Notes on a Banana

by David Leite

  The previous fall semester, my grades had plummeted so low that I’d been put on academic probation. Even my grade in voice and speech, which in freshman year had been an A, had fallen to a C. At first, Angela had tried to rally me in acting class, joking affectionately, finding every way into my work to pinpoint my problem. Once, she had even pulled me into the hall to verbally bitch-slap me into the moment. Nothing had worked. By December, she had given up. In the coup de grâce, she transferred me out of her class and into another section. A demotion. If I’d been myself, I would have been gutted by her abandonment. Instead, I was relieved. I was out from under the heft of her disappointment. But just before the semester started, my new teacher had gone on sabbatical, and Angela had taken over his class. Which was how I ended up standing in front of her, defeated, bracing for her critique.

  “That was caca,” she said through her clenched jaw. “You were indicating all over the place. I didn’t believe a minute of what you did. What’s wrong with you?” Everyone fought hard to find a place to look at that wasn’t me. My scene partner was near tears. I couldn’t disagree with Angela: I was vacant.

  At the end of class, everyone filed out, and I pulled Angela aside. She was hugging a notebook to her chest, as if trying to protect herself. Wrapped around her shoulders, a black shawl with lots of fringe. She looked like one of her beloved Chekhov characters.

  “I think I need to leave school.”

  She scanned my face, as if looking for a sign—the reason for my spectacular headfirst plunge into mediocrity.

  “I think you should, too,” she said finally, and walked away. At the door, she paused, as if considering an apology, then turned around. “David, do yourself a favor and come out of the closet. And for God’s sake, leave that poor girl alone.”

  I stood gawking for a long time. Nothing was registering. I was swaddled in a dissociative blankness that was like thick cotton batting. The next class trickled in, staring at me staring at the door. Caught, I grabbed my bag and walked out of the fine arts building, and across campus to the administration offices to take a leave of absence.

  Flee, defect, escape, cut and run.

  With my scholarships and work-study on hold because I’d dropped out, I was broke. My parents floated me for several months, but attached to each money order—covered with little hearts and with “Jesus Loves You” written in the memo field—was my mother’s implied plea to come home, forget about Pittsburgh. To burrow in where I belonged.

  “This will always be your home, Son,” my father said on the phone. I could hear the TV, which meant my mother was on the extension.

  “I know, Daddy. I just need to make it work here.” A soft click. She’d hung up.

  “God bless you, then.”

  I’m not sure how I found the job, whether it was listed on a bulletin board in the administration offices, or Bridget had heard about it and passed it on, but there I was across town in Squirrel Hill on the doorstep of a CMU professor, about to interview to be the family cook.

  “Come in, come in!” Professor Hollis said, waving me into the large foyer.

  I was stupendously underqualified. My entire repertoire consisted of hamburgers, tuna-salad sandwiches, Toll House cookies, crêpes, and the Magic Pan salad. I had one cookbook that, along with my dictionary, thesaurus, and Bible, I took wherever I moved: my beat-up copy of Betty Crocker’s New Boys and Girls Cookbook. And that was for sentimental reasons.

  As he patted his rumpled shirt and sagging trousers for the glasses lost on the top of his head, I followed him into the dining room. Skyscrapers of papers, magazines, and bills rose from one end of the huge table. Shelves lining the wall were crammed with books, wadded-up newspapers, board games shoved in askew. There was a dog somewhere; I could smell unwashed fur and Fritos—that unmistakable scent of canine paws. Every surface was dented and burnished by life, and I instantly felt at home. I began to wonder if pigs in a blanket and s’mores, or maybe even my lasagna (but this time made with mozzarella, Parmesan, and ricotta), wouldn’t be so out of the question.

  In the kitchen, Professor Hollis scraped a worn wooden chair away from the table for me. He leaned against the counter.

  “So, are you a student at CMU?”

  My stomach rolled over on itself. It was the first time it had dawned on me that I had no role, no appositive after my name that defined me: David Leite, scholarship recipient; David Leite, acting student; David Leite, top of his class. I considered lying; it seemed less complicated. “I was. I left.”

  “Probably for the best. I find it almost always is.” Not a hint of judgment in his voice. I fought the impulse to hug him.

  “You have cooked before?”

  “Of course.” Technically true.

  “For others.”

  “Yes.” Again, technically true.

  “Good. There are four of us,” he continued. I nodded, trying to ignore the waft of garbage coming from under the sink. “We eat everything, so no worries there.” I nodded again. “Whatever you make, just leave it on the stove or in the fridge with a note of how to reheat it. That’s it, really.”

  “Sounds . . . great.”

  “And feel free to use those.” He pointed to a line of ragged cookbooks above the refrigerator. Pieces of paper sprouted from their tops, like so many weeds.

  “Let me guess: favorites?” I asked. He looked baffled. “The bookmarks.”

  “Oh!” he laughed. “Hardly.” He pulled down a book and handed it to me. As I flipped through, forgotten shopping lists, dry-cleaning receipts, and articles cut from newspapers fluttered out. “I think things get swept up when we clear the table.” Another flip, and a wedding band clinked onto the table. “Ha! My wife’s been looking for this for months,” he said, sliding it on his little finger. I was enchanted.

  He explained that all I had to do was arrive by three o’clock and be out by five-thirty. I was responsible for cleaning up after myself and setting the table. On Fridays, I was to leave a grocery list for the next week, and someone would shop and stock the fridge and cupboards.

  “Well?”

  “I’ll take it.” He handed me a key to the house, and we agreed I’d start the following Monday.

  Even though leaving school had been my choice, grief still hollowed me. For months after, I was living on theater-department time. In the morning, while I stared through a cup of cooling coffee at a breakfast joint on Walnut Street, I knew everyone was in voice and speech, warming up, asses pitched high while moving through sun salutations. While watching TV, I’d suddenly lift my head, as if on cue, and realize they were now at lunch in the Kiltie Café. Sitting in the office of Kim Mueller, the shrink I’d started seeing during fall semester, I was aware that at that precise moment, someone was in the basement of Margaret Morrison, unpacking a bag full of props and getting ready for scene-study class. Talking to Kim, who was stony-faced in her expensive Eames chair, I could feel part of myself in that basement, a phantom gliding among once-friends.

  But at the Hollises’, it was different. In the kitchen, time shape-shifted. It was no longer linear or linked to anything. It was free-floating and independent. Being alone for those few hours, rummaging through their gouged and sagging cabinets, was like watching Julia Child all those years ago. It was a chance to forget for a while. I’d lean over the counter and tumble into the cookbooks, zigzagging my finger down the instructions—Read the recipe all the way through, Julia had instructed—and then I’d lay out the ingredients in the order I’d use them. Mise en place, she called it. Translation: Put in place. There was a kind of pleasure in being able to impose control and order on something, even if I couldn’t impose it on myself. At times, rare and unexpected, I’d feel small, almost imperceptible shivers of happiness.

  I was learning, too. I had never cooked with fresh herbs other than frizzled, curly parsley, with its wild green Afro. I’d crush them between my fingers and inhale, trying to understand them. The licorice of tarragon, the pine of rosemary, the wet
woodiness of thyme. The family were chicken lovers, I discovered. So I made chicken in sour-cream sauce; chicken à la Kiev; curried chicken, which, with its frontal assault of garlic, ginger, and cayenne pepper, was a revelation. I exhausted the chicken chapter in a battered original edition of The New York Times Cookbook by Craig Claiborne. Flipping to other chapters and thumbing through more books, I learned that the “Lorraine” in quiche Lorraine meant bacon and Gruyère cheese. I had never heard of blanquette de veau, essentially a veal stew in cream sauce, but when it was requested for a dinner party, it wasn’t just a hit for the family, but for me, too. I accomplished something I had never done before. And there were no critiques, no two dozen pairs of eyes watching me. If anything, I got notes of thanks stuck to the fridge with magnets.

  When I wasn’t happily lost in the Hollises’ kitchen, I slumped. The Quiet Self, a marionette with cut strings. Bridget was never around because of class and crew, and I refused to see my other former classmates—I could just imagine their pitying looks and karma-is-a-bitch smirks. So in the mornings I burrowed in my bedroom, listening as Clara started her day across the hall. Anxiety frizzled as I heard the murmur of the TV, the clinking of fork on plate, the soft thwump of the refrigerator door closing, an occasional bray of laughter. At one time, it had been the exceptional in life that had made me feel less-than, incompetent. Now, it was the mundane. The idea of merely getting up, sun splashing into the hall between our rooms, wracked me with panic. Small, everyday pleasures caused such angst and guilt. They reminded me I was constitutionally unable to be buoyed by something outside of myself. I craved gray, obliterating skies, or better yet, night; the cold shoulder of winter; lashing storms—anything a normal person would consider depressing, because I found refuge in them. Unlike an animal that changes its appearance to blend into the background, I felt camouflaged by bleak, gloomy surroundings, and I didn’t have to explain myself to others. Didn’t everyone get down on rainy days and Mondays? They even wrote a song about that.

  Despondent one night, I called Kim Mueller from a pay phone. I was too scared to call from home and risk anyone overhearing.

  “I think I need to be hospitalized,” I whispered, looking up and down Fifth Avenue.

  A pause. “Do you want to be hospitalized?”

  “Everyone, say hello to our new patient, David,” says Nurse Ratched. She’s stern-looking, her hair wrapped into two giant rolls that look like beer cans hanging off the sides of her face.

  A bunch of men are shuffling around the day room, some with their asses exposed, some smelling of dirty armpits, others of piss and shit. One guy looks like his face is melting, his left eye dripping toward his lips. They form a circle around me.

  “Wha-wha-whadja say your name was a-a-gain?” says a thin, wiry guy with eyes like billiard balls.

  “David.”

  A wild-looking dude in a leather jacket offers me some Juicy Fruit gum. I shake my head no.

  They start pawing at me, pulling at my clothes, molding my face like clay. One short stub of a guy grabs me hard in the balls. “Now this is a man! He doesn’t have a thimble for a dick like me,” he shouts, eyes rolling, as he lifts his hospital gown for us to see.

  Shit. I didn’t think this through. I’d heard stories of people being voluntarily committed to a psych ward, and they never got out. What if that was me? I hadn’t breathed a word of hospitals to Bridget; we weren’t seeing each other much these days. Our lives were spinning in different orbits. Hers: a tight circle of school, friends, performances. Mine: a weightless drift of slowly losing my mind.

  “Maybe we should talk more about this during our next session.” Then I hung up.

  Late that spring, I dragged myself to the Hollises’ after a particularly fruitless therapy session. Kim had leaned forward in her expensive chair, her impassive face a mask, battering me with questions I was at a loss to answer: Did I see my mother as a Madonna figure and all other women, who couldn’t live up to her, whores? (Thanks to that one question, I was besieged with nightmares of being chased by a phalanx of women wearing nothing but rosary beads and fuck-me pumps.) Was I, perhaps, gay as a way of punishing my mother?

  “Punishing her for what?”

  “You tell me.”

  I had only Dr. Copley back at Bradley Hospital as a comparison, but I was beginning to think Kim Mueller of the Eames Chair sucked as a therapist.

  Deflated, I flipped through the Hollises’ massive music collection and slipped in a cassette tape. Prince told me to party like it was 1999, a date so, so far away. I’ll be thirty-nine, I said to myself, as I slid the cast-iron skillet onto a burner. I imagined living in that house, married to Bridget, a pair of arguing teenagers upstairs—just like I’d told her that day on her bed. Joshua would take after me, but Benjamin would be all Bridget. I dropped a knob of butter into the pan and watched as it melted and slumped to the edge. I took a wooden spoon and swirled it. I had no idea what I would make, but I knew if I started with butter, it would turn out okay. I remembered the note Professor Hollis had scrawled to me several weeks earlier: “You can make your mustard chicken for us anytime. My wife loved it.” Chicken, then. Yes, mustard chicken. And for that I didn’t need a cookbook anymore.

  As much as I found refuge and healing in their kitchen, I had to leave the Hollises. The pay wasn’t cutting it, and I was broke. Sensing things were getting worse, my mother campaigned hard to get me to move back home. During calls, I could feel her gripping the phone, knuckles yellow, as she tried to contain herself: “Sweetheart, you can go back to art school at Rhode Island School of Design. Remember how much you liked taking photography classes there when you were in high school? Then you can act in Providence, or,” trying to make it sound enticing, like she was holding out a candy dish of Hershey Kisses, “Boston.”

  “Ma . . .” It was less a protest than a plea.

  When I gave my two-week notice, Professor Hollis looked as if I’d gut-punched him. “Isn’t there anything we can do to get you to stay?” Yes, pay me more money, so I can live and not have to keep borrowing from my parents, I wanted to say. He couldn’t afford to pay me a full-time salary, which is what I needed, and I had to begin living for more than two and a half hours a day. This time, I did lie: “I have another job.”

  “Well, then . . .” He offered his hand, and as I shook it, he clasped his left hand over mine like a big paw, engulfing it. “We’ll miss you.”

  I nodded vigorously, a fist in my throat preventing me from speaking.

  Flat out of options. I had played my last hand, called in every favor. My resistance was so low, anyone with a half-cocked solution had my full attention.

  20

  THE WALKING DEAD

  It’s a kind of philosophy,” said Judith to Bridget and me, cutting a quiche and nudging slices onto plates. “It teaches you about the world.” Judith was a friend of ours, and the only person left rooting for us as a couple. I was half-listening as I folded paper towels for napkins. All this talk about “opposites” and “liking the world” sounded like a steaming pile of therapy horseshit worthy of Kim.

  “Part of what they do is help gay men turn straight.” Now she had my attention.

  “What’s it called again?” Bridget asked.

  “Aesthetic Realism.” Weird name, I thought.

  During lunch, she told us her brother-in-law Tom had been gay, but now was married and lived with his wife and two kids in Greenwich Village. “You’d love him, too. He has a great sense of humor about it.” Tom was the first person I’d ever heard of changing; I had to meet this guy.

  “How do these aesthetes turn straight?”

  “Oh, the gay thing is just one part of what they do. You could study, too,” she said to Bridget. “And you don’t have to live in New York, where they are; you can do it by phone.”

  Taking the number from Judith, we ordered literature from the Aesthetic Realism Foundation and began brushing up before our first phone session, called a “consultation.” Aesthetic
Realism, we read, had been founded in 1941 by the poet Eli Siegel. Its core belief is that beauty, in art and in the world, is the “making one of opposites”—his poetic way of saying we’re all trying to grapple with opposing forces in ourselves and in the world. That was a fascinating concept when I first read it, and I still believe it. It seemed to address my periods of extroversion and introversion, the extreme highs and lows I’d been experiencing.

  But as I curled up on the couch reading, I grew itchy from what came across as sycophantic adoration. Siegel’s followers believed he was the greatest man who ever lived, and his Self and World the greatest book—trumping Shakespeare and the Bible. No small feat for a practically unknown writer. And they were fervent in their belief that his was an entirely new concept, that no one in the history of man had ever come up with the notion of opposites. “Oh, come on!” I yelled, flinging the book across the room. I remembered sitting in art-history class at RIT as our teacher had mumbled on about the light and dark of chiaroscuro in the work of Caravaggio, or the shimmer and structure in a Monet painting. If my Janson’s History of Art was to be believed, both of them were trending long before Siegel wrote his first poem.

  I read on. Another tenet is that we’re constantly in a battle between the crucial opposites of respect and contempt for the world, and that “contempt causes insanity.” Aesthetic Realism, they said, was the only way out of the morass of mental illness and into the world of mental health. This was the cause of my same-sex predilection, too: “All homosexuality arises from contempt of the world, not liking it sufficiently,” and “this changes into contempt for women.” Little of this tracked for me, but I assumed it was because it was all so new. My consultants assured me otherwise: My lack of understanding was actually rooted in a colossal and unmitigated contempt for Eli Siegel, the world’s greatest thinker. I couldn’t comprehend how I could have contempt for a man I’d never met, but I decided to keep that to myself.