by Jarett Kobek
—Did I ever say anything about Begotten? she asked.
—No, I said.
—One night we were all at Michael and Keoki’s place, and Michael put on this movie called Begotten. I hate horror films, but I was too high. I couldn’t leave. I said, Michael, please, can’t you put on I Love Lucy? He screamed and said it was his apartment. We were going to watch whatever he wanted. The film started and it’s in black and white, and shit, Baby, I didn’t understand none of it, but at the beginning it’s this monster sitting in a chair, cutting open its stomach. The sound, oh mija, the sound. The monster reaches into itself and pulls out its intestines. I heard a voice in the sound, and I thought it was the voice of God, the great old man, the big one, speaking through this fucked-up film. On the screen, I swear, was the Holy Ghost.
—What did he say?
—He said stop pretending. I am the unbroken heart and the forgotten anvil. She whosoever striketh against me shall forge unbendable steel. I’m on mushrooms, the whole room is sparkling, all these queens are screeching about Vivienne Westwood, and here’s God talking through this movie.
We arrived on 7th Street. It wasn’t even 3 am. Residual traces of ketamine and comedown cocaine. We climbed the stairs.
Adeline was in her room, door open, hunched over her desk, drawing. I waved. She waved back. Regina waved too. Adeline waved back.
Regina and I talked in the kitchen, not loudly, foraging the fridge. We decided that eating was impossible. Besides, it’d be much better at the Kiev, with all the other late-night freaks and vampires. A restaurant packed with people too high and too dissolute to do anything but inhale latkes, cheese blintzes, and challah.
We sat on my bed. Regina said that she’d been watching Gene Kelly movies on Channel 13. She loved the psychological undertones of the dance numbers, how each scene contained an accidental revelation of Kelly’s mental state. Plus, Cyd Charisse had the best legs that Regina’d ever seen, legs like the ideal of legs, legs that would be in heaven, legs that would inspire heroism and villainy.
The telephone rang.
I walked into the kitchen, where we kept the answering machine, and waited. Adeline came out of her bedroom and stood beside me. I thought it’d be Parker, calling to report on his conquest or his failure. I wondered why Adeline cared about Parker.
But Adeline didn’t know about Parker. She didn’t know about the book deal. It wasn’t like with Erik. It wasn’t shame. I wanted to wait. I wanted the drama, the finality, of putting the thing before her and saying, here. This is the measure of my life.
I’d fantasized about the look on her face. The joy when she understood. The self-esteem boost when she approved. It would be like I’d become the person she had always seen, the New York intellectual hidden within the doughy flesh of a scared Middle West farm boy. It was all for her. She was the reason that I even thought of writing. The reason that I dreamt of being anything other than what I had been. Without her, I would’ve died within six months. I would’ve tricked for heroin and wasted away with AIDS on the Christopher Street pier. She would always be my best friend. I remembered when she was my only friend.
The machine picked up and ran through the message. Then the beep.
—Adeline, slurred the speaker, it’s your mother. I’m thinking about selling the house. I saw a place out in Pacific Palisades last weekend that’s too perfect. Dahlia saw it, too, and she loves it. Charles couldn’t come, but I’m sure he’d love it. But Adeline, I wouldn’t dream of selling our house without your permission. I know how attached you are. Call me when you get the chance, Adeline, because I have to make an offer soon. A house like that won’t wait. Just let me know.
She hung up.
—Mother is a true and genuine lunatic, said Adeline.
The phone rang again. Suzanne loved leaving multiple messages.
—This message isn’t for Adeline, said the machine. Go into your room. This message is for Baby. Baby, I expect abuse from Adeline. She’s never had manners. I thought that you and I had a special arrangement. You knew how much Adeline’s graduation meant to me, and you know that she skipped it out of spite, and then you did the same thing. Don’t you know how much I wanted to go? Why else would I pay for your degree? Dahlia is useless. Adeline’s always been a bitch. She’s always hated me. I thought with you I could attend a ceremony. But I’m so foolish. Nothing ever happens how you want it. Nothing good ever happens.
The unsanded and paint-speckled floorboards. Couldn’t look at Adeline.
—Get out, Adeline said. Get out of this apartment. Take your drug addict with you. Come back tomorrow and get your things.
Her eyes spiraling, her flesh red. The mouth like a frown of daggers. I’d never seen her like this. Not even with Jon.
—Please, can we talk about it? I asked.
—Get the fuck out of my apartment.
Something scuffled behind me. Regina. Standing there, I don’t know how long.
—How could you not tell her? asked Regina.
—It appears that I’m the only one who wasn’t informed of Mother’s charity, said Adeline. Get out of this apartment, Regina. Get your shoes and go outside and wait for him. The way that I’m currently feeling, I simply can’t guarantee your safety.
Adeline never really understood New York’s indigenous peoples. She spent her life with emigrants from other locales. Regina was native. Regina was Queen Rex of Washington Heights. No matter Adeline’s infinite reserve of hurt and resentment, if she fucked with Regina, she’d end up with both arms in a sling.
—Please, I said to Regina. Do as she asks. I’ll be out. Please.
Regina got her shoes and her coat, stormed out of the kitchen, slamming the door, stomping down the stairs.
—I don’t want to leave, I said.
—You haven’t any choice, said Adeline. We are long beyond our expiration date. You’ve ruined everything.
—We’ve known each other so long, I said. You’re my best friend.
—You can’t repeat the past, she said.
—What do you mean you can’t repeat the past? Of course you can.
I packed several sets of clothes into my backpack, putting my unsold manuscripts at the bottom. I looked around my room. I always knew it would end like this.
Adeline hadn’t left the kitchen.
—I’ll call to set up a time, I said. I can’t carry everything.
—Fine, she said. Do it this week. After next Sunday, I’m changing the number.
—Does it have to be like this? I asked.
—You know that it must, she said.
Only when I was halfway down the stairs did I realize that I wasn’t only losing Adeline, but that I’d lost the Captain too. Adeline would never let me have him. I hadn’t even said good-bye.
Regina was waiting.
—I never liked that bitch, she said.
—I don’t want to talk about it.
—What now? she asked.
—I’m going to go around the corner. I’ve always wanted to spend a night in the Sunshine Hotel.
Regina knew the place, knew its reputation, knew that it was a disgusting fleabag SRO pit of scum. She wouldn’t let me stay. Refused, absolutely. I had money, she said, why didn’t I get a real hotel? I don’t deserve it, I said. I should suffer, should be punished. Because Adeline was right. That’s crazy, said Regina. She forced me to stay in her apartment. With her family.
We took the L to Eighth Avenue and the A local up to the top of the island. We emerged from beneath the Earth. It was 5 am. The unhappiest hour of New York life. The bleak period between night and day. There was no life on the street, only the dead silence of my first encounter with the Fort Washington Collegiate Church, a single-story building from the turn of the century. I tried to comprehend how it could be here, in Manhattan, how it looked so alone surrounded by all the apar
tment buildings, how it looked like someone’s house, how it looked like a modest house from California. I tried but couldn’t.
Like no one lived in the city. Like the apocalypse happened and only me and Regina had survived.
FEBRUARY 1993
Adeline Splits from the Big Shitty
Let us be clear. I did not flee New York City because of my former roommate. Our unspeakable schism wreaked its terrible havoc, but your old pal Adeline stood her ground, resolute and knee deep in her even-eyed imbecility. I should have fled, howling like a wounded animal. Yet I indulged the great vice of stubbornness and suffered out a long chain reaction that manifested through my menstrual cycle.
To wit, darlings, the arrival of my period. It was not merely a few days late, or even several weeks, but two solid months past its due date. Barring an actual and genuine miracle, pregnancy was beyond the realm of possibility. I’d practiced the deadly art of celibacy for almost the full annum.
When the scarlet tide washed in, I spotted for days, followed by a deeply uneven flow, as if a poltergeist haunted my insides, playing with the tap of a faucet. On and off, on and off, on and off.
Three weeks into this farce, when I presumed that the whole matter had come to its surcease, I simply overflowed, staining out every pair of underwear and most of my pants as I cried out for Jesus to make up my dying bed.
I missed my period when Bush fumbled away his presidency, and I did not cease bleeding until after Bubba Bill Clinton assumed office of the usurped king.
Around then, you see, I learned the unfortunate truth of the human body. One can spend years experiencing all manner of illness and horrible vagary and remain unprepared for how far the flesh will go. There’s no end to scars and scabs in this old world, dearies, and our organs do betray.
*
I’m surely conflating the months, but I could swear that my crimson odyssey ended on the very same day that I left the apartment and walked to Cooper Square, snowflakes falling around my bonny red hair.
Reaching the western corner of 7th Street, I encountered an exodus from the southerly lands, a great swell of people, many with noses ringed by dark ash.
“What in the blazes is this?” I asked a woman.
“Explosion,” she said. “Down at the World Trade Center. Everyone’s evacuated.”
February 26, 1993. For a few hours of naiveté, the world held out hope that perhaps the explosion wasn’t caused by a bomb, that perhaps it was a baroque mechanical failure.
Of such things are dreams made. Boom! Pause for a moment and consider, my sweethearts, that the 1990s was a decade in which Islamic-flavored terrorists attacked the World Trade Center and the United States of America waged war against Iraq. History always repeats.
I’d long mastered the indifferent sneer at life’s circumstance, curling my upper lip like a J.D. in a paddywagon on his way to the hoosegow, but over the next week, the bombing tugged on my soul, wormed its way deeeeeeeep into my consciousness.
Navigating city streets became a great difficulty. I jumped like a jackrabbit at the backfiring of cars, winced at shouts, a general nausea settled in my stomach, constantly expecting to fall victim to an unknown and unseen horror.
Then the dreams started.
Dreams of being trapped, of wandering through a blown-out basement, of being in office buildings filled with smoke, dreams of exploding cars, dreams of my skin shredded by metal fragments, dreams of fire, dreams of my body maimed and mutilated, huge holes blown into the flesh, limbless and flopping like a fish hooked out of water.
*
I had stayed in touch with Минерва. We spoke every few weeks through the fine art of telephony. She had suggested, ad infinitum, that I move to the Bay Area. “San Francisco is shitfest,” she said, “but different flavor turd. Come learn bitter disappointment of new city.”
Noodling it out, I struck upon the thought that there was no time like the present. The dreams, said I to meself, are a signal. New York is hitting you like a zonk on the head. All your old used-to-bes got their get up and went. It’s time, Adeline, for a change.
I subletted away my home of six years. The sublessee was an acquaintance of Luanna’s from somewhere in the great wilds beyond Manhattan. We never met. Luanna handled the details, taking her cut off the top.
Who cared? Let unknown parties trash the whole place. Let them burn the building. Any keepsake of value or meaning had been put into a dismal storage unit on Houston Street.
The Captain accompanied me, his carrying case tucked beneath my arm. For the third time in his short life, the feline hurtled at thirty thousand feet across American skies.
*
Jeremy Winterbloss had found his employ in Marin County, as a low-level functionary at LucasArts, an organization named with great modesty by its founder, George Lucas. The company’s purpose was the production of computer games.
Each morning, Jeremy traversed a semi-mythical journey across the Golden Gate Bridge and arrived at the Skywalker Ranch, a vast expanse of land purchased with Lucas’s endless Star Wars lucre. It was an education not only in his profession but also in the American potential for grotesque opulence.
For her part, Минерва floated through a litany of retail jobs. Her real focus was elsewhere.
She’d somehow encountered two dissolute young девушек, both escapees from the former CCCP. As all three members of this femme troika shared a mutual interest in punk aesthetics. They cohered into the nucleus of an almost all-girl band called Daddy Was in KGB.
The single masculine note in this estrogenized symphony came from the drummer, a 17-year-old high school student from San Rafael who’d contacted Минерва after she’d stapled advertisements to the city’s telephone poles. WANTED: DRUMMER FOR BAND.
Минерва mailed me the flyer for every gig played by her band. The names of the other groups always amused. Lilyvolt, Cheap Vegan Cafe, Storm and Her Dirty Mouth, Honeypot, Drunk People R Loud, Homo Holocaust, Coffee Scented Come Stain.
She herself had illustrated many of these flyers, working an intentional homage to the Family Dog and Neon Rose posters of Victor Moscoso. At Parsons, she’d never evidenced much interest in control of her line, so this move towards psychedelic baroque represented a visual direction that was brand sparkling new.
“What you expect?” she said into the telephone. “Every creature changes or dies.”
*
I landed at San Francisco International. Jeremy and Минерва stood by my gate, their wide bright smiles dispelling the ugly magick generated by the drab interiors of the American airport. All of that functional decoration, all of the white and gray paneling, the navy blue carpeting working like a slow poison on the human constitution.
“Jeremy! Минерва!” I cried.
“Adeline!” shouted they.
Our group embrace was horribly awkward. I banged my forehead against Winterbloss’s spectacles, and stabbed my skin on the metal studs of Минерва’s leather jacket.
I looked into their shining faces, into the radiant visages of people who were so clearly my friends. Much to my horror, my eyes began crying.
“What shit,” said Минерва. “Unnecessary displays exist beneath you.”
“I’m ever so sorry,” I said. “It’s been a hard year.”
We descended like Dante to the lower level and waited beside the baggage carousel, standing amongst the rubes and zanies who’d flown with yours truly across the Great Abyss. The majority of my fellow passengers looked to be from Northern California. I imaginated their luggage, stuffed with fleece jackets and plastic Statues of Liberty and white t-shirts boldly proclaiming love for New York City.
*
In the backseat of Jeremy’s 1986 white Toyota Camry, I simply delighted in their voices, attempting to decipher the hermetic shorthand of a long-term relationship.
“Donny’s a real carpetbagger,” said Jeremy.
“You meet Donny,” she said to me, “you meet the world.”
Whittle away enough of one’s life in California and one grows accustomed to empty highways where the only visible nighttime landmarks are bodies of water and distant mountains. U.S. Route 101 was a road that I knew all too well. It had bored me for most of my childhood.
The generic landscape dissolved into growing industrial distress and we trespassed into the city. An instant disorientation settled upon my starry brow, as if the Victorian houses conspired with the hills and the uncanny quiet of the streets. Every thing, and I do mean all things, looked sinister. Great swaths of fog rolling in from the west, caught by headlights, a spectral layer haunting the world. The dark and decayed city. I wondered, and not for the last time, what I had done to my poor self, and where I was. If nothing else, the human body was not meant to jolt twenty-five hundred miles en moins de six heures.
Their third-floor apartment was located within an ancient building on Steiner in the Lower Haight and had an irrefutably San Francisco floorplan. A street-level entrance with a ridiculous staircase that led to an irregular space, the primary feature of which was the cancerous sprouting of rooms along a long hallway.
Though Минерва and Jeremy had navigated the horrors of cohabitation and the maintenance of erotic desire in the suffocating context of love, they hadn’t displayed much competence in adapting to the needs of decoration and décor.
They lived beneath a worn tapestry of American pop detritus. I had no doubt about what belonged to whom. The punk metal inverted crucifixes and revolting caricatures of political figures went into one column. The full-size posters of Wolverine and Maniac Mansion in another.
One fixture to which I paid an especial attention was Jeremy’s state-of-the-art IBM PC Compatible 486DX-33mhz computer, replete with 1024 x 768 SVGA video and a SoundBlaster 16 Pro 2. I’d never encountered a home computer that was actually in a person’s home.
