by Mary Carter
It’s a two bedroom that sits right above a sushi restaurant on Thirtieth between Lexington and Third. I used to love sushi. Raw fish no longer touches my lips. The smell of it clings to everything, including my clothes, but the worst part is that it’s an open house for cockroaches and mice. They come to us in droves. I shower constantly now and stuff cotton in my ears at night after hearing a story about a woman who had a cockroach crawl into her ear while she slept. It had to be surgically removed. I’ve missed my alarm going off a few times due to the cotton, but it’s worth it to have a bug-free canal.
We don’t have a doorman, but we do have Jimmy, a homeless man who sleeps in the hallway. If he’s in a good mood he’ll open the door for you and flash you a toothless grin. However, if he’s had a bad day he’ll try and trip you, so you always have to watch your feet in relation to his. He hails from Georgia, but he’s lived in New York for the past fifty years. “I’m from Georgia,” he said the first day I moved in. I was trying to drag a futon mattress up the stairs, stopping every few seconds to swear and readjust my grip on the monstrous thing. I would like to see the basement of the person who invented the futon. I wouldn’t be surprised to see it rigged up with chains, whips, and other sadomasochistic machinations. He either completely ignored the fact that people have to actually move these beasts around or enjoy the thought of the pain it causes.
To add to my frustrations, every friend who had promised to help me move had suddenly been hit with the Moving Virus, and so there I was cursing the Saint of Moves From Hell every time my wet tennis shoes slipped on the stairs. The skies had been crackling with rain and lightning all day. “You want some help with that?” Jimmy asked, taking it over before I even answered. I weakly waved my hand in protest, but he was already tossing it over his shoulders and heading up the stairs. “I used to be a professional mover,” he called over his shoulder as I crumpled with relief on the stairs. It had taken me four hours to load the truck from my fifth-floor walk-up in Chelsea. The truck was due back in an hour or I would owe another seventy-five dollars. Jimmy was a lifesaver.
He carried the rest of my things in all by himself. I watched the muscles in his brown skin flex as he effortlessly heaved my futon, kitchen table, rugs, and television up over his head and ascend three sets of stairs without breaking a sweat. Later I learned it was a cocktail of speed and cocaine that allowed him to do this, but at the time I bought the “professional mover” bit. Over the next few months he would also profess to have been a professional chef, professional swimmer, and professional Boy Scout leader. I give him food and money almost every day, and he uses his spare change to buy Jack Daniels.
Lately, he’s taken to announcing me. He stands outside the building, and the minute he spots me heading down the sidewalk, he opens the door to our building, bows grandly, and screams “Melanie ZZZZZZZZZZZZeitgar” at the top of his lungs. I don’t know why he buzzes the Z like that, and I’m ashamed to admit it, but he’s embarrassing the hell out of me. I’ve considered letting him use my shower lately because of his stench, but I think Charlie is the one who should give Jimmy his own apartment complete with a shower. Charlie is our landlord, and Jimmy is the unofficial super. Charlie lives in the apartment building across the street, and it’s ten times nicer than ours. They have potted palms and a chandelier in their lobby; we have a broken lightbulb and a plastic container of wheat grass. They also have a real doorman who always smiles, and I’ve never seen him trip anyone even once.
Sometimes I think I should report Charlie to the NAACP or some other such human rights group, but would that really help Jimmy? Isn’t it better for him to have a semiwarm hallway to live in rather than the streets? The day I moved in I gave him a pillow and a blanket to sleep on, but they’ve subsequently disappeared. I don’t understand how he’d rather sleep on bare cement, but it’s really not my place to teach him how not to be a homeless drunk. I suppose I could protest, move out, raise a stink, but I don’t. I have rent control. I like Jimmy but I’m ashamed to admit that sometimes when he smiles at me I have to look away.
Inside our apartment there are problems as well. I can handle the cockroaches (with a little help from my friend the cotton ball), but both Kim and I are terrified of the mice. They mainly hang out in the kitchen section of our pad, and if we stomp on the floor before we enter, they’re polite enough to scatter back to their holes. The cockroaches, on the other hand, have no such decency and they’re becoming quite bold. I found one on the television the other day watching The Sopranos. He was perched on Tony Soprano’s right nostril. It was so entertaining we couldn’t bring ourselves to kill it. I named him Tony, and I marked the top of his little body with red nail polish. He’s the only one we won’t squash, poison, or drown. The rest of them are on their own.
Before I go to bed, I play the movie How I Met Ray. It gets five stars, it runs in my head, and I can even watch it without a huge bucket of buttered popcorn. It goes a little something like this:
EXTERIOR—NIGHT—MANHATTAN
CHARACTERS: GIRL (Me)
MOST BEAUTIFUL MAN EVER
(Ray)
A beautiful GIRL in her late twenties (twenty-nine is still late twenties) is dejectedly walking the streets of Manhattan after a lousy audition for an off-, off-, off-, off-Broadway play. She leaves the audition when the director declares that it will be performed in thong underwear as a ploy to put the audience at ease. GIRL walks out without uttering a word of her two-minute comedic monologue. GIRL decides she will quit acting and definitely quit waitressing at Beef Boys Bar and Grill where Columbia frat boys come in to check out her ass over pitchers of beer.
Suddenly we hear music. It wails from a bar on the corner, a small basement dive distinguishable from a sad basement apartment only by the neon eye that blinks above it. GIRL drops to her knees on the sidewalk and peers in the window.
MOST BEAUTIFUL MAN EVER stands on a rickety stage with a guitar slung around his neck and a harmonica wedged in his full lips. GIRL’s heart never stands a chance. She closes her eyes and holds his image. Broad shoulders, shaggy black hair, and since she can’t see that well through the dirt and the din, she imagines eyes like soft blue ice (I was wrong about the blue eyes, but jade green is unbelievable too, don’t you think?), rough hands, and a mind clear enough to pierce through the clutter of hers. GIRL knows if he makes love like he plays, GIRL is in huge, big trouble. GIRL licks index finger and writes “I Want You” backward in the dirty window. Music stops. Lights dim. MOST BEAUTIFUL MAN EVER looks up, sees GIRL, sees “I Want You,” and smiles. The smile says, “Then come and get me.” And she does.
THE END (but hopefully just the beginning).
Here’s the part of the movie we don’t get to see: One month later, lying in bed with him I ask him about this moment, the moment we fell in love at first sight. I trace the dimple in his chin, waiting for his rendition of our magical moment. Ray leans his beautiful head back and looks thoughtful. He squints and says, “I thought you were this girl Clara I was supposed to meet for drinks that night.” Regardless, to this day I’d like to thank the Saint of Neurotic Impulses that I wrote on the window, and the Saint of Obscure Skills that I am, and always have been, an excellent mirror writer. Before I fall asleep, I strike a deal with the Saint of Kleptomaniacs. As long as Ray calls tomorrow, I promise not to steal.
Chapter 2
Okay. I’m going to be honest with you. I was born with sneaky fingers. My mother delivered a healthy, eight pound, twenty-two inch, blue-eyed, wailing thief. At the age of two I stole car keys from the babysitter, at four I lifted three jars of Jif peanut butter and a box of plastic knives from Safety Town, and at six I was regularly pilfering chocolate milk for me and a few choice friends. All through junior high and high school, if anyone wanted anything, I was the girl who could get it.
They came to me for condoms, pregnancy kits, Swiss Army knives, makeup, and the occasional vibrator. I charged a flat twenty dollars an item, and by the time I graduated from high s
chool, I had a little over six thousand dollars in shoe boxes under my bed. In every other aspect, I was a good kid. I did what my parents told me, I was kind to the elderly, I got straight As with the occasional B, and I once spent an entire summer painting birdhouses for the mentally ill. Could I help it that I had an uncanny ability to make objects disappear off the shelves and into my pockets without a trace?
And living here is like an alcoholic living in a bar. New York is full of large, anonymous, evil, money-grubbing department stores. I can’t feel too guilty ripping them off knowing that we’re being ripped off in return. You can bet they’re polluting the environment, gauging prices, following black people around the store, and/or have secret factories in underdeveloped countries where starving, grubby children sew glass eyes on teddy bears they’ll never get to play with. Just thinking about it makes me want to run to Bloomingdale’s and relieve it of a few tubes of lipstick. But first I’m going to listen to my message. You see, what did I tell you? Today is a new day, and the blessed answering machine is blinking. I pray to the Saint of Men Who Want to Call But Have Suddenly Had All Their Fingers Chopped Up in a Horrible Blending Accident and Finally Decide to Call With a Pencil in Their Mouth, please, please, please, let it be Ray.
But it’s not. It’s a message from Jane Greer, the “placement coordinator” at Fifth Avenue Temps. In a gravelly Brooklyn accent she demands to see me in her office tomorrow morning. Jane is intimidating on a good day, but she’s never left me a message like this. I have good reason to be afraid; Jane is famous for having a short fuse and a long range. I’m going to need backup. I venture into the living room where Kim is lounging on the couch with her recently painted toenails propped up on several pillows. “Uh-oh,” she says when I tell her about the message from Jane. While I wait for her to elaborate, I study her little piggies. They’re tangerine orange. It would look hideous on me, but she can get away with it. At six foot one, Kim Minx takes up the entire couch.
Her head is propped on the armrest and her long blond hair cascades down the side. She’s flipping through the latest edition of Vogue. Despite commercials begging me not to, I do hate her because she’s beautiful. I also love her because she’s my best friend. Kim and I met eight years ago at an open audition for milk, making it a “cattle call” in more ways than one. This was way before the celebrity milk mustache campaign, and they were in search of a beautiful young ingénue to deliver the line, “Mmm, milk. Does the body good.” In typical cattle call fashion, young, eager women were lined up for blocks gripping their headshots and resumes, trying their best to intimidate each other out of the line. They were auditioning the union actors first, so us non-unioners had plenty of time on our hands to do what unemployed actresses did best—feed off each other’s insecurities like a production of A Chorus Line meets Lord of the Flies.
At the time I was enrolled in serious acting classes and considered myself better than the phony, tap dancing divas that surrounded me. I was a method actor, studying at the Village School of Acting, where I was immersed in the practice of Sense Memory. The concept was to bring your real-life experiences to bear in the roles you were playing instead of “pretending” to be someone else. No matter what role you were playing, you simply had to scour your memory for an experience in your past that matched the one your character was immersed in.
For example, if you were playing someone in a fearful situation, you needed to dredge up a fearful memory and simply insert that memory into your scene. More than once I’ve longed to be the victim of an armed robbery or a carjacking just to ingrain myself with a shot of pure terror. It’s brilliant because everything in life becomes fodder for your work as an actress. Aunt Betty died? Use it! Use dead Aunt Betty the next time you need to cry in a scene. Unless you hated Aunt Betty, in which case you could dredge up her hateful memory to make you shake with rage or vibrate with disgust. Did your favorite childhood cat get run over by a truck? Yes it’s very sad, it’s tragic—but it’s golden material! Everybody in my class dredged up these painful, wonderful memories, and we used it to make ourselves laugh, cry, or spew rage all over each other. Acting is the art of the damned, and I was its humble servant.
So while the other actresses were chatting and strutting and bragging, I was scouring my inner soul for my relationship to milk. I knew if I could dredge up a really powerful, painful memory of milk, I would get the part. Problem was, I was lactose intolerant.
Okay, I’m not exactly lactose intolerant, I just can’t stand the stuff. On the other hand, I had really nice breasts, and I was hoping that would balance out the whole hating milk thing. Unfortunately, as I looked around the sea of cleavage surrounding me, it became apparent that everyone else was banking on their beautiful breasts, and in a fit of inspiration I knew I had until my turn in line to become one with milk.
Mmm, milk. Mmmmmm. Miiillk. Should I be sexy or coy? Or both. Maybe I could do it with a Russian accent. I was really good at accents. Da. Milk. Maybe I should think about milkshakes! I do like a thick, frothy milkshake. MMM Da Milkshake. Drop the stupid Russian thing. Mmmm, milkshakes! Does the body good. Except they make you fat. Strike that! Don’t even think fat or you’ll project an aura of fat. Shit, why did I do that? Think skinny, Melanie! Mmm, skim milk. Does the body good!
This isn’t working. The great acting teacher Uta Hagen would tell me to use the technique of substitution. I don’t have to like milk! I just have to substitute something I like and imagine it’s milk. No—not something I like. Something I love. Something I’ve gotta have for milk. Go deep, Melanie. Yes, that’s exactly what I have to do. What shall I use for my substitution?
Chocolate? Sex? Fame? Wait a minute—what if I substitute this very audition for milk? I want to get this part more than I want anything else in the world—so this part will become milk. Yes! I want this part with my very soul, and therefore I want milk with my very soul. God I’m brilliant. Mmm. Milk. Does the body gooooooood. Yes, I’ve got it.
And three hours later I get to say it. “Don’t be sexy” the woman coming out of the windowless room whispers to me as I’m about to go in. “They’re sick of sexy.”
“What?” But she’s gone. And she’s totally thrown me. I want this job with a passion—I would die without it (and therefore without milk) and how in the world can I be passionate and not sexy? It’s just not possible. I am exuding sex right now—I am bathing—make that drowning in sexual milk.
But there’s no time to assimilate a nonsexual connection to milk. I was ushered into the room in front of two stern-looking people, a man and a woman bearing clipboards and number two pencils like warriors wielding their swords and shields.
“Say your name for the camera,” the man said.
“Melanie Zeitgar.”
“Okay—you didn’t let me finish.” He threw a look to the woman who rolled her eyes and shook her head. I suddenly hated milk again and I started to sweat. “When the little red light goes on you will say your name for the camera, wait two beats and then deliver the line. Okay?”
“Sure.” Two beats. Okay that’s like counting to two, right? But is it one, two or one Mississippi, two Mississippi? Shit. I wondered if I should ask? Would asking make me appear confident or terrified?
“Miss?”
“MMM DA MILK!” I shouted before I could stop myself.
“Your name is first and then the line—after the little red light,” he said impatiently.
“Calm down a little” the woman added. “Take a deep breath.”
I smiled and breathed deeply to show how capable I was of following directions.
“Okay red light. When it comes on, speak.”
I had the sudden urge to bark like a dog, and the thought made me giggle. And then I tried to stop giggling and it made me giggle all the more. And then the little red light went on and even though I was laughing so hard I was barking like a seal, I said my name and I delivered the line. And because of my inappropriate laughter, the word milk came out more like mulk. Mm
m, MULK. Does the body gud. Incidentally, had I been drinking milk at the time, it would have been coming out of my nose.
“Can I do that again?” I started to say, but like a roller-coaster you’ve waited in line for (all freaking day in the scorching sun), the audition had lasted a few rattling moments, plunged downhill at the speed of light, and jerked to an abrupt end. A skinny assistant dressed in black appeared out of nowhere and yanked me out by the elbow. “Next!” the man with the clipboard bellowed as if a straight jacket awaited me in the hall. And as I was being escorted out, I could hear the woman say, “Is it just me or did she sound Russian?”
I immediately hauled my humiliated self to the ladies’ room. Don’t worry, my little voice said, you can use this humiliation another time. Do you see how sick we actors are? The thought actually cheered me up a little. And there was Kim Minx at the bathroom sink, crying her eyes out.
At first I thought she was just thinking about a dead childhood pet, but my trained eye quickly realized this was more than a sense memory practice. “Are you okay?” I asked softly. Her watery eyes met mine in the mirror. “Those bastards!” she screamed. “Those fucking milk bastards.” She hung her head and really sobbed. Her long blond hair was dangling in the sink. I was about to pat her on the back when she suddenly whirled around and stuck her chest out so that I ended up patting her left breast instead. I quickly took my hand away.
“They think they’re not even!” she cried, sticking her chest out even farther. “Are they? Are they even?”
I glanced at her breasts and hesitated. The truth was, the left one did look a little bit bigger than the right. But she was so devastated and distraught that I didn’t want to hurt her feelings.
