"I lie to women." A
girl in a fuchsia wedding dress,
carrying a boa constrictor.
After the deviants, I felt okay
about the pigeon shitting on me. Suddenly, with all the subtlety
of a dog with gas, I knew the
world and all it contains is
absolutely, unreservedly, and
utterly about things other than
me— which made my bout of
self-absorption seem
insignificant.
Freaks say, "You are not the
center of the world." A good
freak points a finger at what's
wrong with society. Freaks
refuse to participate. Freaks are
necessarily nonmyopic. Their
deviation points to that from
which they deviate.
If I love freaks so much, why do
I still go to the Gap? Why do I
shop at Banana Republic? Why
haven't I even gotten a tattoo?
I'll tell you why. I'm a voyeur.
New York isn't my porn
flick; it's more like PBS. Like the
glory days when I lived for
Sesame Street, I'm learning to
read. I want to get the
subversion, the nihilism, the
rejection. I just want to get it. I
want to understand the
landscape and, possibly, stand in
the space between complacency
and nihilism. Maybe cowardice
prevents me from getting a
tattoo of a stack of pancakes
on the top of my shaved scalp.
But the voyeur in me takes
comfort in knowing someone,
somewhere, is saying
something about this old
planet.
Send in the freaks. There ought
to be freaks.
Oh.
Don't bother.
They're here.
Three -New York Shock
Still Saturday, January 7, 1995
Carefully, ever so slowly, the paper falls slack in Rob's lap. It curves over his knee. With grave seriousness, he reaches for my eyes with his. "Freaks keep you here?"
I look out the window. Greenwich Village looks cold, blustery. The brownstones across the way are beautiful, idyllic, atmospheric. Sometimes I imagine hardwood floors, stair banisters, dried flowers in vases, wood-block cutting boards in kitchens. A wine rack with reds and whites, a big dog, a four-poster bed, an excellent collection of jazz CDs. Sometimes I imagine myself walking down West Fourth pushing a baby buggy. A woolly scarf covers my mouth. The baby wears footed pajamas.
A man in pink barrettes and a fur coat enters to do his laundry. Kim says hi while Rob and I have this quiet question between us. In the background, Anne Murray sings, You needed me, you needed me.
"This is my last year in New York," I say. "I'm thirty. I don't want to be thirty-one here." Already, four wiry gray hairs refuse to play the game, refuse to take part in style.
"I'm thirty-one," he says. "It's fine." He uncrosses his legs. New York Shock settles into its new position.
"I can't do it; I can't grow old here." I watch the man in barrettes empty a duffel bag.
"Then why don't you leave tomorrow?" Rob's voice is sardonic and sharp. "Or today?"
I'm taken aback by the tone of his voice. I've got my reasons. I'm here to be alone, to accept my liabilities, my neuroses. New York City is my internal state of mind made external. Everything it is on the outside is what's going on in my inside. Plus, the freaks. Don't forget the freaks. But I have to leave; I'm losing sleep, becoming lonely inside my own head. I'll go to a new city or town. I'll hide away my sorrows in suburbia and do things like plant tomatoes, give Christmas gifts to the mailman, and watch the rising price of gasoline. When I leave, I'll be ready to be alone in the presence of others. I point to his copy of Shock. "I've got the column."
Rob Shachtley, lead singer of Glass Half Empty, purses his lips, waits a second, then says, "Huh." He opens Shock. There's a sidebar inside, a sidebar for me. He arrives at it with his fingertips. At the top of the page, it says "Antibiotics." Every week, readers send in letters about my column. He flicks his fingers against the words. "You're a splash. You generate the mail, babe."
"I figure I'll stick around till 1996. Then I can be one of those writers who lives in New England or has a farm somewhere. Or a ranch. In Sundance. Or Vail. Didn't Hemingway die in Idaho?"
He remains silent for a second, looks at Kim, and then turns to me again. "You're not making it by just writing a weekly New York Schlock column, are you? You don't think that's gonna get you a ranch in Sundance, do you?"
"I temp," I divulge.
He gets up to check his machine. "You meet lots of struggling actors and actresses on the temping front?"
"Never. They all cater." I walk over to my washer. "What's the most interesting thing that's ever happened to you on the job?" Manhattan fodder for writers seeking the absurd.
Rob balances on the balls of his feet. "Once I catered a dinner at Kissinger's."
"Fascinating man," I say.
"Rack o' lamb with new potatoes. Rosemary something."
I squint, picturing it. "If at all possible, I'd avoid serving lamb."
"Old rich guys love it." Rob's machine stops spinning.
