by Amy Sohn
I bought a coffee and a bagel and sat down on a couch. There was a middle-aged guy sitting next to me, reading the Metro section of the Times. He flipped through the pages, then pulled down the paper, glanced over at me, and looked back down at the paper. I slunk in my seat and turned my head the other way, but the bastard wouldn’t give up. “Excuse me,” he said, “but are you—”
“Yes!” I shouted. “I am! Are you satisfied?” The counter boy turned toward us but I didn’t care. “What is it you want to know? Why I did it? Come on! I’m ready. Hit me with your best shot!”
“Actually,” he said, “I never heard of you before today. I just wanted to say I think you look much better with short hair than long.”
“Oh,” I said, my face burning. I could have handled him mocking me, but it was much more difficult to handle him not knowing who I was. I stood up with as much dignity as I could muster and walked home.
When I got back to my building, Al was sitting on the front stoop. He didn’t look happy.
“Hi, Al,” I said.
“You didn’t tell me you were a sex columnist when you rented the apartment,” he said.
“That’s because I wasn’t.”
“I was looking for a nice girl when I put that ad out. But you’re not a nice girl at all. This is a family neighborhood. I knew something was wrong when that guy rang my bell in the middle of the night. I can’t have a loose woman as a tenant.”
“But I don’t even have the job anymore! And besides, I have a boyfriend now!”
“It doesn’t matter. Your face is in that article. People will see you coming out of my building and they’ll recognize you. I don’t want to be known as the guy who rents his apartment to a tramp. I want you out by Sunday.”
I had never signed a lease on the apartment. Al had said, “Paper isn’t necessary. I trust you,” and I’d been stupid enough to buy it. So I had no legal recourse. I went upstairs, called my parents, and said, “Get my bedroom ready.”
•
For the next three days I packed my things and let my machine take calls from tabloid papers and TV shows. It got easier to ignore them over the course of the weekend. It would have been one thing if Diane Sawyer wanted to go head to head with me, but the callers sounded so seedy I knew all they really wanted to do was mock me. I could just see myself as the featured guest on Ned Slivovitz for a show called “Cheaters, Liars, and Scumbags.”
On Sunday afternoon Adam came over with a U-Haul and we loaded it and drove to Brooklyn Heights. My mom and dad were in the country with Zach, so Adam and I had to lug everything up in the elevator ourselves. When we finally got everything into my room, he sat on the edge of the bed to rest and I leaned over and started to unpack. He grabbed my ass, turned me around, and bit my left tit. I pulled his pants down and got on top of him. “Where are the condoms?” he whispered.
I climbed off him and reached for the box I thought I’d packed them in, but it turned out to be filled with kitchen utensils instead. I ripped open the one next to it but that was just linens. I had a momentary image of myself dashing into my parents’ bedroom and taking my mom’s diaphragm out of her bedside table, but that was too disgusting even for me.
“Let me just check one more,” I said. As soon as I opened it, I struck gold. The Lifestyles were sitting right on top. I ripped one off and tossed it to him. He rolled it on, I straddled him and started to bounce. He grabbed my shoulders and then moved his hand down to my breasts. I angled myself forward for the extra clitoral stimulation and closed my eyes. His nip squeezing felt so good that it made my whole pelvic region get warm. “Don’t take your hands off my tits!” I hissed, my skin beginning to flush. I started to breathe superfast and tilted my head back, and just as I was about to cross that glorious hurdle in the sky, I heard the front door to the apartment open.
“We’re home!” called my mom.
Adam jumped up and put on his boxers, and I collapsed on the bed with a groan. I’d been two seconds away from my first orgasm from sex alone, and my own parents had coitus-interrupted it. There really was no place like home.
•
When I got off the subway at the BankAmerica building the next morning, I looked down at the directions Frances had given me: “Go through turnstile to steel door next to ATM.” That was odd. The office was on the same level as the subway. Meaning in the basement.
As all the suits around me went up the escalators into the building, I went down a dingy, humid hallway toward a steel door marked Building Services. I heaved it open. Sitting behind a high gray desk, under a flickering fluorescent light, was an incredibly overweight woman about my age with long black hair and the foulest body odor I had ever inhaled.
“Can I help you?” she said.
“I’m here for Ruth Jennings,” I said. “I’m her new secretary.”
“She’s not here yet. Why don’t you take a seat and wait? She should be in any minute.”
I sat down on a couch and listened to bizarro Elvira take phone calls. Her responses didn’t sound much like those of a typical secretary. “What floor’s the leak on?” she’d say, or, “So the toilet’s been overflowing for half an hour?” or, “Which elevator is stuck?” Then she would scribble down some notes, get on a walkie-talkie, and tell someone named Tom or Alario to go handle the problem.
It didn’t take me long to realize just what building services was a euphemism for: maintenance office. That was why it was in the basement. That was why this girl reeked to high heaven—because the only people she ever came in contact with were poop moppers. This job lent a whole new meaning to the term Corposhit.
The door opened and a short, fiftyish woman with cropped brown hair came in. “Ruth, this is your new secretary,” said the girl.
“Oh, yeah,” said Ruth in a husky, nicotined voice. “I forgot you were starting today. What’s your name again?”
“Ariel.”
“That’s right. Ariel. Follow me.” She led me to the back of the office and sat me down in front of a desk with a computer and a typewriter. I spent the rest of the morning calming frenzied and wet staffers, typing bid rejection letters, and bantering with the BankAmerica janitorial staff. At lunch I went up to the cafeteria, ate a frozen yogurt, stared out the window at the S trains clattering by, then headed glumly back to Asbestos Central. I came home that night dizzy from the air and light deprivation, and when I sat down at the table Zach said, “Something smells funny.”
After dinner I went into my bedroom and lay down on the bed. I looked over at my computer. I hadn’t used it since I had written “Den of Len.” I got up slowly, went toward it, and turned it on. But I was dead inside. I had nothing to say. It was Henry Roth city. I turned off the machine, lay down on my bed, and faced the wall. After a few minutes something made me roll back over. I looked at the typer again. It seemed to be beckoning me back. Perhaps I had left it too hastily. It was begging me to do something I had not done—and I knew just what it was. I walked back over, knelt down by the wall socket, and yanked out the plug.
•
On Wednesday morning I took overflow overflow calls from Elvira and talked socialist politics with the BankAmerica janitors. When the clock struck noon I got a funny pang in my stomach. It felt strange to know that soon Wednesday would be like any other day, and the City Week like any other paper. After work I made a detour in midtown to pick up a copy, and I read “The Mail” on the train ride home:
I don’t care if she made them all up. I live alone. Bring her bach!
SY RIZZUTI, Park Slope
Ding dong, the witch is dead!
TIM FELLOWS. Upper East Side
Now that I know what Ariel Steiner looks like, it doesn’t upset me so much that you canned her. How could I ever have enjoyed her column again, with the image of that hulking she-cow in my head?
PATRICK FERBER, Chelsea
I put the paper in my lap and sighed. The abuse was a hollow pleasure when I knew it was bound to end. There might be a few more
weeks of castigation, but eventually my readers would forget all about me. I’d never be defamed again. No longer would my dating life be a subject of public debate. No longer would men compare my genitalia to rotting garbage. The days of ridicule, vilification, and humiliation were over. It was horrible. What was the point of being alive if no one was around to hate me for it?
•
On Friday at ten to five, I brought my time sheet into Ruth’s office for her to sign. She was halfway through her John Hancock when she leaned down and squinted at the paper. “What’s your last name?” she said. “Steiner?”
“Yeah.”
“That rings a bell.”
“Maybe that’s because my temp agency told it to you when they called.” I was sweating like a whore in church.
“They didn’t,” she said. “They only told me your first. I’m sure I’ve heard the name Steiner before. Something I saw in the paper, I think.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“It was the end of last week. Thursday or Friday. I should have it here somewhere.” She leaned down and reached into her recycling bin. I did a quick prayer to make the incriminating issue magically disappear. But no such luck. She pulled out Thursday’s Daily News with a self-satisfied smile and began riffling through the pages. “Here it is!” she shouted. “Downtown Rag Cans Fibbing Squibber.” She turned it toward me so I was face-to-face with my photo. “You’re saying this isn’t you?”
“OK!” I shouted. “It is me!”
She shook her head from side to side. “I don’t know if I can keep you on now.”
“What?”
“How can I trust you?”
“Easily! I’m not a liar in life! Only on the page!”
“But you just lied to me ten seconds ago.”
“You don’t understand—”
“How can I be certain you’ll take accurate messages? Or fill out your time sheet honestly?”
“I would never withhold anything from you!”
“I don’t like how this smells, Ariel. I don’t like that your agency didn’t mention anything about your past, and I don’t like the fact that before you came here, you were a porno writer. I’m a Catholic woman. It makes me uncomfortable.”
“They weren’t pornos! It was first-person journalism with an emphasis on my romantic trials and tribulations!”
“Like I said, pornos.” She stood up. “Why don’t you go?”
“Now?”
“Yes, now. I’ll call your—”
“Agency and let them know what happened. Thanks.”
•
When I got home, the apartment was empty. Zach and my parents had gone to the country for the weekend. I kicked off my flats, went into my bedroom, and looked at myself in the mirror. Was it my imagination, or had I gained a few pounds since I’d started at BankAmerica? I was morphing back into the self I’d worked so hard to destroy. I wanted to feel successful again, and talented. I wanted to do something that would give me a sense of control.
I sat down at the computer and pressed the on button. Nothing happened. At first I thought it was God sending me a sign, but then I remembered I’d left it unplugged. I stuck the cord in the wall and tried to write, but again nothing came. I was drier than my grandmama’s cunt.
Maybe the key to unblocking myself was to try a new tack. Like nonfiction. If I could get an article into a glossy magazine, I could kill two birds with one stone: open my creative floodgates and salvage my marred reputation. My name was a million times better known than other freelance writers’. There were bound to be some editors out there who’d want me on their roster.
I started to brainstorm about possible ideas to pitch, and within a few short minutes I had come up with a very impressive list: female versus male masturbation habits; infidelity; anal sex as the new yuppie trend; aphrodisiacs and voodoo; and feminist porn. I typed pitch letters for each topic, and addressed them to GQ, Elle, Esquire, Cosmopolitan, and Vogue.
•
Adam came over for dinner that night. When I told him Ruth had fired me, he said, “That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. What does your writing have to do with your ability to radio janitors?”
“I think it was the content of the columns. She said it offended her Catholic sensibilities.”
“But you’re not even writing it anymore.”
“I guess she didn’t believe in absolution.”
“Are you going to try to get another temp job?”
“I don’t think so. Temping is too demoralizing. I’m thinking I should try something less soul draining, something a little more challenging.”
I didn’t exactly have Hebrew-school teaching in mind.
•
In the morning, after Adam left, I called my parents in the country and told them I’d gotten the sack. “This is perfect timing,” said my mom. “I was working on the synagogue bulletin yesterday, and Elliott Nash, the principal, asked if I knew anyone who might be interested in a religious-school teaching position. One of their teachers quit suddenly, for no apparent reason, and they need someone to take her place for the last two months of school. It’s twelve hours a week, and it pays thirty an hour. Why don’t you go over to the synagogue and talk to him? Morning services should be getting out now.”
Compared to taking leakage calls, teaching rugrats didn’t seem like such a lousy option. And thirty bucks an hour was damn good money. If I saved enough of it, I could move into my own place by the end of the spring.
As I entered the synagogue, I heard the closing lines of “Adon Olam.” A few minutes later everyone streamed out of the sanctuary into the reception room and raced for the challah. I joined in the motzi, ripped off a piece of bread, and approached a middle-aged woman with a kid. “Excuse me,” I said. “Do you know who Elliott Nash is?”
“He’s right over there,” she said, and pointed to a goateed guy in his early thirties. He wasn’t bad looking. He had clean, tight skin, a decent build, and twinkling eyes. Maybe there were some perks to this job. I threw back my shoulders and sauntered over.
“Mr. Nash,” I said, “I’m Ariel Steiner, Carol Steiner’s daughter. She mentioned that you have an opening in the religious school, and I wanted to speak to you about it.”
“I’m delighted you’re interested in the position.”
“Really?”
“Yes. Why don’t you come in tomorrow morning for an interview, at eleven, say? I’d rather not discuss business on Shabbat.”
When I got to the synagogue the next morning, we went up to his office and I told him how I’d gone to Hebrew school as a kid, been president of the youth group, and worked as a counselor at a Reform sleep-away camp the summer after ninth grade. When I finished talking, he nodded and said, “You’re hired.”
“You mean that’s it? I don’t need a license or anything?”
“No. There’s no license required for teaching religious school. It’s a bonus, but we don’t demand it.” He took out the textbooks and showed me where the last teacher had left off. I stood up and headed for the door, but just as I was about to leave he said, “Ariel?”
“Yes?” I turned around.
“I just wanted to tell you, I was a huge fan!”
“You mean—”
“Of course I knew. I just didn’t want to say anything before the interview because I was afraid it might make you uncomfortable. I was so upset when they fired you. I thought it was a ridiculously misguided decision.”
“So you really don’t care about my past?”
“As far as I’m concerned, it’s completely irrelevant. You’re no longer working for the paper, your parents are members of the synagogue, and all I really care about is whether you’ll be devoted to the kids.”
This guy seemed too good to be true. Maybe he was too good to be true. Maybe the only reason he liked my column was because he was some kind of perv, or pedophile. What if he was secretly fondling the kids on the bimah right in front of the ark, under
the eternal light, when he was supposed to be disciplining them for bad behavior? What if he was hiring me in the hopes I’d join in his game? I could bust him for the criminal he really was, save the synagogue, and become a neighborhood hero. Who knew where this job might lead?
•
I arrived for my first Hebrew class fifteen minutes early and waited for the kids to file in. They came in clusters, chewing neon gum, wearing Yankees T-shirts, hitting one another, and generally looking like the last place they wanted to be was Hebrew school. As they took their seats at their desks, I heard one of the boys whisper, “I hope she’s not a bitch.”
The bell rang. “Hi, everyone,” I said haltingly. “My name’s Ariel. I’ll be teaching you for the rest of the semester.” Then I took their attendance, passed out the dittoes I’d prepared, and told them to work silently. After two minutes they started balling them up and throwing them at one another.
“Stop that!” I shouted. I picked up one of the crumpled papers, brought it over to the kid who’d thrown it, opened it up, and smoothed it out in front of him. “Now get back to work,” I said, walking back to my chair.
“Fuck you,” he whispered.
I turned around slowly. “What did you say?”
“Nothing,” he said. The kids next to him tittered.
“I think you said something.”
“He said, ‘Fuck you,’” chirped the boy next to him.
The entire classroom erupted in squeals. “That’s it!” I shouted. “You two are going to Elliott’s office!”
I escorted them down the stairs to Nash’s, but when I opened the door, it was empty. I had one of the boys check the men’s room, but after a few minutes, he still hadn’t come out. I hoped Nash wasn’t in there doing something horrible to him. I knocked on the door gingerly and pushed it open. The kid was kneeling on the floor facing one of the urinals and using it as a chin-up bar. I whisked him out, brought both the boys back up to the classroom, sat them outside the door, and said, “Sit here and be quiet until class is over.”