She arrived at J.F.K. just past midnight after a four-hour flight delay. Her mind was blurry and her heart felt like a deep crater with something lurking at the bottom of it. It was her first trip to New York in more than a decade. She had come back to attend a memorial for a formerly close friend, Carley, with whom she had shared a life that was now alien to her.
Though the airport was well appointed and maintained, it appeared nonetheless on the ragged edge. Barely present workers dragged garbage bins, arranged displays of crappy snacks, and wiped counters with slow, heavy movements. Travellers sat slumped staring at phones or snoozed under their coats. It took forever for the bags to roll onto the relentlessly coruscating belt. In large cities, she preferred old-school taxis to apps, and at least the line was short; the driver energetically swung her bag into the trunk with his large arm and welcomed her to New York.
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He was a big man who looked to be about sixty, comfortably rooted in his station of muscle and fat. His sloped shoulders suggested bodily power that was sleepy and sly; his large head and dark, badly cut hair amplified the weight and solidity of him, but his lips were sensitive and a little slack, as if yearning for something he’d been long deprived of.
She noticed all of this in a flash; she had developed the habit of fast, detailed observation in her previous life, when her ability to read someone’s physical affect helped her to know if she was safe with that person. Or not.
Also noticed: he had what she guessed was a St. Christopher medal hanging from the rearview; he didn’t use a G.P.S.
When she remarked on the latter, he said, “I’ve lived here all my life. I’ve been driving for nearly thirty years, on and off. I don’t need a machine to tell me anything.”
He spoke with a Queens accent and a blurting boyish delivery that, somewhere in her, rang some muffled bell. She smiled and said, “That’s great.”
He nodded into the mirror, showing his eyes. “Better to use my brain,” he said. “I know things the machine doesn’t know.” She murmured in agreement, then entered the hotel address on her phone just in case.
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Moving faster now, they drove into a maze of monstrous complexes and overpasses—through chaotic fields of battered trailers, snarled fencing, jumbles of orange traffic cones and barrels, concrete berms, puzzling sites of stunned obsolescence, structures that could not remember what they had been for—then onto the highway, that zone of signage and speed which felt to her like a suspension of place and time.
“So, where’d you fly in from?” he asked.
“The Bay Area,” she said. “Marin County.”
Again, he showed his eyes in the mirror and said, “Where’s that?”
“Near San Francisco. Kind of like a suburb?”
“Oh,” he said. “That’s cool. At least you’re not in San Francisco. It sounds like a war zone—with all the crazy homeless people and drugs . . .”
“I wouldn’t call it a war zone. Yeah, there’s homeless people, but mostly they’re not going to bother you. You just have to pay attention to what’s around you.”
He nodded, his big head canted subtly toward her. “I get it. Same here in places. But it sounds worse there.” He glanced in the mirror again, as if assessing her.
“I’m not sure,” she said. “I used to live here, for, like, twenty years. It was back in the eighties. There were a lot of drugs and homeless people.”
“Yeah,” he said, “it was bad then. Giuliani really cleaned it up, but of course he’s gone.” Eyes in the mirror: “But you’re not from here.”
“No. I moved here from Kentucky.”
“That’s a big move! Why’d you come here?”
“To . . . I guess to make it. To do something I couldn’t do in Kentucky.”
“What?” His voice nice, a little teasing. “What did you do?”
What did she do? Her past appeared before her in rushed images, like a low-budget music video from the eighties. The camera of memory panned over random smiling faces, bright and young in the darkness, spangled with jewelry and gaudy makeup; people walking in a trance of fantasy, of glamour, haughty and dressed in cheap clothes tricked up to look . . . to look like . . . the dancing, snatches of music, joyful melancholy. She felt it deeply, like a drug:
And I try to get through
And I try to talk to you
But there’s something stopping me from getting through
There had been a lot of drugs, free, or almost free. She remembered somebody had once offered to give her and Carley coke if they would just pull up their shirts and kiss each other, so they did, holding hands, laughing, crossing a threshold together, dancing to her favorite song: “Nowhere girl, you’re living in a dream . . .”
“I wanted to write for magazines,” she said. “Women’s magazines, the fun ones, the fashion ones that also did real articles.”
“Oh,” he said, and his voice approved. Again she heard that subtle bell. “How did that work out?”
“It was hard, really hard. When I finally got a job, it was an assistant position that didn’t pay enough to live on. I had to do other work, too.”
He nodded vigorously. “That’s how it goes when you’re starting out,” he said. “I’ve done a lot myself. Worked in a print shop, a garage, delivered newspapers for a while. I liked driving a cab the best because of the independence—my dad used to drive, and when he retired he passed his medallion to me, so I’m free and clear. I could cash it in and retire anytime. But I like to keep active. And I like meeting people—some people.”
“I did a lot of things, too,” she said.
Nude art model (poorly paid), waitress (she got fired), hostess (she wasn’t charming enough), whore (bingo). That was another threshold she’d crossed with Carley; they had both started at the same place, a “house,” rather than outcall, which they’d agreed was too dangerous. They did it on an emergency basis, off and on for maybe five years. Neither took it seriously; it seemed of a piece with the pleasing artifice of clubs and magazines, an almost comical piece, more real and more absurd than dating. And safer, actually, on an emotional level; none of the men she met there could really hurt her.
“So did you do what you wanted? Did you write for the magazines?”
“Yeah,” she said. “Eventually, I worked my way up. It was fun for a while. I even interviewed some movie stars, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Sharon Stone—”
“Wow!”
Once they were rooted enough in their “real” lives—the magazine work for her, and some fiction publications in small magazines for Carley—they stopped “tricking.” It was an oddly nostalgic bond between them, but they rarely spoke of it in the increasing distance of their adult years, when their exchanges were naturally given over to news of marriages, births, careers that surged and subsided like love, and illnesses and losses communicated first by phone, then in texts, and finally via public posts. But the night before she boarded the plane she had dreamed of that time: there was a secret passage between the brightly lit cubicles and frenetic layout boards of some composite editorial office that was also a bar, and a warren of bedrooms where naked men lay expectantly—a passage she traversed with shy exuberance, holding a plastic cup of liquor from the office/bar.
“You don’t even have an accent,” he said.
“What?” She blinked as light from somewhere streamed disorientingly across her face.
“A Southern accent. You said Kentucky?”
“Oh, yeah. People don’t really have that kind of accent in Louisville. It’s a cosmopolitan city.”
“Too bad,” he said. “I like it when people sound like where they’re from. Some people from Queens try to sound like they’re not from there, but I’d never do that. If anything, I’m proud of it.”
“You should be,” she said, insincerely and yet with genuine feeling for his pride. Plus the persistent ping of something familiar—what was it? She looked out the window at the landscape just visible beyond the sound barriers: tenaciously squatting homes, vast, anonymous complexes, self-storage, auto-body-repair shops, and decrepit strip malls, hotels, and billboards, one of which jarringly declared “I Was Hurt In NYC.” Oh, she thought. Of course. Of course. That guy. Same build, Queens accent, probably Italian. He’d been young, much younger than the usual client—younger even than she was, almost a boy. He was big, strong, and crudely put together, with a layer of sensual fat that softened his muscularity and gave his size a vulnerable aspect. He had a huge erection but he kept saying that he didn’t want sex. He wanted to respect her. He wanted to take her out as a girlfriend. “No,” she said. “I can’t do that.”
“So what do you do now?” the driver asked. “You married, you have kids?”
“I’m retired. I’m married, but we don’t have kids. I married late.” He was silent a long beat. She asked, “What about you?”
“I’m the opposite. I have two kids, but to be honest I can’t say I really have a wife. I’m legally still married, but . . . I don’t even know where she is. For years now. I love my kids, though. They turned out fantastic. Worth all the . . . mess.”
“That sounds hard.”
“It wasn’t just hard. It was tragic.”
“Stop! You can’t really want a date with a . . . you know. This isn’t the place to ask a girl out!”
“Yeah, I know! But you don’t gotta be a ‘you know.’ As soon as I saw you, I thought, She doesn’t belong here. I’d like to talk to her, go out.”
“Thank you,” she said. “But—”
“Give me a chance. I won’t treat you like a whore. I’ll be good to you, I promise.”
“If I met you some other way it would be different,” she lied. “But—”
“It was love at first sight. At least for me. She seemed so sweet! But, for her, it was just about a green card.”
“Where did you meet her?”
“At my brother’s wedding. She was working behind the drinks table, pouring the wine. But she was the most beautiful woman there. Dominican, just got here. Full of beans and vinegar. I stood there and talked to her all night. She didn’t have much English, but it didn’t matter.”
They entered a tunnel—she didn’t remember which one—heavy and deep but also bright and hypnotic with its symmetry of shapes, a dreamish blur of lights, green, blue, white, sudden feverish red, its lulling sound distortion, natural comb filtering that subtly affected the muscles of her heart: some frequencies amplified, others cancelled out.
“Are you scared of me? Don’t be. I’m not a bad guy. I don’t want just sex. I want something real.”
“Why did you come here, then?”
Or maybe she hadn’t said that. She didn’t remember what she’d said, only that it had gone on for the whole hour, and that he’d said, “I’m lonely,” and “Please,” and “Give me a chance.” And that, in the end, she’d given him a fake number and yet another fake name. Why had she done that? Maybe because she’d held him and tried to comfort him and, after that, it was impossible not to enter more deeply into the pretend.
“She turned out to be not so sweet. We both had tempers and we fought too much. And then she developed a drinking problem—I mean, bottles hidden under the sink, sloppy in front of the kids, burnt dinner, no dinner. Even worse things.” He shook his head. “Disgusting.”
Had she said, “I’m lonely, too”? She might have. It would have been her idea of nice. It would also have been true.
“Finally I threw her out. Told her she could come back when she cleaned up. And she did, but then the drinking started again, rinse, repeat. Thank God for my sisters—they helped me raise the kids. Thank God for the kids.”
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“Why? It’s not your fault.”
At the end of that day she’d quit. Because she’d felt bad and also because of what she thought might happen. Which did happen. A few days after the incident, the woman who managed the place called her and asked, “What went on between you and that big gavone?” The guy had come in asking for her; they’d told him she’d left so he’d picked another girl and gone into a room with her. They immediately came back out, the man holding the woman in front of him with a knife at her throat. “Tell me where that bitch is,” he said, “or I’ll cut this bitch.” They were able to talk him down, and no one got hurt but—
“Look,” the driver said. “The moon.” They’d emerged from the tunnel and before them shone a luminous, nearly full moon. “It’s a gibbous moon,” he said. “I think.”
“How do you know?”
“You’re surprised I know?”
“Well, most people don’t. I don’t.”
“I don’t know for sure. But my son got into astronomy when he was in, like, fifth grade? I even got him a telescope.” He pointed out the windshield. “That looks waxing gibbous to me.”
•
They rode in silence for some blocks.
Looking at the moon, she said, “It’s like we’re in a garden.”
“Yeah.”
A strange night garden of worn buildings that gave the impression that they were falling down even as they stood erect. There were hoary restaurants hawking faux comfort, fancy shops under crude metal shutters, narrow doorways sheltering ragged heaps of person, blunt neon (“DELI,” “GROCERY”) filling the windows of tiny twenty-four-hour shops, refrigerated cases of bright-colored cans behind blurred-glass doors, blurred humans walking out, clutching bags of emergency junk food.
She turned away and pored through her phone, looking at texts from her husband and messages about the gathering the next day, her pictures of Carley as a happy wife, a proud mom, a proud survivor, brave and joyful in her yard full of flowers. Carley young and bold, her large, lambent eyes lined with black, her dark hair still lush and animal-thick, her full lips set in an expression of stubborn will. Years after she’d left New York while Carley stayed, Carley used to call her drunk and cry about what a failure she was, how she’d never fully been herself, so no wonder she’d never fulfilled her potential as a fiction writer. “I have all these clothes and shoes I spent so much money on! And I never wore them even once!” she wailed. It was idiotic, spoiled, yet, in some strange way, it rang true. That strength of will so visible in her young face—she was probably right that it had never found authentic expression.
The car stopped. “This it?” the driver asked. Dazedly, she tapped her credit card to pay the fare and climbed from the car as he retrieved her bag and night traffic susurrated past. “It was nice talking,” he said and, with forthright eyes, put out his hand. Surprised, she took it, held it firmly, and said “Yes” and “Take care.”
•
He drove away thinking, Interesting lady, and then, Why did I talk to her so much? It was as if he’d wanted to explain himself, but why? He’d barely registered her looks, but her voice had pricked him in a way that he didn’t get. It was funny, sometimes, how you could react to a person you’d never see again. Probably it was just boredom: he was tired, she was his last fare, and now he could go home. He drove on autopilot, scanning disconnected thoughts—clean the litter box, refill the water bowl, the cat’s stiff tail with its little curl at the top (the cat belonged to his daughter; he had to call her in the morning), buy eggs, card game tomorrow, pay for his parking space—all the while more conscious than usual of the not-thoughts stirring underneath. There was a bad feeling there somewhere, trying to find him.
•
Brushing her teeth, she marvelled that she hadn’t thought about that incident for decades.
It was so like a man! No lonely woman would seek out a male prostitute and try to get him to be her boyfriend! It was a little contemptible, almost funny. But sad, too. He must have been in real pain. Maybe he’d wanted a date for a special occasion. Maybe he’d told his friends, “I met a girl, wait till you see her, she’s cute”—oh, God! The thought made her cover her heart with both hands. And the other girl, the girl he’d held the knife to. Because of her lie.
•
Why had he agreed to take care of the cat? The animal was nice enough, but it made a mess, and the place was already a mess. He’d put off the dishes, they’d piled up, and the toilet was going to hell. It was like the worse it got the harder it was to do anything about, and the cat box stinking up the whole room definitely made it worse. Still, he was happy that his daughter trusted him to care for the animal. He was glad that she was having a vacation (Grand Canyon, fiancé’s dime) before starting her new job (office manager in a dental office—excellent). He liked that she stood up for him to her brother, his son who barely talked to him now. His son was always a mama’s boy, ruined by her, thirty years old and still a spoiled baby, playing the boy-hero: If you talk about her like that again, Papa, I swear I’ll never come back here! He put his hands on the sink and braced himself, took a long look in the mirror. Lumpy McFatface—they’d called him that. His own father, even. Who treated his grandkids a thousand times better than he treated his own son.
•
When she called her husband, they talked about it; he assured her that it wasn’t her fault. She hadn’t made the guy do that. Of course she’d lied—what else could she have done? “Do you think you were afraid of him in the moment?” he asked. She said, “I don’t know,” but that wasn’t true. She hadn’t been afraid. She’d felt pity and misery and an impulse to make him feel better that she couldn’t follow through with.
•
Why was he even thinking about this? Because he’d told that woman about his son liking astronomy? Because he’d wanted her to know that he’d got the boy a telescope, that he was a good dad? Stupid! The cat watched him as he bent over to clean its box, awkwardly transferring its turds to a plastic bag. It followed him to the kitchen, happy for the same dry stuff it ate over and over. He poured the nuggets into the dish, poured himself a shot of amaro, drank it, poured another. He ought to repaint the cabinets, he thought. They looked dirty.
Why was everything looking dirty? He tried to focus on the good things: his wonderful daughter, the grandchildren he’d surely have soon, his friends, his house, even his son, who was doing well, though he wasn’t sure what exactly he was doing. Quietly, he said, “Forgive me, Jesus, for my negative thoughts. Allow Your healing hand to heal me. Touch my soul, touch my mind with Your wisdom. Jesus, You are Lord. Amen.” O.K., better.
He carried the shot into the bedroom, turned on his sleep movie with the sound off; even though he couldn’t hear it, the beautiful theme music rippled in his brain. His thoughts calmed and fell into soft pieces. He took off his clothes, neatly folding the shirt and pants. He drank the shot and swallowed his piss-no-more pill. He got comfortable in the bed and turned off the light. The familiar movie images bathed him: Dr. Z touches a window covered by frost crystals that turn into daffodils, a field of them. Birch trees, a cabin. Smiling, Dr. Z looks around, remembering. Inside a daffodil, a beautiful woman appears. . . . It was schlock but it worked. His eyes glazed and gradually closed as the dark not-thoughts rolled over him again.
•
There had been something else she could do. Other than lie. There was always something else you could do. Why had she been in that situation to start with? There was need, yes; the city was so expensive, and sometimes she could barely make the rent. Carley was in the same position, poor Carley calling from a pay phone after she’d been fired from yet another typing job, saying, “I’m going to have to do it again—can you go with me?”
But it wasn’t just about need; there was a kind of defiance, too. The idea—no, the feeling—that you could do what you’d always been told was the most shameful and despised thing, and you could do it in your own way, you could acknowledge the despised thing, love it; you could make it beautiful, even. It was yours, after all, to do what you wanted with. You, and not some fucked-up society, got to say what it was. A song from that time blared in her head:
We can’t afford to be innocent.
Stand up and face the enemy
A ballad of feminine defiance with an unmistakable strand of defeat folded in, a strand that somehow made it more powerful. “We will be invincible!” A dumb song, a fun song. What a weird time. She thought of that big angry boy; she thought of the woman he had threatened with a knife. She thought, I’m sorry, then got into bed.
•
A woman walks away from him, proud and snooty. Who is she? Not his wife. His wife is crying in the corner, collapsed on the floor, drunk and bleeding from her nose and mouth. He wants to comfort her, but his son blocks the way, only six but somehow huge. This makes it look like he is the bad guy, but he didn’t mean to do it. He begs them to understand and to help him, but the bitch keeps walking away, swinging her snooty ass. She’s the one who made this happen. She made him need something that he could never have. She treated him like a piece of garbage. He wants to kill her, smash her face until it’s a pulp of flesh and bone. But he can’t get at her, so he grabs another bitch, some poor random whore who’s just standing there. He beats her, though he doesn’t want to. She sobs and pleads, and he says, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” but he can’t stop. There is a surge of music, as if this were a show where the same thing always has to happen.
Rage and confusion like twin demons shoved him from sleep. Heart hammering, bladder bursting, he sat up. Something shameful felt very near, almost on top of him. And the piss-prevention pill wasn’t working; half awake, he stumbled out of bed and went to relieve himself. That was better. Still, when the cat rubbed on him, he wanted to grab it and throw it against the wall; as if it knew, it moved away. What was going on? Still standing there, he prayed, “My God, I am sorry for having offended Thee, and I detest all of my sins because of Thy just punishments, but most of all . . .” He was too agitated to continue. He went back to bed and focussed on the screen. Well, this was actually a little funny. It was the part where Dr. Z gimps after Lara as she walks down the street. He is hobbled by his sick heart, and she is too far away; he can’t walk properly or make himself heard. She just keeps going, her back perfectly straight. Dr. Z’s face twists in pain; he collapses and dies of love. People come running.
He sighed and turned the thing off. Maybe he’d dreamed about the woman walking away because he’d unconsciously known this part of the movie was coming up? He tried again: “I detest all of my sins because of Thy just punishments but most of all because they offend Thee, my God, who is all good and deserving of my love.” He sat for a moment, breathing more evenly. The subway ran in the distance. He said, “From my heart, I am sorry I hurt her. I’m sorry for anyone I hurt. Please, Lord, forgive me.” He did not understand his urge to pray. It was only a dream. Still, he felt relief. “I firmly resolve with the help of Your grace to sin no more and to avoid the near occasion of sin.” Which, amen, would be easy now. He was old and didn’t feel the needs of the body in the way he used to. Or of the heart. Which was sad, but maybe for the best. Calmed, he lay down and covered himself. The cat jumped up onto the bed and lay with him. Eventually, he returned to sleep. ♦