LANDING IN NEW YORK, RENA FINDS THE MESSAGE FROM
Fred on her voice mail and grabs a cab to his place. He greets her in an unbuttoned dress shirt and a pair of old trousers. He holds a lit cigarette, and wipes his nose on a sleeve. His ribs are visible. His feet are bare.
Three days before, Fred’s drug dealer, Barry, was busted as part of a citywide crackdown and without his drugs Fred has been cycling through a course of fevers, sweats, vomiting and diarrhea. Rena moves in, stays overnight, nursing him with chicken broth and whiskey and fetching him cigarettes. The next day, while Fred retches and moans inside the locked bathroom, Rena checks her voice mail. There are six messages from Marissa wanting to know where she is.
Rena likes taking care of Fred. Likes being alone with him. And during moments of clarity, he reads her passages from his history and poetry books. He shows her Du Camp’s Egyptian photographs and Man Ray’s nudes, sketches by da Vinci, paintings by Arthur Dove. He recites lines from Hesse’s
Steppenwolf
and Baudelaire’s
Flowers of Evil
and Durrell’s
Black Book
and Henry Miller. She sits by him and says nothing while he smokes.
Fred gets a phone call. Hanging up, he tells Rena that she has to go on an errand, that it’s a matter of life and death.
Twenty minutes later Rena stands before a white brick apartment building in the East 30s. An instant after pushing the little black button, she is buzzed in. In the black and silver lobby, a shriveled woman emerges from the elevator leading a small dog dressed in a tartan vest. Rena slips in just as the doors creak shut.
Rena can hear the metal clicks and slides of multiple locks as the front door is unsealed. Barry sports a comb-over and a long-sleeved shirt buttoned at the wrists despite the dry heat pulsing from the cast-iron radiators. He drags a kitchen chair out for Rena, its leg catching on a curl of lifted linoleum. A raccoon-eyed girl enters from the back room, raking her fingers through her hair. An abandoned carton of beef chow fun sits leaking on the table.
“Uh. So you’re a friend of Fred’s?” Barry glances back at the raccoon-eyed girl as if she were his partner in the interrogation.
“Yeah.” Rena tries to meet Barry’s eyes, but he won’t allow it.
“How do you know Fred? If I may so ask?” With nervous gusto he chews a nail, spits it out.
“We met at a party. About a month ago.” A reek of insect repellent and steam heat. Barry’s girlfriend does a little shimmy, rubbing her bum against the wall.
“Oh. A party. That’s interesting. A party, really?” Barry picks a piece of lint off his shirt and sniffs it. He doesn’t notice the cockroach skittering past the toe of his cowboy boot, or if he does, can’t be bothered squashing it. He smooths his shirt and grins fiercely.
“Yeah.” Rena glances at the girl.
“Oh, this is Gigi, Gigi, this is uh, what is it? Rifka?”
“Rena.” Neither the girl nor Barry look Rena in the eyes.
“Rena, right. Rena is in your old business, Gigi. She’s a model too. How ’bout that, huh?”
Gigi scratches at her upper arms. “Barry? Stop fucking with my head? Please?”
“Fucking with you? No one’s fucking with you, Gigi. You’re the one fucking with me. I thought you came by to wish me well. But that’s not the case, is it? And you know what? I’m tired. I’ve just spent four days in a stinking cell with a bunch of crazy unwashed lowlifes. Living on bologna, mayo and stale white bread sandwiches and cartons of fucking Hi-C. So don’t tell me I’m fucking with you. All right? Don’t tell me that. Right now, I’ll do what the fuck I want. You’re lucky I’m even standing here, my sweet. So, here’s the deal, I’m not keeping you. You can go any time you want.”
“Just lemme have a taste, Barry.” She tugs at her hair.
“You had a taste. How many tastes do you want?” Barry fondles the bulb of his nose, his forehead glossy with sweat. “You don’t see Rifka here asking for a taste.”
“Scumbag.” Gigi glares at the floor like a petulant four-year-old.
Barry leers toward Rena and confides, “My own fucking girlfriend is calling me a scumbag. How about that, Rifka? Can you dig that? And you want to know why she’s calling me a scumbag? I think you can appreciate this, because she’s a fucking junkie, that’s why. She’s a fucking junkie ho. My own girlfriend. Hurts me to say that, but it’s true. That’s the kind of situation you get yourself into when you do what I do. No one really loves you, they only love what you can do for ’em. So let me ask you this, Rena, Rifka, whatever-the-fuck your name is, is Fred like your boyfriend?”
“I don’t know. No. We’re friends.”
“Friends. Uh-huh. Like the TV show. And you’re copping for him. And what? You a weekend chipper? Gigi used to be a weekend chipper. Gigi used to be a lot of things.”
“Barry, shut the fuck up! I’m gonna go, I swear.”
“Go. Who’s stoppin’ ya?”
Rena’s cell phone rings. As she lifts it out of her jacket pocket, Barry grabs her hand. The fingernail on his pinkie is untrimmed, his palm moist. “What’s that? Who’s that? Don’t answer that.”
Rena glances at the little screen. “It’s Fred. He probably wants to know if I got here OK.”
Barry snatches the phone and brings it up to his mouth. He pushes the answer button but says nothing. Rena can hear the murmur of Fred’s voice on the line. Gigi paces by the front door.
“Barry, come on!” Gigi squats down, rises, then squats again. Her frenzy is bleeding into Rena. Rena’s stomach begins to ache.
Barry tells the phone, “Yeah, she’s here. Does she have the cheddar?” Barry scrutinizes Rena as he listens to Fred. “No, I did not ask her. We were just making small talk, man. I didn’t realize you had just met her. She could be anybody.” Another pause for listening. “Uh-huh. Uh-huh. But that doesn’t prove anything. She could be Florence Nightingale and a New York City detective at the same time. It’s possible. Anything is possible. Believe me.”
“Barry!”
Purple bruises run the length of Gigi’s forearm.
“That’s Gigi. Gigi. My friend, you met her. Listen, Fred, I understand, I understand your turmoil, it is understandable given your circumstances, but you also have to be aware of my situation here. I just left Rikers ten hours ago. Dig? Caution is also understandable. Uh-huh. Well, here, you talk to her.”
Rena takes the phone. “Fred? Are you OK?” Rena won’t meet Barry’s eyes. “I’m fine. No, I am. Uh-huh. OK. Right. Are you sure? All right. Yes. I’ll tell him.” She clicks off and stands up. “He says I shouldn’t hang out here, I should leave.”
“He didn’t say that. No way did he say that.” Barry blinks like there’s something in his eye.
“He told me to bring the money back and he’ll come by himself.”
“He’s too sick to go anywhere.” Barry bites a lip, plucks an eyebrow. Gigi tugs her hair. Rena can smell Barry’s B.O.
“That’s what he told me.” Rena is heading for the door before she realizes she’s made the decision to leave. At the door, she faces a puzzle of locks.
“Barry!” Gigi the human timepiece marks the half minute.
Barry says, “Let me see it. Let me see the money.” He takes a step toward Rena.
Rena stiffens. “You’re supposed to have a package for Fred. You give me the package and I’ll give you the money.”
“Barry! I’m gonna throw up!” Gigi is on the floor, rocking back and forth, her palms shoved between her thighs.
Barry pauses for the first time since Rena has entered the apartment. “You tell your boyfriend, what goes around comes around. I get fucked with here, I call my friends. You tell him that.” Barry steps into the back bedroom, ignoring Gigi, who leaps up to follow him. Rena doesn’t move. A dog barks outside the door, clawing the hallway tile. The door is locked. Couldn’t leave even if I wanted to. Rena checks the clock on the stove and sees that it’s broken, tries to estimate how long she’s been standing there when Barry returns with a fist-sized package wrapped in brown paper and cake-box string. He drops it onto the kitchen table. No sign of Gigi. Barry says, “Money.”
Rena hands Barry the envelope from Fred. He tears it open and counts quickly, almost breathlessly. Rena’s banking days tell her he’s holding a thousand dollars in his hand. The muscles in Barry’s face relax and he says to Rena, “You wanna taste? On the house?”
“No thanks.” Gigi has disappeared.
“Don’t make me suspicious of you.” He counts the money a second time.
“I don’t use it.”
Barry stops, looks at her like he’s seeing her for the first time and says: “Hang out in a barber shop, sooner or later you’re gonna get a haircut.” His smile radiates real warmth.
“Yeah, well, I don’t need a haircut tonight. I get ’em free at work.”
Barry moves toward the door, “Rifka, you’re always welcome. Come by any time. Now that we know each other.”
Gigi gropes her way back into the kitchen, finds a chair and collapses into it, seemingly oblivious to the world. But when Barry unlocks the locks, she lifts her head and croaks, “Bye! It was nice meeting you, Rena.” Rena hears the locks clicking into place on the other side of the shut door.
Sixty seconds after Rena reenters his apartment, Fred has the drug in his lungs and in his bloodstream. The gaunt sick look fades and he smiles. With the greatest gentleness, he lights a cigarette, takes a deep drag and lies back into his armchair. He gazes at her with dilute good cheer and says, “I think I love you.”
“Yeah? That’s nice.” Rena feels herself blush.
“You saved me. You lifted me up.”
Rena reaches out and strokes his head. He doesn’t shrink away so she comes closer and wedges herself next to him and throws a long arm over his shoulders. She kisses his ear. “I want you to be well.”
“Oh, I’m very well, thank you.”
“Do you want to eat something? You should.”
“Eat? No, angel, not right now. No. I just want to inhabit this moment. You know how sometimes there are moments you wish would extend in all directions forever? That’s this moment, right now. Everything fits together, everything makes sense.”
“It’s weird. I feel that way, too.”
“Rena…”
“Yes?” She snuggles into him.
“No. Never mind.” He reaches out to tap the ash off his cigarette.
“What?”
“I was going to offer you some. Would you like that?”
“I’d love to do anything with you. Dance with you. Sleep with you.”
“All that and more.” Fred scratches his nose. The cigarette smoke curls around the two of them.
“Then I would love it.”
Fred taps a pinch of dope onto a tinfoil scrap. He heats it and as the white vapor rises up he holds it under her perfect nostrils. “Keep it in for as long as you can.” Rena inhales, and as she does, she’s struck by the flawlessness of Fred’s cheekbones, his jawline, even his ear. He is a god. She lets one hand stretch downward along his thigh and feels tenderness bloom like a flower in her bosom. Fred is speaking again. When did she shut her eyes? “More?”
She looks up and finds a facade of love like nothing she has ever known. No. She did know it, once. It’s the look Jesus had when he ascended to heaven. She smiles in assent and Fred and she share another blot of drug. He lowers the tinfoil as the smoke curls up out of his mouth, brings his arms around her and kisses her.
Rena twines her legs around him, braiding herself into him completely. This man is my missing parts, what I have needed for so long.
In the morning, over black coffee and cigarettes, Fred asks her about her work. She says she’s lost track of it. He tells her that’s a bad idea and insists she call Marissa, claiming illness.
Every night she returns. During the day, she books editorial with French
Vogue,
and
Cosmo
and an ad with Lord & Taylor. She’s booked for the spring shows in New York. She’s booked for a possible cover. By the end of the month she’s in the Bahamas with Luc, and before coming back, she hops over to Saint Bart’s to shoot with Paul. Everything is very right. Everything fits together, like Fred said, finally.
RICK WAITS AT THE GLASS AND IRON FOYER DOOR AS A
man in ink-smudged blue traverses the faux-marble lobby. Pausing for a moment behind the thickly painted wrought iron, he scrutinizes Rick, then drags the heavy door open, huffs back to his post and his sports page. The guy has seen Rick dozens of times, but there is no nod of recognition. Rick finds a seat outside Edith’s very exposed office.
From behind the door come funereal voices. It opens revealing not Edith but a snuffling thickset woman, who daubs pink tissue to her eyes while Edith strokes her back. They hug, oblivious to Rick at waist level. He tries not to overhear the snatches of their adieu. “…I just don’t think I should call her, Edith, you know what I’m saying?”
“I know. Let’s talk about it next week.” Edith is nothing if not efficient. The stroking has ended. The urging away follows.
“I feel so sad.” The kitten refuses to leave the teat.
“Next week. Bye.” Edith’s gimlet eye catches Rick squatting like a toad outside her door. She nods him into her confessional. “Go ahead, Rick. I’ll be right with you.” This is said firmly, as if Rick has been eavesdropping intentionally. Rick knows the drill. Edith runs hot and cold. The expansive warmth he’s just witnessed comes in carefully measured doses.
In the gloomy den every item—the curtains, the walls, the couch, the table, is a shade of brown. Edith is the third therapist Rick has tried, and it has become obvious that the reigning aesthetic demands that therapeutic space possess deep shadows, frumpy furniture and something hanging on the wall from the late-Berkeley school of macramé. Somber books by Adler, Sullivan, Fromm and even Chopra are lined up within a chocolate-colored bookcase. A needlepoint proclaims “Let the Child Lead.” (Stitched by a patient? How is he/she doing now? Is he/she happy, sad, mad or glad?) On the coffee table, a box of tissues lies next to an economy-sized bottle of Excedrin, a miniature clock and a stack of business cards. A set of auburn pillows and a grief-worn tan quilt lie jumbled on the couch. Thick drapery covers the lone window, absorbing any light entering from the airshaft without. The room is as still as a burial vault.
Rick figures the eerie atmosphere is intended to stir up scary memories. That’s what this place is, isn’t it? A pain factory? Wake the childhood pain from its slumber, then chop off its ugly head. But why would I do that? No need to go looking for trouble. Better to let lying dogs lie. All that’s needed is someone to talk to, even if it does cost a $150 an hour. Rick is perspiring. He peels off his jacket and drops down onto the couch.
Edith reenters, her Mona Lisa smile unreadable. She settles into her armchair, brushes a thread off her sleeve, peers at Rick and with the chill of a Nurembergian prosecutor, begins: “How are you doing, Rick?”
Rick has already decided he’s not going to answer that question today. Not going to give her the satisfaction of seeing him squirm. Because, of course, I’m not doing well. If I were doing well, I wouldn’t be here, would I? I’d be someplace else, happy. So you already know the answer to your question. It’s a dumb question. Answer a dumb question with a dumb answer. I’ll just say fine. See what she does with that. Of course, she’ll know at once I’m lying.
Rick hears himself say, “I’m good. In fact, since confessing all those things last week, I feel like, I know this sounds absurd, my ‘inside’ self is more connected to my ‘outside’ self now.”
Edith adjusts her cocoa-colored knit shawl. “Well, that’s wonderful. It’s a good feeling to make progress, don’t you think?”
“I peeked into my neighbors’ windows while they were having sex and masturbated onto their cedar deck.”
Edith’s expression does not flicker. “And how did that make you feel, Rick?”
“Like a goddamn pervert. No. It made me feel good. Made me feel ecstatic. I don’t know how it made me feel because I don’t know how I feel about anything.”
“What do you mean by that statement?”
Rick fingers a golden pillow tassel. “Which one?”
“You choose.”
“Look, I’m just saying, I mean, what motivates a man to do something like that? It’s not normal. Right? Or centered or whatever. But I did it because I want some anarchy in my life, you know? It’s like if I don’t do something crazy, I might go insane.”
“It’s not uncommon to think the way you do. Especially for someone your age. It’s called a midlife crisis. You’ll get over it. We all do.”
“No. I don’t accept that. This isn’t that.” The anger is thudding in Rick’s chest. Tell her. Tell her about anger. “Look, I’m angry because things were very difficult when I was a kid. My father behaved all wrong. He hurt my mother. He hurt me. I know everyone has things to be angry about, and I have plenty to be thankful for. It’s bullshit to complain. It’s futile. It’s just a feeling. I want to complain to someone, so I complain to you. But the problem isn’t something that can be fixed. There is no fixing. It’s just life. Life goes on. It’s like when you play a record, the needle’s in the groove and one note follows the next. But for me, it’s like the record’s skipping. And I’m not that happy about it. And what’s worse is that it used to be good. I have some memory of that. But back when it was good, I didn’t know it was good, I didn’t realize it was happening. That pisses me off, too. And now I’m nostalgic for the old place. Except that when I was in the old place, I wanted something else then, too. Why can’t I just say to myself, ‘I love Laura. I love the kids. I’m very lucky.’ I’m an asshole for not being happier. Tell me I should be happy.”
“Maybe you don’t want to be happy. Maybe it’s easier being unhappy.”
“Maybe I’m just selfish. I have such a good life. I should have gratitude for my good life.”
“Should?”
“Aw, come on, Edith, you know what I’m saying!”
“What are you saying?”
“Don’t you ever feel that way?”
“What way?” Edith gives Rick her best beatific inscrutable Buddha smile.
“The feeling that you want to rock the boat, bring it all down in shambles around you. Destroy your life and start all over?”
“Everyone feels that way at some time or another. You wouldn’t be human if you didn’t.”
Rick inventories the items on the little table before him: the tissues, the business cards, the clock, the lip balm. Why does she need lip balm? He looks up and of course Edith is watching him. Or pretending to be watching him. She’s probably thinking about something else. Her dog’s eczema, maybe. At least she isn’t asleep. Rick feels the pillow in his hands. I’m twisting the pillow. The pillow is very resilient. Probably designed to be mauled. A therapist’s pillow represents so many things to so many people.
Edith breaks the silence. “What are you thinking right now, Rick?”
“That you never give me a straight fucking answer.”
“It’s not my life, Rick. It’s your life. You have the answers for your life. If you think I’m going to sit here and tell you you should leave your wife, I won’t do that. But if you tell me you are planning to leave your wife and children, I will ask you why you made that decision.”
“And that’s supposed to help me?”
“You know what you want. But perhaps you are afraid to take what you want. It could be freedom, but it could also be a desire for a deeper love with your family. Everything comes with risk.”
“But if I think I want something, but ‘really’ want something else, how will I ever find out what I ‘really, really’ want? I mean this could go on forever.”
“Obviously you’re in some discomfort with whatever plan of action you’ve currently engaged in, so you have to reconsider that plan. Unless you like being in pain. So, Rick. How do you feel right now?”
“Edith, I don’t think this is getting us anywhere.”
“Us? You’re the patient, Rick.”
“Me. That’s right. One more predictable assortment of needs and wants and quirks. A source of amusement.”
“I’m not amused by your pain. I think the answer is right on the tip of your tongue. You just don’t want to say it.”
“And what’s that?”
“You know. I don’t.”
“I don’t know! Fuck!”
“Tell me about your mother, Rick. Are you angry at her for letting your father do what he did?”
“No. Here’s your money. I don’t need to do the whole session. And don’t put me down for next week. This is stupid and I feel stupid for doing it and I’m sorry I’ve been wasting your time. Well, you get paid for it so I guess it’s not a waste of your time.”
“Rick—”
“No. Here’s the deal. I hate my life and I want out and you can’t do anything about that. And what’s worse, I have a life that’s better than 99.99 percent of humanity’s, so I’m an asshole for hating my life. But you know what? I hate it anyway. I want something I can’t have and that pisses me off. And you can’t get it for me because I don’t even know what it is. So I’ll see you. I know it’s not your fault, but on the other hand, I doubt you’ll ever break the bad news to me that I’m an unhappy, depressing loser and always will be unhappy, so I will say good-bye.” Rick is crying.
In the lobby, the doorman doesn’t look up. I could have murdered Edith and the stupid doorman would be clueless. The perfect murder. Why doesn’t Edith come running after me? She should beg me to come back. Assure me everything is going to be all right. But that isn’t her job, is it?
On the street, Rick bumps into a mentally handicapped delivery boy. Packages spill onto the sidewalk. Rick halts but does nothing to help the guy, who is mumbling to himself as he stoops to collect his parcels. The guy tries to get things right again, as if it all were a performance for Rick’s benefit, an absurd ballet. People rush past, someone kicks a fat manila envelope, keeps walking. Anonymous packages scatter among anonymous feet.
Rick watches the confused guy. He can barely find an address. That’s me, thinks Rick. I don’t know where the fuck I am.