TROOPS

He could see I was in a vulnerable position.

We collect coins and bills, worth next to nothing, from the places we’ve been and they haunt us  we die and force our descendants to throw them away. We keep them not because we’ll use them again but because we never will.

At the appetizing store in the big long line two girls began to sing in harmony. Their voices chimed against the din of numbers called, orders recited, delivery guys coming through. A third girl, younger, sang along a little but then stopped, self-conscious. The song picked up and stopped from time to time. A little while later, and suddenly, the third girl began to cry. I watched her face, wet with tears. “Nothing’s gonna ever make me feel better,” she wailed at her mom.  I imagined what kind of heartbreak, what deep despair might cause someone to feel this way. Her mother knew, and said so: she was hungry.

When we see words on a page, we believe the words are there, but we can’t quite be sure.

As I waited in line at the food truck I turned to watch the passersby. Workers, nondescript. I tried to read their faces for anything of note. All wore the same slightly grim expression. The street mask. Even someone talking to his companion. The same look of mild concern. What’s on our minds?

I awoke with a groan from the dreadful dreams I’d had, not nightmares, but dreams about work—a colleague staying at our apartment for some reason. Urgent work that needed to get done, that wasn’t getting done, that couldn’t get done. That I had to do.

When the wind really blows in the city it’s a wonder things aren’t falling, tumbling, spinning everywhere, furniture off roofs, construction supplies, haphazardly fastened signs. We should all be battered by debris, impaled even. But no.

It’s spring training, the meaningless games playing lazily on the diner TV.

TROOPS

When intelligent people read, they ask themselves a simple question

When I emerged from the Seventh Avenue stop the winter chill had returned, with that flat, white sky that makes you think it’s about to snow. An older couple walked by me on the crosswalk. She seemed exhausted as she towed him by the arm, his mouth idiotically agape.

I awoke in the middle of the night with a hangovery headache and asked myself: did I really drink a lot? And I remembered the big drink and the next one while I waited and the big glass of wine and thought, maybe yes. Then I fell back asleep and felt almost fine when the jazz station rang at 6:15.

We caught a Lyft to JFK. The driver said he was from Uzbekistan.

“How old is Nighted States?” he said in his nearly impenetrable accent.

I gave an answer, dumbly, lazily neglecting to really do the math. “Two-hundred, uh. Two-hundred fifty,” I said. “Two-hundred forty-five. Or something.”

It’s like when someone asks you for the time and you’re afraid to be precise. Three-thirty, you say. Maybe three thirty-five. But you feel like an asshole saying three thirty-two. Even if it’s the truth. But everyone knows what time it is. Everyone knows 1776.

He didn’t seem to hear me anyway. He gave me the age of Uzbekistan in a statement that seemed prepared. Two-thousand something, except it wasn’t something of course, it was as precise as mine was vague: two-thousand six-hundred eighty-two. Or something.

“That’s old,” I said. Of course.

We were just now getting on the Belt Parkway, five o’clock in the morning. Maybe four fifty-nine.

TROOPS

these instruments will serve your children and your grandchildren in the future.

TROOPS

and he was in such pain that he was unable to swallow or take any food.

TROOPS

I was doing research in Colorado when I heard the news.

I had terrible heartburn in bed last night and as it has before it scrambled up my mind. The pain came in waves, as usual, but even when it receded I couldn’t think a decent, calming thought. At times I perceived a crazy zigzaggy pattern of meaningless activity in my brain, a web of colored lines like laser beams. I thought I was the character in those old folk songs where you lay down your head but you can’t get your rest. Maybe they had heartburn too.

I made myself a martini and when I felt the buzz come on I said out loud, “Now this is a familiar feeling.” And right away I opened the freezer instead of the fridge.

Election Night 1981

We arrived at our hotel by cab, in the middle of the day. There was a light rain falling and everywhere people clutched roses and embraced each other. Laughing, crying.

After we checked in we went back out and met a family friend for dinner. The daughter of my parents’ friend. The grown-up daughter.

We took a walk toward the river where a crowd had gathered. The bridge was closed and a band played courtesy of the communist party. Drunk dancers whipped each other ‘round, chanting “Mit-ter-and! Mit-ter-and!”

The family friend stood next to me and I stood next to her. She asked me to dance.

I placed my arms around her timidly, tremblingly. We circulated for a little while in the mayhem. Celebrating victory.

I had a flash sitting at work in the middle of the day, I don’t know why. I saw the intersection of two country roads we used to pass a lot when I was a kid. It was a bit far from home, deep in the beautiful, monotonous landscape of Connecticut farmland that stretched all around us. It was about halfway to somewhere we used to go—a bookstore, a restaurant, friends of my parents, I don’t know. I measured our trip there by the two pieces before and after it for some reason. An ordinary, winding little road branching off a bigger, straighter one, in the hazy golden light of an autumn afternoon. There was nothing remarkable about it or the way it made me feel but I remember it like it was a dream.

There’s a part of the block by the hospital where suddenly there’s a sickly-sweet smell, like cough syrup mixed with bleach. It feels like you might get high just walking by, or die a little sooner. I wonder whether it’s the smell of medicine or cleaning supplies or embalming fluid or maybe it’s what they use to flavor the dessert.

I flip to the DVR and there’s a new Anthony Bourdain episode, like he’s still alive, or like he’s haunting us. It’s like there’s somewhere new to go, new experiences to be had, especially if you’re dead.