On my walk to the bus stop, I paused under a streetlight—my shirt was smeared, but because the fabric was dark, the blood or fake blood didn’t show much. I sniffed at one of the stains.
A drunk middle-aged woman in Cubs gear sat next to me on the brightly lit bus.
“You need me to call somebody?” she said.
I said it wasn’t what it looked like.
“Your face,” she said, stopping herself from touching me.
I checked my reflection in the window—a big bloody mark curved from my eyebrow to my cheek.
“It’s fake,” I said.
The woman nodded. “Then why are you so scared?”
62
Stanley Continues
I stood, unsteady.
A woman with a deep voice spoke calmly to Manny.
She may have been singing.
I didn’t go back up—I went down.
63
Stanley Resists Several Thoughts
It wasn’t “getting personal.” It’d been personal from the beginning.
It wasn’t “getting real” because it was only going to get more faked, more staged, more set up.
It wasn’t “getting out of hand” because I had a grip on it.
I wasn’t in over my head.
64
Stanley Falls Down the Stairs
I tripped on the last flight and fell—I rolled, I banged my arms, I banged my legs—
65
Stanley Encounters Two More Artists
—I stumbled out into the alley, I leaned against the wall. I panted. There was no other way to see it: T had supplied the anecdotes about Torrentelli and Barton that had been transformed into the performances I’d witnessed. Either she’d given the information to my aunt, during the post-show drink when she’d explained the state of our relationship, or she’d given the information directly to my uncle, when he’d approached her about playing a role in the project. Either she gave the information knowing what the consequences would be, and was okay with it, or she didn’t know what the consequences would be, or was deceived, or didn’t think it mattered.
A few floors in me had collapsed.
The space at the center of myself that wasn’t me was splitting open.
I remembered T’s texts: “I said no.”
I remembered my aunt’s face: I’m sorry I’m not sorry.
I walked down the alley and into a wind with no freshness, no smell of summer’s end. Under the busted archway where the street began stood two men. One was big and bearded, in a black T-shirt and dark jeans. Even from a distance, he looked sullen, waiting with the cartoon surliness of an action movie goon. In front of him crouched a lean man in a suit and tie. He took video of the big man with his phone, shuffling from side to side.
Each pretended not to know that the other knew that they were there.
The lean man, anxious, adjusted a setting on his phone.
The big man rubbed at his face like he wanted to wipe it off.
66
Stanley Has Three Realizations
The lean man, who had a mustache, was meant to be my uncle.
The big man, who rubbed at his face how I rubbed at my face, was meant to be me.
Me, myself, I, who stared at the men, stopped. I wanted to break their heads. Not out of any principle of self-protection, as I’d been insisting to myself, but only for the simplifying effect that another act of violence would have on me, however momentary, however false.
67
Stanley Deceives Himself
From the beginning, there’d been two choices:
68
Stanley Deceives Himself About His Strategy
to acknowledge or to not acknowledge the art project. Either choice, when made, subdivided into passive or active categories, combinations of action and inaction, avoidance and engagement. The line between “acknowledge” and “don’t acknowledge” wasn’t and wouldn’t be clean, I knew that, but after I accepted my uncle’s check, I decided to commit to an overall strategy of non-acknowledgment. It seemed to be the best way to stay simple. Even when things went bananas, I was sure I’d be able to hold close to “passive” and “avoidance.” But in practice,
69
Stanley Justifies a Shift in His Strategy
in Prague, I’d found myself with no choice but to tilt toward “active” and “engagement.” To be passive I needed to be active; to avoid I needed to engage. I hoped that these short-term concessions to acknowledgment would result in a greater degree of long-term non-acknowledgment. I was familiar with this strategy:
70
Stanley Critiques His Strategy
it was my father’s. He’d used it steadily, with varying inflections and intensities, on Busia and my mom and my brother and me. It was not a strategy that worked. Sustained non-acknowledgment, at its heart, was sustained acknowledgment. As Manny had said, I was here.
They were there:
71
Stanley Is “Followed”
I approached the men who were in my way.
The man who was meant to be me set off into the street, as if he’d spotted someone he intended to hurt, and the man who was meant to be my uncle stayed ahead of him, facing him, capturing shots that would feature me in the background. They slowed at intersections, to wait for me to catch up a little, then turned one way or the other, guessing at which direction I’d go. Every time, they guessed right. They were “following” me in front of me.
When we hit the Square, they disappeared. Crowds teemed at restaurants and monuments and cafés, on the cobblestones and curbs, in the deep draws of shadow spilled by historic buildings. Couples crushed together for selfies. Tourists ringed chattering guides. The biggest gathering was massed at the clock tower, an assembly of families from around the world, standing, waiting for an on-the-hour cuckoo show. Noon was near. Hot smells from street stands cramped me with hunger: if I didn’t eat, I’d puke. I veered to the end of a line for a fried cheese sandwich. I thought of the emails from my brother and my aunt that I’d deleted, unread. I thought of how anything anyone had ever emailed me and anything I’d ever emailed anyone could appear in some form in the project. The food-stand clerk, a young woman, gave me the two sandwiches and one bottle of beer I’d ordered. Her cheery smile surprised me. “Dziękuję,” I said, and when I realized that I’d said it in Polish instead of in Czech, I corrected myself: “Děkuji.” “Proszę,” she said, and then, with a playful wink, “Prosím.” She turned to the next customer. I stood there for longer than I should have, wanting her to smile at me again. On my way to find a place to sit, I passed the man who was meant to be me, standing in the line I’d just been in, with the man who was meant to be my uncle hovering at his side, out of line, filming him. The man who was meant to be my uncle, I noticed, was the made-up man from the airport. Amused tourists snapped pictures of them. “I bet they’re doing a documentary,” said a teenage boy. “Boring!” said a teenage girl. I sat on a curb with a view of the clock tower. The sandwich, a hot square of breaded cheese on a sesame-seed bun, gooey with mayo, was as delicious as my brother said. It steadied me. What my brother did was treat me like someone I wasn’t. If he treated me like that someone, he seemed to think, then I might treat myself like that someone, and if I treated myself like that someone often enough, I might become that someone. He’d learned this approach from our mother, a professor. It was a strategy of selective non-acknowledgment supported by a strategy of selective acknowledgment. To make your students smarter, our mother said, talk to them like they’re smarter than they are. A young woman offered me a flyer for an orchestra performance, and another young woman offered me a discounted walking tour of “Kafka’s Prague,” and a young man offered me a coupon for a strip club, and another young man offered me cocaine. I unwrapped and ate the second sandwich, the one I’d bought for Manny. A young woman, in passing, let a flyer fall into my lap. It read:
ARCHAEOLOGY!
ARCHAEOLOGY …
ARCHAEOLOGY?
and included, parallel to the words, a column of three photos of my face. The photos were the same, but had been scrubbed with different effects, one scratchy, one bleary, one muddy. I couldn’t tell where the source photo was from: I was beaming. I was damn happy. I watched the wind lift the flyer away. Noon struck—the crowd quickened—bells began to clang, slow and calm, trolley-like. Four painted figures, attached to the clock tower’s columns, shook their allegorical objects: a dandy and his mirror, a miser and his money bag, a turbaned man and his lute, a robed skeleton and its hourglass and bell. Higher up, on a stage, two windows opened to show a procession of serious-faced saints. They shuffled along like toys being made to walk by kids.
Phones and cameras rose in front of faces. Adults laughed, children shouted.
The bells stopped. The figures froze. The windows shut.
Just before the crowd broke, a handsome man, maybe in his thirties, dropped to one knee and proposed to a gorgeous woman, maybe in her twenties, right in front of me.
72
Stanley Is Embarrassed
The last proposal I’d been to was mine. We were walking on a beach by the lake, a timeout from a weeklong fight. T stopped to squint into a hot blue wind. No clouds, no waves, the skyscrapers molten with sunlight. T didn’t look like a famous person or a person in a famous moment. My hands were in my pockets. We weren’t sure I’d do it.
Do it, I said to myself.
Myself said: Don’t.
I did—I took out the box, I took out the ring, I went to one knee—I vanished—no thought, no feeling, no body—a blast of unbeing—an on-and-on, an on-and-on-ing—until T said, “We can’t.”
“We can’t,” she said again.
Her voice was hollow wood.
I printed back onto myself, not on one knee, but on both. Before her as before the Mass.
73
Stanley Encounters Uncle Lech, the Made-Up Woman, and the Police
The handsome man looked as if he’d vanished from himself. The gorgeous woman winced.
Surprise and silence met in the faces of the crowd.
The man, on one knee, went down to both.
I lost my breath: the man was my uncle, the woman was the made-up woman. He’d been made up to look younger, and had cut his hair and shaved off his mustache, and she’d lost the middle-aged-man makeup, and had curled her hair. They were dressed for an evening out.
She said what sounded like, “We can’t.”
He didn’t seem to hear it.
She said it again.
He heard it—he sat down, like I had.
“No!” said someone.
A horrible sensation occurred inside me. Everything beneath me flared and ashed and smoked, just out of sight, and everything above me whirled and sparked, just out of sight. I watched what was in front of me.
The woman helped my uncle to his feet.
He seemed weak, stunned.
She patted his arm and said something.
His daze broke—he jerked away, raising his hand to hit her.
He was going to hit her.
Then he dropped the role. His posture changed; he lowered his hand; he looked at me.
The look said: This is helping you.
Someone touched me on the shoulder. It was the man who was meant to be me, looking devastated. He’d been the one who’d said, “No!” He leaned in to whisper to me. I backed up, set a stance, and smashed him in the face with a right cross. He dropped.
The crowd rippled, covering my uncle.
There were shouts.
I pushed toward where my uncle had been.
A pair of plainclothes cops slammed me to the cobblestones. They cuffed me and hauled me to my feet. A third cop attended to the big man, who was sitting up. He’d vomited on himself.
I was shoved into a squad car.
The car took off.
My eyes pulsed.
The cop in the passenger seat swiveled around. He was about my age. He looked at me with interest and respect.
He said, “You are from where?”
74
Stanley Corrects His Observation
He looked at me with disgust. His disgust surprised him.
74
Stanley Corrects His Observation
He looked at me with what presented itself as a professionally impersonal expression, but not professional or impersonal enough to conceal his insecurity with the English language, which he didn’t want to speak, but spoke.
74
Stanley Corrects His Observation
He looked at me like I was why he would quit his job.
74
Stanley Corrects His Observation
He looked like a grown-up version of a kid I’d gone to grade school with, an unsure and unhappy boy who’d been my best friend for a year, whose name I’d forgotten, who’d moved to LA. The last time we played together we’d gathered up our least favorite action figures and buried them in his sandbox, a secret parting gift, we agreed, to whoever moved there next.
74
Stanley Corrects His Observation
He looked at me and didn’t look like anyone I knew.
74
Stanley Corrects His Observation
He looked at me and didn’t look like anyone I’d known.
74
Stanley Corrects His Observation
He looked at me. I looked at him. I thought that I could read his face, but I couldn’t.
74
Stanley Corrects His Observation
In his look, I saw myself looking at him, and in looking at myself looking at him, I saw that I’d been reading faces wrong. I tried to speak—horror winched me silent. I’d been seeing expressions, and from those expressions, assuming thoughts and feelings, and from those thoughts and feelings, assuming conclusions. My conclusions were inventions. I saw myself seeing T’s faces, real and imagined, wrong. I saw myself seeing the faces of my brother and my aunt and my dad and my mom and Busia wrong. I saw myself seeing the faces of my uncle wrong. I saw myself seeing the faces of Torrentelli and Barton wrong, and the faces of Manny and the made-up man and the made-up woman wrong, and the faces of the fashionable old woman and the young mother and the young mother’s kid and the attractive couple and the grim dad and the grim girls and the convenience-store clerk and the prostitutes and the prostitute who propositioned me wrong, and the faces of the women who were meant to be my mother and the men who were meant to be my father and the women who were meant to be my aunt and the man who was meant to be my uncle and the man who was meant to be me wrong, and the faces of the food-stand clerk, her too, wrong, and now the cop in the front seat, looking at me, his faces, wrong, and in his faces these faces, and in these faces mine.
Every mirror in me broke.
The cop said, “You are from where?”
PART II
NOT MY CIRCUS, NOT MY MONKEYS
75
Stanley, in Jail, with Himself—
The space at the center of myself that wasn’t me was now me.
Myself said: You.
I wasn’t.
Myself said: Sleep.
I didn’t.
Myself said: Think.
I did.
Sit up.
Stand up.
Puke.
Stop—sit, remember.
I was remembering myself.
I was remembering myself remembering myself.
I was remembering memory, or imagining memory, or remembering imagining.
I was saying, “You are from where?”
“You are from where.”
“You.”
“Where?”
Turn the tap.
Rinse.
Drink.
Turn the tap.
Dig.
I was from the dig.
The dig was bad but understandable.
The dig was a box I’d been in. It had stayed a box. I remembered its volume, its seams, its feel and smell. I knew who I’d been when I was in i
t. It was a “where” with a “you.” Myself was there.
I said to myself, In there.
Myself said nothing.
The dig:
76
—Stanley, Looking for “Himself,” Remembers the Dig—
Last May, one week after classes ended, I went on a dig with Dr. Madera and Golnaz to the Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site in Collinsville, Illinois. We carpooled in Dr. Madera’s hatchback, which, though clean and uncluttered, smelled slept-in.
“It’s ‘Elena,’” said Dr. Madera, bopping the steering wheel. “We’re in the field! Not the classroom.”
Golnaz leaned from the passenger seat to give me a not-surprised look.
I returned it from the backseat, where I sat, excited, rolling a cigarette. My best professor. My smartest classmate. A light in a corridor—
77
—in Jail—
—a light ripped on at the end of the corridor.
I looked away: I was sitting.
Dr. Madera driving.
Golnaz turning.
The long broad landscapes of Illinois.
The big good feeling I was feeling.
The feeling of what was in front of me.
The work—
78
—“Himself”—
—the big good work of excavation, physically and intellectually nutritious; the discovery of near-annihilated artifacts, fragments meaningless to most Americans, invaluable to us; many days of intensive on-site labor, many weeks of intensive off-site analyses; and, months later, the cautious conclusions that we’d argue into existence, that would respond to the research conducted by our field’s top scholars, that might in some small but specific way advance what was known. I licked the seal on the cigarette and passed it to Dr. Madera. She lowered her window and lit up. I rolled one for myself. We zipped south on 55, through fields of mega-farms, flattened squares of land and sky and light. Dr. Madera, who spoke with throwaway confidence, sounded even more right about everything, and Golnaz, who asked sincere and careful questions, sounded even more insightful. We discussed recent unpleasant events in Chicago, where we lived, and in Juárez, where Dr. Madera was born, and in Tehran, where Golnaz was born. We agreed that things were worse. We discussed relationships: how Dr. Madera’s inept ex-husband concocted excuses to call her, how Golnaz’s depressed brother-in-law had moved in with her and her husband and son, and how T and I were living together, cohabitation with a significant other a first for us both.
The Made-Up Man Page 14