I Hate All of You on This L Train

by Richard Grayson

  As Barbie sees Skipper to the door, gives her a hug, in her office there’s a fax coming in from her lawyer.

  11. Litigious Barbie

  She didn’t really mind coming out as the leading plaintiff in the class action suit. Most of the publicity was favorable, although somebody in Dow Corning’s high command tried to accuse her of constantly suing people back in the old days. It just wasn’t true.

  Yes, there was the problem with those Taiwanese knockoffs, but it was just that – and that messy business with Babette. It was so unpleasant, really, but they told her that even if Mattel couldn’t meet the demand for Barbie, they weren’t going to let Babette take away any business.

  The worst part was when they put Babette on the witness stand and she completely went to pieces under the harsh cross-examination by Mattel’s lawyer. “Who’d confuse us?!” Babette finally screamed, startling the courtroom by removing her sweater and bra, and pointing to her pathetic little chest, kept saying over and over, “Who’d confuse us?”

  Coming out of the courthouse, the press photographers’ cameras were aimed not at Barbie’s face but at her bustline.

  Barbie won the lawsuit, of course, and Babette slipped into obscurity. Now Barbie wishes she had handled Babette differently.

  Thinking of her life as a stewardess, registered nurse, skin driver, fashion editor and astronaut, Barbie knows she should have handled a lot of things differently. Especially Ken.

  12. Twelve Step Barbie

  Ironically, it was the suit about the silicone implants that reunited her with Ken. He was Kendra now, a fellow plaintiff. Skipper had met her (him?) at a new support group meeting that Barbie couldn’t get to.

  Kendra told Skipper that despite the arthritis and the deformity and all the other autoimmune problems, she was happier now than when he was a man without a penis.

  After he disappeared from Barbie’s life so suddenly, he became Gender Reassignment Ken and finally Kendra with the same artificial breasts that gave Barbie and Skipper and others all those problems.

  Barbie and Kendra had brunch at the Boulangerie in Santa Monica, where real birds, none with reversible two-color wings, flew inside freely. After an initial awkwardness, they rediscovered what they liked about each other, what they had missed the first time.

  Diary of a Brooklyn Cyclones Hot Dog

  August 22

  Wonderful news! Mr. Cohen came down to the ticket office this morning and said that I can be the new Relish for the rest of the season! Since Eduardo quit because his girlfriend is pregnant, I’ve been pestering everyone connected with the team – Party Marty, Sandy the Seagull, the infielders, even Mr. Cohen himself – with my dream that I should be the next Relish. And now it’s come true! I start in two days, when we play the Vermont Expos. I ran all the way from the Kings Highway station to get myself in training.

  Grandmother was dismissive, as I expected. “What is it with this baseball?” she yells. “Is this what we came to this country for? Better you should be in school to be an eye doctor like Violeta! Baseball is not something a girl should make of her life!”

  Sometimes I want to tell her that Violeta is spending most of her time with that Haitian artist in Williamsburg, but I know I cannot squeal on my sister. Besides, I think it is true love with Violeta and Fesner. I can only wish for that for myself, but I cannot think about that tonight: I have my first love, baseball!

  August 23

  The hot dog suit is very uncomfortable. And Eduardo left it a little sweaty. Also, the size is not quite right for me. I ask Mustard and Ketchup how they can stand it, and they say I will get used to it. Sandy the Seagull heard us talking, and he said, “You guys should be inside this and you’ll know what uncomfortable is!”

  But Sandy is the one true mascot, the star here. Even when the fans do not know the names of the shortstop or even the pitcher, they know Sandy with his cheerful beak, his generous outspread wings, his Cyclones jersey – just like the players wear! – and his Cyclone leggings and his Cyclones hat. The hot dogs are cute-looking, but we are not one of a kind. You can’t find a Sandy the Seagull on the menu at Nathan’s.

  I know it is a privilege to be on the field at KeySpan Park. I was happy to be selling tickets and sometimes being an usher, but now I get to be running around on the field every night! The girls I play softball with at Marine Park are so jealous!

  The only better thing that can happen to me is impossible: for me to be the shortstop like Webster from Arkansas is. This is still my happiest moment since we left Kiev.

  August 24

  I cannot believe it was me out there tonight. In the middle of the fifth inning, as usual, the Hot Dog Race began. But tonight I was one of the three hot dogs, my cape of relish green blowing in the breezes. Green is now my favorite color. So much nicer, I think, than Ketchup’s red or Mustard’s yellow capes.

  We start off at home plate as Party Marty gives us the signal and we run like the wind to the outfield. I was out of breath by the time I got there – I really need to stop smoking so much – but of course I am Relish and I’m supposed to come in last.

  Mustard won tonight. But attention was thrown away from us because Sandy the Seagull slipped while he was dancing in the dugout. He was all right. Later, when I asked what happened, Mike (who is Sandy the Seagull) said, “Oh, I didn’t see where I was going and fell on my good friend, Con Crete.” Corey Ragsdale heard him and laughed but I didn’t think it was too funny. It’s good for Corey to laugh, him with his .188 batting average, especially since he made a fielding error which cost us the game against Vermont.

  Violeta says I should look to see if we can get worker’s comp if I have an accident. What a timid one!

  August 25

  Today we got revenge and beat Vermont good. Duane pitched a four-hitter. I am getting better at running, but of course I had to finish last again. They say I need to come up with better ways to lose the Hot Dog Race, the way Eduardo did when he was Relish. James (Mustard) and Vinny (Ketchup) said I will begin to think of things to do.

  August 27

  We were playing the Staten Island Yankees today, and before the game I was talking with their mascot Scooter the Holy Cow, who is also a girl. She is quite pretty without her cow head. I wonder if she likes girls, too. She said she used to play softball but now doesn’t have time.

  I finished far behind today, but I got distracted by a young Muslim woman in a head scarf who yelled at me to come over and sign an autograph. My first time! Mr. Cohen later told me that is the kind of thing I need to do to keep losing the Hot Dog Race.

  After the game (we lost, 5-4, very sad), they asked us hot dogs to pose with Scooter and Sandy and Pee Wee. Pee Wee is a smaller Seagull than Sandy, a kid who just hatched near the roller coaster and was found by Sandy before the season begun.

  August 28

  Fesner and Violeta took the subway to Coney Island today, just to watch me. Fesner says the Cyclones are like way down in the minor leagues, below the Triple-A and the Double-A and the This-A and That-A. He has a Dominican friend who told him that, since he doesn’t know baseball. I tell him the guys on our team are good, some of them will be on the Mets someday and when that happens, I will turn on the TV and show him and laugh.

  Unfortunately, Brian forgot to cover home plate tonight – something a pitcher should never do – and we lost again. The fans booed him and yelled bad words. This happened in the fourth inning, so everyone was in a bad mood by the time of the Hot Dog Race.

  It is getting to be a little routine for me. I am more fit (I am down to six cigarettes a day!) but tonight I again was the losing condiment.

  “Dead last!” an African American man yelled at me. “You’ve got to run your buns off next time!” People laughed, and I shrugged my shoulders – you have to exaggerate it under the costume – and people laughed some more.

  On the Q train after the game, Violeta says I should consider becoming an actress, and Fesner says I could be in a Chekhov play. Because I
am Russian? I say, and he says, No, because you already have experience with The Seagull. Ha ha.

  August 30

  I realize that we have only a few home games left. I don’t understand why it is such a short season. Mr. Cohen says that we are not the major leagues, but we are part of the Mets. Today Ed Charles and Art Shamsky from the 1969 team that won the World Series came to KeySpan Park. They posed for a picture with Sandy the Seagull and waved. I wanted to ask them questions, but they didn’t have time. Also, it is hard for people to understand me because the hot dog costume muffles my voice. I think Shamsky is Jewish, too.

  Last again in the race. Today I got distracted by Claudia Cardinal, the New Jersey Cardinals mascot, who wanted to shake my hand. She is a sweet bird in the costume, but I found it is actually a man with a little beard underneath.

  September 1

  Today the softball girls from Marine Park came to the game. We beat the Oneonta Tigers, 13-3. What a game! And I came in second in the Hot Dog Race. Mustard had some bad clams at Umberto’s in Sheepshead Bay and vomited in his costume as he was running.

  September 2

  I would have won tonight had I not pulled a hamstring just as I was about to reach where Lester, the right fielder, was standing. He was very nice to me. It is hard on the players because they do not see many girls, so I think he liked helping me off the field. They take them back and forth to their dormitory near Brooklyn Poly Tech downtown and are very strict about late hours.

  I do not tell Lester I am from the girls who like softball because I feel sorry for him. Before his slump, people talked about him being sent up to Binghamton, but no more.

  At home Grandmother berated me when she saw me putting a bag of frozen peas on my hamstring. How can she understand what baseball means?

  September 5

  The reporter for the Canarsie Courier asked Mr. Cohen why Relish always loses the race. “He trains as much as Mustard or Ketchup,” Mr. Cohen said, “but things just don’t work out for the kid. But I do believe he lives up to his name, in terms of relishing life.”

  Tonight it was that I just couldn’t handle the heat. It was over 90 degrees. Scooter the Holy Cow from Staten Island seemed really concerned, not sure if I was acting.

  September 6

  I broke poorly from the gate this afternoon, but Ketchup tripped Mustard and they got mad at each other and all of a sudden it looked like I would win. I was maybe ten strides from the outfield wall when Party Marty stopped his cha cha dance and came over and tackled me!

  When I came back from Coney Island Hospital – all I had were bruised ribs – even the Batavia Muckdogs players said they were shocked.

  Tomorrow is the last game, and Ketchup and Mustard are tied, with seventeen wins each. Relish is winless.

  September 7

  Sandy the Seagull said this morning that Mr. Cohen is very mad about what Party Marty did to me and thought about suspending him, but today was the last game and he didn’t have the heart.

  And I felt well – better than well – for tonight my legs were with me. I caught Mustard and Ketchup at the wire. I think they were told to hold back because a man in a tuxedo came out and said, “I present this once-sluggish sausage with this bouquet of flowers!” As Sandy led the crowd in cheering, I ran around the bases in a victory lap.

  Baseball is a wonderful life. I got Scooter’s phone number and a Cyclones cap for Grandmother and we beat Staten Island, 3-2.

  Schmuck Brothers of East Harlem

  So we’re just walking past Murray’s Sturgeon Shop when my new friend Shira Finkelstein asks me if I’d let her photograph me kissing her boyfriend.

  “No way,” I say. “I’ve got my own boyfriend, thanks.”

  I take my wallet out of my jeans, and behind my Washington Mutual debit card I dig out a pic of Adam and me in front of the Golden Gate Bridge. “And you can see how fine he is,” I tell her.

  She looks and nods. “Um. He’s okay.”

  “More than okay,” I tell her as I stuff my wallet back into my pocket and pick up the pace on Broadway.

  “He looks like Will Smith,” Shira Finkelstein says.

  “So? Will Smith’s cute,” I say.

  “But he’s, like, old,” she says.

  I ask Shira Finkelstein how old her boyfriend is.

  “Seventeen,” she says as we turn left at 95th Street and go past the Leonard Nimoy Thalia Theater.

  “What?” I say. “You’re robbing the cradle. You’re, like, how much older than him?”

  Shira Finkelstein sighs. She likes younger guys, she tells me, and then she goes into this whole spiel about Adonises and shit like that.

  Then, just as we get to the door of her building on West End Avenue, she says, “I just have this thing about watching two guys kiss. You wouldn’t have to even take your clothes off for the photo. Although if you wore something sleeveless, I could get your tattoo in.”

  I keep shaking my head. “I have no interest in chicken,” I tell her.

  “I want this,” she tells me. “You haven’t known me that long, but by now you must know I’m used to getting what I want.”

  I just can’t get why she wants it.

  “Um, I need it. Kind of an aphrodisiac, you know? Boys understand that, don’t they?”

  “Man,” I tell Shira Finkelstein, “you’re awfully kinky for a frum chick.”

  “I’m not that frum,” she protests.

  We’ve just walked up from 85th Street, where we had dinner at the Kashbah Kosher Café, above whose doorway is a big picture of Rabbi Schneerson hunched over the Torah, one hand upraised. Under the picture it says in big letters WELCOME MOSHIACH.

  The Kasbah Kosher Café’s logo is a bull and on their awning is this quote: “Bulls will then be offered.” And under it: “Psalms 5:21.”

  Of course immediately after dinner, we did go across the street to Victoria’s Secret, where Shira Finkelstein asked me to approve her two purchases.

  I met Shira Finkelstein at a photography class at Cooper Union. She came right after me in the class roster, Finkelstein following Finch. The teacher made us partners on a first night assignment and we hit it off.

  I haven’t told her, and don’t plan to, that my family name used to be the same as hers till my grandfather read To Kill a Mockingbird. She’d just try to figure out if we’re cousins or something.

  At first I thought she thought I might be boyfriend material. I don’t know why but I guess that thought flattered me, so I figured I’d let it play out for a while.

  But the first time we saw each other outside of class, we were walking on 86th Street near Lex when I got a sudden craving for Tasti D-Lite.

  She didn’t want any – maybe because it’s not kosher – and after I’d finished it and thrown away my empty cup and the napkin and plastic spoon, she looked straight at me.

  “Do you realize that anyone watching you eat even a single bite of that ice cream would know in half a second that you’re gay?” Shira Finkelstein said.

  I might have blushed. “It’s not really ice cream,” I told her.

  Adam doesn’t want to hear about Shira Finkelstein and her desires.

  He works on Wall Street, in an extremely important position, so he’s very tense.

  Before he came out, when he was in his early twenties, Adam actually was married to a Jewish woman he met in college. And he converted and everything, to please her family even though he kept imagining her grandparents would never be able to look at him and not think schvartze.

  That was a long, long time ago, but Adam never bothered to convert back. So technically he’s still Jewish. To me, he’s like the God of the Old Testament, always laying down rules. And since I live in his condo, I basically go along with him. Sometimes it’s hard, because he always comes home from work really stressed.

  “This girl sounds like a fucking nutjob,” Adam tells me before he turns out the lamp on his side of the bed. “I really would stay away from her if I were you.”


  Although the room is now dark, I need to get out of bed because my Estée Lauder Stress Relief Eye Mask is still on. I’ve told Adam that the aloe and cucumber in it would do him a world of good, but he won’t listen.

  So for a week I ignore Shira Finkelstein when I see her number on my cell phone. She keeps calling, and I do like her, and finally she starts texting me. But I feel she’s presuming on our budding friendship so I decide not to answer her about the photo with her boyfriend till I get this message: