It was along this route that Robert met Irene. Not much is known about Irene Campbell, or at least not much is remembered. When I asked Julia, she told me never to speak that name in her house again; I would ask my great-uncle Oscar, but he can barely remember to button his pants. That fall Irene had been the year ahead of my aunt at Mepham High School. As she remembers it, Irene was “nice enough,” although “not the prettiest girl in school,” but she did have a “developed figure,” so, uh, way to go Uncle Rob.
That fateful meeting went a little bit like this: Irene Campbell, in a fit of heat-induced ice cream craving, ordered a double chocolate ice cream cone from Uncle Robert. But the overheated truck took its toll, and the chocolate that day was a little bit too soft for its own good. The glob of dairy soon tumbled onto the lovely dress of its owner, and then straight onto the sizzling pavement, leaving behind a messy brown spot. “Oh no! My dress!” Irene said, “What am I going to do now? You don’t have any stain remover back there, do you?”
“No, ma’am, we don’t, I’m sorry,” said my Robert with the reflexive formality that had been bred into him. “I feel awful about ruining your dress, though. Here, let me give you a ride home,” he said, perhaps forgetting that the inside of the truck was hotter than the street, and he was in his underpants.
“I don’t know, it looks pretty hot in that truck. Besides, I don’t think I should be accepting rides from strange ice cream boys.” A long second passed as Robert desperately searched his brain, looking for a way to persuade her into his truck. It was not a skill that came easy.
“Say, don’t you go to my high school? You aren’t one of those ‘pirate pride’ girls, are you?”
“Ugh, I hate sports. They’re so pointless. And we can’t even win.”
“Yeah, I wouldn’t be all that upset if their bus had an accident either, but I think they might expel us if we don’t cry at the funeral.” She smiled against her will. “Come on. Aren’t you curious about the inside of an ice cream truck? I’ll show you where we keep the scoops.”
“Scoops, huh? Throw in a Klondike and you’ve got a deal.”
Despite the awkward beginning, it must have been one hell of a ride; the two hit it off instantly. She became a regular customer, and then she started seeing my uncle outside of an ice cream truck. It wasn’t long until word reached Robert’s family that he was running around with an outsider. A Merenstein boy chasing some shiksa, the women murmered, unspeakable, unthinkable, disgrace upon the father and the father’s father, a black spot on the tallis. It was simple enough: Oscar forbade his son from seeing her and from leaving West Merrick unsupervised. Stripped of both girlfriend and car, Robert became despondent, but there was nothing he could do. He waited and as soon as he got his car back he drove straight to the Campbell house. This lead to stricter punishments, which Robert snuck around whenever he could. Things continued this way for two years; Robert was essentially a prisoner in his own home. Tensions grew, and in June of 1973, they reached a breaking point.
It was a Saturday, the day of Mepham’s graduation ceremony. Estelle caught Rob picking a handful of daisies out of the garden. “Hey, what are you doing?” she said, “Those aren’t for who I think they’re for, are they? They better not be, Dad’ll kill you.”
“No, they’re not for her,” her brother said. She iced him. “They’re not! Don’t look at me like that. Now get out of here, it’s none of your business.” She stared him down. She had grown just as tired of Irene as her parents; it was nothing personal, she just wanted to end all the fighting. So she started the biggest fight they would ever have. “MOM!” she cried with a calm, strong voice. “Robby’s messing up the garden!” Julia demanded to know why he felt the need to rip up and ruin her garden like he was 8 years old again. Robert’s formidable skill at lying to his mother fell through that afternoon, and he confessed that the flowers were for Irene. Robert’s father was called, and an all-out screaming match ensued in the garden.
“Where do you think you’re going with those flowers, son? The goyeh’s place? You can forget about it!” he roared, frightening away a few mid-afternoon clouds. “Give me those flowers, right now!”
“No, Dad. I’m taking them. And that’s not all I’m taking.” That’s when he pulled a diamond ring out of his pocket. Oscar was astonished; how could his boy possibly have enough money for a diamond ring? Robert had been saving up for over two years. He was going to propose to Irene and that was that. The price for his betrayal was excommunication. Robert was to be cut off: no money for college, no money for an apartment, no money for anything.
Oscar thought his son wouldn’t last a week. In fact, he lasted six months. Finally, though, he came back to his parents with his pride in his throat and asked them to take him back. He told them he had broken up with Irene, that it hadn’t worked out. They believed him and welcomed him back with open arms, because they were his parents. They never saw Irene again. But, the truth is, Robert continued to see Irene behind his parents’ backs, going so far as to bring home other girls for the holidays to throw them off the scent.
Three weeks after Robert’s graduation, his family received a letter. It was a wedding invitation. The wedding was to be Protestant. Not a single person Robert invited even showed up; Estelle wanted to but her parents wouldn’t allow it. And from that day to this, no one in my family has spoken to or about Robert Merenstein.
Just a brief introduction
Hi everybody. This blog is where things I write go. I have a couple stories saved up, so those will be posted first and then some new stuff. Also, the story I named the blog after. Enjoy!
-FM
-FM
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)