by Jason Starr
I moved to the other end of the couch and sat with my head in my hands. Then I heard sobbing noises and I looked over and saw that Rebecca had started crying. I sat there, letting her cry, figuring it was better than letting her go on a rampage, breaking things.
Finally she said, “I’m not a bad person, right? I’m not a bad person, am I?”
Her mascara was running and blood was collecting on her lower lip.
“I know I’m not a bad person,” she said. “I’m a good person. I have problems, but everybody has problems, right? I’m not a bad person. Please don’t tell me I’m bad. Please don’t tell me I’m bad.”
“I never said you were bad,” I said, hating myself.
“I won’t be bad anymore,” she said. “I promise. Just don’t leave me. I couldn’t handle it if you left me.”
She started kissing my neck and my chest, then my stomach, then lower. I tried to push her off me, and when I tried again it was too late.
“Sit back and watch me,” she said.
3
WHEN THE ALARM clock blared I couldn’t get out of bed. I had to hit the snooze button four or five times before I managed to make it into the shower. I got dressed lethargically, wishing I were still asleep. I said good-bye to Rebecca, but she couldn’t hear me. She was snoring, drooling onto her pillow.
Heading toward the subway station along Seventy-ninth Street, lost in thought, I stepped onto a huge pile of dogshit. Cursing, I looked around for a puddle to dunk my shoe into, but it hadn’t rained in days, so I had to scrape the sole against the edge of the curb to get off as much of the shit as I could. People rushing by smiled at me smugly or gave me look-at-that-stupid-idiot-who-stepped-in-shit looks, and I glared back at them, wishing they’d mind their own fucking business.
Continuing along the block, still cursing under my breath, I decided that my real problem was New York. I was sick of the crowds, the pollution, the noise, the smells, the traffic jams, and the dogshit. And I was sick of rushing everywhere and feeling stressed-out and angry twenty-four fucking hours a day. I didn’t know why I even lived in New York anymore. I never went to the theater, or clubs, or museums, and I hardly ever went out to restaurants or bars. Actually, aside from going to work, I rarely went below Seventy-second Street or above Eighty-sixth, or ventured farther east than the sliver of Central Park between the northern end of the Sheep Meadow and the southern end of the Great Lawn. Despite living in one of the biggest, supposedly greatest, most culturally diverse cities in the world, I spent about eighty percent of my time in roughly a half-mile radius of my apartment.
If I left New York, I could start my life over again. With my Wall Street Journal experience alone I could move to a smaller city and get a job at a newspaper. I could be the big-shot reporter from New York; everybody would look up to me and respect me. Maybe I could meet a woman, someone I really liked, and I could have a normal, happy life. We’d have a big house and kids—a boy and a girl—and we’d have a backyard and a swimming pool. I tried to imagine myself and my happy family living in California or Florida—someplace sunny—as I descended the steep, dirty steps to the subway.
I rode the jam-packed 1 train to Fiftieth Street, then walked uptown on Broadway. Manhattan Business’s publisher was a cheap shit, and, although the magazine had been at the same location on Fifty-second Street for years, the office had been designed and decorated as though it were a temporary location. Except for the executive offices at the far end of the cavernous space, there were no walls. The office was divided by rows of closely aligned room dividers to give us a sense of “privacy.” The floors weren’t carpeted, and the old floorboards were corroding in spots. The walls had chunks missing, and the place desperately needed a paint job. The windows were filthy, the ceilings were cracked, and the air-conditioning and heat never seemed to work.
I was heading down the corridor toward my office, really a large cubicle, when I heard Peter Lyons, the associate editor, call out my name. I turned around and saw him approaching behind me. Peter was very tall, maybe six-five, and had a small, balding head.
“Just the man I was looking for,” he said.
Although Peter was American, from Westport, Connecticut, he spoke with a British accent, which, rumor had it, he’d picked up after spending his junior year abroad in London. He also wrote in a pseudo-British style, which was especially annoying when he “edited” my stories, adding unnecessary adverbs and words he’d obviously pulled from a thesaurus. He was five years younger than me, with three years less experience, and he didn’t have a financial background or a journalism background. He’d majored in creative writing at Wesleyan, for Christ’s sake, and it was humiliating to have to listen to his editorial critiques of my work when he had no idea what he was talking about.
“Morning,” I said, forcing a smile.
“I was expecting to see your article yesterday,” he said. “Remind me again of its subject matter?”
“It’s a company report on Byron Technologies.”
“Ah, yes, Byron Technologies,” he said. “And what’s their story?”
“Silicon Alley tech company, provides communication and remote-access solutions as well as support for various applications along multiple product lines. Lost two-forty a share last quarter, preadjusted EBIDTA. Pro forma earnings were a loss of seventy-six cents a share, missing the Street’s whisper of a loss of sixty-eight cents a share, but the gross revenue number of six point two million was point four million more than what most analysts had expected. The company’s burning cash and will have to raise money in the fourth quarter—maybe sell some equity, possibly through a secondary offering, although in the current climate the prospect of this seems unlikely. On a positive note, the company has cut spending over the last few quarters, mainly by reducing payroll on their sales and marketing staffs and focusing more on the support side of the business, where their margins are much higher. The company’s long-term viability depends upon their ability to reduce spending while maintaining their growth rate, as well as lowering their cash-burn rate, but the company is an unlikely takeover candidate because of all the debt on their balance sheet and because a great deal of consolidation has already taken place in their industry.”
I’d said all this talking as fast as I could, barely pausing for breath, and Peter looked lost, his eyes glazing over.
“Sounds compelling,” he said. “I certainly look forward to reading it. Send it to me asap.”
“Love to,” I said, “but I didn’t write it yet.”
“Really?” he said, locking his jaw and exposing his lower teeth. “And why exactly is that?”
“My deadline’s not till this afternoon.”
“Those deadlines are for me, not for you. Didn’t you see the memo I sent you about that last week?”
I always deleted Peter’s memos without reading them.
“Must’ve missed that one.”
“Well, it spelled out the deadline situation in great detail. In the future you need to deliver your stories to me twenty-four hours in advance of your ultimate deadline so I have adequate time to edit them.”
“Gotcha,” I said, fake-smiling.
“Very well then,” he said. “Carry on.”
In my office, cursing out Peter under my breath, I got to work, transcribing Robert Lipton’s interview and outlining my article. There was no way Jeff Sherman could call this one a puff piece. Adding to what I’d come up with last night, I’d write a paragraph questioning Byron Technologies’ business model, calling it “unrealistic” and “a throwback to the Internet mania of the late nineties,” and I’d call the company’s decision to market its products in Canada and Mexico “a fatal error.”
I started writing the actual article, banging it out at my usual forty-five-word-a-minute speed, when Angie Lerner entered my office.
Angie was a reporter who worked in the office next door to me. She was very cute, with straight brown hair and a great smile. Although she was slightly overweight, esp
ecially below the waist, she was confident about her appearance and not afraid to wear sleeveless shirts and tight pants, which made her even sexier. Although she was only twenty-six, she had a mature, levelheaded way about her that made her seem closer to thirty.
Usually I tried to find things wrong with women, noticing and amplifying every fault, but there was nothing wrong with Angie Lerner. She was perfect wife material—stable, down-to-earth, intelligent. It was easy to insert her into my fantasy of the house in the suburbs, a two-car garage, weekends on the golf course, two cute kids. But for some reason I always avoided the women who were perfect for me, going after the ones with FUCKED UP flashing on their foreheads instead.
“Working?” she asked.
“What?” I said, lost for a moment, staring at her. Then I said, “Yeah.”
“What on?” she said, glancing at my monitor.
“Don’t ask,” I said.
Angie shook her head knowingly; we complained to each other about Jeff and Peter all the time.
“You know what Jeff told me the other day?” Angie said. “I’m in his office and he goes, ‘Your articles aren’t nasty enough.’ He said I need to grow a backbone, stop being so wishy-washy.”
“Why do we even work here?”
“For our great salaries.”
“We could deliver pizzas or flowers, answer phones somewhere. At least we’d have our integrity.”
“Do what I do—just hand in the stories, and don’t think about it. The most important thing is to get your bylines.”
“Yeah, if Peter doesn’t fuck them up first. Headhunters always ask me why my Journal articles were so much better written than my Manhattan Business ones. I try to explain it, but I get the sense they never believe me. It’s like a convicted criminal swearing he’s innocent.”
Angie plopped down in the seat next to my desk. I asked her what else was going on, and she started whispering to me about the latest office gossip—Simone, who worked in Accounting, and Brad, who worked in Marketing, had gotten drunk two nights ago and had sex, which was especially juicy because Brad had recently gotten engaged. I was listening to every word Angie said, but got distracted, thinking about Rebecca, frustrated that I hadn’t gotten rid of her yet. Angie must have noticed my agitation, because she said in a suddenly concerned voice, “Is something wrong?”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“I don’t know. You just seem out of it.”
“It’s my story. I just want to get it out of the way.”
I knew this explanation didn’t hack it. We always had deadlines, and it had never stopped me from killing time with Angie until the eleventh hour.
“I’ll go bug somebody else,” she said, getting up.
“I’m not trying to blow you off,” I said.
“Sure you’re not.” Then, smiling, making it into a joke, she said, “See you later.”
I watched her leave, feeling bad for acting so cold. She knew I was living with Rebecca, but I had never talked to her about the relationship, and I wondered if I should. She was very rational and supportive, the type of person who always took your side in a fight, and maybe what I needed was for somebody like her to tell me that I had to dump Rebecca’s ass and get on with my life.
I picked up my phone to call Angie and apologize when the light on my extension lit up, indicating that I had an incoming call. I was going to let my voice mail answer, but then I decided to pick up, figuring it might be a last-minute contact calling me back about my article.
“David Miller.”
“Hello?”
The woman’s voice was meek and high-pitched; I had to strain to hear her.
“Yes?” I said.
“Are you David Miller?”
“Speaking.”
There was silence for a couple of seconds, and then the woman said, “I have your wallet.”
I straightened up in my chair and smiled. “Wow, that’s great—wow. Where’d you find it?”
The line was silent again. I wondered if she’d hung up or the connection was lost.
“Hello?” I said.
“Yeah,” she said.
“I said where’d you find my—”
“The bus,” she said. “The First Avenue bus.”
“Really?” I said. “Jesus, I wonder how it wound up there. I was pickpocketed in this bar in midtown last night. How’d you get my work number?”
“It was on a business card.”
“Wow,” I said. “Thank you so much for calling—this’ll really save me a big headache. I thought I’d have to get a new Social Security card and go to the DMV, stand in one of those ridiculous lines—”
“So do you want it back or not?”
Suddenly the woman sounded rushed.
“Of course,” I said. “How can I get it from you?”
“I live downtown,” she said, “on Avenue B and Sixth.”
“Okay,” I said, finding a pen and piece of paper to write on. “You want me to meet you someplace near your apartment, or—”
“You can come to my place to get it,” she said.
“Fine,” I said. “No problem. What time?”
“How’s right now?”
I glanced at the time on my PC—11:18. I could zip downtown and make it back up in plenty of time to finish my story before the two-o’clock deadline.
“Sounds great,” I said. “What’s your address?”
She gave me the address and told me her name—Sue.
“Okay,” I said. “I’ll be there in twenty minutes, a half hour. Thanks so much for calling.”
I typed a quick couple of paragraphs, then grabbed my jacket and headed down the corridor toward the front of the office. On the way out, I leaned into Angie’s cubicle. She was on the phone, so I whispered, “Sorry.” Without speaking she mouthed, It’s okay, and smiled.
I took the subway downtown instead of taking a cab, figuring it would be faster at this time of day. After exiting the Eighth Street station on Broadway, I headed east along St. Marks. I hadn’t been to the East Village in a long time, and I’d been to Alphabet City only once or twice, when I first moved to the city after college. I’d heard about all of the gentrification that had taken place east of First Avenue, but the changes weren’t as dramatic as I expected. Internet cafés, trendy macrobiotic restaurants, and hip clothing stores had replaced many of the bodegas, dive bars, and hole-in-the-wall record stores, but the streets were still crowded with plenty of self-important, pseudo-Bohemian wannabes and burnouts, and there were still lots of seedy-looking bars and stores selling what looked like garbage—they had to be fronts for something.
Avenue A had definitely improved over the past decade, looking as yuppified as Amsterdam Avenue in my neighborhood, and Tompkins Square Park wasn’t the drug-infested hellhole it used to be. There were actually kids in the play-ground and normal-looking people walking along the paths and sitting on benches. But the area hadn’t been entirely cleaned up. Outside the park there were still plenty of drug-addict types huddled on street corners and milling around phone booths.
I headed down Sixth Street and found Sue’s building, near Avenue B. It was a nice block, but the five-story tenement where Sue lived had definitely missed out on the neighborhood’s renaissance. The facade was dilapidated, with crumbling concrete, and at least a couple of apartments were burned out, the windows boarded up with plywood. Along the front of the building there was a waist-high fence, with several overflowing garbage cans beyond it. The door to the building had a small window, about one foot by one foot, too high to see inside, as if it were designed to give push-in rapists privacy.
Two very thin, junkie-looking guys with dirty faces and filthy clothes were hanging out on the sidewalk in front of the fence. They’d been having a hushed conversation, but they stopped talking and stared at me as I approached.
I had a bad feeling about going inside the building, and I considered forgetting about the wallet and returning to my office. I actually turned aroun
d and took a few steps back toward Avenue A, when I thought about the picture of Barbara tucked behind my driver’s license. It was just an old Polaroid, trimmed down to wallet size, but I’d kept it in my wallet for years and it meant a lot to me.
I walked by the two junkies, who were still watching me, and entered the building. Garbage littered the floor of the vestibule—some of it was sticking to my feet—and there was a strong, nauseating smell of urine that reminded me of the way Manhattan streets smell in August. I held my breath as I pressed the buzzer to apartment fourteen. A few seconds later a staticky, barely audible voice said something I couldn’t understand.
“Sue?” I said, but the loud static came back on as I spoke.
“It’s me,” I said. “David Miller . . . the wallet guy.”
More static came on. The odor in the vestibule was so bad I had to hold my shirt up over my face to breathe. I was about to go outside when the buzzer sounded, opening the inside door. I thought it was weird that she’d buzz a total stranger up to her apartment, but she probably figured that a guy who worked at a financial magazine wouldn’t chop her into pieces.
The interior of the building was as run-down as the exterior. There was an old, rickety-looking staircase to the left and overflowing garbage—some bagged, some not—piled up next to it. As I headed up the four steep flights of stairs, my shirt still covering half my face, I heard a TV blasting The Price Is Right, and a guy screaming with an Indian accent—I made out the words “piece of shit”—and I saw several huge, fearless roaches on the walls. It got warmer on each floor until it became downright hot. Again, I considered turning back, but then I thought about the picture. I’d had it for about twenty years, and it would suck if I couldn’t get it back, especially after coming this far to get it.
I heard a door open on the floor above me and I continued up the stairs.
4
SUE WAS WAITING for me on the fifth floor, peering out of the partially opened door of apartment fourteen. When I arrived on the landing, I could see only a sliver of her face and body.
