by Jason Starr
“Maybe it was so hard I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Did somebody mug you? Is that how you got that cut on your face? I told you this neighborhood is terrible, but you wouldn’t believe me.”
“I wasn’t mugged.”
“Then what happened? Please tell me.”
The Double Jeopardy round was starting. Julie came over and muted the television.
“Who is Edward Albee?”
“What?”
“That’s the answer. Put the sound back on, you’ll see.”
Julie sat next to me, gently rubbing my back.
“What happened?”
“I got sent home from work early today,” I said.
“Oh no,” she said. “Why?”
I told her the whole story, an abbreviated version. When I finished, she looked confused.
“But what’s that have to do with the cut on your face?”
“Forget about the cut. I walked out of my job today. I’m unemployed.”
“It’s okay,” she said, holding my hand. “There’s no reason to get upset. I mean you didn’t care about that job anyway, right?”
“That’s not the point,” I said. “It was my job. It was paying rent.”
“It’s all right. I have plenty of money. I can pay the rent next month if I have to.”
“I’m not letting you pay my rent.”
“Why not? I love you. I mean we’re in love, aren’t we?”
“That’s not the point,” I said, wriggling my hand free from hers. “The point is I need money, I need a job. What am I gonna do, just hang around in this fucking apartment all day?”
“There are plenty of telemarketing jobs out there,” she said. “I’m sure you can find one like that. If not, you can always temp.”
“What is Nagasaki?”
“Are you listening to me?”
“Yeah,” I said. “And then what?”
“Eventually you’ll find another ad job.”
“Eventually! I’ve waited two fucking years for eventually!”
“Don’t yell at me.”
“I’m not yelling at you!”
“You’re acting like a total baby now.”
“Oh, so now you’re gonna start calling me names?”
“What are you talking about?”
“You know exactly what I’m talking about!”
“Lots of people lose their jobs, William. It’s just a bad time, that’s all. Besides, maybe there’s a bright side to all this. Maybe if you could get on unemployment you could use the time to blitz all the agencies again. You could spend every day, nine-to-five, looking for work.”
I went to the kitchen and opened the refrigerator. I wasn’t hungry, I just needed something to stare at. William, I thought. I hated it when people called me William.
“I can’t get unemployment. I wasn’t fired, remember? I quit. At least I’m going to quit tomorrow.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t,” Julie said. “Maybe you should just go back there tomorrow.”
“There’s no way I’m gonna go back there. To beg on my hands and knees to those assholes? Fuck that.”
“Then don’t go back,” Julie said from the couch. “I don’t understand why we have to argue about this.”
I stood motionless, staring at a carton of milk. I realized Julie was crying. I went over to the couch and sat down next to her. She buried her face in my chest, her body convulsing every couple of seconds. I wiped her tears away with my fingers.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I know you’re only trying to help. Stop crying, okay?”
She continued to cry and shake.
“You were yelling at me,” she said.
“I know,” I said. “I was wrong.”
“Are you angry at me for something?”
“Of course not. This has nothing to do with you.”
“Then I don’t get it. And I don’t understand why you won’t tell me what happened to your face.”
“I didn’t tell you because I was embarrassed,” I said. “I was mugged on my way to work.”
“Oh my God, that’s terrible!” She sat up. “Where did it happen?”
“On the subway. Well, not on the subway, Grand Central Station, in the tunnel going to the subway. One guy hit me and the other guy took my money, just a few dollars. There were people around everywhere, but nobody helped me.”
“Did you see the guys that did it?”
“They were wearing baseball hats.”
“Shvartzas,” Julie said bitterly. “Are you sure you’re okay? Do you want to go to the emergency room?”
“I really don’t think it’s necessary,” I said. “The bleeding’s pretty much stopped. But now you can see why I got so pissed off at those assholes at work. It was bad enough getting mugged, but then getting sent home because of it! And then I had to sit there quietly while Ed went on and on about how ‘I seem to have a degree of intelligence!’ I mean I have an M.B.A., I was a V.P. at a major company, and I have to be patronized by some moron who probably barely made it through high school.”
“I know how you feel,” Julie said. “Look what happened to me at work today. It’s very frustrating when you can’t talk back to your boss.”
“No, it’s different for you,” I said. “You’re working in publishing, that’s your career. When your boss yells at you or puts you down you have to put up with it. But these guys mean nothing to me. On days like today, when they’re talking to me like that, I just feel like killing them. I’m not kidding. I actually want to murder them.”
“I think you need a drink,” Julie said. “Why don’t you open that wine Robert and Jennifer brought us?”
“I don’t want any goddamn wine!”
“All right,” Julie said. “Then forget it.”
“I’m just trying to talk to you,” I said. “Isn’t that what you wanted?”
“Of course I –”
“You think I’m making a big deal about nothing, don’t you? You don’t see why I’m so upset.”
“Of course I know why you’re upset.”
“You think I should just go back there and ask for my job back like nothing happened. You think I’m secretly glad this all happened because I didn’t want to work there anyway. You think I want to sit home all day and do nothing like some kind of bum!”
“Bill, I honestly don’t understand what you’re talking about.”
“I’m an embarrassment to you. You can’t stand all your friends married to doctors and lawyers while your boyfriend is a telemarketer.”
“First of all, you’re not a telemarketer.”
“You’re right – I’m not a telemarketer. I’m an out-of-work telemarketer! How humiliating is that?!”
“This isn’t fair,” Julie said. “You had a bad day and I had a bad day and now you’re taking it all out on me.”
“Fine,” I said. “Let’s not discuss it anymore.”
I went back to the couch and turned up the sound on the t.v. Wheel of Fortune was coming on.
“You can’t do that,” Julie said. “You can’t just start all this, then walk away.”
“You said you didn’t want me to take it out on you.”
“That doesn’t mean I don’t want to talk.”
“The argument’s over.”
“The argument is not over. I didn’t even get a chance to say anything yet.”
Julie tried to grab the remote from me. I stiff-armed her, trying to keep her away. She fell backwards over the coffee table. The way she landed, hitting the back of her head against the floor, I thought she was dead, or at least seriously injured. But she must have braced the fall with her arms because she sat up on her knees almost immediately.
“Jesus,” I said. “Are you okay?”
“Why did you push me?”
“I didn’t push you. At least I didn’t mean to. I just – are you okay?”
“I hate you!” she said. “I hate you so much!”
She ran into the bedro
om, slamming the French doors. The glass rattled for a few seconds afterwards.
“Open the door!” I said squeezing the knob. “I want to talk to you! Come on, open up!”
For several minutes, I tried to convince her to let me in, but nothing I said worked. I must’ve said “I’m sorry” a hundred and fifty times. I felt terrible for pushing her and I decided this might be the most pathetic day of my life.
“Fine,” I said. “If you won’t talk to me now, maybe you’ll talk to me later.”
I couldn’t get my clean clothes from the bedroom, so I put on some sweats and a T-shirt I had in the closet and left the apartment. I didn’t know exactly where I was going, but I knew I had to go somewhere. Julie was right – I’d been taking my problems out on her and I resolved not to come back until I’d calmed down.
I wound up at a bar on First Avenue and Eighty-seventh Street. I’d never been to the place before, but it was dark and empty and I thought it would be a good place to get drunk. During my third glass of Bud, I was starting to feel better. Julie was right, I decided – I just needed a few drinks to calm myself down.
“Another Bud,” I said to the tired-looking barmaid.
I’d been so deep in thought, I hadn’t looked around much. I’d never been to this bar before – I hadn’t been to any bars the past few months. It was a Tuesday so the place was pretty much dead. A fat guy was playing bar basketball, and at the end of the bar two guys were hitting on these two women. I envied the guys for being single, for not having angry girlfriends waiting for them at home. I wondered if I missed being single, or if I had simply been going out with Julie for too long.
I tried to figure out if the guys were going to score with the women. One woman seemed interested in one of the guys, but the other one had turned her stool toward the bar and was trying to ignore the guy who wanted to talk to her. Definite negative body language. The first woman, the one talking to the guy, was the more attractive of the two by far. She had long, straight brown hair and she was wearing a white T-shirt tucked into faded blue jeans. She was probably about five-two – it was hard to tell with her sitting down – and she couldn’t have weighed an ounce over one-oh-five. She was about twenty-five years old, and judging by the lack of any rings on her fingers and the way she kept fidgeting nervously with her hair, I decided she was almost certainly single.
When my other beer came, I noticed her looking at me. I thought she might just be glancing in my direction, trying to ignore the other guy, but her stare was a little too long to be casual. Instinctively, I smiled and she smiled back at me. I felt a buzz down my spinal cord and my face got hot, feelings I hadn’t experienced in a very long time.
I started drinking my beer again. It had been so long since I had been in this situation, alone in a bar with a woman looking at me, that I didn’t know what to do. Should I smile again? Should I ignore her? I looked over a few more times and our gazes met again. I wondered if she was looking at me because she was attracted, or because she was repulsed. I mean I wasn’t exactly a candidate for the next GQ cover. I was going bald on top and I was definitely carrying a few extra pounds. And with the bandage on my head and wearing an old sweat suit, I must’ve looked like an escaped mental patient.
Finally, when she smiled and raised her glass at me, I decided to go over to her. I didn’t know what I was expecting to happen – if I was expecting anything to happen – but I knew I had to speak to her.
When I sat down next to her and introduced myself, I could tell that the guy standing behind me wasn’t exactly thrilled. He gave me a few dirty looks, but finally he got the hint and went to play a game of pinball.
Her name was Lisa. This was her first time at this bar. She was from Philadelphia. This was about the only conversation we had before an awkward silence came between us. She fiddled with her hair and I sipped my beer as I remembered how hard it was to strike up a conversation with a woman in a bar.
“So,” she said. “What’s with the Band-Aids?”
“I was hoping you wouldn’t notice,” I said nervously. “I had a little accident getting out of the shower.”
“Slippery floor?”
“Tub,” I said, smiling.
“You’re lucky you didn’t die,” she said. “My grandfather slipped in the tub last year and it caused a stroke.”
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“Oh, I don’t care,” she said. “He was an asshole anyway. He used to curse and complain all the time. And he didn’t leave me a dime in his will.”
There was another period of awkward silence. She whispered something in her friend’s ear and they both laughed, then she looked back at me.
“So what do you do?”
“Me?” I said.
“No, the other guy who’s trying to pick me up. Yeah, you.”
“I work in advertising.”
“Just like everybody else in this city,” she said rolling her eyes.
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“You know how it is in New York, or at least how it is on the Upper East Side. Every guy’s either a lawyer, a stockbroker, or he works in advertising. I swear to God, I’ve never met anyone up here who didn’t fit into one of those categories.”
“Then why do you go out around here?” I said, wondering if she was trying to insult me.
“Good question,” she said. “Maybe because there’s nowhere else to go. I don’t want to hang out in the Village and meet some grunge guy and the Upper West Side’s all college students. So I guess it’s either the Upper East Side or I dyke out.” She looked at me deadpan. “Don’t get your hopes up, I’m not a lesbian. I haven’t even thought about being a lesbian. Not seriously anyway. What about you?”
“I haven’t thought about being a lesbian either.”
She didn’t laugh.
“I mean are you gay?”
“Yes,” I said deadpan. “I’m gay.”
“Good answer,” she smiled. “I’m starting to like you already.”
Lisa started telling me about the differences between Philadelphia and New York and about a movie she saw on t.v. last night, but I wasn’t really paying attention. I was looking at her blue eyes and full lips and clean white teeth, wondering what it would feel like to kiss her – just once. I didn’t know if I really wanted to pick her up, but when you’ve been involved with the same woman for five years and things start to go bad, you start to appreciate attention from other women more than you ordinarily would. And there’s also the ego factor – any guy, whether he’s single or involved, wants to know he still has what it takes.
“You haven’t even told me your name yet,” she said.
“Bill,” I said, shifting on my stool.
“I’m just a bill on Capitol Hill –”
“Ha, ha,” I said.
“I guess you get a lot of that.”
“Not since sixth grade. Can I get you something to drink?”
“I don’t think so,” she said, looking at her watch. “My friend wants to leave soon and I don’t usually let guys buy me drinks anyway.”
“I hope I didn’t offend you.”
“Don’t worry, you did. So where do you live?”
“Ninety-fourth Street,” I said.
“Do you have a roommate?”
I hesitated.
“I live alone.”
“A swinging bachelor, huh?”
“Not quite,” I said, anxious to change the subject. “What do you do?”
“Editorial Assistant.”
“Really? My...I have a friend who works in publishing. Doubleday. Trade division.”
“I’m in the trade division too at Warner. What’s his name?”
“Her name. Julie.”
“Don’t know her,” she said. “But I don’t know why I should. I mean it’s not like everybody in publishing knows everybody else in publishing. Like every truck driver knows every other truck driver, and every farmer knows every other farmer. Somebody, please stop giving drinks to
this girl.”
Lisa’s friend had stood up and was waiting to leave.
“I better go,” Lisa said. “It was nice meeting you.”
“Why don’t you give me your number?” I said. “Maybe we can get together some time.”
“I don’t like giving out my number at bars, especially when I’m drunk.”
“You don’t seem that drunk to me.”
“I don’t know,” she said. “I mean how do I know you’re not a serial killer or something?”
“I guess you’ll just have to take your chances.”
She looked over at her friend who was waiting by the door.
“I’ll tell you what, I’ll give you my work number,” she said. “But if I don’t hear from you in two days, forget about it.”
She wrote her number for me on a napkin, then left the bar with her friend. I stayed at the bar for a few more minutes, finishing my beer, then I started home. I doubted I’d actually call Lisa, but I was glad that she had given me her number anyway. I had proved something to myself and that’s all I’d really wanted to do.
I didn’t even notice climbing the five flights of stairs and entering the apartment. Julie was asleep, but the French doors were unlocked. I stripped to my underwear and got into bed with her. When I kissed her on her cheek, she turned over.
“Come on,” I said. “Wake up. I don’t want you going to sleep angry at me. We have to have this out.”
She resisted at first, saying she was still furious at me, but I finally coaxed her into sitting up.
“I want to apologize,” I said. “For everything. I was a real asshole tonight and I know it. Forgive me?”
“You pushed me onto the floor really hard.”
“It was an accident. I’d never do something like that intentionally. I’ve never pushed you before, have I? Have I?”
She hesitated, staring at me with wide open eyes.
“No,” she finally said. “I guess not.”
I kissed her gently on the lips.
“Are you drunk?” she said.
“A little,” I said. “You were right, I just needed a few drinks to calm down. I was a real mental case before.”
We kissed and hugged for a couple of minutes, then she said:
“I was so scared before. When you pushed me, then when you left, not even telling me where you were going, I thought that was it – our relationship’s over.”