Iris Has Free Time

by Iris Smyles

  DRINKING GAME #4

  PLAYER ONE: You

  PLAYER TWO: Your friend Janice whom you met at Graduate School

  While media outlets are all abuzz over the impending “death of print,” decide to start a print-only literary magazine with Player Two. Bicker about the contents. Seethe over the layout. Try to hide your relief when, shortly before the release of the first issue, Player Two informs you she’s decided to move to Israel in order to live on a Kibbutz and reevaluate her life choices. Stay behind and devote yourself fully to your new magazine.

  Print one thousand copies. Sell fifty at your much-anticipated launch party. Smile brightly when greeting people at the door. Speak enthusiastically about your “vision,” leaving out the detail of having founded the magazine in a blackout. Fidget in the corner and furrow your brow when you think no one is looking.

  Discover someone was looking when you are emailed photos of the event in which you are fidgeting in the corner, furrowing your brow, thinking no one is looking. Stare at the photos for a long minute before checking the rest of your email. Wonder how you ended up editing a literary magazine—you don’t even read literary magazines—in much the same way you wondered how you ended up in bed with that poet after the launch party—you don’t even read poetry, not much, not anymore.

  When you can’t sell the magazines, mail free issues to various colleges, give more away at nearby bookstores, put free copies in the doorways of hip cafés, burrito shops . . . laundromats. Use a few to pack some delicate plates when your friend Reggie asks you to help him move, and store the remaining 750 at your parents’ house in Long Island.

  When you run into old acquaintances and they ask you, “Whatever became of [Player Two]?” shrug as if the thought had never occurred to you. Say, “[Player] Who?” Cringe when they ask you if you’re still “doing the magazine.”

  PILLOW DIVING

  PLAYER ONE: You

  PLAYER TWO: Your friend Reggie

  PLAYER THREE THROUGH PLAYER SIX: Assorted friends gathered at Reggie’s apartment on Avenue C to watch the game.

  Go over to Player Two’s to watch the Super Bowl. Have a beer. Have some chips. Have some more beer. Have some more beer. Fall asleep. Wake up and have wings. Wash it down with beer. Have a few more beers. Cheer when everyone else cheers. Then, struck suddenly by the indescribable beauty of a Sunday afternoon, the way it briefly catches your life in mid-blur, like a photograph of someone running, get up off the couch where the other players all sit with their eyes glued to the TV. Get up and go to the window to smoke a cigarette. Sit by yourself and look out. Shiver a little as the cold spills into the room. Turn. Make eye contact with Player Two ten feet away. Put out your cigarette. Look out the window again expecting to see something more than you do—just a few people bundled and rushing. Close the window.

  Dance back over to everyone else. Notice your beer can is empty. Dance over to the refrigerator. Console Player Two when his team loses. Find him a bit more handsome than usual. Look into his eyes; suggest he help you take the sofa cushions off the couch in order to arrange them in a line on the floor. Volunteer to go first.

  Begin running from the far side of the apartment, from inside the bathroom in order that you have runway enough to build adequate speed. As you approach the pillow landing, prepare for lift off. Now jump! Now dive! Get up and say, “Who’s next?”

  Should your partner announce that he will play alone, you cannot supersede him and play alone yourself, but must place your cards upon the table, face downwards, no matter how strong your hand may be.

  “ON THE LONE HAND” EUCHRE, HOYLE’S GAMES

  DRINKING GAME #5

  PLAYER ONE: You

  PLAYER TWO: Your new boyfriend Philip

  Saturday, 2:00 PM. Buy a bottle of vodka and a quart of orange juice and return to your apartment. Pour the vodka and the orange juice into two glasses, giving one to Player Two. Repeat until the bottle is empty.

  Walk over to Hudson River Park, remarking on the beautiful day but for those clouds over there, gathering in the distance.

  Get caught in a sudden downpour and take shelter beneath a deserted jungle gym. Kiss. When Player Two lies on top of you, unzip his pants, spread your legs, let him push your shorts to the side. Kiss. Wrap your arms around him as he collapses into you.

  When the rain stops, suggest walking out to the edge of the pier to take in the view. Forget your sunglasses on the grass beneath the jungle gym. Stop short when a policeman taps Player Two on the shoulder. Wait as the cop writes you each a ticket.

  Get into a fight with Player Two the next day. Wait for him to call so that he’ll realize you’ve stopped taking his calls. In the meantime, take the subway down to City Hall to pay the ticket you received for “accessing a children’s playground without a child.” Squint without your sunglasses as you search for the address.

  LIMBO

  PLAYER ONE: You

  PLAYER TWO, PLAYER THREE, PLAYER FOUR. . . : the other adjuncts at the college where you’ve been hired to teach World Humanities

  All the players should line up outside the English office and take turns reminding the secretary to the chair that you’re interested in teaching an elective.

  An elder hand composed of the king, nine, and eight of hearts; queen, seven, and five of diamonds; knave, eight, and seven of spades; ace and nine of clubs; with this hand it is most probable you will lose the party....

  “HINTS TOWARD PLAYING,” REVERSIS, HOYLE’S GAMES

  DRINKING GAME #6

  ANYONE CAN PLAY!

  Go out Monday for drinks with friends. Go out Tuesday for drinks with friends. Look down on people who watch TV, people who watch Friends instead of having them and going out with them the way you do. Now go out for drinks with friends on a Wednesday, but do not drink because you are on antibiotics for a sinus infection. Wonder what everyone else is laughing at. Wonder: Who are these assholes you call your friends?

  Come to after a week-long bender. Buy a ticket to a movie matinee—a romantic comedy about a woman your age. Bring an oversized bottle of water to rehydrate. Notice the characters in the film don’t drink the way you do. Realize you’ve not gone more than a week without drinking since you were eighteen years old. Wonder if you could have a drinking problem. Decide to test yourself with a month of sobriety. Make that two weeks. Make that a week.

  Go out that night with your friends and do not drink. Wonder again what everyone is laughing at. Discover again that you can’t stand any of these people. Wonder if it’s not a drinking problem you have, but a friend problem. Consider your options:

  1. Resume drinking and continue to see your friends.

  2. Drink alone in front of your television set—Law & Order is almost always on—or by the windowsill looking out into the street, or in front of the computer while you work on your fiction, i.e. upload a new profile photo to your Facebook page.

  3. Stop drinking and make new friends.

  Put off choosing for as long as possible. Wonder: When did all these games stop being fun?

  DRINKING GAME #7

  PLAYER ONE: You

  PLAYER TWO: Does it matter?

  Develop an impressive alcoholic threshold through tireless practice and unerring commitment to the game. Get older. In quieter moments between hangovers and drinking binges, recognize you have a drinking problem and begin to worry about if and when you must quit. Remember how you used to say, “I’m an alcoholic!” precisely because it wasn’t true. Notice how you now say, “I’m not an alcoholic!” for fear that it is. Blush when you reach for the wine bottle at a dinner party. Hope no one notices how quickly you refill your glass.

  Catch yourself saying at a cocktail party on a Wednesday evening, “Oh my, I think I’m a bit tipsy,” and act surprised by the powerful effects of alcohol on your small frame, as you’re sipping only your second drink—aren’t you so careful at a cocktail party on a Wednesday night—the second drink, that is, if you don’t count the bottle of win
e you finished at home while getting dressed, the tepid can of beer in the shower.

  On Thursday morning, lie in bed and review the events of Wednesday night. Tell yourself: You didn’t do anything so embarrassing so far as you can tell, so why are you so ashamed? Stop beating yourself up! Decide you need to get out of your apartment. Call Player Two and remind her of the two-for-one margarita special at that great Mexican place down the street.

  Say, “Sorry I’m late,” and arrange your coat on the back of the chair so that the bottom hem drags on the floor. Sit down and say, “Tell me everything,” then look around until you find the waiter. Nod. Say, “Look. You can do better.” After the third round, laugh loudly at whatever she says before drifting off into a brief silent melancholy. Notice the way the lamplight reflects off the wooden bar in the middle of the room. Notice the perfect dusk receding from the window where you’re seated with Player Two. Notice the winter. Feel yourself on the brink of a revelation, feel the world boiling down to now. Tell a joke and back away from now slowly. Signal to the waiter. Suggest you do shots.

  CHAPTER 10

  OUT OF HELL’S KITCHEN

  With a changed voice now, and with changed fleece,

  I will return a poet, and at the font

  Of my baptism I will take the laurel crown.

  DANTE, COMMEDIA: PARADISO

  The only paradise is paradise lost.

  MARCEL PROUST, IN SEARCH OF LOST TIME

  V

  7

  I had a couch in Hell’s Kitchen at the foot of West Fifty-seventh Street. I had a roommate, too.

  We were matched up two years before the couch, in a freshman dormitory on Fifth Avenue, just above Washington Square Park. May was standing in the doorway when I arrived. “Are you Iris?” She smiled and came toward me, her arms opening for a hug; I cordially offered my hand. My parents were a few steps behind; handshakes were exchanged all around. Then my father reminded my mother that they were double-parked.

  We barely spoke that first night, only when she came out of the bathroom and, finding me already in my bed, asked if it was okay to turn out the lights. For a full week I avoided her—on the second night, I fell asleep in the student lounge; on the third, I crashed on the floor of some guy’s room, a transfer student I’d met in the dining hall who’d kissed me on a bench in Washington Square and lay on the floor beside me at two in the morning, leaving his own bed empty; on the fourth, where did I go, who was I with? And the fifth?—until, too tired to stay away any longer, I returned.

  It was a Sunday afternoon. May, a musical theater major, sat on her bed, perusing some sheet music, while I, a drama major, sat on mine, updating “the books”—the charts and graphs I kept in the back of my journal organizing my sexual exploits into statistical data. Names were listed along the Y-axis, maneuvers on the X.

  I looked up. “How many boys have you kissed?”

  May began counting on her fingers some number between three and four. “One of the kisses was iffy,” she explained.

  “I’m up to thirty!” I said proudly, rounding up.

  “Wow,” May answered, her eyes wide. “I don’t even know that many boys.”

  Most of my kisses had occurred during my summers in Greece. I’d had French “boyfriends” and German “boyfriends” and Dutch “boyfriends” and Serbian “boyfriends.” I showed May the graph I’d made, which resembled a page torn from the immigration records at Ellis Island. Belying the statistics, I wasn’t very experienced, however. I’d had sex with just one person, my boyfriend of two years with whom I’d broken up before coming to NYU.

  “Who’s this?” May asked, referring to the blank spot next to which I’d written, “Patchy.”

  “I don’t remember his name. I kissed him at this discotheque in Volos behind the WC. He had an eye patch.” I shrugged.

  May had spent almost all of her summers at theater camp where generally the boys didn’t go further than stage kissing, she confessed. Then she got out her own journal and decided to make a graph, too. “For science,” we agreed.

  This first conversation set the tone for our relationship. I would be the scientist, rushing headlong into the unknown, and May, my faithful assistant, her lab coat flapping, as she hurried after.

  6

  After that Sunday, we were inseparable. Thanksgivings were spent together with my family in Long Island, and spring breaks with hers in Alabama. For a few weeks after our sophomore year, instead of going home, May came to stay with me in Long Island, and the following year, she joined me in Greece.

  We were more than friends; we were a duo, a team, a stage act—Iris and May! Exaggerating our differences, we defined ourselves in relief of one another. May, a technical virgin when she arrived in New York, became the petite, wide-eyed, innocent Southern Belle, while I, nominally more experienced, became the tall, jaded, fast-talking New Yorker. More accurately, we were both just kids from the suburbs.

  In 1998, at the end of our sophomore year, we decided to get our own place and rented the first and only apartment we saw. If we didn’t take it on the spot, the realtor warned us, as we stood a few feet away, huddled in nervous deliberation, someone else would surely scoop us on “this exceptional deal.” It was a one-bedroom railroad on the first floor of an old tenement on West Fifty-seventh Street close to Tenth Avenue, a no-man’s-land between Hell’s Kitchen and the Upper West Side, which I later dubbed, “Hell’s Kitchenette.”

  The apartment had mice and bugs and a deeply slanted wood floor broken up near the radiator where they came and went freely. It had three windows, one in the bedroom that opened onto a narrow airshaft with a view into the neighbor’s kitchen, and the other two, eye level with the garbage dump out front and extending all the way up to the ceiling.

  “The twelve foot ceilings really add to the spaciousness,” the realtor said. The floor of the apartment totaled 425 square feet. “These French doors are brand new,” she added, opening and closing the slatted balsa-wood partition that separated the “bedroom” from “the living room.” “And it’s walking distance from the subway.” Three long avenues, it couldn’t be much further. But we didn’t see any of its flaws then; we saw “brand new French doors,” we saw high ceilings, we saw potential. We couldn’t believe our luck.

  For furniture, we shopped exclusively at the Salvation Army. We bought four red and white rolling chairs—“We’ll have everything on wheels! ”—and a large glass dining room table, which made May nervous. She was accident-prone and thought the glass frighteningly fragile. She suggested we might do better with something wooden. I brushed off her fears. “How can you possibly break it?” I asked, knocking on its sturdy surface.

  And then there was the couch, our favorite piece—a charming striped thing about to buckle beneath our weight. We’d buttress it with magazines, course books, and photographs that we took of each other in our Halloween costumes, in wigs that we donned even when it wasn’t Halloween but just a Thursday, and architectural drawings of the fort we built one night by piling all our furniture into two towers and throwing a blanket over the top; we photographed that, too. We took tons of pictures back then, and we’d store them all usefully beneath the cushions of our collapsing couch.

  We claimed our respective sides, naming mine “San Juan” and hers “San Sebastian.” The couch was an island, we said, surrounded by the flotsam of empty liquor bottles, splayed alternative weeklies, crayon drawings, broken cigarettes, and the occasional renegade Jenga piece, toy soldier, or mix tape. We were Robinson Crusoes of the West Side and engineered the whole apartment to fit our late-adolescent idea of civilization. To get off the island, one had to alight to one of the rolling chairs—our dinghies. We made a game of it—as the floor was on an incline, rolling toward the kitchen was a delightful adventure, but getting back out to the living room, a harrowing ordeal—we made up games for everything.

  Peeking down from my pirate’s lookout ten feet up—over the edge of my loft bed—I’d call down to May through a
megaphone I’d crafted out of colored construction paper: “Who’s that on the phone?”

  “It’s your idiot boyfriend,” she’d say, putting him on hold.

  “You talk to him.” I’d wave my hand. “Pretend you’re me.”

  This was one of our favorite “science experiments.” My boyfriends would call and she’d pretend to be me, while I waited to see if and when they would catch on. We conducted lots of “experiments”—the all-Baby-Ruth-and-Diet-Dr-Pepper diet, the “let’s-call-all-our-friends-and-tell-them-we’re-in-jail-to-see-who-offers-to-bail-us-out” hypothesis, or the time we attempted to package smoke. I took a long hit off a freshly rolled joint, exhaled into an empty Diet Dr Pepper bottle, and spun the cap quickly. We would stop the smoke from diffusing, save it to breathe in again later. Peering through the clear plastic, had we done it? Would we find a little white cloud floating inside tomorrow?

  The apartment, like our couch, fell apart almost immediately. Or rather, it had been a wreck to begin with and its flaws just began to show. In the three years we stayed, the paint peeled from the heating pipes; the roof leaked in the bathroom—regularly in a steady drip that increased in urgency every day, sometimes so much it seemed as if it were raining—mice moved in, we could hear them scratching in the walls at night; and the small kitchenette on the far end of the apartment, connected to the bedroom by a long narrow hallway, became crowded with dirty dishes we could not clean fast enough.

  And then the light high above the sink blew out. Unable to change it without calling the super, we left it dark. Did we need a kitchen anyway? Blocking it from our minds, we abandoned the room to time. The kitchenette became a frightening unlit cave downstream of our island, filled with culinary relics and crustaceans—worldly cockroaches who’d been living in the apartment long before May and I arrived and would continue to live there long after we left—that we’d venture into only sparingly and always on tiptoe.