The Harm in Asking: My Clumsy Encounters with the Human Race (24 page)

Why, yes, indeed. Why, yes, she should.

Dinosaur Dante barreled past me—I’d stood frozen by the bathroom door—toward Roy, who was sipping a beer in his bedroom. Dinosaur Dante announced that he had come to fight. Not with his words, but with his actions. Which is to say he kept repeatedly jamming his sternum against Roy’s chest concavity while alternately smacking him in the face.

“I’m an Ultimate Fighta, okay?” he told him. “
That’s
who you fuck with when you fuck with Gina Bogadelli. An Ultimate.
Fighta
.”

The unbridled anger combined with the sight of Dinosaur’s namesake tattoos left me with the distinct impression that someone was going to die. And who could say for sure who that would be? Roy was the obvious choice, but my understanding of a certain type of hostile individual is that their targets can shift on a dime.

Consider, for a moment, the relationship between Tony Soprano and Georgie, the bartender at the Bada Bing. Georgie’s a nice guy, sure, but he rubs Tony the wrong way. And since Tony’s always angry about one thing or another, Tony’s always beating Georgie up. I’d seen it happen a million times and felt instantly, viscerally concerned that something similar could happen to me with Dinosaur Dante. That if I wasn’t careful, I’d wind up the Georgie to his Tony.

As for Roy, I thought he handled himself well. By this I mean that he did not cry or shit his pants. He just kept telling Dinosaur Dante to “chill.”

As for Gina, she passed the time pleading with Dinosaur Dante on Roy’s behalf.

“DINOSAUR, STOP! PLEASE STOP! ROY’S FRAGILE! HE’S FRAGILE!”

I wanted to tell her it would all be okay, but I couldn’t
get a word in edgewise, and anyway, I wasn’t so sure. I tried making my way from the bathroom to the kitchen for a serrated knife with which to defend myself
in case
, but then Dinosaur covered Roy’s face with his hand and slammed Roy’s head against the wall, and instinctively, I shouted, “OY!”

And Dinosaur Dante whipped around.

“Back up, bitch,” he said. “Back. The Fuck. Up.”

“I WILL!” I screamed. “I’M BACKING UP! I’M VERY SORRY!”

I ran for my bedroom and blocked the door with my bookcase, bed, and dresser. I searched for weapons. I grabbed a bobby pin and earring post. I stood at the ready in what is commonly known as Warrior II.

Prepare
, I told myself.
To fight
.

I’VE HEARD IT
said that you can’t know how you’ll respond in a crisis until that crisis arrives. What
I
learned in
my
crisis was that I would respond with both a yoga pose and an ineffective weapon. I’d do this as I basked in the perverse glow that is being right when you cannot
believe
that you are right … when you wanted, for once, to be wrong.

I learned that I would promptly call my mom.

“Mom,” I said. “It’s me.”

“Where are you?” she asked.

“At home,” I answered.

“Why are you whispering?” she asked.

“Because,” I answered, “Roy’s girlfriend …”

“The one with the underpants? The underpants she lays across the chairs?”

“Yes,” I said. “Her brother came over, and he wasn’t wearing a shirt, and he was acting really angry, and I said, ‘OY!’ …”

“Why?!”
she yelled. “Why would you say ‘OY’ to a very angry man?”

“Because!”
I said. “He was pressing Roy’s head against the wall, and he threatened me and called me ‘bitch’!”

A pause.

“Mom? Did you hear what I said? HE THREATENED ME AND CALLED ME ‘BITCH’!”

A pause.

“How much?” she asked.

A pause.

“Eight hundred,” I answered. “At the absolute most.”

Let me here return to the issue of my savings.

In the year I’d lived with Roy, I had saved up almost enough for one of those hellholes of an affordable studio apartment. The operative word, though, is “almost.” On the day of Dinosaur Dante’s arrival I lacked the necessary funds to move out, for I lacked the necessary funds for a security deposit. I was on the path toward saving the money myself, and would’ve gotten there in just a few more months. And was there value in that? In getting there myself? I did believe there was. But now—in this moment—I had a maybe-killer in my home. Now—in this moment—I was literally squatting as my form of self-defense.

“Eight hundred … 
dollars
?” asked my mom.

“Yes,” I said.

“You’re out of your mind,” she said.

“Mom,” I said, “I’m really not. I swear I’m not. I’m asking because I might die.”

“You will not die.”

“But I
could
die.”

“You couldn’t die.”

“I
could
die.”

“It’s unlikely that you’d die.”

“Yes, well, it was unlikely that that hemorrhoid I had
last spring was a tumor. But you paid for the out-of-network doctor because it
could
have been. Because I
could
have died. I could have died from cancer, and I could still die at the hand of the aggressive man!”

A pause. An exasperated breath.

“Eight hundred dollars, Sara. Fine. I swear to god, though, if you ever do so much as …”

“I won’t, Mom. I promise. I won’t ever ask again.”

THE MINUTES PASSED
by. Ten. Twenty. Thirty. I heard neither a gunshot nor a skull go through a wall. I relaxed slightly and got off the phone with my mother. I came out from under my bed, where I’d gone to make the call, and back into my Warrior II. I stayed there for a moment. I moved from my Warrior II to the top of the dresser that I’d pushed against the door. This new position was a more vulnerable position, but I was desperate to hear what was going on.

I heard a bit more yelling and a bit more sternum-bumping.

I heard a loud smack and a scream.

I heard the cops arrive.

I heard everyone go quiet.

I heard the cops ask what the problem was.

I heard Gina and company respond.

“Nothin’. Nothin’. We’re cool, sir. We’re good.”

I heard the cops say, “Well, keep it down then, all right?”

I heard the cops leave after that, and I heard Dinosaur Dante leave with them. He was not handcuffed or, as I had expected, arrested on sight for the murder of someone named Don Giovanni. He was just escorted nonviolently out.

Gina stayed behind with Roy. I stayed locked in my
bedroom for hours. I came out only when I had to go to work. I gave myself a little extra time, though, for a little talk with Roy.

I found him slumped on the couch beside Gina. They looked drunk and very tired.

“Hey, Roy,” I said, “I’d like to talk.”

“Whaaa?” he slurred.

“I’d like to talk,” I said.

“Okeydokey,” he said. “Talk.”

“Well,” I said. “It’s a difficult topic. But sometimes, well, it’s important to be honest, don’t you think?”

Gina grabbed the remote. She increased the volume.

“Anyway,”
I said (over the increase in volume), “Roy, I think it’s important to be honest. And the reason I bring it up is that I’d like to be honest with you. There’s something, well, difficult that I would like to talk to you about.”

“Whaaaa?” he slurred.

“There’s something difficult that I would like to talk to you about.”

“O
-kaaaay
,” he said.

“The thing is, Roy—and this is hard for me to say—but I need you, as my roommate, to know.”

Gina, again, increased the volume.

“ROY, IF YOU CAN HEAR ME, THERE’S SOME-THNG I NEED YOU TO KNOW.”

“WHAAAA?” he asked. “WHADDAYA NEED ME TA KNOW?”

I paused. I said, “I WAS AROUND A LOT OF VIOLENCE AS A CHILD.”

In truth, the only violence I was around as a child took place this one Fourth of July weekend, when my parents took Sam and me to a water park in Wisconsin. While there, I’d seen another kid get spanked. That had been the sum total of my childhood violence exposure, however my
last lie about family had worked pretty well. I figured I should try my luck with it again.

“ANYWAY, YES,” I continued. “THAT IS … ME. AND MY … STORY.”

“OH. YEAH?” he said.

“OH.
YEAH
,” I said. “AND I MENTION IT BECAUSE TODAY WAS JUST … TOO MUCH. FOR ME. YOU KNOW? I THINK I HAVE TO MOVE.”

“MOOOOOOOOVE,” he said, contemplative.

“YES,” I said. “MOVE.”

Roy closed his eyes and shrugged. He stayed there for a moment. He opened them again.

“FINE,” he said. “YOU GO DO WHATEVAH. YOU GO SEE IF I CARE.”

I’D HAVE MONEY
in the bank. I had the blessing of my roommate. It was everything I needed. It was time to live alone.

Although I myself have never been married, I know a few women who have. Who have craved it, and gone on to get it. I have known these women and spoken to these women, and they have told me what it feels like, getting the thing they wanted so badly for so long.

For a moment, it
is
great. But then it mostly isn’t great.

It is precisely what it feels like to finally live alone.

I LIED TO
Roy about my early exposure to violence, and two weeks later I moved from Astoria, Queens, to a thumb-sized studio in the Bushwick section of Brooklyn.

Bushwick, at its worst, was a series of warehouses interspersed with chain-link fence and the odd, abandoned lot.

Bushwick, at its best, had a certain industrial charm.
There was a supermarket with a comprehensive “World Food” aisle, and a coffee shop that sold sandwiches without too much mayonnaise. There was a Laundromat with a good deal on stain removal and a corner bodega where—if you were so moved—you could buy the dried ears of a pig.

Bushwick covers a wide stretch of Brooklyn, and is home to a diverse population of Hispanics, blacks, and whites. The whites are mostly hipsters. The blacks and Hispanics are not.

I moved to the part that was hipster and Hispanic.

When I saw someone Hispanic, she’d be going to or coming from work.

When I saw someone Hipster, she’d be in a crazy outfit.

These generalizations are sweeping. But they are also mostly true.

The hipsters were always all “ ’sup, dude” this and “peace, man” that. One time, I was power-walking through the supermarket, when I heard a woman in a cowboy hat and full-length mink say, “Art’s what I was born for.”

I found this behavior all at once ridiculous and intimidating. I’d run my Bushwick errands in the same sweatpants ensemble I’d favored for my Astoria errands. No one thought much of it back in Queens, but this was not the case in Bushwick. I was at the coffee shop one time, when the guy behind the counter asked, “I’m sorry, but are you sick?”

And I said, “No.”

And
he
said, “Then how come you’re always in sweatpants?”

I will point out that at the time of this exchange, the guy behind the counter was wearing a onesie he had belted with a headscarf.

Lacking the confidence to stay true to myself and my
sweatpants, I purchased a pair of knock-off Ray-Bans and a used, waist-length fur of my own. But then I got gnats from the fur and the weight of the Ray-Bans gave me a headache. So I threw them both out and purchased instead a handful of plaid, lady-lumberjack shirts. I paired the shirts with jean shorts. I paired the jean shorts with ripped tights. I thought I looked good. Or rather, I thought I looked appropriate, considering.

I was madly in love with my new apartment, for it was mine and mine alone. And sure, it was small, but I mostly didn’t care. The bedroom was the kitchen, which was also the den. The bathroom was its own separate thing, which was good, although the toilet didn’t flush.

That’s an exaggeration.

It would be fairer to say that one in five times the toilet
wouldn’t
flush.

In a different situation this might have upset me, but in this one it did not. If you are literally starving, you will find yourself willing to eat human flesh. If you have lived with Wayne and Tomas, Jan, and Roy and Gina, you can watch a turd
go nowhere
up to seven times a week. You can watch a turd go nowhere and feel lucky while you do.

I would not have believed it if I myself had not lived through it.

I loved living alone as much as I have ever loved anything else in my life. There was a good, long stretch of time in which I felt … I think the word is “happy.” The experience suited me. I smiled more. I slept better. I had that glow that comes with exercise, but without having to exercise.

My favorite part of each day was now coming home at the end of it. After waiting tables for eight hours, the silence upon entry was like a massage, relaxing and luxurious. I set up a pedicure station smack in the middle of my
bedroom/kitchen/den. I would sit there and give myself a pedicure. I would pass gas like it’s what I was paid for. I would feel, in a word, content.

Such was my life alone in a studio apartment: mostly good, if uneventful.

But then something happened.

It was
very
bizarre.

I had been living alone for approximately one year the first time I noticed it.

I write “approximately” because it was the sort of thing that goes on for ages before you even know you’re doing it. The sort of thing you catch yourself doing offhandedly one day, and think, Oh. Wait. I’ve been doing that a
lot
.

I had been feeding an imaginary dog.

While living alone I had developed the habit of eating always on my couch or in my bed. Once I was done eating, I would not walk the plate back to the sink. To avoid getting up, I would leave it on the floor, and there was a point at which I started coupling this behavior with the affectionate encouragement of a nonexistent dog.

“
Good
dog.
Good
girl. Lick up all the scraps so Mommy doesn’t have to clean the plate.”

Or: “Okay, sweetie. Here’s the rest of Mommy’s popcorn. You can have it as a treat.”

I knew instinctively that the creature was an English bulldog named Eleanor Barron. I knew she was withholding from everyone other than me.