Jacket Weather, page 7
You got a problem with that?
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One brown whirly pod on the balcony. Helicopters, I think we called them. Autumn in the clouds at dawn.
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On one of those trips I took my aunt out of the nursing home for ice cream. It was June’s idea. Before I left New York, she suggested it. I explained the difficulty of getting my aunt into the car from her wheelchair.
“What about hiring a van? I think just to be in a parlor, and to make a decision, a cup or a cone, and what flavor, would let her feel a little independent for a change.”
So I hired the van driver for the nursing home. We rolled the wheelchair into the back with my aunt sitting in it, and my mother and I followed in the car.
My aunt chose banana, which she didn’t remember having had before, and was distressed at the size of the serving. We sat with the driver at a picnic table in front of the Honey Hut, as the breeze stirred in her hair and traffic blew by on State Road on a weekday afternoon.
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A bale of compacted boxes behind a shopping center, pallets in the sun.
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Pale sky over the Red Lobster. Long ago, David Loy’s older brother had a big dirty silver Pontiac with a red velour interior. One evening we got in, Dave and Alex and I, and went driving around in a dusk of this same muffled light. I found a fifth of Seagram’s under the seat and got loaded. In a carnival tent, they accused us of being pickpockets and threw us out, but not without a fight. The year for me is a continual recycling of microseasons and weathers and specificities of light I experienced before I was 20.
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As we came in over Brooklyn I was at the window, trying to pick out her building across the river. Shadoobee.
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Before the taxi’s away from the curb, I call and get no answer. I’m back in my apartment before she calls.
“Where are you?” I ask her.
“Open the door.”
And she’s stepping off the elevator all in white denim, phone to her ear . . .
•
She got up to pull down the shade. “No one can see in,” I told her. “It’s bright out there and dark in here.”
When I came, I came from so deep inside it felt like it was from a previous lifetime.
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She’s at the table in just a slip eating watermelon with a knife and fork, completely unaware of me.
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Email to Tere:
Subject: THE MORBID JEALOUSY PLAYLIST
“Here we go, I’ll spend a year now inventing scenes of her in bed with this guy and that one and playing them on repeat. Maybe two years.
Bed! Alleys and rooftops, more like. Airplane toilets, high above the Atlantic. Swinging between subway cars. On a bicycle. Generally I’ve got a half-assed imagination, but in this area, I’m gifted—I can really take off. Once you’ve been reactivated, all the world’s a conspiracy of sex, you see it wherever you look. And not just now, but retroactively. Now that you’re wired, you imagine everyone else is too, and has been all along. Why wouldn’t any elevator ride lead to sex?
“It’s not her boyfriends, let alone her husband. We all know what that’s like. Nah, it’s the spontaneous sex—the taking what you want—the nondomestic, nonprogrammatic sex that’s so bewitching: backstage, back of a cab, downtown at dawn—the building she stepped out of at seven a.m. to go home and get ready for work.”
•
June, eyes closed, says “Michael.”
That’s all. Not just saying my name but naming me.
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The 6 came in you heard it with your fillings.
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To Tere: “I call her at work it’s like I’m talking to a different person. It’s whiplash, from how she is on the weekend to how she is Monday, which is all business. On the weekend, I’m reassured by her tone, if not by what she says. During the week, I’m out here on my own again.”
•
I had the day off but I met her outside the Y and we rode uptown, got some breakfast at Whole Foods. She’d been up since four in a panic about all the usual stuff and about having told me she’d take Friday off. Anyway, we crossed swords, and everything felt wrong between us when she went upstairs.
Of course I couldn’t let it alone, I had to get off the train at 14th Street and call her. To make it right or make it worse—either way, I didn’t care.
She said “I don’t know if I can do this. You’re asking me for something I can’t give you.”
And the next thing I knew I was crossing Sixth Avenue with the phone to my ear, saying “You want to call it a day?”
Back in Brooklyn I punched a hole in the bathroom door and sat in the corner of the couch looking at the sun in the dirt on the window.
•
Tonight she left me a message when I was at the gym. She said it’s about her and not about us, but also that it’s all one thing: the separation and divorce, the apartment, where to move, me. She said she’s been starved for twelve years and I’m giving her everything she was denied in her marriage. But she said that to be very frank, she feels like she’s going from a marriage to another marriage, and it scares the hell out of her. She doesn’t know what comes next and can’t make any promises.
•
It was getting dark when I left the gym. I walked over to her block and called her back. While it rang I counted nine sets of windows up to theirs. The living room light was on, maybe the kitchen too.
She said “Where are you up to now?”
I said “I’m having a hard time with this.”
He’s home tonight but she made an excuse to come down. She’s afraid he’s going to find out about us and hire a lawyer, complicate the divorce. We went around the corner. It was dark now, and there was a breeze.
I said “I need something to go on.”
She said “All I can tell you is I’m in it right now. I don’t know anything about the future. Right now I’m trying to get out of something.”
“I wish we never got started with this today.”
She said “Nothing’s changed. I’ve never felt any different.”
Okay, I could go home with that. I went with her to the Red Mango on 14th, to get her a frozen yogurt so she had something to walk back in the house with.
•
I woke up around five feeling hopeless but calm. At 7:45 I left, and rode the train into town. And while I waited there outside the Y, I remembered she doesn’t want to be needed in this way. She says she likes this because it’s easy and light and fun. Partly that’s just her underplaying it. But I decided it’s better she feel wanted than needed.
And then there she was on 14th Street with a smile. When we were on the platform she said she wasn’t expecting me to show up. But she brought two nectarines.
•
And finally it’s now again.
There’s no high like when the pain eases off. The color gets dialed back into the world. It’s like when you leave the dentist and you want to talk to every doorman, pet every dog, look at every flower. I had to stop myself from striking up a conversation with the guy beside me on the train. I don’t know why. Nothing’s settled. I’m like a teenager, an unstable substance. I want to make phone calls. But I can’t think of anyone to call except her.
•
What was it about that corridor of a restaurant, with its multiplying floor tiles, and its wooden tables, and the owner talking in Italian with the cook about the price of a haircut for a dog, incredulous that anyone would pay to groom an animal, while the cook scrubbed something off the corner of the bar, and then the owner folded his arms and stood at the big window where Ferdinando’s Res Sicil appeared in reverse in abraded gold letters and the late sun shone in the folds of an American flag outside that stirred and settled in the breeze?
A waiter, big young guy, bored, with nothing in the world to do until my order was ready, drifted past my table, leaned on the wall, noticed me, and said “What’s that book?”
I started to tell him about it but he’d forgotten me already, looking out at the street.
•
Early in the morning and late in the day, the sunlight laid a thin film of sweat and memory on every surface. Piss rivulet across the sidewalk.
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Nine a.m., guy in the Park Place subway station, shirtless, in shorts, soaking his feet in a plastic dish tub.
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THE MORBID JEALOUSY PLAYLIST (continued)
“First you possess, then you’re possessive. Then you’re possessed. The scenes in my head—I’ve got them on a loop. A jealousy reel. To which I add a new clip when I hear a name I haven’t heard before. Including guys I find out she met only in passing. Or whom I got mixed up with someone else. Or who turn out to be gay. Meanwhile she’s just eating her breakfast. ‘Waitaminute, which guy from Gang of Four?’
“I don’t touch the subject. I don’t press. I’ve got the sense to be embarrassed, at least. June herself is discreet and unapologetic about her past.
“Discreet, unapologetic: that’s her to a T.”
•
Since June moved into the Vermeer, I’ve been leaving Lou’s magazines at the desk. Five People, five Entertainment Weekly. Plus whatever monthly. I get cryptic voice mails.
“Yeah, Mike, this is Lou, how you doing, Mike? Anyway, just wondering if you wanted me to go pick up those items. This afternoon, y’know, tonight sometime. It’s up to you, whatever’s easier for you. Doesn’t matter to me. Aright. Let me know. Thanks Mike.”
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An immense man in a khaki suit—maybe four hundred pounds—in a splash of sidewalk light, glasses in hand, considering the menu of a Spanish-Chinese place on 14th Street.
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Fire escape tomato plant. We’ve got five flowers now. The familiar first-thing clatter of the window gate reminds me of Kasia—when I lived downstairs from her and Tony on Grand Street—watering her windowboxes every morning, the water running through the planters and splashing, glittering through the fire escape, floor by floor. She’s got two beautiful kids now with someone else, and Tony got married again last weekend near Woodstock. And I’ve been divorced and married again and divorced since then and now I’m with June, and June’s been married and divorced and now she’s with me. Sunday morning I pop out to water the tomato and the basil. There’s a guy directly across the street, also in a white T-shirt, inspecting his plants. They say it’s going to rain today, but they’ve been saying that for two weeks. There’s a running reflection of the gutter on my ceiling from the hydrant across the street. Careful not to splash the lower shoots, I water the tomato till the water pools on the dirt, seeps in, and trickles through the rusted fire escape below.
•
“Did I tell you they finally accepted an offer on their place? A couple, two women. There’ve been others, but no one who met their asking price. Of course anything could happen. They still need approval from the bank and the board.”
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I took Lou a plastic container with four pork cutlets and a lemon. Told him I don’t need the container. The next morning, he left it at the desk. Filled with pasta—elbows—from the bag. Didn’t want to give it back empty. So today he’s coming around the track, he sees me there, folds his newspaper. I thanked him for the pasta. “It’s just under a pound,” he’s telling me, walking backward on the track, “the pound doesn’t fit—”
“Thanks, Lou.”
People are going around him. “The gomiti rigati, with the ridges!” I’m by the door, he has to shout. “Probably fifteen ounces almost, nearly a pound!”
“Okay, thanks, Lou.”
“Eight minutes it’s done.”
•
“When I got to work I sent her a one-line email. I didn’t even need a response, but pretty soon I’m checking my inbox—work, home—refreshing the screen. Then I start checking my phone for texts. By 11 a.m. and two iced mochas I’m climbing out of my skin. At noon I go walk around Rockefeller Center instead of refreshing my screens every minute like a speed freak.
“By 1:00 I’m convinced it’s over, she’s just waiting for the right time to let me know, and by 2:00 I’m congratulating myself on adjusting to life without her. Then I remember she has a meeting till 2:30, which is when she writes back.
“Okay, I’m a person who needs help. But email creates its own anxiety. The minute you send one you’re waiting for a reply. Whoever it is. Let alone the person controlling your air supply. Email, texting, Facebook, WhatsApp and all the other forms of messaging—this is another thing they’ve sold us now: the anxiety of connection.”
•
Lou’s on the track this morning. Sees me, folds his paper, drops it on the pile. He’s got a pile of stuff he keeps on the floor while he’s going around. And from that pile he comes up with a plastic bag: a dozen elbows tied up with a big knot. It’s what didn’t fit in the container the other day. Because I should have the rest of the pound.
I go around with him. I ask what he’s doing today, he says laundry. Philly goes by.
“Zulo Zul’!” Lou says.
“What’d you call him?”
“Zulo zulo: ‘alone, alone.’ On Elizabeth Street there was a guy, never married, lived there his whole life. And when he got drunk he was out on the stoop—‘Zulo zul’! I’m zulo zul’!’ That’s Philly. He’s in mourning because his woman left him. It’s been six months.”
“Well, it’s understandable, Lou.”
“He’s a mamaluke.”
•
“Strychnine” comes on, she’s getting dressed, doing a little unconscious shuffle. Any of these bands, she perks right up: the Sonics, the Seeds, 13th Floor Elevators. It’s like her body’s paying attention.
She holds up a blouse on a hanger and sees me watching.
“Makes you feel happy,” she says.
•
Guy playing catch with himself against a handball-court wall. Woman sitting on her walker with a cigarette in a housing project, watching the playground action.
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“The other day she tells me about a Spinal Tap moment, when she led New Model Army, their tour manager, two roadies, a merch guy, Jane—eight people all trying to get to the dressing room—upstairs and down, through backstage tunnels, past a mop closet, and into the women’s bathroom. Took ’em all into the bathroom, past stall, stall, stall, right to the end, where she was I guess expecting to find another door. (‘The bottom line is I should never lead anyone anywhere.’) To anyone else it’s just a good story. But to me, it’s another item on the tabloid news ticker that’s always running in my head: ‘NEW MODEL ARMY AFTER-SHOW ROMP . . . WELCOME TO LA: YOUR RIDE’S HERE . . . THREE IN A BED: SANTA CRUZ ACID PARTY SHOCKER!’”
•
She’s got a red-carpet event tonight so I’m at La Taza de Oro, on Eighth Avenue. Like the A train, which I just got off, it feels like the past in here. The tired light of forty and fifty years ago, when Chelsea was Spanish. Maybe it’s the lightbox menu signs above, hand-painted in Spanish and English with the specials of the day: Jueves/Thursday . . . Chuletas Fritas/Fried Pork Chops . . . Ensalada de Pulpo/Octopus Salad . . . Sopa de Carne/Beef Noodle Soup. The counterman looks like a cornerman. He lifts his chin at me. When I tell him what I want, he fills a plastic tumbler with water, drops a fork and knife on a napkin, and turns away to the steam table.
The other morning June read me the obituary of a woman who quit nursing in her forties to follow a childhood dream of becoming an actress.
“Oh my God, Michael, that is so inspiring.”
“Makes you want to quit your job, right?”
“Yes!”
“Anything inspiring always make me want to quit my job.”
“But the only problem is, I didn’t have a childhood dream. When I grew up I wanted to be a babysitter.”
The counterman brings a plate of oxtails and a plate of yellow rice with pinto beans. While I eat I watch him work. End of the shift. He’s emptying tumblers into the sink, he’s cutting open a new bag of coffee beans, he’s ladling soup, he’s spooning yellow rice into a foil to-go container and flattening its crinkled edge around the lid with the back of a knife.
She said: “You’re everything I prayed for when I was thirteen. I used to lie awake in my bed at night, and I was so lost, and belittled, and alone, and I used to—I don’t know if I even knew I was praying, I was just—I had nothing. So the only thing I knew was to follow this fantasy or that fantasy: that was my only escape. Because everything was no. And no one would tell me why. ‘Because I said so.’ I wanted to take guitar lessons—‘No. What do you need that for?’ ‘What am I supposed to do, just sit in my room?’ I couldn’t even put up a poster. ‘Why not? It’s my room.’ Because they said so.”
People are moving past the neon coffee cup in the window. With nerve and perseverance, she’s gone from nothing to making twice what her father made in his best year. Twice what I make. She’s out there somewhere tonight. My Brooklyn Bomber. My Coney Island baby.
To know if it’s okay to take the plates, the counterman gives me a clipped umpire’s gesture. I nod.
“Algo más?”
“Un café.”
•
“Hey, Mike, this is Lou. I got the magazines: I got them about eight . . . eight fifteen, like—about eight thirty. But anyway . . . Don’t stress yourself out with these magazines. Don’t go crazy . . . just whenever they’re there, they’re there, that’s all. If you’re early you’re early, if you’re late you’re late, doesn’t matter. Whenever I get ’em, whatever day, don’t make any special trips, or—you overslept, or— Sleep! You need it! Awright, it worked out well. Just I appreciate it. But whenever I get ’em I get ’em! No problem. So. After I left the gym I picked ’em up . . . And that’s that, I stayed home all day. Rained all day, what’s the sense of going anywhere? Aright, thanks Mike. I’ll be in touch.”
•
I’m on the M train after work, we’re crawling over the bridge, moving out past the projects and playgrounds and the FDR. The sky’s overcast, but the change from afternoon to early evening comes filtered through, just a feeling. Something in the light reminds me of being young in the city. Any city, hot summer night. Leaving work with your shirt hanging open, the shirt you’ve been wearing all day. Out on the evening like we’re out on this bridge—between stations. You’re yourself again, on your own two legs, the air is yours to breathe. Watching yourself through the eyes of your hometown self. Now the real day starts—your portion of it, the real day—and it’s forever, or enough time to do what matters: work on your novel, go to a rehearsal—pick up a half pint or a dime. You haven’t lost the feeling that time is how you look at it. And there’s no tomorrow, only tonight.
