Empathy

by Sarah Schulman

  “What risk did Francis Ford Coppola take?”

  “Doc, he mortgaged his house!”

  “Well, John, you can have life-shattering experiences in your own neighborhood. You could … well, you know … you could do something for … someone else.”

  “Politics is boring,” Cro-Mag said in a drippy way. “It’s hopeless. I wouldn’t have any fun. Besides, I’m too poor. I don’t have time to be political.”

  “There are people sleeping in the park in shelters made of plastic and cardboard,” said Doc. “There are people living around the park in co-ops and condominiums like Christadora House and Eastbeth. The police tear down the tents of the homeless. Now, I’m going to ask you a trick question.”

  Doc was using cognitive therapy.

  “Who are the victims?”

  “I am,” said Cro-Mag. “I am the biggest victim.”

  “What are you going to do tomorrow?” Doc asked.

  “Tomorrow I will sleep till noon. Then I will go to a coffee shop and pay someone else to cook and serve me breakfast. Then I will go home and do errands and make notes. Then I will make phone calls. Then I will do something else. Then I will go to the gym. Then I will eat dinner in a restaurant. Then I will go to an art event. Then I will go to a bar or watch TV and get drunk or maybe I will find a twenty-one-year-old who will feel sorry for me and have sex with me. Then I will go to sleep.”

  “And if you were not a victim, then what?”

  “If was not a victim I would wake up around noon and have sex with someone who did not have a job to go to either. Then she and I would talk about what geniuses we are. Then I would get a phone call from a fancy museum and mail from a foundation. Then my girlfriend would do the vegetable shopping. Then I would go to the gym. Then she would tell me that I am brilliant. That I am a great artist.”

  “How are you going to get from here to there?” Doc asked.

  “I don’t know,” Cro-Mag said.

  “I can see why,” Doc said.

  Later Doc placed Cro-Mag squarely in relation to his other issues. Was mankind de-evolving? Survival of the least interesting? Doc was willing to continue this study of the stupefaction of the privileged, but he had to be careful. Too much time with Cro-Mag was like watching television. Like holding a magnifying glass to a bottomless pit.

  They became what they beheld, he remembered, and gave Blake the last word.

  Chapter Nine

  Frail state. Frightened star. Sensual feeling. Anna was doubly affected. Recognizing others’ masturbatory habits, she too needed a feeling and not a thought. But that raised the question of style and what one was. It’s a romance, that’s for sure. Some mythical visceral experience or a box a person fits into for other purposes. Something to swear by, even more. She’d never thought about this before.

  On the street there was a Hyundai seething with criticism. Then Anna digressed back to that desired state where think is a sequence toward a solution. It’s all about logic. Anna stared ahead at the dirty city street. She had to concentrate really hard to think it through for herself. Something wasn’t right. There was something not true about Doc. There was something a little off. Thank God for logical conclusions: they are an activity of pure permission.

  She noticed a young homeless man doing the Sunday Times Magazine crossword puzzle. Anna couldn’t know how badly he felt.

  “Can’t you say something nice?” the homeless man asked when he caught her staring.

  “Undulating vulvas,” Anna said. “Pistachio, sky blue, red-andwhite stripes, bare blue ass kiss, guess who.”

  “Okay,” the guy said. “Now back to the insults.”

  The next woman who passed wore eyeglass frames whose color reinforced the illusion that she was a redhead.

  Maybe that explains the problem I’ve always had with female identification , she thought. It’s like looking at Picasso’s Three Women only to come away thinking, “My breast is your thigh.”

  These thoughts illuminated the weird formation that broke up Anna. The whole experience became some sort of bucolic mutilation as she climbed the stairs to therapy.

  “So what brings you to therapy today?” Doc asked.

  “Well, there are a number of things on my mind,” Anna said. “I was sitting in NYU Medical Center, in the Co-Op Care, massaging the feet of another friend of mine who is dying, in this case named Paul. Then I realized that I have a lot of unresolved anger.”

  “Why do you massage the feet of dying people?”

  “Well,” Anna answered, “the reason we massage the feet of dying people is because they have been in bed for a long, long time and have poor circulation in their feet. They need to be touched but chest catheters and IVs get in the way. Besides, they can’t sit up. By rubbing their feet, you sit on the edge of their beds and they can see you. You can talk to them and touch them at the same time without them having to move. You can take one long last look.”

  Silence.

  “Here, Doc, I brought in some show-and-tell.”

  She handed him a folded-up newspaper clipping with circles drawn around different items. She held her breath, waiting to see his reaction, Doc read out loud.

  WOMEN SEEKING WOMEN

  MWF, 40, wants to fulfill fantasy for the first-time encounter with gay or Bi female. Must be discreet, Spfld. Area 4052.

  MWBiF would like to meet M/SBiWF 18-30 for fun and friendship. Hart Area 10437.

  MbiWF, 31, feminine, looking for feminine M/SbiWF for discreet intimate friendship. FF Area 30351.

  MEN SEEKING MEN

  Bi/dude great videos, discreet fun. No gays! Macho Spanish dudes, straight-bi and closet “men in uniform” welcome. Absolute discretion. Mark Box 554, Newton CT.06470.

  BiWM 29 6’2” very attractive muscular discreet seeking a muscular handsome straight-acting G/BiWM 22-32. NH area 50410.

  “What is this?” Doc asked.

  “It’s an oppression document,” Anna said. “File it under O.”

  “Not only are they all discreet,” Doc said, looking it over, “but being white seems to take on paramount importance.”

  “I hope I live to see the day,” Anna said, rearranging the cushions on the couch, “when the words straight-acting have naturally disappeared from the English language. And Doc, don’t you dare tell me that all people are basically bisexual. I don’t think I could take it.”

  “Why not?”

  “Well, you know,” she said, “when I was a teenager the rule was that everyone was really heterosexual and since I wasn’t, I became really deviant. Now the rhetoric seems to be going in the direction of everyone being really bisexual and I’m not that either. So I’m still a deviant. Blame it on Freud, right?”

  “Freud is only an idea. It can work for you or against you.”

  That was a good sign, Anna thought, deciding to take the next step.

  “Do you do dream analysis, Doc? Is that where all this is leading? I mean I did have a strange one last night. It was a strange night.”

  Anna felt somewhat dowdy, not fitting properly into her dress.

  “It was a strange night. It was gray and very cold. I was thinking about all the women I’ve ever loved. I was thinking about each one of them individually. The opera singer who couldn’t stop coming and the waitress who didn’t know how. I was thinking about the women who had to fight for their orgasms and the ones who got theirs like they got their lunch. I was lonely because of the weather. I was reviewing all the ways that my life has been propelled by strategizing for access to the female body.”

  “Did it feel good?”

  “Well, Doc, each encounter left me with some erotic memory. You know, a flash of something she said. Some small gesture or the way she moved her body. Something that really pleased me. Then I fell asleep and had this dream.”

  “What did you dream?”

  “I dreamt that I took William Burrough’s penis and tied it up with piano wire. I hung him like a Chagall painting. He’s an old feeble man so he
swayed in the wind.”

  “Then what?”

  “Then, in my dream, I took a rapist’s penis and grafted it onto his forehead. He had to walk around all day with his own dick in his face. I called it Surrealism.”

  “How does the rapist fit into it?”

  “Well, Doc,” Anna answered, like she’d already thought this one through, “a lot of my lovers have been raped. Easily half. Some were raped twice. One was gang raped twice. And, well…Ibegan to wonder, recently, if I might have had something to do with it.”

  “With them being raped?”

  “No, with them coming to me. I mean, I began to wonder if I was especially attractive to women who had been multiply violated. Women who were not safe.”

  “You mean,” Doc said, with a twinkle in his eye, “you mean you worry that these women look to you for the father/protector they never had.”

  “What an odd comment,” Anna said. “What a terrifying thought. What a confusing possibility. What a construction. My father takes care of people and I do too. Does that mean I have problems with my femininity? I mean, after all, Doc, the reason I’ve been involved with so many women who have been hurt might actually have something more to do with demographics and the gene pool. I mean, most women that I meet have fairly normal female experiences. And being raped seems to be … well…a natural part of all that. I don’t mean natural, like destiny. But it is awfully common. It’s not just me. So, now comes the interesting part of the dream.”

  “Oh goody,” Doc said.

  “In the next part J.G. Ballard swam through streets of female urine. The girls read his book Crash and then mowed him down with their Volkswagen, crushing his chest slowly against a brick wall. As he screamed in agony larger than representation can accommodate, they referred to his text and had orgasms. Later, they jumped up and down yelling, ‘You’re not a hero. You’re not a hero. You’re not. You’re not. You’re not.’”

  “How do you analyze that part of the dream, Anna?”

  She paused, suddenly shy.

  “I guess I’m nervous about my birthday.”

  “Oh, come on. You can do better than that.”

  “Doc, it’s just that we’ve … we’ve … we’ve been so oppressed.”

  “Anna, your dream seems to be about a justifiable revenge. The women in your life have been hurt by men. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to protect them.”

  “But, Doctor, how can I protect them if I’m one of them?”

  “Uh …”

  “Doctor, have you ever been in therapy yourself?”

  “Nope.”

  “Figures.”

  “You know why?” he said, leaning over. “You tell them one real thing and then the doctor thinks he knows you. He starts getting arrogant and overfamiliar, making insulting suggestions left and right. You have to protest constantly just to set the record straight. Finally he makes offensive assumptions and throws them in your face. A stranger in a bar could do the same. You know what, Anna?”

  “What, Doc?”

  “I have secrets I’d like to tell. There are things I need to figure out, out loud. But I would only tell them to someone who would never need use it.”

  “Use it how?”

  “To get ahead. To get revenge. To get better. To get started. You know, to win.”

  “Gee, Doc, someone must have really hurt your feelings.”

  “Yes,” Doc said wearily. “I only want friends who never expect to win.”

  That’s when she realized she missed that one friend. But she hid it behind incremental blocks of description.

  Chapter Ten

  Doc waited impatiently for Anna to return from the bathroom so that the session could resume.

  “Doc,” she said, crouched over, “there is something that has been particularly weighing on my mind. Something I want to resolve while I have the will and strength of character to face it.”

  “What?”

  “Well, Doc…I never had a lover who let me meet her parents.”

  “Why not?” he asked.

  “Because sometimes they just couldn’t. Sometimes they had no parents. Sometimes their parents were back home in some small town in Pennsylvania or the Bronx where these daughters just didn’t make sense. But there were also times, Doc, when the women were … ashamed of me. It was because they were ashamed of me. Because they thought I was less. Because they didn’t want to make their families uncomfortable, so they made me uncomfortable instead.”

  “Are you sure?” Doc asked.

  “I’m absolutely sure,” she said.

  “Give me an example,” Doc said.

  “Some girl named Sarah fell in love with me. We hitch-hiked across America, stopping off in Chicago where she fucked her exboyfriend. Three days later, in a parking lot by the Bonneville Salt Flats, she said, ‘You think I’m a homosexual but I’m not.’”

  Oh my God, Doc thought. That’s exactly what that woman in white leather said to me. Only why did she say that to me? I’m a man. I’m supposed to be immune to that sort of thing.

  “Then what happened?”

  “We went to California anyway. I only had twenty-six dollars and couldn’t very well turn around and hitch-hike back to New York alone. I could get raped. Spent a few weeks picking walnuts in her hometown of Visalia and ate potato dinners followed by harassing questions by her family.”

  “Hold everything, Anna,” Doc said. “I though you said you never had a lover who let you meet her parents.”

  “We weren’t lovers anymore, remember? She’d gone straight conveniently in Utah.”

  “Oh yeah.”

  “So, one day we’re hanging out by the one and only hot dog stand on Visalia’s main drag and her father reached into his car and handed me a present. ‘Here’s something you might be interested in,’ he says. It was a book called The History of Deviance in America.”

  It seemed to Doc that her time was almost up, but he decided to make it a double session.

  “So then, Doc, we go to LA where she picks up some guy on the UCLA campus and we end up living with him. Me, sleeping in the living room in a condo in Westwood, listening to them fucking. Finally, she realizes that she’s pregnant from that guy in Chicago. I spent three days sitting silently beside her in welfare centers and abortion clinics until the Medi-Cal came through and she gets it paid for. See, I was still acting like a lover. So, the night after the operation we’re eating in that guy’s apartment and news comes on the TV that Medicaid abortions have just been outlawed by the Hyde amendment. The next morning I told that guy, ‘Buy me a one-way to New York or I’ll break your legs.’”

  “Did he do it?”

  “They always do it. All you have to do is mention New York.”

  “What happened to her?”

  “She had a nervous breakdown and joined EST. Nine years later she came out again and apologized. But that’s a long time to wait, nine formative years.”

  Yeah he’d make it a double session but only charge her for one. Or was that too Pavlovian and unprofessional?

  You’re not supposed to let your patients know that you like them, he remembered. It’s that fucking blank slate.

  “What can you do to feel better?” Doc asked.

  “My last lover’s boyfriend got to go to her mother’s house whenever he wanted to. He got to go so much that he didn’t want to anymore. He even got to go when they were breaking up so she could be with me. But I never got to go.”

  “Oh,” Doc said. “That is not right.”

  “Soon it will be my birthday and I want to go.”

  “I think you should go,” Doc said.

  “Her mother has an apartment on the Upper West Side. I want to go there.”

  “Do you have the address?”

  “Yes, I called information and got listings for everyone with that name on the Upper West Side, and I narrowed it down to her.”

  “How are you going to get there?”

  By this time Anna’s body language was
entirely different. That’s because she was scheming, strategizing for things to go her way.

  “I’m going to wake up on the morning of my birthday. I’m going to put on my best clothes. I’m going to take the subway, and when I get out I’ll go to the nearest Korean fruit stand and buy some flowers. Some special flowers. Some orange ones. Then I’ll go to her door and ring the buzzer.”

  “What if there’s a doorman?” Doc said. “They have those on the Upper West Side, you know.”

  “If there’s a doorman, I’ll announce myself. I’ll say ‘I’ve come to bring some flowers.’ I’ll get the best ones.”

  “Even if they’re expensive?”

  “It’s my birthday,” Anna said. “I don’t care how much it costs.”

  There was a pause then, common among patients, and Doc took advantage of it to look out the window. He always noticed these shifts in conversation that seemed to be physical ones. They had to do with breathing.

  “But Anna, what if she doesn’t let me in, I mean, let you in?”

  “I don’t know,” Anna said.

  There was another one, a shift. When a person walks on a dark road at night and no light, there’s a bouncing slide and dry smell. Then, let’s say, the road becomes asphalt. It’s obvious, the change.

  “What do you think, Doc?”

  “Well,” he said. “Why do you need her mother to let you in the house?”

  “I need it because I am not slime. I need it because I am good enough to invite for dinner.”

  “Well then,” he said very upset, “well then, I think you’re doing the right thing.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Doc sat thoughtfully, looking out the window.

  Five years ago this neighborhood was gentrified, he thought. There were strangers everywhere buying art that no residents could afford or understand. There were no more pet shops or used refrigerator stores or TV repair.