Things I can’t Explain

by Mitchell Kriegman

  I was standing in the same spot Nick had left me when Genelle started yelling. I’m not sure how long she went on, but she stopped when she saw that I had no measurable response. I was in shock. I could see her and hear her and even though I wanted to say I was sorry for ruining her wedding, I felt so trapped inside my own shell that I couldn’t speak. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Dartmoor shake his head and tsk tsk to his buddy Wendell as he took charge of the chaos in the aftermath of Roxie and Nick’s departure. It all unfolded in a silent, slow-motion, horror movie kind of way. A fleeting expression of sadness crossed Dartmoor’s brow and it stung me. Even my enemy feels sorry for me, I thought.

  Janet tried to hug me, but I couldn’t react.

  “Clarissa, shake yourself out of it,” I heard Marshall say. “Tell us what just happened.”

  Humiliation, shame, my foolish heart leaping into another dead-end abyss? Me, faking my way through life, just as I have for the last four years because I don’t know any other way to get by? My abject inability to come to terms with reality because I’m so busy charting, defining, making clever comparisons, and fantasizing an alternate reality where everything goes just as I want it to? Unable to deal with the indisputable truth that I can barely support myself, pay my back rent, or pay off any of my loans? Or the fact that I can’t find a job that resembles anything that I was trained for or will compensate me with any kind of meaningful salary? Or that the love of my life, my effin’ soul mate, Sam Anders, deserted me and I’ve yet to face the certainty that it destroyed me inside and left me forever wondering what I did wrong? That I seem fated to repeat the mistakes of my life endlessly without interruption until my demise? I knew the answer to Dad’s question, but I couldn’t open my mouth to reply.

  In my collapsed state of mind I just barely comprehended that I owed everyone an explanation. I mean apology. But Nick leaving with Roxie was simply the crumbling of everything in my existence, so I didn’t know where to begin. I felt as if I was trying to climb a ladder inside myself to reach my brain and take back control of a nervous system that had completely shut down, as if my body was some giant robotic exoskeleton—like Optimus Prime or some other Transformer—and had stripped its gears and hydraulics. I desperately needed to reactivate myself, to gather enough energy to try to say what I had planned on saying to Mom and Dad before, to confess once and for all to the lies I had told.

  “Clarissa, can you hear me?” Dad asked. “Are you okay?”

  “I didn’t want you to know…” I began, but the words were trapped in my throat because the sobs kept choking me. Painfully, I started again. “… I didn’t have a job and that my personal life is crap.…” I couldn’t sugarcoat what I was saying or be witty or clever. I could barely spit out the words between my ever-tightening chest and the salty tears flushing down my face. “I lied to you about everything,” I said, “and I couldn’t stop lying.”

  When I finally looked up and saw Janet’s unease and her pitying vexation, as if I had let her down, I understood why I never told Mom and Dad the truth.

  I wasn’t trying to save them from the burden of my woes because of their problems. I was saving myself from Mom’s condescending dismay and disappointment in me. All through my childhood, there had been something about Mom’s smug “I don’t have that problem” demeanor that never broke down into real feeling. She always saw others through a lens of failure when their lives fell apart, as if it were foreign to her experience. That look, even when she was trying to be sympathetic, has always sucked the life out of me.

  With all his faults and challenges, I knew why Dad was barely a shell of his former self. Mom’s charming eccentricities aside, no one could touch her. Her ability to manage and never be fazed by those of us less perfect around her is why I’ve tried to emulate her in my own crazy way. It’s why tofu was the perfect symbol for what Mom was all about. Tasteless little squares. Perfectly dependable, predictable, nutritious, and boring. That why it was her food of choice. But of course I didn’t say a word of that.

  “Come on, sport,” I heard Dad say. He put his jacket around me and started walking me off the dance floor. “We don’t care about any of those things,” he said. “We care about you.”

  I looked around for Mom and I swear I know she was there, but I couldn’t see her. There was nothing about her presence, her expression, anything that registered. But I clung to Dad’s words, repeating them like a mantra or an antidote to ward off evil spirits. We care about you.…

  The Taconic State Parkway whizzes by as I finally find the energy to turn my head and look out the window. I worry how close the guardrails are to Rupert’s little red Mini, but I’m not driving, so I stop worrying.

  Jody is still trying to talk to me but I can’t seem to hear what she’s saying. I can see Rupert’s eyes in the rearview mirror darting from me to the road. I’m sure they are wondering if they should drop me off at Bellevue or some other institution for the hopelessly insane. I wonder, too.

  How will I pick up the pieces? How will I be able to place my fingers on the computer keyboard, tap out a story, and ever again think it worthwhile? How can anything be?

  Right now, I just want to curl up in bed and die.

  CHAPTER 31

  Elvis is gone. I can’t be sure because he always comes back. Yet the unalterable fact is he’s not here now. I should know—I searched every single corner of my apartment. The devastating possibility that he’s gone for good crashes in on my sense of abandonment. As always I blame myself. Yet another omen I’ve ignored. I’m devastated by the way my bad thoughts fuse with everything that has happened.

  I throw open Elvis’s window, his magic portal, and hope. The phone calls start coming in from Nick. I ignore them. Every time I see his number on my cell phone, I remember that giving-up look on his face with Roxie sneering beside him and I just can’t bring myself to answer.

  After a few days in bed, I manage to stumble my way to the kitchen and my laptop. I had gone stone-cold social media sober and blocked all e-mail, texts, Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchats since the wedding. I know it’s unheard of but I even deleted Candy Crush Saga from my phone. I might be the first one in history to have done so. I had zero FOMO (fear of missing out) because I knew all I was missing was further humiliation.

  I stumble to the corner bodega in my PJ’s and robe, shouting Elvis’s name, searching down every alleyway and garbage bin and I know I look like a demented runaway child or a bad reenactment of the last scene in Breakfast at Tiffany’s. I pull myself together and buy some coconut water for electrolytes and those perfect dark yellow cubes for bouillon. There must be a thousand chickens distilled to their essence in those things, bones and all—a modern miracle, chicken in a cube. I hear they are laced with enough MSG to kill. Well, to kill a chicken, anyway, but I don’t care.

  Elvis is gone, my life is a wreck, and my imminent work deadline is approaching and there’s nothing I can do about it. Once Dartmoor gives MT the report from Genelle’s wedding, I am certain no one will want to hear from me at Nuzegeek anyway. But after nights of beating up on myself and staring out the open window wondering how my luck will change, I figure: What’s left for me to do?

  It takes everything I have to resolve to finish my one story assignment for better or worse as quickly as I can and start thinking about getting some other job. Maybe something in the service industry, like at the Double Bubble Laundromat down the street, or as a Starbucks barista. Time for me to join the rest of the millennial work force and to shelve this notion of being a journalist in an age where journalism is nonexistent or a luxury at best.

  It appears as though I had written most of the article before the wedding because by late Monday afternoon, I’ve finished with most of my notes on Norm’s custom skate deck business. I’ve loaded the finished piece up with lots of nuts-and-bolts money type stuff. I have no idea if I’m punching above my weight class, but I try, that’s all I can say. Still, there is the conclusion to write and I just don’t
see how I can finish in time to e-mail it tonight. I’m just too tired and depressed. I put the article aside and decide to take a tiny nap, long enough to clear my brain, and then get up and finish it in time.

  * * *

  Sunlight is streaming through the apartment windows and I wake up. It’s morning. Holy shit. I missed Dartmoor’s deadline. My heart sinks. I hadn’t realized how long I had been sleeping. I take a quick look at the piece. I just need a conclusion, damn it. I know Dartmoor will use my tardiness as another mark against me, but I have to finish this thing, if only for the sake of my minimal hold on sanity.

  I throw together a conclusion. I couldn’t help taking an existential approach, since that’s how I’m feeling. I know I’m probably getting carried away but I liken the whole DIY concept to the human condition, riffing on the universal struggle for identity and independence in the economic sphere and our innate need to create something unique and individual that will not only please us but also earn the respect of others, i.e., clients, and pay the bills. Life: the ultimate DIY venture, an endeavor at which I feel I am less than succeeding. Who would have thought that I’d get to the point where I envied Norm and his singular focus on life?

  A few trims for clarity and cuts to shorten the length for word count and I’m done. Even though it’s technically late I’ll just hand it in. Chapter closed.

  I e-mail the article to MT and crawl back into bed. The act of writing has been a mild balm, a salve that has lifted me enough out of the dark, post-wedding place that I hate having finished. Now, there’s nothing to hide behind or wait for. I was protected from facing the tatters of my cracked existence as long as I was in the bubble of trying to complete my article. I curl my pillow under my head and go to sleep.

  An hour later, I throw back the covers for some more coconut water and see an “undeliverable: returned” notice pop up on the laptop. The report I slaved over didn’t go through. Holy shit. Could MT have blocked me just because I’m such a loser? I consider sending to Dartmoor, then think twice. He’ll probably just destroy it and pretend I never sent it in. I try to resend but after a few seconds the same undeliverable message returns.

  I can’t believe it. Logically, I figure it’s just a technical glitch or something, but it doesn’t feel that way. It feels like a rejection.

  I don’t have anywhere to go—except back under the sheets.

  CHAPTER 32

  It takes a while for me to realize the gnawing feeling in my stomach isn’t the regretful combination of coconut water and MSG-saturated broth I made from the bouillon cubes. It’s the unfinished business of my article for Nuzegeek. Somehow I can’t rest until it’s turned in. I know I’m past deadline and still doubtful about the quality of my financial acumen or any acumen I might harbor in my self-pitying state. But after years of working for Hugh, the writer’s ethic is too deeply ingrained. I might be past deadline and it may be impossible to avoid running into Dartmoor, but I might as well get this over with.

  I stare at the rows of clothes in my closet and realize I have nothing to wear to a firing. Let’s face it: I’ve been swimming upstream on this job from the beginning. The question of the moment is—do I want to dress like a corporate punching bag, demure and sensitive, wearing a meek pair of flats and a high-collared blouse, or do I dress as if I don’t give a fuck? Like my leather jacket with Bowie pins, my badly destroyed boyfriend jeans, and my Doc M’s?

  Everyone knows you need to dress for success, but I believe you also need to dress for failure. When you’re about to be fired, you need to make a statement that you’ll endure and move on. Yes, I could wear a wooden barrel with two leather straps over each shoulder and feel sorry for myself. But my wardrobe is not well stacked with barrels and even though I’m not feeling positive, I draw courage from my closet. I decide to go into Nuzegeek as buttoned up and together as possible—with an edge.

  I pull a plain blazer with rolled-up sleeves that I bought from Goodwill for ten bucks, a classic button-up white shirt that’s slightly see-through, and a pencil skirt. It’s definitely too short, but it’s a statement. I put on some dark hose and my thrift-store Jeffrey Campbell pumps that make me taller. I’ll be businesslike, to-the-point, and get out of there. Hell, for all they know, I have another job somewhere and that’s exactly how I’m going to play it.

  I do my makeup and decide to wear a light peach nude lipstick for effect. I guess I just like peach. I download the Norm DIY piece onto a flash drive, whip a copy out of my printer, and go outside for what seems like the first time in weeks, but is probably just days, I can’t remember. The last thing I want to do is look at a calendar.

  I arrive late in the evening at Nuzegeek hoping for minimum face contact. As the elevator doors open on the editorial floor, I’m happy to see there’s no one in the halls. Most of the twenty-somethings usually buzzing around the offices have already gone home. I can’t help picturing Dartmoor’s tsk tsk at the wedding and pray I don’t encounter him. I do prepare my stiff upper lip, but it’s the lower one I’m worried about. I don’t want it to start quivering.

  The offices are eerie when there’s no one around. As I walk past the employee lounge, I see two people going at it over by the coffee machine, and by that I mean some major make-out action. I guess people start up all kinds of things at start-ups. I look away, but not before noticing the skateboard propped up by the couch where they’re snogging.

  Shit, is that Norm and MT living dangerously? Don’t they have big loft apartments to go home to at this point? I certainly don’t need to linger and feel bad about my own joyless personal life, so I hustle forward and decide to make this quick.

  Druscilla’s not at her desk when I arrive, so I decide to drop my payload there and make my escape. I slip past the executive offices. Dartmoor’s light is on, so I walk lightly, silent as a mouse.

  There’s no way around the employee lounge and they’re still going at it. I worry MT will open her eyes as I pass. Luckily, she doesn’t. Ah, young start-up moguls in love, getting their DIY on. Maybe a theme for a story someday, if I ever get to write another.

  I make it to the elevator and sigh with relief; it looks like I got dressed up for nothing. Fine with me—maybe my look scared off the evil spirits and gave me the courage to deliver my story. In a few seconds I’ll be on the street again, free to face my depressing future. I can’t help picturing Lou at the Unenjoyment Office snickering at my futile attempt to make it on my own. The elevator doors open—I imagine it’s an open shaft and by taking that one step I will plunge to the bottom … but there is an elevator there. Oh, well. Can’t have everything.

  “Clarissa! You’re here!” someone yells loud enough that it startles me. I whip around, actually shocked, heart pounding because my mind can only imagine the worst.

  It’s Drusy. She actually says my name correctly for the first time and she’s oddly ecstatic to see me. I absolutely don’t want her to ring the alarm.

  “Hey, Druscilla, I left the story on your desk,” I say and step inside the elevator.

  “Wait!” she exclaims and springs to the elevator doors in time to stop them from closing. I forgot about her paramilitary prowess.

  “Druscilla, I’ve gotta go,” I protest and start smashing the close button, but you know, that button with those two triangles pointing to each other next to the two triangles pointing away from each other? I always get them confused, and I’m pushing the wrong one.

  “But I’ve been trying to get in touch with you,” she says. “We got your story and MT wants to talk to you!”

  “I know, I just put it on your desk. It’s as good as I can do under the circumstances. Tell Dartmoor I’m sorry it’s late but I tried to e-mail it. I can’t stay,” I say, hating the childish panic in my voice. I find the right button, the one for closing, and I keep pushing it. She looks at me oddly, then finally lets go of the doors and just watches me as they shut. I take a breath and notice I’m sweating.

  I have no idea why MT wants to talk to me
and I doubt very highly Drusy is telling me the truth. Probably some KGB-inspired trick to get me in front of MT so she can fire me to my face. Or so Dartmoor can swoop in with his “tsk tsk, I told you so”s. Besides, about the last thing I want at this moment is to see MT and Norm coitus interruptus.

  On the street, the sun has already gone down. Somewhere on the west side of Manhattan, the darkness is pinching the sunlight into nothing. The city is descending into a darker, more provocative mode, and it fits my mood. The streets are still filled with bustling people who have lives and places to go. People are beginning to think about their evenings and the nightlife a city like New York has to offer. I’m dreading going straight home and back beneath the sheets, so I take a sharp left detour toward Broadway to distract myself from the inevitable depression to come. It’s a last-second decision to change my direction, so when I notice a bearded man twenty paces behind me make the same turn, I’m suspicious.

  I keep walking, picking up my pace, and decide to make another instant turn by Trinity Church, and sure enough, he turns, too. I consider heading in the direction of the nearest police car, but he’s catching up with me fast.

  I glance back to look at him and he’s just totally weird. My heartbeat quickens. Now this on top of everything. He’s wearing a short black hat like a Hasidim but he’s not wearing the long coat; he’s kind of like an orthodox Jew who doesn’t know how to dress properly. It’s all too creepy and I prepare to sprint, Jeffrey Campbells and all, when I feel his hand land firmly on my shoulder. I spin, fists ready, figuring I have one chance to disable my attacker and run like hell. I punch him right in the forehead and he goes down. I kick him once and I’m prepared to kick him a second time if he tries to get up.