Miss Misery

by Andy Greenwald

  He sat down hard on the tile floor and rubbed at the red mark on his jaw.

  “Well,” he said.

  And then he stood, brushed himself off, and almost casually walked over and punched me in the stomach.

  I doubled over as all the air left my body, seeing stars and twinkling brown fuzzies around the corners of my eyes. I fought tears, and all the vodka I had downed seemed to be negotiating a potential retreat from my stomach. I swallowed hard and fell to my knees as the bathroom door opened and Cath Kennedy walked in.

  “Holy shit!” she screamed, her hands flying to her face. “David, why are you hitting yourself?”

  “S’funny,” I said through gritted teeth, “I used to know a bully in second grade who was always asking me the same thing.”

  The doppelgänger smirked and took a few steps back. “Close the door, Cath,” he said without taking his eyes off of me. “Join the party.”

  In the white light of the bathroom, Cath looked even younger than she was, all stick arms, stick legs, and bones. Her face was flushed, her expression panicked. She pushed the door shut like it was a living thing—carefully, meticulously—and made three quick steps toward where I knelt before she froze and backed up again.

  “Ah,” said the doppelgänger. “The dreaded choice.”

  I eased back on my haunches, leaned against the wall. My stomach felt cramped and tight, but my lungs were slowly beginning to accept the idea that they should fill themselves with air. My hand was pulsing with icicles of pain. “There is no choice, asshole,” I said. “You don’t exist.”

  “That’s not what she’d say.”

  “Shut up, both of you,” said Cath, quietly but firmly.

  “Cath, please,” I said. “I’m not really like him. Let’s just get out of here.”

  “Boo-hoo,” said the doppelgänger. “You think she doesn’t know how you are? How I am? She made her choice a long time ago, you…spectator.” He spat the word like it was poison.

  Cath put her hands on her hips. “I said, shut up.”

  The doppelgänger took a step toward her. “But…”

  She smacked him so hard in the chest he sat down on the toilet.

  “You two jokers don’t get it, do you?” Her voice was high and tight. “This has nothing to do with knowing you. You idiots don’t even know yourselves. This is about me. I’m a person too. And just because you like to cyberstalk me and you like to get me drugs and take me dancing doesn’t mean that either of you has any idea who I am or what I want. And I’ll tell you—both of you—that what I want right now is out of this fucking bizarro identity crisis. So stay the hell away from me. That goes for both of you.”

  She remained in the bathroom an extra moment with her finger outstretched, pointing, accusing—turning her glare from me to the doppelgänger and back again just to make sure we got the message. Then she turned gracefully on her heel and stormed out, slamming the door shut behind her.

  “Fine!” yelled the doppelgänger at the door. “Fuck you, then! There are lots of other girls here—young girls—and all of them want me!” He stood up unsteadily. “I’m the DJ!”

  Slowly, painfully, I pulled myself up off the floor. “Nicely played,” I said. “Not at all desperate. Very believable.”

  For the first time since I’d met him, the other me seemed speechless. I walked over to the sink and ran my hands under the tap.

  “And hey, slick—if you’re the DJ, isn’t that deafening silence out in the bar kind of your responsibility?”

  “Shit,” he said, rushing to the door. As he opened it, he turned and pointed at me. “This isn’t over.”

  I dried my hands on a towel and inspected the knuckles where my skin was stinging, red, and broken. “I know,” I said. And let him walk out into the bar alone.

  Chapter Ten: Ring…Ring…

  Ring

  I GOT SOME STRANGE LOOKS from the people waiting to use the bathroom when I emerged a few minutes later.

  “Didn’t you just…?” stammered a bookish kid with thick glasses as I passed.

  I winked at him and kept walking. He’d have his story for the night. Either that or he’d quit drinking for good. Out on the dance floor the crowd had thinned a bit, no doubt due to the on-again, off-again nature of the music. The one thing worse than a celebrity DJ was an inconsistent DJ. The doppelgänger was standing behind the fader, flipping wildly through the books of CDs. It was almost enough to make me feel sorry for him. Almost.

  The song he was playing was “Mystery Achievement” by the Pretenders. Screwie Louie and Pedro stood to his side, laughing at some private joke. Neither of them noticed me as I passed, and Cath was, I was sure, long gone. I felt sober but hyperalert, like I had downed four cups of diner coffee with a Ritalin chaser. The pain in my right hand pulsed, and I tried to keep time to it as I walked.

  I needed to get out of there. To clear my head. To catch my breath.

  I pushed through the crowd and squeezed through the door out into the night.

  “Man,” said Clarence the bouncer as I passed. “I could sure use some of whatever it is you’re on.”

  I froze. “What?”

  He chuckled, waved a few more miniskirted twentysomethings inside. “The way you’re coming and going here it’s like there’s two of you.”

  “Right,” I said, and gave a friendly nervous laugh that came out more like a gurgle. “See ya.”

  I speed-walked to the corner of Ludlow and Rivington without pausing or looking behind me. Moving through the thick summer night felt like hugging a snowman after the dank humidity of the Madrox, and I even shivered a little. At the corner I stopped and surveyed the scene. Yellow cabs and livery cabs jockeyed for position in the street, honking and bleating in both directions as revelers decided to call it a night or move on to round two. There was a crowd in front of Pianos—bearded and scruffy rejects from Williamsburg central casting, chain-smoking and putting air quotes around their lives. I didn’t want to go home, and I didn’t know where to go. As my body processed the confrontation that had just occurred, I felt a thick thirst in the back of my throat. The night air seemed to hum all around me. I held my hand out flat in front of my face and watched it shake: tiny, indistinct vibrations rocketing through my body. What to do? What not to do?

  That’s the problem with choices, I thought. You can only ever choose one of them.

  “Hey,” someone called from behind me. I turned to see Zaina sprinting down the street, her curly hair bobbing and weaving across her face. “I didn’t think I was going to catch you.”

  And sometimes someone else chooses for you. I smiled and scratched at my face. “You caught me,” I said.

  She stopped in front of me and caught her breath. “I thought you were still DJing, then the next thing I knew you were flying out the door.”

  “I needed some air.”

  “Yeah, me too.” She smiled a crooked smile.

  “So,” I said, nervous. “What are you up to?”

  She put her hand on my arm and ran it up and down. “I was going to a friend’s house to party some more. You want to come?”

  Of course I didn’t. I was a responsible person with someone who loved him and a mountain of work to do. But the sound of her voice made my blood jump like iron filings underneath a magnet, and I knew that for one night at least I didn’t want to be me. I wanted to be him. So despite myself I said:

  “Sure. Let’s go.”

  [SECTION HAS BEEN DELETED]

  The storm rolled back over the city that night; it had blown over after the afternoon rainfall but midway to the midwest stopped as if it had forgotten to turn the lights off. Sometime after three a.m. the sky started again with its ominous rumbling, and the air became thick and still.

  The taxi driver was none too pleased about having to schlep me all the way out to Brooklyn, but I promised him a big tip, which I delivered even after he took the wrong bridge.

  “It’s gonna rain again,” he said to me as I handed a
twenty through the glass.

  “Yeah?” I said, counting my change. “How’s that for business?”

  The driver snorted. “Business is business,” he said. “Always gonna be some crazy kids like you who need to get home in a hurry.”

  I thought about responding, but he revved the engine and lightning cut across the sky, so I hopped out and sprinted across the dampening sidewalk to my house.

  The keys shook in the lock and I dropped them twice, but I managed to make it into my building before the storm broke again. Safe in the foyer, I turned and watched as the world was illuminated by ferocious shards of lightning. There was no one on the street. There was no one anywhere at all. No witnesses. No one to know where I had been or what I had done. No one to verify it for me later, in case I doubted it. I rubbed my still-smarting fist. No scars, either—just bruises. I clicked the lock and tiptoed up the stairs to my apartment.

 

  Hello, this is a message for Mr. David Gould. I’m calling from Chase Manhattan Bank. Mr. Gould, we’ve noticed an abnormally large number of withdrawals from your checking account today and wanted to make sure that your ATM card is still in your possession. For your security please give us a call at your convenience at 1-800-KL5-0439.

 

  Mr. Gould, this is Carol Fitzgerald from the Pendant Publishing legal department. I’m calling under the advisement of a junior editor here, Thom Watkins. Mr. Gould, it is my duty to remind you that you are under contract to Pendant Publishing to deliver a manuscript in a timely fashion. Some lateness is to be expected, but Mr. Watkins has alerted me that you have not been in contact with him for over two months. Please be advised that we will take the necessary legal action against you if you do not make an attempt to contact Mr. Watkins after this holiday weekend. Thank you for your time.

 

  David, it’s me. I know you’re hearing these messages, so I’ll just say it into the machine. It’s not that different from talking to you anyway—or at least to you the way you were before I left. Anyway, look: I just want you to know that I get it. I understand. I know what you’re doing—what you’re doing in a really creepy fucking passive-aggressive way—but I know what it is that you’re doing. And what I want you to know is: I’m doing it too. I’m moving on. I feel I owe you that—that you should know. There’s someone that I’ve met here and…well, he’s not you, but at least he’ll call me back. I love you so much. I miss you. But I can’t be doing all of this alone. It’s not fair…(crying)…All I ever wanted from you was some effort. But if you don’t know what you want, well…I love you. Happy Independence Day. Good-bye.

 

 

  There are scenes in films when the villain is shot and he doesn’t realize it at first. He continues making his pompous, self-referential speeches or laughing at the seemingly inevitable doom of the hero that he has cornered. Perhaps he’ll continue to fiddle with the elaborate mechanism he’s constructed to take over the Earth, or he’ll draw back the hammer on his own weapon, delighting in the bullet he is about to fire into his opponent. But gradually a shadow will cross his face: Something isn’t right; something has gone wrong. The villain feels something—probably something like a prick or a sting, something nowhere near the magnitude of what it actually feels like to be shot—and he’ll look down and see that blood is pouring down his shirt. He’ll be confused at first, or possibly mildly annoyed. Whose blood is this? his face says. How much will this cost to be dry-cleaned? But then the sting will turn into an ache or a burn, and he’ll frantically push aside the clothing to discover what we, the audience, have known all along: There is a hole in his body. And whether he has seen it or not, his life is escaping out of it. Then and only then does he collapse to the floor and die.

  That’s how I felt in those first horrible seconds after listening to the message from Amy, with the lights in my apartment all turned off but the thunderstorm illuminating the room every few moments like a strobe on quaaludes. There was a hole in me—had been for months—and I had ignored it. And now my life had escaped.

  The coffee table was covered in newspapers and chopstick wrappers, and I dove into the pile with a ferocity that surprised me; my arms flailing and flying, I threw papers in all directions, scrabbling and searching for what I knew lay at the bottom of it all. When I found it, I held it up to the window and caught the staccato illumination of the storm. It was a sticky pad that Amy had rescued from her childhood bedroom the previous Christmas; in neon pink eighties bubble type it read A NOTE FROM AMY. On it, in her calm, immaculate script, were three lines of numbers. Her numbers, set off by odd European exchanges and area codes. My hands were shaking and my face was wet with panic and tears. I wondered if this was how suicides feel when they jump off tall buildings—is it possible to convince yourself the entire way down that you’re flying, not falling? If so, the only thing that convinces you of the truth is the impact, but by then it’s too late to offer much of a rebuttal.

  I picked up the phone and began to dial. I needed her. I needed her voice. I needed her to tell me that everything was going to be all right. Outside, the thunder sounded like a jet plane crashing into a mountain. The whole house seemed to shake. The storm was getting closer.

  I couldn’t seem to make the buttons push the right way—too many sevens, not enough eights—but eventually I heard the call click through and the ringing begin. It was ringing in another language: that strange European double-tracked ring, where the second one begins before the first one has ended, the rings cascading out of the receiver, stepping on each other’s toes, making me feel small and insignificant. RingRING…RingRING…RingRING.

  She wasn’t picking up. I looked at the clock above the TV. It was nearly five in the morning. What time was it there? Ten? Eleven? Would the Dutch be aware it was Independence Day? Was it a holiday for them? For her? For him?

  RingRING…RingRING…RingRING.

  I was mouthing her name, shaking my head, pounding my fists into the futon-couch. I couldn’t lose her. I couldn’t lose.

  RingRING…RingRING…RingRING.

  Could one night of drug abuse give you a heart attack? A nervous breakdown? The lightning was closer and closer, the thunderclaps reverberating into my skull. The building itself seemed to be giving way, giving in. I know who I am, I said to myself. I know who I am. I never should have doubted it. Over the hissy static of the receiver I felt I could actually hear the pounds and pounds of freezing water washing over the telephone lines. An entire ocean, and below, the rocks. Submerged.

  RingRING…RingRING…RingRING.

  She wouldn’t answer. Oh, Amy, I thought. I’m sorry. I did it this time, didn’t I? I really screwed it up. I’m so, so, sorry.

  But all the phone said was, RingRING…RingRING…RingRING.

  I hung up and with tentative steps took the phone with me into the bedroom. I lay down, clutching the phone to my chest, and called back every two or three minutes. She didn’t pick up. No one did. Lying on my back, listening to the rain hammer the city, I stared at the ceiling and laughed in spite of myself. The ceiling fan spun lazily above me—a sight I had never paid much attention to with Amy next to me. And I remembered something she had said when we moved in: You know, on those British makeover shows, there’s only one constant—the ceiling fan is always the first thing to go.

  But no, Amy, you were wrong. The ceiling fan wasn’t the first to go after all. You were.

  RingRING…RingRING…RingRING.

  Chapter Eleven: Independence,

  Daze

  1 New Text Message From: Bryce

  12:19 p.m.

  Did you see the Post today? Page six? What the hell are you up to?

  MY BRAIN WOKE UP before my eyes did. I could feel it lumbering its way into consciousness, clawing its way through the mud and fog I had drowned it in the night before. Freed, finally, of sleep and excess, it lay there in my skull
curled up like a turtle stripped of its shell, huddled and afraid. Good morning, it said to me in shallow, gasping breaths. Please don’t ever do that to us again. And for good measure it sent the stabbing pain of a hangover headache rocketing through my nerves.

  I opened my eyes. The digital readout on my alarm clock said 12:28 p.m. It was the Fourth of July and bright sunlight was streaming into my room. I wiggled a finger to see if my body still worked. Pleased with the result, I dispatched a distress call to my entire arm: Wake up, the message said. Reach for the glass of water on the table and bring it to our mouth. We need to drink something productive for a change. After some muscular grumbling, my arm obeyed, and I tipped the water glass to my lips without sitting up. Better, I thought.

  I swallowed and returned the glass to the table. As I did so, I noticed the raw and cracked redness of my knuckles. Oh yes—my introduction to the “sweet science” the night before. I wiggled my fingers, which grudgingly obliged. No harm done. To my hand, that is. I sat up and instantly regretted it, as the headache chose that moment to turn itself up to eleven. I slunk back down to the pillows.

  In addition to the roar in my skull, there was a small niggling pain in my palm; a sharp woodwind note to contrast with the timpani between my ears. I held my hand up to my eyes. The pain centered on a tiny black spear embedded in the meat of my palm, just above my wisdom line. A splinter, I thought. How the hell did I manage to get a splinter? In addition to bathroom fistfights, drug abuse, and ill-advised flirtation had I also been chopping wood? Unlikely, but so was everything about my life these days. I resolved to get to the bottom of it.