Iris Has Free Time (16 page)

Tired but unwilling to stop the fun just yet, we’ll take the subway all the way down to Manhattan’s bottom lip and go fishing off the stern of the Staten Island Ferry for shoes and discarded hearing aids and whatever other unexpected treasures attach to our hooks. You’ll hold my hair back when I lean over the railing, sick, and then catch the dessert spoon just before it falls overboard.

I’ll smoke a cigarette after that and attempt to spell my name in the air with it, the way I used to with sparklers in the backyards of Long Island every Fourth of July. After remarking on the fleeting nature of the seasons, of you and me, too, I’ll observe the lapping water below, cast a quick eye up at nothing and then look over at Manhattan where windows are starting to twinkle instead of stars. I’ll feel sick and start to wish I hadn’t drunk all that vodka. “What’s wrong?” you’ll ask, and I’ll say nothing, and then, smiling, I’ll say, “It’s fall.” I’ll suggest we stop at the liquor store as soon as we dock.

As the sun dips lower, we’ll disembark. Our mood darkening with the sky, our pace slowing, we’ll walk uptown arm in arm, our steps sounding a near minuet. I won’t tell you what I’m up to, but I’ll be stepping as hard as I can, trying to leave my footprint in the pavement beside the older impressions of curse words and pairs of initials enclosed in hasty hearts, until we arrive at the public library just a few blocks from my apartment.

In the back of a darkened reading room, we’ll canoodle as they show a free movie starring a young Matt Dillon—“Yes,
The Flamingo Kid
!”—using a loud projector with an even louder fan, the whole thing so much louder than any of the characters’ voices. A confused elderly lady will stand for a long time in front of it, complaining about the darkened figure obscuring the picture. Then, letting go of my hand, you’ll find her, offer your arm, and lead her to a seat where she will have, you tell her, “the perfect vista.”

Stepping behind you down the marble steps after, I’ll look up at the sky, almost black, and then out over the street, so bright. You’ll say, “It’s late already, we’re up to our chins in night.” I’ll say, “Should we go to Grand Central then, for a drink among the transients, give a toast to old-what’s-his-name and tell stories about something or other?” You’ll pause and look uptown toward the greatness of midtown, and then look downtown toward me, scaffolded again by whirling rings of cigarette smoke. Frightened of arriving at the end of the night, feeling my heart crash inside my chest like a dropped bag of metal parts, I’ll bite my lip nervously and wait for your answer.

“No,” you’ll announce firmly. “We’ll go home instead!” And with a quick look both ways, you’ll tug at my hand and we’ll launch the wrong way down a one-way street before entering the all-night Food Emporium, whose doors open upon our arrival as if our presence on their threshold were the answer to a timeless riddle. Once inside, we’ll redeem coupons for Jell-O and soda crackers, buy Slime for fifty cents, our last purchase arriving in a tiny plastic globe and falling from the bottom of a coin-operated dispenser, like a wish.

One block over and three flights up, in the warmth of my one-bedroom apartment, while we wait for the Jell-O to congeal and the sun to rise, we’ll tell each other secrets: “I’ve never read
Ulysses
.” “I don’t want to kill mice, but just capture and rehabilitate them.” “I’m worried I’m losing my hair.” “I don’t care for Sting; I find The Police’s whole oeuvre repetitive, actually.” “I ran for president of my high school class and lost.” “I gave my cat a dog’s name.” “I think I’m losing my hair.” “I’m lonely.” “Are you?”

In the brilliant cool autumn morning, the light, terrible and bright, will streak through my apartment. And we will awake, stiff and uncomfortable where we passed out on the floor, covered in the crumbs of last night’s soda crackers, sheltered by the majestic fort we built with our own hands, what looks in the morning like just a pile of pillows. “Get up! Get up! It’s autumn in New York; there are wonderful things to do!” says the light as it hits you in the eyes, causing you to shrink back. “Start with an aspirin!”

Unhinging our knees and elbows, stretching the arms up and over, we’ll tie hasty knots to close the bags of clanging metal inside our chests. We’ll compose our faces and fasten our top shirt buttons. And then, still a bit drunk off the romance of yesterday, the romance waiting for us today and again tomorrow, and the jug of wine now empty in the corner, we’ll trot downstairs to lose ourselves once more in Manhattan’s surging throngs as we make our way to brunch, to White Castle, just opened up on Sixth—it’s time we sample their delicious sliders! Or else, if we’re too broke, if we spent almost all our money at the coin-operated wish machine last night, lose ourselves instead in the surging throngs on our way to the nearby Gristedes; it’s closer than White Castle and they also sell beer. We can just as well buy frozen sliders, which, transformed by the warm sixty-second embrace of my microwave, taste delicious.

“It’s autumn in New York,” you’ll say, regarding the sweet bite of cold air drifting in through the broken windows of my one-bedroom apartment, inspiring you to borrow my sweater that will be way too small. Then, sitting on the floor among the sprawl of pencil shavings and blank paper, devising questions for a crossword puzzle you’re writing yourself, you’ll catch my ankle as I pass barefoot on my way to the kitchenette and insist that you toast your can of Natural Light to mine. Motioning to 3-Down, you’ll read, “Are we making a mistake?” You’ll look at me expectantly before the microwave, in time with our hearts, begins to beep its finale, telling us, rhythmically, another sixty seconds has passed.

He raised his brawny lumberman’s arms in the starlit night: “And then, the fundamental fact is that
there’s no such thing as a grown-up person
. . .”

ANDRÉ MALRAUX,
ANTI-MEMOIRS

 

7:04 AM

I wait on line to buy a cup of coffee at the stand on the main floor of the Humanities building. I consider buying a scone even though I don’t like scones. Maybe I can learn to like scones. They’re everywhere and if I liked them, it would be a coup in terms of my lifestyle. I handle the shrink-wrapped scone and look at it from various angles until the lady asks me if I’m going to buy it. I say, “No, just the coffee,” and then count out exact change. Giving exact change is a coup.

I pull an extra bundle of napkins from the dispenser and place them on top of the coffee lid, which, as I make my way up the escalator, leaks until the napkins are soaked. In my office, I throw the wet napkins in the garbage, turn on the computer, and discover an email from a student asking what she missed in last week’s class. I begin to boil and write back, “The reward for being absent is not a private tutorial with the instructor.” I pause before hitting
Send
. I press
Delete
and decide to handle it later.

I close my email and Google “Hell.” I discover a site featuring a quiz that can determine to which level of Dante’s hell I’ll be banished when I die. I check my watch to see how much time I have and then spend ten minutes answering a series of questions with this result:

8:00 AM

I walk into class and greet everyone with a cheerful, “Good morning! I trust you’ve enjoyed a long weekend of fascinating reading and can hardly wait for our discussion to begin.” A few students giggle. A few yawn. Most say nothing. One says, “Ms. Smyles, you crazy.” I look to see where the voice is coming from. It’s the girl who wrote the email.

I smile as if it were a well-tailored but frayed passion of mine to discuss Dante with twenty teenagers on a Monday morning in upper Manhattan. I offer this weary smile throughout my lecture. It suggests I know a lot more than I am telling. It suggests that my knowledge is rich and varied, that I might just be a Dante scholar but only have time in this class to skim along the text’s surface. This is my Hemingway trick. I show only the tip of the iceberg. Beneath the surface, however, is not more iceberg, but CliffsNotes and Wikipedia articles.

What do I know about Dante? I read
The Inferno
once back in college and barely paid attention when I did, the way my students barely pay attention now. And then I read it once more after I was assigned to teach it along with a bunch of other epics for World Humanities I. I get around what I don’t know by organizing the class according to questions I have for
them
, a teaching technique I’ve adapted from my relationships with men. I try to answer all questions with more questions: “Where was I?” “Well, where were you?” “Why is Virgil Dante’s guide through hell?” “Excellent question. Class? Why is Virgil Dante’s guide through hell? Let’s write on that for five minutes and then we’ll have open discussion.”

Mostly no one does the readings, so I don’t have to worry too much about their asking me questions, and when they do, if I don’t know the answer, I just go mum and disapproving, as if they would know the answer themselves if they looked closer at the text, or else I suggest they do some supplementary research for an extra credit project. I take a moment to wax lyrical about the joys of research and correct citation format as dictated by either the MLA or
Chicago Manual of Style
.

I begin calling roll—this is where you go after you complete a Master’s and before you earn a PhD; this is where you pause, indefinitely—then I write a few questions on the board and ask them to free-write. While they write, I review my to-do list:

I begin my lecture but am almost immediately interrupted by a hand. It’s Juan in the front row. He has a question about the final paper due next session. About citations. I explain that the author’s name must be written, “last name comma first name.” I write on the board: “Last name, first name.” He responds, “So, Alighieri, Dante.” I say, “No. In that case, it’s just Dante.” He stares at me along with the rest of the class and waits for an explanation. I oblige: “Dante dropped Alighieri like Madonna dropped Ciccone.” I shrug. “Let’s move on. We’ve a lot to cover. . . .”

 

9:30 AM

On my way out of the classroom, I open my phone in order to look busy and avoid talking to my students in the hallway. It says I have fourteen messages. All accumulated in the last week. I’m too bored to listen to them, so I check the missed call log instead. Most of the calls are from Janice, who always calls back anyway.

The phone rings while I’m still holding it. Janice. I pick up. “What’s up?” “Did you get my message?” she asks. I say, “Yes, but I haven’t had a chance to listen to it yet.” I arrive back at my office and go inside, shutting the door behind me. I ask her what she said in her message and she says she just said it was Janice, stated the time, and then asked me to call her back. I tell her that the call log tells me what time she’s called, and that it was she that called, and so she doesn’t need to state her name and the time when she calls. She says, “but then I’d have nothing to say on voicemail.” I don’t say anything. Then I ask her, “So what’s up?” and she says, “Nothing.” Then she tells me she’s thinking about texting my friend Jacob whom she slept with a week ago and who hasn’t called her since.

I ask her what she wants to text him and she says, “‘What’s up?’” I suggest she make it more specific. I suggest she text him, “Shit Fuck Rat Cock.” “Won’t that be weird?” she asks. “Yes. It would be weird, which is why it will up the chances of his replying, maybe even calling you back. He’ll want to know what the hell’s the matter with you. He’ll be intrigued.” She is silent for a second. “I don’t know,” she says. I say, “Think about it for an hour and see how you feel. Type the words into your phone just to see how they look on the screen, to see if you’re comfortable with them. If not, delete.” “Okay,” she says. “Okay,” I say. “Good luck. Now I have to go. Tons of papers to grade.”

I get off the phone and stare at the wall. At a conference poster featuring an image of the Irish countryside that one of the other adjuncts hung up.

 

9:54 AM

My phone rings again. I’ve set the ring to a soft spooky whistle so that whenever it rings in public places like a supermarket or bookstore, people around me become frightened. They look around, and I can tell they’re wondering if they are the only ones that hear it, if maybe they are being haunted for something terrible they did earlier that day that they thought no one knew about.

I look at the phone to see who’s calling, hoping it’s a telemarketer or maybe someone I don’t know who fell in love with me while I wasn’t paying attention. It’s Janice again. I debate whether or not to answer and then finally pick up, fearing she’ll leave a fifteenth message.

“What’s up?” I say. She says, “Not much.” “Oh,” I say. She says, “I’m just calling to remind you about emailing me the mailing list.” “Yeah, I’m on that,” I say. She sighs. I wait. She sighs again. “Just tell me if you’re not going to do it,” she says. “I’m going to do it,” I say. “Okay, good,” she says, “because I’m swamped. And honestly . . .” I brace myself. She always says “honestly” right before she complains. “Honestly, I just feel like I end up doing most of the work.” “So stop,” I say, while pulling at a hangnail. “But then nothing would get done!” she says. I don’t say anything. I decide I need a nail clipper. I should carry one in my purse. “Can you go to Staples later and get Post-its?” “Fine,” I answer.