But I had damaged the works and proved myself the adulterer and probably gave the impression that I didn’t give a damn about her. All I could do was sit there and brood.
Soon Helmsley returned and attempted to start me talking. “So what did you mean when you said you lost your job?”
“I got canned.” I was preoccupied and didn’t feel much like elaborating.
“Why?”
“I forget, I was implicit or something like that. I don’t want to think about it now.”
“Well, excuse my persistence, but how will you live?”
“Are you kidding? With a year of ushering under my belt I can go anywhere.”
“I know an opening as a packer at the Goya plant.” It was a warehouse near his house.
“Look, I’m still basking in disgust and self-pity. Can we rebuild my life tomorrow?”
He thoughtfully retired to his room, but before turning out his light, he placed a half-full bottle of Scotch on the night table along with an old shoe-box filled with K-Tel hits of the seventies that he had purchased through a TV commercial. “If you’re going to listen to mood music, do it on the headphone, and if you want to cry do it in the pillow.” And then he left.
I thought for a while about the real tragedy of the breakup. Of course, it was deeply rooted in vanity; I had slowly regained a normalcy that I had lost years ago when I first left my parental home. Under Sarah’s tutelage, I had been redeveloping healthy habits like brushing my teeth and hair. I was also sleeping and eating well. I had lost the bulge of pounds that I acquired when I first came to the city. I was going to NYU Dental School for cut-rate, semi-annual checkups and, most of all, I was finally conquering that Himalayan peak of unlaundered clothing. Once a week I would push all my things—which were presently sprawled along Helmsley’s couch—into a seventy-five-cent machine and read a magazine. Everything was slowly coming together; a decency was winning; people were slowly coming to treat me with more respect; I was in less general pain and was finding greater comforts. I even thought more lucidly. As the mercenary and the maniac were slowly being exorcised from me, life was becoming both more peaceful and productive. For not even a nipple’s pinch, I’d lost it all. Strapping the headphones over my scalp and taking a painfully long guzzle of that mouthwash Scotch, I listened to an unknown band singing depressing tunes of the seventies.
The next morning, I got up slowly and found a note from Helmsley informing me that he had gone to some arcane exhibit. I showered and began to shave, but after doing significant damage to my features I conceded I was still too wobbly. With Helmsleys toothbrush I scrubbed my teeth. Closing my eyes I must have dozed as my hand mechanically kept brushing. When I came to a moment later and tiredly inspected myself in the mirror, my face was snagged with nicks and my traumatized gums were lined with blood. I cleaned up, dressed slowly, and boarded the F train, returning to Manhattan.
While on the train, I thought about my imminent grand appeal. First, I would beg for my job back, and next I’d explain to Sarah that one misadventure didn’t warrant a breakup. One sexual excursion was the permitted allowance in any modern relationship, and I hadn’t even gotten that.
Once back in the East Village, I called Sarah but only got the dispassionate recording. I figured that she was probably there and a whiny plea would only alert her that I was back on the prowl. I still had her key, so I decided to go straight to her house. It was late in the afternoon and now that school was over, there was no reason that she shouldn’t be at home. When I finally reached her apartment, I knocked politely. When there was no answer, I tried inserting my key in the lock.
In the few business hours that I had slept through that morning, she had called a locksmith and had her lock cylinder changed. It was only then that I realized the unshakeability of her resolution. I got pissed and started to kick the door, but after a while I calmed myself and decided to leave a note: “All is not as bad as it seems. I swear that in the course of our relationship, I never made love to anyone but you. If you don’t believe me you can ask the popcorn girl. I love you dearly and it pains me that you won’t even talk to me. I am staying at Helmsleys. Please give me a call when you can. I love you.”
When I left her building, I was so confident that everything was repaired that I marched full steam over to the cinema to reclaim my lost job. When I got there, I asked the box office girl if I could see Pepe. She spoke to him on the intercom and then said go right in. As I passed through the theater, I saw some new kid holding a flashlight and laughing at the film. He had obviously just been hired to fill my spot. When he noticed me heading for the office, he intervened.
“What the hell do you want?”
“Pepe,” I replied.
“Oh, you’re Pepe.” He didn’t even have the brains to figure out that I was probably too young to own a theater.
“I’m sorry boss, go ahead.” This kid wasn’t going to last the week. Pepe was at his desk reading something when I opened his door. Without looking up he asked, “What is it?”
“Pepe, if I could have my job back …”
“No.”
“Just hear me out. I can work twice as hard and you can even lower my pay. How’s that?”
“No.”
“But look, it would be a better example, because if you just fire me I might go and get another job with better pay. But this way you can degrade me and then people will never think twice about even asking for a raise.”
“No.”
“I’ll tell you what. I’ll work here for two weeks free and then you can decide.”
Pepe thought about it a moment and then in the same bland tone repeated, “No.”
He never told me to leave; for that matter he didn’t even have the decency to look up from whatever he was reading. He just kept repeating that word. As I despondently retreated down the stairs, the usher who had effortlessly replaced me dashed up.
“Are you having a good day, boss?”
“No, you’re fired.”
“What?”
“You’re fired, now get the hell out of here!” I yelled. By being so available he had conspired in getting me fired.
“But…but…” Inarticulation turned to rage. I watched his face turn red and redder. He was taking it even worse than I had.
“I’m fired, huh? I’m fired, huh?” he screamed in duplicate. I promptly realized my cruelty. But he was quicker in reprisal than I was in rectification. Instantaneously he grabbed his jacket and dashed into the lobby.
“Wait a second,” I said, and pursued. I was about to hire him back, but before I could I heard the sudden crash. Rushing out to the lobby, I saw that he had toppled the new cigarette machine to the floor, and before dashing off he yelled, “Go fuck yourself!”
“What the hell is going on!” Pepe appeared a moment later amidst a crowd that had formed around the smashed machine. He asked the candy girl what had happened.
“Da new usher, he say … he say bam! to dat machine and den he say go fuck you and den he run off.”
Pepe was confused. The new guy was working out well. All were baffled. I felt bad. With nothing else to do, I slowly walked down the Bowery and over the Brooklyn Bridge to Helmsley’s house.
Fumbling for the key outside his door, I could hear Helmsley within, holding some frantic kind of recitation. I knocked. Letting me in, he interrupted me before I could tell him about the theater mishap.
“I have bad news for you.”
“What?”
“Well about a half an hour ago, Sarah called.” He paused with a bleak expression. “She told me she got your note and that she didn’t care to see you again.”
“What?”
“She said that this seemed like a good place to end the relationship considering she was going to graduate school and all.”
“She told you this?”
“Well, I told her to speak to you; I said that I really didn’t want to get involved in all this.”
“And what did she say?”
“Just that if I didn’t take the message, you’d never find out.”
“Didn’t you plead my case at all?”
“’Course I did, I told her that you truthfully told me that you never screwed that little candy tramp and that underneath it all you were one of the finest people I had ever known.”
“What do you mean underneath it all?”
“You know, underneath all the crap that life does to us.”
“And what did she say?”
Helmsley sighed. “It didn’t go well. Why don’t you come with me tonight? Find a new girlfriend.”
“What did she say when you told her I was one of the finest people you know?”
“She said that I could have you.”
“She said that?”
“Well, that and more.”
“What more?”
Well, if you insist, she said that after a month of living with you, I’d get to know…”—he looked up a moment and recounted each adjective on his fingertips—“…the snot-nosed…egotistical little cocksucker…that she had to put up with all these months. She also made it clear that she didn’t want to see you again. I don’t remember that part exactly. She might’ve just been in a disagreeable mood but I think she despises you.”
I dropped to the couch. I was a snot-nosed, egotistical little cocksucker? “Did she actually say all those things verbatim or was that just the gist of it?”
“Look, I’m going to a very promising party tonight. Why don’t you come along?”
“No thanks.”
“Look, there will be other people there like Sarah, other girls.”
“I’m in no mood for a party.” I felt hollow. We had lived together all these months. I had no idea she had been bottling up all that hostility.
“You’ve got to come with me,” Helmsley insisted. “I have no intention of coming home tonight and finding you dead in the tub. That once happened to me, you know. I found someone dead in my tub.” He went on to inform me that I’d be able to exchange my sob story for a date with any girl there.
“Try to get a tear in your eye by the time you come to the part about how your girlfriend dumped you and how you’re a frustrated, unemployed orphan. It’ll be a clincher.”
All of last night’s mouthwash Scotch was gone. If they had nothing else at academic parties, they had booze. They needed it to loosen up. I was about to complete the shaving job that I brutally initiated that morning, but Helmsley stopped me. “Don’t even comb your hair.”
“Why not?”
“You haven’t got a chance for the slick look. You’re going after the shaggy dog appeal. If you’re trying to show that you’re a mess you’ve got to look and act like it. So let’s go.” We both grabbed our jackets and were gone.
We took the F train to Fourteenth Street and walked through the long uriney tunnel that passed from Sixth to Seventh Avenue. There, we took the IRT up to Columbia-land, 116th and Broadway. It was the winter intercession for most schools. This particular party was a graduate affair filled with doctoral candidates, master’s students, all affiliated with Columbia’s anthropology department—enthusiasts of mal-developed skull fragments found around Kenyan lakes.
At first I tried. I found girls who reminded me the most of Sarah personalitywise and tried to joke around comfortably with them. I panicked about the shaggy dog appeal, matted down my hair and small-talked with one young protégée of Margaret Meade who, when she asked me about myself, I provided a thickly veiled description of the truth. “I was just transferred”—instead of fired—“from my job at a corporate law firm”—instead of stinking movie theater—and had “recently moved into my own apartment”—instead of being dumped by my girlfriend…and so on. She quickly dusted around the old bones of truth and realized that my tale of mediocrity was actually of woe. Instead of a safe bet I was a loser.
I drank some alcohol and looked for prospective girls while considering a new approach. Tolstoy—Helmsley had informed me—before marrying his wife, Sophia, had let her read his hold-nothing-back journals to show her that he was just another slime bag. It was a deliberate effort to destroy any romantic notions his eighteen-year-old bride might have of him. This was my next strategy my new approach. I sat down alongside my next victim, who was standing innocently alone by a partly opened window, unprotected. I quickly introduced myself and launched into the new approach, “Isn’t this something?”
“What?”
“My girlfriend dumps me, I lose my job and apartment, and it’s the third anniversary of my being an orphan.”
“Poor you,” she replied sympathetically. It was working.
“I tried to sleep with another girl, but that’s another story. See here,” I pointed to my raw gums that I overbrushed earlier, “and here.” I pointed to the barely visible cracks in my facial flesh. “I felt so bad last night about her leaving me that I got drunk this morning and then I woke up and did this to myself.”
“Oh,” she replied.
“My father died in a plane crash, but don’t feel sorry for me,” I remarked.Some guy wearing a turban heard me. He joined us uninvited, holding two drinks.
“A plane crash?” he said, “Oh, my!” He handed his girlfriend one drink, and she pointed to my gums and jowls and informed him about my recent misfortunes. I excused myself as they continued their conversation about me. I drank some more, but I didn’t really try socializing. I think stories started circulating about me. I think someone pointed at me. Eventually a bevy of cute girls entered together. They couldn’t have heard about me yet. They were dressed to the hilt, hair cut and colored like tropical birds, with the smells of perfumes named after TV stars. I shagged up my hair again and introduced myself to the most extreme of them. She was a delightfully perfumed pet who said she was in her last year at FIT, and then she asked me what I did. Confident that the new approach was working, I replied truthfully, “Unemployed, unconnected and unmotivated.” She was uninterested and vanished. With that strike, I was out. I promised Helmsley I wouldn’t pull a Jim Morrison in his bathtub and left.
THREE
The next day, I wrote a deliberately nebulous resume, a resume Helmsley later referred to as my greatest piece of fiction. It might have qualified me for everything from a shoeshine boy to an astronaut and off to the Goya Plant I went. They found me overqualified. Intelligence had become a liability; education, a hindrance.
I borrowed Helmsley’s suit, bought the New York Times and took the little resume on a walk. We went to endless job agencies. But it was the same thing every time. After a flash interview by a variety of look-alike agents, they’d say more or less the same thing, “You’re just the right man for something that should emerge any day now.” None of them ever called me back.
By the end of the second week, I stopped getting up before noon, and by the middle of the third week I stopped shaving altogether. I’d lie around in bed watching daytime TV, which is the first sign of nervous breakdown in an enlightened culture. First, I watched the noon news and talk shows, then the game shows, onto the late-afternoon talk shows, and finally I was glued to the soaps. After that TV-mangled period, I stopped watching and just slept a lot. Helmsley realized I needed solitude and went out frequently.
As the components of your life are stripped away, after all the ambitions and hopes vaporize, you reach a self-reflective starkness—the repetitious plucking of a single overwound string. I was too poor to even have an etherizing vice like drugs or alcohol. Slowly I became a Peeping Tom of finer days, a vicarious liver through my own past. Years ago, forecasting the quality of my life to come was a cinch. By five years’ time—which would have been five years ago—I would’ve graduated with a degree in architecture, and with a guaranteed job in my father’s growing real estate development firm. In sum, I’d be kept in clover. Envisioning my future was like watching a lucky contestant on a game show, whose winnings increased with each spin of the wheel.
That’s not the way things worked out; my life ch
anged viciously. But it happened in a kind of aloof suddenness that someone might possess when pushing an elevator button or hitting a light switch. Five years had passed since the switch was thrown, and I was lying on an old couch in Brooklyn, considering the variety of ways in which my life was miserable. My mother had died when I was young. When my father was killed, my sister went off to live with relatives, and I was alone.
By the fourth week of my stay at Helmsley’s, I was leaning as much over the edge as possible without tumbling over. I hadn’t eaten in two days and I hadn’t slept in three. I wasn’t really in pain, in fact I was undergoing this bizarre type of euphoria, the kind of numb yet heightened elation an anorectic might feel in denying oneself that final crumb. Everything was dreamily wonderful, a preview of what was to come. I only got out of bed to go to the bathroom, and though I was wide awake I had neither thoughts nor moods.
I felt like a television camera just tracking and panning and registering responses. I knew my legs were very cold but was not bothered in the slightest. Helmsley finally came in the room and asked, “How are you?”
I waited along with him to hear how I would respond, and I was glad when I finally heard myself say, “Fine.”
He put his hand on my forehead and it felt strangely soothing. He mumbled, “You’re sick. When was the last time you ate?”
“Yesterday, I think.” Time was flat. Everything seemed to have occurred a yesterday ago. He led me into the kitchen and prepared a meal for me that made me realize how hungry I was. Recalling the recuperative weeks that followed, remembering Helmsley’s concern and affection, my Adam’s apple suspends like a pendulum. He fussed over me like a mother. He woke me in the mornings and would prepare breakfast for both of us. Then he made sure I had showered and brushed my teeth; he nagged me into laundering my clothes. We would go on brief walks, full of optimism and esteem- building conversation. Up until then, I had always admired Helmsley’s lofty knowledge, but I categorized him as a lover of mankind while ambivalent about man in any specific sense. He was unsympathetic to ghettos, passing them all by with the usual blindness that most New York natives seem to have.
The Fuck-Up Page 3