That’s the most vivid dream. But I’ve had a repeating dream where we’re chasing each other in the city: this city, but not this city. We’re running through buildings and over rooftops and in the train tunnels. We find doors in the tunnels and in stations, doors nobody knows or remembers even exist. Doors that lead to blocked staircases, or stairs that go up into hotels. We’re running to each other, looking for each other, but we’re also running away from each other. We want to find each other, but we don’t want to be found.
It’s a paradox. And paradoxes are hard to live with.
There’s a paradox this reminds me of. An ancient Greek came up with it. If we say, Let’s walk halfway to each other, and then halfway, and then halfway, we will never meet because we’re forever going only halfway. But we know we can get to each other. It can kind of make you crazy.
In my dreamworld, we are always exactly as far from each other as we are close. It’s almost a nightmare. The perfect nightmare. I always start out laughing with the chase and end up crying. I want to find you and I want to be found, but it seems impossible.
You, Beloved, who are all
the gardens I have ever gazed at,
longing. An open window
in a country house—, and you almost
stepped out, pensive, to meet me. Streets
that I chanced upon,—
you had just walked down them and vanished.
And sometimes, in a shop, the mirrors
were still dizzy with your presence and,
startled, gave back
my too-sudden image. Who knows? perhaps
the same
bird echoed through both of us
yesterday, separate, in the evening . . .
That’s Rilke. It’s another part of a poem, “You who never arrived.”
Maybe one day I’ll have that dream, nightmare, and we’ll bump into each other. We’ll back into each other in a hotel lobby. Or we’ll come around a corner and crash. Or we’ll cross the subway tracks between platforms, past the third rails, and meet in the middle and hold on to each other tight enough to become one person, as two trains whizz by us, so close, in opposite directions. Our hair and clothes whipping up, nearly torn from us in the wind.
Dreaming.
I want to lie down with you and stare at the sky. I don’t care if anyone watches us. Don’t you ever want to lie down right where you’re standing—?
A dog trotted out of an alley, or from a shadow, or from behind a Dumpster. I don’t really know. Maybe she stepped out of a seam in the air. A mangy, hungry dog, skinny and fat and her head low.
“Hello,” Nest said. Then:
You’re a pregnant girl. Dirty, but I like your white socks and different-color eyes.
Nest crouched down with her hand out, but the stray didn’t even bother to sniff. She knew Nest had a good heart and crawled under her hand and collapsed between her knees.
Sweet, hungry girl.
Q?
I’m terrified of dogs. I had a dream when I was a young boy, or maybe it happened: a German shepherd barking and barking and barking at me while I sat at the top of a playground slide. I couldn’t slide down: I would go straight into the dog’s mouth. I couldn’t take the ladder: the dog would run around and jump and pull me down and eat me alive. I cried, I wailed at the top of the slide. My memory ends right there.
Wait—. Are you afraid of dogs? That will have to change.
Come here.
I could see the dog was starving for love and food.
Put your hand on her, Q. You can feel the puppies.
I couldn’t touch Nest, but I could touch the forlorn dog and be a little closer.
The stray whimpered a little and panted. This had to be pleasure.
Can you imagine her life? She’s hungry. She’s in terrible shape.
You see the fleas? She’s covered.
I remembered once giving a six-inch Yorkshire terrier on a leash about ten feet of room. I walked way out into the street to make sure I wouldn’t get bitten. But there I was with Nest, fearless, kneeling at the head of a wild and filthy dog, a crushed and masterless dog. My hand might have been an acre from Nest’s. Even so, something made me think I was comforting her through the stray.
Are you crying? Q—? I can’t tell.
I don’t know if I was crying. Maybe. So what?
This mama dog lives about as low to the ground as possible, lower than a worm. She’ll be dead soon. I can’t imagine she’ll live through winter. And all her puppies will die.
Yes, so I cried. I had to ask myself, And you, Nest, will you live through winter? Will you live a long life?
The dog followed us.
She walked and jogged behind. She stopped when we stopped. She kept close to the walls of the long warehouses. Those blocks after the bridge take forever to walk. You feel as if you’re crossing an endless plain. And the dog followed.
Nest hardly said a word the whole time. A note about the abandoned warehouses and the riverfront and the old weedy train tracks that ran along the cliffs, but I don’t remember. Nest seemed defeated by the dog’s sadness. Finally, she turned to the dog.
And the dog came close.
Nest sat down on the concrete and smoothed the stray’s belly and rubbed her ears. She might have been talking with the dog, but I didn’t hear any of it. The traffic, a couple people walking by, but nothing of the conversation right in front of me.
Nest and the dog, communing.
I can’t say that stray cured me of my fear. But it’s true I decided I wanted someday to have a puppy of my own, a little life that grows into a big life. I wanted that dog to be named Helen.
What explains a dog’s knowledge?
Nest stood up and turned to me. She shrugged. “Let’s walk.”
The dog didn’t even hesitate. She walked off in the other direction without another word. Her belly of unborn puppies swung heavy under her bony back.
The knobs of her hips.
I made my peace with her. She’s probably the tenth dog I’ve met on these walks. The first was with my father. A stray he had seen on his walks as the Minotaur. That mutt had long blue dreadlocks.
I’m serious. The dog was blue. So whatever mix makes blue hair—.
I don’t know.
He came to us, the dog, head high and smiling, at the start of an alley. My father reached down, and the dog licked his hand.
“He’s not afraid of me,” my father said. “Someone, somewhere, takes care of him, I think. He’s fed, but he’s always outside.”
“Does he have a name?” I said.
“I don’t know.” My father smoothed the dog’s ears, and I scratched the dog’s back.
“Let’s name him,” I said.
“You can,” my dad said. “I’m sure he won’t mind.”
It took me less than a second to come up with a name. “Matthew.”
“Matt or Matthew?”
“Matthew,” I said.
Matthew sneezed and shook his head.
“Quite suitable,” my father said. “A couple times I’ve found him, Matthew, lying not too far away from me when I finally—. I wake up from my Angers, and he’s there. It’s strange. I calm down, and I realize where I am, and he’s wagging.”
The dog trotted away suddenly, like he’d heard his true name past our hearing. He disappeared into the alley.
“I’m glad Matthew keeps you company,” I said. I was ten, I guess. Or nine. Or eleven. “Maybe he protects you.”
“Maybe.” My dad held my hand, and we walked.
“Maybe he feels bad for you.”
“Undoubtedly.” My father laughed. “What does it say about a man when a dog pities him? He was even smiling just then as if he’d never seen me look better.”
We me
t Matthew in the morning, but my father took me out mostly after dark, when I couldn’t sleep. Only one time that I can remember right now did someone get upset with him enough to say something.
“What kind of father are you, keeping a kid up at night? Late as this.”
But how many times did people think it? A man and a young girl, all times of night, walking the streets. My father and I could walk pretty far, and sometimes we ended up in some sketchy neighborhoods. Not the worst. Only bad enough.
“Hey, buddy, why isn’t your kid at home in bed?”
“Insomnia, Officer. Nightmares.”
“Hers or yours?”
“Hers.”
“And so you thought you’d comfort her by taking in the sights and sounds of this part of our great city?”
“We were walking. I didn’t even really think about it. I want her to know the world, and I don’t want her to fear it.”
“Uh-huh. A little fear’s not a bad thing, bud. Some places shouldn’t be, I guess, frequented.”
“No, sir. You’re right.”
“Uh-huh.” Then, turning to me: “You sleepy, hon?”
I nodded. I wasn’t thinking.
The cop looked sideways at my father.
“No,” I said. I looked at the cop, then my dad. “No. I’m not tired. Really. We’re just walking.”
The officer frowned all the way down his uniform at me.
“Uh-huh. If you don’t mind, I think I’ll take you two home.”
This never happened. But it could have. Maybe it even should have. My father would take me to the bathroom in bars, nightclubs, all-night joints. He’d get me a glass of water or pretzels or nuts. I’m not saying it’s right. He doubted himself, for sure. He’d say, “Don’t tell Mom where we go. It’ll just upset her.”
Then why?
My father didn’t take me to the dead zones—to the Hill or to St. William or the Fort or. The neighborhoods where people starve and suffer and die. I think my father wanted me to see the places not even half as bad as all that where I couldn’t ever go safely on my own after dark. You know where I mean. You could walk there, maybe. You’re big and male; I’m little and female. You might never know what it’s like to be afraid to walk down certain streets. Depends on where you travel, I guess.
You’re safe almost everywhere, Q. Tall, strong, and white.
Leave it at that.
What if I told you you’d have to wait years to kiss me? Would you wait?
If I said, Isaac, we’re not allowed to see each other for five years. I’m going to travel around the world, here and there, north and south and east and west. Pray and garden at monasteries; work, dance, race camels; walk from Marrakesh to Cairo, and ride a bicycle from Tikal to Cuzco; take a river barge on the Mekong; sleep in a cave hotel in Cappadocia; and climb Kilimanjaro, Fuji, and Pike’s Peak. Would you wait?
Of course you would. Waiting doesn’t mean you have to stop living. You can go about your business. Waiting means you have to live knowing the best has yet to come.
Waiting builds character.
And I might just make you wait.
Or not.
My mother waited for my father. Mostly. She talks Between about a guy named Cabot. I don’t know if that’s his first name or his last.
I don’t mean the cowboy. My mother, wide-awake, told me about the cowboy when I asked her.
“Popp and Dye—.” My grandparents: don’t ask. “Popp and Dye always enjoyed a good church hoedown, a roaring square dance.” Why are you laughing? My mother said, “Popp and Dye would take their kids, not the whole lot, but by twos. That cowboy was a friend of a friend of a friend. He seemed huge to me, out of a tall tale. Like Pecos Bill, who roped the wind.”
What movie was it where some goofy guy tells his girlfriend, “You want the moon? Just say the word, and I’ll throw a lasso around it and pull it down”?
No, Cabot was someone else, not a cowboy. I don’t know much, except—.
I think he kept in touch with Martha after she married, even after she had me. Vladimir wouldn’t let it get to him usually. But the Angers, the Minotaur: Cabot would come up, and the Minotaur would threaten to hunt him down.
Cabot’s a simple enough story. A man who wanted a woman and suggested she might want to think about it. Think about it and think about it and think about it. He never really understood No. Although, it never occurred to me until this second how Cabot might have waited for my mother. Maybe he never married. Maybe love never left him.
Possible?
Anyway, he had pitched a tent in some part of my mother’s heart. I don’t mean Martha held him in reserve, just in case, or even gave him much thought, though I don’t know. Cabot showed up Between, which means he was a truth of some kind. I wonder how many people keep someone tucked inside their imagination: the what-if, the maybe-now.
Would I do that to you? Would you do that to me? You’ve had girlfriends, Q. Maybe I’m the one you’ve held in reserve while kissing someone else.
All the waiting.
Or could one of those girls be here with us right now? Will one of them be living inside you ten or twenty years from this moment? How about when I lose my mind for good? Or when my Chimaera makes you run for cover? My Chimaera is more a warning than a punishment, but.
This is poisontalk. I can feel the Angers bubbling, right? I can feel my Chimaera waking her goat and serpent.
I have to breathe—.
My father went through this, the sneaky Angers.
Cabot: a man who lost—. Still.
At this moment, Nest first showed a sign of cracking. I wanted to say something, I wanted to ease her mind, but I thought my voice might upset her even more. I learned helplessness. I learned love doesn’t always penetrate distress. And I learned Nest could turn and fold on herself—like an oxbow in a river—from one minute to the next.
It’s impossible to feel secure when you have a Minotaur inside of you, or a three-faced Chimaera. It’s impossible to feel secure when you have Angers. It’s impossible not to feel weak and unlovable and ugly when your mind rattles. You wait and wait for total madness or rejection. Both inevitable.
You, darling, will never know what this feels like. You won’t really have to fear where you walk, and you won’t really have to fear your mind or fear becoming—.
I wouldn’t wish any of it on an enemy.
MILE SEVEN
Keep your eyes open. We have to find something for you to carry home. A memento, but also a promise. For a second, I thought we should pick up that sink we just passed, but that seems unfair. Too heavy, even for you. I figured maybe the old faucets, separate hot and cold, maybe we could take them off, and you could carry them—.
What do you think? Faucets?
— . . . —
No?
All right, but we’ll find something. I’m kind of hoping it’ll be a stuffed owl. I don’t know. Some kind of taxidermy. A fox, its snarl frozen for eternity.
—!—
This surprises you? How about a framed butterfly? Would that make you happy?
Or a bowling pin?
We have arrived. And we must go in.
This is my favorite hotel, the Miranda. It’s not big, and it’s kind of worn-out, but.
I think a Chinese investor bought it, which means it’ll never be the same once it goes through renovations. I think it’s one of the last residence hotels in the city. Someone we know—Achilles? No, Sean—has a great-grandmother who’s lived here fifty-seven years. She’s ninety-two, a widow, and she won’t budge. Over all the years, that lady grew roots right down through the bedrock underground. The hotel’s waiting for her to die.
I love this lounge. The woodwork, the panels, the art. I have this plan that when I’m old enough to drink, I’m going to visit every hotel lounge in the city, a tour of
high and low culture. I’ll start here, in one of the leather armchairs, drinking a Sloe Miranda, a drink invented by a bartender in 1963. Sloe gin, pepper, milk—.
I might be making that up. But it’s a concoction of something strange. Maybe bat guano.
Whatever.
We’re taking the stairs, big boy. This way—.
Be a gentleman and hold the door for me.
And up we go.
There are, I discovered, 228 hotels in this city. This doesn’t count every place where you can stay, which might number into the thousands. Just hotels. Of the 228, 227 have an active lounge that serves booze. In 1909, a financier named Hogarth built the Hyacinth, named after his second wife. Hogarth, a Baptist, never drank, and the hotel still refuses to sell alcohol, though it does have one of the best juice bars in the world apparently. No martinis, but you can get cold-pressed almond milk all day long for about nine hundred pennies a glass.
Okay, what was I thinking? Just a couple more flights. The eighth floor.
For some reason, I thought taking the stairs would be good for us, wake us up a little. We’ll take the elevator down.
First, I want to show you a door.
In May 1957, a man named Grayfield Justice took a room, number 802. He said he’d stay for a week, but a week turned into a month, and a month turned into two, and two into twelve. By October 1958, almost a year and a half after Justice took over the room, the hotel wondered what in fact was going on with 802. Mr. Justice had never been late with payment, but he also had never been seen coming or going. His bill, paid by cash, first daily, then monthly, simply appeared in an envelope under a potted lily kept fresh at the front desk. Visitors were never reported—Justice himself was invisible—but the money showed up. Justice never ordered room service, never asked for his laundry to be done, never called for housekeeping, and never called reception.
Finally, on October 7, 1958, the Miranda’s day manager, a man named Firth, announced himself at 802. No answer.
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