by Rachel Hulin
Guess who slept through this whole thing?
I don’t think Amit should keep sleeping over without a shirt on the couch, it gives me thoughts.
PS The next morning Amit picked up the pot and the mouse was GONE, all that was left was a bunch of hair on the trap and some mouse poo.
PPS Do you think it died?
PPPS Atomic Wings, really?
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Matilda,
Free-range wings, Matilda, relax. Just because I live in the country doesn’t mean I like antibiotics in my meat.
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Harry,
Really? Because that place was the WORST in high school. So odd, everything is changing without me! I thought that whole town would just be frozen in time from the moment I left.
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Hey Matilda,
You know what else is odd? Mailmen. For forty-seven cents they will still pick up your letters and bring them to people. Anywhere in the country.
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Harry,
Yes!! The whole concept of the postal service is INSANE! Sending a missive for less than a dollar!! A deal if you have a forever stamp! It’s actually miraculous. Remember our mailman in high school?
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Matilda,
I do. We’d watch him from the turret when he picked up our letters. They were always addressed back to us, but he’d have to post them anyway. He was a good man, diligent.
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Harry,
He could have just ignored us, defiled our letters, stuck felonious poo in our box. Anything.
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Matilda,
He thought we were quite irksome.
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Harry,
I left him Jolly Ranchers at the holidays to thank him for his kind service. He probably threw them away, which is a shame because they were watermelon—the best flavor.
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Hey Harry,
1. I heard a song on the radio today which stated that the basis of all love relationships is fear. Do you think that’s true? Sadly, I do believe it is.
2. I haven’t gone “running” since college. I can’t believe you do that every day. If there is one gene you got that I did not, it is the functionality gene.
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Hey Matilda,
1. Yes. To some extent.
2. My running is your happy hour. We all do what we can.
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Harry,
ZING.
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Hey Matilda,
In the bleak landscape of student poetry that is my life, a bright spot comes: I have a promising student. Her name is Vera and she is from Vermont. Actually, her full name is Vivian Remember Parker-Hall, can you believe that? She’s an interesting mix of freewheeling and proper. Moneyed but of the people.
On the first day of class I handed out a survey with some basic questions on it and she wrote:
About Me:
I have two mothers, and I survived Exeter boarding school.
Anything is possible!!!!
Her recent poem was about choosing between having the superhero ability to fly or be invisible. The narrator cannot decide, she is tormented with the choice, and then finally succumbs to a pile of sleeping pills and chooses an endless nap. It was brilliant, though, not overwrought.
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Harry,
I don’t understand the idea of the poem, because of course the only choice is TO FLY!!! Jesus, what is wrong with people? And sleeping pills aren’t overwrought?
You’re losing your edge, Harry.
Why didn’t Mom give me a middle name? I deserve one.
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Matilda,
Well, I got Angus, so that’s cool.
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Harry,
It’s OK. But “Remember”? Be still my heart.
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Matilda,
It’s Puritan, I think. Dad once joked to me that he named me after his favorite Beatle and you after his favorite barmaid.
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Harry,
That sounds like a classic Dad fabrication. A Dadrication.
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Matilda,
For the record, I would choose invisibility over flight.
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Harry,
You confuse me so.
Also, I’m pretty sure I heard that superhero choice posited to folks on the street on the radio. It’s not all original, you know.
Unrelated: All the skin on the left side of my body is numb. Do I worry?
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Matilda,
You could be having a stroke. Take a nap?
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Harry,
I think I’m numb because I’m frightened again about the passing of time. How do I slow it down? I’ve already passed the thrill of a first kiss, my first taste of caviar, my first swim in the ocean…I have no firsts left! In fact, right now is as good as it’s ever going to get.
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Matilda,
This is why you’re a photographer—you freeze time. And maybe why I’m a writer—my intense focus when I’m really writing well makes the clock stop entirely. I have no sense of my own person; it’s just deep, satisfying brain work that turns hours into seconds. It’s not until I close the laptop and look up that I realize that time has even passed; it’s dark outside.
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Dear Harry,
Why are there commercials for cotton? Who are they trying to convince?
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Matilda,
There are also commercials for avocados.
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Harry,
And pistachios. Though pistachios are $12 at my corner market.
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Hey Matilda,
That is too many dollars, though lately I find myself craving the excitement and energy of a city. Generally I appreciate the lower standards here. I can leave the house in an old button-down and jeans and still be the best-dressed teacher in the faculty lounge.
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Harry,
Yes—and you like to be the best. I have no hope of being the best here.
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Matilda,
I don’t thrive on pressure. And all those people everywhere would overload my senses.
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Hey Harry,
But don’t you want your senses to be overloaded? Now’s the time to max them out! We’re sitting on a twirling blue speck in the vast nothingness of space, and we’ll be gone before we ever existed! We may as well flame out. I’m going to, and soon, I can feel it. Some past missteps are about to catch up with me.
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Hey Matilda,
You have so much paranoia about impending doom. All things considered, you lead a charmed life.
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Harry,
You’re not as reasonable as you pretend to be. I’m worried about the holidays, Harry. About Hanukkah. About coming home. It’s not going to go well. I’m just looking forward to the New Year, when I can make a list of important herbs and goals and think very seriously about them and then forget them by February.
HERBS: ginseng, spirulina, turmeric
GOALS: fame, gratitude, self-respect
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Hey Matilda,
Do not pre-panic about the holidays.
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Harry,
It used to be better at this time of year. You were always Mr. Shammes at the Christmas pageant during the token Jewish interlude. I loved that. You lit me on fire.
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Hey Matilda,
I hated that. Being onstage, in front of a bunch of bored kids—in a flame costume.
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Hey Harry,
You know, I think about Nazis a lot. Hebrew school scars you for life, watching all of those movies.
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Matilda,
Sometimes it’s good to be reminded that not everyone’s on your side.
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Hey Harry,
I don’t need to be reminded of that. I want to focus on joy. I was coming home the other night, on the su
bway over the river, listening to music on my headphones, full volume. I’d been out for tacos with the boyfriend, but then he’d gone to meet some other friends, so it was just me and Billy Joel’s greatest hits, together, on loud and repeat.
And it occurred to me that this feeling of pure happiness—a height and a view, and a head high on tequila and some music of my youth—hasn’t happened to me in years. Pure elation. It was nearly spiritual. If they could take out 80% of my brain and leave me with that feeling, I’d have the operation.
How many times does one have that feeling in one’s life? Maybe fifteen times, maybe twenty? It was rope-swing-over-a-quarry transcendent.
(I couldn’t get out of bed the next day—tequila hangover.)
Billy Joel doesn’t seem that much older now than he used to.
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Hey Matilda,
I think a good way to achieve euphoria, healthily, is through endorphins. Running, yoga, meditation. Those alcohol downswings are not good for you.
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Hey Harry,
I heard on TV today that they took a great yoga program out of schools in Florida because the Christian parents thought it was religious—saluting the sun and thanking it for life.
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Hey Matilda,
Florida seems terrible on a whole lot of levels.
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Harry,
Here is a new list, about me and you.
Harry—optimist
Matilda—pessimist
Harry—long distance (running, writing)
Mat—sprinter (drinking, relationships)
Harry—invisibility
Matilda—flight
I booked a job the other day, an elusive winter wedding, so I have a bride’s deposit. I am going to use $99 of it to buy that genetic test. Now that you’ve gone and thrown out the answers to WILL I DIE OF DEMENTIA OR MY BOOBS FIRST, I need to take matters into my own hands.
I’ve been thinking a lot about this. Ruminating. Obsessing maybe a touch.
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Matilda,
You have been? Be careful about how much you dwell on the future. You’re better off creating a narrative of the present.
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Harry,
I wrote a short story. It’s by me in the future. It’s wishful thinking. Thinking that someday I will get to be pregnant and I will be married to someone like Captain von Trapp. You probably never think about babies, but I do. It’s my biological imperative. It’s true, we ARE all just mammals. It’s not our fault.
Favorite Things
When she was pregnant she was obsessed with Nazi movies. She started with Schindler’s List and moved on to Marathon Man, Army of Shadows, Au Revoir les Enfants. She watched them in bed at night, over eggs in the morning. When she was put on bed rest for placenta previa in her twenty-eighth week, she took it as a sign and went full-time. She’d never felt so fulfilled, so engaged.
Her husband would try to say goodbye in the morning and she’d hold up her index finger and shake her head, gesturing toward the TV. The Sorrow and the Pity, she mouthed.
The babies came early. They’d expected two girls, but Anne turned out to have a brother. Her husband looked at his wife shivering after the C-section, wrapped in blankets, her pallor yellowish, oxygen in her nose. “Frank is a great name,” he said. “I love it.”
Anne, Frank, and their mother stayed in the hospital four days. She asked her husband to bring the laptop so she could continue with Downfall. The Percocet made her drowsy and emotional; she couldn’t concentrate on the story. Frustrated, she thought she’d try something else. She played a game: If Anne was wet, she’d move on to Nuremberg. Frank, Band of Brothers. Both their diapers were full.
When they got home, her husband surprised her with a freezer full of vegetable lasagna and a DVD of Enemy at the Gates. She demolished the béchamel, sighed, and suggested When Harry Met Sally.
The summer was exhausting and joyless and, aside from a single moment of passion ignited by an $8 gift bottle of Chardonnay, loveless. They were both surprised when the stick showed a pink strip. He felt light-headed, swore beneath his breath. She smiled for the first time in months and headed for the den. “Where’d you put the remote?” she asked.
But Triumph of the Will was boring. The Pianist made her sob. She tried American History X, turned it off eight minutes in. She hunted for something with Drew Barrymore and told herself to be patient.
Liesl was born after a Julia Roberts marathon. Ten months later came Brigitta, followed by Friedrich and Marta. She was building her own happiness, out of flesh and blood. Bridget Jones cackled in the background. Her husband got a vasectomy.
The years passed quickly as the fame took hold. The children were adorable and loved their dirndls almost as much as the stage. Everyone said she made a great Maria. Even her husband had a new posture. For who wouldn’t like being a captain? All was well.
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Matilda,
Very nice pacing. The end is a little abrupt, but it’s tight. Well done!
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Harry,
Are you seriously the kind of teacher who just talks about pacing? What about content? What about interest, life, spark, human condition! I think I could be a writer, too, you know?
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Matilda,
Picking a fight? I gave you a compliment. I can tell you more thoughts later.
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Harry,
Mom won’t let me give my American Girl doll Samantha away to a seven-year-old I promised it to at a cocktail party. I promised her, and now I’ll break her heart. She’s MY doll! When did Mom commandeer all our childhood things? When we went to college? I’m really upset about this. Do all belongings revert back to the landowner when you change your primary residence?
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Matilda,
What was a seven-year-old doing at a cocktail party?
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Harry,
I don’t know, she’s privileged. Loft in Tribeca. I can’t remember her name, but she’s going to be very angry if she doesn’t get Samantha.
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Matilda,
Maybe Mom has a point.
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Harry,
Don’t defend her behavior again.
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Hey Matilda,
You OK? You seem a little on edge.
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Dear Harry,
I would rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints.
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Matilda,
I’m going to need more to go on.
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Harry,
OK, I’m just going to tell you. I must lance that boil, as you so indelicately put it. Disgusting, Harry.
I’ll make it like a story: Here is something that has happened to my “friend.” She is in quite the pickle.
Jane Doe was a nice person. She really believed this. She was not troubled, she came from a relatively good home, she was loved. (She did go to a subpar public high school, with many opportunities for bad influences, but came out relatively unscathed.) She went to an Ivy League college, which was the one and only thing she did that ever impressed her grandmother. She made friends with the artsy kids. She was just angsty enough to be interesting, but not enough to be perplexing to adults (except the grandmother).
She moved to New York City after college with the rest of the artsy folks, and settled in. Perhaps she’s a production assistant at a magazine. Maybe she finds that unfulfilling and takes out loans and enrolls in art school. It’s hard. Perhaps she starts to doubt her innate belief in herself during that time, as she stands in front of her pictures, defending them feebly. She dates a few people and likes them too quickly and then feels overly committed and bolts. She becomes really good at wine tasting in quantity, because it brings her joy and relief. Also tequila.
She starts being interested too quickly in a younger friend of a friend who slays her with the line “You’re like the female version of myself.” She finds this charmi
ng, but much later will realize it’s maybe rather self-centered. Jane Doe’s art isn’t going so well at this time. She’s been spending a lot of time by herself. One night she spies her crush in a bar and has some extra tequila for strength. The crush isn’t very interested in her, it seems. But they start talking.
She’s speaking about herself, her life, embellishing some details in a normal way. But then, out of nowhere, like a lightning bolt, this sentence occurs to her to say:
