Wonderful Town: New York Stories from The New Yorker

by David Remnick

  AT THE Halloween party, there were about two dozen people. There were people with ape heads and large hairy hands. There was someone dressed as a leprechaun. There was someone dressed as a frozen dinner. Some man had brought his two small daughters: a ballerina and a ballerina’s sister, also dressed as a ballerina. There was a gaggle of sexy witches—women dressed entirely in black, beautifully made up and jewelled. “I hate those sexy witches. It’s not in the spirit of Halloween,” said Evan. Evan had abandoned the moon mask and dolled herself up as a hausfrau, in curlers and an apron, a decision she now regretted. Charlie, because he liked fish, because he owned fish and collected fish, had decided to go as a fish. He had fins, and eyes on the sides of his head. “Zoë! How are you! I’m sorry I wasn’t here when you first arrived!” He spent the rest of his time chatting up the sexy witches.

  “Isn’t there something I can help you with here?” Zoë asked her sister. “You’ve been running yourself ragged.” She rubbed her sister’s arm, gently, as if she wished they were alone.

  “Oh, God, not at all,” said Evan, arranging stuffed mushrooms on a plate. The timer went off, and she pulled another sheetful out of the oven. “Actually, you know what you can do?”

  “What?” Zoë put on her bonehead.

  “Meet Earl. He’s the guy I had in mind for you. When he gets here, just talk to him a little. He’s nice. He’s fun. He’s going through a divorce.”

  “I’ll try,” Zoë groaned. “O.K.? I’ll try.” She looked at her watch.

  When Earl arrived, he was dressed as a naked woman, steel wool glued strategically to a body stocking, and large rubber breasts protruding like hams.

  “Zoë, this is Earl,” said Evan.

  “Good to meet you,” said Earl, circling Evan to shake Zoë’s hand. He stared at the top of Zoë’s head. “Great bone.”

  Zoë nodded. “Great tits,” she said. She looked past him, out the window at the city thrown glitteringly up against the sky; people were saying the usual things: how it looked like jewels, like bracelets and necklaces unstrung. You could see the clock of the Con Ed building, the orange-and-gold-capped Empire State, the Chrysler like a rocket ship dreamed up in a depression. Far west you could glimpse Astor Plaza, with its flying white roof like a nun’s habit. “There’s beer out on the balcony, Earl. Can I get you one?” Zoë asked.

  “Sure, uh, I’ll come along. Hey, Charlie, how’s it going?”

  Charlie grinned and whistled. People turned to look. “Hey, Earl,” someone called from across the room. “Va-va-va-voom.”

  They squeezed their way past the other guests, past the apes and the sexy witches. The suction of the sliding door gave way in a whoosh, and Zoë and Earl stepped out onto the balcony, a bonehead and a naked woman, the night air roaring and smoky cool. Another couple were out there, too, murmuring privately. They were not wearing costumes. They smiled at Zoë and Earl. “Hi,” said Zoë. She found the plastic-foam cooler, dug in and retrieved two beers.

  “Thanks,” said Earl. His rubber breasts folded inward, dimpled and dented, as he twisted open the bottle.

  “Well,” sighed Zoë anxiously. She had to learn not to be afraid of a man, the way, in your childhood, you learned not to be afraid of an earthworm or a bug. Often, when she spoke to men at parties, she rushed things in her mind. As the man politely blathered on, she would fall in love, marry, then find herself in a bitter custody battle with him for the kids and hoping for a reconciliation, so that despite all his betrayals she might no longer despise him, and, in the few minutes remaining, learn, perhaps, what his last name was and what he did for a living, though probably there was already too much history between them. She would nod, blush, turn away.

  “Evan tells me you’re a history professor. Where do you teach?”

  “Just over the Indiana border into Illinois.”

  He looked a little shocked. “I guess Evan didn’t tell me that part.”

  “She didn’t?”

  “No.”

  “Well, that’s Evan for you. When we were kids we both had speech impediments.”

  “That can be tough,” said Earl. One of his breasts was hidden behind his drinking arm, but the other shone low and pink, full as a strawberry moon.

  “Yes, well, it wasn’t a total loss. We used to go to what we called peach pearapy. For about ten years of my life, I had to map out every sentence in my mind, way ahead, before I said it. That was the only way I could get a coherent sentence out.”

  Earl drank from his beer. “How did you do that? I mean, how did you get through?”

  “I told a lot of jokes. Jokes you know the lines to already. You can just say them. I love jokes. Jokes and songs.”

  Earl smiled. He had on lipstick, a deep shade of red, but it was wearing off from the beer. “What’s your favorite joke?”

  “Uh, my favorite joke is probably—O.K., all right. This guy goes into a doctor’s office, and—”

  “I think I know this one,” interrupted Earl, eagerly. He wanted to tell it himself. “A guy goes into a doctor’s office, and the doctor tells him he’s got some good news and some bad news—that one, right?”

  “I’m not sure,” said Zoë. “This might be a different version.”

  “So the guy says, ‘Give me the bad news first,’ and the doctor says, ‘O.K. You’ve got three weeks to live.’ And the guy cries, ‘Three weeks to live! Doctor, what is the good news?’ And the doctor says, ‘Did you see that secretary out front? I finally fucked her.’”

  Zoë frowned.

  “That’s not the one you were thinking of?”

  “No.” There was accusation in her voice. “Mine was different.”

  “Oh,” said Earl. He looked away and then back again. “What kind of history do you teach?”

  “I teach American, mostly—eighteenth- and nineteenth-century.” In graduate school, at bars the pickup line was always “So what’s your century?”

  “Occasionally, I teach a special theme course,” she added. “Say, ‘Humor and Personality in the White House.’ That’s what my book’s on.” She thought of something someone once told her about bowerbirds, how they build elaborate structures before mating.

  “Your book’s on humor?”

  “Yeah, and, well, when I teach a theme course like that I do all the centuries.” So what’s your century?

  “All three of them.”

  “Pardon?” The breeze glistened her eyes. Traffic revved beneath them. She felt high and puny, like someone lifted into Heaven by mistake and then spurned.

  “Three. There’s only three.”

  “Well, four, really.” She was thinking of Jamestown, and of the Pilgrims coming here with buckles and witch hats to say their prayers.

  “I’m a photographer,” said Earl. His face was starting to gleam, his rouge smearing in a sunset beneath his eyes.

  “Do you like that?”

  “Well, actually, I’m starting to feel it’s a little dangerous.”

  “Really?”

  “Spending all your time in a dark room with that red light and all those chemicals. There’s links with Parkinson’s, you know.”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “I suppose I should wear rubber gloves, but I don’t like to. Unless I’m touching it directly, I don’t think of it as real.”

  “Hmm,” said Zoë. Alarm buzzed mildly through her.

  “Sometimes, when I have a cut or something, I feel the sting and think, Shit. I wash constantly and just hope. I don’t like rubber over the skin like that.”

  “Really.”

  “I mean, the physical contact. That’s what you want, or why bother?”

  “I guess,” said Zoë. She wished she could think of a joke, something slow and deliberate with the end in sight. She thought of gorillas, how when they had been kept too long alone in cages they would smack each other in the head instead of mating.

  “Are you—in a relationship?” Earl suddenly blurted.

  “Now? As we speak?”
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  “Well, I mean, I’m sure you have a relationship to your work.” A smile, a little one, nestled in his mouth like an egg. She thought of zoos in parks, how when cities were under siege, during world wars, people ate the animals. “But I mean, with a man.”

  “No, I’m not in a relationship with a man.” She rubbed her chin with her hand and could feel the one bristly hair there. “But my last relationship was with a very sweet man,” she said. She made something up. “From Switzerland. He was a botanist—a weed expert. His name was Jerry. I called him Jare. He was so funny. You’d go to the movies with him and all he would notice was the plants. He would never pay attention to the plot. Once, in a jungle movie, he started rattling off all these Latin names, out loud. It was very exciting for him.” She paused, caught her breath. “Eventually, he went back to Europe to, uh, study the edelweiss.” She looked at Earl. “Are you involved in a relationship? With a woman?”

  Earl shifted his weight and the creases in his body stocking changed, splintering outward like something broken. His pubic hair slid over to one hip, like a corsage on a saloon girl. “No,” he said, clearing his throat. The steel wool in his underarms was inching down toward his biceps. “I’ve just gotten out of a marriage that was full of bad dialogue like ‘You want more space? I’ll give you more space!’ Clonk. Your basic Three Stooges.”

  Zoë looked at him sympathetically. “I suppose it’s hard for love to recover after that.”

  His eyes lit up. He wanted to talk about love. “But I keep thinking love should be like a tree. You look at trees and they’ve got bumps and scars from tumors, infestations, what have you, but they’re still growing. Despite the bumps and bruises, they’re—straight.”

  “Yeah, well,” said Zoë, “where I’m from they’re all married or gay. Did you see that movie ‘Death by Number’?”

  Earl looked at her, a little lost. She was getting away from him. “No,” he said.

  One of his breasts had slipped under his arm, tucked there like a baguette. She kept thinking of trees, of parks, of people in wartime eating the zebras. She felt a stabbing pain in her abdomen.

  “Want some hors d’oeuvres?” Evan came pushing through the sliding door. She was smiling, though her curlers were coming out, hanging bedraggled at the ends of her hair like Christmas decorations, like food put out for the birds. She thrust forward a plate of stuffed mushrooms.

  “Are you asking for donations or giving them away?” said Earl wittily. He liked Evan, and he put his arm around her.

  “You know, I’ll be right back,” said Zoë.

  “Oh,” said Evan, looking concerned.

  “Right back. I promise.”

  Zoë hurried inside, across the living room into the bedroom, to the adjoining bath. It was empty; most of the guests were using the half-bath near the kitchen. She flicked on the light and closed the door. The pain had stopped, and she didn’t really have to go to the bathroom, but she stayed there anyway, resting. In the mirror above the sink, she looked haggard beneath her bonehead, violet-grays showing under the skin like a plucked and pocky bird’s. She leaned closer, raising her chin a little to find the bristly hair. It was there, at the end of the jaw, sharp and dark as a wire. She opened the medicine cabinet, pawed through it until she found some tweezers. She lifted her head again and poked at her face with the metal tips, grasping and pinching and missing. Outside the door, she could hear two people talking low. They had come into the bedroom and were discussing something. They were sitting on the bed. One of them giggled in a false way. Zoë stabbed again at her chin, and it started to bleed a little. She pulled the skin tight along the jawbone, gripped the tweezers hard around what she hoped was the hair, and tugged. A tiny square of skin came away, but the hair remained, blood bright at the root of it. Zoë clenched her teeth. “Come on,” she whispered. The couple outside in the bedroom were now telling stories, softly, and laughing. There was a bounce and squeak of mattress, and the sound of a chair being moved out of the way. Zoë aimed the tweezers carefully, pinched, then pulled gently, and this time the hair came, too, with a slight twinge of pain, and then a great flood of relief. “Yeah!” breathed Zoë. She grabbed some toilet paper and dabbed at her chin. It came away spotted with blood, and so she tore off some more and pressed hard until it stopped. Then she turned off the light, opened the door, and rejoined the party. “Excuse me,” she said to the couple in the bedroom. They were the couple from the balcony, and they looked at her, a bit surprised. They had their arms around each other, and they were eating candy bars.

  EARL was still out on the balcony, alone, and Zoë rejoined him there. “Hi,” she said.

  He turned around and smiled. He had straightened his costume out a bit, though all the secondary sex characteristics seemed slightly doomed, destined to shift and flip and zip around again any moment. “Are you O.K.?” he asked. He had opened another beer and was chugging.

  “Oh, yeah. I just had to go to the bathroom.” She paused. “Actually, I have been going to a lot of doctors recently.”

  “What’s wrong?” asked Earl.

  “Oh, probably nothing. But they’re putting me through tests.” She sighed. “I’ve had sonograms. I’ve had mammograms. Next week I’m going in for a candygram.” He looked at her, concerned. “I’ve had too many gram words,” she said.

  “Here, I saved you these.” He held out a napkin with two stuffed mushroom caps. They were cold and leaving oil marks on the napkin.

  “Thanks,” said Zoë, and pushed them both in her mouth. “Watch,” she said with her mouth full. “With my luck it’ll be a gallbladder operation.”

  Earl made a face. “So your sister’s getting married,” he said, changing the subject. “Tell me, really, what you think about love.”

  “Love?” Hadn’t they done this already? “I don’t know.” She chewed thoughtfully and swallowed. “All right. I’ll tell you what I think about love. Here is a love story. This friend of mine—”

  “You’ve got something on your chin,” said Earl, and he reached over to touch it.

  “What?” said Zoë, stepping back. She turned her face away and grabbed at her chin. A piece of toilet paper peeled off it, like tape. “It’s nothing,” she said. “It’s just—it’s nothing.”

  Earl stared at her.

  “At any rate,” she continued, “this friend of mine was this award-winning violinist. She traveled all over Europe and won competitions; she made records, she gave concerts, she got famous. But she had no social life. So one day she threw herself at the feet of this conductor she had a terrible crush on. He picked her up, scolded her gently, and sent her back to her hotel room. After that, she came home from Europe. She went back to her old home town, stopped playing the violin, and took up with a local boy. This was in Illinois. He took her to some Big Ten bar every night to drink with his buddies from the team. He used to say things like ‘Katrina here likes to play the violin’ and then he’d pinch her cheek. When she once suggested that they go home, he said, ‘What, you think you’re too famous for a place like this? Well, let me tell you something. You may think you’re famous, but you’re not famous famous.’ Two famouses. ‘No one here’s ever heard of you.’ Then he went up and bought a round of drinks for everyone but her. She got her coat, went home, and shot a bullet through her head.”

  Earl was silent.

  “That’s the end of my love story,” said Zoë.

  “You’re not at all like your sister,” said Earl.

  “Oh, really,” said Zoë. The air had gotten colder, the wind singing minor and thick as a dirge.

  “No.” He didn’t want to talk about love anymore. “You know, you should wear a lot of blue—blue and white—around your face. It would bring out your coloring.” He reached an arm out to show her how the blue bracelet he was wearing might look against her skin, but she swatted it away.

  “Tell me, Earl. Does the word ‘fag’ mean anything to you?”

  He stepped back, away from her. He shook his he
ad in disbelief. “You know, I just shouldn’t try to go out with career women. You’re all stricken. A guy can really tell what life has done to you. I do better with women who have part-time jobs.”

  “Oh, yes?” said Zoë. She had once read an article entitled “Professional Women and the Demographics of Grief.” Or, no, it was a poem. If there were a lake, the moonlight would dance across it in conniptions. She remembered that line. But perhaps the title was “The Empty House: Aesthetics of Barrenness.” Or maybe “Space Gypsies: Girls in Academe.” She had forgotten.

  Earl turned and leaned on the railing of the balcony. It was getting late. Inside, the party guests were beginning to leave. The sexy witches were already gone. “Live and learn,” Earl murmured.

  “Live and get dumb,” replied Zoë. Beneath them on Lexington there were no cars, just the gold rush of an occasional cab. He leaned hard on his elbows, brooding.

  “Look at those few people down there,” he said. “They look like bugs. You know how bugs are kept under control? They’re sprayed with bug hormones—female bug hormones. The male bugs get so crazy in the presence of this hormone they’re screwing everything in sight—trees, rocks, everything but female bugs. Population control. That’s what’s happening in this country,” he said drunkenly. “Hormones sprayed around, and now men are screwing rocks. Rocks!”

  In the back, the Magic Marker line of his buttocks spread wide, a sketchy black on pink, like a funnies page. Zoë came up, slow, from behind, and gave him a shove. His arms slipped forward, off the railing, out over the street. Beer spilled out of his bottle, raining twenty stories down to the street.

  “Hey, what are you doing!” he said, whipping around. He stood straight and readied, and moved away from the railing, sidestepping Zoë. “What the hell are you doing?”

  “Just kidding,” she said. “I was just kidding.” But he gazed at her, appalled and frightened, his Magic Marker buttocks turned away now toward all of downtown, a naked pseudo woman with a blue bracelet at the wrist, trapped out on a balcony with—with what? “Really, I was just kidding!” Zoë shouted. The wind lifted the hair up off her head, skyward in spines behind the bone. If there were a lake, the moonlight would dance across it in conniptions. She smiled at him and wondered how she looked.