Anyway, I am on my way back from 100 Centre Street where I just picked up my service dates. I can not believe what has happened to me... It all seems surreal and just unbelievable. I have to remember to write this all out after my Rigoletto paper.
Anyway, my head hurts too much to think, and all I want to do right now is go home.
*********************************
I wrote this a week or two later (and never finished it). I figured I'd post it here...
December 10, 1998Poor poor Vicki! Her life is falling apart.
My eyes were glazed over in boredom, reflecting pools of the wavering red and blue images flickering on the screen in front of me. I propped my head higher up on my pillow... wasting time with "One Life to Live..." I had taped it earlier that day.
I wanted to burn the house down too. There was so much I wanted to say and absolutely no forum in which I could have said it... I needed to write a story and there was no plot I could think of that could ever be enough.
All Lindsay has ever wanted was to be part of Clint’s life.
"They did get married in a heck of a hurry. They didn't even know each other that well..."
Hmmm... I racked my brain for a plot, a story, a scenario... better yet, I convinced myself to sink into the dreamy memories of my own experience, forcing myself to think about something from my own life that I wanted to write about...A conversation, anything...how about something with you know who...The father she never had...the guy who would never save her...coke sessions with KSing…cutting my thumb at B's…watching my blood soak into the paper towel, seeing it turn red with my own brilliant color, spilling out of me and turning to a dead dried brown once kissed by the air.
"I thought you understood."
Why did I have the urge, so much, to say something?
"Well, they thought they had a lead on where Christian and Jessica are but it turned out they were wrong..."
We were always three kings...
Myrrh is mine, its bitter perfume breaths a sigh of gathering gloom...heaving, sighing, bleeding, dying... locked in a stone cold tomb.
I really didn't want to be bothered with anything that night.
Why is Vicki always so damned perceptive? By the way, it was Dec. 9, 1998.
"Look, you and I have always made magic together, unfortunately we always made the same mistake of taking that magic to bed," said Max to Blair with a smile.
"She didn't say anything, I know it was her...When you’re a parent, you even know what your child’s silence sounds like," Vicki insisted.
"Part of destiny and fate is trusting it," Will explained, "but if you can't, you can trust me... you're not going to lose me."
I was so fucking bored that day.
"Just write your fucking paper, Hyde! Stop procrastinating and write your fucking Rigoletto paper!"
He looked disappointed in me even though I reassured him that I wasn't suicidal.
"Who the hell cuts themselves as high as their elbow if they’re trying to bleed to death?" I asked.
He shrugged. He didn't understand me. I was no longer the typical college kid that he had once been, a good little girl in a bad bit of trouble.
"Look, I don’t know..." he answered. "I just need you to sign this form saying you don't want to go to the hospital or nothing like that."
I signed. That was the last thing I needed after the this hell.
"All right, take her back in," he said.
I almost wished that I had tried to kill myself. At least I wouldn't be where I was now. The night stretched before my eyes and I couldn't imagine it ending. But where was my fear? Where was the raspy breath and pounding heart that was always my escape when things became too difficult to deal with? Why was I so unafraid and so at home here? Had I really become a criminal? Had I finally been raped, torn in black and white by the night, my innocence stolen? Or was I too naive and too innocent to even realize the kind of trouble I had gotten myself into?
There had been an impending feeling of doom all night, and not just because I like to romanticize about shit like that. I don’t know why I didn't listen to it, but then again, I'm not psychic, and if it had all been pulled off and I was home finishing my paper instead of here, behind bars, I would have shrugged off the whole terrible feeling as simple paranoia.
I heard the storm thrashing around outside the inn of the assassin. Gilda’s hand stood poised, about to knock on the door of her death and the Duke merrily dreamed of love in the room above. Rigoletto- the loving father and twisted bitter jester, the most noble and deepest of men and the most ridiculed and pitied deformity. The pages stood blinking on my computer screen, untouched for hours. I just couldn't focus... couldn't concentrate. It had all become so foreign to me…the discipline and the pride that I used to have in my schoolwork. I wound the phone wire around my fingers, hour after hour. laying on my stomach and laying on my back. I stamped my hundredth cigarette out against the cheap black plastic of my Rite-Aid ashtray and I rolled over again. Pointless. Pointless conversation after pointless conversation until I began to wander, searching for a means of procrastination for this procrastination. It would be my birthday on Saturday…I sighed, angry at my boredom and at the blinking red numbers on my clock. The later it got, the sooner I would really have to crack down on this damn paper.
Last week had been our choir concert. Afterwards there was fun like there hadn't been for months and KSing and I were doing that shit again. I still remember the rush and I long for it back. That ultimate and beautiful relief from the frowning demons inside me. Oh well... I rolled over again, propping my chin up on my wrist and trying to forget all that and focus on the phone. I wondered why I got a wrong number when I called that guy earlier. And if I couldn't get in touch with him, where the hell was I going to get some more stuff? Only for my birthday, of course... I guess I could check the streets just once... someone was out last week when KSing thought it would be impossible to buy, so why not now? Maybe I should go for a walk... just to see... and if there’s no one out, then it will be a nice study break and I'll come back and force myself to finish the paper later.
"Yeah, I’m going out for some... don't worry about it. I'll call you when I get back, all right?"
Energized, I crammed my credit card, drivers license, student ID, twenty bucks and my keys into my pocket, threw on my coat and headed for the door. The red, pink and blue Christmas lights twinkled back at me through the mirror, and the phone rang again. It reminded me of the song that Jessica had been singing to her unborn baby a few hours ago. Vicki used to sing it to Jessica when she was little too. "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star." That was my perfect 5th memory device. That was the song written to the same tune as "Ba Ba Black Sheep" and the alphabet. God, I loved those lights! It was 12:34. It was KSing. I told her I was on my way out.
"All right, be careful!" she warned me.
She actually warned me! Did she have a premonition too?
"Don't worry about it!" I reassured her.
I was used to walking around really late. I loved the urine filled mud and tar specked puddles of the New York City sidewalks and the orange pink light that bathed the city in ribbons of blood. I loved to feel my feet hard against the pavement, and as I pressed play on my small gray walk-man, the churning and angry sound of those car rides years ago began to bellow into my soul. I smiled sinisterly, on the edge, dangerous and mean. And then I laughed at myself for my own melodrama. But what would I be without such melodrama? I turned the key, clipped the blue plastic key ring onto my belt loop and headed out into hell.
The wind tore at my cheeks, but it made me smile. I have always loved that kind of pain, imagining the blood trickling down my rosy skin, exposed for too long. But my pleasure was tainted; I began to feel nervous, approaching Broadway. I felt unsafe…vulnerable. Where was the empowering menace that had just filled me moments before? Maybe I should have brought my mace…I saw a police car across the street. All right, at least the cops were out tonight. I was quick at the ATM and briskly walked to 110th street, pressing the crumpled twenties deeper into my pocket.
The housewife I will beat! I bash myself to sleep! I am a little shit! I slit my teenage wrists! Don’t mean a fuck to me!
He spit violently into my ears and I kept pace with the frenetic shouting.
But I was nervous again, and couldn't understand why. A man with glasses scurried along the street in front of me.
“He probably lives here on 110th,” I thought.
He was talking to a man with a maroon scarf. Both of them were carrying string instruments. There was a certain safety in the company of these musicians. I stayed close on their tail. Why was I so afraid tonight? I just didn't want to be seen walking alone.
I turned the corner onto Amsterdam. The two men had already said their good nights at the doorstep. Now I really had to keep my eyes opened. Where was “Victor?”
“Look for the Yankees hat,” I reminded myself.
“What’s up baby?”
I lifted my head, my eyes darting anxiously towards the street corner. It was him! I had found him already! I smiled. But then I drew closer. I really need to get to the fucking eye doctor already. I didn't know these two men and I regretted making eye contact and smiling at them at all. Didn't they know that I would never flirt with them, I was looking to buy, not to sell! I put on my most pissed off “don’t talk to me face,” and blew past them. I’m really good at looking angry and at blowing people off. It gives me a kind of rush to be rude to people. Is that sick?
I pounded onward, further into the night. When I passed SoHa, the bar we had been at last week, the bouncer was outside talking to some guy. I wondered if he remembered me. I had been looking for my friends that night and had had an extensive conversation with him about finding a pay-phone. I fumbled a wave, meeting his eyes, but he ignored me, shifting his gaze towards the ground, never pausing in his banter and thrusting his hands into his back pockets. His behavior seemed a little strange. Maybe he didn't remember me. But, ah! The power of hindsight!
God damn it, though, nobody was out tonight! My eyes scanned every corner. Couples were sitting on the stoop across the street; a homeless drunk was wildly dancing under the pink beaming lamps, waving his arms and tearing the sky; a Chinese man drew the rickety gate down on his restaurant window, arguing with a woman passing by. I guess it was going to be home from here. I had reached 105th street.
I glanced around again, nervously, unable to determine the rhythm of the night. I don’t usually like to walk down that far, but still… I lingered at a pay phone not really determined to give up. Should I go another block? I picked up the greasy receiver; the plastic felt cold in my hands. With nothing else to do, I dialed in to check my phone mail, knowing full well that I had already spent hours talking to each of my friends and that nobody would have left a message in the mere fifteen minutes I had been gone; but I did it anyway. I kept my eyes focused across the street. There was a group of guys hanging out over there. Should I cross? Whatever…I should just go back. I had to finish my paper anyway. There were no new messages, so I hung up the phone and swung north, strolling back towards campus.
“Your license has been suspended. Please step out of the car.”
Some guy had just gotten pulled over. I paused to watch, but didn't want to embarrass him. Actually, I didn't want to embarrass myself. I was sure that if I stood and stared, he would start to fling insults at me, as any good New Yorker should. Besides, it was getting late, and I was kind of cold. I kept walking.
“What’s up sweetheart? What are you looking for?”
There were three black men standing on the corner of 107th. Could this trip really have been worth it after all? I decided that it was worth a try.
“I’m looking for a guy named Victor.” I answered.
“What’s he look like baby?”
I described him…round face, my height, Yankees hat. Had they really seen him? Why was he pressing for all of these details? How big were his eyes? Was he really exactly my height or a little taller? Was this man flirting with me? Or was he trying to cut a deal?
“Why do you want Victor? I can get you what you want,” he said.
And he could. We began to walk down 107th street, side by side. Isn't there a Gershwin song with that name or something?
“I only have sixty,” I said.
I had planned on buying three bags: two for Saturday, one for later.
“I can get you what you want for a hundred…good stuff…pure stuff.”
“I've only got eighty max.”
Was that a mistake? I was supposed to save twenty. After all, I had just emptied out my bank account, and wouldn't have any more money until my mom’s check went through. I guess I could live off the money under my bed for a while and then replace it when there was more in my savings account.
“That’s fine…eighty…I’ll cut you a deal this time, you call me again. You got a pen so I can write you my number?”
I did. I reached into my coat pocket and pulled it out. It was a new blue pen, the kind I like to draw on my hands with.
“Wait here, I’ll go get it.”
He walked towards Broadway. I sat down on the crumbling gray steps of the brownstone where we had paused, gazing at the slick reflection of the street lights on the heap of garbage bags in front of me, passively watching the rats furrow and climb atop the great plastic mountain. They didn't scare me tonight, though. I wondered why I was so nervous about being out walking, when I was not fearful of or even mildly disgusted by the thick beady eyed rats that I usually dreaded. Their long and thin tails snaked around the small mounds, lashing against the sidewalk, like raw pink whips. A yellow cab drove by, slowly. The color of it’s paint was striking against the blackness of the night. The man behind the wheel was Indian. Our eyes met and I wondered if I had ever sat in his back seat, and if I ever would. How many strangers in this city had that man’s life crossed? It was strange that he drove so slowly. Maybe he lived nearby. What was taking him so long? I reached into my pocket and pulled out the eighty dollars. I wanted to make this as quick as possible. At last my guy rounded the corner; his arms swung gently as he sauntered down the dirty sidewalk.
“Check out the shit I got you.”
I opened the piece of foil.
“Careful!”
It was beautiful. A rock more precious than diamonds, or even the deadly emeralds of my dreams. I gingerly closed the foil back around it.
“Here,” I said, handing him the wad of bills.
“Put your money away!”
I blushed, folding it back into my fist. Why was I so stupid?
“We might have to start kissing or something,” he laughed.
I smiled. He offered me his hand and I pressed the twenties against his fingers. He pressed into my palm a white card.
“Lucky,” he said. “Beep me 'bout whatever you need.”
I got up, thrusting the small tin parcel into my right coin pocket. I adjusted my headphones.
Get your gun! Get your gun!Finally relaxed, I headed towards Broadway. “Lucky” went back to wasting time on Amsterdam.
It was then that the nightmare truly began, splintering my universe into terrifying shards of mirrored glass, blistering with the colored lights of my paradise. The game would soon be over; I had exhausted every part of this world in which I was as bold and careless as the next, only to learn that I was perhaps ten times more bold and more careless than the next. Turning onto Broadway, Gilda’s fist met the door in solemn quarter notes. It was only moments before that door would open and she would lurch forward into agony, a knife in her chest, ripping her from her father’s embrace, fulfilling the destiny that Rigoletto had struggled so desperately to avoid. And it was only moments before the turning point in my own cursed drama. Did I live under a blessed star, as untouchable and impermeable as that of the Duke? Or were my pathetic cries for happiness to go as unheard as those of the hapless court jester?
I smiled apologetically at the officer; I smiled goodbye, somehow angry at myself for disappointing him like that, wishing with all my heart that my much admired scars hadn't been there for him to see, and regretting, for the first time, the freshly painted burning wounds on my ankle. Whatever….(
the favorite word of escapists everywhere)…They led me back into the “female area” and thrust me into a holding cell filled with women whom I had been pressed up against on the subway countless times. I felt as if I would vomit, but even so, I hated these women infinitely less than I hated those who had placed the handcuffs on me. I was one of these women, and as I found a seat in the back of the cell on a narrow hard bench slick with ten thousand layers of gray paint, I closed my eyes, trying to fight off my tears, laced with the stench of crack and urine coming from the small toilet bowl to my right. I longed for the cold burning air of the streets outside.
I love the way that coldness feels when you inhale it sharply and quickly. You can burn you lungs that way, you know. I sucked in a short breath like that when she first approached me outside of Love’s on Broadway. But it was weird…I wasn’t afraid. Even when she pressed me against the wall and began to run her hands inside my pockets, I was filled more with disbelief than with the fear that had characterized the whole night up until that point.
Ah no! E impossibil! Per Verona e in via! Fu vision! And Rigoletto wept.
“Are you allowed to do this?” I demanded.
She ignored me.
"Aren’t you supposed to read me my rights or something?”
They couldn’t find it. She was getting frantic.
“Where’d she put it?”
I was alarmed. Someone had seen me!
“Right side.” came the response, whistling through the static receiver in her fist.
I knew it was only moments before she would find it. I waited. And I waited. And she found it.
“So…not so self righteous now, are you?”
I still thought that she was supposed to read me my rights. I could see nothing but the sidewalk, though, sparkling in all of its filthy majesty, whispering promises of eternal friendship and solidarity, like the fool’s gold that it was. I had hardly realized that she had snapped the handcuffs around my wrists when I began to feel that aching tender pull in my twisted arms that I had to bite my lip to suppress.
We turned around. Somewhere caught between eternity and the next second, PhysicsGuy and PhysicsGirl materialized, unannounced. It was like a dreaded talk show reunion with someone you would rather forget…There I was on national television, red-faced, ashamed and strangely calm, wondering if the audience would cheer or spit. I quickly bowed my head, ducking into the black Lincoln as fast as I could. Had they seen me? I was so consumed by the cameras that I hardly noticed the man seated to my left. His arms were awkwardly pulled behind him and he gazed, nervously, out the cold window. I could see the reflection of the restaurant across the street in the whites of his eyes, the number 107 branded on his forehead. They seemed almost blue, ghostly impostors, dancing and blinking on the awning, like my abandoned computer screen that I suddenly remembered passionately. My eyes followed as PhysicsGuy and PhysicsGirl continued past the car. Was that Joseph they were with? Regardless, I knew that I had been spotted. I was being hunted and frantically scurried about for a place to hide in the grove….all to no avail. PhysicsGirl was on top of me, musket pointed, rapidly tapping on the car window. Her knock was a nervous peck. It reminded me of those tiny sparrows you see pecking at the ground for no reason. The window slid down. I had been exposed, and now sat peering timidly against the warm and worn leather of the car seat.
I hated that ugly officer with her tight lips. She seemed like the kind of person who, out of some inborn sense of inferiority, makes it her special duty to humiliate others, punishing them for the way the world has always dicked her over… Quipping at me for her own mediocrity.
“Yeah?”
“Um, that’s our friend in there…”
Oh God! I wanted to die!
“Well ‘your friend’ just got arrested for buying cocaine!”
Oh God! I wanted to die again! Die! Die! Die! Die! Die! I closed my eyes, surrounded by the thick red and gold velvet ribbons trickling from my hair, resting on my cheeks, my hands tangled in the endless layers of the white organza of my fantasy shroud.
“Were you waiting to meet her?”
I let the water carry my hair, bringing it up around my face like a gentle marigold halo.
“Oh God, no!” She backed away from the car door.
Good, let them go…I thought, grimacing against the thick swallows of the sea. I ran my tongue across my lips, tasting the salt. How long would take to drown this way? But then I remembered that I always float…even where others have drowned…my beautiful delicate organza stained by their deaths. God damn it! I opened my eyes. George stood three miles away through that glass. His eyes were sad and I cringed. But why was I more upset about disappointing him than I was scared about being arrested?
“Look, is there anything we can do? Where are you taking her?”
“No, not really… not unless you want to wait around for God knows how long. And even then, you won’t really get to see her!”
Jesus, how I hated this woman!
“But we’re taking her down to the precinct now…if you want to know. We’re taking her right now.”
I swallowed harder. Faster. Faster! God, it burned!
“Unless you want to take her stuff…Do you have any stuff?”
Was she talking to me? Somehow I couldn’t think clearly. What did she want me to answer? The driver turned around this time. This woman was even more hideous than her partner. Her eyes were a beady blue, but dull and lifeless. Her hair was yanked and knotted into a braid, growing thinner as it made its way down her back, like the tails on those scampering street rats. It was a coarse copper rope that reminded me of the old wad of Brillo sitting on the corner of the counter of our kitchen sink on Long Island.
“Um, yeah…my walk-man and um…a tape.”
I pulled the cassette from my pocket, my fingers catching on the tears inside the brown satin lining. Jekyll and Hyde….I wondered if anyone else recognized the irony in that…that is, until I realized that no one else knew Dr. Jekyll; he had become my secret. But who the hell was I kidding? Did I know Dr. Jekyll? I wondered if the night would have been different if I had been listening to that tape instead. I unwound the headphones from my neck. I hate the way that little black ring of rubber always falls off the ear piece. I didn’t want PhysicsGuy to lose it.
“Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!” I lip synched through the wall, my words smeared and pressed into the thick glass of the submarine, like smudged greased fingerprints. “I’m sorry…Listen, I’m so, so sorry!”
But what the fuck was I apologizing to him for? Come on, you don’t owe anyone anything! Ah, but no…I do…I owe them the world.
"Let's hear from, out next guest….Gilda, why’d you do it?”
Gilda tried to explain it.
“I loved him too much…and now I die for him…”
Somehow, I don’t think that her dad bought it.
The window was returned to its upright position; I glanced out one more time, sheepishly, into the night, and then my friends were gone.
Nothing happened, except a lot of static. I smiled at the man next door. It really wasn’t so bad…We all needed to lighten up a bit. Only the pained fold of my striped wrists, my painted fingers pressing into my veins, recalled the gravity of the situation. My neighbor seemed unfriendly and unconsolatory, silent and still but with a nervous energy that made my knees begin to shake as if by contagion, while his remained motionless.
