I hid. From you and Gary. Under the bean bins, or actually in front of them because a customer was in the bathroom and there was nowhere else to go. This is where I become confused. The bizarre thing is that now, decades later, despite remembering that day and that whole summer distinctly, I don’t remember what happened next. I can recall the manager seeing me and I remember gesturing wildly to her that two humans were walking in who shouldn’t, but I don’t know what happened after that. Did I block out that part because I regret being such a coward? It feels shameful that I hid from you two, who were so sweet and didn’t even drink coffee. I remember thinking I would be in trouble with the manager if two nude men with better hair than her came into her shop. I have a hazy memory of speaking to you at the counter, but that could be a rendition I created where I acted like a rational person who stood up and said hey. What did I do, would you remember?
I would run into you as I walked the neighborhood with that enormous black dog named Bear, a Chow who was mysteriously waiting for me every time I left my house. Bear would sit outside the Laundromat when I went in with my friend Natalie on Friday nights. Natalie and I would combine all our wash to save money and we’d dance on top of the machines with some mild flashing of body parts to passersby if we’d drunk a few beers. Bear would stand outside and bark at men who saw us through the windows and tried to enter with no laundry. He’d sit there and when I left, he left. Natalie said he belonged to a family on the block and wasn’t neglected, but maybe he needed someone to protect. One night Luxe and I were walking to the beach with Bear and I heard a honk. It was you and Gary smoking a joint and waving for us to get in. Bear growled and bared his teeth and Luxe said
No, please, those guys freak me out with their Jungle Book cock hankies
I said we were on the way to see Luxe’s mom and you drove off singing and blowing me a kiss. When I saw you in the store the next day I was pricing walnuts and only half listening to Marshall, the guy who worked in the book section. Marshall was nice and highly intelligent. He could recite half-hour polemics about Irish politics that he thought I was deeply interested in because I listened to U2. He’d bring me graphic photos of children disfigured by plastic bullets and literature about Northern Ireland that I pretended to read. You stood behind him eating a fig. I was scooping my walnuts when Marshall abruptly leaned in and said something I never saw coming on the heels of him having just handed me a picture of a little girl whose nose was blown off
So, ma chere, would you like to come over and spend the night on Friday?
Now:
A. He was not French. He was from Humboldt County.
B. He’d never even flirted with me unless you count him giving me an underground “death index” listing all the people killed by plastic bullets. Admittedly, he said I could keep it and it was his only copy.
C. I’d never flirted with him. Maybe he took my gazing into his eyes bored as my gazing into his eyes wanting him?
D. There was the chance that he wanted quality time to go more in-depth about politics?
“D” was blown when I said, “Okay, sure,” and he did a tiny thumbs-up and smiled.
I said okay. Not just okay, but “okay, sure,” a double affirmative. We’d gone from “Good morning. I have more detail to share re suffering in the North of Ireland” to “I will thrust a chubby inside of you Friday night. Let me know if you are allergic to cats.” Why didn’t I ask, hey, do you mean so we can listen to Under a Blood Red Sky and order Burger King? Or are you thinking the other kind of special sauce? And how unfair of me to say yes when no way was I going to his leprechaun cottage to eat boiled potatoes and listen to bootlegs of Crass.
So Marshall sauntered off, certain I was coming over to suck his rubber bullet, and why wouldn’t he? I’d said okay, sure.
I didn’t look up when you slid over to my scale and said
Hey sunshine
You’d heard the whole thing. You asked if I was going to spend the night with Marshall and I said, no, looking over at that Nordic Percussionist sitting in the office. He was pretending to work on the books while reading the Tao Te Ching. You said you’re not seeing that guy, are you, rolling your eyes, and I said kind of, and you said are you or aren’t you? I said maybe. You said why didn’t you just say no thanks to Marshall. I said I don’t know how to say no, I only know how to yell it. I didn’t want to hurt his feelings. You said, what does he care, just say no and move on, and I was like, yeah, let me work on communicating like a grown-up. You smiled at me, leaning on my table and not speaking. I smiled back, my scooper still stuck in a bag of health powder. We were interrupted by Saturn Johnnie, the LSD casualty who worked in produce. He popped over and said, “Blue, hi, I want a second with her, or really, just stay, that’s also fine, I wanted to mention that it’s retrograde Mercury time and some of us will be dropping acid in my yard tonight and gentle body painting is involved? If you’d care to join?”
I stared at him. No one moved. I started to say “Maybe I will come later,” but I got out “May—” and Blue put his hand over mine, and said
Sorry, man, she’s hanging with me tonight, we’ve planned it since forever.
Saturn Johnnie said, “Oh, sure. Well come together if you want to share. It’s BYOB.” Blue said some other time and Johnnie left and I said, you see, I am not good with no.
Blue said
Don’t get introverted. The sun is shining. You are your usual outer-planetary self. We’re all just trying to laugh and get home safe
You were all right with yourself and knew how to say no. There was no one for you to impress and no one for you to offend. You were right there and I was afraid of how real you were, which made me question my own level of authenticity. I’d take off my clothes on the beach or spill my guts to a girl I’d never met on the bus, thinking I was uncensored and open, but I wasn’t always real if I wanted someone to like me. I gravitated to those who withheld or told me who they thought I was. What would have happened if I’d shown up at your van to hang out? If it weren’t for my friend Natalie digging you I might have but I’m sure your silence would have scared me. There was no game to play. The games wore me out in the end but back then I was weak for anyone with an excess of charisma. I kept saying I wanted sweetness and someone truthful but I was fussy about the form that sweetness might take. I wonder where you are out there. I hope your goodness is intact and you still feel blue all over. Really I want to say I’m sorry for hiding from you behind the coffee bins and whatever else I put in front of me, attempting to keep genuine kindness away.
Dear Abraham,
You took me in when I scratched at your door, needing someone with your skill set.
I had come to your office and just sat down, about all I could really manage. You’d been talking for an hour and I slouched there full of echoes. My eyes were dark and unreadable in that younger face. I had to grow into myself and lose the air of someone who was recently electrocuted but didn’t seem to mind it. I do remember that I couldn’t speak when you said,
“I don’t want to alarm you but according to the bank, you don’t have any available funds. You have no apparent savings. To live on, et cetera. At this time.”
I gathered my hair into one hand and made a sound like a hose being turned on.
“Okay, so,” you said. You seemed unsure if I was devastated or hypoglycemic. “Shall I explain this to you? Do you understand how this happened?”
“No. But I mean, yeah, if you want to try? I mean, I’m not very . . .” I crossed my eyes and sat back. I stared at your paper clips wishing I could shift them with my mind. I was embarrassed to be broke and to not know that I was broke.
Your intercom rang.
“Sorry, one second, all right? I need to answer this,” you said, picking up the phone and pushing a button. I did not move, and you said again, “Give me one second,” and waved at me to see if I was breathing, a gesture I was so used to that I no longer even responded to it.
“You. Would you
like anything to eat?”
“No. Or wait. Yeah, no,” I said.
“Could I ask you something?” you asked, putting the phone down and hanging up on whomever.
“Oh, sure,” I said.
“How did your shirt get ripped like that? Were you attacked? I mean, I’m asking.” Your hands were out on either side, bent at the waist in a shrugging, “what can I say” posture. Like a penguin trying to fly with half-assed effort. The gesture seemed to cover a lot of common communications for you, such as: “Well, there you go,” and “Nobody asked you, okay?” and “If you already put the mustard on it, I’ll live.”
“I bought it that way,” I said. But was I supposed to show you a receipt? I realized that I for sure did not have one, because now that I thought about it the shirt wasn’t mine.
“Oh, wait,” I said. “It’s actually my friend Olivia’s? But, yes. She bought it like this. Unless, I mean, she stole it?” I laughed, and suddenly wished I hadn’t said that.
“What, stole? From whom, stole? She’s what, a criminal?” You were almost shouting but for some reason I didn’t panic.
“No, no. I mean, maybe she did that once, I don’t know. She’s a stripper so she always has a lot of ones? Sometimes she’s, like, embarrassed to pay with one-dollar bills because it makes her seem like a stripper.” I wanted him to know Olivia was essentially a good girl. Who only rarely stole from Fiorucci.
“We have to get you some new friends.” You said, “Seriously, that’s no good.”
“I know, but she is mostly great. I don’t ever, I mean, steal,” I said.
You did the arm gesture. I was trying to think of something to say about how I could stop being broke. I sighed again, louder than what is actually polite and you looked like you felt badly for me, which made me embarrassed and a little drowsy. I had to take three subways and walk eight blocks to get home from there because I had to pick up something in Midtown and this meeting was still going on and now there was this whole poverty thing.
“You are, what, pardon me, but what are you, twenty-three? Twenty?” You were speaking softly, like maybe the room was bugged and my age was top secret.
“I guess,” I said.
There was another ample chunk of no talk.
You decided to be blunt, just say the thing.
“So you are looking for a new accountant, or what?”
You asked this question too loudly and at the first two words, which broke the silence, I jumped a little. I wished for the millionth time that I’d been born with a remote control. I tried to make my face seem intent but reasonable. “I guess I didn’t know, you know. My situation.” I could feel my voice trailing off but could not come up with a point so I kept on, “And yeah,” I said, pointing to the papers on your desk that I had brought in a Chinese food take-out bag, “I don’t understand those statements and I thought I had money? Because, like, they said I had some, or actually, they never specifically indicated that I didn’t? I asked them if I could buy the pool table, I called them from the pool table . . . place, and they said knock yourself out, so it’s not like I was trying to spend it all but . . . I guess I sometimes wanted to pay? For stuff? Because I was living with someone who had money and I didn’t want him to always pay, because. I didn’t.”
This is the most I’d said since I sat down and maybe the biggest speech of my week. I watched you take it in. I knew that I was unclear and you probably didn’t want to ask me to clarify, which is why you appeared torn, or maybe you were tired, but something about me was making you edgy. You looked like you had to stop yourself from shouting at me but part of me just wanted you to shout.
“Well, what would you do with a pool table? Are you Irish?”
You laughed. I shrugged.
“My boyfriend. For Christmas. I mean, whatever.” I felt the urge to cry so I distracted myself by digging around in my bag until I came up with a single piece of bubble gum. “He liked it.” I rolled my eyes to keep from looking like a female.
“Well it seems,” you said softly, “it seems that you could not afford that pool table”—I nodded as you spoke so you’d know that I understood—“and I guess there is no way to return it? I mean, for a refund?”
I shook my head no.
You decided to get back to the point.
“So Johnnie tells me that you are looking for a new accountant?” You were hoping this would begin to wrap things up so I would leave. “You are in need of financial advisers.”
I looked up from the floor and smiled. You made a wheezing noise. I nodded yes.
Picking up a box of Kleenex and waving it around a little you said, “Well okay, then,” and put the box back down.
No one said anything again. Your intercom buzzed but you didn’t answer it.
“Hey,” I said, standing up and discovering I was maybe six inches taller than you, “is it all right, I mean, are you okay if I lie down? I am so, I mean, you know.” I picked up my purse and put my leather jacket on, still talking. You realized I was the sort of person who you could just tune out sometimes and I probably wouldn’t care, and this made you like me. You were not listening now but I was still talking and walking toward your sofa. You wondered if your soup had arrived and questioned the last-minute change from chopped salad. When fresh, the chopped salad was very satisfying. For whatever reason, you decided that you chose wisely and that it would behoove you to be pleased with the soup. You have found that making these decisions in advance and sticking to them could sometimes circumvent disappointment. You glanced at your watch and tuned back in to me, but my voice was now unintelligible because I had my back to you, already curled into a black and yellow comma on your couch.
You walked to the door and opened it. This might not look so good, you thought, with me on the sofa. You went back and sat.
Suddenly you heard me whisper, “Can I smoke in here?” You leaned in and saw that my eyes were closed and I was breathing evenly. I seemed strangely even more familiar to you in sleep.
You took off your glasses and put them back on to get a better picture. Were those army shoes? With diaper pins? And there was some kind of graffiti on the back of the leather jacket. “Panther Elixer,” it said, with symbols in orange. The dark red tights over black tights, with holes in them; were they on purpose? Were they purchased like that or were they normal and ripped later by hand? You tried to imagine buying a suit at Bloomingdale’s and then taking it home and ripping it. Shredding it on purpose. You wondered: Do you laugh when you do it, the ripping? Was it a fun thing, done in groups? Or do you do it from anxiety, like a fetish? You have always wondered these things when you saw kids on the subway, looking like they’d gone at their clothing with a lawn mower.
“What, wait, is she sleeping?” asked Sandra as she entered with your soup. “That’s the girl who came just now? You put her to sleep that fast?”
“Get out, already, how do I know? She says she’s tired, what am I supposed to say?” You opened your Orangina. “You didn’t get a straw.”
“It’s in the thing.” Sandra fished it out and handed it to you. “She seemed nice, right?”
“How do I know? She’s asleep. I’ll ask her when she wakes up. If she is nice. All I know is she’s broke.” You inhaled the steam from the matzo ball and it had a calming effect. Sandra left, shaking her head.
Just then my hand flopped out and with a soft click a piece of bubble gum fell to the ground.
“What am I supposed to do with this?” You asked this of no one and I did not stir. You considered calling the rabbi for counsel.
In ten years you will consider walking to synagogue to ask the rabbi for counsel when you hear that I am at an ATM with a nonfunctioning debit card, since it is Shabbat and you cannot call me and you will wait until one minute past Shabbat to call me to help fix it. In twenty years, you’ll go to your office on your day off to look for a copy of my son’s passport because they do not allow him to board the plane since it has expired, and two days later after g
etting my son’s passport replaced you’ll wait in line with me while I am sobbing at Passport Express when I lose my own passport, only to take me the following day, again sobbing, to a passport expeditor when my new replacement passport goes missing two hours after I receive it. You will stand in line with me to wait to take my passport picture and you will hit me on the head with your hat when I ask you if my hair looks stupid.
In twenty-five years I will meet you near the synagogue to give a speech in your honor, and I will cry in front of the rabbi and all the people eating their kosher chicken when I say that you’ve treated me like a daughter and taken me from someone who couldn’t afford a taxi to being someone who has her own driver. I will tell the story of how I fell asleep on your couch the day I met you and everyone will laugh.
For now you get on with it. So what there is a girl asleep on the couch over there. So what.
You go back to work and pause for a saltine. There is a little triumph in pulling one completely intact from its package. Uncracked. Why someone would defile a perfect saltine with soup, with wet, making it soggy and flaccid, is beyond you. You reach for another, which emerges also perfectly.
Dear Mr. You Page 4
