Too Bright to Hear Too Loud to See (28 page)

I’ve seen the owner’s identical twin daughters (porcine women whose behavior seems to indicate they have their periods all the time) yank a salesperson into one of the store’s dusty, less-traveled corners—Art: Printed Ephemera or History of Aviation, for example—and ream him or her out for not providing an adequate level of service.

“It doesn’t do much good to tell them we have what they’re looking for if they can’t fucking find it, does it?” one of them—I can never tell which—asks in a tone reminiscent of the Wicked Witch of the West. Usually the beleaguered, uninterested, occasionally intimidated sales associate nods and vows to lead the customer by the hand until the actual sale is made. Often, when the lecture is over, an eye roll or a barely audible “suck my dick, bitch” lingers in the air as Terri/Tina makes her way to the front of the store.

And so I feel terrible when it happens because I absolutely, positively do not mean to get Cecil fired. I have only been trying to help—showing his exasperated customers exactly where to find the book, edition, or translation they are looking for; helping them back to the register when they get lost. Which is where my plan backfires. Because the now-satisfied customer asks Terri/Tina who the useless kid in Military History is and why the excellent middle-aged salesman isn’t wearing a red shirt so he can be more easily identified.

And that’s it. Because of course it isn’t the first time Cecil has been called useless. Among other things. But training people to work at the Pick is a bitch. So Tina/Terri has let him stay. Until now. And now he is done.

“I’m really sorry,” I say.

Cecil and Nicki and a few other Pick staff are in Cecil’s apartment in Hell’s Kitchen, getting stoned and eating pizza.

“It’s not your fault, man,” Cecil says generously.

“What are you gonna do?” I ask, looking around at all the half-packed boxes.

“I’m moving in with two other guys. In Brooklyn. Fuckin’ sucks.”

I look around the place. It has a kind of turn-of-the-century, poverty-stricken Jacob Riis charm to it. “Nice place. Do you know if it’s been rented?”

Cecil glares at me. “You get me fired and now you’re going to steal my apartment.”

One week and a new coat of paint later, I move out of the Y and into my new apartment.

I hoped having my own home, a more permanent living situation, would make me feel more grounded, less weightless and insubstantial. Like a hot-air balloon without the sandbags. But I am wrong. Again. Nothing can hold me down.

I hardly sleep anymore. Not much, I mean. People who say they don’t sleep at all are lying. But I sleep less and less. I move purposefully around my apartment with the energy of midmorning while the hands on my cheap wall clock glide stealthily through 1:00 and 2:00
A.M
. They are dipping deep into the three o’clock hour before I notice it is getting late. I know it will be an hour or more until I can unwind enough to fall asleep.

I watch the twenty-four-hour news networks. I don’t keep track of which hours. The tiny store of sleeping pills I was able to get at the neighborhood clinic is long gone. Apparently the emergency rooms don’t consider insomnia to be an emergency. I could go to a real doctor, but then there would be real questions, and just the thought of those make it harder to sleep. I need a drug dealer. I splash water on my face from the tap in the bathroom and stare into the medicine cabinet mirror. I look like shit. “You talkin’ to me?” I look over my shoulder and back to the mirror. “I said, you talkin’ to me? Well, fuck you.” I aim with my hand and shoot the man in the mirror.

I wander through my railroad apartment, its narrow hallways piled high with stacks of books I’ve bought at the Pick. I buy novels, poetry, philosophy, history, medical texts, scientific journals, and erotica. I am indiscriminate. I have several spinning towers of CDs planted like saplings in my living room. I spend my days in book and record stores, browsing, collecting, trading, discarding—hoarding words and sounds—so I can consume them later. Gorge on them in private.

Once a week, a Polish girl comes in to clean. I pay her extra to sleep with me. We fuck and then she changes the sheets. She doesn’t seem to mind that I can’t remember her name from one week to the next. Every Wednesday at nine, she introduces herself all over again. Sort of like a perpetual first date.

At twenty after nine, the buzzer downstairs rings and I push the Enter button without asking who it is because the intercom doesn’t work for shit and no one but the housekeeper and the delivery guy from Szechwan Dragon Garden ever comes over. A few minutes later, she is standing in my doorway panting from the hike up the stairs.

“Good morning.” She waves girlishly. “Here is Marsienka.”

She is pale and petite and has short burgundy hair. I look up from where I am—where I have been since
Letterman
ended—lying on the couch reading Patton’s diaries. I smile at her and wave back. Girlishly.

Regardless of the season, Marsienka always comes to work in some version of the same outfit: miniskirt, tight shirt made of some stretchy, shiny material with a plunging neckline, brightly colored tights—usually fishnet or lace—and a pair of ankle-high stiletto boots. I wonder whether the outfit is just for me, but since I don’t really care that much, I’d rather not know.

After we fuck, she puts on sweatpants, an oversized T-shirt, and rubber sandals.

I will pay her twice what she normally gets for cleaning toilets. And she will be able to take her asthmatic kid to a real doctor instead of some filthy clinic. I enjoy doing charity work. Marina? Mareska? Marinka?

I am not so pathetic that I don’t know just how pathetic I am. I am pathetic but self-aware. And Wednesdays with what’s-her-name are all I can count on to punctuate the passage of time. The time. My time. They are no longer the same. Because my time has become unreliable. The days have become a blur. I am exhausted but on edge, revved up, impatient. Nothing is fast enough. No one walks fast enough. Gets out of my way fast enough. Objects have begun to shimmer and shine.

I need to move faster to break out of the shiny, shimmery fog. So I buy an expensive bike. So I can get around the city. Faster. The guy at the store tries to sell me a helmet. But I pass. It will only slow me down.

I ride everywhere—in bike lanes and bus lanes, darting in and out of traffic, steering with one hand because the other is always busy flipping off the cabbies and truck drivers and pedestrians I’ve cut off, sideswiped, nearly hit. I am impatient and can’t be bothered with stop signs and red lights. And now I am in the park riding fast, passing anyone and everyone. I am lightning. Except there is one guy who is riding faster. Faster than me. And that is not okay. So I give chase. I try to close the gap between us, pedaling hard—on and off the bike path, dodging nannies pushing strollers and dogs on retractable leashes and girls with triple-wide asses who take up the whole sidewalk.

He is heading east, cutting across the park toward the Met. Maybe. I don’t know. I am losing him. I am having trouble keeping up. So much trouble it hurts. But I push. And pump. And pedal harder. My heart pounds. And I manage to keep him in sight. Just. I don’t know why, but it feels important. I lose sight of him for a moment and get a sick feeling in my stomach. I catch a glimpse of him and ride harder, faster to catch up. I can’t tell if he knows I am following him. He cuts easily across all four lanes of the park drive and hops the curb, but by the time I get there, a riding club is making its loop around. I weave in and out, nearly killing myself and several other riders.

“Fuckin’ tool.”

“Get your ass outta the park, dickhead.”

“Fuck off,” I call breathlessly over my shoulder as I desperately try to make up lost time and space.

And then I see him, mounting a hill on a no-bikes-allowed path. He is wearing a red biking jersey. Just like mine.

I can’t tell if he is trying to get away from me or just doing his own thing. But he sure as shit is oblivious to my near-death experience. To me and my need to catch up. Suddenly he stands and jerks his bike off the bike path onto a lawn and then rides headfirst down some stairs and back onto a pedestrian path leading to Fifth Avenue.

I follow, nearly falling off my own bike with each awkward switchback, barely making it onto Fifth, where I see him heading north. Finally he looks at me over his shoulder.

When I see his face, the sweat coming out of my pores turns to ice. I assumed, when he finally looked back at me, he’d be laughing. All along, I assumed this had been a game for him. But he’s not smiling. What I see when he looks at me is the same thing I see every time I look in the mirror lately.

My face. Terrified. Terrorized. Persecuted. Pursued. Paranoid. Apocalyptic.

Me.

“Excuse me, sir, can I see some ID please?”

“Huh?’

I whip around to see a Central Park police officer wearing his aerodynamic NYPD helmet and sitting astride his NYPD bike. He is holding a summons book in one hand and biting the cap off the pen he’s holding in the other.

“Sir, you broke like four really serious laws and six or seven moderately serious ones. Did you not hear the whistle?” The officer picks up the silver whistle hanging around his neck and blows it in my ear.

“I was trying to …” I point to the space in front of me. It is empty. There is no one anywhere near us. I collapse on the stone bench and let my bike fall to the ground. I still haven’t caught my breath. Chest heaving, gulping mouthfuls of air, I look up at the cop.

“You ever have those days where things are moving so fast you can’t keep up with yourself? Literally. Like you are a just blur passing through yourself until you can’t keep up and your outside slips off? Almost like a snake shedding its skin. It’s just hanging by a fuckin’ thread and if you don’t haul ass and catch up, that part of you is going to split off and just blow away for good? And then it’s gone. You’ll never get it back. And maybe it’s just one piece to begin with. One day. But if you have enough of those days … how many pieces can you lose? Before you’re just fuckin’ gone? And they’re fast. So fast. Like a blur. You ever feel that way?”

The cop has taken a few steps back. He says nothing for a while, then puts away his summons book and pulls out his radio.

“So, you were following your blur?”

“Yes, officer, I believe I was.”

More nodding and this time head-scratching as well.

“You sit tight, buddy, okay? Can you do that for me?”

I nod.

“I’m gonna be right here. Just need to make a quick call.”

His radio makes some beeping noises and he turns away from me while he talks into it. Then he turns back to me.

“Sir, is there somebody I can call for you? Your wife maybe, or a family member?”

“I don’t have any family.”

“A friend then?”

“Look, just give me the damn ticket, okay,” I say, getting up from the bench and reaching for my bike.

“Actually, sir, my, uh, CO thinks it would really be best if you were checked out. You know, at the hospital.”

“That won’t be necessary. I’m fine. And besides,” I say, picking my bike up and getting back on. “I can’t. I’m in a hurry.”

It’s 2:00
A.M
. when I reach into the drawer in the little table next to my bed and take out the small teak box I bought at a street fair to benefit the Little Red School House. It’s just the right size and shape to hold my pipe, my lighter, and my film canister with a half-ounce of weed.

When I light up and inhale a lungful of ashes, I kick myself for not refilling the bowl when I finished smoking last night. I dump the film canister upside down into my hand and find that it too is empty. I zip into the kitchen and pull open the freezer. I feel around, roll the vodka bottle out of the way, and feel nothing but the indentations it’s made in the accumulated frost, which I have no idea how to get rid of. I’m looking for a Ziploc bag of pot I’m hoping I may not have smoked yet. The bag is not squished between the cans of Bacardi frozen margarita mix, which are standing in a neat line on the shelf in the freezer drawer.

I’m not hopeful. The truth is, I think I finished off the last hit of the pot I bought from Cecil before he vacated the apartment last night and now I have nothing. And now I am more anxious, more wired, more racy. All the things you don’t want to be at four o’clock in the morning. Sleep is definitely out of range now. At this point I’ll settle for anything that will take the edge off. I fly around my apartment, looking for my address book and the phone. I punch the numbers so fast I misdial twice. Then, finally, he picks up and I’m talking so fast the words come out almost as one:

“Cecil, buddy, how you doing? Great. Listen. I was wondering if you could help me out, I’m kind of in a jam here … what? Oh, were you sleeping? Sorry buddy. It’s just if you could spare a little weed I’d be willing to come to Brooklyn to … Hello? Cecil?

SHIT! The phone makes a visible indentation in the wall when I throw it across the room.

Shimmer, glimmer, higher, faster, shatter, break.

Fall.

Every day rainy, cold, grey. Regardless of the weather. I don’t read. I don’t taste. I don’t fuck. Who has the energy? Or the interest? But I get through the day. So gold star for me. Sometimes I even leave the house. Today I sat on the floor in one of the aisles at the Pick. Staring at book spines. It was exhausting.

Now, back at home, all I want is to go to bed. But when do I ever get what I want? “Hey, mister,” I say, this time loud enough for people walking by to hear. “I’ve had three birthdays standing here waiting for you to get your mail.”

Old guy is bent over his mailbox, blocking access to my building’s narrow entry. I know my neighbors only by the labels I’ve given them—depressed single mother, great tits/no ass chick, Christie Brinkley wannabe, kid who smells like curry … At the moment, old guy is jabbing haphazardly at the lock with his key—like a fifteen-year-old virgin who can’t figure out where to put his pecker.

If I thought this inconvenient twitching were a Parkinson’s thing, I’d probably be more sympathetic. Maybe. Hard to say. Phil, the guy who owned Phil’s Fish Store on Beverly Drive where Ellen bought the most incredible Dungeness crab, came down with it. Phil was a good, solid working guy. I always admired him. So I have good associations with people who have Parkinson’s.