Take an old pillow and lay it on the front lawn. Stab it with a big pointy knife. Again and again and again. Stab hard enough for the point of the knife to go into the ground. Stab until the pillow is gone and you are just stabbing the earth again and again, as if you want to kill it for continuing to spin, as if you are getting revenge for having to live on this planet day after day, alone.
Vincent was on the shared patio. I was already behind in my patio use, so it made me a little anxious to see him there so late in the month. Then I had an idea; I could sit there with him. I put on Bermuda shorts and sunglasses and suntan oil. Even though it was October, I still felt summery; I had a summery tableau in mind. In truth, though, it was quite windy, and I had to run back for a sweater. A few minutes later, I ran back for pants. Finally, I sat in a lawn chair beside Vincent on the shared patio and watched the suntan oil soak through the fabric of my khakis. He said he always liked the smell of suntan oil. This was a very graceful way of acknowledging my situation. A man with grace, that’s the New Man. I asked him how things were going at Punt, and he told me a funny story about a typo. Because we are in the same business, he didn’t have to explain that “typo” is short for “typographical error.” If Helena had come out, we would have had to stop using our industry lingo so that she could understand us, but she didn’t come out because she was still at work. She’s a physician’s assistant, which may or may not be the same thing as a nurse.
I asked Vincent more questions, and his answers became longer and longer until they hit a kind of cruising altitude and I didn’t have to ask, he just orated. It was unexpected, like suddenly finding oneself at work on a weekend. What was I doing here? Where was my Roman Holiday? My American in Paris? This was just more of the same, an American in America. Finally he paused and squinted up at the sky, and I guessed he was constructing the perfect question for me, a fantastic question that I would have to rise up to, drawing from everything I knew about myself and mythology and this black earth. But he was pausing only to emphasize what he was saying about how the cover design was not actually his fault, and then at last he did ask me something; he asked, Did I think it was his fault, you know, based on everything he had just told me? I looked at the sky just to see what it felt like. I pretended I was pausing before telling him about the secret feeling of joy I hide in my chest, waiting, waiting, waiting for someone to notice that I rise each morning, seemingly with nothing to live for, but I do rise, and it is only because of this secret joy, God’s love, in my chest. I looked down from the sky and into his eyes and I said, It wasn’t your fault. I excused him for the cover and for everything else. For not yet being a New Man. We fell into silence then; he did not ask me any more questions. I was still happy to sit there beside him, but that is only because I have very, very low expectations of most people, and he had now become Most People.
Then he lurched forward. With a sudden motion, he leaned forward at an inhuman angle and stayed there. It was not the behavior of Most People, nor of New Men; it was perhaps something that an old man would do, an elderly man. I said, Vincent. Vincent. I yelled, Vincent Chang! But he only leaned forward silently, his chest almost to his knees. I knelt down and looked into his eyes. They were open, but closed like a store that is closed and looking ghostly with all the lights off. With the lights off, I could now see how luminous he had been the moment before, even in his selfishness. And it struck me that maybe True magazine had been wrong. Maybe there are no New Men. Maybe there are only the living and the dead, and all those who are living deserve each other and are equal to each other. I pushed his shoulders back so that he was upright in his chair again. I didn’t know anything about epilepsy, but I had imagined more shaking. I moved his hair out of his face. I put my hand under his nose and felt gentle, even breaths. I pressed my lips against his ear and whispered again, It’s not your fault. Perhaps this was really the only thing I had ever wanted to say to anyone, and be told.
I pulled up my chair and leaned my head against his shoulder. And although I was genuinely scared about this epileptic seizure I was in charge of, I slept. Why did I do this dangerous and inappropriate thing? I’d like to think I didn’t do it, that it was in fact done to me. I slept and dreamed that Vincent was slowly sliding his hands up my shirt as we kissed. I could tell my breasts were small from the way his palms were curved. Larger breasts would have required a less acute angle. He held them as if he had wanted to for a long time, and suddenly, I saw things as they really were. He loved me. He was a complex person with layers of percolating emotions, some of them spiritual, some tortured in a more secular way, and he burned for me. This complicated flame of being was mine. I held his hot face and asked him the hard question.
What about Helena?
It’s okay, because she’s in the medical profession. They have to do whatever is the best for health.
That’s right, the Hippocratic oath.
She’ll be sad, but she won’t interfere with us because of the oath.
Will you move your things up to my apartment?
No, I have to keep living with Helena because of our vows.
Your vows? What about the oath?
It’ll be okay. All that is nothing compared to our thing.
Did you ever really love her?
Not really, no.
But me?
Yes.
Even though I have no pizzazz?
What are you talking about, you perfect thing.
You can see that I’m perfect?
It’s in each thing that you do. I watch you when you hang your bottom over the side of the bathtub to wash it before bed.
You can see me do this?
Every night.
It’s just in case.
I know. But no one will ever enter you in your sleep.
How can you promise that?
Because I’m watching you.
I thought I would have to wait until I died for this.
From now on I am yours.
No matter what? Even when you are with Helena and I am just the short woman upstairs, am I still yours then?
Yes, it is a fact between us, even if we never speak of it again.
I can’t believe this is really happening.
And then Helena was there, shaking us both. But Vincent kept sleeping, and I wondered if he was dead and, if so, had he said the things in the dream before or after he passed away, and which was more authentic. Also, was I a criminal? Would I be arrested for negligence? I looked up at Helena; she was a swarm of action in her physician’s-assistant clothes. All the motion made me dizzy; I shut my eyes again and was about to reenter the dream when Helena yelled, When did the seizure start? And, Why the fuck were you sleeping? But she was checking his vital signs with professional flourish, and the next time she looked at me, I knew I would not have to answer these questions because I had somehow become her assistant, the physician’s assistant’s assistant. She told me to run into their apartment for a plastic bag that would be on top of the refrigerator. I ran inside gratefully and shut the door.
Their apartment was very quiet. I tiptoed across the kitchen and pressed my face against the freezer, breathing in the complex smells of their life. They had pictures of children on their refrigerator. They had friends, and
