by Tao Lin
By Union Square, a strange man asked Annie to take his picture.
The man was strange, Sean knew, because he had on a shirt that said, “Love, Italian Style.”
Annie took the man’s camera and gave it to Michelle. The man looked worried. “Hold it,” he said. He had another camera in hand, a larger one. “Thanks so much,” he said, and moved forward, grinning. Michelle snapped a picture with flash. There was a second man, now, who was squinting at Sean from a very close distance. Sean noticed that he was staring straight through this man.
“Let her,” Annie told the man. But he had taken back the camera and entered a store. He and the second man stood inside, behind glass. One of them was pointing at Michelle. There seemed to be four of them now—four men, each one strange in his own unique way. Sean did not understand. He laughed suddenly. The novel had clams, he thought. He laughed again.
“Do you want a camera for Christmas?” Annie asked Michelle. “Photographers are well-respected and artfully political. Artfully political,” she said carefully.
“I want a horse-drawn carriage for Christmas,” Chris said. “To run myself over with. Just kidding.”
“I want us all to live together in a house somewhere, not doing anything.” Annie said. She looked at Michelle. “A ginger-bread house. What do you want Sean?”
I want to be in love and out of this place, Sean thought immediately, and then felt the nausea of that thought, the massive, animal flu of it. He didn’t want anything, ever, he thought extravagantly. Actually, he knew exactly what he wanted. He had thought about this before—last week when he was kind of depressed. He wanted to enter into himself, sit inside his own body, and look out from there, to see what he would do. He wanted to continue doing things, but wanted just to watch that happening, and not actually do anything. “I want—” Sean said.
“He took my picture!” Michelle screamed. She began to climb Sean, who watched her noncommittally, then picked her up, cradling her legs and upper back.
“Michelle’s the smartest in her class,” Annie said. “Her teachers are all useless. All teachers are all useless. Where’s Chris?”
Chris was walking toward the restaurant. Annie ran to him. Sean, carrying Michelle, stared at Annie running, then began to jog in her direction.
“You’re bumpy,” Michelle said. Sean looked down and saw that Michelle’s eyes were wide-open and calm, which made him feel happy. “You’re not good at being smooth,” Michelle said. Chris was ahead, going very fast, and Sean began to run, to keep up. He concentrated on rolling his feet, letting the heel land first. He felt that he might fall and dent his forehead; or else very quickly descend into the concrete, like stairs.
At the restaurant they sat at the sushi bar. They sat Chris, Sean, Michelle, Annie. Chris ordered three house salads, which were rushed out immediately in a sort of prolonged tic on the part of the waitress. “Sorry,” said the waitress. She smiled directly at Sean. How many times had Sean been here in this one very long day? He counted in his head. One, two, three. Sean smiled back at the waitress. Little did she know, Sean thought, the life he lived—it was less a life than a museum and a church of life. A repository of things clubbed-on-the-head, stuffed, put on display, worshipped from behind glass. This was a place impossible for romance, a place where tea was brewed, earnestly, from paint chips, glass shards, and small change. In this world, Sean knew, one could put faith in a toe bone, a blood bone, a cartilage of eye—all the unloved contributors of one’s own body-world. Though, what was a blood bone? Were there, perhaps, bones in the blood? Tiny ones that swam? Skeletons of some lost and wayless plasma-people? What about clams? None of this, Sean thought very carefully and slowly, was true, of course. He made an effort to concentrate on the real world—the actual place outside where real things happened every day, supposedly.
Annie was hugging Chris and asking about his salads and Chris was unresponsive.
Then Annie was back in her seat saying to Michelle, “Your eyebrows are going to grow muscles if you keep looking that way. Do you want big eyebrow muscles on your face? It’s okay if you do. You can do anything you want.” Annie took something from her pocket and put it in her mouth. She did that twice. “You’re a very privileged young girl,” she said. “Would you like horse-riding lessons? Would you like to eat exuberant salads, with variegated wild nuts? That can be arranged.” Annie was looking at her hands, which were clasped in front of her. “Your life is ahead of you and it’s crazy. A jumping, darting thing. A winged-frog thing, being dart-gunned. Do you want to be a quiet girl or a loud girl? Happily sad or sadly happy? Who will you love? For what reasons? Would you like piano lessons or violin?” Annie turned slowly, at the neck, toward Michelle. “It’s not too late to be a concert pianist. It’s not too late to believe in a loving God.”
“Stop,” Michelle whispered. “Stop doing that,” she shouted.
“You didn’t mean to whisper,” Annie said. “So cute.”
Michelle pushed Annie, who leaned into the push, canceling it.
“Just, stop, please,” Chris murmured. “Bad …”
“I don’t love you,” Michelle said to Annie.
Sean had been thinking about one time, a long time ago in Florida, when Chris had chased him down and tied his arms behind his back with a belt, his legs together with shoelaces, and then sprayed him with the water hose. Sean couldn’t stop laughing, even while being sprayed in the face; it was in the front yard, on the grass, and Sean had later pulled the hose, taut, into the living room and sprayed his brother, Chris, who had been eating a plate of microwaved nuggets. Actually, Sean hadn’t done that, but he was imagining it now—skylight, sliding glass door, chicken nuggets—without taking into consideration if it had really happened.
He was imagining this and smiling and staring at Annie, and then Annie was smiling back at him and they smiled at each other for a very long time, nothing else happening in the world.
Then Sean was yawning and blinking a very slow blink. He noticed that he was staring at something not Annie. His eyes weren’t focusing. Focus, Sean told his eyes. He exerted willpower at his eyes. There was a fork. I’m used for eating, said the fork. Throw it, Sean thought. He wanted to have fun. He touched his mouth and felt that he was still smiling. Good, he thought. He yawned and put some of his fingers in the hole of his mouth. He wouldn’t ever sleep again, he thought promisingly, never again. Clams, he thought. He saw that Chris was pointing his finger, ordering appetizers off the menu. All of them, Sean thought, give him all the appetizers. The waitress had her notepad. Sean couldn’t decipher her face. He felt that he knew her intimately. She had a pen and a notepad and then she was leaving. “Beer,” Chris shouted. “Saki.”
“Oh, wow,” Annie said. “Maryanne has the same consonant-vowel configuration as Michelle. I guess that isn’t very interesting.” Michelle stood and began to attack Annie. She kicked Annie. She hit Annie with a spoon. Annie had a worried look on her face. “Oh, Michelle,” she said. “Hit me, please. I’m sorry. I don’t know what to do. I really don’t. How do I help us? You and Chris. You and Sean and Chris.”
Sean looked at his brother, who seemed to be weeping, very quietly and strangely, his face down, almost touching his salad bowls. Sean wanted to spray him with the hose. He wanted badly to do that ten years ago. I’ll do it, Sean thought. The logic of this blanked his mind. Then Michelle was holding his hand, leading him someplace, and now they stood outside the restaurant, looking in through glass.
Annie was hugging Chris at the sushi bar. She turned and looked for Michelle and Sean and saw them standing outside, holding hands. The precocious child, her daughter—how she loved her little Michelle—was staring right at her, fiercely but sleepily; her eyes a bit unfocused. Sean, the young boy, was yawning. He had the admonished, ever-surrendering face—the wet eyes—of someone who would only ever love from a distance, in secret, a kind of nauseous, searching half-love, a love dizzied by its own halfness, made faithful by its own dizziness. He was
yawning again. He hadn’t slept, Annie knew.
Michelle led Sean inside. She walked slowly around, holding Sean’s hand. Sean gazed at people with a keen and intensifying indifference. He experienced a distinct moment of nonexistence, and then became aware that he was staring at teriyaki. Who are you? Sean thought. The meat rolled over. It was chicken. It had a sad, slick sauce on it—a savvy dressing that it maybe, Sean thought cautiously, did not want. But it needed that sauce. It wanted to be eaten. Michelle was asking a stranger where the bathroom was. Then Sean opened the bathroom door and Michelle pushed him inside. She went inside. The bathroom was small and dark and Sean turned on the light. “No,” Michelle said. Sean turned off the light. He stared into the darkness. Love, he thought. He was yawning. People outside were laughing. The sound was distorted. “I left my salmon at your house,” someone said excitedly. Cold air was moving down from above and Michelle was talking loudly. “She threw sand at my pet dog. It was Bean. She says things on purpose because she’s an annoying mommy …” I do not know what she is talking about, Sean thought very slowly. Michelle was crying softly, then very loudly. Sean felt that he was somewhere else, a place where he was yet somewhere else. Thanks, Sean thought. Thank you, world. Something inside of him was grabbing at air. Something else was on its way, was moving, steady and brainward, like an inchoate thought, something forming and loving and true—but it was a tiny thing, a distant and tired thing, and it was slowing, giving up, maybe turning around. Michelle was crying and saying, “I don’t even love any real person …” and someone was knocking at the door, from below. It was Chris. “Sean,” he said. “Maryanne.” He kicked the door again, then had the sudden and engrossing thought that tomorrow, and every day after, he might wake up feeling exactly the same as he did right now, which made his body shake a little. No one noticed that, though. No one was looking at Chris. Everyone was looking at the green-haired, red-and-white dressed girl, who was standing next to Chris, and who was saying, “People are staring, Michelle, Sean, right at me, as I’m saying these words they’re staring at my mouth and inside of my mouth and now their faces are changing—as I’m talking, Chris, their faces are changing and changing …” Her voice was loud, but trembling, as if she were going to cry.
Cull the Steel Heart, Melt the Ice one, Love the Weak Thing; Say Nothing of Consolation, but Irrelevance, Disaster, and Nonexistence; Have no Hope or Hate—Nothing; Ruin Yourself Exclusively, Completely, and Whenever Possible
Snow was everywhere that Friday, in clumps and hills, glassy and metastasized as SUVs, and none of it white. The sky was a bright and affected gray—lit from some unseen light source, and not really that interesting. People went up and down Sixth Avenue with the word motherfucker in their heads. They felt no emotions, had no sensation of life, love, or the pursuit of happiness, but only the knowledge of being stuck between a Thursday and a Saturday, air and things, this thought and the next, philosophy and action; birth, death, God, the devil, heaven, and hell. There was no escape, ever, was what people felt.
Colin himself was dressed lightly, in dark and enveloping colors. He felt of the same endless machinery and danceless, starless trance of the city at night, if a bit cold. He stood on the perimeter of Washington Square Park, waiting for Dana. They were going to a Leftover Crack show. Leftover Crack was a ska-punk band fronted by a person named Stza; their recent CD was “Fuck World Trade,” Colin knew, as he owned that CD.
Dana crossed the street quickly, as if over water. She wore a yellow beanie, stood with Colin on the sidewalk. They smiled at each other and nothing else happened. The atmosphere was not conducive to talking. Visibility was low because of a fog. In the distance, vague things were falling or rising between the buildings. Bats, flying trash. Werewolves, throwing themselves off of roofs. Dana was holding herself with her own arms, Colin could see. They’d known each other almost four years, beginning with the first college-orientation thing before September 11th, but hadn’t really talked in more than three. A few days ago they’d met on the street and made plans. Tonight, Dana’s boyfriend was at a boxing seminar or something, was unavailable, so here she was with Colin.
In the street, a car idled by, a little off-kilter and without its lights on. An unmanned car, lost in the world. It spun slowly around and continued down the street, backwards and twisting.
It began to snow.
“Sure you want to do this?” Dana finally said.
Colin felt cold. He probably should’ve worn more clothing. The show was in Brooklyn, he knew, and they were in Manhattan. “Um,” he said.
“I want to do something with you still,” Dana said.
Colin looked at her. His eyes were very dry. He could feel his contact lenses there, little walls in front of his eyes. He yawned and Dana went out of focus, a bit wild and diagonal in the air, as if about to travel through time. There was snow on her beanie. Colin brushed at it. But it was just white dots—smiley faces.
“There was this beanie floating through the air the other day,” Dana said. “Minding its own business, and I reached over and plucked it out. Like a flower or something. Not this one I’m wearing now. A different one. This really shitty one.” She smiled, then laughed. “I never say ‘shitty.’ I’ve just been listening to this song. It goes, ‘the world’s a shitty place / I can’t wait to die,’ and at the end he goes, ‘just kidding world / you know I love you.’ ”
Colin knew that song. There was nothing to say about it. “They should have beanies with beans on it, not smiley faces,” he said.
“Yeah. Anything but smiley faces.”
“When I see a smiley face I feel demented.”
“What if beans were alive and they all had smiley faces,” Dana said.
They talked some more like that. Dana seemed to move closer over time, then began to touch Colin’s shoulder sometimes. Colin didn’t know if this was flirting or what. He knew he didn’t know anything about motivation, the world, the future, the past, or human beings. He knew that Dana was marrying her boyfriend. Actually, he did know many things. But it was maybe too many, and he didn’t care. His knowledge was an indestructible machine, made of a million pieces of metal, and flying—a gigantic, gleaming, peripheral blur that Colin was not at all curious about.
A while ago, one night, Colin had eaten the universe, and from then on had felt black and spacey inside, had felt his heart, tiny and untwinkling, in some faraway center, white and tepid as a dot of Styrofoam.
Dana had changed her mind. She wanted now to see Leftover Crack. Would not do anything else, no matter what.
“I’m doing a film,” she shouted on the train. “I’m filming tomorrow. Want to be in it?”
Colin said, “What did you just say?” Then realized what she had said. Then the train started screeching and someone began to play a saxophone. Colin told himself to ask Dana about the film later. There was a building that was Colin’s future, a tall and glassy place that he’d have to enter, and if he didn’t fill it, he’d end up wandering the floors, wheeling around on an office chair, rolling his own body on the carpet, like a log. But then probably that’d be a lot easier. Him in his empty building. Harmless, mute. Irrelevant.
Dana shouted something but Colin couldn’t hear. He saw her mouth move in a laugh. “I’m going in there with white and green,” a little girl screamed, “and you’re going to choose green!” Dana took a paper from her pocket, gave it to Colin. A drawing of two whales; one with a fishhook in its mouth, a harpoon in its eye; the other with lipstick, squares for eyes—the saddest-looking whale Colin had ever seen—and a thought bubble:
I wish I could round these eyes
I don’t like myself but I think I like you
Give me a kiss and shred off my face
Give me a very square farewell look
Colin read it and nodded at Dana. She was blushing. She touched her face, grinned, shouted something, took back her paper. They got off the train in Red Hook, Brooklyn. It was very quiet here. Snow had come down from hea
ven, swirled about, absorbed all the smoke and dust—all the coppery, spray painted wooziness of a city—and then fallen, thwarted, to the black and coagulated ground, stopped on its way to hell. There was not a deli anywhere, and no buses. A police van was ahead.
“Show’s over,” a policeman in the van said. “Concert’s canceled.” Colin and Dana kept walking toward the venue, a bit quicker. “Turn around and go home,” the policeman said. “There’s nothing here for you two.”
Colin and Dana turned slowly around.
“Just kidding!” the policeman said. “Hey!”
As Colin and Dana walked by, the policeman smiled at Colin. Because of snow, they had to walk within touching distance of the van. All the cops inside, Colin saw, were distinctly different in body size. Maybe a dozen cops, all in jackets. “Have fun,” the policeman said.
The venue was Polish-owned, had an outside area where kids smoked and where three Polish women—a mom, her daughters—sold hot dogs, vegetarian hot dogs, chips, and an orange, potion-y drink, which was in a large punch bowl. A hundred or so kids were out here.
Colin thought of saying something. He hadn’t for a while. But he felt very calm, and a little dizzy; felt as if washed out by some sweet and anesthetic water, as he often did. Kids were moving in and out of shadows, being loud or elusive, eating chips or smoking. They were sad and pretty in their anguished and demonic colors, their piercings, their hands in their pockets. The bassist for Leftover Crack, Colin recognized, stood alone, eating a hot dog that was not vegetarian, drinking the orange drink.
Dana was looking at Colin. “I’m taking a vampire class,” she said. “We just watch vampire movies.”
Something black and warped was rippling through Colin’s head, little voids, and he couldn’t concentrate. Probably it was unacceptable to be distracted in this way, he knew, by nothing—by nothingness. It took him a minute or two to respond. “Is Bram Stoker a vampire?” he finally said.