Affinity

by Affinity- The Friendship Issue (retail) (epub)

  Nothing, though, came unstuck. The journal pages from the weeks that followed tell how Jeff tacked between a novel (called Bend) and a memoir of his childhood (This Boy, That Town, These Mountains) and now and again a third thing would heave into view, a sequel to his one great success, Where the Roots Reach for Water. That book had been a memoir of his lifelong depression and the relief he got by giving up SSRIs, finding faith, and marrying a compassionate and understanding woman. But after publication, after the reviews and awards, the faith ebbed, the marriage withered, and it turned out depression was really a misdiagnosis. He was bipolar, and profoundly so. Medications and hospitalizations saved his life, or at least stopped him from ending it himself. By the summer of 2010, he’d attained a kind of equilibrium and he began to imagine he could write about that. He thought he’d call the book Balance; he’d sketch and outline hard for a few days, but then turn back to the novel or the childhood memoir or merge two projects: why not deploy the first chapter of Bend as a prelude to Balance? Or he’d think about writing poetry. He was friends with a poet who’d won a Pulitzer Prize and Jeff would e-mail him and more or less ask, “How do you write poems?” and the poet would reply, cordially but with gentle evasion; he wouldn’t or couldn’t say.

  My own advice didn’t get him anywhere and hadn’t, truth be told, gotten me very far either: my desk and notebooks were a mirror image of Jeff’s; seventy-five pages of a stalled-out novel, two first drafts of personal essays that I fancied might metamorphose into a book, and a previous novel I couldn’t sell or even place with an agent. At the time we talked, I thought mine was a different case from his, not so far gone. My circumstances would change (be restored to what they’d been during my own instant of success) any day by way of a phone call or e-mail from New York. Now, three years on, I see there was no difference between us; that there still isn’t—the phone call or e-mail hasn’t come—except that I am alive to grasp the fact of it.

  That recognition hasn’t taught me much. I still offer advice and lately I’ve been suggesting to my students that they attempt what I call a “thought experiment.” Suppose, I like to say, everything were different, not just the circumstances but the categories; suppose the problem were entirely elsewhere, no longer where or what you thought; and now you call it by a different name, address it as something new and startling, and both it and you are transfigured.

  So: suppose Jeff and I were not quite so defeated by our incapacity to form the words we needed, or perhaps we’d come to think it wasn’t words we wanted at all. Because one more phrase will make no difference in the galaxy of sentences that constellated our worlds, even if that phrase was precisely, stunningly congruent with how this or another thing seems to us. And maybe that thing never required us—never asked us—to write about it anyway, but only to be loved, attended to, loved not for what or why it is, but how it is. All that and more could be accomplished in utter silence. Jeff and I could rest then; he could have rested, not craved so much and frustrated himself so much, and survived (which is to say simply remained just here, just now, wherever near Asheville that is) and his presence attended to, perhaps by me. That, beyond all the books I might ever write, would be plenty to desire.

  Here’s the last thing he wrote after we’d talked on July 17:

  What I have reached is nowhere near redemption or rebirth, it is acceptance. And having arrived here, I realize this is where I’ve gone wanting for nearly fifty years.

  He would have written that sitting on his couch just before or after he clicked the Amazon order button (I think he would have liked the book, if he ever read it; there was always more than he could ever get to). And it was on that couch that the cat lady from the next trailer over saw him through his window two months later, apparently asleep. She knocked on the door repeatedly and, when there was no response, banged on it hard—“I beat on it as hard as I could,” she told me when I came to Asheville—and then she called 911. The EMT came and the sheriff and then the coroner. The next day someone from the county arrived to secure the trailer and his personal effects. “His cats were locked in there,” she’d tell me. “I’d managed to put some food inside for them earlier and I told the county people I’d adopt them but they said they had to go to the pound: that was the rules. And I begged and begged, but they took them away—those poor babies. Jeff loved those babies. Seems to me that was the very cruelest part of all.”

  I thought about that last thing she’d said and dismissed it: what was it compared to Jeff’s being dead, or a book, his or mine; the one I might just then begin? But then I write a little in my journal, envying his italic hand. I conduct a thought experiment, and think, yes, why not; why shouldn’t it be that way, the pitiful how of it, exactly so?

  Plane Light, Plane Bright

  Jonathan Carroll

  “He was never lucky with the stars, so he switched to planes.”

  They were sitting at the bar of the 25 Hour hotel in Zurich. Outside it was raining. She was drinking whiskey and a few minutes before had asked him to tell her a story. A rainy night story. A two-whiskey story. He loved doing that. He loved talking with her anytime, but this story … well, this one was special. He knew she’d be hooked by it because she liked weird things. It was time to tell it to her anyway to see what she thought. Because it was about them after all …

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “He has that dog, Tasha?”

  “I love that dog. It’s a Vizsla, isn’t it?”

  “I don’t know—I’m not big on dogs so I’m not the one to ask. Anyway, the animal’s an energy bomb so Marco always takes her to the park near his house at night for a good long run to tire her out. He sits on a bench while the dog voops around doing her biz. In the past whenever the sky was clear he’d make a wish on the first star he saw. It’s a kid’s thing but he said he’s been wishing on stars all his life. None of them ever came true, so eventually he switched from stars to planes.”

  “What do you mean? He wishes on airplanes?”

  “Yup. His park is on one of the flight paths to the airport so planes are always flying over it day and night. Besides wishing on stars, he had another superstition: if any night he saw six planes fly overhead while he was sitting there, he’d have luck the next day.”

  She sipped her whiskey and put her other hand on top of his. Her fingers were long and thin. She wore deep red, almost carmine, nail polish. He loved the fact she always wore finger and toenail polish. It made her look even more like a 1930s or ’40s movie star—Rita Hayworth or Veronica Lake. He was so glad she was in his life again. He was so glad she was back.

  “I’m coming home. I will help you heal.

  You will help me grow. We will grow together.”

  The note she wrote to him saying she was returning. He kept it in his wallet.

  “And did that work?”

  “Yes, in a way. According to Marco it did. But all of this is according to him so you can take it with a grain of salt if you like. Anyway, when stars failed to grant him any wishes, that’s when he switched to airplanes. You know that old rhyme ‘Star light, star bright, first star I see tonight. I wish I may, I wish I might, first star I see tonight.’ Well, he changed the words and replaced ‘star’ with ‘plane.’ So now it went ‘Plane light, plane bright …’”

  “And it worked?”

  Instead of speaking, the man slowly nodded yes but the expression on his face gave nothing away.

  She waited a few moments for him to continue. When he didn’t, she smirked and took her hand off his. “No. You’re goofing with me.”

  “I goof you not. We’re here, aren’t we?” He didn’t mean to say that second sentence yet, but it just came out on its own. The beans were spilled.

  She lifted an eyebrow. “What does that mean? Are we part of this story?”

  “We are this story.”

  They’d had a stormy relationship. No, that’s an understatement—they’d had a TYPHOON relationship. A five-act Italian opera
with innumerable melodramatic comings and goings, tears, pointed fingers and accusing voices, bombastic breakups and whispered or typed or written in careful cursive carmine ink, ‘I can’t live without you.’ They were both the boat and the hurricane sea they were trying to get across. He was married to someone, she was married to someone and then they weren’t but not at the same time. They got together, they broke apart, they fought, they made up. It was endless. It was necessary, sort of. Mr. and Mrs. Sturm und Drang.

  Yet the constant bass line of the relationship, the one steady thrum throughout the whole connection, was their souls couldn’t keep their hands off each other, even when others were in their lives, thousands of miles separating them, weeks and months passing without a single word exchanged. Part of them—often different parts, granted—could not imagine a life without the other and this was the psychic glue that bound them.

  She narrowed her eyes, not believing him for a second but eager to hear what came next.

  “At first none of the wishes came true. He wished for this, he wished for that—nothing. But then his dog got sick—some kind of rare blood disease that moved in fast and took no prisoners. Marco adores that animal and was gutted by the news. It was especially bad when he would take her to the park and see her still race around for a while but then get tired and have to lie down because the sickness was starting to devour her.

  “So one night on seeing his first plane he just wished it would go away. That’s exactly what he said, only that—“I wish her sickness would go away.”

  She crossed her arms, unconvinced. “And it did?”

  He nodded. “It did.”

  She looked at him hard—like he was trying to sell her something fascinating but fake. “Are you telling me the truth? Really?”

  “Really. The veterinarian said she should have been dead in a month. That was last summer.”

  The expression on her face slipped from skepticism to something like awe. “That’s the absolute, hand-up truth? You swear to God?”

  Amused, he nodded. “When was the last time you said ‘swear to God’ to someone, when you were seven?”

  “Don’t change the subject. Get on with the story.” She moved the whiskey glass around in small furious circles on the bar, her mind whizzing around what she’d heard, her eyes going back and forth between the glass and his face. She still didn’t really believe him, but the child she once was wanted to very badly.

  “It frightened him. It scared him that it might be true and not just a coincidence—that he was able to make dreams, his dreams, come true. So he tried it again but only on a small scale.”

  “Like how?”

  “Like one time he counted the change in his pocket, put it back, and wished that it would double.”

  “And—”

  “And nothing—it stayed the same.”

  “So the dog healing was a coincidence—”

  “Nope, because the next thing he wished for happened exactly as he wanted.”

  “What was that?”

  “Let me tell you about his third wish instead.” Next he did a strange thing. His hands were resting on the bar. Lifting them, he pointed both index fingers at her, then at himself. At her again, then at himself. At her again …

  She stopped moving the glass in circles. “What? What are you saying?”

  He kept doing the pointing thing but stayed silent.

  “Stop that! What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying that, according to Marco, you and I getting back together was his next wish. And look at us—here we are. We were his third wish.”

  “No!”

  “Yup.”

  “He said he wished us back together?”

  “Yes. And here we are.” He put his hands back down on the bar and looked at them. He wouldn’t raise his eyes to hers.

  “You already said that. When did he tell you this? When did he make the wish?”

  “On October 7.”

  “How do you know it was that date exactly?”

  “Because he told me; he was very specific.” Now he looked at her but his eyes were odd. They said something else was coming, something she didn’t necessarily want to hear. “Do you remember that you left on October 7, and exactly a year later to the day he told me you were coming back.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me any of this before?” She was annoyed at him for withholding all of this from her until now.

  He shrugged, dismissing the idea. “Because I knew you’d react exactly this way. You think any kind of magical or religious stuff is bullshit, so what was the point? It’s like talking to an atheist about God.”

  In an instant there it was again after all this time, just as he had expected—the look. The sullen, icy expression on her face that said she was only seconds away from lashing out, snapping off a clever nasty gibe that was half response, half castration. How many times in the past had he been the target of her verbal venom? How many times had his soul recoiled or in righteous anger punched back just as hard at her toxic remarks; these inevitable preludes to one of their fights that left them both skinned or staggering, all love for each other gone at the moment.

  He closed his eyes, ready for her blast. Nothing ever changes, does it?

  “Do you believe him?”

  Eyes still closed, he was surprised both by the gentleness of her voice and her question.

  “Yes, yes, I do.”

  “Why? Because you’re superstitious?”

  “No. But I’m afraid to tell you the reason.”

  She pulled on her ear, willing him to open his eyes so she could look at them and gauge him. “Afraid—why?”

  “Because I know how you’re going to react.”

  “Don’t be so all-knowing—just tell me, please.”

  Instead of speaking, he reached into a jacket pocket for a small well-worn leather notebook she’d given him for his birthday years before. She smiled seeing it in his hand. From another pocket he pulled out the plum-colored Parker 51 fountain pen that was the other part of her gift. Uncapping the pen, he wrote two words on a piece of paper, ripped it from the notebook, and handed it to her.

  She looked at the paper, dropped her head to her chest, blinked and blinked and blinked. Her mouth tightened until her lips almost disappeared into each other. She folded the paper in half and in half again until it was too tight to fold anymore. By the time she’d stopped, her right hand was shaking. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  He stood and, to her surprise, walked away. She jumped up and hurried after him. “Why? Why didn’t you tell me?”

  People all across the room looked at them.

  Blank faced, he slipped the book and pen back into the same pocket. “Because it was too late. That’s what the doctors said—it was too late. You had left me. You were down there together with your pilot. What was the point of contacting you? You said you were happy with him. I knew you’d come back if I told you about this, but I didn’t, OK? I didn’t want pity and I didn’t want to interrupt your life. Silence was the last gift I could give you.”

  “Gift? Fuck you! Just fuck you!” With two hands she shoved him out of her way, stamped out of the bar and across the lobby to the elevators. He knew not to follow her.

  Half an hour later he gently opened the door to their room on the fourth floor. She wasn’t there but that didn’t surprise him. He took off his clothes and went into the bathroom to shower. Naked, he stood and looked at himself in the mirror. He had lost a great deal of weight since they’d last seen each other but she hadn’t said anything about it, although tonight would have been the first time she’d seen him naked in a little over a year.

  On the counter was her bag of toiletries. Next to it the large electric gizmo she used to heat her hair curlers. All of it was so familiar to him. All of it had lived in his apartment for a while that last summer together before she left and disappeared into silence. The summer when he always knew she was nearby in another room and not hours or long flights away.

&
nbsp; That morning when they’d met at the Zurich airport, her plane from Johannesburg had arrived only shortly after his and she’d struggled with her suitcase to get to their meeting point on time. When he saw her come through the arrivals gate her long chestnut hair was sun streaked and all over the place. She was looking down at her bag, which was wobbling because a wheel on it had gone psycho and was half moving, half twizzling round and round like a bratty kid turning in mad circles then dragging his feet while exasperated Mom pulled him along by the hand.

  He couldn’t see her eyebrows until she was up close and at that moment when he should have looked closely at them he was too overwhelmed by her actually being there right in front of him after more than a year. All he could do, all he wanted to do then was take her in his arms and embrace her, inhale her, devour her; the eyebrows and all the rest they would talk about eventually.

  Hours later, stepping closer to the hotel bathroom mirror, he looked at his pubic hair. Much of it was now a very noticeable cinnamon red where once it had all been a uniform dark brown. He reached down and ran his fingers through it, still astonished this was actually happening. Even more astonishing was the fact that he was still alive to see it.

  The day the doctor told him the grim results of his tests, he’d called his best friend, Marco Sachs, and asked if they could have a drink together. He needed to tell someone; needed to have someone who cared near him to unload this terrible fact on and talk about it.

  Of course, once upon a time he would have called her immediately. But by the time that awful day of reckoning came, she was already months gone. Once both believed their relationship was as solid as a stone in their hands, but when it turned into snow yet again she fled. He knew there was nothing Marco could do to help but be a compassionate friend, hold his hand, and hopefully say something comforting, anything that might lighten for even an hour the impossible weight of his horrible new reality.