I Live With You

by Carol Emshwiller

  Besides, love can go bad. Love can turn with the weather. I’ll not commit myself until I’m sure.

  (I have a picture in my purse of a man I never met. I cut it out of a magazine. Perhaps now’s the time to throw it out—before some other man sees it and thinks things. Though I hate to. What if no other man ever works out? At least I’ll have this one.)

  New Yorkers walk for miles. It’s the most walking city in the world, I’ll bet. Now four of us: a trench coat guy, a girl with upscale backpack, my man, me…. We’ve gone on for an hour as though we knew each other. From West 57th to East 15th. That’s the way it always is in New York. The girl and I have smiled at each other though none of the men have. The girl turns off on 14th but the rest of us keep going, down, down, downtown. It’s getting late and I’m hungry.

  I almost lose him as he turns on 4th, stops for a newspaper. I do, too. I look deep into his eyes. I put all my yearning in that one glance. You’d think he’d notice but he doesn’t. Or perhaps he’s afraid of commitment. I know his kind.

  He’s up the steps and in his building—not a very nice one—before I have a chance to trip him or drop my package. I had hoped he’d let me in. I could have said I was delivering my package. (I’ve bought new shoes. I was happy with them. That’s another reason I was feeling so full of love.)

  Where will I go from here? Walk all the way back up to Central Park?

  But a light goes on in a basement apartment right beside the front door. I hunker down and look in and there he is, taking off his jacket. What a room! He needs a wife, that’s for sure. Well now I know a bit about who he is. I’d feel claustrophobic in there.

  Two other black turtlenecks exactly like the one he’s wearing are on the bed. Silky black socks all over the place. Piles of books and papers sideways on the floor because of no bookcases. No plants. I could see to that, though there’s no place for them. If I cleaned it up, there might be room for a little stand by the window.

  There’s a pile of ropes in a corner on the floor. A funny pair of shoes on top. They’re kind of like ballet slippers but with more rubber. What’s the meaning of those?

  I keep squatting down, watching. He cooks himself a couple of eggs on his hot plate. Sits on his bed to eat. He doesn’t have a table. His bottle of wine is on the floor. He drinks straight out of the bottle.

  After eating, he takes off his turtleneck. I evaluate his chest. He’s got muscles and nice curly black hair in the middle.

  He flops on the bed, which is smaller than a twin bed. How could we make love on that? Besides, it’s sagging. Maybe we should do it on the floor instead.

  Then he realizes he hasn’t pulled his curtains. He gets up, comes and looks right at me. Stares. Jerks the curtains shut.

  I’ll go home and write some love poems.

  Next morning, early, I go down there first thing and squat by his window. The curtains are open and he’s gone.

  I go up to the cloisters. I imagine he might be there. I glance around every corner, hoping… yearning…. Then I walk through Central Park. I sit on a bench and wait but nobody like him comes along.

  I wander Lincoln Center for an hour. I go to the Museum of Modern Art. I eat lunch there. I sit with a notebook and pretend to write love poems. I don’t keep my nose in it. I look around. I stare into space a lot. If I was really writing a love poem that’s what I’d be doing, anyway, waiting for inspiration. I see several possibilities … almost good enough, but he doesn’t come.

  If I ever do see him again, will he recognize me as the one who looked in his window? He did stare at me—a long stare.

  I go up to the top of the Empire State Building. Same waiting. Same looking around the deck. There’s somebody there who’s almost right. Still, I like my man best.

  I stay up there a whole hour. Yearning out in every direction.

  Then I hear sirens. I look over the side and I see police cars and fire engines down below. Crowds gathering. And here’s a helicopter hovering right across from me. All of a sudden the roof is full of cops and firemen. Several look interesting. Lots of mustaches. Some sideburns.

  Even as I look over the side to see what’s up, I strike a pose, one knee cocked, toe pointed. Since I’m wearing running shoes, I know the effect won’t be exactly what I hope.

  My god, somebody is climbing the Empire State Building. He looks like a fly down there. There’s nothing to hold him up but his fingers. How can anybody do that?

  The cops are going to arrest him the minute he gets up here. They’re calm, guns and handcuffs ready.

  He’s going slowly. Well, fast for what he’s doing, I suppose. I’m holding my breath. I didn’t realize it until I started feeling woozy. I take long slow breaths, counting four beats to each. It looks like the cop standing next to me has to do the same.

  The man climbs closer. Black turtleneck, black pants. He looks up and it’s him. My man. We’re two of a kind. Him and his love of climbing and me with my just plain love or love of love. I’m all in black, too. It’s not only the New York color, it’s slimming and mysterious and sexy.

  How nice that there are two sexes. Everywhere one looks one finds one or the other, and especially how nice that there’s the other. Bulges one place or another. (In some languages even the chairs and tables have a sex.) The whole world as if for me. Like this policeman right beside me. I match my breathing with his so as to be sure not to forget that I have to breathe.

  Look at those black eyes as my man looks up. At me. Surely he knows I’m the one who walked from West 57th Street to East 4th Street with him. Surely he remembers closing his curtains when he saw me looking in.

  I’m so proud. Who else could do this besides my man? I feel even more love than I already did. I can’t wait till he gets up here.

  But can he climb over and around that net they have in place to keep people from jumping? Not from jumping, but from landing on the sidewalk. Of course he can.

  What should I do when he gets here? Should I try to keep the police from arresting him? Should I distract them?

  The roof is full of people now. A lot of newspeople, too. I’m glad I came up hours ago to wait and watch for him. I have the perfect spot. People try to push me aside, but I have a good grip on the railing.

  Here he comes. I knew it, the net is no problem for somebody like him.

  I start yelling and pretend to be about to jump over the edge to greet him. The policemen grab me. I wave my arms and slap at them. I want my man to see how I’m fighting for him.

  Now the cameras are turned on me instead of him. There’s much more action where I am than where he is. I put on a good show.

  They arrest him and haul him off. I wonder where? Perhaps he’ll be home on 4th Street after posting bail.

  As soon as he’s gone from the platform, I calm down—on purpose. I become completely reasonable. I don’t get arrested. I talk them out of it. I say that was my lover and I went a little bit crazy until he got safely up here. They understand. I go down the elevator with them. They’re almost all attractive. They glow with man sweat. Many need a shave. I’d kiss their cheeks if I dared. I think of their hairy bodies. New York’s finest. Is that what they say? They hardly notice me. They talk man talk… swearing in their deep, scratchy voices. I could fall in love with the voice alone. The deepest voice comes from a skinny little man hardly taller than I am. I’m thinking of changing my love over to him, but climbing a building is more romantic than a deep voice … unless he sings. I’ve always loved basses. How can he be a policeman and be so small? I suppose he knows karate or some such. And he has such thick glasses. I’ll stick to my climber. Though I’ve never heard him sing. I haven’t even heard him speak. Maybe he’ll love me if…. Well if a lot of things: I learn to cook, or learn to sing. Dance. I could get fatter, or maybe thinner. I might have the courage to climb buildings beside him, both of us in danger together. That might fuel our love.

  How be my best self in front of him? Or better than I really am? Show my giving si
de.

  I’ll use all the words. In succession. I’ll say, “Beloved.” “Knowing you… or rather having seen you, I’ve become aware of things I’ve never been aware of before. The air, the flowers, (after all it’s spring), the stars….” (Hard to see any stars in the city. Hardly ever notice the moon. But now I seek it out from behind the street lights. And it’s there.)

  Oh how I want to hurry through the preliminaries and be as if we’d known each other months. Forget the getting acquainted. Jump right into the middle. On the bed. In his case on the mattress on the floor, the bed not being suitable for two.

  Love should never go to waste no matter if a person is fat or thin or has a long nose or pigeon-toes.

  But it’s spring. A time to revel. Revel in tulips coming up in the little plots of dirt around the trees. Revel in my innocence. Because when have I ever made love before? It’s certainly been years. (Does one keep one’s innocence if one reads all about it? Sees it in the movies? That Japanese one, for instance, where she puts a chicken’s egg up herself and then lays it? Would that be something he’d like?)

  Spring, the perfect season for innocence. Crocuses especially. All I’ve known of sex is already forgotten.

  I get so excited I trot down to 4th Street to see if he’s home yet.

  He’s not, but I sneak in with an old lady who holds the door for me though she’s never seen me before. There’s a nice spot under the stairs. I hunker down with the snow shovel and the broom and mop. It’s been such a long exciting day I fall asleep right away.

  Well not quite. I think about him. Wonder what he does when he’s not climbing the Empire State Building? How does he make money? Cat burglar? Climb straight up brick walls? I won’t turn him in. I’ll stick by him no matter what.

  But isn’t he tempting fate by all this publicity? How will it help his cat burglar career to be in all the papers.

  And then I fall asleep.

  I miss him coming home. It’s six a.m. when I knock on his door. I keep knocking until I hear a growl. Then he says, Go away, without even knowing who it is.

  “It’s me.” I whisper it. “Me. Me.”

  Is now the time to say, I love you?

  “I’m the one at the top of the Empire State Building. I waited for you all day and you came.”

  Not the time to say I love you.

  (Even to love is embarrassing. How odd that it should be so.)

  But nothing ventured nothing gained.

  “I love you.”

  “Who are you?”

  How answer such a question? I’m ready to be anything he wants.

  “I am your hearts desire. If not that right now, I’m willing to learn.”

  “Go away. It’s six a.m.”

  “I’ll wait.”

  I sit down with my back against the door.

  I hear him getting up, taking a shower, listening to the news. It’s the very same station I always listen to.

  By now it’s eight o’clock.

  He unlocks three locks including the police lock (I can hear its clank), opens the door, sees me, and slams it shut again. I hear the police lock thump into place. Who does he think I am, anyway? I couldn’t even get in a normal lock.

  “Go away. I’m not coming out until you leave.”

  I could say I’ll leave and then not do it, but then he’d think I wasn’t a very nice person.

  “I’ll leave. I’m leaving right now. I’m doing exactly what you tell me to and I always will. Goodbye.”

  First thing, outside, I buy a newspaper, and there we both are! There’s one picture of him climbing up and another of me waving my arms and with my mouth open, yelling. I don’t look very attractive that way. I must make sure not to do that again.

  I stop at a cappuccino shop and read the article. People protested his arrest. They got together and raised his bail and the cops let him go. I don’t come off too well. They call me a hysterical woman, claiming to be… “claiming,” they said… his girlfriend.

  I walk back to my place, thinking, I love you, I love you, at every step. Thousands of steps and thousands of I love yous. I just love. I don’t care. It can be anybody. But even if I were to be in love with somebody else, I’m not going to let him get away with the way he’s been behaving. I won’t be ignored—as if I’m nobody. I may actually be nobody, but he shouldn’t rub it in. He shouldn’t just jump to that conclusion before he even knows who I am. Besides, after the newspaper article, I’m not nobody anymore. Though, actually, I don’t think anybody will recognize me from that picture with my mouth stretched out so far. They won’t know I’m somebody now—as of yesterday. I didn’t give them my right name and address. I was afraid to. So I’m still not somebody.

  At least I know his name—from the newspapers. He already was somebody. The Great Buzzoni. Not a cat burglar after all. A high wire artist. I don’t know how he makes his living doing that. Especially living here in New York. Though he does have a cheep apartment. Maybe he’s also a cat burglar.

  Next day I stake myself out near his apartment. With a purse full of diet bars. I wear a big hat. I hope men like women in big hats as much as I like men in them. Lots of front steps across from his place to sit on while I wait.

  Finally here he comes, a beret instead of a hat this time. A neat quick man. No wonder I followed him.

  I’ve figured out what to say. I say it. “Hello. It’s me. I saw you climbing.”

  He walks right by. In fact he walks even faster. I have a hard time keeping up.

  I shout after him, “I climb, too. I’d like to climb with you. Both of us climbing would be even more of a show. The Great Gabriella. And when I said, I love you, I meant I love the way you climb.”

  I wonder if I can do it. I’ve always been afraid of heights. I’ll have to find a brick building to try it on. I’ll practice in an alley so nobody will see.

  Now he’s slowing down. Now he turns around. He looks at me—really looks. “You can?”

  We walk to the corner for coffee. I can’t believe I’m walking beside the great Buzzoni and that I picked him out on the street, from millions of people. I forgive him for telling me to go away that morning.

  (For all his sharp Italian looks, his name is really George Mayer. I wonder what I should say my real name is.)

  We don’t talk about climbing. And I don’t dare ask how he makes his living. He doesn’t ask me either. I suppose for the same reason. We might both be cat burglars. If he’s one, all the more reason to think I’m one. We ask each other everything but that.

  (I’m glad I ordered the same things he did. It makes us more companionable.)

  We’re nature lovers, though here in New York there’s not much nature to love: Cockroaches, rats, and pigeons, but it’s Spring. Some sort of sparrows are chirping in the trees.

  We’re lovers of beauty, sunsets and sunrises, and here he is living in a basement. Out his window he can watch feet. I have a better view from my fifth floor walk up.

  What if he needs a helper? Dare I ask?

  I ask.

  He sits and thinks.

  “All right. I could use somebody.”

  I still don’t know what for.

  “Tuesday, two weeks from now. Midnight. 17th Street at Broadway.”

  Good, that gives me time to practice.

  He walks me partway home just for my company. He shakes my hand when he leaves and I feel his strong calloused fingers. Shaking mine does he know? He must.

  “I’m a little out of practice.”

  His are not lover’s hands. I wouldn’t want them on my body. How will we manage love without his hands?

  Luckily my own window looks out on a back alley so that’s where I try to get up to, but even if I lived on the second floor, I’d not make it. I get up about a foot and hang there until my fingers give out. With him by my side I’m sure I can do more, but not much.

  I practice all those two weeks, but I don’t get much better. Maybe a little stronger. Mostly I ruin my fingers. Once I
make it all the way up to five feet. Next day I lapse back to three. I fall a lot.

  I know myself. I may have acrophobia but I can steel myself against it. For his sake, anyway. When you feel your stomach turning upside down just look out at the horizon—if you can see any such thing from in the city.

  Down is harder.

  What if I get up several floors and get stuck there all alone?

  Finally I get far enough up to sneak into somebody’s second floor window. It’s the middle of the day. Everybody’s at work. Nobody sees me. I should steal something so I’ll be of a kind with him—in danger of being arrested. Our philosophy of life will be the same. I don’t know what to take. I look around. Lots of books and papers and not much else. I open all the drawers. No jewelry. None at all. Looks as if somebody has already stolen everything worth taking. Maybe he did it. What’s left for me to take? A book? A potted plant? That doesn’t seem like much.

  I lie down on the bed to think about it and fall asleep by mistake. When I wake up it’s getting dark. I’ve got to leave fast. I grab the clock beside the bed and run out the door. Just in time because people are coming in downstairs.

  I wish I’d taken clothes. I could use a new blouse. I already have a clock almost exactly like this one.

  I do feel a sense of accomplishment, though. And I feel closer to him now I know what it’s like to do as he does.

  I love, I love…. What a world, so full of beards and lips! So soft. In fact all sorts of soft things. Velvety things.

  I’ve been so busy practicing I haven’t gone down to his place at all, but then the time comes for our meeting.

  (I’m wearing black tights and black turtleneck top. Climbing clothes. I look slim and romantic.)

  The city at night! Like a Christmas tree no matter the season. And how nice to be walking beside him, matching his stride.

  But maybe he’s not a cat burglar after all. Turns out he needs someone to help find a spot between two skyscrapers where he can set up a tightrope—in the middle of the night so nobody will know. He needs somebody to help set it up. He wants to use the flatiron building if possible. It’s always windy around there so it’ll be dangerous but he likes that all the better.