Run Catch Kiss

by Amy Sohn

  The dyke ditties elicited a few incendiary letters:

  So Ariel Steiner fucks both women and men (“Dyke Hands,” 12/4). Does she do children too? Celery? Furniture? I eagerly await the column where she gets boned by her Chihuahua.

  HOWARD KESSEL. Upper East Side

  What’s up with this muff diving, Ariel (“Pap’s Blue Ribbon,” 12/11)? I thought you were straight. Maybe you should change the name of your column to “Run Snatch Kiss.”

  ALVIN SIMMONS. Canarsie

  I might have been able to take a little more pleasure in the abuse if it had been in response to real events. But my column was getting so far removed from my life that I began to wonder if it was worth it to be going to all those lengths to please a guy who wasn’t exactly pleasing me.

  The Sunday I wrote the blow-job column (“Making Headway”) I went to meet Sara for dinner at Café Orlin on St. Mark’s. I didn’t want to talk about Jake, so as soon as we sat down I said, “How are things with Jon?” (She’d broken up with Kit a few weeks before and immediately gotten back together with Jon.)

  “Weird,” she said. “Our relationship has always had a pretty high quotient of warped power games, but now it’s getting out of control even for us.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “We went out to the movies two nights ago, and then afterward we went back to his place and had really violent sex, where he strangled me as I kicked him, and then we both came. I left his house feeling pretty good about things, but he hasn’t returned any of my calls since then.”

  Usually, when Sara told me about her guy problems, I would try not to be too judgmental, because I hate it when I tell a girlfriend about some guy and she says, “He’s an asshole. Get rid of him.” Like that will help. Like my problem is that I don’t know he’s an asshole, when my real problem is knowing he’s an asshole but not understanding how that fact should make me not want to see him. It sucks when your girlfriend tells you you’re completely self-destructive, even when you know she’s right.

  But hearing that things had gotten this ugly with Jon made me start to seriously worry about her. “Why are you staying with him if he treats you so horribly?” I asked.

  “Because he’s the Prick I Think I Love.”

  “Why don’t you find another prick who doesn’t also strangle you?”

  “Because I love him. Why are you asking stupid questions?” The waiter came to take our order. I got salad, salmon, and a ginger ale. Sara got coffee. I hoped she wasn’t having eating problems again. “Anyway,” she said, “things are looking up. This is the first time he’s given me the silent treatment in days.”

  “If you think things are looking up because he hasn’t given you the silent treatment in days, don’t you think that might be a sign of a problem?”

  She leaned forward in her chair and hissed, “You don’t think you have problems yourself?”

  “Of course I do. I’m just saying maybe yours are bigger.”

  “At least I thrive on drama, mind games, and misery. I’m a genuine masochist. You’re just fronting as one. That’s far worse.” We sat there staring at each other. She lit a cigarette.

  “Maybe we should look on the bright side,” I said. “We could be in relationships that are even more unhealthy than the ones we’re in now. Have you ever heard of Maimonides’s ladder of charity?”

  “ ’Course. We studied it in Hebrew school.”

  “Well, remember how he ranked different levels of charity? Two-way anonymous giving is more noble than one-way anonymous, and one-way anonymous tops nonanonymous?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Maybe we could design a ladder of self-destructive behavior. The bottom rung would be obsessing over a guy who’s verbally and physically abusive, goyish, has multiple substance issues, and doesn’t want to see you. One rung up would be a guy who’s only verbally abusive, goyish, substance-abusive, and doesn’t want to see you.”

  “And above that would be an occasionally verbally abusive Jew who has only one substance problem and calls once in a while.”

  “Exactly.”

  “That reminds me,” she said, getting up from the table.

  “Where you going?”

  “To check my machine.”

  “Does he know how often you check your machine waiting for a call from him?”

  “I don’t tell him. Maybe we could make another ladder of self-destructive behavior. The first rung would be calling his machine obsessively, and above that would be calling your own machine obsessively. Calling your own machine isn’t as bad as calling his, because it’s a private obsessive practice. He can’t know about it.”

  She walked over to the phone, punched in her personal security code, then checked her reflection in the metal, picked something out of her teeth, and came back to the table.

  “He wants me to come over,” she said.

  “Are you going to?”

  “Hello?”

  “Listen, if for some reason, on your way to his house, you have a crisis of conscience and realize this is something you want to get out of, I’ll sit here for another hour and you can come back.”

  “I’m not coming back,” she said.

  “I didn’t think so. But I thought I’d make the offer anyway.”

  She put on her coat, put some money on the table, and started heading for the door. “If he chokes you too hard,” I called after her, “kick him in the balls.”

  “I ask him to choke me,” she said, turning around. “It makes my orgasms hotter.”

  “You could die like that. That’s what happened to this guy in the British parliament.”

  “You could break your neck eating your own pussy,” she shouted, “but that’s never stopped me before!” People started to look up from their tables. “I’m an independent woman!” she yelled. “Master of my destiny! Hear me roar!”

  Something about the way she said, “Hear me roar,” made me get choked up as I watched her go out the door. I waited for an hour, but she never came back. I told myself there was no need to worry, because in the end, her survivalist instincts would save her. They always had in the past. But I wondered how many times someone could put herself through the ringer and still come out unscathed. And I wasn’t just thinking about Sara.

  It might have been a little easier for me to pull myself out of the ringer if New Year’s hadn’t been coming up. That ill-fated eve has been loaded for me since I first saw When Harry Met Sally... in ninth grade. As I watched Billy Crystal run through the city in search of Meg Ryan so he could kiss her under mistletoe, my romantic expectations of the holiday soared to the sky. Every December since then, I have prayed to meet a young Billy by the thirty-first, who will race through the streets in search of my mouth. But somehow I always wind up alone and in a party hat, watching the ball fall on TV and blowing my nose. I knew I should break up with Jake, but I wanted to have a romantic holiday—and he and I had already arranged to go out for dinner, rent When Harry Met Sally..., and go to bed early.

  But although I am occasionally superficial, I am not a very good procrastinator. So when I got home I called Jake and asked if he’d meet me at the bar where we’d first run into each other. We made small talk for a few minutes, and then I blurted, “I’ve been thinking a little lately.”

  “About what?” he asked.

  “I just . . . I’m not sure about things. I think it might be a good idea for us to take a little time away from each other.”

  “What are you trying to say?” he asked, looking me dead in the eye. He wasn’t making this easy.

  “That maybe we shouldn’t see each other so often.”

  “Are you breaking up with me?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “It’s a simple question.”

  “I guess I am,” I said, sighing. “But it’s not you. It’s me.”

  He started to laugh bitterly.

  “It’s not a lie!” I shouted. “I really mean it! You deserve a woman who could love you. And I just
don’t know if I’m her. But I don’t want you to hate me!” I started to cry. Which was pretty ridiculous, since I was the dumper and not the dumpee, and when the dumper cries, it always looks disingenuous. “I’m sorry,” I said, put some money on the bar for my beer, kissed him on the cheek, and left.

  7

  ON THE WALK from the bar I bought a pack of Camel Filters. When I got home I put on “It Ain’t Me, Babe” and smoked out the window. I tried to let Bob’s masculine toughness and isolationist inclinations seep into me through osmosis as I listened—“Go ‘way from my window,/Leave at your own chosen speed./I’m not the one you want, babe,/I’m not the one you need”—but in the middle of the second verse I dragged in too hard on the cigarette, broke into a fit of coughing, and stubbed it out.

  I turned off the music, shut the window, and stared at the phone. I had to tell my parents about Jake sooner or later, and I didn’t see the point in delaying. Better to devastate them now than let them harbor hopes of the two of us getting serious.

  My mom answered. “What’s new?” she said.

  “I broke up with Jake.”

  “Why?” said my dad. They always do that, both come on the line when I think I’m talking to only one of them.

  “Because it wasn’t working. We got along at the beginning, but then we started fighting all the time and I realized I’d be happier without him than with him. Also, he was manic-depressive.”

  I waited for my dad to start in on me, but it was my mom who spoke first: “It sounds like you made a mature decision.”

  “What?”

  “She’s right,” said my dad. “It doesn’t make much sense to stay with someone who’s not making you happy.”

  “You mean you’re not upset?”

  “No.”

  “You’re a very independent person,” said my mom. “You can’t stay with someone if the situation isn’t right. A lot of people can, but not you.”

  I wanted to tell her that nine times out of ten, when the situation wasn’t right, it only made me want to stay more, but I didn’t want to pop her balloon, so instead I just said, “Thanks.”

  •

  The next day at lunch Sara asked if I wanted to come busking with her. She and Jon had had a huge argument the night before and she’d decided playing music in public would be good therapy. My musical ability was mediocre at best, but I thought it was important to support her, so after work I went home, got my clarinet, and went to meet her at the West Fourth Street stop.

  As I headed down the platform to the passageway at the southern end, I heard this slow, mournful accordion. Sara had never played for me before and I’d always assumed she wasn’t that good. But her music was discordant and aching, and she was singing in a clear, high voice—a ballad about losing the man she loved. I reached the entrance to the passageway and saw her sitting on a stool, the accordion in her lap, her open case in front of her, filled with change. Two teenaged boys, a businesswoman, a homeless man, and an MTA worker were watching with expressions ranging from delight to disgust. She finished the song and the woman applauded, but no one else did.

  “How’s it going?” I said, standing next to her and opening my clarinet case.

  “Not bad,” she said. “I’ve made like two bucks so far.”

  “How long have you been here?”

  “An hour.”

  I wet my reed and attached it to the clarinet. Sara struck up a Klezmer song—“The Wedding Dance,” she said. It was incredibly fast and complicated. I had only studied clarinet up to sixth grade and I’d never taken any music theory, but I did my best to follow along, and three out of every four notes I chose sounded OK with hers.

  In the middle of the song a rushed yuppie man walked briskly past and threw a quarter toward the case, but it landed on the floor, about a foot away from the homeless guy. The guy’s eyes lit up when he saw it, and then he slowly extended his calf like a ballet dancer, until his toe was on top of the quarter, and pulled it back toward his body at the rate of about an inch a minute. Although he was pretending to be engrossed in the music, his motions were so deliberate that it seemed like he wanted to call attention to his thievery. When his foot was positioned back below his knee, he bent down in the same showy style, picked up the quarter, put it in his pocket, then continued to watch us for a few minutes before ambling slowly down the platform.

  Sara and I laughed and kept playing. We played for two hours—some more of her songs, plus “Amazing Grace,” “Hatikvah,” and Tom Waits’s “The Piano Has Been Drinking.” We decided to end our set with “Train’s Gonna Carry Me Home,” an old gospel tune she’d learned from Evan. I played the verses but sang along on the chorus. It was “I’m going home” repeated eight times, and although I knew it was about Jesus, I didn’t feel guilty for blaspheming. The melody was simple and sweet, and the more I sang, the more it comforted me. Our voices filled the passageway and Sara looked beautiful playing, and for the first time in a long time I didn’t feel lonely.

  When we finished the song, we counted our loot. Thirty-four dollars for three hours—seventeen dollars each. That was better than minimum wage. We were rich! We packed up our instruments and walked outside. There was a Häagen-Dazs across the street, and even though it was forty degrees outside, we decided to buy cones with our new money. We ate them in the window as we watched holiday shoppers go by, and then it started to snow.

  •

  The next night, Tuesday, was the City Week Christmas party. All the other columnists were going to be there and I wasn’t sure whether to dress like my cartoon. I opened the closet and began riffling through the clothes. The first outfit I tried was my blue-and-white striped polyester tee, with the butterfly collar, and the brown, ribbed mini, but that was too slutty. Then I tried the white, flowery Nick Fenster dress with red boots—but I decided it made me look fat. I even considered the nurse outfit for a second, but it seemed a little obvious. And then I spotted something lavender all the way to the right. It was a thin velvet gown I had gotten at a boutique in Providence. I slid it on. It was a little loose—I’d been in the high 130s when I bought it—but not so loose that my assets weren’t visible.

  The party was scheduled from seven to eleven, in the Week offices. I got there at eight so I would look fashionably late, but only about a dozen people were there, so I went into the bathroom and sat on the edge of the toilet to kill some time. When I carne out of the stall I found Corinne putting on lipstick in front of the mirror.

  “Hey, lover girl,” she said, kissing me on the cheek. “How are you?”

  I looked at the floor beneath the stalls to make sure we were alone. “I’m dumping you the week after next.”

  “Thank God. I was going to break up with you soon anyway. You were getting way too needy.”

  “Thanks.”

  “No problem.”

  “But will you do me a favor? Come around with me tonight, like we’re still seeing each other. For Jensen and Turner’s sake. Be my reverse beard.”

  “Your shave, you mean?” she said, grinning.

  “Exactly.” She took my arm and we ventured out into the office. She led me over to a pale-faced slender guy in his early thirties in a fedora.

  “Ariel, this is Dave Nadick,” she said. The suicidal! I’d expected him to look tough and haggard, but instead he seemed almost vulnerable. He had tight, smooth, pale skin and wide eyes. I shook his hand and he leaned forward, took my hand in two of his, and said, “Pleasure.” I couldn’t believe what a gent he was.

  Corinne pulled my arm and led me across to the bar, where a bespectacled man in a jacket and tie was chatting with a short guy with bleach-blond hair. “Len Hyman and Stu Pfeffer,” said Corinne. The suburban dad and the punk rocker. I shook their hands and introduced myself.

  “You don’t look anything like your cartoon,” said Hyman.

  “Neither do you,” I said. Hyman’s illustrator drew him like a nerd, but in life he wasn’t bad-looking. He was much younger than I expected and
he had a thick shock of hair and soft eyes.

  Stu Pfeffer gestured toward a tall, elegant woman standing next to him. “Ariel, this is my wife, Linda.”

  “You’re . . . married?”

  “I try to keep it low-key,” he said quietly. “It’s bad for my image.” I nodded understandingly.

  A girl my age with a Betty Page haircut and large pointy boobs came over and embraced Corinne. “This is Dana Spack,” said Corinne.

  “It’s nice to finally meet you in person,” said Dana. The fact checker. The easy comer. I wouldn’t mind it if this chick gave me a few orgasm tricks. But before I could ask, she waved at someone across the room and pulled Corinne over with her.

  I tried to beeline for the food table, but halfway there Jensen grabbed my arm and introduced me to a slim brunette by his side. “Ariel,” he said, “I’d like you to meet your illustrator, Tessa Tallner.” It was incredible. She was the real live version of the cartoon version of me—the cropped hair, the upper-lip mole, the slender bod, the small, perky tits. Suddenly I understood just who this chick had been drawing all along: herself.

  “I hope you like my drawings,” she said.

  How could I tell her they had almost sent my parents to early deaths? “I sure do,” I said. “You do a terrific job!” Then I scurried toward the food.

  Just as I was chowing down on a samosa, this tall brown-haired guy in his thirties sidled up next to me. “How is it?” he said.

  “Not bad,” I said.

  He reached for one. “What’s your name?”

  “Ariel Steiner.” He seemed to color slightly. “What’s yours?”

  “Fred Sadowsky.”

  It rang a distinct bell in my mind, but for the life of me I couldn’t place it. “That sounds really familiar,” I said. “Have you written something for the paper before?”

  “In a way,” he mumbled.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’ve written several letters to ‘The Mail.’ ”

  Now I knew who this guy was—the asshole who said I was a victim of bad parenting! “You wrote one about me!” I shouted. “It completely humiliated my father!”