by Danzy Senna
“So I’m thinking, let’s just spend a quiet evening at home, at your place. I got some food. From the Vietcong motherfuckers around the corner. And some wine. Chilean okay with you? They had Concha y Toro on sale. And I got a present for you, too.” Laughter. “Come on, Rocky. I know you’re up there. I saw you go inside. I saw you talking to that old Afro-American in the muumuu. She just drove off. You’re funny, hiding in the dark like a little rat. Okay. However you want to play it. I’ll see you in a heartbeat. Sit tight.”
There was a clattering of plastic. Then, a minute later—no, actually, it was less, twenty seconds—my doorbell was ringing. Or not so much ringing as making a continuous crackling buzz. She was just holding her finger against the button, not taking it off to give me a chance to respond. I crawled on my hands and knees into the hallway, and squatted there, on the floor, staring up at the intercom. I wasn’t breathing properly, but emitting short, jagged gasps. The buzzer finally stopped. I closed my eyes and rested my head against the wall behind me.
A second later there was a beating on my door. It was the way cops beat at doors on television. Boom boom boom. She stopped after a moment and said, in an almost normal tone of voice, “Hey, kid, wipe your ass and come to the door. I’m hungry. The grub’s gonna get cold if you don’t get off the pot.”
I slowly, quietly as I could, stood up and tiptoed to the door. I peered into the peephole. Her head looked enormous and strange. She was wearing something—a scarf—wrapped around her mouth and nose. She had her face turned away as she stared out into the hall at something, but then her face turned toward me and zoomed forward, and I jerked back and she was beating the door again. “Rocky! What’s the problem? You having the runs or something? Jesus. I came all this way. You’re acting crazy. Just open up.”
I raked a hand through my hair.
“Open the fuck up!” She was hollering now. “I found you the goddamn apartment. Remember?”
THE SCARF AROUND Greta’s mouth and nose was a kaffiyeh. She also wore the purple ski cap and the beige trench coat from the other night. On her feet was a pair of green Wellington boots. She was laden down with bags— the Vietnamese food, the wine she had mentioned, and a shopping bag from Duane Reade with a square white box inside.
“Hey, girl!” she said, beaming at me. Before I could stop her she had sauntered past me into the apartment. “So this is the famous pad. I’ve been wanting to see it ever since you moved in.”
I stepped back. “Listen, Greta.” But she ignored me, traipsed down the hall to the living room, and began putting down her bags, taking off her scarf, her trench coat, even her boots. As she did so, she looked around at the place she had, yes, found for me.
“Huh. So this is it. Not bad, not bad at all. For the price it’s actually quite sweet.” She sniffed the air. “It doesn’t smell that bad.”
I stood at the edge of the living room. “I’m sorry, Greta. Jeez, I didn’t know you’d be coming over. I’ve got a ton of work, stuff I really have to finish up by morning.”
She shook her head and said in a quiet, strained voice, “Well, you have to eat. Everybody’s got to eat.” She began to pull the containers of Vietnamese food out of the bags.
“I’m not hungry. I mean, I already ate.”
She paid me no mind. When the food was all laid out, she left it there and began to walk around the living room, picking up objects—a Steely Dan record, the disposable chopsticks, a teacup I’d left on the coffee table—and examining them as if they were evidence. I folded my arms across my chest and clenched my jaw so hard I knew it would ache later, when I lay in the dark.
She picked up a blue vase from the mantelpiece and tossed it from one hand to another.
I stepped forward. “Could you not do that? Jiminy told me not to mess anything up, to leave it how I found it.”
“Oh calm down,” she said. “I’m not gonna break anything.” She placed it back where she got it. Then, “So aren’t you going to give me a tour?”
I didn’t stop her as she went down the hall. I guess I had the sense, beyond the fear and the anger—irrational, I know—that she had a right to see the place because she had found it for me. A sense that it wasn’t really my place anyway. I followed her down the hallway to the bedroom, still babbling about how much work I had to do. I had an interview tomorrow, I kept pleading, an interview with a very important source who could meet only on Sundays. I had to get some research done.
I stood at the doorway and kept talking as she examined the knickknacks Vera had left hanging on the tackboard in the bedroom. The postcard. The Map of the Stars’ Homes. The Estée Lauder gift certificate. She examined each of them, then fingered the bedspread, as if to test its quality, and ran a finger along the dresser as if to check for dust.
After a few minutes, she glanced at me standing at the doorway and laughed. “Relax! God. I think you took Jiminy Cricket a bit too literally. I mean, you are paying rent. You might as well make yourself at home.”
With that, she opened Vera’s closet. My clothes huddled at one end, as if cowering from Vera’s, which still hung there: The pair of platform shoes. The battered leather jacket. And the two silver dresses, with the price tags still hanging off them.
“These yours?” Greta asked, running a hand along them.
“No,” I said. “Those are Vera’s.”
“Weird,” she said. Then she pulled out the leather jacket and held it up in front of her. She laughed. “Get a load of this. Wild. I used to have one of these, back in the day.”
She started to put it on.
“Don’t do that—” I said.
But it was too late. She had it on, and began to walk around the bedroom laughing and saying, “I’m a Hell’s Angel, vroom, vroom!”
“Put it back,” I said. “It’s not yours.”
Greta ignored me. She bent her knees slightly and leaned forward on an invisible motorcycle. She tilted her body from side to side, as if she were leaning into sharp turns, her eyes staring straight ahead at some distant road, as she sang loudly, off-tune, “… the leader of the pack …”
“Take it off, Greta.” My voice had raised a notch. “You’re in somebody else’s home, for God’s sake. Those aren’t your things. Now come on. Show a little respect.”
Greta stopped what she was doing and glared at me. I fought not to blink or avert my gaze.
It was Greta who looked away first. She struggled out of the jacket, then flung it to the floor. I walked over to pick it up, and as I placed it back on the hanger, I heard her say behind me, “Well, for your information, subletters always snoop. It’s part of the arrangement. I mean, live a little. I’m sure this chick would do the same thing if she were staying in your apartment. Shit. That’s the risk you take when you leave your life behind. Have you gone through her mail? Her desk drawers? That’s half the fun.”
“No, I haven’t. Okay?” My voice sounded crybabyish. “I’m not like that, I’m not a—”
“Shall we eat?” Like magic, her mood had normalized and switched again to something brighter. “The food’s probably getting cold.”
I followed her into the living room, feeling like her dog, and sat down at the kitchen table when she pointed. The food had coagulated on contact with air, and each dish looked like a regurgitated version of itself.
She didn’t seem to notice and began to shovel the food into her mouth. I could feel her watching me, but I kept my eyes fixed on a spot on the wall above her head. Had that stain been there when I moved in? I could hear her chewing, the noises of slurping and crunching. Then the sound of her uncorking the wine and pouring us each a glass. I heard her glugging hers as if it were water. Still, even when she belched, I didn’t respond.
She began talking—a stream of office banter. Something about Rula Maven popping diet pills in the third-floor ladies’ room. “I’m telling you, her days are numbered. I mean, she’s pulling some Karen Carpenter shit. Her legs are like itty-bitty twigs you could snap—”
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br /> She went quiet. I looked at her. Her mouth was twisted into a line of worry. “What’s the matter?” she said. “Why are you being so quiet?” For a moment I was afraid she might cry. Her voice was thick with emotion when she spoke again. “You’ve been acting funny for a while. I mean, shit, you won’t even look at me.”
I looked at her now. “Listen. I know you found me this place, and of course I appreciate it, but, well, I didn’t say we were going to be best friends. I didn’t say you could just show up like this—”
She scoffed. “But Rocky.”
I threw down my napkin. “My name isn’t Rocky.”
Greta affected a pleading expression and pushed her plate of half-eaten food toward me, like a reluctant offering.
We were quiet. I could hear the wind pressing against the pane, a car horn bleating down on the street like a stuck sheep, and somewhere, nearby, in the building, a man sobbing, interrupted occasionally by another man’s barked scolding.
I stood up and went to the window, hoping she would catch the hint. But she just sat there in front of the cooling dish of shrimp and noodles. “I need to go to bed, if you don’t mind.”
Out the window I saw the drug dealer’s silver Jeep. Saw an arm hanging out the window, patting the side of the car to the beat of the thudding bass.
I could feel that Greta was not moving.
I turned to face her.
She was holding a fork and I watched as she drew a line through the brown sauce on her plate, then a line on top of it, a line below it. The letter I. Her eyes were all wet and puffy, and there were tear streaks, just drying, on her skin. When had she cried? I hadn’t heard it happening.
She cracked a slow, crooked smile that made my teeth hurt. “I got us a present. You’re gonna love it.”
She reached under the table and pulled out the Duane Reade bag. She took out some kind of beauty kit; I could make out a row of photographs, each showing a close-up of a different body part. From where I stood I made out a stomach, an arm, a leg, an upper lip. REMOVE UNWANTED HAIR.
Greta pulled a lavender contraption out of the box. “See, I was thinking, we can wax each other. We can make it into a little thing we do, like playing beauty shop every few weeks. Think of all the money we’d save.” She pulled out the rest of the equipment and began to fiddle with plugs and plastic bags and tubes of wax as she said, “I don’t know about you, but I’m starting to look like Magilla Gorilla down there.”
“Please, you have to leave. It’s late.”
Greta ignored me and plugged the contraption into the wall. An orange light went on. Next, she pulled muslin strips out and stacked them neatly on the table.
Then she stood up and began to unbutton her slacks.
“Greta, stop. I’m serious. Let’s do it another time.”
She ignored me and continued to pull down her pants. Her underwear was visible now.
I raised my voice. “You have to go home.”
She stopped with her pants around her knees and glared at me. “Go home now?” She looked around the apartment. “You’re kicking me out of here? At this hour?”
“I have to sleep, to work.”
“After I just heated this shit up? Jesus, sometimes I wonder about you. I really fucking do.”
But she did as I said. She pulled her pants back up and began to slam things around, putting away the waxing contraption and the muslin strips. When she’d finished, she said, “Walk me to the subway. It’s dangerous out there, you know.”
Outside, a thick fog hung over Brooklyn, making it appear like a stage set for a play. The streets were empty but for the occasional hurried pedestrian, shoes clicking and face turned down against the cold.
Greta sulked as she walked, arms folded across her chest. “I hate it.”
I didn’t ask what, but I didn’t have to.
She began to rant. “New York. This city, with all these people multiplying like rats. I hate that. And you know what else? I hate that all the black men with brains or money are looking for white pussy to validate them, and all the white dudes treat me like I’m a goddamned vacation from their real life. I hate the niggers who are always whining about how somebody owes them something when they haven’t done shit to deserve it anyway. I hate all those little white cocks at work who treat me like a crack mama because I’ve lived a little. I hate Rula Maven, that goddamned skeletal bitch, I’d like to force-feed her a pile of horse manure. And you know what else I hate? I hate all those nappy-haired bitches who gave me such hell growing up ‘cause I had light skin and long hair and they didn’t. Skanky jealous ho’s. Shit. And you know what else? I hate Jews. You know why I hate Jews? Because they could have been somebody. I mean, they could have been a great race, and instead they’ve spent so much time around the WASPs that all that mediocrity has rubbed off on them. I mean, have you ever noticed how mediocre white boys are at whatever they set their minds to? Mediocrity personified. It’s like if they put the square in the square and the circle in the circle they think they deserve a goddamned Pulitzer Prize. At least niggers are not mediocre.” Greta was half shouting. “I mean, we’re the most extreme motherfuckers on the planet—we’re either geniuses or idiots. But at least we’re not mediocre like some goddamned crackers. And who else? Oh yeah. I hate Jiminy, ‘cause he’s a goddamned honky liar who wishes he was black. Man, if there’s anything I hate, it’s white people. They’re all suffering from some chronic motherfucking disease that makes them say stupid shit. Whiteyisms. Like they still think we’re monkeys after all the goddamned evidence to the contrary. I hate that.”
Her words edged toward meaning, toward clarity, a position, then veered away. Each sentence seemed to negate itself, and my head hurt from hearing it.
“I hate this crap neighborhood. God, I hate this neighborhood. With these repulsive ghetto bitches and their endlessly replicating babies everywhere. I hate them. And the fucking honky faggots who keep moving in—trying to ‘spruce things up.’ Goddamned disease factories. That’s what they are. Spreading their plague everywhere. I hate them. I really do.”
We were at the subway now. Greta turned to face me.
“But don’t get me wrong.” Her voice had gone soft. “I love you.” She smiled, tilting her head down as she spoke. “I love you so much it literally makes me want to throw up. I mean, it’s like I’m stuffed with it—this love. I woke up the other morning and I said, ‘It’s too much.’ Like I just wanted to stick a toothbrush down my throat and get it out of me. But I knew it was too late for that. It’s not in my stomach anymore. It’s in my blood and my bones and my skin. It’s with me. Forever. Just like I’m with you. Forever.”
Artificial heat blew up from the steps.
“Greta,” I said, choosing my next words carefully. “I think we should put this friendship on ice—”
“‘Greta,’” she repeated in a singsong voice. “‘I think we should put this friendship on ice—’” She let out a harsh scoff. “You don’t even get it. I’m the best fucking friend you’ll ever have. And when all your boys, white, black, Puerto Rican, have come and gone—and mark my words, they will disappear—and Lola has sold you downriver, which she will, mark my words, when all them motherfuckers have left you high and dry, I’ll be here beside you. But you’re too full of yourself to see that, you’re too damn—”
I hugged my arms tightly to my chest, shivering now. “I’m sorry, Greta. It’s not personal.” I thought of a line somebody said to me once in college, and spoke it aloud, “It’s just that I’m not into women.”
Greta laughed through her tears. “Neither am I, you idiot. ‘Into women.’ God, don’t insult me with your banalities. This isn’t some dyke come-on. Yuck. Don’t you understand? This is about the future. We could build our own reality. Fuck all those motherfuckers. Fuck the white boys and the white girls and the niggers and the gooks. Fuck the dykes and the shirt-lifters. We don’t need them. We’re a new race. A new people.”
“This is insane,” I said. “I�
�m going home.”
“‘This is insane,’” she repeated. “‘I’m going home.’”
Then she turned and trudged down the steps into the city’s dark innards.
20
G RETA STOPPED HASSLING ME after that night. It was hard to believe, but the problem simply dissipated, like a thick fog suddenly lifting, leaving no trace. I saw her around the office. I said hello and she said a curt hello back, but didn’t meet my eyes, and if you didn’t know any better, you might have thought we’d never known each other at all.
I’d see her in the cafeteria or in the hall, and I’d remember things she’d said to me in the brief heyday of our friendship. Words and phrases conjured up by the sight of her face. Minister of information. Xanadu. Raceless lady, you know who I am.
She changed over those weeks. I took notice, even if we didn’t speak. Her change didn’t look so much like a change as a settling. She succumbed to the bad habits she’d struggled against before. She gave up on any semblance of professionalism and wore her pair of New Balance running shoes around the office, leaving her low-heeled pumps beneath her desk. She came to work with the ghostly white chalk of Clearasil on her forehead and the crust of toothpaste in the corners of her mouth. One day when I walked past her cubicle, I saw that her desk was now bare. Gone was the freebie cup from McDonald’s, the row of yellowing Cathy cartoons she’d tacked to her headboard. She’d tossed these all out, and the desk looked as if it were being used by a temp, not a full-time staff member. Gone, too, were her sparkly seventies makeup and the vivid Winter colors she’d been so careful to dress in all fall. Now she came barefaced to the office, her hair pulled back in a bun, donning colors that would have sent Dorothea into paroxysms of rage. Mustard yellow and off-white and fiery orange and lime green that didn’t flatter her. Dorothea had not lied.
At lunch, she took to sitting at the secretaries’ table—the one she’d once referred to as “the pig pen,” squashed between Donna, the Italian-American matronly secretary, and Lisette, the aging black redhead who worked in Human Resources.