by Gae Polisner
“I’m scared, Kyle,” she finally says. “I’m not sure why, but I am. But I feel safe here with you, at least. And I really don’t want to go to the hospital.”
“I told you, you won’t.” I keep my hands jammed in my pockets, even though I don’t want to. I want to wrap my arms around her and pull her close to protect her.
More than that, I want to kiss her.
But, no, I wouldn’t dare.
THE MEMORY OF THINGS
“Wait here.”
I close the door and go to Uncle Matt in the living room.
“I … hear. You … foun … her. Tha’s good.”
“Yeah. But, she doesn’t want to go to the hospital, Uncle Matt. Or the precinct. I can’t make her, and I don’t want to leave her there alone. I want to give her another day for things to come back to her. Let her stay here, until they do.”
Uncle Matt nods. “Can’t … say … I blame … you…” he says.
* * *
While we’re waiting for frozen chicken cutlets to heat up for lunch, I get a pen and a notebook from my bedroom.
“So, that thing I did with the cherries, before, on the way home?” I say, “It’s a memory trick. Well, Uncle Matt can tell you better, because it’s stuff he taught me before his accident. You know how I told you he’s a memory expert?” She nods and sits next to Uncle Matt at the table.
“Was…” Uncle Matt mumbles.
“Still is,” I say, giving him a look. “It’s just a matter of more time.”
“Ky-uh…”
“Kyle yourself,” I tell him.
I sit across from the girl and open the notebook to a blank page. “So, anyway, I thought I’d show you how I did that, and how my uncle studies to memorize lists of things.” My eyes go to Uncle Matt, then to the girl. “I’m not nearly as good as he is, though. I’m an amateur, and he’s amazing. But until he can show you himself, you’re stuck with me. If you want me to show you, I mean.”
“I’d like that,” the girl says, looking at Uncle Matt, not me.
I’ve noticed that about her, how she looks straight at Uncle Matt when she’s talking, how she includes him like there’s nothing wrong with him. None of my other friends—the ones who know him better—do that. It’s as if they think because he can’t talk too well right now, he can’t hear them or be a part of things. But the girl is different. It’s like she’s not at all put off by how he is.
“Okay, give me a second,” I say. Off the top of my head, I write a list of ten random words down the page. When I’m done, I say, “It’s just for fun, no pressure or anything, I swear.”
Now that I’ve launched into it, the great idea I thought I had back in the elevator sounds definitively uncool. If I look at Uncle Matt, I’m going to know for sure I’m a dork, and I’m going to turn bright red.
“Okay.” I push the list over to her. “I want you to read them aloud. One by one. Take your time.”
She looks a little uncomfortable, but does:
“Apple
Watch
Umbrella
Tennis racket
Race car
Basketball
Desk
Earring
Stapler
Bird,” she says.
“Good. Now, take a few minutes and try to memorize them in that order. I’ll tell you when your time is up. Do your best. Don’t worry that you won’t be able to remember them all.”
I watch her eyes move down the list several times, give her a full minute or so, then take the notebook back again. I know what will happen, because it was the same for me the first time. She’ll be lucky if she gets more than four.
“Okay. Recite them back to me.”
Her eyes dart to mine, and I look away. I have no idea why I’m doing this stupid thing with her, making a fool of myself in front of Uncle Matt.
“Okay,” she says. “I’ll try. Let’s see. Apple. Watch. Umbrella. Race car. Wait, no, not race car yet. Desk. Is that right?” She rolls her eyes at herself and laughs a little. “That’s not right. Desk is near the end. Apple, watch, umbrella is right, though, isn’t it?” I raise an eyebrow, and she shakes her head. “Never mind. That was pitiful. Bird is the last one. I remember bird came last.”
“Don’t feel bad.” I turn the list back to her. “I swear that’s the best I could do when I started, too.”
“And now?”
Without pausing, I say the whole list back to her, eyes closed, in order. “You could add about twenty more objects,” I say. “Or, if I were Uncle Matt, at least a hundred more.”
She turns to him. “Really?”
“Bah then … yeah…” he says.
“You still can, Uncle Matt. Maybe you can’t lift the objects yet, but I bet you could remember them.” He makes a sound in his throat. I ignore him. “So, do you want me to show you how to do it?” I ask the girl.
“Please.”
“Okay, it seems silly at first, but you have to do what I say.” She nods. “Ready? We’ll start back at apple. And we’ll start with your feet. Imagine your left foot. And picture there’s an apple under it.” I pause, give her a second. “See it?” She nods again. “Now smash the apple with your left foot. Make applesauce with it. Go to town on that freaking apple.”
She smiles, so I keep going. “Okay, left foot, smashed apple. On to your right foot. Imagine you have a watch strapped around your right ankle. Can you feel it wrapped there? Actually hear it tick. Hear the watch on your right foot go tick tick.” I see her lips move. “Good, next, then,” I say.
“At your knees is an umbrella. You squeeze it between your knees because it’s raining, so you need to open it and that’s how it opens.” She gives me a look like I’m weird, and I give her a look back like, just go with it. “Imagine it there, okay? It pops open and the rain goes plink plink plink on the umbrella. You could say that when it’s raining, you kneed an umbrella.” She groans, and I add, “I know, but trust me, a joke makes it easier to remember.”
“Even a bad one?” She smiles.
“Whatever.”
“Fine, I kneed the umbrella. Now what?”
“Tennis racket, at your hips.”
“Oh yeah, right. Tennis racket was next.”
“Right. I don’t know why it’s there, but it doesn’t matter. They don’t have to make sense as long as you can visualize it. So there’s a tennis racket growing right out of your hip bone, right here.” I press at my own.
“It must be weird, growing a racket from my hip.”
“True, but anyway, it’s there, so hit the ball with the racket in your mind. Swing your hips to do it. Feel it physically.” She twists her torso in the chair, and I smile now.
“Okay, going up. Your, uh, belly button.” I picture her stomach, and then my mind goes to her black underwear with the little blue bows, and I feel my cheeks redden. “Okay, so there’s a race car there at your navel, a small red Matchbox car or something, driving right out of your belly button like it’s a tunnel.”
“Here?” she pushes back from the table and touches the flat part of her stomach. I have to look away but nod. “Beep beep, honk honk, vroooom,” she says, making me laugh.
“You’re hilarious, but smart. The sound effects are actually a technique. Noises help your brain make a better connection. So, the car noises, the rain, the tick tick, those are all for a reason, but if you were in school or something, you could do them silently in your head.”
She nods, and for a second I wonder what noises might help her to remember who she is. A particular song? A garage door opening? The sound of a barking dog?
“Okay, at your chest,” I say, returning to our list, “there’s a basketball. That one makes sense, at least. Like a chest pass, you know?” I make the two-handed motion. “In your mind, do a chest pass, then throw it hard. Hear it bounce.” She nods like she’s got it, ready to move on.
“At your neck is a desk. Like a school desk. Wooden, with a cubbyhole for your books and pencils. T
he elementary school kind, jutting out of your neck.”
“I’m probably going to need an operation for that.”
“Ha, yeah, you will. Okay, so, we’re almost done. On your tongue…” She sticks it out, closing her eyes, which sends this weird wave rolling through me. “On your tongue is an earring. A small earring with a white pearl. Hold that on your tongue.” She rounds her tongue a little at the center. “It’s tiny, so whatever you do, don’t swallow it.”
She nods, eyes closed, and her tongue waggles a little.
I think about kissing her again.
When she opens her eyes, I know I’m looking at her funny.
“Next,” she says. “Kyle? Next?”
“Right. Your nose—” I glance back at the list. “A stapler. There’s a stapler stapling your nostrils together. Pinch it with your fingers, like this. Feel the stapler clamp down.”
She pinches her nose. “I can’t breeze like zis,” she says, her voice nasal like she has a cold.
I roll my eyes. “Okay, last, but not least, your head. On top of your head is a bird. A large, perched bird. It’s exotic, with a colorful beak like a toucan. When you nod your head, it flaps off using its big black wings.”
When I say the word wings, she looks away for a second, but when she looks back, she jokes, “Well, I hope it doesn’t poop up there,” and Uncle Matt, who I thought was sleeping, laughs.
“And that’s it. Okay, now for the test. Are you ready? Start at your left foot and tell me the objects in order. Wait till you see how easy it is.”
I can tell she doesn’t think she’s going to be able to do it, but I already know it will work. It always works. I’ve done it with a lot of people, and I’ve never seen it fail.
“Trust me. Go ahead.”
“Okay,” she says, after pausing. “I do. Apple,” she starts, concentrating. “Smashed into applesauce.” I smile at the added information, which lets me know she’s going to be on a roll. “Watch. Tick tick. Wrapped around my right ankle. Umbrella. Plink, plink, rain.” She sticks out her tongue at me, then says, “Oops, not tongue yet, that equals pearl earring, back to my hip. At which there’s a tennis racket.” She looks up, excited. “Oh my gosh, this really does work, Kyle!”
“Told you. Keep going.”
“Race car, out of my belly button. Beep beep. Basketball, chest pass. Desk, out of my neck, nose is nostrils, stapler stapling them shut. Earring on my tongue and, I can’t believe it, but, head, bird, giant toucan, pooping on the top of my head!”
“I told you,” I say.
She stands and curtsies. And smiles.
And, for one split second, as I look up at her, I forget about everything else except for her and me, and this moment. About the two of us doing this silly little unimportant thing together.
I forget about the planes and the buildings and worrying about my dad.
I forget about Uncle Matt’s accident, and that he’s stuck in a wheelchair.
I forget the girl is a stranger, and I don’t even know her name.
I forget about Jenny Lynch’s dad and Bangor’s uncle. I forget about Marcus and civil wars in countries far away.
I forget that this day isn’t normal, that yesterday wasn’t normal, that the whole world as we know it has stopped; that there’s a weird, hushed pall across the city. Across the nation. And I forget that, at least here in New York, we don’t know when—or if—it will ever be normal again.
For one split second, I forget.
But then she sits down and sighs, and like that, I’m slammed with the memory of things. The cold hard truth that she doesn’t belong here with me, that this is just temporary, and if I walk down the hall and look out the window, I’ll see that endless sea of smoke still pouring from where the Twin Towers used to stand. I’ll turn on the news and be reminded again and again and again. Yesterday wasn’t normal. Today isn’t normal. And tomorrow isn’t going to be normal, either.
There will be no school for who knows how long, and no way for Mom to get home. And Dad will still be down there, in fallen concrete, looking for the bodies of his friends. Not only are the Twin Towers gone, but two other buildings have gone down. Not to mention the Pentagon and the plane crashed into a field.
And Uncle Matt. I want to pretend, but he’s still where he was a month ago. What he was a month ago: a speech-slurring, invalid wreck.
And the girl? I don’t know the first thing about her. Except cherries.
She repeats the list again, bringing me back. This time she recites it clean, the words without the actions or embellishments, then one more time, maybe for her, or maybe for me, and then she smiles, stands up, and curtsies again. And, even though the moment has passed, I smile, and we all just sit there, content enough over some stupid little trick. Or maybe over ten little things we can remember among so many bigger things we can’t, or don’t want to, because we need to forget.
Wednesday, Late Afternoon into Evening, 9.12.01
TRUTHS AND OMISSIONS
“Hey, Kyle. It’s Dad, checking in…”
There’s the now-usual noise in the background, the banging and drilling, so I know he’s on the Pile and not at St. Paul’s. I try to figure out what’s best to tell him there, now, versus here, whenever he gets home. If he ever gets home.
Someone yells for him—Tom!—and I lose my train of thought. He continues, “Look, I wanted to check in, Kyle, see how you’re faring there with Matty. If all is okay, I really need to go. I’ve got my guys buried under here…”
My chest squeezes. “It is,” I say, quickly. “Karina called. She says she can get here tomorrow. And Mom called, too. They’re doing okay. No flights yet, but they’re trying. She says they’re not sure when flights are going to start leaving again…”
“Yeah,” Dad says. “I think I’d rather not have them in the air yet anyway…” I’m surprised to hear him say that. My dad has never been never afraid of stuff like that. Not before now.
“Are we still … are they thinking we’ll get hit again? Are we—” I stop to collect myself. “Are we going to war, Dad?”
He’s quiet for a minute, and when he speaks again, it’s in his softer voice, and it’s hard to hear him over the sawing and the banging. “No, I don’t think so. Not now. I hope not. Listen, we’ll sort it all out. For now, I have to go. I’ll fill you in when I get home.”
“Okay,” I say. “I love you.”
We hang up.
Another day not telling him about the girl.
I wander to the living room,
stand off in a corner watching Uncle Matt.
His wheelchair is parked at the window.
He’s mumbling in that slow, broken way of his.
After a while, I walk over and stand next to him.
“I was watching you,” I say,
“before, in the kitchen,
and now, here, in this room.
You were doing the memory thing.
The loci trick.
I could see your mouth moving.
I heard you.
Do it again, Uncle Matt.
I know you can.”
He tries to turn his head to see me.
I move around to the side of his chair,
kneel down
so he can see my face.
“I heard you do it,” I say.
“I bet it’s way too easy for you.
Kyle says you’re getting so much better.”
I wait, but he doesn’t answer.
“How…” he finally says,
“Can … they do this … to … our … ci-ty?”
I stand back up, put my hand on his shoulder.
Dark scribbles move in, but
I fight them off,
shut them away.
“There are things we can fix,” I say,
“and things we cannot.”
I hold up Kyle’s notebook.
“You can fix this.
Let’s start with this list.
Go ahead,
please.
It will make me feel better if you do.”
He head bobs up again, and
his eyes meet mine.
“Bet … a-bou … wha…?”
“I don’t know,” I say.
“Maybe everything.”
The girl is in the living room with Uncle Matt.
It’s amazing how she is with him, how she genuinely seems to listen and to care.
I try to make out what they’re saying, but I can’t from where I stand.
I take one step closer, but I don’t want her to see me. She’s holding my notebook in her hands.
A few seconds pass, then Uncle Matt looks up at her. He recites the list, apple to bird, start to finish, without looking.
WIN BEN STEIN’S MONEY
After dinner, the girl and I play Mario Kart. When she goes to shower, I sit on the couch in the living room with Uncle Matt. He’s got the TV on, the endless supply of bad news going by in the crawl.
After a while, when I can’t take it anymore, I say, “Let’s watch something else, anything else, okay, Uncle Matt?” and scroll through channels without waiting for his answer.
But I can’t find squat. It’s like all the other shows that used to be on are gone. Even the other news has disappeared, anything not about Tuesday and the Twin Towers. No toxic mold stories. No Lizzie Grubman and the SUV she plowed into the front door of that nightclub in the Hamptons. No Washington Square Park rape case with those rich Upper East Side douche bag prep-school kids trying to buy their way out of things. No Robert Blake murder, whoever that dude is. A few days ago, those stories were all you could find on TV. Dateline. 20/20. Headline News. Now, all of it’s gone. Vanished. Just like the buildings.