One from my aunt: “Fly home now.”
One from myself, from my email account to my email account, from Stanley to Stanley, sent not by me but by my uncle or an artist who had opened my laptop or otherwise accessed my account: “COMPLETE EXPLANATION OF THE MADE-UP MAN.”
I deleted them all unread. I wrote an email to T, saying, Manny’s here now and I hope you enjoyed the play you saw tonight and also the dinner and break a leg see you tomorrow let me know where you want to meet and when, I’m sorry I didn’t bring my phone I thought it’d be easier to stick to my plan without a phone, I wanted to be unreachable, but now I regret it I have to rely on email will you email me when you want I’ll check in the morning. I reread for typos. I wrote, “I miss you.” I changed it to “Miss you.” I deleted it. I wrote “Miss you” again and I sent it.
Several kinds of terrible entangled me. I would not be tripped into regret, I said to myself. I would be a man who could move out of anything. A trap. The truth. Himself.
Behind my back, in the bedroom, Manny sighed with hatred.
It was possible that I was thinking out loud. I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to participate in any way.
I closed my laptop and returned it to its chalk outline.
I removed the bottle booby-trap and closed and locked the door. On the couch I chugged what was left of the foamy slop. I tucked the bottle under my arm.
Sleep shoveled onto me.
I squirmed in a dream in which I encountered the space at the center of myself that wasn’t me. The space was made up of a form of matter so unstable that it was impossible to make a study of it just by being near it once. I touched its surface; my hand stuck. Space, I said, not moving my mouth, how are you in me but not me. Every window in a city broke. I stood on a street in which a bad thing had happened many times. I stood in a white river, and it crested, and then it was the white river that stood in me, and I crested. I tore an alley down into itself. My hand broke off at the wrist.
I woke to knocking.
“Okay,” I said, getting up, “yes.”
I pissed in the toilet. Manny’s little bag of toiletries, open, sat on the tank. Every product in it was Italian. The clock read 3:00 a.m.
The knocking continued.
I squinted through the peephole. In the hall stood the made-up man. He wore a dress.
He said, “I saw your mother.”
I bumbled back to the couch.
A key scratched in the lock. I sat up.
The door opened. “I am your friend,” said the man.
I was wrong—he wore a high-waisted skirt and a high-neckline top, both pieces tight, black with white patterning. His long dark hair spilled from an unraveling updo. He smiled, uncertain. It occurred to me that this might not be the middle-aged man from the airport and the train station, that this might instead be a young woman whose face had been made up to resemble his made-up face.
“I know you,” he or she said, nodding.
I said nothing.
He or she spoke in the voice of a woman impersonating a man impersonating a woman.
“I have forgotten. My purse. I have forgotten my purse.”
I said that I’d thrown a purse out the window.
He or she put a hand to his or her chest and, with a worried look, said, “I do not feel safe.”
This person, I realized, was a twenty-something woman made up to look like a fifty-something man made up to half-look like a woman.
“Please leave,” I said in an unfriendly way.
“I will tell you the truth,” she said. “If I will tell you the truth, you will tell yourself the truth. If you will tell yourself the truth, you will tell the truth to family. You will tell the truth to friends. You will tell the truth to strangers.”
She started to cry.
“I do not actually know you,” she said.
I approached her in an unfriendly way.
She backed into the hall, as if frightened, and stepped on an overstuffed envelope, a new one. She glanced at it and then at me. I felt sorry for her and tricked by her, I wanted to help her and I wanted to terrify her. I was rattled by how much she’d rattled me.
She pointed at the envelope. “Is it for you?”
I closed the door and locked it and wedged a chair in front of it and returned to the couch.
She was whispering, “I do not feel safe.”
I didn’t think that I could fall asleep to that.
A little after eleven in the morning I woke to Manny moaning.
I went to his open door. He lay beside the bed on an improvised mattress of folded clothes and luggage, including my luggage. He held his forehead like it had a leak.
“That unsuitable mattress. Has triggered. A mid-level migraine.”
He’d made the bed. On the pillow sat a single dress shoe, a scuffed-up loafer. It had the look of a piece of evidence.
I fetched a glass of water for Manny and put it on the floor.
He was pale and tense, tight in a state of careful self-containment. It seemed to hurt him to keep his eyes shut.
I wanted to leave the room but didn’t.
39
Stanley Remembers His Mother’s Migraines
Sit here, she’d say.
I’d sit at her feet at the end of the couch.
But don’t speak, all right?
I wouldn’t: I was a boy who listened.
Thank you, Stannyfanny.
I’d watch her face and worry. She’d lie there, rigidly relaxed, a hand on her eyes. I’d see hot lines etched inside her head—searing rows, searing columns—and it wouldn’t be long before I’d sympathized myself into my own minor headache, a dull wobble.
I’d put my hand on my eyes. The wobble would drag—it would scritch.
One time I asked how come headaches were contagious.
She smiled. Try to think less.
40
Stanley Remembers a Time When He Tried to Think Less
I stood in line to board the plane to Prague.
I stayed in line.
I boarded the plane.
41
Stanley Remembers Another Time When He Tried to Think Less
“Abbey’s got it made,” said my mom. “Be happy for her. For once.”
“Are you this stupid on purpose?” said my dad.
My mom and my dad had taken me out to an early dinner at Starpolska. We were the only customers there, seated in the middle of the main room, waiting for our pints of Polish beer to appear. It was my birthday.
This was at a time when my mom and my dad were seeing each other again but pretending they weren’t.
This was right before Ro.
My brother had texted: he’d be late.
“Stanley, honey,” said my mom. “Do me a favor. Imagine you’re in your late thirties. You’ve been dating a bunch of kooks. The problem with the kooks is that they start off seeming really interesting, because of their kookiness, but after a week, they’re boring. They were boring all along. You’re getting pretty tired of it. Your brother’s bugging you, trying to get you to date somebody with a ‘serious’ job. You’re just about to give up, maybe even leave the country. Why not? But then, just by chance, you meet a really special kook. This kook is different from the others—this kook is just as crazy about archaeology as you are. Maybe even crazier! Next thing you know, you’re seeing archaeology in a new way. You didn’t think you could love archaeology any more than you already did, but there you are. And guess what? You start to love the kook, too.”
“That’s not it,” said my dad.
“Plus the kook is rich,” said my mom.
“No,” said my dad. “No.”
“Would you be happy? Would you want everybody to be happy for you, including your brother?”
My dad leaned forward. “Say you’re with a girl you know you shouldn’t be with.”
“How do you ‘know’ that?” said my mom.
“The way she treats the people she works with is g
oddamn terrible.”
“But they agree to it,” said my mom.
“It’s goddamn terrible,” said my dad to me. “You know it’s goddamn terrible, everybody knows it’s goddamn terrible. And that’s just part of it, that’s just one red flag on a whole fucking highway to hell of red fucking flags. Because you know this, most of the time you’re with her, you feel bad. But some of the time, for other reasons—the reasons that got you together in the first place—when you’re with her, you feel good. Good enough to make it hard to go.”
My mom and my dad didn’t look at each other.
“What would you think,” said my dad.
“Honestly,” said my mom.
42
Stanley Almost Has a Realization
I sat on the “unsuitable” bed. Its springs wheezed.
Manny slurped at the water. “Tell me,” he said. “Who exactly was here last night?”
I told him about the made-up woman, what she’d said, how she’d tried to lead me to another envelope, but I didn’t give him the history of her appearance, how “she” had been a “he” at the airport and at Kutná Hora. I also didn’t go into how something in her manner, something that had nothing to do with her appearance, had spooked me.
He was about to ask another question, then winced. He cooled his hand on the glass of water and applied his palm to his forehead.
I started to feel bad about having shouldered and shoved him.
He muttered, as if adding up a sum.
I asked him if he had any migraine medication.
“Ja, in Deutschland.”
“I’ll run out for some,” I said. “I don’t mind.”
I didn’t—it would be a relief to escape the apartment.
Manny picked up his phone, found a nearby pharmacy, and instructed me to hurry. If I didn’t, he said, we’d miss our chance to get a table at Café Slavia, a sociohistorical must-see, onetime haven to eminent intellectual dissidents.
“I am obligated to repay you for last night’s dinner,” he explained.
I’d never known Manny to be obligated to anyone but T.
At this point, the picture began to come together.
Manny stared at me.
I said, “Why are you in this apartment.”
His phone tinged.
His phone ting-tinged.
43
Stanley Has a Realization
T had persuaded Manny to stay with me.
44
Stanley Imagines How T Persuaded Manny to Stay with Him
1. T tells Manny about Black and White and Dead All Over’s acceptance into an internationally acclaimed theater festival in Prague.
2. Manny, impressed, insists on visiting from Berlin.
3. Before checking with me, T offers Manny lodging at my uncle’s apartment. She talks up the location.
When does anybody ever get to stay so close to Old Town Square, for free?
4. Manny, to whom only money is authentic, is tempted.
If it were not for the roommate, I would find this agreeable …
5. T tells Manny about the art project.
I’ll be honest. If you were there to keep an eye on Stanley, even for just a day or two, I’d feel so much better about him being in the middle of this.
I’ve told you about his uncle, haven’t I?
The wealthy and unethical artist?
Whose “theme” is exploitation?
45
Stanley Almost Has Another Realization
Manny rolled the glass of water across his forehead.
“Numerous interests,” he said. “Have necessitated my presence.”
I picked up the dress shoe that’d been left on the bed and checked the size. It would fit my foot.
We were both in this apartment because of T.
We were both in this apartment because of who we wanted to be in relation to T.
We were both in this apartment because of who we thought we were or wanted to be or hoped we were in relation to T.
T in relation to that.
T in relation to her new roommates in a new apartment in Chicago, and T in relation to her old cast and crew in an old apartment in Prague.
T in relation to the stage.
T on a stage.
Manny put down the glass. He did what he could to conceal his irritation.
“What,” I said.
He returned to texting, willing me to go.
“The café awaits,” he said.
46
Stanley Has Another Realization
T was going to be at the café.
47
Stanley Imagines T at the Café
T sitting at a table in the café, looking like the subject of a photo, a photo fit for the café’s wall.
T touching the handle of her untouched cup of coffee.
The people at the other tables thinking T is a famous person.
T knowing this about the people at the other tables but not thinking about it.
T thinking about us, about our break:
T imagining me imagining her:
T imagining me on my way to the café:
48
Stanley Controls Himself
When I could be sure that my voice would come out okay, I said, “What time is T getting to the café.”
Manny lowered his phone to look me in the eye. “T will not be present.”
49
Stanley Remembers the Last Time Manny Lied to Him
We were at the Half Acre Tap Room, T’s favorite microbrewery, post-bowling. The place was jammed but we’d scored seats, our table wet with sloshed beers. Hip white kids in tight coats and colorful scarves crammed up to the bar. Music boomed. Every song sounded like an homage to the one before it.
Manny sipped his snifter of barley wine and made disappointed faces at his phone.
T and Inna stood in line for the bathroom right in front of me. Inna was shouting Russian words, and T was shouting them back. Even though I’d been with her all night, for dinner and bowling and drinks, an empty-house feeling popped and creaked inside me, the same empty-house feeling that popped and creaked when we’d go a week without seeing each other, which wasn’t uncommon with her rehearsals and my classes and our part-time jobs.
Just the night before, on video chat, she’d suggested that we live together.
I said I was unsure about sharing the same space all day and all night.
She asked me if I was sure of her.
I was.
She’d made a gesture that said: Then what’s the difference?
“Poshlost,” shouted Inna.
“Poshlost,” shouted T.
The line moved.
Manny sighed.
I asked him how long he and Inna had been boyfriend and girlfriend.
He lowered his phone to look me in the eye. “She is but a friend.”
My first impulse, to respect his privacy, was undone by my second impulse, to disrespect him respectably.
I said, “Why do you talk like that, like you’re from some other fucking century, the nineteenth century? ‘But a friend.’ ‘Unto you.’ ‘Enabling feminine graces.’”
He considered my question.
Two skinny tattooed dudes wearing slightly different versions of the same stupid hat flirted with T and Inna. Through the short distance she seemed even smarter, even more surprising. Later that night, right before we went home to separate apartments, I would tell her this, and she would say it worked the same the other way around: she never loved me more than when she saw me from across a room.
At the time that wouldn’t strike me as sad.
Manny said, “I know who I am, therefore, I can be who I like.”
Knowing who you were didn’t mean that you could change yourself whenever you wanted, I said, it meant the opposite. Manny interjected but I talked through him, saying that knowing who you were was like conducting archaeological research on long-gone cultures: you discovered a litt
le at a time, you worked to figure out how it fit, you stepped back to study the big picture. You challenged the theories of respected experts. You were always on the lookout to update your understanding, knowing that there was a “next understanding” that was more complete than what came before it, a truth you ascended rungs of discovery to reach.
Manny nodded with insincere awe.
“How insightful!” he said. “And insecure!”
“You know who you are: a prick,” I said. “You don’t choose to be anything else.”
He raised his snifter. “You’re an idealist. You can’t choose to be anything else.”
50
Stanley Remembers Other Uncomfortable Assessments of His Character
The Made-Up Man Page 10