Empathy (11 page)

“You've been to a lot of funerals, haven't you?” Anna asked.

“Oh, Anna, you don't know the half of it. I've been to so many AIDS funerals I haven't been doing much of anything else. I've been to funerals of mediocre people who were eulogized as geniuses, funerals of geniuses where there was no one adequate to eulogize them. I've been to open and closed caskets, funerals where you have to get there an hour early to grab a seat, and funerals that no one else cared to see. I've been there when there's so much Jesus Christ you can't even find the corpse. I've been to funerals where anyone could speak and funerals where only famous people could speak. Funerals where the speaker blamed the death on the mourners, funerals where the speakers praised the mourners for fighting death. The way you reacted when I told you Tim is dying, will you be that casual when it is my turn?”

“No,” she said. “I will cry and cry.”

And she did.

These are the simple facts of death
, Anna thought later when the immediate sadness had faded. She was shocked at how easily it could be accepted. She was shocked to have so many dead friends at the age of thirty-one. When she was a girl, many people thought that Americans would live forever. They ate breakfast squares and freeze-dried orange juice just like those fucking astronauts. They reserved places on the first civilian shuttle to the moon. Earth didn't matter then. We could always go somewhere else. Nowadays, most people wonder if they'll ever get old. Living becomes an obsession. A dream.

Doc was sitting up one morning eating his cold Pop-Tarts. Here it was, April and already summer. It was summer again while people could still remember the last one. They started killing each other immediately and getting very irritated. Something about the wanton brutality made Doc associate freely to that damn woman in the white leather.

Embraces remembered or still vaguely hoped for
.

“Oh no,” Doc said. “This is a memory that is too much to take. It is the illusion of something that no longer exists but still should exist.”

Trying to escape this melancholy manifestation, Doc went back further in his mind, flipping through images until he could relax with a benign one and watch between commercials. Nostalgia is so much more palatable than real feeling.

Okay, there were certain truths he couldn't face. But there was still some comfort for Doc when he remembered, from time to time, that he was basically a nice person. It was all because he listened. He listened when people spoke so he knew what they cared about and what they needed. Without listening there is no love. There is nothing. Doc knew this. He hated interrupters. He despised them. They don't let other people say their words. They lock them up. They stop them every time. Just like that woman in the white leather.

What did she have that made me feel so much
?

(There are so many inadequate responses to a question of this nature. It is hard to see the precise shapes of things. The precisely
stacked boxes of air and boxy trucks that bring
The New York Times
. It's hard to sum up those people who pass you on escalators. Some people have sex by putting fishhooks in each other. Couple this act with a simple understanding of the basic function of all living creatures to expand and contract. Now, try that with fishhooks.)

But there was still more to listening. It can't simply be waiting until the other person is finished before
you
talk. Listening means not having something to say back until after they've told you everything. Even if the other spoke in code, all Doc had to do was take it slow. For example, if someone said,

“I just shot up heroin,”

Doc knew that they had just shot up heroin.

Doc looked out the window. Sometimes in his imagination a bad person did good things and was redeemed. But was the bad person actually Doc himself, awaiting another's benevolence? Or was the bad person someone else, and so he'd have to forgive her? It was so hard to know/decide. If only they could talk things over for a minute so he could remember how awful she really was.

Doc had a dream. Three white people were standing on a street corner. All were junkies. One, a man, had shot up so many times that there were bleeding track marks and needle pricks in his arm. There was an inadequate bandage soaked in blood. He was standing in casual conversation with another drug addict who held a bloody syringe. A third was staggering toward them, on the nod, finally impacting his arm on the other's needle.

At first Doc thought it had something to do with penetration. That was how he had been trained to think about things. But after some time it became clear to him that using drug addicts as metaphors was perfectly natural since they were a normal part of his environment. It would be like someone in Nebraska dreaming about the plains. Then he realized that this was a dream about three different states. About having too much. About having something to give.
About being in need. When it came to listening, of course, Doc was all three of these people.

He recalled an instance of failed listening.

 

DOC

I'm leaving you because you don't listen.

 

THE WOMAN IN WHITE LEATHER

You left me because you think my artwork stinks. You left me because of your mother. You left me because you won't stay in the relationship for the good and the bad.

 

To Doc, this was a litany of diversions. Why would this lady in leather project all of her imagined deficiencies onto a situation where all she really needed to do was be quiet? Apparently she preferred to be completely despised over simply paying attention. What was she afraid to hear? What was it?

 

Doc proposed another alternative for this scenario.

 

DOC

I'm leaving you because you don't listen.

 

THE WOMAN IN WHITE LEATHER

 

Silence is the constructive response when being told you don't listen.

 

(
Silence
.)

 

Then Doc would propose.

WOMAN IN WHITE LEATHER

I'm sorry I didn't listen.

 

Then she would simply do it. She would let Doc say every word without being rushed. She would let him have a long time to say it. She would not be planning her rebuttal all along. She would ask clarifying questions, not trick ones. But she would only be able to do that if she really wanted to know. If she didn't really want to know it wasn't love. If it was, she would have listened and then she and Doc could stay together.

“Happy Birthday,” he said to Anna O., but she didn't look very happy.

“I just came from my friend Jack's memorial service,” she said.

“How was it?”

“It was okay. Actually, I really had to smile because Jack was such a control queen that he planned how
we
would memorialize
him
. In fact there was even a moment when we had to sit and listen to Jack's favorite songs. He made us listen to Steely Dan.”

“What food did he pick?”

“Coffee and danish. When his mother stood up to speak I was really worried because that is everybody's nightmare - to die and your mother has the last word. But actually, it turned out that she really knew him. Mostly at these services the parent never knew their child.”

“What are you remembering about him right now?”

“You know, Jack really did not want to give up fucking. And when he decided to give it up he was very, very sad. He had let someone fuck him without a condom and they had talked about it later for an hour and a half. Each one saying that it was the other one's responsibility. Jack said that because he was being fucked, he wanted to give over completely and leave the other guy in charge. The other guy said that because Jack was the one taking it, it was Jack's responsibility to protect himself. After that Jack gave up fucking. I think the hardest sex act in the world to live without would be oral sex. Doing it, I mean. What about for you, Doc?”

“Kissing.”

“Well, if kissing spread AIDS we would all jump off the cliff. What's that, a bomb?”

“No, Anna, it's your birthday present. Happy birthday.”

It was wrapped and thoughtful. It made her happy. Doc could tell. Presents make people happy if they are given with caring. They require some forethought.

“Oh, Torah Personality Cards, my favorite.”

“They're pictures of famous Torah scholars,” he explained. “Hasidic boys trade them like baseball cards … probably.”

Then they headed down into the subway and had a seat. Well, it wasn't quite as easy as all that. By the street entrance to the train there were seven people asking for money. There were people standing by the token line asking for money. There were people by turnstiles asking for money. Once through the turnstiles, there were people on the platform asleep or staring, urinating and stinking of rotting flesh. When the train came and Doc and Anna took their seats, it was the Motel A Train. The A had the longest route in the system and so the guests can take the longest naps.

While they were sitting, a number of people came by selling
Street News
, but none of the passengers wanted to buy it because savvy New Yorkers knew that it was a scam. It had no articles about the street. It was just a way for a publisher to sell his paper without having to pay minimum wage. Then another bunch of homeless came through selling copies of the
Daily News
, which had been on strike for months and months. The bosses, not being dumb, distributed the strike-breaking copies free to homeless people, who immediately tried to resell them, making themselves de facto scabs. Now, this situation really tested Doc's sensibility. He had to decide which was more moral - buying a paper from a homeless person or not buying it.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” the man said, pointing to a knife scar on his chest. “I got this wound from a mortar shrapnel in a battle on
Christmas night, right outside of Kim Lee.”

“What kind of Vietnamese name is Kim Lee?” Anna asked.

“I think it's a Chinese restaurant on Fourteenth Street,” Doc said.

“At Jack's service this morning,” Anna continued, as though all of this was normal, “I realized that when I first comprehended the enormity of what was happening to my community, I only anticipated that I would lose many people. But, I did not understand that those of us who remain, that is to say, those of us who will continue to lose and lose, would also lose our ability to fully mourn. I feel that I have been dehumanized by the quantity of death, and that now I can no longer fully grieve each person. How much I loved them and how much I miss them. Doc, you know that expression Silence=Death?”

“Yeah,” Doc said.

“I'm beginning to realize that at the same time that that is true, Voice does not necessarily equal Life.”

By this time the beggar had finished up with their car, having collected about a dollar. He put his shirt back on, like he was backstage and preparing for his next entrance.

“Do you ever think about leaving New York?” Anna asked.

“What does that mean?” Doc said.

“Oh,” Anna sighed. “You're one of those.”

Doc cleared his throat, trying not to pry.

“Do
you
ever think about leaving New York, Anna?”

“Well, there is always San Francisco. There are a lot of women there and my parents are here. I was visiting once and I went swimming in one of those great public pools they have there.”

“Public pools?” Doc asked, amazed. “That actually work?”

“Yeah, and locker rooms full of dykes. They are all there undressing and redressing very slowly in front of each other. I just sat down on a bench and watched this one. When she left she threw me a great smile. Gay people are normal there. There's no shame.”

“Why don't you move?” Doc asked.

“What? And give up my shame? Don't you think it would get boring?”

“Look at that,” Doc said, pointing to a public service announcement hanging in the ad strip over the windows. “When I was a kid they told us not to cross in the middle of the block. Now it says DON'T SHARE NEEDLES.”

But Anna sighed again.

“Let's chat,” he said, getting back to work. “Let's chat before we reach our destination.”

“About what?”

“Tell me about…a different relationship. The one before this one. Tell me about someone before Miss Bitch. How about the one from the small town in Pennsylvania?”

“Not that one, Doc, I wouldn't know what to say.”

“Well, how about the opera singer?”

“Too painful.”

“The one from the Bronx?”

“God, you're a great listener, Doc, to remember all those details.”

“Thanks. Let's look at an old relationship so we can see if there are any patterns that you may want to look into on your own at some future time.”

“It's a long story.”

“Well, the train seems to be stopped between stations, so I guess I have the time.”

“Thank you,” she said. “Being uncomfortable is being away but I feel okay because I know you're listening. And no matter what goes on when I think alone, Doc, it is always different to announce it.”

“I'm listening,” he said.

“I used to waitress at this place called Captain Mike's Seafood Restaurant right near City Hall. I made between two-fifty and three hundred a week, so it was a good job. My girlfriend's name was Lucy and she used to live in Indonesia. Ever since I met her she wanted to go back and visit. So, every week I put fifty dollars into the Dry Dock Savings Bank, scrimped on everything, and when I had enough saved up to make the trip, I quit.