Home Exchange

When you live for a little while in someone else’s home, you think: how can they live like this? With the plates and bowls piled up together and a dozen pots but a single lid, and the misshapen cheese knife, and the bric-a-brac drawer with the rubber bands and the roll of freezer bags and one cardboard-and-plastic package, rent open, contents gone. There’s an old jam jar on the counter with what appears to be a thin layer of little pink plastic flower petals at the bottom. There’s a shaker bottle of thyme right beside the stove, as though it’s their favorite spice: does everything get thyme? Steak and thyme, rice and thyme, eggs and thyme. The dishwasher gloves are out of reach.

In the bathroom the soap is flavored with milk and honey. The linen closet’s in the study. In the master bedroom, one side has a table and the other doesn’t. Who decides to live this life?

There’s a tiny stereo in the living room; the speakers, not far apart, point nowhere in particular. There are CDs piled up on a shelf in another room, unalphabetized—REM, Dire Straits, Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits. Tracy Chapman. Bob Marley. Who are these people?

The answer of course is they are us. We live like this. We’re now momentarily caught in a mirror world, and the odder it seems the more certain we can be that the mirror is true.

The corners of the streets in Paris are marked with a variety of graffiti tags, glyphs and icons, some affixed, some stenciled, some painted freehand. They look like an array of medals on a military man, or more likely an arrangement of runes. There’s a deliberate quality to them, as though this illicit urban project, begun in a frenzy of outrage and audacity forty years ago, had now settled into some calm, methodical phase 2.

We walked along the canal and two painters were creating a vast mural, the mist from their spray cans blowing into the faces of dogs and babies, wherever the wind might carry it.

The Enterprise - 47

I plunged into meaningless pursuits, idle amusements, intemperance. Accompanied by Sean most nights. Pool games, foosball games. Whisky, whisky, whisky. There was a video game, a golf game. Golden Tee. You swung the club by spinning the top of a sphere whose crown protruded from the console. If you jabbed at it, fast, you could get a good drive going, four hundred yards or so, over the pixel trees and water hazard. You’d be rewarded with a crease of torn flesh at the base of your palm. And the chance to putt for eagle.

What were we doing?

There was a place we went on the Upper East, frequented by our friend Ron. Nice guy. Ingenuous. Devastating foosball player. He could pass the ball from his midfielders to his forwards, dribble back and forth between adjacent players—even wing to wing, flipping the center up as the ball whizzed by. He could tip, nudge, cajole the ball into control. It seemed to be magnetically attracted to the little stub at the bottom of each man that counted for feet. His signature shot was a deception: he’d jerk the player back and forth, wind him up like he was about to slam it, really slam it this time; he’d watch you with a gaping smile as you made your goalie wide by thrusting him back and forth maniacally. Then he’d tip the ball ever so lightly so it rolled inoffensively toward the goal. It seemed not to have enough momentum to get there. But it did, and you were so nervous and worried and tense with your goalie that you’d let it slip by and hit the bottom of the goalmouth with a derisive, ambivalent clunk. Nothing was more humiliating.

Sometimes Ron and I would team up and play against a portly, middle-aged Indian man named Raj. Sometimes he’d play by himself, sometimes he’d team up with whoever else was around. It didn’t matter. Raj was the best foosball player I’ve ever seen. He’d work the ball up to his center forward and wait there with it, making the tiny statue tremble as though in anticipation, savoring the moment. He’d take a few fake swipes on either side of the ball—or sometimes he wouldn’t. He maintained a light, vaguely taunting banter the whole time. I’d be moving the goalie back and forth as fast as possible to create a blurry barrier, giving myself, I thought, a small statistical chance of stopping the ball. When it came all you knew was the sound it made at the back of the metal goal, an angry crack like a gunshot. He never missed. When the game was over he’d walk away with his Stoli Vanilla and Coke as I wiped my sweaty palms off on my jeans.

We usually wound up at the Irish place on Third. It had a long bar on the left and two pool tables in the back, in a space ringed with Guinness mirrors and elevated flatscreens perpetually showing ESPN. It was the place to be if you were a guy who wasn’t getting laid. The ceiling was covered in a giant tangle of white Christmas lights, enmeshed in some sort of twine. A starrier sky. It did impart a bit of cheer.

I played great for a few weeks. As though my heartbreak had unlocked something new and great within me, something magnificent, and that new, great thing was very specific: it was the ability to lean over a felted table, to aim a stick at a ball, to knock it into another ball so that the second ball would fall into the pocket of my choosing. And to do it many times again. To do it drunk.

What a pleasure it was to destroy other men. To see them approach confidently, maybe even arrogantly. Eager to impress their dates, or girlfriends, or each other. We’d all introduce ourselves and shake hands at the outset. Trying hard to be polite. But I muttered to myself as I went to rack ‘em up. Douchebags.

Sometimes I’d feel guilty, if they were nice enough. For wanting to destroy them. Usually they were nice enough.

Some were nice enough, some were cunts. Telling me how to rack. I know how to rack. Trying to play that head game. I know you.

A guy came in one night with his cue stick from home. Never, ever bring in your cue stick from home. Not the one your girlfriend got you for your birthday, not the one your mom got you. Not the one got passed down from your grandpa. Not that one or any other one, not ever. Don’t bring in your cue from home. Not unless you’re the Black Widow or Minnesota Fats.

He took the navy-blue case out of its protective, zippered nylon bag and laid it on the table. Unbuckled one, two, three little silver buckles. There it lay in two pieces, cradled in velour. He lifted them out, screwed them together, and held the polished, filigreed object aloft a moment, ostensibly to verify that it was true but really to make us look at it in the fake starshine. He lost.

Some were nice enough. A tall, swarthy guy with a moustache, maybe from Egypt or Iran. I was on a run, then I missed and sat back down. Reached up to the shelf along the wall. The feeling of the little glass in my hand, ice chips swimming in the amber fluid. I took a good, cold sip, letting the rubber end of the stick bounce a little on the floor. The guy’s partner missed, then Sean missed, then it was me again. I lined up a long shot. Made it.

The guy got up and approached me with a look of concern.

“That was my ball,” he declared.

“Your ball?” I shouted. “No. That was mine.”

I made another shot and strode around the table, workmanlike, looking for the next problem to solve. What the fuck was wrong with this fucking guy?

“No, no, no, no,” the man protested. “That was my ball.”

“No way it was your ball.” I leaned across the table to line up another one. Just then Sean walked up and whispered in my ear.

“That was his ball.”

“What?”

“That was his ball,” repeated Sean. “It wasn’t our ball.”

I took my shot and missed. Rattled. Angry. Confused.

“What are we? Stripes?”

“We’re solids. Solids, solids, solids.”

“I hit his ball?”

“I think you did, dude.”

I made some words and gestures of apology and invited the man back to the table. He stood now, chalking his cue, peering at the remains of my disordered efforts. Everything was different now. Everything but the feeling of the little glass in my hand.

Overheard at work, a woman’s voice emanating from the open door of a conference room: “I’m having a hard time opening my mind to what this could be if it isn’t this.”

The F train got hung up at Carroll Street for some reason, some train stuck up ahead or something. I kept watching the woman sitting across the way from me, nodding in and out of sleep.

The conductor made some announcement how this was a signal problem, or the emergency brake on the track was on. I don’t know. Nothing he could do. The doors were open; every now and then some fool would hustle in, thinking how lucky they were to catch the train. Then stand around and look at us. Realize we’re going nowhere.

A woman ran down the platform, yelling and screaming. She seemed to be wearing very little, maybe a bikini and a T-shirt, flip-flops. No one could tell what she was saying. She ran past and everyone looked up and looked out the window at the space she’d run through, as though that would tell us what the hell was going on.

We got stuck again between Smith-9th Streets and 4th Ave. Perched way up high, in the open, with the heatwave sun going down at last. And then we started to roll for good.

New York's Proudest

If you look up the Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority Police it says they’re New York’s Proudest. But that’s bullshit. Bartenders are New York’s proudest motherfuckers.

Whenever a bartender doesn’t know how to make a drink, this is what he says: “It’s been a long time since I’ve made one of those.” And he doesn’t ask you how to make it. He waits for you to tell him, or to order something else. And as you’re telling him, he pretends to remember.

Last night I drank with Jim, in Midtown, at the bar of a restaurant I think I’d been to many years ago, with Aimee. The food back then was terrible—overpriced, butter-saturated. This time the drinks, at least, were fine. Jimmy ordered a negroni and since I’d been drinking scotch at a work party all afternoon, I ordered a Rob Roy.

“It’s been a long time since I’ve made one of those,” the bartender said uncertainly.

“It’s scotch—”

“Scotch, triple sec...”

“No,” I said. “Scotch, sweet vermouth.”

“Right! Right.”

“And a dash of bitters.”

There are five plastic forks arrayed on my desk at work: one tan, one white, one gray, two clear.

The sun was angry today on Third Ave. There seemed to be pockets of extreme heat, as though it emanated from springs in the atmosphere.

Baseball fans in town for the All-Star Game stake out the hotel, next to my work, where the players stay. There’s a little barrier on the sidewalk, with a cop at one end. Dutifully, unthinkingly, the fans form a little line along it. Maybe twenty people or so, mostly grownups, some kids. They peer at the revolving doors, waiting for someone to emerge. Taxis and limos pull into the semicircle and they crane their necks: Who’s that? Nobody? Nobody. For hours, nothing. Nothing. Some leave. Others drift by to take up the vigil. Something’s bound to happen if they wait. But how long?

Overheard on the corner of 23rd Street and 8th Avenue this morning, between an older man and a teenage boy:

"How often does she call you?"

"Not that often. My dad calls more."

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah. But he's really paranoid."

"Really? About what?"

"About everything! You name it."

At the base of the long escalator into the Grand Central 7 stop there was a fat, middle aged lady, sitting on the cement. Legs out. Whimpering softly. She held up her hand as a trickle of blood flowed from her palm. A small group of good Samaritans stood by, vaguely tending to her. We all turned our heads toward the little scene as we disembarked. Wondering what to do. Hoping it was nothing. Then, on the stairs to the platform, a police officer climbed against the rush-hour stream to find her.

TROOPS

slapping the tree trunk with frustration

At the birthday party in the park on Saturday I tried a piece of cake and the frosting was the sweetest thing I’d ever tasted in my life. It was supernaturally sweet, sweeter than a spoonful of sugar. Like that sweetest substance on earth from the Guinness Book of Word Records, 1977. It convulsed me like a shock.

Later in the afternoon I drifted off to sleep in the armchair. After a few minutes I awoke with a start, not sure who I was, where I was.

TROOPS

"Please," Pasquale rasped to Tomasso. "Go."

Do we participate in medical rituals superstitiously? Are they doing us any good, or are they merely fulfilling some ancient, neurotic need? We have all the equipment in the world, the drugs, the antibiotics. But what if we’ve really just come all the way around again to treating our ailments the way we did in the Middle Ages?

The ophthalmologist told me my eyes were fine but I still needed to take the drops.

“You’re still showing characteristics of pre-glaucoma,” she said. “So that’s something we still need to manage and still need to follow.”

I had taken the peripheral vision test, where you look into a scope and click a clicker every time a little white light blinks somewhere in the field. It always seems more like a test of reflexes, or of honesty. Sometimes I just click mindlessly, thinking a light must have blinked, however faintly, and so why don’t I just guess and hope I got it right? Never mind that it does more good, in a medical exam, to do honestly poorly than to do luckily well. It’s nerve-racking and fraught; it’s a performance.

At one point the assistant said, “Sir?” I was vaguely aware that she must be talking to me but I was somehow reluctant to respond, lost in my blank, blurry world with its occasional pinpricks of light.

“Sir? Do you need any help?”

“No, I’m fine,” I said finally. It occurred to me that I probably had missed an entire series of flashes and got her worried. And it further occurred to me that I hadn’t reacted to them not because I hadn’t seen them but because I just didn’t want to for a little while. I didn’t want to play along.

I finished the test feeling I must have done terribly. Not clicking for stretches at a time, clicking spasmodically for others. The assistant told me to return to the doctor’s examining room. As I waited there I imagined her concerned expression, her suggestion that further investigations were in order. Perhaps deeper and more time-consuming examinations at a better-equipped facility in a hospital annex uptown. I imagined having to explain to her that I really was fine, I just didn’t want to click the clicker sometimes, you know? Even when I saw the light. And other times I clicked it again and again for no good damn reason, I’m sorry. Can I please, please take the test again?

When she came in she pulled up my results on her computer and said they were fine.

“Your pressure’s fine. Your peripheral vision is fine. Come back again in four months and we’ll do it again.”

“Keep taking the drops?” I asked.

“Yes,” she replied. “Of course. Keep taking the drops.”

In the long passageway that leads from the ACE to the 7 at Times Square I began to notice how people swing their arms as they walk. Everyone does. Young, old, short, tall. Nobody realizes it but they’re swinging their arms the whole time, like they’re paddling through the ether.

Crossing the Gowanus

The bell made the sort of sound that’s not too loud when you’re near but you can hear a mile away. It rang dully and not quite evenly, almost like someone was working it by hand.  

A thin boy sat on the concrete riser that ran along the sidewalk, cradling a snare drum and tapping his foot. I wondered whether he was trying to keep time with the bell. It was hard to tell. An older girl stood nearby, wheeling a scooter back and forth in short jabs.

Now a line of cars had formed, and bicycles too. More pedestrians gathered on either side of the street. Some lifted their phones to take pictures. Past the double barricades and the no-man’s land there was a mirror world: cars, bikes and people waiting to cross the other way.

The bridge rose slowly in one flat segment, along tracks in four columns. All the time the bell kept ringing. It was still hot but the sun was sinking low.

A horn sounded and a barge passed through. All you could see was the top of a massive gravel pile. Finally the tugboat came and went. You gotta be patient in that line of work.

The din was over and the bridge restored. I peered down at the poisoned Gowanus as I crossed, and on the other side I glanced into a strange, semi-sheltered space. It was unclear whether it was part of the bridge’s structure or if it belonged to the adjacent construction site, a patchy-grass lot with trailers and Port-o-lets. Inside there were hundreds upon hundreds of mannequins, some standing, some lying in stacks, and rows and rows of bathtubs with feet.

When we went out this afternoon the rain was still falling and all the leaves down 7th Street glowed as though it overflowed from the street to the dirt to the roots and up the trunk, into the branches, out the stems and into them. I had seen the street so many times, not thinking much of it. The dreary cars, the ramshackle sidewalk. Houses of neighbors we didn’t know. But there was something in the contrasting light, and in the alley of trees, and in the way the street opened at the intersection with 8th Avenue, that reminded me of a place I’d seen in dreams.

A petite, young Asian woman stood in the middle of the 7 train platform with a guitar, the case open at her feet. She had a mic too, and she was amplified, ready to go. She played quick, jabbing chords as she tuned up and adjusted her volume. Commuters flowed by on either side. A westbound train left the station. An eastbound one came in. Still she played her tense, little chords. Someone bent over and left her a buck. I wondered whether this was her act. All preparation. No singing. No songs.

A deeply hunched vagrant drifted by erratically, looking straight at the space right past his dirty shoes. People took note of him as they do in New York City: as the wild card in their midst. The performer eyed him with a trace of concern. Two more chords: jank-jank.

As people got on and off the train I heard him bark at someone. People turned to look in his direction. When I did, too, he was gone.

Life Today

Our devices, force-fed by the desperate, hyperactive media industry, keep us constantly connected to the horrendousness of the world, never knowing whether, sitting on the desk chair, the subway seat or toilet, we’ll see something that will make us choke back tears, or vomit, or both.

Ernie Is Bert

I was dropping Jackie off at school, taking off her jacket.

“Ernie,” she said.

“Who’s Ernie?” I asked.

“Ernie is Bert.”