Fiction
The moon is looking particularly round tonight, I think, as I lay sprawled in the grass. I wonder if it’s looking down on me and my pretending to be a human rug, thinking the same thing. Somewhere in its moonish mind the thought Wow, April is looking particularly round tonight is probably floating. And maybe the moon is right, maybe we’re both right.
Tonight the moon looks like a pie. It’s almost as if I could reach up, and with the most careful tips of my fingers, pull off a slice and eat it. Of course, as with any pie, I can’t just stop at one slice. So I reach up again with my careful tips and pull off another slice, and then another, and then another until I have eaten the entire moon. Until there are only crumbs remaining, which people will probably mistake for stars.
But if I ate the entire moon I would look pregnant—and not just pregnant with one child, no—I would look pregnant with every baby that has ever been born. I would walk around, the expecting mother that I am, with a certain gleam or shine about me.
And people would be like, “Aw, April, you’re glowing.”
And I’d be like “I know, I accidentally swallowed the moon.”
And if boys thought I was disgusting now, wait until they see me glowing and pregnant with billions of children. I’ve always thought that being the kind of fat I am now is okay, because eventually I would find a boy as equally fat and we’d fall in love with each other’s fatness. But if I ate the entire moon the only person who would love me is someone who was as equally fat and as equally glowing, possibly, someone who ate the sun. But anybody who ate the sun would probably be dead, or be, at the very least, in a lot of pain.
And so, with the most careful tips of my fingers only centimeters away from the moon, I lower my hand back into the grass. God knows I don’t need any more pie.
Tonight the moon looks like a pie. It’s almost as if I could reach up, and with the most careful tips of my fingers, pull off a slice and eat it. Of course, as with any pie, I can’t just stop at one slice. So I reach up again with my careful tips and pull off another slice, and then another, and then another until I have eaten the entire moon. Until there are only crumbs remaining, which people will probably mistake for stars.
But if I ate the entire moon I would look pregnant—and not just pregnant with one child, no—I would look pregnant with every baby that has ever been born. I would walk around, the expecting mother that I am, with a certain gleam or shine about me.
And people would be like, “Aw, April, you’re glowing.”
And I’d be like “I know, I accidentally swallowed the moon.”
And if boys thought I was disgusting now, wait until they see me glowing and pregnant with billions of children. I’ve always thought that being the kind of fat I am now is okay, because eventually I would find a boy as equally fat and we’d fall in love with each other’s fatness. But if I ate the entire moon the only person who would love me is someone who was as equally fat and as equally glowing, possibly, someone who ate the sun. But anybody who ate the sun would probably be dead, or be, at the very least, in a lot of pain.
And so, with the most careful tips of my fingers only centimeters away from the moon, I lower my hand back into the grass. God knows I don’t need any more pie.
The blanket was laid on the ground like patchwork on the trousers of the meadow. As if you could lift up the edges of the quilt and underneath you’d find a rip, revealing the skin of the Earth. On top of the blanket, were two lovers. One lover loved the other much more, and the other lover didn’t love her back at all.
From above, they looked like lint.
From where she was sitting, he looked like God.
From where he was sitting, she looked like meat.
He felt like a god, and gods do what they please, so he snaked his fingers up her leg. He felt the prickly beginnings of her leg hair, not minding, for every prickle inched closer to his meal. And there were goosebumps too. Goosebumps rising and filling with fear. His fingers reached the hem of her skirt and entered her home uninvited.
She stopped him then, and she asked her god, “What are you doing?”
“Don’t worry, you’ll like it,” he said. And so his fingers continued.
But even his fingers were too much. She grasped his hand and tried to pull it away. But he had strong hands; his hands were the kind of hands that could build cities and then bring them back to the dirt they were created from. A girl cannot stop hands like his from taking what they want.
She began to crawl backwards, her palms digging into the quilted earth. He stalks after her like a predator, all shoulder blades and hungry eyes. She reaches the edge of the quilt and drops off, falling into the dirt.
This is the part where she starts praying to a new god.
____________________
From above, she looks like a corpse.
She lies there, a pile of wrinkled clothes and dirty skin, not moving or speaking or thinking. He stands, with his back to her, pulling up his pants.
While his back is turned the earth rises up and rumbles in her ear, Hurt him back, hurt him back.
And the sky bends down and whispers, Don’t fuss over him, be better.
This is life’s dilemma: to be hard or to be forgiving. Is one’s heart made of stone or clouds, and how is a bruised girl laying the dirt supposed to know?
A girl must choose for herself.
And so she opens her mouth, and with the coarseness of the ground beneath her she says, “When I was suffering the sky did nothing to help, at least the earth gave me somewhere to rest.” She stands and takes the earth by the hand and turns toward her former god. With a fist full of stone, she raises her hand and breaks and breaks and breaks until he is lying on the ground, not moving or speaking or thinking.
And the earth says, Well done.
From above, they looked like lint.
From where she was sitting, he looked like God.
From where he was sitting, she looked like meat.
He felt like a god, and gods do what they please, so he snaked his fingers up her leg. He felt the prickly beginnings of her leg hair, not minding, for every prickle inched closer to his meal. And there were goosebumps too. Goosebumps rising and filling with fear. His fingers reached the hem of her skirt and entered her home uninvited.
She stopped him then, and she asked her god, “What are you doing?”
“Don’t worry, you’ll like it,” he said. And so his fingers continued.
But even his fingers were too much. She grasped his hand and tried to pull it away. But he had strong hands; his hands were the kind of hands that could build cities and then bring them back to the dirt they were created from. A girl cannot stop hands like his from taking what they want.
She began to crawl backwards, her palms digging into the quilted earth. He stalks after her like a predator, all shoulder blades and hungry eyes. She reaches the edge of the quilt and drops off, falling into the dirt.
This is the part where she starts praying to a new god.
____________________
From above, she looks like a corpse.
She lies there, a pile of wrinkled clothes and dirty skin, not moving or speaking or thinking. He stands, with his back to her, pulling up his pants.
While his back is turned the earth rises up and rumbles in her ear, Hurt him back, hurt him back.
And the sky bends down and whispers, Don’t fuss over him, be better.
This is life’s dilemma: to be hard or to be forgiving. Is one’s heart made of stone or clouds, and how is a bruised girl laying the dirt supposed to know?
A girl must choose for herself.
And so she opens her mouth, and with the coarseness of the ground beneath her she says, “When I was suffering the sky did nothing to help, at least the earth gave me somewhere to rest.” She stands and takes the earth by the hand and turns toward her former god. With a fist full of stone, she raises her hand and breaks and breaks and breaks until he is lying on the ground, not moving or speaking or thinking.
And the earth says, Well done.
The first sip of coffee burns the roof of my mouth. By the time I finish the cup, it has gone cold, making the blackness more bitter. I put the empty mug on the windowsill where its gray tint makes it look in place next to the gray sky. I look past the mug to the window. My reflection wavers at me, the blue of my shirt combining with that of the ocean. I try to see my eyes, but the sun brightens and my reflection mostly disappears. Only my outline remains.
“Breakfast!” my mother calls from the kitchen.
After a few more seconds trying to find my eyes, I turn away and head to breakfast. My socks slide on the wooden floor, making me stumble into the kitchen.
“If you got dressed before breakfast you wouldn’t have that problem.” My mother puts two plates at the table, and I sit down without replying. “Did you sleep last night?” she asks.
“Some,” I reply. I don’t tell her that I lay awake for seven hours and slept for one.
“Good, you’ll need to be present today. You need find to a bridesmaid dress.”
I start to sigh, but I pass it off as a yawn. This isn’t much better, because following the yawn my mother questions me about exactly how much I slept. I give all the vague responses I can fathom. “I don’t know what time I fell asleep— I don’t remember looking at the clock— it felt as long as it always does.” She doesn’t try to conceal her sigh.
***
The evening before, I went to the ballet with my friend Tristan. I spent most of the night contemplating what happened. I sat in the first row of the balcony section and watched the dancers on stage. I saw pointe shoes tied up the dancers’ legs, flailing arms of the conductor, and violin bows rising up from the pit and descending again. Tristan was so enveloped in the music, I could tell he had every note memorized. As the music built and the tension grew, I felt him stiffen in anticipation, eventually holding his breath and closing his eyes as though the music was completely overwhelming his senses, and I could feel how it felt to him. I could feel his embrace with every phrase, like he was having a conversation with the musicians which was inexpressible by words and inaccessible to me. At the resolution, he let out the breath he had been holding. His face showed relief and an unconditional sense of peace.
Some members of the audience seemed as mesmerized as Tristan, while others were clearly trying not to fall asleep. I wondered if the performers could tell or if they cared. I could feel their struggle to simultaneously control the performance and to release their tension enough to be expressive. Their need for technical perfection in every element colliding with their desire to convey some inner emotion. Like trying to paint a picture while focusing on each individual bristle in the paint brush.
Only then did I realize I had left my seat. I looked up to the balcony seating again. She was still sitting and observing the show. I saw Her eyes still following the action on stage, shifting back and forth to keep Her eyes trained on the lead, but there was no emotion in Her face. Not an expression of interest, enjoyment, irritation, or even boredom. My body, but not me.
I tried to move and saw Her arm lift to tuck a loose strand of hair behind Her ear. But still, I was gazing at Her from the stage. I saw Tristan’s eyes light up with mirth at something on the stage behind me. I watched him lean in and Her body automatically replicated the movement. “The lead dancer looks pissed,” he said in Her ear. Her own head nodded in agreement, with a twitch of Her lips that didn’t reach Her eyes.
I spent the first act trying to get back inside Her head. I floated around Her seat and tried everything. I tried using brute force, but I was simply thrown away from Her. I tried steadily inching towards Her, but no sooner than I drifted in did I begin to drift out. I settled on sitting on the bar in front of Her seat, and I pretended to see everything from Her eyes.
At some point I got caught up in the action on stage and forgot She was separate from me. I realized I was no longer sitting on the bar, but I was sitting in my seat. I looked to my left and made eye contact with Tristan. He looked concerned when he saw my expression, so I smiled until he turned his attention back to the stage. Then I turned my own eyes forward and lightly tapped my fingers against my leg to ensure I wouldn’t drift away again.
“Are you enjoying the show?” Tristan asked at intermission. Still concerned, he said, “I know this isn’t really your thing.”
“It’s perfect,” I replied. He looked unconvinced. “I got lost in my thoughts for a moment, but I’m fine now, and I love how happy it makes you,” I told him. I tried for a smile, and he relaxed a bit. “Explain the music?” I asked him. He talked for the rest of the intermission about keys and cadences and many other things I didn’t understand. I didn’t follow the theory, but I loved listening to him talk with passion. Soon, the lights dimmed and we watched the second act, my fingers still drumming against my thigh.
***
The eggs are too runny and the toast is too dry. I pick at them until they look at least half-eaten and sip my fresh cup of coffee.
“Are you listening to me?” my mom asks. “You need to be there for your sister today.”
I nod my assent and remain silent. Amelia, my sister, is getting married in five months. I was the first one Amelia told about the engagement. She took me out to lunch and told me every detail of the proposal and every detail of how she wanted to tell mom and dad. She was so happy.
I feel I have already tried on hundreds of dresses, each one worse than the last. I want to complain, but I notice the nearly empty coffee pot on the counter and the stifled yawn my mom makes as she finishes making the rest of the scrambled eggs.
I don’t know how we’re going to afford this wedding, especially with Laura going to college so soon. I’ll just have to pick up more shifts at the restaurant to make up for it. She turns towards Her and I see myself, still sitting at the counter and periodically lifting the mug to take a sip of coffee. Again, I feel it without feeling it. I taste the bitterness and feel the sting of heat on Her mouth, but I don’t feel the need to cringe away from the pain. It’s only there on the outskirts of my mind.
I keep looking at Her face, but I feel my mom’s thoughts again, “We’re going to leave in twenty minutes and we’ll meet your sister there. Well… did you hear me?” Not my mom’s thoughts. I realize my mom is speaking aloud and strain to nod Her head. I will Her to move to the floor of my bedroom.
She lay on the floor and I feel Her heartbeat build, not growing faster but rather growing stronger until I can see it in Her stomach. I feel the air enter her lungs and watch her chest rise and fall. I think about each body part in turn: fingers and toes starting to turn cold with lack of circulation, legs, torso, neck and shoulders. I try to connect with every inch of Her, try to weave myself back into Her body. I hold temporarily, but as my mind drifts, so too do I from Her body. I feel the physical sensation of the tears on her cheeks, but not the accompanying emotion. I feel wisps of hair on Her forehead, but the tickling sensation brings no sense of annoyance or irritation. I feel her muscles fill with tension, but none of the tiredness that usually follows it. I feel everything, and I feel nothing.
Just as I decide not to go, I find myself looking up at my concerned mother through my own eyes. I make up an excuse to explain away my tears and motionlessness on the floor— cramps— not knowing why I fell back into myself.
-
“Hi sweetheart,” my mother says, hugging Amelia. A man comes out to greet us, and before I can say a word of disagreement, I find myself squeezing into the dress that seems several sizes too small.
“That’s too small,” they both say as I step out of the dressing room. My mom looks displeased and my sister’s face is a mixture of frustration and smugness.
“I told you, I’m not an eight. I need a ten.” Every single dress shop we went to, they made me try on the eight, even though it never fit. My hips press the fabric tight in an unflattering way; they create large bulges by my midriff and the material gathers above and below to make up for the difference. I don’t try to hide my frustration as I turn to them, but my countenance brakes when I see the worry in my sister’s eyes. How am I going to make the whole day amazing if I can’t even get the stupid dresses figured out. For the third time, I am stuck outside Her body. And here, with my mom and sister so focused on Her, it seems impossible to remain hidden.
I work Her mouth and manage to say, “I’ll try on the next one,” before I carefully force each foot to step on turn and lean to close the door behind Her.
I will Her fingers to manipulate the clasp, but the motions are too intricate. I scream in frustration, and She rips the fabric. With that motion, She not only tears through the fabric, but She rips me back into my body. Briefly, I panic, thinking of what my mother will say, but I feel my mind loosen on the edges, and I know this line of thought puts me in danger of floating away again.
I vocalize my frustration again, this time for them to hear. Pulling the dress off and my clothes on, I shout to my mother and sister, “It ripped. I told you I'm not an eight. Why don't you ever listen to me?” Clothed, I open the dressing room door and leave the store, not glancing at my mother or sister.
I am leaning against the car when they come out. A few parking spaces away, a woman pulls her sleeping infant out of a car seat to place her in a stroller.
“You are going to work that money off. This will come out of your income.” I see the shopping bag in her arms.
“Yes ma’am,” I say. The mother kisses the forehead of the sleeping girl and, eyes still closed, he smiles. I get into my mom’s car.
“Just look at what you’ve done to your sister,” my mother continues lecturing me on the drive home. I assume Amelia is crying, but I don’t look up. I know that if I meet either of their eyes, I will again be set adrift.
“I’m sorry,” I say, emotionless.
Eventually, my mother and Amelia begin to discuss other things. I listen to Amelia talk about the people who came in during her last shift. Amelia is a receptionist at the local hospital. Old man Rogers came in complaining of a toothache and it took an hour to convince him he needed to go to the dentist, not the hospital. A young girl had a terrible cough, which turned out to be pneumonia. An agonized man quit chemotherapy. Two babies were born. Three elderly deaths. Amelia speaks casually, but I feel I am falling down a hole. All the life, death, suffering, joy. I feel I could shatter the concrete and sink below its surface.
“Why are you crying?” It’s my mother. I just stare at her. “You’re upset?”
“Of course I’m upset. Why aren’t you? Why isn’t everybody?” I feel I am shouting, but it’s barely a whisper
“What are you talking about?” This is Amelia.
“All of those lives you saw changed forever. All of that pain. How do you not…” I don’t know the word.
“Why do you always have to make everything about you?” Amelia asks, ending the conversation.
We are silent the rest of the way home, but I can’t help the tears still streaming down my cheeks. Soon, I am alone in my bedroom.
Maybe they are right. Maybe I am selfish. Maybe I do make everything about myself. I think back to my past, wondering if any pain was actually mine. Was it selfish for me to feel grief for their tragedies?
When I was five years old, my grandmother passed away. I watched the effects shatter my family without truly comprehending the loss. I cried with everyone, but it was really for their loss more than my own. When I was eleven, my sister came home in tears because her boyfriend broke up with her. She asked me why I was crying, and I told her it was because she was crying. I didn’t really understand her confusion. When I was fourteen, I went out with my friend for her birthday. It was the first birthday she celebrated since her mother died. I remember crying at her crumpled face as she told me that all she wanted was to hear her mom sing her happy birthday. When I was seventeen, a girl in my high school committed suicide. I knew her, but not well. She was a friend of Tristan’s. At the funeral, he laughed at a memory of her, which turned into a sob. None of it was my grief, not really. Did I make their tragedies about me?
I also break for broader tragedies. I read statistics about the rapid melting of the ice caps. The vast pollution and resulting global calamities. The many murdered by hurricanes, tsunamis, earthquakes, the list is never ending. And then there’s the fallout after these disasters, which claims more loss. On top of this, we have to cope with human violence. How someone can intentionally hurt people, I cannot understand. I’ve spent hours researching motives and meanings, and I still cannot comprehend this world of murder, rape, abuse, terrorism. Crimes of passion are one thing, but how is it so easy for these people to commit premeditated violence? How do they, in their humanity, take the actions in preparation to bring people pain? The entire world enveloped in the dark, how can it ever go back to the way it was? Although I suppose it never was any other way to begin with. The world wasn’t innocent when I was a child, I just didn’t know. The only way for my world to go back to the way it was is to forget the dark, which is what everyone else seems to do.
It’s like no one even cares. Weeks after such violence, I still reel from the actions, while everyone else seems to move on minutes after the news. There is so much pain in the world. Where is the rage. Where is the action. How many times have I heard: There’s nothing you can do about it. It’s always been like this. Like everyone on the planet is just resigned to the dark, and there’s nothing we can do, so why care? Everyone just says fuck it.
I feel the pull begin. Tears pool and my body instinctively curls. I know I am spiraling but I can’t stop myself. I just follow the spiral in and in and in. I don’t even fight it. Maybe I’m resigned too. I hide my face even though I am alone. Maybe part of me thinks that it will make this feeling go away. This collapsing inwards. My eyes are closed, but I can’t stop seeing their pain. I see their faces broken by sobs. I hear the sound of their cries, never drowned out by my own internal wailing. And I can never help them. The more I sink the less I can breathe, and then it’s over.
-
She sits up and wipes the tears away. First, She cleans her room. She makes the bed, tightly tucking the sheets under the mattress and fluffing the pillows to be symmetrical. She puts away the laundry that sits in a laundry basket in Her closet. She reorganizes each drawer and reorders the clothes hanging in Her closet. She sorts through the items on her desk and bookshelf. When Her room looks clean, She repeats the process with Her bathroom. Nothing to be cluttered anywhere.
She then settles upon Herself. She begins with Her fingers and toes, carefully trimming away the excess nail and cuticle that has accumulated there. Then She settles upon Her teeth. Not merely brushing them, but also flossing each gap at least twice and scrubbing Her tongue. Then She brushes them again. Her lips, peeling from Her nervous habit of biting them, sting as She scrubs away the dead skin. She steps into a steaming shower. She first scrubs shampoo into Her hair. After rinsing it, She applies copious amounts of conditioner. She lets it sit in Her hair while she meticulously scrubs every inch of Her skin and shaves both Her legs and underarms. Then She washes Her face, twice, and rinses the conditioner from Her hair. After towel drying, She brushes Her hair and works Q-tips into Her ears to ensure they are as clean and dry as the rest of Her. She returns to Her room to dress.
She goes to Her stash of money and calmly counts out the amount for the dress and walks out to Her mother. She apologizes for Her actions and hands over the bills. Her mother hugs Her and whispers that she is sorry too.
“I love you,” Her mother says.
“I love you too,” She replies, Her lips carefully forming the words. She will have a similar exchange with Her sister.
She returns to Her room and stares at the ceiling. She is more rational now. She knows that the world would not function if people fully felt the pain around them. She knows it’s better for people to pay their respects and move on. She doesn’t want to bring them into Her spiral. Their distance protects them. She sits at Her desk and does the homework that accumulated over the week. Sometime after the sky darkens, She lays in Her bed. The sky begins to lighten again before She sinks into sleep.
-
She wakes up, but She doesn't move from Her bed. Her mother calls for Her, so She knows it must be late. She tries to call back. To say that She is awake and coming, or even that She feels ill and wants to stay in bed. But Her lips don't move, and Her voice doesn't sound. She doesn't even blink. As much as I strain, She remains still. Eventually, Her mother comes in and She sits up.
“Sweetheart, it’s nearly time to go. Why aren't you up? Was it a bad night?”
She lifts Her shoulders vaguely.
“It’s alright. Take a few minutes and then come out for breakfast. We won't worry about the rest of the day yet, okay?”
She nods Her head in compliance, and Her mother leaves the room.
She moves to the window. This morning She wears a black shirt that stands out in the reflection at the window. Only Her dark silhouette shows, solitary against the waves cresting and breaking outside Her window. The sun appears from behind a cloud and the golden light makes Her dark silhouette disappear.
In the distance, She sees a small boat fighting to get past the current at the shore. Again and again, it is buffeted back by the waves, but still it perseveres toward the horizon. After several minutes, it still hasn’t made any forward progress, yet still it thrusts into the waves.
Her phone beeps, bringing Her attention away from the boat. There is a text from Tristan. His Grandma died early that morning.
I tell my parents and drive to Tristan’s house. The door is unlocked, so I let myself in. Tristan sits in the living room watching the cooking channel. His parents are out taking care of the formalities that accompany death. He looks the same as always, but also different. I remember when my Grandpa died. I was five years old.
***
Grandpa was dead. That I knew because I heard my mother tell my father. But death was one of those things which all the adults already knew about. They only asked how he died—mother said in his sleep— but no one asked where he was. It’s not like when someone’s on vacation and everyone asks where they went. When they’re dead, everyone already knows somehow.
“Where is Grandpa?” I asked my parents. My father said Grandpa was taking a very long nap. My mother said he was visiting God in heaven, and that someday I would get to see Grandpa and God when I went to heaven. I told them I didn’t understand, but a few seconds of silence passed and the doorbell rang.
“Amelia, where is Grandpa?” Amelia was five years older than me, she would be able to explain.
“Grandpa is dead,” she said, simply.
“I know that, but where is he?” I asked again.
“Are you stupid? He’s dead. He’s not anywhere.”
For the next hour, I walked around the backyard trying not to be anywhere. But no matter where I went, I was still somewhere. I tried all my best hiding places: under the bench, behind the big tree, crouched beneath the space under the porch. Every time, I was still somewhere. It was hard work, and I went inside to get a snack.
Everyone was too busy to help me get a snack, so I had to ask James. I stared at his bedroom door, specifically at the sign hanging from a hook. The hook on my bedroom door held a sign that read “Laura”. The hook on Amelia’s door held a sign that read “Amelia”. James’s door didn’t have his name. The hook on James’s door held a sign that read “KEEP OUT” in great red letters.
I knocked. “What?” James barked from inside.
“James, I’m hungry,” I said.
“Sounds like a personal problem to me,” he answered.
“James, please—“ I stopped mid cry. I knew he wouldn’t help me. “James, where is Grandpa?”
James opened the door. “What do you mean, he’s dead.”
“I know! But where is he?” I was getting tired of asking this.
“He’s in a box. Soon he’ll be in a box six feet under the ground.” And James slammed the door closed again. I didn’t get a snack.
-
The next day, we drove to Pennsylvania to see Grandpa. This made much more sense than anything else. Grandpa was just in Pennsylvania, like he always was. He wasn’t in a box, he wasn’t nowhere, and he wasn’t visiting God. He was just in Pennsylvania.
All of us were going, and that meant we had to drive. James and Amelia switched off getting the entire back seat to themselves, while I was permanently stuck in the middle. I played with my toys and tried not to bother them. I must have grown nearly as old as Grandpa by the time we arrived, but we eventually made it.
“When can we see Grandpa?” I asked my mother.
“We’ll see him tomorrow. But honey, it's not really your grandpa. It'll look like grandpa, but— well, it's like when you go to your friend’s house and there’s no one home. Do you understand?” I did not.
But the entire drive I had been thinking. Maybe if I asked the same question as all the other adults, I would understand. “How did Grandpa die?”
“Well, honey— he lost his mind.”
This was the best new I’d heard all day. If his mind was just lost, we could all look for it. My mother was the best at finding lost toys, I was sure she could find a mind. But when I suggested this to her she said, “No, it's not like that. Your mind— it's not something someone can help you find.”
“So if you lose your mind, it's gone forever?” This didn't bode well for me, I was always losing my things. Grandma always said I'd forget my head if it was loose, but she never said anything about my mind.
“Not always, but people have to find their own way back.”
“I bet Grandpa can, he always finds the way back when we go camping.”
“It's not quite like that, and it's too late for Grandpa.”
-
A few weeks later, when I played at the park with Tristan, I tripped on my untied shoelace and the world turned sideways. I immediately wrapped my arms around my head and began wailing.
“What's wrong? Are you hurt?” Tristan looked terrified.
“Is it still there? Did I lose it!”
“Lose what?”
“My MIND, of course!”
“I don’t know, you look the same to me. Let’s look around to make sure you didn’t drop it. It will be okay,” Tristan said. For the rest of the afternoon, we looked for my mind throughout the entire park, but we didn’t find it.
Later my mother told me that's not how you lose your mind. Even after her explanation, I didn't know what it meant to lose your mind, but I’m beginning to understand.
***
Tristan looks up and sees me. He smiles at me, but I don’t believe it. I know comforting him won’t be as easy as searching through a park to find a missing mind.
“Hey,” he says.
“Hey,” I reply. I walk to sit next to him on the couch. I can tell he wants to say something, so I remain silent to give him space to speak. After several minutes, it's clear he won't be able to.
“Come on,” I say, rising from the couch.
He stands, too. “Where are we going?” He asks.
“You’ll see,” I tell him. He looks concerned, so I add, “It’s not far.”
A few minutes later, we arrive at the park.
“What are we doing here?” he asks.
“We’re going to look for your mind this time,” I tell him, and he gives me a real smile at the memory.
We don't actually search the playground as we did twelve years earlier. We don't search under park benches, behind trees, inside slides, and on the tops of swings. But in this place, Tristan is able to speak.
“Do you know what my grandma said to me the last time I saw her?” I shake my head. “She said she missed seeing me.” His eyes were somewhere between anger and sadness. “I should have spent more time with her.”
Just like all the times before, I don't know what to say. I don't know how to comfort him. And then I worry that this is more evidence of my selfishness because I am worrying that I can't help him. And then I worry that this is even further evidence of my selfishness because I am worrying about my selfishness. And then I see Tristan.
The last time I saw him, his eyes were lit with excitement over the intricacies of music. Now they look lost.
“Tell me about your Grandma,” I ask him.
“What do you mean? You knew her,” he says.
“Tell me anyway,” I say. “What did she enjoy? What did you do together? What made her laugh?”
He begins hesitantly, but the more he speaks, the more animated he becomes. Eventually, his eyes look as they had at the ballet. “Well, she’s definitely the oddest person I know— knew.” He pauses. “She collected yard decoration of all sorts; her backyard looked like a fairyland. She had bird feeders, gnomes, potted plants, little ceramic creatures poked throughout the lawn— mowing was a nightmare. She wouldn't go to the nursing home because she didn't want to leave her yard. She used to say, ‘I may be mad as a box of cats, but I'm not stupid. I can take care of myself,’ and we could never talk her out of it.” He rambles on until he runs out of things to say. When he finishes speaking, he still looks sad, but less broken.
“It sounds like you spent a lot of time with her after all,” I say.
“I guess I did,” he replies.
I smile because some broken things can be put back together. The world can go back to the way it was. Maybe not everyone's world, but one person’s world, and that’s not nothing. Even with all of the dark, there are still memories of Grandmas who are as mad as a box of cats, still small boats struggle that against the current to attack the vast horizon, still people who become overwhelmed by music and performers strive to find that line between technicality and passion, still little boys who help little girls search for their lost mind, and still sleeping babies who smile when their mamas kiss them.
“Breakfast!” my mother calls from the kitchen.
After a few more seconds trying to find my eyes, I turn away and head to breakfast. My socks slide on the wooden floor, making me stumble into the kitchen.
“If you got dressed before breakfast you wouldn’t have that problem.” My mother puts two plates at the table, and I sit down without replying. “Did you sleep last night?” she asks.
“Some,” I reply. I don’t tell her that I lay awake for seven hours and slept for one.
“Good, you’ll need to be present today. You need find to a bridesmaid dress.”
I start to sigh, but I pass it off as a yawn. This isn’t much better, because following the yawn my mother questions me about exactly how much I slept. I give all the vague responses I can fathom. “I don’t know what time I fell asleep— I don’t remember looking at the clock— it felt as long as it always does.” She doesn’t try to conceal her sigh.
***
The evening before, I went to the ballet with my friend Tristan. I spent most of the night contemplating what happened. I sat in the first row of the balcony section and watched the dancers on stage. I saw pointe shoes tied up the dancers’ legs, flailing arms of the conductor, and violin bows rising up from the pit and descending again. Tristan was so enveloped in the music, I could tell he had every note memorized. As the music built and the tension grew, I felt him stiffen in anticipation, eventually holding his breath and closing his eyes as though the music was completely overwhelming his senses, and I could feel how it felt to him. I could feel his embrace with every phrase, like he was having a conversation with the musicians which was inexpressible by words and inaccessible to me. At the resolution, he let out the breath he had been holding. His face showed relief and an unconditional sense of peace.
Some members of the audience seemed as mesmerized as Tristan, while others were clearly trying not to fall asleep. I wondered if the performers could tell or if they cared. I could feel their struggle to simultaneously control the performance and to release their tension enough to be expressive. Their need for technical perfection in every element colliding with their desire to convey some inner emotion. Like trying to paint a picture while focusing on each individual bristle in the paint brush.
Only then did I realize I had left my seat. I looked up to the balcony seating again. She was still sitting and observing the show. I saw Her eyes still following the action on stage, shifting back and forth to keep Her eyes trained on the lead, but there was no emotion in Her face. Not an expression of interest, enjoyment, irritation, or even boredom. My body, but not me.
I tried to move and saw Her arm lift to tuck a loose strand of hair behind Her ear. But still, I was gazing at Her from the stage. I saw Tristan’s eyes light up with mirth at something on the stage behind me. I watched him lean in and Her body automatically replicated the movement. “The lead dancer looks pissed,” he said in Her ear. Her own head nodded in agreement, with a twitch of Her lips that didn’t reach Her eyes.
I spent the first act trying to get back inside Her head. I floated around Her seat and tried everything. I tried using brute force, but I was simply thrown away from Her. I tried steadily inching towards Her, but no sooner than I drifted in did I begin to drift out. I settled on sitting on the bar in front of Her seat, and I pretended to see everything from Her eyes.
At some point I got caught up in the action on stage and forgot She was separate from me. I realized I was no longer sitting on the bar, but I was sitting in my seat. I looked to my left and made eye contact with Tristan. He looked concerned when he saw my expression, so I smiled until he turned his attention back to the stage. Then I turned my own eyes forward and lightly tapped my fingers against my leg to ensure I wouldn’t drift away again.
“Are you enjoying the show?” Tristan asked at intermission. Still concerned, he said, “I know this isn’t really your thing.”
“It’s perfect,” I replied. He looked unconvinced. “I got lost in my thoughts for a moment, but I’m fine now, and I love how happy it makes you,” I told him. I tried for a smile, and he relaxed a bit. “Explain the music?” I asked him. He talked for the rest of the intermission about keys and cadences and many other things I didn’t understand. I didn’t follow the theory, but I loved listening to him talk with passion. Soon, the lights dimmed and we watched the second act, my fingers still drumming against my thigh.
***
The eggs are too runny and the toast is too dry. I pick at them until they look at least half-eaten and sip my fresh cup of coffee.
“Are you listening to me?” my mom asks. “You need to be there for your sister today.”
I nod my assent and remain silent. Amelia, my sister, is getting married in five months. I was the first one Amelia told about the engagement. She took me out to lunch and told me every detail of the proposal and every detail of how she wanted to tell mom and dad. She was so happy.
I feel I have already tried on hundreds of dresses, each one worse than the last. I want to complain, but I notice the nearly empty coffee pot on the counter and the stifled yawn my mom makes as she finishes making the rest of the scrambled eggs.
I don’t know how we’re going to afford this wedding, especially with Laura going to college so soon. I’ll just have to pick up more shifts at the restaurant to make up for it. She turns towards Her and I see myself, still sitting at the counter and periodically lifting the mug to take a sip of coffee. Again, I feel it without feeling it. I taste the bitterness and feel the sting of heat on Her mouth, but I don’t feel the need to cringe away from the pain. It’s only there on the outskirts of my mind.
I keep looking at Her face, but I feel my mom’s thoughts again, “We’re going to leave in twenty minutes and we’ll meet your sister there. Well… did you hear me?” Not my mom’s thoughts. I realize my mom is speaking aloud and strain to nod Her head. I will Her to move to the floor of my bedroom.
She lay on the floor and I feel Her heartbeat build, not growing faster but rather growing stronger until I can see it in Her stomach. I feel the air enter her lungs and watch her chest rise and fall. I think about each body part in turn: fingers and toes starting to turn cold with lack of circulation, legs, torso, neck and shoulders. I try to connect with every inch of Her, try to weave myself back into Her body. I hold temporarily, but as my mind drifts, so too do I from Her body. I feel the physical sensation of the tears on her cheeks, but not the accompanying emotion. I feel wisps of hair on Her forehead, but the tickling sensation brings no sense of annoyance or irritation. I feel her muscles fill with tension, but none of the tiredness that usually follows it. I feel everything, and I feel nothing.
Just as I decide not to go, I find myself looking up at my concerned mother through my own eyes. I make up an excuse to explain away my tears and motionlessness on the floor— cramps— not knowing why I fell back into myself.
-
“Hi sweetheart,” my mother says, hugging Amelia. A man comes out to greet us, and before I can say a word of disagreement, I find myself squeezing into the dress that seems several sizes too small.
“That’s too small,” they both say as I step out of the dressing room. My mom looks displeased and my sister’s face is a mixture of frustration and smugness.
“I told you, I’m not an eight. I need a ten.” Every single dress shop we went to, they made me try on the eight, even though it never fit. My hips press the fabric tight in an unflattering way; they create large bulges by my midriff and the material gathers above and below to make up for the difference. I don’t try to hide my frustration as I turn to them, but my countenance brakes when I see the worry in my sister’s eyes. How am I going to make the whole day amazing if I can’t even get the stupid dresses figured out. For the third time, I am stuck outside Her body. And here, with my mom and sister so focused on Her, it seems impossible to remain hidden.
I work Her mouth and manage to say, “I’ll try on the next one,” before I carefully force each foot to step on turn and lean to close the door behind Her.
I will Her fingers to manipulate the clasp, but the motions are too intricate. I scream in frustration, and She rips the fabric. With that motion, She not only tears through the fabric, but She rips me back into my body. Briefly, I panic, thinking of what my mother will say, but I feel my mind loosen on the edges, and I know this line of thought puts me in danger of floating away again.
I vocalize my frustration again, this time for them to hear. Pulling the dress off and my clothes on, I shout to my mother and sister, “It ripped. I told you I'm not an eight. Why don't you ever listen to me?” Clothed, I open the dressing room door and leave the store, not glancing at my mother or sister.
I am leaning against the car when they come out. A few parking spaces away, a woman pulls her sleeping infant out of a car seat to place her in a stroller.
“You are going to work that money off. This will come out of your income.” I see the shopping bag in her arms.
“Yes ma’am,” I say. The mother kisses the forehead of the sleeping girl and, eyes still closed, he smiles. I get into my mom’s car.
“Just look at what you’ve done to your sister,” my mother continues lecturing me on the drive home. I assume Amelia is crying, but I don’t look up. I know that if I meet either of their eyes, I will again be set adrift.
“I’m sorry,” I say, emotionless.
Eventually, my mother and Amelia begin to discuss other things. I listen to Amelia talk about the people who came in during her last shift. Amelia is a receptionist at the local hospital. Old man Rogers came in complaining of a toothache and it took an hour to convince him he needed to go to the dentist, not the hospital. A young girl had a terrible cough, which turned out to be pneumonia. An agonized man quit chemotherapy. Two babies were born. Three elderly deaths. Amelia speaks casually, but I feel I am falling down a hole. All the life, death, suffering, joy. I feel I could shatter the concrete and sink below its surface.
“Why are you crying?” It’s my mother. I just stare at her. “You’re upset?”
“Of course I’m upset. Why aren’t you? Why isn’t everybody?” I feel I am shouting, but it’s barely a whisper
“What are you talking about?” This is Amelia.
“All of those lives you saw changed forever. All of that pain. How do you not…” I don’t know the word.
“Why do you always have to make everything about you?” Amelia asks, ending the conversation.
We are silent the rest of the way home, but I can’t help the tears still streaming down my cheeks. Soon, I am alone in my bedroom.
Maybe they are right. Maybe I am selfish. Maybe I do make everything about myself. I think back to my past, wondering if any pain was actually mine. Was it selfish for me to feel grief for their tragedies?
When I was five years old, my grandmother passed away. I watched the effects shatter my family without truly comprehending the loss. I cried with everyone, but it was really for their loss more than my own. When I was eleven, my sister came home in tears because her boyfriend broke up with her. She asked me why I was crying, and I told her it was because she was crying. I didn’t really understand her confusion. When I was fourteen, I went out with my friend for her birthday. It was the first birthday she celebrated since her mother died. I remember crying at her crumpled face as she told me that all she wanted was to hear her mom sing her happy birthday. When I was seventeen, a girl in my high school committed suicide. I knew her, but not well. She was a friend of Tristan’s. At the funeral, he laughed at a memory of her, which turned into a sob. None of it was my grief, not really. Did I make their tragedies about me?
I also break for broader tragedies. I read statistics about the rapid melting of the ice caps. The vast pollution and resulting global calamities. The many murdered by hurricanes, tsunamis, earthquakes, the list is never ending. And then there’s the fallout after these disasters, which claims more loss. On top of this, we have to cope with human violence. How someone can intentionally hurt people, I cannot understand. I’ve spent hours researching motives and meanings, and I still cannot comprehend this world of murder, rape, abuse, terrorism. Crimes of passion are one thing, but how is it so easy for these people to commit premeditated violence? How do they, in their humanity, take the actions in preparation to bring people pain? The entire world enveloped in the dark, how can it ever go back to the way it was? Although I suppose it never was any other way to begin with. The world wasn’t innocent when I was a child, I just didn’t know. The only way for my world to go back to the way it was is to forget the dark, which is what everyone else seems to do.
It’s like no one even cares. Weeks after such violence, I still reel from the actions, while everyone else seems to move on minutes after the news. There is so much pain in the world. Where is the rage. Where is the action. How many times have I heard: There’s nothing you can do about it. It’s always been like this. Like everyone on the planet is just resigned to the dark, and there’s nothing we can do, so why care? Everyone just says fuck it.
I feel the pull begin. Tears pool and my body instinctively curls. I know I am spiraling but I can’t stop myself. I just follow the spiral in and in and in. I don’t even fight it. Maybe I’m resigned too. I hide my face even though I am alone. Maybe part of me thinks that it will make this feeling go away. This collapsing inwards. My eyes are closed, but I can’t stop seeing their pain. I see their faces broken by sobs. I hear the sound of their cries, never drowned out by my own internal wailing. And I can never help them. The more I sink the less I can breathe, and then it’s over.
-
She sits up and wipes the tears away. First, She cleans her room. She makes the bed, tightly tucking the sheets under the mattress and fluffing the pillows to be symmetrical. She puts away the laundry that sits in a laundry basket in Her closet. She reorganizes each drawer and reorders the clothes hanging in Her closet. She sorts through the items on her desk and bookshelf. When Her room looks clean, She repeats the process with Her bathroom. Nothing to be cluttered anywhere.
She then settles upon Herself. She begins with Her fingers and toes, carefully trimming away the excess nail and cuticle that has accumulated there. Then She settles upon Her teeth. Not merely brushing them, but also flossing each gap at least twice and scrubbing Her tongue. Then She brushes them again. Her lips, peeling from Her nervous habit of biting them, sting as She scrubs away the dead skin. She steps into a steaming shower. She first scrubs shampoo into Her hair. After rinsing it, She applies copious amounts of conditioner. She lets it sit in Her hair while she meticulously scrubs every inch of Her skin and shaves both Her legs and underarms. Then She washes Her face, twice, and rinses the conditioner from Her hair. After towel drying, She brushes Her hair and works Q-tips into Her ears to ensure they are as clean and dry as the rest of Her. She returns to Her room to dress.
She goes to Her stash of money and calmly counts out the amount for the dress and walks out to Her mother. She apologizes for Her actions and hands over the bills. Her mother hugs Her and whispers that she is sorry too.
“I love you,” Her mother says.
“I love you too,” She replies, Her lips carefully forming the words. She will have a similar exchange with Her sister.
She returns to Her room and stares at the ceiling. She is more rational now. She knows that the world would not function if people fully felt the pain around them. She knows it’s better for people to pay their respects and move on. She doesn’t want to bring them into Her spiral. Their distance protects them. She sits at Her desk and does the homework that accumulated over the week. Sometime after the sky darkens, She lays in Her bed. The sky begins to lighten again before She sinks into sleep.
-
She wakes up, but She doesn't move from Her bed. Her mother calls for Her, so She knows it must be late. She tries to call back. To say that She is awake and coming, or even that She feels ill and wants to stay in bed. But Her lips don't move, and Her voice doesn't sound. She doesn't even blink. As much as I strain, She remains still. Eventually, Her mother comes in and She sits up.
“Sweetheart, it’s nearly time to go. Why aren't you up? Was it a bad night?”
She lifts Her shoulders vaguely.
“It’s alright. Take a few minutes and then come out for breakfast. We won't worry about the rest of the day yet, okay?”
She nods Her head in compliance, and Her mother leaves the room.
She moves to the window. This morning She wears a black shirt that stands out in the reflection at the window. Only Her dark silhouette shows, solitary against the waves cresting and breaking outside Her window. The sun appears from behind a cloud and the golden light makes Her dark silhouette disappear.
In the distance, She sees a small boat fighting to get past the current at the shore. Again and again, it is buffeted back by the waves, but still it perseveres toward the horizon. After several minutes, it still hasn’t made any forward progress, yet still it thrusts into the waves.
Her phone beeps, bringing Her attention away from the boat. There is a text from Tristan. His Grandma died early that morning.
I tell my parents and drive to Tristan’s house. The door is unlocked, so I let myself in. Tristan sits in the living room watching the cooking channel. His parents are out taking care of the formalities that accompany death. He looks the same as always, but also different. I remember when my Grandpa died. I was five years old.
***
Grandpa was dead. That I knew because I heard my mother tell my father. But death was one of those things which all the adults already knew about. They only asked how he died—mother said in his sleep— but no one asked where he was. It’s not like when someone’s on vacation and everyone asks where they went. When they’re dead, everyone already knows somehow.
“Where is Grandpa?” I asked my parents. My father said Grandpa was taking a very long nap. My mother said he was visiting God in heaven, and that someday I would get to see Grandpa and God when I went to heaven. I told them I didn’t understand, but a few seconds of silence passed and the doorbell rang.
“Amelia, where is Grandpa?” Amelia was five years older than me, she would be able to explain.
“Grandpa is dead,” she said, simply.
“I know that, but where is he?” I asked again.
“Are you stupid? He’s dead. He’s not anywhere.”
For the next hour, I walked around the backyard trying not to be anywhere. But no matter where I went, I was still somewhere. I tried all my best hiding places: under the bench, behind the big tree, crouched beneath the space under the porch. Every time, I was still somewhere. It was hard work, and I went inside to get a snack.
Everyone was too busy to help me get a snack, so I had to ask James. I stared at his bedroom door, specifically at the sign hanging from a hook. The hook on my bedroom door held a sign that read “Laura”. The hook on Amelia’s door held a sign that read “Amelia”. James’s door didn’t have his name. The hook on James’s door held a sign that read “KEEP OUT” in great red letters.
I knocked. “What?” James barked from inside.
“James, I’m hungry,” I said.
“Sounds like a personal problem to me,” he answered.
“James, please—“ I stopped mid cry. I knew he wouldn’t help me. “James, where is Grandpa?”
James opened the door. “What do you mean, he’s dead.”
“I know! But where is he?” I was getting tired of asking this.
“He’s in a box. Soon he’ll be in a box six feet under the ground.” And James slammed the door closed again. I didn’t get a snack.
-
The next day, we drove to Pennsylvania to see Grandpa. This made much more sense than anything else. Grandpa was just in Pennsylvania, like he always was. He wasn’t in a box, he wasn’t nowhere, and he wasn’t visiting God. He was just in Pennsylvania.
All of us were going, and that meant we had to drive. James and Amelia switched off getting the entire back seat to themselves, while I was permanently stuck in the middle. I played with my toys and tried not to bother them. I must have grown nearly as old as Grandpa by the time we arrived, but we eventually made it.
“When can we see Grandpa?” I asked my mother.
“We’ll see him tomorrow. But honey, it's not really your grandpa. It'll look like grandpa, but— well, it's like when you go to your friend’s house and there’s no one home. Do you understand?” I did not.
But the entire drive I had been thinking. Maybe if I asked the same question as all the other adults, I would understand. “How did Grandpa die?”
“Well, honey— he lost his mind.”
This was the best new I’d heard all day. If his mind was just lost, we could all look for it. My mother was the best at finding lost toys, I was sure she could find a mind. But when I suggested this to her she said, “No, it's not like that. Your mind— it's not something someone can help you find.”
“So if you lose your mind, it's gone forever?” This didn't bode well for me, I was always losing my things. Grandma always said I'd forget my head if it was loose, but she never said anything about my mind.
“Not always, but people have to find their own way back.”
“I bet Grandpa can, he always finds the way back when we go camping.”
“It's not quite like that, and it's too late for Grandpa.”
-
A few weeks later, when I played at the park with Tristan, I tripped on my untied shoelace and the world turned sideways. I immediately wrapped my arms around my head and began wailing.
“What's wrong? Are you hurt?” Tristan looked terrified.
“Is it still there? Did I lose it!”
“Lose what?”
“My MIND, of course!”
“I don’t know, you look the same to me. Let’s look around to make sure you didn’t drop it. It will be okay,” Tristan said. For the rest of the afternoon, we looked for my mind throughout the entire park, but we didn’t find it.
Later my mother told me that's not how you lose your mind. Even after her explanation, I didn't know what it meant to lose your mind, but I’m beginning to understand.
***
Tristan looks up and sees me. He smiles at me, but I don’t believe it. I know comforting him won’t be as easy as searching through a park to find a missing mind.
“Hey,” he says.
“Hey,” I reply. I walk to sit next to him on the couch. I can tell he wants to say something, so I remain silent to give him space to speak. After several minutes, it's clear he won't be able to.
“Come on,” I say, rising from the couch.
He stands, too. “Where are we going?” He asks.
“You’ll see,” I tell him. He looks concerned, so I add, “It’s not far.”
A few minutes later, we arrive at the park.
“What are we doing here?” he asks.
“We’re going to look for your mind this time,” I tell him, and he gives me a real smile at the memory.
We don't actually search the playground as we did twelve years earlier. We don't search under park benches, behind trees, inside slides, and on the tops of swings. But in this place, Tristan is able to speak.
“Do you know what my grandma said to me the last time I saw her?” I shake my head. “She said she missed seeing me.” His eyes were somewhere between anger and sadness. “I should have spent more time with her.”
Just like all the times before, I don't know what to say. I don't know how to comfort him. And then I worry that this is more evidence of my selfishness because I am worrying that I can't help him. And then I worry that this is even further evidence of my selfishness because I am worrying about my selfishness. And then I see Tristan.
The last time I saw him, his eyes were lit with excitement over the intricacies of music. Now they look lost.
“Tell me about your Grandma,” I ask him.
“What do you mean? You knew her,” he says.
“Tell me anyway,” I say. “What did she enjoy? What did you do together? What made her laugh?”
He begins hesitantly, but the more he speaks, the more animated he becomes. Eventually, his eyes look as they had at the ballet. “Well, she’s definitely the oddest person I know— knew.” He pauses. “She collected yard decoration of all sorts; her backyard looked like a fairyland. She had bird feeders, gnomes, potted plants, little ceramic creatures poked throughout the lawn— mowing was a nightmare. She wouldn't go to the nursing home because she didn't want to leave her yard. She used to say, ‘I may be mad as a box of cats, but I'm not stupid. I can take care of myself,’ and we could never talk her out of it.” He rambles on until he runs out of things to say. When he finishes speaking, he still looks sad, but less broken.
“It sounds like you spent a lot of time with her after all,” I say.
“I guess I did,” he replies.
I smile because some broken things can be put back together. The world can go back to the way it was. Maybe not everyone's world, but one person’s world, and that’s not nothing. Even with all of the dark, there are still memories of Grandmas who are as mad as a box of cats, still small boats struggle that against the current to attack the vast horizon, still people who become overwhelmed by music and performers strive to find that line between technicality and passion, still little boys who help little girls search for their lost mind, and still sleeping babies who smile when their mamas kiss them.
Charlotte
If there is one thing that I have learned from my nineteen years of living, it’s that people are either an Annunciation Triptych or an Autumn Rhythm. And I’d like to say that Robert Campin personally painted me, but there’s currently a cigarette perched between my middle and index finger that says otherwise. I take a long drag from it and the end of the Marlboro flares an amber hue before I flick the ashes down on the asphalt. It’s my third one tonight—seventh cigarette overall today—but the exquisite delight I received from that first one this morning still has not heightened in the slightest. Truly a shame. I relieve my throat from the cloud of smoke that has been billowing there and I allow the sweet embrace of the nicotine to wreak its havoc upon my brain. The paper of the cigarette smolders closer and closer towards its butt end and smoke wreathes around me like a heady blanket. It becomes a fog in which I choose to smother myself.
I am sitting on the roof, allowing my feet to swing four stories above the street—they lightly kick against the edifice. There is no garden up here. Helen could not ever be bothered with a chore that might otherwise distract her from the daunting task of performing as a housewife. She is definitely an Annunciation Triptych because she knows what she wants, but her hues are still too technicolored and her form still too fake to be lauded in a museum. So, there is only asphalt up here and the light breeze coming from the Hudson River. On the wind, the sounds of the city life below say hello to me like a plastic cup being shoved ceremoniously into my hand after walking into a party: the excited murmurs from people who must be tourists, the constant honks of the taxi cabs, the pattering of shoes on concrete. Past the McCarson’s brownstone across the street, I can make out the very top of the George Washington Bridge and the moon perches itself just right behind it.
Flicking the cigarette before I breathe from it one last time, I bring it to my lips—the butt is stained with my Garnet Flame, the intricate stains of my lips imprinted by the violent shade of red. I relish the final bitter taste that is relinquished by the woodsy flavor before I toss it to the street below. I do not respect my stepmother, but I would rather not have to deal with my father’s anger if Helen found my cigarettes up here. I may come up here often enough to burn my sorrows with cigarettes, but the height is still intimidating so I scoot back a little from the edge before standing up. The autumn air causes me to wrap my cardigan tighter around my frame. Walking towards the door that leads inside, I hear from the street, “I hope you have more if you’re hoping to go out tonight!”
Adrianne Weisierski. I go to where I had just been and peer out onto the street to find her standing at my front steps with the butt I had just thrown away in her fingers. The street lamps illuminate her mahogany eyes as she raises one eyebrow questioningly. As if I would challenge her. Her full lips work themselves into a grin as she runs a hand through her ebony curtain of hair. She studies film production at the New School and works as an usher at the Angelika on Houston Street. Adrianne wants to make films that explore the ‘current American condition’, whatever that means. We met when we were both seventeen—in one of the bathrooms of Stuyvesant High School where she asked me if I would like to snort a line of coke with her before biology with Mr. Hansen. Adrianne Weisierski is definitely an Annunciation Triptych, though she pretends to be an Autumn Rhythm.
“And just what do you have planned for the night?” I cross my arms over my chest.
“Heathcliff told me that he could get us into Minton’s Playhouse tonight!” Heathcliff—his name is actually Heath, but we do not dwell with formalities—is a sax player we met at a jazz bar that was not Minton’s Playhouse. After his first show, the three of us took shots of tequila together before he started rolling a blunt.
“That jazz bar on 118th?” I say. We usually go see Heathcliff’s shows at the Dead Rabbit on Water Street, a karaoke bar. Even with his sax, he plays better than all the acts that try to sing ‘Total Eclipse of the Heart’.
“Exactly! So, are you coming or not?!”
“Hell yeah! Let me change first and I’ll be right down! We’ll have to go get a pack first from the bodega on 112th if you want to smoke!”
“Fine by me!”
We get off the subway on Malcolm X and walk the two blocks it takes to arrive at the bar. Rounding the corner on 118th, I notice that the line trails outside of the establishment and reaches almost all the way to 7th. In line, I can already see the odd assemblage that usually congregates at these types of places—closest to the door are the wizened crones who still try to cling to how they behaved when Nixon governed the country (they will light the first cigars and give out whiskey kisses). In the back are the dejected adolescent creatures who willingly choose to look like they just walked out of some bohemian Gap catalogue (they will be the first to leave when they realize that Ella Fitzgerald won’t be making an appearance tonight). And in between the polar opposites lies my crowd: some of us will wear those saffron eyeglasses with the frames shaped like circles and we sport those denim jackets and we always, always have a cigarette ready to be lit in our hands (we are the ones who trip on the substances in the bathroom).
“Charlotte, I’m going to need a cigarette if we’re going to have to stand through another flower child’s discovery on how artisan coffee is better for the bean.” I snort as I pass her a cigarette. I take one for myself as well and light up.
“It could be worse. We could be forced to submit our real opinions on BADBADNOTGOOD to the oldies,” I say. Adrianne snickers as we take our spots in the back of the line. “Has Heathcliff texted you?”
“He said he would meet us outside.” She pulls out her phone and scrolls through her texts. “It’s 9:37 right now and the show starts at 10, so we should be seeing him soon.” Adrianne looks up and tries to crane her neck over the line. “I’m too short to see over all these people, can you see if he’s at the door?”
The stilettos I decided to strap on before I went out give me the advantage of seeing over the crowd and all the way to the door that leads inside the bar. I estimate that we are about forty people from the entrance and squinting from the harsh glare of the neon letters affixed above the entryway, I think I see him.
He has close cropped hair with the front stylishly gelled up. The smattering of rainbow light emanating from the MINTON’S PLAYHOUSE letters gives his normally-chestnut hair a colorful sheen that is actually unsettling. But his eyes are unmistakable—they have longer lashes than mine and their ice blue glow shimmers from this far away. They are the most beautiful quality about him besides the magic that he can make with his hands. He told us that he can play four instruments besides the one that he will be playing tonight and that he attended Mannes for a semester before dropping out because he decided that he did not want to be taught what he already knew. He speaks matter-of-factly and only sings when he’s had enough to drink. Heath “Heathcliff” Carter is like me; he is an Autumn Rhythm. His musical tendencies smatter themselves into the collision of rhythms that he professes for us on nights like these. He affiliates himself within differing stylings of music and goes through them as quickly as he goes through a compact of Crew gel in a month. Heathcliff does not know what he wants, but God, is his spirit bright.
“Over there! I see him.” I point towards his direction so that Adrianne can see.
She grabs my arm and begins pulling me out of line and pushing me with her to the front. As we shoulder past everyone, glares upon the annoyed flicks of cigarettes are thrown our way. We come upon the entrance.
“Well, well, well Heathcliff, it’s been too long. What are you playing for us tonight?” Adrianne drawls.
His eyebrows casually raise as he surveys us with that intelligent smirk of his—cast wholly to one side, lips pursed only a little.
“Well, for my girls, I was planning on playing a little bit of Sinatra.”
“Oh, wow how you woo me.” I roll my eyes at Adrianne’s remark. “Can you actually get us in here, tonight?”
“Of course. That’s not even a question. When I go back in, just come in with me.” He watches the line behind us.
“Are you looking for anyone in particular, Heathcliff?” She lightly punches his shoulder with her fist. I think Adrianne likes him, but she is just too afraid to admit it. It takes him a while to come back to us, his eyes flaring as they come to focus on Adrianne.
“Hmm? Oh no, I’m not. I have my two favorite people already here.” Heathcliff glances back out to the crowd, a dazed expression crossing his face. “Just making sure no one’s mad that you just skipped the entire line.”
When I enter Minton’s Playhouse, my senses become a little disoriented. Inside, the lights are low and the dark wood tables are plentiful, their black coloring sucking up all of the available light left in the dingy space. The chairs are plush and already pushed in. The walls have portraits of past famous jazz musicians: Billie Holiday sits over there above the piano, Miles Davis perches himself between the restroom doors, Frank Sinatra winks from his position over those tables against the wall, and there is Charlie Parker sitting on top of the stage. I smell the musty scent of cigarettes that were put out the night before. The audience is already milling about the entire place, and the waiters move to and fro with drinks and hors d’oeuvres that violently shake on the trays balanced so effortlessly on their hands. I hear no singing, nor am I trying to sway to some slow, intelligible rhythm because it is absent. This din of noise is only present because of the crowd of people.
I love it here.
“What time is it?” I ask Adrianne.
She checks her phone. “9:53. Heathcliff is about to go on.” I grab Adrianne’s hand and begin pushing through to the front.
“Well, then come on, we need to be in the first row for his performance.” Thankfully, the bar is not as crowded yet as it will be later tonight. It closes at 3, but we will be gone before then and on to the next adventure of the night. There are a few people already shadowing the stage—four of the oldies and three of the Gap kids. I thrust ourselves between the two separate factions to get to the very middle of the scaffold. I almost ask for the time again, but soon enough, Heathcliff starts walking out on the stage and the dizzying cacophony that was present before climbs in volume.
His saxophone is strapped around his body by his favorite purple-and-green-checkered strap and his fingers gently nestle the keys, teasing them for their sound, testing how vibrant their fervor will be tonight for us all. Heathcliff struts towards the microphone and speaks, “How is everyone doing tonight?”
The familiar reassurance by the audience through their raucous cheers makes him smile. His teeth are fully showing and his gentle laugh croaks throughout the room. He finds us at the front and winks before addressing the entire place again.
“I hope you don’t mind if I play a little something for you guys tonight.” Claps and croons of delight answer him. “I’m counting on the fact that if you guys don’t enjoy the show, my only two friends here will. Because they have to.” Heathcliff laughs as he glances at us again. He clears his throat before bringing the mouthpiece of the instrument to his mouth.
Heathcliff has taught me the parts of the sax before. His digits splay over the spatula keys and I know that when he presses each one, he’s manipulating the sound that is actually being produced by the reed. He rests the bell against his leg and dances to his own song. Eyes closed, lips pursed in concentration, his throat bobs each time a new note interrupts or comes behind the one that was played before it.
We all sway together: not in unison, but in disjointed pockets, each of us understanding the music differently. More people have been let in to see the show since he started playing. His sound is comforting and wraps me in a cocoon that separates me from everyone else. A wrinkle appears in the crease right above his nose and his eyebrows are furrowed as the intensity of his timbre conquers and eradicates any thought I had before listening to him play. The flawless harmonies each preserve their own kind of agony and the vibrations of the resonance replace harsh realities with the fantasy I need. It is brassy and beautiful. It is the kind of sound that makes me want to stab the canvas at home with all the paints I have ever bought. Smatter here. Douse that color out because it just throws off the entire masterpiece. Splatter there. Carefully construct that line along the edge of it. Splash that tint right there in the white space of it all.
Heathcliff will sing later in the night if his fans buy him a round at the bar, but for now he stops and the crescendo of quiet becomes deafening. We are at a loss for our usual quips and still struggling to cope with the silence. I am the first to clap. I am glad there are no tears pooling in my eyes, but if I were to cry, at least it would be for art.
Everyone else puts their hands together after I do.
He chuckles. “Thank you all so much. Thank you!” I cannot tell if his eyes are glinting because of the stage lights that are clearly blinding him, but he brushes a hand against his eye and the watery quality disappears.
“HEATHCLIFF! HEATHCLIFF! HEATHCLIFF!” Adrianne begins the chant and it’s soon taken up by the entire audience.
He looks down at us and mouths, “thank you.” He stands there for a minute or two more and thanks the crowd three more times before retreating backstage.
“Will you go to the bathroom with me?” Adrianne interrupts the awe of my night.
“Sure! But when we come back, let’s get some food,” I reply.
The bathroom is across the entire place and we are in the middle of everyone, so as we struggle through the masses, constant apologies are made on my part to these strangers. Like me, everyone’s face is still lost in admiration for what just happened. It was an experience that can have no real words to describe the actual beauty of it, but I will try to express it for the rest of my life most likely. Or just ask Heathcliff what his intentions were.
I register that we are in the bathroom when the door slams shut behind me. I realize I was lost in thought the whole journey there.
“Okay, you ready?” Adrianne starts.
“For what?”
From her jacket, she brings out a tightly sealed, small plastic bag of white powder. Oh. “We’re about to get super high. Imagine listening to Heathcliff sing while tripping on this.” Before I can reply, she pours out the contents of the bag on the bathroom sink and begins settling it into two separate lines.
“Nice coke nail.”
“I honestly can’t stand it most of time. But it’s useful for this.” She bends down and the noise that emits from her nose makes me flinch as the cocaine vanishes into her, reminding me of that one kid from fifth grade who could never stop sniffling. Tony? Robert? I do not know and I drop the idea of him with a shrug because he’s not here now.
“You ready for your line?” She straightens my share of the drug out one more time.
I walk to the sink and bend down. I press my forefinger against my left nostril—I always prefer having coke go up the right one (it just seems like the right thing to do)—and hover above the line. I close my eyes and snort the thing and look up at myself in the mirror.
The whites of my eyes flash all over the place. My splattered skin looks rough in the harsh florescence of this bathroom lighting. Are my cheeks sallow because of this drug or the cigarettes I smoke? Is that cocaine on my lips or just a shine in the mirror? I rub the glass, but still cannot tell. But for a second I think I see black rings embedded in my gums and almost recoil in horror. I blink again and they’re gone. My hair, usually hanging close to my neck and right there above my shoulders, distresses itself in stringy champagne strands. There is an ethereal heat that is enveloping my skin; a light sanguine shadow blushes across my face further erasing my former fair skinned complexion. My fingers are tingling, my body is buzzing, my sense of shape begins to blur in the mirror when I look down at my ligaments. Robert Campin never got the chance to paint me because Jackson Pollock already did. I look up at my reflection one more time.
“Damn, I still need a cigarette.”
Adrianne pulls out her lighter and my pack. “Do you think they would care if we just go ahead and smoke right here?”
Adrianne and her rhetorical questions. I take a cigarette from the pack in her outstretched hand.
I come up from the cigarette’s promise. “Where to next?”
She regards me with her widened eyes and her jaw drops at my ‘audacity’ for daring to rejoice in my habits in such a closed space. Her eyes slowly rise to the sprinkler head hanging above her. My smoke dangerously encroaches upon it, the silvery vapor encircling closer to its metal spikes. I tap my cigarette against the sink and watch the ashes recede down the tiny holes in the drain.
“Adrianne, if you can smoke out there, then you can surely do it in here, too.” I suck in on the cigarette and blow the smoke in her face. I do not care. “But if you’re so worried, then we’ll just go outside.” I shove past her and push against the door. There is a line of people outside of it. I point my cigarette at them and sweep it towards the open doorway and say, “It’s all yours.” I chuckle as I bring it to my lips again.
“Are you still wanting to e—”
There he is talking to someone that is not me or Adrianne. His arms are crossed and he gestures with his hand that is tightly coiled within the inside of his elbow—I forget its actual name. He smiles and a laugh emerges. I hear it from here. And the woman he’s talking to has her hand resting against his upper arm. She’s grinning and leans towards him conspiratorially. Heathcliff does not even pull away. What the fuck.
I leave Adrianne where she is. Surveying the woman, I notice the slight wrinkles marring the folds of skin that rest just above the edges of her lips. The grays in her otherwise coppered hair churn within the bounds of the tendril twist she chose to style it in tonight. She brushes a ringlet behind her ear as she nods along to whatever Heathcliff is telling her. Her teeth are perfectly straight, their white glow radiating all this way. Adorning a polka-dotted black and white blouse with jeans, she almost looks attractive—especially with those suede boots right underneath her rolled up cuffs. I see that her nails are perfectly manicured and that they are lacquered with some garish shade of hot pink. It’s almost blinding. The epitome of everything that I am not bursts from this woman. Annunciation Triptych. Hang her up in the Met instead of the actual painting and no one would notice the difference.
I interrupt whatever conversation is going on between them. “Heathcliff, if you wanted some lap candy before the next show, you should’ve taken the offer from any other groupie.” I give the woman—it’s what she is—another passing glance. “Or at least, a younger one.” I wink at her before leaving both of them with their mouths open.
If anything, at least I have dropped a few jaws tonight.
Adrianne waits for me a couple barstools over, her eyebrows sitting higher than they had been in the bathroom. “Um, did you just actually say t—”
I put my finger to her lips. “Adrianne, let’s leave these losers behind and adventure on into the morrow.”
High. I am surprised that I can still elegantly traverse the concrete of the city in my heeled shoes. The cigarette still sits between my middle and index finger, halfway finished and still simmering in its internal heat. We are walking on Central Park North, the thicket of trees to our right brandish their trunks trying to reach the heights of the surrounding skyscrapers, the elongated branches attempting to escape the park they are subjected to. There are birds chirping from their timbered belfries and the few leaves still left to stand against this autumnal season suicide to the pavement each time these same birds bounce onto a different bough. Some people pass us by, keeping to themselves.
High. Others hail down cabs on the corner of 5th and 111th and flash a finger right after they scream their especial obscenities at the drivers that ignore them. On our left, in contrast with the artificial nature to our right, there is the familiar haze of apartment buildings too indistinguishable from each other. We are going to Lower Manhattan to take part in the dilettante debauchery so common on the streets of the Village. Crossing Madison Avenue, I can make out the subway entrance from here: its multicolored encircled numbers and letters outrageously glare against their blackened backdrop, the steps that lead into an underground type of Hell cackle at us, the namesake sound and exhaust protruding from the vents that engrave themselves into the concrete wail against us.
High. I toss my cigarette out of my hand as we come closer to the steps. I do not even bother putting it out.
Adrianne and I make our way closer to the stairs leading into the station and the harsh cries of trains squealing on tracks immediately immure their way into my ears, making me visibly flinch.
High. We quickly swipe our MetroCards to let us through the turnstile. “We need to be on the 4 train, correct?” I ask. I have to raise my voice to be heard.
Adrianne only nods as her eyes scan the countdown clocks, searching for our train. “It will arrive in about ten minutes.”
“Hmm, good timing I’d say.” High.
It is dim in here. The concrete walls are a charcoal shade that absorbs the flickering weak light of the lamps overhead. We are graced with viewing A Saturday on 110th—the designated mosaic for this station—while we wait for our train. The eyes of the woman in the mural pour into me; she scopes out the last dregs of the drug residing in my nose and scathes me with her withering judgement. She holds her son’s hand to keep him from me. High. There are tiled panels with 110th Street elegantly scripted upon them almost in a cobbled patchwork pattern of white, blue, tan, brown, and green. In that order, too. There are about a dozen people on the platform: there is a couple on the only bench here cuddling the cold from outside away, against the wall about seven people are pouring their faces into their phone screens, and leaning on the pillars are two individuals separately reading their own novels. Over there is a homeless man drumming merrily on upturned white buckets—I smile and nod at him. And then there is Adrianne and I. High.
“Charlotte, what was that back there?” She points to what is possibly the direction of Minton’s Playhouse, but down here, the directions of the outside world become pointless. Three creases visibly mark themselves on her forehead as she crosses her arms before leaning back. Her voice delves into an edging bite that is usually never present. High. “Why did you say that to him?”
“Say what?” I physically try to mirror her, but only end up giggling. High.
“Charlotte! I’m serious!” There is a glint that beams from her eyes. “Were you jealous that he was talking to another person? Do you like him?”
I guffaw and catch my breath. “God, no. Never. Why would I look at him that way when you clearly are the one who feels that way about him?” High.
The face she makes when someone tells her that her major is pointless is the same one she makes now when those words leave my mouth, circulate through her brain allowing it to process each syllable of them, and evacuate through her ears demanding her response. High. She stutters, “W-what do you m-mean?” Her arms drop and that embittered verve she spoke with before disappears. Adrianne Weisierski appears weak. High.
“Adrianne, it’s pretty obvious.” I pause. “When you see him, you get this look on your face. It’s like it softens and your eyes seem like they’re expectantly prepared to forgive him no matter his past transgressions.” High.
“They do n—”
“Why do you care if I know?” Her exasperated look confirms that she cares about my opinion on the matter. High.
“I don’t. But it’s just—I don’t know. If you know, wouldn’t he too? And if he does, why won’t he say anything?”
I will never understand the power it is that people wield that allows them the ability to ruin the confidence that emanates from an Annunciation Triptych. But our ten minutes are up. The train is here. Its wheels screech intensely in opposition of the tracks trying to brake its momentum.
Over the clangor, I am almost shouting to Adrianne, “Heathcliff is obliviously too attached to his music. And if you want him to know, then I suggest you interrupt those musings of his. It’s the only way you’ll get your answer.” High.
I cannot make out Adrianne’s response over the intercom heralding the arrival of the monorail that is already parked in front of us, so I just shrug. She most likely will not do anything about her crush. An Annunciation Triptych rarely acts on their personal passions. High. The doors of the separate cars open to let out their passengers—chaos ensues and the calm roars now morph into obnoxious explosions that have no end. High.
“Look at you and look at me!”
Caught in the crowd, I try and peer back at the outburst. Too many heads pass the source of it to quite make out what is going on; too many bodies push me out of their way—this is New York City. Am I the only one who heard that? High.
Because no one else seems to be paying any attention. A sweaty palm—Adrianne’s—grasps mine tightly and tugs me into the yawning doorway of the train. “Charlotte!” We sit down. High. Fingers snap in my periphery. “How high are you?”
I almost answer. Almost. High.
“You don’t deserve this money.” Over there. By the homeless man. There he is. All dressed in black. High. I see him take money from the defenseless vagrant’s bucket. High. I see this human strike the shoulder of this destitute man with the stack of cash he is stealing. High. I see this villain leer his own disgusting goateed face into the homeless man’s. “You are nothing.” He spits into what was supposed to be the bucket meant for money collections. High.
I am out of my seat before Adrianne has time to register that I am no longer on her side.
“HEY!” I do not even recognize my own voice. High.
I notice Adrianne barely getting off the subway before the doors close permanently until their next stop. High. I am already storming towards this unjust altercation though. She has no time to reach me. High. Sizing him up, I have told myself that I can take him.
“Who the fuck do you think you are?” High.
“Charlotte!”
High.
My fist connects with his chin before he has time to register who would dare to come to this other man’s aid. His head snaps back and I barely register the pain lancing through my hand. I am numb. High. The ache grows to my entire arm, but I cannot let that stop me. High. Hearing, “You bitch!” only adds to the lighter fluid quickly flowing through my veins, ready for another click of the lighter. High. I kick out with my right foot—it connects with the evil man’s stomach. He keels over and I am already grabbing the drumsticks tossed aside by the homeless man. I make short work of them as they snap in half as they crash down on this loser’s skull. High. “Give the money back!”
“Okay! Okay! Okay! Just leave me alone!” His hands beg for mercy.
A red film clouds my vision. I grin. There will be no pity demonstrated tonight. High. “Wish you had just left this poor man alone, too. But we don’t always get what we want now, do we?” High. I set upon him again.
Strike. High. Jab. High. Maim. High. Beat. High. Punch. High. Swing. High. Slap. High. HIGH.
HIGH.
HIGH.
HIGH.
I do not remember becoming lost in some inky, black realm that blocked out this reality.
I am resting on a bench and I can hear water cascading from a fountain somewhere behind me. The night air is quiet except for that noise. My head is resting against someone else’s shoulder. It smells like buttered popcorn enraptured in the smell of cloves—Adrianne. I blink my eyes open and remark that it is still dark outside, though the black has begun to transform itself into its darker shades of gray. The moon is a blotched circle in the sky like the rings left on the table by the falling droplets of milk that come from the spoon right before I put the cereal in my mouth. An intense and physical anguish overtakes my entire being and it all comes back. The man. My red vision. My visceral anger. There were drumsticks, too. It all happened so quickly.
“Sleeping Beauty finally awakens.” Adrianne runs her hand through my hair, untangling whatever knots I most likely tightened in either that quarrel or my fitful sleep.
I look around. There is definitely a fountain behind us and I was definitely dozing on a park bench. In front of me, a triumphant arch made of marble elbows into the sky. Upon the frieze of it, I can just barely discern the engravings that distinguish exactly where we are—an eagle situates itself as the focus of the curve of the archway, the opposing spandrels feature the same representative deities for Victory, and counting, I note that there are thirteen stars. Washington Square Park.
I guess we made it to the Village after all.
“What time is it?” I ask.
“6:37.”
“How long have I been asleep?”
Adrianne pauses thinking of it. “We got here around 2:30, sat on this bench, and you were out.” A tremor of quiet settles and then, “Do you remember what happened?”
“Yes,” I say. “How bad was it?”
“I couldn’t pull you off until you broke the drumsticks on that guy’s head. And even that was a struggle. What prompted that, Charlotte?”
I muse for a little while. What did? I cannot even explain it to myself besides, “Adrianne Weisierski, if you were an Autumn Rhythm you would understand.”
“Okay, quit with that bullshit. Right now. I am not going to let you fall back on some lazy excuse for how you view people.”
I sit up. “It’s not lazy. It’s true. I am an Autumn Rhythm, okay?” I wait for her interjection, but she waits. “I am reckless and I am engineered to always wreak havoc no matter the situation. Unlike you, I am an indescribable, chaotic mess whereas you are calm and measure yourself.” She audibly snorts. And this time it is not for the promise of a thin white line. “The reason that I know that you are an Annunciation Triptych is because of how you approach the world: you come at it with a clear head, you put your future first before your impulses, and you always, always remain a good person at heart.” I catch my breath. “I have no aspirations. I treat every situation likes it’s my first, almost like if we were on the playground again when we were little. And I do not know yet how to slow down these urges.” Never have I felt so sure about my beliefs of people, including myself.
“Charlotte, you’re a great fucking person. Just a few hours ago, you stood up against all odds for a person that everyone else chose to ignore. You care so much about Heathcliff and I because if you didn’t you would not attend all of his concerts nor my film screenings. You would not have even disrupted whatever conversation that he was having with that woman tonight if you actually did not care. You have a passion for art that I still cannot quite comprehend, but trust me, it is a fascinating experience to see you in the midst of an art museum. Even more so when you are actually making your own art.” She reassures me by rubbing my shoulder. “If I am an Annunciation Triptych and I know what I want, then I know that I do not want my best friend to feel like she is some fucking mistake that she is definitely not.”
“If only it were that simple.” I shrug her hand away and face the monument staring at us.
The silence stretches for a long while. It is comfortable. We bask in its delights as we peer up at this magnificent sculpture together. This arch almost teases the possibility that if I were to walk through its archway, then I could be cleansed of whatever demons I am trying to run away from. But first I have to absolutely know them and I do not. Perhaps someday I will. I ruminate on the three thoughts that I doubtlessly hold true.
First, I am an Autumn Rhythm.
Second, Adrianne is an Annunciation Triptych.
And third, the sun should be rising soon and there is nothing better than a morning cigarette.
“Are there any cigarettes left?” I note the three butts littered beneath the bench which explain how Adrianne must have passed the time that I was incapacitated.
“Of course.” She rummages in her coat pockets to fish out the pack and lighter. Adrianne hands them to me.
I pick the upturned one—the ‘lucky’. Fitting considering how the night turned out. I turn the stick of tobacco around so that it can correctly be in my mouth and stammer around it, “May luck be a lady.” Click, light, burn, inhale, and the smoke of the cigarette begins to consume the atmosphere when I exhale.
This is why I am an Autumn Rhythm.
Because I can never say no.
If there is one thing that I have learned from my nineteen years of living, it’s that people are either an Annunciation Triptych or an Autumn Rhythm. And I’d like to say that Robert Campin personally painted me, but there’s currently a cigarette perched between my middle and index finger that says otherwise. I take a long drag from it and the end of the Marlboro flares an amber hue before I flick the ashes down on the asphalt. It’s my third one tonight—seventh cigarette overall today—but the exquisite delight I received from that first one this morning still has not heightened in the slightest. Truly a shame. I relieve my throat from the cloud of smoke that has been billowing there and I allow the sweet embrace of the nicotine to wreak its havoc upon my brain. The paper of the cigarette smolders closer and closer towards its butt end and smoke wreathes around me like a heady blanket. It becomes a fog in which I choose to smother myself.
I am sitting on the roof, allowing my feet to swing four stories above the street—they lightly kick against the edifice. There is no garden up here. Helen could not ever be bothered with a chore that might otherwise distract her from the daunting task of performing as a housewife. She is definitely an Annunciation Triptych because she knows what she wants, but her hues are still too technicolored and her form still too fake to be lauded in a museum. So, there is only asphalt up here and the light breeze coming from the Hudson River. On the wind, the sounds of the city life below say hello to me like a plastic cup being shoved ceremoniously into my hand after walking into a party: the excited murmurs from people who must be tourists, the constant honks of the taxi cabs, the pattering of shoes on concrete. Past the McCarson’s brownstone across the street, I can make out the very top of the George Washington Bridge and the moon perches itself just right behind it.
Flicking the cigarette before I breathe from it one last time, I bring it to my lips—the butt is stained with my Garnet Flame, the intricate stains of my lips imprinted by the violent shade of red. I relish the final bitter taste that is relinquished by the woodsy flavor before I toss it to the street below. I do not respect my stepmother, but I would rather not have to deal with my father’s anger if Helen found my cigarettes up here. I may come up here often enough to burn my sorrows with cigarettes, but the height is still intimidating so I scoot back a little from the edge before standing up. The autumn air causes me to wrap my cardigan tighter around my frame. Walking towards the door that leads inside, I hear from the street, “I hope you have more if you’re hoping to go out tonight!”
Adrianne Weisierski. I go to where I had just been and peer out onto the street to find her standing at my front steps with the butt I had just thrown away in her fingers. The street lamps illuminate her mahogany eyes as she raises one eyebrow questioningly. As if I would challenge her. Her full lips work themselves into a grin as she runs a hand through her ebony curtain of hair. She studies film production at the New School and works as an usher at the Angelika on Houston Street. Adrianne wants to make films that explore the ‘current American condition’, whatever that means. We met when we were both seventeen—in one of the bathrooms of Stuyvesant High School where she asked me if I would like to snort a line of coke with her before biology with Mr. Hansen. Adrianne Weisierski is definitely an Annunciation Triptych, though she pretends to be an Autumn Rhythm.
“And just what do you have planned for the night?” I cross my arms over my chest.
“Heathcliff told me that he could get us into Minton’s Playhouse tonight!” Heathcliff—his name is actually Heath, but we do not dwell with formalities—is a sax player we met at a jazz bar that was not Minton’s Playhouse. After his first show, the three of us took shots of tequila together before he started rolling a blunt.
“That jazz bar on 118th?” I say. We usually go see Heathcliff’s shows at the Dead Rabbit on Water Street, a karaoke bar. Even with his sax, he plays better than all the acts that try to sing ‘Total Eclipse of the Heart’.
“Exactly! So, are you coming or not?!”
“Hell yeah! Let me change first and I’ll be right down! We’ll have to go get a pack first from the bodega on 112th if you want to smoke!”
“Fine by me!”
We get off the subway on Malcolm X and walk the two blocks it takes to arrive at the bar. Rounding the corner on 118th, I notice that the line trails outside of the establishment and reaches almost all the way to 7th. In line, I can already see the odd assemblage that usually congregates at these types of places—closest to the door are the wizened crones who still try to cling to how they behaved when Nixon governed the country (they will light the first cigars and give out whiskey kisses). In the back are the dejected adolescent creatures who willingly choose to look like they just walked out of some bohemian Gap catalogue (they will be the first to leave when they realize that Ella Fitzgerald won’t be making an appearance tonight). And in between the polar opposites lies my crowd: some of us will wear those saffron eyeglasses with the frames shaped like circles and we sport those denim jackets and we always, always have a cigarette ready to be lit in our hands (we are the ones who trip on the substances in the bathroom).
“Charlotte, I’m going to need a cigarette if we’re going to have to stand through another flower child’s discovery on how artisan coffee is better for the bean.” I snort as I pass her a cigarette. I take one for myself as well and light up.
“It could be worse. We could be forced to submit our real opinions on BADBADNOTGOOD to the oldies,” I say. Adrianne snickers as we take our spots in the back of the line. “Has Heathcliff texted you?”
“He said he would meet us outside.” She pulls out her phone and scrolls through her texts. “It’s 9:37 right now and the show starts at 10, so we should be seeing him soon.” Adrianne looks up and tries to crane her neck over the line. “I’m too short to see over all these people, can you see if he’s at the door?”
The stilettos I decided to strap on before I went out give me the advantage of seeing over the crowd and all the way to the door that leads inside the bar. I estimate that we are about forty people from the entrance and squinting from the harsh glare of the neon letters affixed above the entryway, I think I see him.
He has close cropped hair with the front stylishly gelled up. The smattering of rainbow light emanating from the MINTON’S PLAYHOUSE letters gives his normally-chestnut hair a colorful sheen that is actually unsettling. But his eyes are unmistakable—they have longer lashes than mine and their ice blue glow shimmers from this far away. They are the most beautiful quality about him besides the magic that he can make with his hands. He told us that he can play four instruments besides the one that he will be playing tonight and that he attended Mannes for a semester before dropping out because he decided that he did not want to be taught what he already knew. He speaks matter-of-factly and only sings when he’s had enough to drink. Heath “Heathcliff” Carter is like me; he is an Autumn Rhythm. His musical tendencies smatter themselves into the collision of rhythms that he professes for us on nights like these. He affiliates himself within differing stylings of music and goes through them as quickly as he goes through a compact of Crew gel in a month. Heathcliff does not know what he wants, but God, is his spirit bright.
“Over there! I see him.” I point towards his direction so that Adrianne can see.
She grabs my arm and begins pulling me out of line and pushing me with her to the front. As we shoulder past everyone, glares upon the annoyed flicks of cigarettes are thrown our way. We come upon the entrance.
“Well, well, well Heathcliff, it’s been too long. What are you playing for us tonight?” Adrianne drawls.
His eyebrows casually raise as he surveys us with that intelligent smirk of his—cast wholly to one side, lips pursed only a little.
“Well, for my girls, I was planning on playing a little bit of Sinatra.”
“Oh, wow how you woo me.” I roll my eyes at Adrianne’s remark. “Can you actually get us in here, tonight?”
“Of course. That’s not even a question. When I go back in, just come in with me.” He watches the line behind us.
“Are you looking for anyone in particular, Heathcliff?” She lightly punches his shoulder with her fist. I think Adrianne likes him, but she is just too afraid to admit it. It takes him a while to come back to us, his eyes flaring as they come to focus on Adrianne.
“Hmm? Oh no, I’m not. I have my two favorite people already here.” Heathcliff glances back out to the crowd, a dazed expression crossing his face. “Just making sure no one’s mad that you just skipped the entire line.”
When I enter Minton’s Playhouse, my senses become a little disoriented. Inside, the lights are low and the dark wood tables are plentiful, their black coloring sucking up all of the available light left in the dingy space. The chairs are plush and already pushed in. The walls have portraits of past famous jazz musicians: Billie Holiday sits over there above the piano, Miles Davis perches himself between the restroom doors, Frank Sinatra winks from his position over those tables against the wall, and there is Charlie Parker sitting on top of the stage. I smell the musty scent of cigarettes that were put out the night before. The audience is already milling about the entire place, and the waiters move to and fro with drinks and hors d’oeuvres that violently shake on the trays balanced so effortlessly on their hands. I hear no singing, nor am I trying to sway to some slow, intelligible rhythm because it is absent. This din of noise is only present because of the crowd of people.
I love it here.
“What time is it?” I ask Adrianne.
She checks her phone. “9:53. Heathcliff is about to go on.” I grab Adrianne’s hand and begin pushing through to the front.
“Well, then come on, we need to be in the first row for his performance.” Thankfully, the bar is not as crowded yet as it will be later tonight. It closes at 3, but we will be gone before then and on to the next adventure of the night. There are a few people already shadowing the stage—four of the oldies and three of the Gap kids. I thrust ourselves between the two separate factions to get to the very middle of the scaffold. I almost ask for the time again, but soon enough, Heathcliff starts walking out on the stage and the dizzying cacophony that was present before climbs in volume.
His saxophone is strapped around his body by his favorite purple-and-green-checkered strap and his fingers gently nestle the keys, teasing them for their sound, testing how vibrant their fervor will be tonight for us all. Heathcliff struts towards the microphone and speaks, “How is everyone doing tonight?”
The familiar reassurance by the audience through their raucous cheers makes him smile. His teeth are fully showing and his gentle laugh croaks throughout the room. He finds us at the front and winks before addressing the entire place again.
“I hope you don’t mind if I play a little something for you guys tonight.” Claps and croons of delight answer him. “I’m counting on the fact that if you guys don’t enjoy the show, my only two friends here will. Because they have to.” Heathcliff laughs as he glances at us again. He clears his throat before bringing the mouthpiece of the instrument to his mouth.
Heathcliff has taught me the parts of the sax before. His digits splay over the spatula keys and I know that when he presses each one, he’s manipulating the sound that is actually being produced by the reed. He rests the bell against his leg and dances to his own song. Eyes closed, lips pursed in concentration, his throat bobs each time a new note interrupts or comes behind the one that was played before it.
We all sway together: not in unison, but in disjointed pockets, each of us understanding the music differently. More people have been let in to see the show since he started playing. His sound is comforting and wraps me in a cocoon that separates me from everyone else. A wrinkle appears in the crease right above his nose and his eyebrows are furrowed as the intensity of his timbre conquers and eradicates any thought I had before listening to him play. The flawless harmonies each preserve their own kind of agony and the vibrations of the resonance replace harsh realities with the fantasy I need. It is brassy and beautiful. It is the kind of sound that makes me want to stab the canvas at home with all the paints I have ever bought. Smatter here. Douse that color out because it just throws off the entire masterpiece. Splatter there. Carefully construct that line along the edge of it. Splash that tint right there in the white space of it all.
Heathcliff will sing later in the night if his fans buy him a round at the bar, but for now he stops and the crescendo of quiet becomes deafening. We are at a loss for our usual quips and still struggling to cope with the silence. I am the first to clap. I am glad there are no tears pooling in my eyes, but if I were to cry, at least it would be for art.
Everyone else puts their hands together after I do.
He chuckles. “Thank you all so much. Thank you!” I cannot tell if his eyes are glinting because of the stage lights that are clearly blinding him, but he brushes a hand against his eye and the watery quality disappears.
“HEATHCLIFF! HEATHCLIFF! HEATHCLIFF!” Adrianne begins the chant and it’s soon taken up by the entire audience.
He looks down at us and mouths, “thank you.” He stands there for a minute or two more and thanks the crowd three more times before retreating backstage.
“Will you go to the bathroom with me?” Adrianne interrupts the awe of my night.
“Sure! But when we come back, let’s get some food,” I reply.
The bathroom is across the entire place and we are in the middle of everyone, so as we struggle through the masses, constant apologies are made on my part to these strangers. Like me, everyone’s face is still lost in admiration for what just happened. It was an experience that can have no real words to describe the actual beauty of it, but I will try to express it for the rest of my life most likely. Or just ask Heathcliff what his intentions were.
I register that we are in the bathroom when the door slams shut behind me. I realize I was lost in thought the whole journey there.
“Okay, you ready?” Adrianne starts.
“For what?”
From her jacket, she brings out a tightly sealed, small plastic bag of white powder. Oh. “We’re about to get super high. Imagine listening to Heathcliff sing while tripping on this.” Before I can reply, she pours out the contents of the bag on the bathroom sink and begins settling it into two separate lines.
“Nice coke nail.”
“I honestly can’t stand it most of time. But it’s useful for this.” She bends down and the noise that emits from her nose makes me flinch as the cocaine vanishes into her, reminding me of that one kid from fifth grade who could never stop sniffling. Tony? Robert? I do not know and I drop the idea of him with a shrug because he’s not here now.
“You ready for your line?” She straightens my share of the drug out one more time.
I walk to the sink and bend down. I press my forefinger against my left nostril—I always prefer having coke go up the right one (it just seems like the right thing to do)—and hover above the line. I close my eyes and snort the thing and look up at myself in the mirror.
The whites of my eyes flash all over the place. My splattered skin looks rough in the harsh florescence of this bathroom lighting. Are my cheeks sallow because of this drug or the cigarettes I smoke? Is that cocaine on my lips or just a shine in the mirror? I rub the glass, but still cannot tell. But for a second I think I see black rings embedded in my gums and almost recoil in horror. I blink again and they’re gone. My hair, usually hanging close to my neck and right there above my shoulders, distresses itself in stringy champagne strands. There is an ethereal heat that is enveloping my skin; a light sanguine shadow blushes across my face further erasing my former fair skinned complexion. My fingers are tingling, my body is buzzing, my sense of shape begins to blur in the mirror when I look down at my ligaments. Robert Campin never got the chance to paint me because Jackson Pollock already did. I look up at my reflection one more time.
“Damn, I still need a cigarette.”
Adrianne pulls out her lighter and my pack. “Do you think they would care if we just go ahead and smoke right here?”
Adrianne and her rhetorical questions. I take a cigarette from the pack in her outstretched hand.
I come up from the cigarette’s promise. “Where to next?”
She regards me with her widened eyes and her jaw drops at my ‘audacity’ for daring to rejoice in my habits in such a closed space. Her eyes slowly rise to the sprinkler head hanging above her. My smoke dangerously encroaches upon it, the silvery vapor encircling closer to its metal spikes. I tap my cigarette against the sink and watch the ashes recede down the tiny holes in the drain.
“Adrianne, if you can smoke out there, then you can surely do it in here, too.” I suck in on the cigarette and blow the smoke in her face. I do not care. “But if you’re so worried, then we’ll just go outside.” I shove past her and push against the door. There is a line of people outside of it. I point my cigarette at them and sweep it towards the open doorway and say, “It’s all yours.” I chuckle as I bring it to my lips again.
“Are you still wanting to e—”
There he is talking to someone that is not me or Adrianne. His arms are crossed and he gestures with his hand that is tightly coiled within the inside of his elbow—I forget its actual name. He smiles and a laugh emerges. I hear it from here. And the woman he’s talking to has her hand resting against his upper arm. She’s grinning and leans towards him conspiratorially. Heathcliff does not even pull away. What the fuck.
I leave Adrianne where she is. Surveying the woman, I notice the slight wrinkles marring the folds of skin that rest just above the edges of her lips. The grays in her otherwise coppered hair churn within the bounds of the tendril twist she chose to style it in tonight. She brushes a ringlet behind her ear as she nods along to whatever Heathcliff is telling her. Her teeth are perfectly straight, their white glow radiating all this way. Adorning a polka-dotted black and white blouse with jeans, she almost looks attractive—especially with those suede boots right underneath her rolled up cuffs. I see that her nails are perfectly manicured and that they are lacquered with some garish shade of hot pink. It’s almost blinding. The epitome of everything that I am not bursts from this woman. Annunciation Triptych. Hang her up in the Met instead of the actual painting and no one would notice the difference.
I interrupt whatever conversation is going on between them. “Heathcliff, if you wanted some lap candy before the next show, you should’ve taken the offer from any other groupie.” I give the woman—it’s what she is—another passing glance. “Or at least, a younger one.” I wink at her before leaving both of them with their mouths open.
If anything, at least I have dropped a few jaws tonight.
Adrianne waits for me a couple barstools over, her eyebrows sitting higher than they had been in the bathroom. “Um, did you just actually say t—”
I put my finger to her lips. “Adrianne, let’s leave these losers behind and adventure on into the morrow.”
High. I am surprised that I can still elegantly traverse the concrete of the city in my heeled shoes. The cigarette still sits between my middle and index finger, halfway finished and still simmering in its internal heat. We are walking on Central Park North, the thicket of trees to our right brandish their trunks trying to reach the heights of the surrounding skyscrapers, the elongated branches attempting to escape the park they are subjected to. There are birds chirping from their timbered belfries and the few leaves still left to stand against this autumnal season suicide to the pavement each time these same birds bounce onto a different bough. Some people pass us by, keeping to themselves.
High. Others hail down cabs on the corner of 5th and 111th and flash a finger right after they scream their especial obscenities at the drivers that ignore them. On our left, in contrast with the artificial nature to our right, there is the familiar haze of apartment buildings too indistinguishable from each other. We are going to Lower Manhattan to take part in the dilettante debauchery so common on the streets of the Village. Crossing Madison Avenue, I can make out the subway entrance from here: its multicolored encircled numbers and letters outrageously glare against their blackened backdrop, the steps that lead into an underground type of Hell cackle at us, the namesake sound and exhaust protruding from the vents that engrave themselves into the concrete wail against us.
High. I toss my cigarette out of my hand as we come closer to the steps. I do not even bother putting it out.
Adrianne and I make our way closer to the stairs leading into the station and the harsh cries of trains squealing on tracks immediately immure their way into my ears, making me visibly flinch.
High. We quickly swipe our MetroCards to let us through the turnstile. “We need to be on the 4 train, correct?” I ask. I have to raise my voice to be heard.
Adrianne only nods as her eyes scan the countdown clocks, searching for our train. “It will arrive in about ten minutes.”
“Hmm, good timing I’d say.” High.
It is dim in here. The concrete walls are a charcoal shade that absorbs the flickering weak light of the lamps overhead. We are graced with viewing A Saturday on 110th—the designated mosaic for this station—while we wait for our train. The eyes of the woman in the mural pour into me; she scopes out the last dregs of the drug residing in my nose and scathes me with her withering judgement. She holds her son’s hand to keep him from me. High. There are tiled panels with 110th Street elegantly scripted upon them almost in a cobbled patchwork pattern of white, blue, tan, brown, and green. In that order, too. There are about a dozen people on the platform: there is a couple on the only bench here cuddling the cold from outside away, against the wall about seven people are pouring their faces into their phone screens, and leaning on the pillars are two individuals separately reading their own novels. Over there is a homeless man drumming merrily on upturned white buckets—I smile and nod at him. And then there is Adrianne and I. High.
“Charlotte, what was that back there?” She points to what is possibly the direction of Minton’s Playhouse, but down here, the directions of the outside world become pointless. Three creases visibly mark themselves on her forehead as she crosses her arms before leaning back. Her voice delves into an edging bite that is usually never present. High. “Why did you say that to him?”
“Say what?” I physically try to mirror her, but only end up giggling. High.
“Charlotte! I’m serious!” There is a glint that beams from her eyes. “Were you jealous that he was talking to another person? Do you like him?”
I guffaw and catch my breath. “God, no. Never. Why would I look at him that way when you clearly are the one who feels that way about him?” High.
The face she makes when someone tells her that her major is pointless is the same one she makes now when those words leave my mouth, circulate through her brain allowing it to process each syllable of them, and evacuate through her ears demanding her response. High. She stutters, “W-what do you m-mean?” Her arms drop and that embittered verve she spoke with before disappears. Adrianne Weisierski appears weak. High.
“Adrianne, it’s pretty obvious.” I pause. “When you see him, you get this look on your face. It’s like it softens and your eyes seem like they’re expectantly prepared to forgive him no matter his past transgressions.” High.
“They do n—”
“Why do you care if I know?” Her exasperated look confirms that she cares about my opinion on the matter. High.
“I don’t. But it’s just—I don’t know. If you know, wouldn’t he too? And if he does, why won’t he say anything?”
I will never understand the power it is that people wield that allows them the ability to ruin the confidence that emanates from an Annunciation Triptych. But our ten minutes are up. The train is here. Its wheels screech intensely in opposition of the tracks trying to brake its momentum.
Over the clangor, I am almost shouting to Adrianne, “Heathcliff is obliviously too attached to his music. And if you want him to know, then I suggest you interrupt those musings of his. It’s the only way you’ll get your answer.” High.
I cannot make out Adrianne’s response over the intercom heralding the arrival of the monorail that is already parked in front of us, so I just shrug. She most likely will not do anything about her crush. An Annunciation Triptych rarely acts on their personal passions. High. The doors of the separate cars open to let out their passengers—chaos ensues and the calm roars now morph into obnoxious explosions that have no end. High.
“Look at you and look at me!”
Caught in the crowd, I try and peer back at the outburst. Too many heads pass the source of it to quite make out what is going on; too many bodies push me out of their way—this is New York City. Am I the only one who heard that? High.
Because no one else seems to be paying any attention. A sweaty palm—Adrianne’s—grasps mine tightly and tugs me into the yawning doorway of the train. “Charlotte!” We sit down. High. Fingers snap in my periphery. “How high are you?”
I almost answer. Almost. High.
“You don’t deserve this money.” Over there. By the homeless man. There he is. All dressed in black. High. I see him take money from the defenseless vagrant’s bucket. High. I see this human strike the shoulder of this destitute man with the stack of cash he is stealing. High. I see this villain leer his own disgusting goateed face into the homeless man’s. “You are nothing.” He spits into what was supposed to be the bucket meant for money collections. High.
I am out of my seat before Adrianne has time to register that I am no longer on her side.
“HEY!” I do not even recognize my own voice. High.
I notice Adrianne barely getting off the subway before the doors close permanently until their next stop. High. I am already storming towards this unjust altercation though. She has no time to reach me. High. Sizing him up, I have told myself that I can take him.
“Who the fuck do you think you are?” High.
“Charlotte!”
High.
My fist connects with his chin before he has time to register who would dare to come to this other man’s aid. His head snaps back and I barely register the pain lancing through my hand. I am numb. High. The ache grows to my entire arm, but I cannot let that stop me. High. Hearing, “You bitch!” only adds to the lighter fluid quickly flowing through my veins, ready for another click of the lighter. High. I kick out with my right foot—it connects with the evil man’s stomach. He keels over and I am already grabbing the drumsticks tossed aside by the homeless man. I make short work of them as they snap in half as they crash down on this loser’s skull. High. “Give the money back!”
“Okay! Okay! Okay! Just leave me alone!” His hands beg for mercy.
A red film clouds my vision. I grin. There will be no pity demonstrated tonight. High. “Wish you had just left this poor man alone, too. But we don’t always get what we want now, do we?” High. I set upon him again.
Strike. High. Jab. High. Maim. High. Beat. High. Punch. High. Swing. High. Slap. High. HIGH.
HIGH.
HIGH.
HIGH.
I do not remember becoming lost in some inky, black realm that blocked out this reality.
I am resting on a bench and I can hear water cascading from a fountain somewhere behind me. The night air is quiet except for that noise. My head is resting against someone else’s shoulder. It smells like buttered popcorn enraptured in the smell of cloves—Adrianne. I blink my eyes open and remark that it is still dark outside, though the black has begun to transform itself into its darker shades of gray. The moon is a blotched circle in the sky like the rings left on the table by the falling droplets of milk that come from the spoon right before I put the cereal in my mouth. An intense and physical anguish overtakes my entire being and it all comes back. The man. My red vision. My visceral anger. There were drumsticks, too. It all happened so quickly.
“Sleeping Beauty finally awakens.” Adrianne runs her hand through my hair, untangling whatever knots I most likely tightened in either that quarrel or my fitful sleep.
I look around. There is definitely a fountain behind us and I was definitely dozing on a park bench. In front of me, a triumphant arch made of marble elbows into the sky. Upon the frieze of it, I can just barely discern the engravings that distinguish exactly where we are—an eagle situates itself as the focus of the curve of the archway, the opposing spandrels feature the same representative deities for Victory, and counting, I note that there are thirteen stars. Washington Square Park.
I guess we made it to the Village after all.
“What time is it?” I ask.
“6:37.”
“How long have I been asleep?”
Adrianne pauses thinking of it. “We got here around 2:30, sat on this bench, and you were out.” A tremor of quiet settles and then, “Do you remember what happened?”
“Yes,” I say. “How bad was it?”
“I couldn’t pull you off until you broke the drumsticks on that guy’s head. And even that was a struggle. What prompted that, Charlotte?”
I muse for a little while. What did? I cannot even explain it to myself besides, “Adrianne Weisierski, if you were an Autumn Rhythm you would understand.”
“Okay, quit with that bullshit. Right now. I am not going to let you fall back on some lazy excuse for how you view people.”
I sit up. “It’s not lazy. It’s true. I am an Autumn Rhythm, okay?” I wait for her interjection, but she waits. “I am reckless and I am engineered to always wreak havoc no matter the situation. Unlike you, I am an indescribable, chaotic mess whereas you are calm and measure yourself.” She audibly snorts. And this time it is not for the promise of a thin white line. “The reason that I know that you are an Annunciation Triptych is because of how you approach the world: you come at it with a clear head, you put your future first before your impulses, and you always, always remain a good person at heart.” I catch my breath. “I have no aspirations. I treat every situation likes it’s my first, almost like if we were on the playground again when we were little. And I do not know yet how to slow down these urges.” Never have I felt so sure about my beliefs of people, including myself.
“Charlotte, you’re a great fucking person. Just a few hours ago, you stood up against all odds for a person that everyone else chose to ignore. You care so much about Heathcliff and I because if you didn’t you would not attend all of his concerts nor my film screenings. You would not have even disrupted whatever conversation that he was having with that woman tonight if you actually did not care. You have a passion for art that I still cannot quite comprehend, but trust me, it is a fascinating experience to see you in the midst of an art museum. Even more so when you are actually making your own art.” She reassures me by rubbing my shoulder. “If I am an Annunciation Triptych and I know what I want, then I know that I do not want my best friend to feel like she is some fucking mistake that she is definitely not.”
“If only it were that simple.” I shrug her hand away and face the monument staring at us.
The silence stretches for a long while. It is comfortable. We bask in its delights as we peer up at this magnificent sculpture together. This arch almost teases the possibility that if I were to walk through its archway, then I could be cleansed of whatever demons I am trying to run away from. But first I have to absolutely know them and I do not. Perhaps someday I will. I ruminate on the three thoughts that I doubtlessly hold true.
First, I am an Autumn Rhythm.
Second, Adrianne is an Annunciation Triptych.
And third, the sun should be rising soon and there is nothing better than a morning cigarette.
“Are there any cigarettes left?” I note the three butts littered beneath the bench which explain how Adrianne must have passed the time that I was incapacitated.
“Of course.” She rummages in her coat pockets to fish out the pack and lighter. Adrianne hands them to me.
I pick the upturned one—the ‘lucky’. Fitting considering how the night turned out. I turn the stick of tobacco around so that it can correctly be in my mouth and stammer around it, “May luck be a lady.” Click, light, burn, inhale, and the smoke of the cigarette begins to consume the atmosphere when I exhale.
This is why I am an Autumn Rhythm.
Because I can never say no.