Caca Dolce

by Chelsea Martin

  William was moving away in a couple of weeks, but for now we sipped our drinks and said these positive, meaningless things to each other, avoiding all the difficult questions of direction and money and purpose.

  “Are you going to miss Oakland?” I said.

  “Ew, not at all,” he said.

  I wasn’t very upset the day William left, because, the night before, we had gotten into an argument about who would get to use the vacuum first as we finished cleaning our apartment.

  He climbed into the U-Haul that was parked in our driveway, and I could tell he was still thinking about the vacuum, which was now packed up with all his other things in the truck. My things were packed in boxes too, still in our apartment, ready to move into my new place later that day.

  It’s his vacuum, I thought, not knowing whether that fact strengthened his case for being able to use the vacuum whenever he wanted, or my case for being able to use it freely the last night before it was taken from me, maybe forever. It was possible that I would never see the vacuum again. Neither of us could really promise anything, one way or the other.

  “I miss you already,” William said, his hands firmly gripping the steering wheel as he turned out of our driveway.

  “It’s not too late to change your mind,” I said. “Or maybe I should come with you?”

  “Chels,” William said.

  I never saw the vacuum again.

  15

  zeitgeist

  Dean was a friend of a friend of a friend. I met him at a warehouse party in West Oakland that Stella Artois and Camel cigarettes were sponsoring. An unlimited supply of both was free to everyone there. Dean worked for Camel, and told me they were looking for people “like me” to join the team.

  “Basically, we need people to go to bars around San Francisco and chat with people and give them free packs of cigarettes and get them to sign up for our newsletter,” he said.

  It sounded like something I would be terrible at that would also challenge my ethics, but I needed employment badly. When college ended two weeks earlier, my work-study jobs had ended as well. I was quickly running out of money. I agreed to meet up with him later in the week to hear more about the position.

  We met at Zeitgeist, a hipster bar in San Francisco, in the early afternoon. Dean bought me a beer and we sat at a table outside with some friends of his who were also there. I listened to them talk about DJ equipment and types of facial piercings. Every once in a while Dean would compliment my appearance, or ask me if I thought something he just said was funny. I awkwardly sipped my beer and considered if I could extract myself from this “interview” before it had technically begun.

  “I’m not sure if you’re right for this position,” he finally said. “But my friend Crystal is hiring an assistant to work at her salon. We could go talk to her if you want. It’s really close to here.”

  “Sure,” I said.

  We left Zeitgeist and wandered around San Francisco in a seemingly aimless way. I had asked where the salon was before we left the bar, but I didn’t recognize the street name, so I had no idea where we were going. As we walked, I began to feel very drunk and scared, but I tried to keep myself poised as if I were in an interview. He talked to me about parties and the San Francisco club scene, and I nodded politely and sometimes said, “Mmhmm,” or “Whoa, cool.”

  San Francisco is a small city, but I have always had a poor sense of space and direction, so I was completely lost pretty much from the moment we left Zeitgeist.

  Dean took me into another bar and ordered us drinks. I sipped mine very slowly, not really wanting to drink anymore but appreciating the social crutch of having something to do with my hands and mouth.

  “We should write a book together,” Dean said.

  “Uh-huh.”

  “I’m a pretty talented illustrator. You’d be really impressed.”

  “Cool.”

  I looked at the people playing pool a few feet away, embarrassed that they might be overhearing the conversation I was in. Dean called over the bartender and ordered more drinks.

  He leaned over the table and kissed me on the mouth. I smiled uncomfortably, feeling disgusted with him, but not wanting him to see that feeling on my face, not wanting him to feel bad, not wanting to make things awkward.

  “You’re so cute,” he said.

  I was drunk in that way where nothing made sense, and I kept thinking, This probably makes sense but I’m too drunk to put it together. I wanted to go home, to stop hanging out with Dean, to never see him again, but I also wanted to appear appreciative and eager to please. I couldn’t shake my stiff, pleasant, agreeable interview personality.

  I wanted to buy a hot dog from the hot dog cart outside the bar, but couldn’t bear to part with the four dollars. It wasn’t that four dollars was out of my budget for a meal, exactly, but I had already spent four dollars on the BART ride from Oakland, and would spend another four dollars riding it back whenever this miserable job interview or date or whatever ended. I had food waiting for me at home, and I couldn’t afford to have a twelve-dollar day.

  This wouldn’t be the last time I would unintentionally end up on a date while trying to interview for a job. A few years after this, I would apply for a personal assistant position and, on what I thought was a second interview, see the remake of Fame in a theater and, later that night, politely turn down an invitation to the spa.

  “Are you hungry?” Dean said.

  “Yes, so hungry,” I said. I hoped Dean had psychically heard my wishes for a hot dog.

  “I know of a cute little sushi place down the block,” he said. “Let’s go there.”

  I realized, as we left, that I knew what bar we were in, and that I knew how to get to the BART station from where we were. After the sushi place, I thought, would be a perfect time to leave. I would say, Well, it’s been great, let me know about the salon, I guess, and then head toward the train.

  I ordered a side of edamame and let Dean order the actual food, so that there would be no confusion about who was paying. He ordered appetizers, big plates of sashimi, and hot sake, with which we cheers’d several times for various things he had talked about during the day.

  When the bill came, Dean said he didn’t have any more money on his card, and that if I paid for the meal he could get me cash from his apartment a few blocks away. The bill was $150, exactly half of all the money I had in the entire world.

  This is one of those times in my life when I wish I could go back and hug myself. I was drunk, yes, and scared of what would happen if we left without paying, yes, but, more than that, I really thought I might still have a chance at one of these (in retrospect, clearly nonexistent) jobs, and I was desperate for employment. I didn’t want to ruin my chances by being petty and afraid.

  I paid the bill and followed him to his apartment. On the way, I texted my friends Ian and Cody. I knew they were playing a show on this side of the Bay later that night. I casually asked them where and when the show was, not wanting to reveal the situation I was in, then immediately changed my mind and texted, “I’m going to this guy’s house near the Mission and I’m afraid.” I hoped they would understand the complexities of the situation from that one text.

  “Where are you?” Cody texted.

  “We are setting up in Haight, want us to pick you up when we’re done?” Ian texted.

  “Yes,” I texted Ian, trying to conceal my phone from Dean.

  “I’ll need an address,” he texted.

  We arrived at the apartment.

  “I’ll just wait out here,” I said. I couldn’t see an address anywhere, and wanted to walk to the end of the block to see the street signs.

  “It’s cold out here. Don’t be crazy,” Dean said.

  “I’m fine,” I said. “It’s not cold at all.”

  “Just come inside. It will just take a minute,” he said
.

  “That’s fine, then just go grab the money and bring it to me.”

  “Come on, don’t make me feel stupid,” he said.

  I followed him into his apartment, not wanting him to feel stupid, preferring, for some reason, to take the feeling of stupidity that was quickly expanding inside me and enlarge it even further to accommodate this stranger’s baseless request that I not make him feel stupid.

  His apartment was large and dark, with trendy furniture and dirty clothes laid all over everything. He didn’t turn on any lights, and excused himself to the bathroom. I stood in the center of the room, not wanting to sit on his bed, which was the only available seat.

  “I don’t have an address,” I texted Ian and Cody. “Can you come to the Mission and I’ll find you?”

  Dean came out of the bathroom and pulled out two $100 bills from a dresser drawer. I immediately felt relieved. The screaming voice in my head that told me I was about to be raped had been wrong. Here was the money to prove it.

  “Here’s your money,” he said, throwing the money onto the bed. “But if you take it, you can forget about getting a job.”

  I made an earnest effort to understand what he was saying, trying to figure out why one determined the other. I also did some quick math and realized that if I took the money, it would not only pay for the meal but also my BART rides, plus something like forty dollars extra. It was forty dollars versus a job where I would possibly have to interact with Dean again.

  I picked up the money.

  Dean grabbed me from behind and pushed me onto the bed. He took the money from my hand and threw it onto the floor, then softly kissed my neck.

  “Don’t be stupid, Chelsea,” he said.

  I briefly considered allowing myself to be raped. It had been such a long day. I was drunk and felt physically weak, and didn’t know what to do to get myself out of this situation. I had made a number of mistakes that led me to this place with this person. I had been quiet when I should have spoken up. I had been afraid to be too forward and so had failed to keep the conversation pointed to employment. I had entered his apartment when I knew I shouldn’t. I had ignored red flags and allowed myself to be dragged around the city by someone I didn’t trust. Had this all really been for a job?

  I had a flashback of myself from that morning, making a balanced breakfast and putting on my finest interview attire. I thought I was going to get a job, a real job, with a commute and a dissociation from my personal values. I had felt so proud of myself, so strong and ready to take control of my life. What a contrast to the pathetic, voiceless person I was now, mere hours later, failing to even attempt to prevent myself from being raped.

  “I have to go to the bathroom,” I said. I said it weakly, expecting to be pushed back onto the bed. But he let me up, and I ran out of his apartment and into the street. I texted Ian and Cody as I walked back in the direction we had come. “When do you think you’ll come over here?” I wrote. Then Dean was behind me, pushing me into a taxi.

  He directed the taxi driver to an address, and I typed what he said into my phone and sent it to Ian and Cody.

  “They just called me,” Dean said. “We’re gonna go down to the office and have you fill out an application for the Camel Spokesperson job.”

  “Okay,” I said. I didn’t believe him, and hoped that Ian and Cody would beat us to wherever we were actually going, that I could jump from the taxi into the arms of people I trusted.

  We arrived at a giant warehouse. I looked at the dark nondescript street that seemed more like an alley, wondering if I would be able to find the BART station if Cody and Ian didn’t come through.

  We went inside and he gave me a Stella Artois and a job application clipped onto a clipboard. There was another guy there, and Dean introduced me as the newest member of the team.

  “We’re almost there,” Cody texted.

  I began filling out the application with fake information, simultaneously looking obsessively at my phone.

  “You’ll have to interview with my boss,” Dean said. “But he’s a great guy, really super chill.”

  “Okay,” I said. I had no intention of meeting with anyone or ever talking to Dean again, but I didn’t want to piss him off before I escaped.

  “It’s not an interview so much as a meet and greet. I’m the one who decides if we’re going to hire you or not.”

  “Oh, cool,” I said.

  “We’re here,” Cody texted.

  I got up and walked out of the warehouse. Dean followed me, and I ran towards Cody’s van, which was right outside.

  “What the fuck,” Dean yelled as I got in the van. “You stupid bitch. You’ll never get a job, you dumb slut.”

  He chased us down the alley like in a horror film, and I sunk deep into my seat, filled with shame and thankfulness and disbelief.

  Ian turned around in the passenger’s seat to look at me. He was wearing the red checkered shirt that was his band costume, and seemed full of energy, clearly ready to play a show and party. I smiled at him.

  Thank you, I thought.

  “Who was that guy?” he asked.

  I shook my head, afraid that if I thought about what had happened or almost happened I would start to cry.

  They took me to the show they were playing that night, and I hugged everyone I recognized well over the socially agreed-upon hugging duration. When the band started playing, I sat by myself on a couch in the back of the room, watching the audience dance and laugh.

  16

  evolution and maybe death

  “Would it be all right if I stay at your apartment for a few days?” Jeppe wrote to me in an email.

  I had met him in a bar in San Francisco after a poetry reading. He was my friend Josh’s friend Marie’s old classmate from Denmark. Jeppe and Marie were separately traveling around North America, as was apparently custom for Danes in their early twenties.

  I was immediately entranced by Jeppe. He showed me the journals he was keeping, which were filled with funny observations and cute little drawings of things he had seen, mostly in Mexico so far. He had been reading a lot of Richard Dawkins, and we talked about The Selfish Gene. Everything he said was either funny or smart or both, and he paid equal attention to everyone who was part of the conversation.

  “Of course you can stay with me,” I wrote back. “I would love that.”

  I was living with three girls, including Shannon, who shared a bedroom with me. Shannon consistently let the touring bands she played with sleep over, and one of our other roommates once dragged my mattress out of my room and into hers so she could have sex on it, so I figured inviting a foreign near-stranger to stay with us for a few days without asking anyone beforehand was within the realm of acceptable roommate behavior.

  I set up a bed for Jeppe between my bed and my roommate Shannon’s bed, making our room 90 percent bed.

  All my roommates loved him. It was actually annoying how much everyone loved him. Everyone wanted attention from him, and he moved casually between all of us in equal but unmeasured quantities of time. He had absolutely no character flaws, as far as I could tell. He was fun and funny and nice to be around and smelled good. He had perfected the art of being a social human.

  He didn’t explore Oakland much, instead visiting me during almost every shift at the chocolate café where I worked. “A few days” turned into a week, which turned into two weeks, which turned into three.

  We went grocery shopping together, rode bikes to get ice cream cones, hung out at bars with my coworkers, and spent hours illustrating each other’s writing. We wrote a short story together about a never-ending eBay transaction between two oversensitive eBay users, both characters sure they were ripping off the other and wanting to make things fair and equal.

  We did everything together except make out, which was, increasingly, all I wanted to do with him.


  “I really like Ian,” Jeppe said one day. We had gone to see Ian’s band, Shannon and the Clams, play the night before. “I like all your friends, but I really like Ian,” he said.

  “Yeah,” I said. “I love Ian.”

  “I love how he dresses,” Jeppe said. “Like how he wore that neon vest the other night. And how he always has a pocketknife. It’s so different from everyone else, but not in a way that he’s trying to be different. He’s very unique. Most people are trying too hard.”

  “Yeah.”

  It boggled my mind how much fun I could have with Jeppe, how attractive I found him, how easy it was to be around him, how much we had in common, and how I could still feel a sharp pang of longing whenever I heard Ian’s name.

  “You’re great,” I said to Jeppe. I was consciously overcompensating for my mixed-up feelings, but it sounded unconvincing.

  “You, too,” he said, and I wondered if he was thinking of the person he was actually in love with too, wherever in the world that person was.

  Jeppe decided he should probably leave Oakland and continue his travels, so on his last night in town, we went to see Ian’s band play again. We danced hard and hugged each other tight, not wanting the night to end. Everyone got very drunk and went for hamburgers afterward. I didn’t buy a hamburger because both Jeppe and Ian offered to share theirs with me. I took alternating bites of each of their burgers. I mostly wanted to eat Jeppe’s burger, because Ian had ordered his with mayonnaise and I hated mayonnaise, but I couldn’t pass up the thrill of eating from two men’s burgers at the same time.

  Jeppe and I biked home while my roommates took the band’s van, but somehow we made it back to the house first.

  Drunk and anxious about Jeppe leaving my life forever, I hugged him in my dark living room, then kissed him.

  “Now I don’t want to leave tomorrow,” he said.