She said she never felt better. She asked about Venice Beach and the video shoot. We talked about her visiting me out there. She apologized for being “hysterical” on the phone.
“You were sick,” I said.
“I really think it was the AZT,” she said. “It made me psychotic. I literally broke into several people, all arguing with one another. Some of them wanted to live; some wanted to die. I was awake, but I saw it like a dream. It was me, attacking a woman who was also me. A third woman—also me, natch— came to her rescue and stopped me. But the one I had attacked defended me; she understood why I’d done it—she understood completely. But the third—well, that part, I can’t remember. Do you think I’m crazy?”
“No,” I said.
“I knew you’d understand.” She sounded genuinely relieved. “You’re probably the only person I could tell.”
It was Sunday afternoon and the restaurant was crowded, its rooms full of pleasant talk. There was a table of gay men sitting across from us, and I was drawn by their ease and com-panionability. My attention hovered on them for a moment, receiving the affected, elegant lilt of their voices with vicarious enjoyment. Then my reaction swerved sharply. Their voices sounded contorted, tortured into fluted curlicues. They seemed to reflect base souls trying to hide their baseness under the thinnest of pretensions—and then to exaggerate the pretense, as though it were something great. They all talk like that, I thought. You can always tell a fag. And Veronica is just like them. She talks just like them.
Mortified, I divided like Veronica in her sick-vision. Shut up, I told myself, shut up!
“After I got off the phone with you, I decided I wanted to live,-” continued Veronica. “All of me. I got up the next day at five-thirty in the morning and made myself go out to the deli on the corner for poached eggs and toast. No wonder I was so weak—it was the first real food I’d had for days. It was so good,
Alison, I can’t tell you. I felt life coming back into my body. It was still dark outside and I had this wonderful feeling of safety and warmth. I loved watching the countermen setting up, filling the sugar dispensers, putting out all the litde creamers. I flirted with them and they flirted back, even though I looked like hell.”
Her voice was the same bitterly inflected instrument I had just despised. But now there was hope in its center, and that subdy made it sweeter. The sweetness didn’t go with the habitual hard showiness of the voice, and the incongruence gave it a wobbly, unprotected quality that pierced me. I love her, I thought. I love her.
But then she said something with such force that a tiny bit of spit flew from her mouth and landed on my hand. I jerked it away as if I’d been bitten. There had been no thought or even feeling behind it. It was pure reflex. For a second, the conversation stopped. Then Veronica changed the subject. There was no sweetness in her voice.
We left the restaurant and took a walk down Seventh Avenue. The sun gave everything a glow that crackled in the stark cold. Hungrily, I took in the aging patchwork of buildings, the rhythmic pattern of traffic, the people, walking with miraculous order and civility. I had no hateful thoughts. I enjoyed our walk.
The next night, I went to see a play with Veronica, her old friend George, and David, a boy George was dating. When I heard George would be coming, I was surprised—the last I’d heard of him, Veronica had called him a “misogynist.” But when I arrived at the restaurant before the show, my surprise evaporated. The two men were wearing suits and ties; Veronica wore a suit, too. The men were leaning slightly toward her, their faces expressing pleased alertness, as if they were courtiers in the presence of a queen known for her extraordinary wit and didn’t want to miss the slightest nuance of her royal demeanor, let alone her words. They were lavishing this attention on Veronica like praise, ensconcing her in their regard as if it were flowers. They knew she was sick and they were very likely afraid they were about to get sick, too. But their bodies did not speak of this. They sat erect and open, as if the best of life was ahead of them. They gave their courage to the sick woman so that she would be upheld.
When George stood to greet me, I surprised him with a full embrace. He and David complimented me on photos they had seen, not mentioning that they hadn’t seen any for a while. They asked me about Nadia again and again. Veronica drank soda water, but the rest of us shared bottles of wine. We talked about films, books, magazines. Veronica and George quoted lines from All About Eve back and forth intermittendy. (“I heard your story in passing.” “That’s how you met me, in passing.”) We had big desserts and then piled into a cab as if we were wearing capes and carrying walking sticks. (“I told my story in bits and pieces.” “That’s how I met you, in bits and pieces.”)
When we got to the theater, I went to the bathroom, leaving the others in the lobby. When I came back, I saw them before they saw me. George was talking to Veronica, his back to me. David was behind Veronica, looking over her head at George. He was taller than George and I could see his expression clearly. He looked bewildered and scared. I thought, He is even younger than I am. Then he saw me looking at him and smiled brighdy. We all went to the play.
But when I got in bed that night, the hate came on me again. With no conversation or pots of flannel hash to dim it, it came big and loud. Gnawing and terrified, it ran back and forth in erratic diagonals, exuding grotesque visions: a handsome gay man, a hairdresser I’d just had dinner with—hate made his teeth and nose pointy and foregrounded like a dog’s snout. It squeezed him together with the flute-voiced men at the restaurant and with Duncan in Central Park, pulling his ass open, his
body reduced to a dumb totem with a single meaning. And with Veronica, her ugly face, her proofreader’s kit—her rulers, her box of colored pencils—her prissiness, which denied the shit of the world and so drew it down upon herself.
Sweating, I twisted in my bed. I thought: I tried to be so liberal, so free. I lied to myself. Those men were always about death. And Veronica chose them. That’s why she’s dying.
I sat up and turned on the light. I saw myself in the mirror, disheveled and shrunken, my head looking strangely small on my long neck, my eyes remote and ashamed. So this was who I really was. I wanted to blame my father, but I couldn’t. This was who I was. I thought of David’s face in the theater, the way he’d smiled when he saw me looking. I thought of Mrs. Lowry, the way she’d tartly said, “Well, you should.” I thought of the rivulet of hope and sweetness in Veronica’s voice. Sadness brimmed; it bore up my hate like water bears ice and carries it away.
I stayed in New York for ten days. During that time, I saw no one but Veronica. “I told my aunt you’d come to visit me,” she said. “And she asked, ‘How much did you pay her?’ I said, ‘Dolores, would you listen to yourself? She’s my friend. She came because she cares about me.’”
I arrived back in L.A. at night. John picked me up and took me to dinner at an all-hours place with a boiling dark air. He looked angry. He kept telling me I had to learn to drive if I expected L.A. to work out for me. I drank too much and took him back to my place. Maybe I felt I owed him. Maybe I liked him. Maybe the demon whispered, Do it with him! In any case, it didn’t work out. He kissed me too hard and touched me with violent
shyness. We rolled awkwardly on my sectional couch; it came apart and almost dumped us on the floor.
“You’re so beautiful,” he blurted.
“I’m not beautiful,” I blurted back. “I’m ugly.”
He reared away, frowning. He was taking it as an insult, and with reason. But it would not be taken back. “You’re beautiful,” he said angrily.
“No I’m not. I’m ugly.”
He slapped me. I fell off the couch. He sat on the edge of it and held my shoulders. I could see in his eyes that his heart was pounding. “Stop saying that!” he said intensely.
“No! I’m ugly, ugly!” My voice was ugly.
He slapped me again. I tried to stop him. He held my wrists. Now we were really in it. The room was buzzing with t
he energy of it. “Tell me you’re beautiful!” he said, coldly now. I wouldn’t. “You’re beautiful,” he said, and slapped me again.
“John, please stop.”
“Say you’re beautiful.”
But I couldn’t get the words out. He slapped me until my ears sang. Finally, to stop the hitting, I said what he wanted to hear. He let go of me and sat back as if deflated.
“Don’t you see?” My voice broke. I was nearly crying “Don’t you see how ugly I am?”
“No,” he said quiedy. “I don’t.” He crossed his legs and looked away.
I asked if he wanted a drink. He said no, that was okay. He said he was going to go but that he could tuck me in if I wanted. I said no, that was okay. I saw him to the door; we kissed quickly, on the lips.
We didn’t see each other for a few weeks. Then I called him and asked him to drive me to a job, and things went back to normal. Except I didn’t see anger in his eyes for a long time. I saw sadness.
When I (old Veronica about John slapping me, she said, “Ooh that sounds kind of sexy.”
“Maybe if it had been somebody else. With John, it was just weird.”
She didn’t seem surprised that I’d said I was ugly, nor did she act like there was anything strange about it. I appreciated that.
I went to New York every month for the next six. When I wasn’t in New York, I talked to Veronica on the phone. She complained about her doctor, her neighbors, her sister, people at work, people on the street, at the movies, in the store, and at the gym. She insulted David and fell out with George. She had a screaming match with the woman who lived above her, a “bitch” who walked on her hardwood floor in high heels, making a “murderous” noise. Her exterior became to me like a vast prickly thicket broken by patches of ice and tiny, weirdly pursed receptors built only to receive what they’d heard before. It was boring and ugly. You couldn’t talk to it. I’m sure she knew I felt this way. But she didn’t get angry. Probably she didn’t dare. If she’d lost me, she would’ve had no one.
“I’m always the one to call,” I said. “I’ll wait for you to call next time.”
“I understand, hon,” she said. “You’re setting your boundaries.”
“I’m not setting anything,” I said. “We can talk anytime. It’s just that you never call me, and I don’t want to bother you.” “I don’t have anything to talk about except my new disgusting aches and pains. It’s just depressing.”
“I don’t care if it’s depressing. I want to know what’s going on with you.”
“It may not be too depressing for you, hon. But it’s too depressing for me.”
And so, when we met, I talked brightly about nothing and she let herself be drawn into bright nothingness. But I could see dark shapes moving behind her eyes.
Daphne’s baby was born in June. They sent me a Polaroid of the delivery: a splayed leg, my sister’s extruded red flesh, a bloody cord; life caught in the doctor’s great mitt. My mother’s head between the open leg and the far border of the photograph, grinning from ear to ear. Later, I balked when they handed me the infant, a girl named Star. But when I held her, it was like two opposite electrical poles lit up inside me and discharged twin bolts that met and joined. It was a small place inside me and far away, but I felt it.
That summer was moist and hot. The city exhaled, farted, and sweated through the bars of its concrete cage like a massive animal of flesh and steel, glass and bristled hair. It sent up a mighty stink to carry all the little smells that played in and out of it—flowers, dirt, cars, garbage, piss, and food. I called Selina and we went to see a band. They played in a modest venue, a dark and delicious place with a copious flow of strange faces and a bar of colored bottles lit up like the Emerald City. I drank and bit the rim of my plastic cup and lost myself in the music on the sound system. I had succeeded. I had become like this music. My face had been a note in a piece of continuous music that rolled over people while they talked and drank and married and made babies. No one remembers a particular note. No one remembers a piece of grass. But it does its part. I had done my part.
The sound system cut off. The band came onstage. The front man was rail-thin, with gaunt eyes and pale, pouchy cheeks. He carried himself like a dandy, but rawness hung olf him like the smell of meat. He picked up his guitar; dandified feeling came out of it. They weren’t good, but it didn’t matter. The
room was full of life that wanted forms to hold it, and it wasn’t picky. Neither were we. We watched as if we were witnessing the preservation of a place in our collective heart—a place that had once been primary and that now had become so layered with auxiliary concerns that we no longer knew what it was or where it was. And now we felt it: secret and tender, and with so many chambers. Some were dark, with bats flying out. Some were speed, light, and joy. Some were tenderness and soft red flesh. Some had babies curled inside them. Some were the places where all the others mingled. I remembered standing on the street with Lilet, eating ice cream off a paper plate and bags of hot cashews. I remembered rooms of strangers and people dancing and a boy who said, “And then I fertilized it!”
Selina put her arm around me and I leaned into her a little. In a chamber of my heart was Daphne, her open leg radiating triumph and pride, and my mother’s grinning face between her legs, a net of love to catch the baby when it came. In another chamber was Nadia, sailing like a ship, her scorn unfurled like silk sails. I saw the German woman from behind, walking alone down a dark corridor, almost disappeared. There was Sara, living in an enchanted shadow world only she could see. There was Veronica alone in her apartment, locked in full-engagement with forces the musicians lightly referred to. The song said nothing about any of them, but they were part of it anyway.
I wished I could tell them all about this, tell them what I saw. But I wouldn’t be able to find the right words for conversation. Even if I did, it wouldn’t make sense to them, any more than my father talking of his favorite songs made sense to the men he worked with.
The music turned the corner of a darkly baubled wall. I imagined Veronica alone in the dark, waiting for the brute that stalked her to show itself in full. I imagined her horror at the small eruptions of death on her body—the sores, infections,
rashes, yeast, and liquid shit. I imagined her holed up in the part of herself where all was still orderly and clean, insistently maintaining the propriety and congruence that had enabled her to get through the senselessly disordered world, and that was slowly being taken from her.
Even more than the others, I wanted to tell her this. I wanted her to know that even though she was dying, she was still included in the story told by the music. That she wasn’t completely and brutally alone. The music raised its lamp and illuminated its own dark interior. I will tell her, I thought. I will remember and I will tell her.
I went to visit Veronica the next day. She put out a tray of brownies in special pink paper, fruit, and cheeses. Her breathing was labored; it must’ve been hard to go out for the food, and she couldn’t even eat it. In her presence, what had been important and true the previous night seemed trivial. But it was what I had to offer.
“I thought about you,” I said, “because the music was so dramatic and a little dark and—first, it reminded me of the story you told me about being on the mountain with that Balkan guy?”
She nodded, a little dazed, an eyebrow cocked.
“But also the whole event was trying to create this experience, this feeling that these guys were great because they were really dealing with something. Compared to you, they weren’t dealing with shit. I don’t mean just because what you’re dealing with is bad, but because it’s real.”
Veronica’s face went from bewildered to hard. “This isn’t a rock song, hon,” she said.
“I know, I—” I felt my face reddening. “I know it sounds stupid, but I just mean ... I thought of you. I thought how
strong you are and how much guts you have. You’re the realest person I know. You are! Other people j
ust write songs and strike poses and...”
Veronica turned and looked at the last cat. The gesture was more eloquent than any cutting remark. Silence fell, slow as dust. I realized I was holding my breath; with difficulty, I exhaled.
“Do you have a home lined up for her yet?” I asked.
“No. Not yet. I’m supposed to talk to someone tomorrow.”
“I could take her,” I said.
She didn’t answer me. I thought, In a minute, I will leave.
“Do you remember the nun who tended Duncan in the hospital?” she asked. “Dymphna Drydell?”
“Sister Drycrotch?”
“Yes, well, Dymphna wasn’t her name. It was Dorothea, but she said we could call her Dymphna if we wanted to. She was a lovely person. She sang to Duncan one night. She sang him a lullaby.”
Outside, someone shouted; gray car noise went down the block. In a minute, I would leave.
“Don’t think I’m angry with you, Allie.” She was still looking at the cat. “I’ve never been angry with you.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know.”
I got up and sat beside her. Finally, she looked at me. Her face was stunned and drained. I put my hand on her breastbone. I felt her subtly respond. Shyly, I rubbed her.
The trail runs into a wide road on a high plateau overlooking the entire Bay Area. The rain is now a low drizzle. The fog is still very thick, but it is moving; to my distant right lies the ocean and the bony spangle of the Golden Gate Bridge. I lick my dry Ups. I try to imagine myself connected to Veronica even now,
but there is no weight to my imagining, I want to know who she was, but I can’t because I didn’t look in time. When I look now, I see a smile hanging in darkness. Then I tip over, pulled down by my own weight. I have the last of the water and tuck the bottle back in my bag.
I rubbed Veronica’s chest and then I left. I said, “Call me if anything happens,” and she walked me to the door. I hugged her and she said, “Wait a minute, hon.” She took a ring off her finger and gave it to me. It was a handsome sienna-colored stone set in ornate silver. “It’s a carnelian,” she said. “Duncan gave it to me the second time we saw each other. He put it on my finger and then he kissed it.” She put it on my finger. She squeezed my hand. She said, “Good-bye, sweetheart.” And she smiled.
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