Anthropology of an American Girl

by Hilary Thayer Hamann

  At a red light, Rob pulled up alongside us, his window inches from mine. The music from his car was deafening. He was singing, “Be my love!” When the light changed, he turned down the volume and shouted, “Hey, Contessa, what do you think of Mario Lanza?”

  Morocco’s was a spherical diner, like a space station or an automotive air filter, set on the side of a four-lane roadway. The steaming hot air and the diesel exhaust from all the traffic going by formed a plane of smog to walk through. The men fell into a quiet line, with me in the middle. Rob and Eddie M. were thinking how Rourke and I had just had sex. I could feel on my skin the tread of instinct and imagination.

  The waitress came to our booth. Rob asked, “Where’s Pat?”

  “Which Pat’s that, doll?” she volleyed in a gravelly voice.

  “What do you mean, ‘which Pat’?”

  “It’s a big place. We got a lot of Pats—Pat Wolf, Cellar Pat, Patty G., Kitchen Pat.”

  “Kitchen Pat?” Rob repeated incredulously. Eddie M. bit his cuticles and smirked. “What do I look like, a bread salesman?”

  “No offense, honey, but I didn’t bother to check.”

  “You new here, or what?” Rob inquired.

  “Yeah,” she said. “I just started about—sixteen years ago.”

  “Sixteen years, and you don’t know Pat Webb—Spider Pat?”

  “Night shift,” she informed him. “If you wanna talk to someone on night shift, you might wanna come at night. We don’t got dorms in back.” She lifted her pad to her chest. “Now, what’ll yas have?”

  Rob ordered a turkey club with fries, Eddie M. got pancakes with sunny-side eggs on top, I asked for a grilled cheese, and Rourke pushed the menu toward the table rim. “Burger, medium rare.”

  “Coffees?” she inquired, taking up menus.

  Rourke said, “Yeah, for everybody.”

  Rob pushed some quarters to the little jukebox suspended at the end of the table. He told Rourke to find something decent.

  Eddie M. chuckled. “Find him ‘Stayin’ Alive.’”

  “Fuck you, Eddie M.”

  Eddie M. said, “You jellyfish. You love the Bee Gees.”

  “You jerk off to Gordon Lightfoot.”

  “Lightfoot’s a genius.”

  “Genius!” Rob snorted. “Let me ask you something. ‘The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald’—what is that?” Rourke and I laughed, and Rob stated dryly, “I’m totally serious. What is that?”

  “I’m telling you, he’s a poet,” Eddie M. muttered.

  Rourke flipped the jukebox pages. He had the inside seat across from mine, so I couldn’t help but notice how his forehead was square and his cheekbones were prominent. His eyes had a black and avaricious clarity. The diner’s windows were coated with enormous transparencies to mitigate the view of the highway and to tenderize the inclement glare. The sapphire cellophane light gave the impression of things Mediterranean, of him where he naturally belonged, southern France, northern Italy, a village with battered streets along the coast of Spain—with me, in white, by his side.

  “Want some?” Rob asked, gesturing to me with the ketchup.

  I said no, thanks.

  Eddie M. popped his eggs. “Seen Tommy, Harrison?”

  Rourke said, “Yesterday.”

  “At the gym?”

  “Outside it.”

  “I heard he got a fracture.”

  Rob laughed. “A fracture? Some fracture. He looks like he got hit by a wrecking ball.”

  “That’s right, and he’s still standing,” Eddie M. said. “Better watch your back, Harrison.”

  Rob chucked a napkin at Eddie M. “You know what, Eddie M., shut up. And wipe the yolk off your mouth, for Chrissakes.”

  Rourke put the money in the jukebox and Marvin Gaye came on. When the music started, we retreated, each of us, picking through the wilty last halves of fries and gazing into the theatrical stillness of the diner.

  Mother, mother, there’s too many of you crying.

  Brother, brother, brother, there’s far too many of you dying.

  The dessert carousel stood sentry at the door. It was like a phosphorescent obelisk, twirling sleepily. The pastries marched around in a demented parade—towering meringues, tilting cakes, mammoth pies and puddings, balloon-like jelly rolls, surreal mousses. An older couple loitered at the register as they paid, satisfied and distracted. He was cleaning his teeth with a matchbox; she was straightening the vest of her peach summer suit. Past the window on the other side of the highway was another mall.

  Everything looked different to me; everything was different. I felt an acuteness of being, a lonely fury of connectedness. It was as if I’d set off from home and its false promise of security and accidentally found sanctuary in the arms of my generation. Though I hadn’t gone far, I was worlds away. And being there was like occupying a place you have long feared, but in which you suddenly find yourself, and you think, This is okay, this is really okay.

  C’mon, talk to me, so you can see

  What’s goin’ on. Yeah, what’s goin’ on.

  Rob’s fingers drummed the tabletop. He and Rourke looked at each other. Something passed between them, something dark but not newly dark. It was as if they were each privately thinking the same thoughts, sharing the same concerns.

  “You headin’ out?” Rob asked.

  Rourke reached for his wallet. “Yeah, right now.”

  Rob lifted his hand. “I got it.”

  “Me too?” Eddie M. asked, somewhat surprised.

  “No, you bastard,” Rob said. “You pay for yourself.” Then he reached over and slid my sunglasses from the top of my head. He cleaned them carefully, using the soft corner of his sweatshirt. “I’m gonna have to teach you how to take care of these things.”

  “I spent a weekend in Jersey once too,” my mother reminisced as she filled two coffee mugs with cold Chablis. Rourke had dropped me off just hours prior, though the two had not met. I’d called her the day before to say that I was safe and with friends. “At Princeton. Very memorable.” She handed me a cup. “Sorry about the mugs. I’ll do the dishes tonight.” She joined me at the table. “It feels like you’ve been gone for weeks. Susan Parsons finally moved in,” she said.

  “Here?” I hadn’t figured Kate’s room would be so quickly filled.

  My mother furrowed her brows. “Not here. Into an apartment in town. You remember Susan. She was in the car accident by the bowling alley.”

  “David and Lowie’s friend?” I asked. “The caterer?”

  “No. That’s Suzanne. Susan’s the astronomer. Oh, I forgot to tell you,” she said, changing the subject. “Since Powell’s in Brazil through September, you can use his car for the summer. It’s gotten too dangerous for the bike. The city people are insane.”

  I thanked her, saying that it would be great to use Powell’s car.

  “I’m going to an art opening tonight at Ashawagh Hall, for an artist named Ortega. He mounts bowling balls on wedges. They look like giant olives on giant cheeses. Very geometric. Feel like coming?”

  “I’m pretty tired. Maybe next time.” She smiled, but I knew she was down. It would have been easy to tell myself that my leaving home would mean nothing to her, but I kind of felt bad to take myself away.

  On the mail table there were two phone messages from Kate and several from Denny and Sara Eden and one from Dad. There were envelopes from the NYU bursar’s office and the NYU School of the Arts and a single tattered card from Jack, postmarked the day before graduation. It was a vintage photograph of East Hampton, with cows in the middle of Main Street, and, huge on the right, the tree we loved. Jack had written a long note that I didn’t really want to read, so I set the card writing-side out on the windowsill by the kitchen sink. I stepped back to regard it, noticing that his writing reeled and lurched to form the shape of an owl. From where I stood it looked like a relief or woodcut. It did not inspire sadness exactly, but something that moved in the mask of sadness, influenced as it was by
the infancy of summer and the recent invincibility of my heart.

  In the basement, damp towels from the weekend were piled on the dusty, cold concrete floor. I sat against the washing machine, removing from my bag the pieces of clothing I’d worn to Jersey, pressing each one to my face, deep and close like an oxygen mask, smelling my sweat and his, soaking in each kiss, and the last—especially the last, the one in the driveway with his palm taking the ladder of my neck, drawing me in.

  “You know where to find me?” Rourke had asked.

  I didn’t really, but I said that I did, then I released myself from his grip, slipping out. He would be in the same cottage in Montauk he’d stayed at all winter. Before we’d left Jersey that morning, I’d heard him call the owner and arrange to take back the house and keep it through the end of August. I’d never been there, but I remembered the St. Patrick’s Day parade when Rob said Rourke lived across the street from where we’d been standing.

  The night that followed was a long one. Through the length of it, I felt many contradictory things—I felt alive, but I felt also and intensely the part of me that was dead. If I was unattended, I was not lonely. I was kept tranquil through the hours by the memory of the tenderness of his hands, by the devotion in his eyes, by the glorious opposition between us that could never be lost to me, not even if he was lost to me.

  29

  After my waitressing shift at the Lobster Roll, I changed in the bathroom, put on lipstick, and had a Beck’s out back with the lunch staff, all of us listening to Neil Young. It had been a long time since we’d seen one another. We didn’t talk much; we looked out onto Napeague stretch, the two-lane highway that ran alongside the restaurant, and we watched the cars pass. The sunset spilled down the road from west to east, returning to us slow, like honey from an overturned jar.

  I drove Powell’s steel-blue Dodge Charger toward Montauk, whipping around the treacherous curves of Old Montauk Highway, ducking oncoming Jaguars, speeding over peaks, sending my stomach flying. I knew I was not going to die—not then, not that way.

  In Montauk, the giant lamps of the ballpark illuminated the northern arc of the traffic circle, so I headed in that direction. Rourke’s car was parked at the field, so I swung into the lot next to Trail’s End Restaurant, left my shoes in the car, and walked across the street to the field. There were bleachers with friends and family mixed from both sides. It seemed like a nice group. I climbed a few rows up and sat, pulling my skirt tighter around my thighs.

  Rourke was at first base. Though he wore a uniform that matched the other uniforms, he looked unlike the others. I located him through the cloth. I saw him differently now; I saw his limbs, and I knew their weight, their strength. Buttons were missing from the base of his shirt, and just past the split was his abdomen, the pale brown of his skin and black of his hair. He didn’t acknowledge me, though he knew I was there.

  An old man paced on the rim of the field. He turned to those of us in the stands and chastised, “Shout it up out there, Montauk. You sound like a bunch of mutes!”

  When the last batter of the last inning hit a foul that popped past first base, Rourke ran backward, then leapt to catch it. For a moment he prevailed in air; there was a collective breath, the slap of the ball against the hide of his glove, and raucous cheers. He headed in with his teammates, his stride long, his head modestly inclined. Before home plate he split off, coming to me, straddling the bench I was on. His face lowered to mine, our foreheads grazed, our hair intertwined.

  “I missed you,” he said, breathing out. “C’mon.” He gave me his hand, the two of us rising. “Let’s take a walk.”

  I followed his lead. It felt out of control to be in love with someone so masculine. It was like being an amateur with your own supernatural capacities. Both teams had collected informally around the second set of bleachers, and, as we passed, Rourke was handed two bottles of beer, which he took in his free hand, the one not holding mine. The guys spoke to Rourke warmly.

  “Glad you showed up, man.”

  “Nice catch.”

  “Hey, next time you move, let a few weeks pass before you come back. We’d like to have the girls to ourselves for a while.”

  At his car Rourke put the bottles on the hood and he bent to kiss me, wrapping one arm around my waist, pulling me in and up, bearing down. I remember the cool metal against my shoulders, the wet grass beneath my feet, and around us, the curious imperative of cricket noise swelling to near crescendo.

  “How did you get here?” he wanted to know.

  I pointed across the street. “Car.”

  “Car?” he said, like that was funny. “C’mon. Get in. I’ll drive you over.”

  Before joining me, he removed his wet shirt, tossing it into the backseat, asking me to hand him a clean one, which I did, holding it out to the part of his abdomen that obstructed the open driver’s window. As we were about to leave, there were two knocks on the trunk. Some guy leaned in the window. On his kelly-green jersey there were numbers, and a name, Roger.

  Roger nodded to me politely, saying hi. “You guys coming to the Tattler?”

  Rourke just said, “Not tonight, but thanks. We’re heading home.”

  ——

  My first impression was of the darkness, the way it was dappled. The moonlight entered the cottage from various angles and settled in irregular patches like it does on the floor of a forest. There were earthy odors and the thrill of encampment. I thought of his winter alone, and about the applications of his privacy. I wondered how he’d stayed warm. I thought of the nights we’d missed—an entire year.

  Besides the random pools of moonlight, the room was featureless in the near pitch. A cast-iron stove materialized at the distant right. He knelt before it, matches in hand. One triangular tip of paper swelled to life within the elliptical swing gate, then the flame progressed down the edge before catching entirely and illuminating in a fan the shallow range around him, his upraised hand, his bent leg, several inches of floor. The kindling caught, brightening more—a couch, a chair, a stretch of old windows above the kitchen fixtures, the suitcases, boxes, and stereo he’d taken back from Jersey. I knew because I’d helped him load the car.

  I knelt in front of the fire while he went in back to change. There was nothing in my mind while I waited, nothing other than the vanes of firelight tripping erratically and the rising temperature of my skin. It was as if I were becoming the fire and the fire were becoming me. Rourke returned wearing a frayed blue sweater and a pair of jeans that were soft with holes. He was tall until he came down, sitting alongside me on the floor, looking at the fire too. He seemed less complicated than usual, his masculinity more authentic. I thought maybe I was seeing not what he chose to show but what he chose not to conceal, which was different. Though physically we were opposites, emotionally I felt strangely similar; I felt almost as I’d felt with the fire, as though being with him was like being with me.

  I heard him take a breath. He asked if I felt like staying. He went no further, but I knew what he meant. He meant the whole summer, week to month, night to day—he was asking me to suffer the transformations in his arms. Yes, I said. I would stay.

  30

  The anonymous green-and-white cottage sat at the crest of a hill overlooking the bay on a street called Fleming Road. The reminder of Jack was unfortunate, but the connection ended with the name. The house was unlike any other I’d been in. The constant currents of light and air it received made it seem invulnerable to misfortune; and yet, it was modest, like a tent or teepee. Each day there was a new day, with nothing carrying over from the previous one—when morning came through the window, it came as if by surprise. The sun would advance upon my skin, reminding me to be grateful, and his arms would take me tighter.

  It was there that I met myself, there that I discovered my soul’s invention, the feminine genius of me. I often thought about life beyond the summer, acknowledging that an end was imminent, that I needed to prepare. The world sloped against our door l
ike a barren belly—I could feel it. Had I been sentenced to death, I could not have interpreted time with a fiercer consciousness—every twilight seemed to be the last, every rain the final rain, every kiss the conclusive aroma of a rose, gliding just once past your lips.

  If he loved me, love wrought no change in him. He did not speak of such things, and neither did I, because words and promises are false, resolving nothing. I was an American girl; I possessed what our culture valued most—independence and blind courage. From the beginning he had been attracted to the savagery in me that matched the savagery in him, and yet, what bound us was the prospect of that soundness unraveled. I began to unlearn things I’d been taught. Often I was afraid, but my fear was a natural fear, a living fear, a fear of the unknown. I would not have exchanged it for a wasteland of security. It kept me vigilant through the night.

  No matter what was to happen between us in the end, he would not be to blame. If I were to be wounded, it would not be because he wanted to wound me. His battles lay elsewhere, with things of which I was reluctant to conceive—time and obligations, ambition and money. I wished it didn’t have to be that way. I wished there were no place in life to go. I wished for his sake that I were older, stronger, better, that I might have sheltered him.

  Sometimes when I lay in the cradle of his arms, he would draw me closer, squeezing as if to concede something. Sometimes when his exhausted weight landed against my breasts, and his hair invaded my parted lips, and all I could hear was silence, a palisade so sullen and arid that nothing could possibly breach it, I would say, “Rourke.”

  The days were simple, numb, and narrow. My impressions collected in layers like generations of rock beneath earth, impacted to form a single idea—that I was happy. I didn’t write; I didn’t draw; I kept no record of conversations or clothes, places passed or inhabited. Each moment that expired was a butterfly escaping, imperial in hue and contour, membranous and sheer, fluttering magically, slipping off to the gaping enormity of liberty and oblivion. Like whispers through grasslands or heath entwined with dew, in my mind and in my memory, what remains of that summer is an overriding sense of completeness.