Monday, June 01, 2009

 

BRIEFLY


There have been some unexpected developments here that are ongoing and need to be incorporated into the last entry. I anticipate posting it by mid-June.

12:07 AM

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Sunday, May 03, 2009

 

DELETED SCENES from ENTRY 250, Part One

It was a soft October night, but I was not asleep. I felt like having a drink, actually, and Phil had buried himself too deeply in his work (as usual), so, only slightly against my better judgment, I called Jack.


I stepped into the same Hell's Kitchen bar where, a couple of months earlier, he'd pronounced me the hottest guy in the place and attempted to poach me from my date. Now he seemed distracted, which didn't surprise me in the least. I didn't have a sexual or romantic agenda; I just thought he was dysfunctionally interesting.


"Hey," I said, slinging my jacket over the back of the chair across from him.


He paused midtext and said, "Do you want to go to Brooklyn?"


"Brooklyn? What's in Brooklyn?"


"Union Pool," he said.


"That's a bar, isn't it?" said I, never having been much of a trendster.


"Yeah," he said. "I'm meeting some friends there." I paused, and he added, "I'll pay for the cab."


I shrugged. "All right."


"But have a drink here," he said. "It's on me. What do you want?"


I had just started to drink my pint of Stella when he admitted, "It's actually somebody I'm meeting on a blind date."


"I see," I said, not at all surprised. "Are you sure you want me along?"


"Sure," he said. "He's going to have his friends with him. And he might not be that cute."


"True," I said, my face telling nothing.


"Do I look all right?" he said, his eyes fixed on his reflection in a nearby mirror as he fussed with his hair.


"You look just fine," I said.


"I know it doesn't look like it now, but I used to model," he said. "I did some catalogues."


"You're an attractive guy," I replied, my involuntary sigh creating a stray bubble as I sipped my beer.


"I had my first plastic surgery when I was 14," he said. "I had my ears put back because they were kind of big, and I had my eyes done. I had the fat sucked out of my chest and my stomach, and I got a nose job, because, you know, I'm Jewish. And I started taking Propecia when I was 20. I go to the gym for three hours every day."


"Wow," I said. "That's a lot of effort."


"Yeah," he said. "But I look pretty good now, even though I'm 33." He ran his hands over his face, which, when I looked at it, seemed strangely glistening. "I've had a lot of chemical peels."


"Hmm," I said. "Interesting."


Jack looked at his watch. "You ready to go?"


"Sure," I said, taking a final gulp. I was about to reach for my jacket, but paused as I watched him work on his hair for a good 30 seconds.


"Do I look okay?" he said.


"You look great," I said, standing. "Shall we?"


I gazed out the window at the constellation of Manhattan as the cab glided smoothly over the Queensboro Bridge, vaguely remembering how, the last time I'd been in a taxi on this route, I'd had the head of an adorable half-drunken boy in my lap as we headed to his place for a hot fuck. It had been nice, having his head in my lap, stroking his hair.


We arrived at Union Pool a few minutes late; as it turned out, his date was even tardier. The crowd reminded me why I didn't spend much time in the affected parts of Brooklyn, but I shrugged it off and we tried to push our way through to the bar.


It took a long time for the bartender to get to us, and Jack quickly became vexed; I had the impression that he wasn't used to waiting for things.


"Do you ever wait this long for a drink?" he said with a frown.


"Have you ever been to a bar in New York?" I asked.


Finally, beers in hand, we made our way onto the back patio.


"They have a taco truck?" I said, pointing the neck of my bottle at a concession vehicle at the other end of the patio.


"Looks like it," said Jack, who was just receiving another text. "He and his friends just got here."


"Why don't I snag that picnic table?" I said.


Jack nodded. "We'll meet you there in a minute." He headed indoors.


I felt calmly matronly, but not at all put out by it. Sitting at the table, I propped my face on one hand and picked at my beer label with the other.


After a minute or two Jack emerged from the bar with three guys and two girls, all of them seemingly in their early 20s. When they reached the table I stood and shook hands with the blind date, who looked rather studiedly artsy and, while attractive, was a bit too pretty for my taste.


I found myself seated next to the male half of a heterosexual couple, and we launched into a conversation that, to my relief, flowed easily. He was a film editor from Wisconsin, and we talked about the process and how I'd done a tiny bit of that in my current job, and about the art we'd seen recently in the city, and I felt the wave of relief I always experienced whenever I stepped outside my comfort zone and it didn't go horribly fucking awry. He asked me how I knew Jack, and I responded as succinctly as humanly possible.


It was about that time, perhaps 20 or 30 minutes into the encounter, that Jack stood up and announced that we were leaving. I nodded internally but made no outward motion other than rising from my seat. Everyone else stood as well, and I bade the group goodbye.


"We're just going to talk for a minute," Jack said, taking his date a few yards away. The rest of the group headed inside for refills. I repaired to the edge of the stone pond across the patio, purposely turning my back to whatever was going on, though I heard the occasional faint strain of Jack's heightened voice.


I was eyeing a fauxhawk with distaste when Jack stepped up behind me and said, "I'm going to the bathroom. Meet you out front."


"That well, huh?" I said, but he didn't reply.


A few minutes later he emerged from the entrance. "Any cabs?" he asked.


"I saw a couple," I said. "Not at the moment."


"Great," he said.


"That might be one," I said, pointing across the street, and he sprinted that way. The taxi braked to a stop, and I jayran over as Jack opened the door.


"Midtown Manhattan, please," he said. "Immediately."


"So what happened?" I asked, running a hand through my wind-mussed hair.


"He was a dick," said Jack, trying in vain to catch his own reflection in the window. "Do I look all right?"


"I feel like I might have already answered that," I said. "You're a handsome guy. You look fine."


"He told me that I was cute, but he just didn't think we clicked," Jack said acidly.


"Well, there you go."


"Oh, come on," he said. "Why would anybody say that if they really thought you were attractive?"


"Uh, maybe because it's true?" I said.


"It doesn't make any sense," he replied, and I realized I had been interrupting his monologue. "I told him he was a prick for making me come all the way out there and then rejecting me."


"You don't think he has a right to--" I paused, then threw the towel so far in that it would take a spelunker to find it again. "What did he say?"


"He apologized," said Jack.


"Wow," I said. "Well, I guess you have to give him credit for that."


"He's a prick," he said, and then, "Do you think I'm crazy?"


I sighed. "Why do you care what I think?" I looked across the water at the brilliant white syringe atop the Empire State Building.


"Because you're a cool guy," he said. "And you're smart."


I waited a moment before turning from the window. "You're no crazier than most people," I said gently. But as I said it, I suddenly felt incredibly sane and grounded. Despite all the uncertainty and solitude I'd felt for the last seven years, I had an unwavering sense of who I was. I'd sometimes sold myself short, but I'd never lost my grasp on the essential truth of my own identity.


The cab dropped us off at the exact same Hell's Kitchen bar where we'd begun the evening. I let Jack buy me another beer, and watched as he cruised the room for his next prospect. He settled on a rather plain-looking, questionably postpubescent guy.


"Hey there," he said, nudging the fellow. "Come talk to us."


The quarry approached gamely, and I felt, absurdly, as though I were a necessarily link in the flavors-of-the-month chain. I shook hands with the new guy, passing the baton, tossing the potato. Someone else could now deal with Jack's anarchic emotional questing. For a few minutes I watched Jack shower the new boy with compliments and questions, like so many ephemeral snowflakes.


"It's getting late," I said, setting down my half-drunk pint. "I think I'll leave you guys to it." Jack bade me goodbye, hardly taking his eyes from his objective.


I slipped through the crowd to the exit. To my relief, I saw no heads turn as I vanished out the door.


###


The entire clan was gathered in the living room the night after Christmas, and Marc was making an announcement.


"Since this year we had three important birthdays--my grandmother's 80th, my dad's 60th, and Frank's 30th--I put together a DVD of photos and music," he said. Never terribly fond of looking at photos of myself (blurry or otherwise), I shifted awkwardly on the couch as Marc pressed Play.


To the strains of "You've Got a Friend" by James Taylor, my grandmother's baby photo materialized on the TV screen. Then there were wedding and young couplehood photos, my mother and aunt as toddlers, my grandparents growing older. I glanced across the room and saw my grandmother wiping her eyes.


Next came my dad in diapers, and grinning between his two brothers, and wearing his Navy uniform, and walking down the aisle with my mother, and carrying Marc piggyback. There he was holding me on his 30th birthday, the day I was born, and then mowing the lawn, and sitting at Marc's bedside in the cancer ward, and performing best-man duties at Marc's wedding.


And now appeared my infant self, and my toddler incarnation exploring my grandparents' house with my cousin Burt, and my awkward big-ugly-plastic-glasses phase, and my awkward brooding-with-dyed-black-hair phase, and the scarred relief of my high school graduation day, and my visits home from college.


Shortly thereafter my segment ended, giving way to a mix of family photos, and I recognized my glaring absence since the day I left Texas for New York, all the things they had been doing and the places they'd gone without me. A twinge of wistfulness arose within me. Yet I also understood that there had been absences even when I was there, absences apparent in the expressions on a face attached to a brain suffering from a chemical imbalance. I'd had to find my own way to heal, and it had required leaving home, where the roots of that pain were. But at a certain point my mind turned away from these thoughts, and I looked not just at photos where I was absent even when I was present, but also images where I was there even when I couldn't be seen. Roots hold you down. Roots nourish you.


###


"Hi, Dad," I said.


"Hey, Frank," he said, and I thought I sensed a guardedness in his tone. It was the first time we'd really spoken since my disastrous attempt to talk to him about the homophobic email. "What's up?"


"Well," I said, "I need your help with something. I want to do my best to replace your old peacoat, and I need to ask you some questions to figure out exactly what to look for." I explained that I'd done considerable research on the varying materials used during different periods to make Navy peacoats.


Dad told me when he'd enlisted and received the coat, where he'd gone to boot camp, how he'd altered the coat from its original state. I took careful notes.


"I'm sorry that your coat isn't in our family anymore," I said, "but I'm going to do everything I can to replace it with a reasonable facsimile."


"Well, that's nice of you, Frank," he said.


Then we talked some more, about work and about my nieces and my parents' new house, and almost an hour passed before the conversation came to a close.


"It was good talking to you, son," he said. "I love you."


"I love you, too, Dad," I said, and after hanging up I sat there silently for a while, pondering. Perhaps none of our underlying problems had been solved, and no doubt there would be more pain, but I felt a renewed potential in groping blindly forward, trusting in what could not be foretold.


###


Look for the conclusion of Entry 250 this month.

10:14 PM

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Thursday, April 02, 2009

 

ENTRY 250: THE LONG GOODBYE
Part One: To Be Imperfectly Frank...

Our story thus far....

Are you fucking kidding me?


###


Reader, I married him.

"And oh, Aunt Em! I'm so glad to be at home again!"

"On a field, sable, the letter A, gules."

So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.

I am thinking of aurochs and angels, the secret of durable pigments, prophetic sonnets, the refuge of art. And this is the only immortality you and I may share, my Lolita.

The eyes and the faces all turned themselves toward me, and guiding myself by them, as by a magical thread, I stepped into the room.

He would be there all night, and he would be there when Jem waked up in the morning.

And it was still hot.


But after six years, I know it is finally time to write my own ending for Frank Beekman.


###


Phil impulsively threw his arms around me, and I stumbled back a quarter-step as my arms went around him and I blinked in surprise over his broad shoulder. My gaze sidled downward in a mixture of emotion and thought.


We'd been waiting in a crowded Hell's Kitchen bar for the bartender to sling our drinks, and Phil had asked, "Are you done with your fuckin' blog yet?"


"Almost," I said. "The penultimate entry just went up a couple weeks ago. You're in it a lot."


"I am?" he said.


"Yeah." I shrugged. "There aren't too many other people I'm hanging out with lately, after all. And the pot-smoking incident seemed like it would be pretty amusing to write about."


"I'll have to check it out," he said.


"Well, I should warn you it's a little bit of a downer," I said. "I went through and counted, and there are no fewer than four sobbing jags in that entry."


And Phil turned then to pull me into his aforementioned embrace.


"It's fine," I said, after a moment. "Thank you, but it's fine. There's just been a lot to deal with the past few months. With my job and my mother and not getting into grad school...."


"I look forward to reading it," he said, "sobbing and all."


"It's okay if you don't," I said. "I mean, you bought my book five years ago and never got around to reading that." I smirked good-naturedly at him.


Phil looked momentarily sheepish. "But I've read a lot of your blog," he said.


I paused mid-swig. "You have?"


"Yes," he said. "And it's really good."


"Thank you," I said, clinking my glass against his. "And here's to your good taste."


A minute or so passed as we surveyed the mob scene. I turned back to him.


"I wanted to say I'm sorry," I said.


He made a face. "For what?"


"For having been slightly catty about you and the Harvard novelist," I said.


"Were you?" he asked vacantly.


"Yeah," I said. "I kind of was. But I want you to understand that it was a little difficult for me."


"That's certainly understandable," he replied.


"It triggered multiple things for me," I said. "It was difficult even three years ago when I went out with him, because, you know, he was younger than I was and a Harvard graduate and publishing a novel with a big publishing house, and had just managed to buy his own apartment and quit his job to write full-time. And it's hard for me, being where I was, where I am, not to...have feelings about that."


"Of course," said Phil.


"And then there's the weirdness of you being the one who hits it off with him," I continued. "And it just sort of conjured up my many, many dating failures over the past six years."


"Yeah," said Phil. "While I've been so successful in contrast."


"You know what I mean," I said. "But anyway, I want you to know that I'm sorry for the way I behaved before. It was immature of me. I'm glad you like each other and I want you to enjoy it, and I hope it works out. I want that for you."


"Thank you," he said. "We'll see. He's going to be in Europe all summer, so there'll be a good long break. And he's kind of like us, an island."


"Is that what you and I are?" I asked. "Islands?" Then, after a pause: "Maybe so."


For a moment I felt an urge to press my forehead against his shoulder, but, deciding that might seem forced, I took another sip of alcohol instead.


###


Betraying not a flicker of trepidation on my face, I sat across the table from my boss and placidly sipped soda out of a bottle. She'd suggested we go to lunch to discuss "the future of our department," and I knew this was it. For a month and a half I'd been waiting to learn whether I'd get the promotion or else be forced to look for a new job elsewhere, to cast a net that might, ultimately, pull me out of New York altogether.


I'd been busting my ass for a long time, above and beyond my job description and pay grade, and had come to find it slightly embarrassing to be where I was, with all my capabilities, on the verge of 30. Since the previous head writer had resigned, I'd been picking up the slack not just for him, but also for my other boss, who was on a four-month maternity leave.


I was tired of being stuck in limbo. But I sat there and sipped and waited.


"How's your sandwich?" she asked brightly.


"It's good, thanks," I said. "And yours?"


"Very nice," she said.


"And how are Ben and Jenny doing at summer camp?" I asked, masochistically drawing things out.


She gave a couple of anecdotes about her kids' camp activities, then put down her sandwich and said, "Why don't we talk about what's going on in the department?"


"Sure," I said, my face a pleasant marble mask.


There was introductory material about the complications of the decision process, why things had taken so long. I did not want to make a prediction one way or the other, though I was not a stranger to unfairness. My attention skimmed over the prefatory remarks, waiting for the essential information.


"So," she said, "I'd like to offer you the head writer position."


"And I accept," I said. "Gladly."


On the subway home, I pondered the new development. There were problems with the department, Lord knows, but I had finally been promoted at a company, at last had a job title with "writer" and without "assistant," would trade my cubicle for an office. The MFA rejections had been a bitter blow, but, if I'd been looking for some kind of sign as my 20s ended, I'd found one. There were, perhaps, measures of justice.


###


"And happy birthday to you," I said, teetering on the arches of my feet on the edge of the curb.


"Thank you," said Dad. "How does it feel to be 30?"


"Maybe roughly the same as being 60," I replied. "Want to tell me about that?"


His laugh sounded slightly staccato; I looked at my cell phone for a second to see how many bars I had.


"So you're at work on your birthday?" I said. "How festive."


"Yep," he said. "Yep. What are you up to?"


"I've just been to the optometrist," I replied, "and I'm about to go to the dentist."


"Whooooa," said Dad. "That's a fun day, Frank."


I shrugged, pointlessly. "I figure that most people do abuse to their own bodies on their birthdays, so why not do something different and make it more of a wellness day? After all, I am 30 now. What do you think of that? Your youngest becoming old?"


"Hard to believe, hard to believe," he said with the faintest sigh.


"So aren't you about due to retire?" I said.


"That was the plan," he replied, "but with all the money we lost in stocks recently and how over budget building the new house turned out to be, I don't know when I'll be able to retire now." He paused. "Your mother's very worried about our finances. It's really getting to her."


"I know," I said.


"We've been trying to figure out how to make ends meet," said Dad. "I might have to get a second job. Working at Wal-Mart on the weekends, maybe."


I stood there, glancing at my watch to gauge how much time I had until my dental appointment, but mostly trying to absorb this.


"So it's really that bad?" I said.


"Kind of," he said. "I keep trying to tell your mom that we'll figure it out somehow."


"How is she, really?" I said. "How bad?"


"Frank," said Dad, and for a minute I thought he might not get any further than my name. "She's lost 30 pounds, doesn't have any interest in things anymore. She's wasting away, she's gotten so frail. All I can do is try to hug her."


My eyes burned and I shook my head to halt that. "Is she still seeing the therapist?"


"The doctor gave her some prescriptions," he said vaguely.


"Right, I remember," I said. "But what about therapy? Pills aren't enough, there should be a talking cure."


"That's once a month," he answered.


"Which isn't nearly enough," I said. "But it's what your insurance covered me for when I was seeing my shrink in high school. So I guess it's pretty much the same."


"Yeah," he said. "She's just so isolated. She doesn't like being back in Corpus Christi, and she doesn't have any friends here. No one to talk to. There's me, but she needs someone other than me."


I was just faintly surprised that he could acknowledge that.


"So she just keeps getting worse?" I said.


"Yeah," he said. "I don't really know what to do."


I bit my lip. In front of all of us well-intentioned, impotent witnesses, my mother was slipping away.


###


My thirtieth birthday celebration was a pretty modest affair, which is exactly what I'd intended. As the date approached I'd felt somewhat trepidatious about it, given the depressing disaster of the year before. I decided it wouldn't make sense to ignore the milestone, but I would do something low-key and have minimal expectations rather than attempt anything grand.


It was a mix of coworkers and people from other facets of my life, and we met after work on a Friday at a little bar downtown that's an old standby of mine. By the time people began to arrive en masse, I was midway through a pool game with two of my favorite coworkers.


There were text messages from well-wishers who couldn't make it, and protestations whenever I reached for my wallet, and my reluctant imbibing of one--and only one--shot. My coworker Jan, the person I'd worked most closely with before my promotion, appropriated my digital Canon and wandered through the crowd, taking photos with numerous random bar patrons (sometimes she yanked me into the frame) before returning the camera to me at the end of the evening. Abra came later with her boyfriend, and Phil showed up just as I was about to leave.


We huddled together on a couch as the crowds teemed around us.


"How does it feel to be 30?" asked Abra, just like everyone else had.


"It feels better than 29," I said. "It feels okay, actually." And it did.


###


"How does it feel to be 30?" asked my therapist.


You had to give him points for originality.


"It's all right," I said. "It's all right. The past year was really difficult, and I'm not sorry it's over. It's just...I know it's cliché, but can't help thinking about what I'd hoped to accomplish by the time I turned 30. And there's so much I'd wanted to do by now but haven't."


"Like what?" he said.


"Like finishing my next book. And being further along in my career. I mean, up until a week or two ago I had the same job title I did when I was 24. It was depressing. That whole year when I was unemployed just fucked everything up and set me so far back. I feel like I've spent the past several years simply regaining lost ground, when I knew I was capable of so much more. And on top of that, to be rejected by every MFA program I applied to last year when I wanted so badly to pursue my writing at a higher level."


"That must have been very frustrating," he said gently.


"Yeah," I said. "But it was the reality of the situation, and I dealt with it. I saw myself approaching 30, though, and being where I was was scary. So the promotion was pretty well-timed."


He nodded. "Maybe it would be useful to talk about the things you have accomplished."


"Okay," I said, and paused for a moment; I was not used to patting myself on the back without the involvement of a knife. "I've published a novel--from a very small publisher, and a number of years ago, but still, a novel. I'm working full-time as a writer and getting paid decently for it, which is pretty rare. And I moved to New York without a job and basically knowing no one, and it's often been a struggle, but I've stuck it out when a lot of people would have given up. So I'm either pretty strong or pretty stupid--or both."


My therapist smiled faintly.


"And I've written that blog for five years now," I continued, "and been able, I think, to become better at autobiographical writing, and at telling the hard truths about myself."


"Those are all real and important accomplishments," he said.


I smiled crookedly. "Well, I guess I haven't yet accomplished all the amazing things I'd wanted to, but I could have done worse."


"Yes," he said. "And there's still plenty of time."


I fiddled with the armrest cover on the couch. "I imagine so."


###


My second date with Gary began with a Sunday brunch in Hell's Kitchen. Remembering how the first date had ended, I ordered a small orange juice; Gary, unsurprisingly, opted for the all-you-can-drink special.


I ate my steak and eggs as I watched mimosa after mimosa disappear across the table. He talked about going out the night before, and I took the opportunity to inquire about a certain kind of psychiatric drug that figured in my long-languishing next novel.


It seemed to me that we probably didn't have enough in common for anything significant to develop between us, but I remained mindful of what Gary had said about waiting until the third date to make a final judgment.


There was a line of people waiting to be seated, so we paid the check and moved to the bar, where Gary knew the bartender. He appeared to know a lot of bartenders.


"Bloody Mary?" he said, after ordering one for himself.


"I'm good, thanks," I said.


The conversation shifted into a discussion of the vagaries of dating. I found myself beginning to feel peevish, not because I disagreed with anything Gary was saying but rather because I agreed with basically everything: he was spouting truisms.


I was bored, and trying to think of the most gracious way possible to make my exit, when a series of stuttering beeps issued from his pocket. He read the incoming text.


"My friend from L.A. wants to meet for drinks," said Gary. "He's cool, I bet you'd like him."


"Okay," I said, taking the chance that his conjecture might be true.


"He wants to go to Beer Blast at the Eagle," said Gary, as we set off on foot in the late-August sunshine.


"Yikes," I said.


"What?" asked Gary.


"Oh, it's just that the last time I was at the Eagle, some guy was staring at my junk while I was trying to pee."


"Didn't you like that?"


"Oh, yeah," I said, smiling tightly.


When we arrived at the Eagle, an employee informed us that it wasn't open for another hour and a half. We had just exited again when a cab pulled up at the door, and out stepped a tall, beefy guy wearing expensive sunglasses.


"They're closed until five," said Gary to the newcomer.


"Oh, really?" he said. "That sucks."


"Frank, this is Randy," said Gary.


"Hi," I said, shaking Randy's hand. We exchanged a brief glance, seemingly not knowing quite what to make of each other.


Trekking back to 8th Avenue, we hailed a cab to the Hotel Gansevoort, where Randy was staying on business. Within 10 minutes we were sipping drinks at the rooftop poolside bar, with the Hudson burning white in the near distance below us.


Randy was a corporate type for a big, famous company. "What do you do?" he asked. I told him.


"A writer? That's pretty cool," he said.


I laughed into my gin and tonic. "I'm glad somebody thinks so."


"So how do you two know each other?" asked Randy.


I looked at Gary. "Should we tell him?"


"From Match.com," said Gary.


Randy raised an eyebrow. "What? You two are on a date?"


"You could say that," I replied, drawing lines with my index finger through the condensation on my glass.


"So this asshole dragged you along to meet me while the two of you were on a date?" said Randy. I was beginning to like this guy.


Gary started to make faint protestations, but I merely shrugged.


"It's okay," I said. "We're just out for the afternoon."


Randy shook his head.


"I could throw my drink in his face if it would make you feel better," I added.


We all laughed, not too uneasily.


By the time we started on our second drinks, it was painfully obvious that Randy and I had a rapport that did not exist between Gary and me. I did my best not to exclude Gary entirely, but once Randy found out that I watched Gossip Girl, we launched comfortably into giddy chatter that Gary could comprehend only faintly.


"I used to have a crush on Dan," I said, "but I'm so fucking over him now. Sanctimonious little bitch."


"What about Blair?" said Randy. "She's so awesome."


"She has her moments," I replied, "but enough with the mommy issues already. Boooring!"


"You have to love Dorota," he said.


"Well, yeah," I said.


I'd had two drinks and was enjoying myself by the time we piled into another cab to return to the Eagle. It was a perfectly temperate late afternoon as we stood drinking beers in the rooftop bar. I had made sure to go to the bathroom before leaving the Gansevoort.


There remained the problem of my disproportionate rapport with Randy as opposed to Gary, so I was relieved when some older guy that Gary knew came up to him and started a long conversation. He offered to buy the next round, and asked what we were drinking. Randy and I displayed our near-empty Coronas.


"Your friends have expensive taste," the older guy said to Gary.


"That's kind of obnoxious," I muttered to Randy.


"Very," he said.


We had been talking for a long while about living in L.A. and what he missed about New York. "Do you ever get out there?" he asked.


"I visited my friend there a couple of years ago," I said. "I can't say it turned out all that well."


"What happened?" he asked.


"It's a long story," I said evasively. "But we should definitely hang out next time I'm there."


"Absolutely," he said. "You're really fun."


With the drinks and the beers the early evening had turned a bit hazy, and before I quite knew what was happening Randy was stepping into a cab back to the hotel to meet a friend for dinner. The obnoxious older guy and Gary pushed me into another taxi and we ended up at Marie's Crisis. I wasn't exactly itching to visit a piano bar full of singing patrons too tone-deaf to realize that they were, but I was too fuzzy-headed by now to be terribly assertive.


The older guy bought me another drink ("Well liquor is fine," I nearly added), but half an hour was about all I could take.


"I should get home," I said to Gary over the sounds of Sondheim sacrilege. "I haven't eaten dinner yet, and I have to work tomorrow."


I picked up some takeout on the way home, and managed to eat it before passing out face-first on the bed. There seemed to be a pattern here.


###


The summer had not been a relaxing one. Besides the fact that summer was our busiest season at work, coupled with the fact that we were still severely understaffed and would be until after Labor Day, I was taking two continuing-education courses in the evenings on my company's dime.


I'd enrolled in a general marketing course to brush up on the fundamentals, as well as a marketing writing course. The latter was, naturally, my favorite of the two by a significant margin; years ago, Neil had even helped me put together a copywriting portfolio when I attempted to start a career in advertising. But that had come to naught. I was not gunning to be at an ad agency anymore, but it seemed to me that the next logical step in my career would involve a transition into a writing position that was more blatantly marketing-oriented. It was important to me that I do well in the marketing writing course, and it seemed, over the course of two months, that I had.


I lingered afterward on the last night of class, and after the professor had spoken with the last couple of stragglers, I stepped up to thank him for helping me improve my promotional writing.


He was quite gracious, and said he'd enjoyed having me as a student. "I probably shouldn't be telling you this," he said, "but I always saved your assignments to read last, because they were so well done. You had a consistent message throughout your marketing campaign, and you found ways to make it interesting and clever."


"That's really nice to hear," I said. "Thank you."


We talked about ways in which I might secure the kind of job transition I sought. In my mind I sensed boundaries crumbling, past misfortunes receding.


I was actually doing things.


###


I agreed to meet Gary for dinner, but only because I planned to tell him that I didn't think we were a match. The server brought our sushi so fast, however, that I hadn't been able to work up to that conversation by the time we were finished eating.


"How about a drink?" he said as we walked up 9th Avenue.


"Okay," I said, figuring I might as well tell him when he was loaded. Never again, I resolved, would I so gamely subscribe to someone's random three-dates-even-if-they're-not-so-good theory.


We repaired to a nearby gay bar, and were not yet through our first round when an attractive guy appeared in front of us.


"Hi," he said. "I'm Jack. Who are you?"


"I'm Frank," I said, offering my hand, and then Gary introduced himself.


Jack was a glibly smooth conversationalist, flitting from question to question. It became apparent that pursuing me was his sole object, but I tried to feign ignorance, and hoped that Gary would not pick up on it.


It was a futile effort, I realized, when Jack leaned forward and told me, "I was staring at you for half an hour before I came up to you. You're the hottest guy in here."


My face blazed, and though what he'd said was, on what level, exactly what I wanted to hear, all I could allow myself was a noncommittal "Thanks."


"So how do you two know each other?" asked Jack, finally managing to look at Gary as well as me.


"From Match.com," I offered pointedly.


"Oh, so you two are on a date?" said Jack, looking straight at me.


"Yes," said Gary.


"A first date?"


"Third," I said.


"Really?" said Jack. "And how is it going?"


My face burned again.


"I'm sorry, am I getting too personal?" said Jack.


"A little," I replied.


"Sorry about that," he said. "Let me buy the next round."


"Okay," said Gary, before I could speak.


Jack at least made a show of being interested in talking to Gary, but kept brushing up against me suggestively when he didn't think Gary was looking. I pretended not to notice.


"So what have you been up to tonight?" asked Jack.


"We had sushi down the block," said Gary, "and then came here."


"Cool," said Jack. "I was actually on a date here, but the guy looked a lot better in his pictures, so I set him loose."


We were spared having to reply to the comment, because at that moment someone else appeared: a slightly supercilious blond whose face I recognized instantly but couldn't place.


"This is my friend Grant," said Jack, and introductions were made all around.


"I think we've met," said Grant when we shook hands.


"I think you're right," I said, "but I can't remember quite when."


"Me, either," he said. "But I think it was years ago."


"That's probably right," I said.


Gary and Grant struck up a conversation. Jack sidled closer to me.


"So how do you know Grant?" he asked.


"I think we chatted online or something," I said. "I honestly can't remember when or where we met. I'm sure it could have been only once."


"I have a confession to make," said Jack, and I sighed internally. "When the date with the other guy didn't work out, I set up something with Grant. But you're way cuter."


"I see," I said.


"Come with me to the bathroom," he murmured in my ear. I shook my head subtly.


"Come on," he repeated, but I gave no indication of hearing him. Whether I found Jack physically attractive or not, and as sure as I was that it wouldn't work out with Gary, I would not hurt Gary's feelings by flirting with a third party while on a date.


There was a belatedly dawning comprehension in Jack's appraising eyes.


"Is my flirting bothering you?" he said.


I glanced at Gary, who wasn't looking in our direction, and then shrugged while leaving my mouth slightly open, as if I were at a loss for words. I was trying to telegraph my honorable intentions while still on the date with Gary, coupled with the fact that I was nevertheless turned on by the attention from Jack even though I couldn't do anything about it at the moment.


These subtleties were lost on Jack, who quickly stepped back a pace. "I'm sorry, man," he said. "I wasn't trying to piss you off."


"Don't worry about it," I said. "It's fine." I tried to make my tone vague enough so that Gary might interpret it as slightly chilly, while Jack would simply find it reassuring.


"I think I'm going," said Grant.


"Oh, okay, buddy," said Jack.


I had a strange inclination to apologize to Grant--for what, I wasn't exactly sure. But of course I did not.


"Another round?" said Jack.


Gary and I exchanged glances. He was waiting for me to speak.


"We should probably get going," I said. "But it was good meeting you. Thanks for the drinks."


"No problem," said Jack. Then Gary turned around to put his empty glass on the bar, and I quickly slipped my card with my number into Jack's hip pocket.


"Well, that was interesting, wasn't it?" I said to Gary when we were out on the sidewalk.


"He was certainly going after you, wasn't he?" he said too cavalierly.


"Seemed like it, yeah."


"I can see how that could be attractive if you're into really aggressive guys," he said. "But to me it's kind of too much."


"You're right," I said. "It kind of is."


"Do you want to have a drink at my place?" said Gary.


"That sounds cool," I said, "but I think I've had enough for one night. I'm a little tired."


My phone buzzed minutes later, and within half an hour Jack and I were making out in the middle of another bar. Yes, I was going to hell.


###


What with work and my classes and my many, many trips to the library in the course of my endless research project on the life and work of an illustrator, I hadn't been getting out as much as I should have; my mind, I felt, was becoming less outward-looking than it ought to be. So one Sunday in late August I stepped off a crosstown bus in front of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Pigeons scattered around my feet as I began my typically purposeful stride up the endless steps.


I found myself in pleasant reveries as I made my way through a lovely exhibit covering photography's first century, peering dimly backward through time at gorgeous strange manipulations of light and dark. Eventually I meandered through the complexly frivolous superheroes costume exhibit. My eyes passed casually over a couple holding hands, and for a fleeting instant I wondered what that was like, to walk through a museum with someone holding hands.


I'd never done that. There were so many utterly ordinary things I'd never done. I'd written novels and confronted violent bigotry and, six and a half years before, left my former life behind by walking onto a plane with little more than a one-way ticket and a stubborn belief in myself, but I'd never seen a changing of the seasons with someone, never had anyone point out the one white hair in the middle of my right sideburn, never brought home the wrong kind of toilet paper, never ruined the dinner I was making for two. Yet what I felt was not really despondency; rather, it was a curiosity about what I had not experienced. It wasn't necessarily a bad thing that I hadn't been in a string of relationships-for-relationship's-sake, despite my occasional yearnings for connection.


My thoughts returned to my immediate surroundings. I stared into the blank eyes of a Batman mask, and glimpsed for an instant in my mind's eye the blurred visage of my alter ego Frank Beekman.


Leaving the exhibit, I started across the European Sculpture Court, smiling faintly as I tilted my face slightly back to catch the gentle sunlight through the glass roof. I would walk toward the back wall of windows to look out over Central Park. I turned my gaze forward again and Roger was approaching in the opposite direction from the far end of the hall, talking to a man and woman pushing a stroller.


My head swiveled right just as I sensed that he might be turning his head to catch a glimpse of me. I didn't look again to determine whether he'd seen me, I didn't want to make eye contact with Roger for the rest of my life after what had happened, I spun instinctively toward the nearest exit, I almost rammed into the linked hands of another happy couple, red rover red rover send Beekman right over, I was through the high archway and my torso lurched expertly to one side to avoid a toddler in stumbling sneakers, I was in the hall of medieval art with my hand trembling against a glass case, I pulled my hand back so as not to smudge the case and dug my fingers into my side to steady them.


This was part of what I had always meant about New York's being accidental. It didn't seem quite right, it never had, it was so easy to get lost in this city, to lose someone, but one could never quite be certain because everyone and everything was so tightly compressed, two elements could be forced back into contact again at any moment, it almost seemed as though that should foster some kind of intimacy but it was merely corpses unintentionally dumped into the same grave, I didn't want Roger's cold dead hand on mine, I didn't want it to bother me enough to have made an Olympic-worthy sprint through watching crowds.


I composed myself, walked resolutely past the suits of armor. On Madison Avenue I would catch the bus back home, where I'd make myself an early dinner and eat it with a feeling of relief that there was no answering clink of silverware across the table, no one I'd have to talk to about my quiet afternoon at the Met.


###


Lighting a fourth or fifth match, I crouched down again and brought the tiny flame near my other hand, which was groping for a telltale notch.


"I think that's it," I said to myself, and sighed. The tire had blown out in the middle of New Jersey. About 60 miles outside Manhattan I'd felt the dreaded shimmying begin, and had taken the next highway exit. Pulling into a remote hotel parking lot, I'd parked under a streetlamp and closely examined each tire as I prodded it with my toe. All had looked fine. But as I'd returned to the access road and come within sight of the entrance ramp, the rental car had shuddered violently and a vivid flapping noise struck my eardrums. The right rear tire was shredded.


I might have expected it; the car had clearly not been checked properly before being handed over to me two days before. There was trash inside from the previous driver, and the trunk, I'd discovered halfway to my upstate conference, already contained a busted tire.


So here I was in the middle of nowhere by the side of a dark highway, with half a book of matches and no flashlight, attempting to find the jack notch on a strange vehicle. It wasn't as though I hadn't changed any number of tires in my time, but never in such adverse circumstances.


At last I was relatively certain I'd aligned the jack properly, and began tediously twirling the handle to inch the car upward. The tire was nearly off the ground when a car pulled up behind me and started its hazard lights flashing. A silhouette approached.


"Is everything okay?" asked a tall guy in jeans and a T-shirt and a light jacket.


"Yeah," I said, scarcely looking up from working the jack. Once stubbornly independent, always stubbornly independent. Then I remembered what Phil had said about being an island, and my inside softened slightly, and I said, "It's just a pain in the ass doing this in the dark."


"Here, get the spare," he said, commandeering the jack and lifting the car the last few inches while I retrieved the spare tire from where I'd angrily flung it, along with the previous driver's flat tire, about 20 minutes before.


It turned out he was a state trooper just getting off work, and while technically I'd been doing okay without his help, it was kind of nice to know that somebody actually gave a fuck.


"I'm John," he said, reaching out his grimy hand to shake my grimy hand.


"Frank," I said.


"Where are you headed?" he asked.


"New York," I said, shrugging as if to say, Accidents.


###


My insurance pays for 30 psychotherapy sessions in a calendar year, and I used the last of them the day before the presidential election.


"I guess we only have about 45 minutes to solve all my problems," I said, settling on the couch. My therapist smiled gently.


"I can't believe it's the end of the year," I said.


"How do you feel about it?" he asked.


I stared into the near distance, allowing my eyes to lose focus. "I don't know," I said. "Okay, I think. I think so, yeah. I mean, not everything went according to plan, exactly, but that's not a surprise by now."


"Are you thinking of anything in particular?"


I smiled lopsidedly. "Well, I had kind of believed on some level that I would be in the MFA program by now. And that, I don't know, somehow by the time I turned 30 I would have figured out how to date someone in a non-fucked-up way. Or hell, even in a fucked-up way. My last serious date was with the town drunk, and I picked up another guy the same evening."


"It can be rough here," he said.


"Oh, come on, don't let me off the hook that easily," I said.


"Someone has to."


I smiled despite myself. "Really, though. I know I'm not Mr. Warm-and-Fuzzy. I know I don't make it easy to get close to me. But... I feel like every time I reach out to someone, it blows up in my face. And what's worse, I feel like I'm so much worse at it than I used to be. Like I'm getting more inept all the time."


"Do you really think so?"


"I don't know," I said. "I just--there are so few people I can honestly trust now. I miss Peter. Things haven't been right with him since what happened two years ago in L.A., and I miss having a best friend."


Saying those words triggered another thought that stopped me cold for a second. "I guess I just realized that I also lost my other best friend," I said. "I know it will sound cheesy, but it was my mom. She was always there to listen to everything--she wanted to hear it, God help her. But when she got depressed I couldn't talk to her anymore. There've been so many times--the MFA rejections, the problems with my insane boss at work, turning 30--when I've needed her, but she was gone for weeks at a time, and when she did resurface it was only for a few minutes, I could tell she could scarcely bear to talk on the phone. And I couldn't help her, and she couldn't help me." My eyes swam and stung. "It's been kind of a hard year."


"Yes, it sounds like it," he said quietly.


I sat there for a second, mourning both of them, before I spoke again. "It's okay. At least I trust myself enough most of the time to have a grasp on who I am. In the end that's all you can really know. That's something, isn't it?"


He nodded. "And what about the good things that happened this year?"


"Work certainly isn't perfect," I said, "but the promotion, definitely. Which I worked very hard for. And people take me more seriously now as a result. But--I mean, I don't have to tell you this again, but my boss makes things incredibly difficult for me. So much inconsistency, and I don't really have any confidence in her abilities. But I think it has taught me how to act more unilaterally and to trust my own instincts even when they clash with authority." I smiled. "Not that I didn't know before how to disagree with someone in authority. Damn, I need a break. I only took three or four vacation days this year."


"Have you decided whether you're going on that trip you talked about?"


I sighed. "I'm seriously thinking about booking it. It feels a little crazy--the people I've mentioned it to think I'm nuts for wanting to go there--but I think it would be a really fascinating country to visit. And I do need to get away pretty badly. I just--my life has become so routine. I need something to look forward to."


"It sounds like it could be a good change of pace for you."


"Yeah," I said. "And you know, I'm thinking about embodying the definition of insanity." He looked blank, and I continued, "You know, doing the same thing again expecting a different result. I realized that my recommendation letters and GRE score and all that remain on file for a year, so I think I'm going to reapply for an MFA. God help me."


He nodded. "That sounds like a good thing to do."


"I mean, it's just another pipe dream," I said. "My chances are better of being struck by lightning. But why change now?"


###


A casual friend of mine, the one who'd been kind to me when I had my Victorian-wife haircut, had his birthday party at a bar in Hell's Kitchen the weekend before Christmas, and though it was in the 20s and snowing heavily, well, he had been sweet to me at a low point in my life, so I bundled up in my dad's old peacoat and ventured out.


The birthday boy had rented out a private room upstairs, and there was quite a crowd by the time I arrived. He saw me as I approached across the room, and greeted me with a kiss and a slightly unsteady embrace.


"You look great," I said.


"Thanks," he replied. "So do you."


"Thank you," I said. "Is there somewhere I can put my coat?"


"On the couches there," he said, indicating an area separate from the rest of the upstairs room. I put my coat on a chair and went to the bar for a drink.


"So are you going back to Texas for Christmas?" he asked, putting an arm around me.


"Yeah," I said, "I'm flying out a couple of days before. My parents finally finished building their retirement home way out in the boonies, and we're spending the holidays out there."


"What part of the boonies, exactly?" asked Birthday Boy, tilting back his head to drain his martini.


"Well," I said, using my straw to knock the lime slice into my gin and tonic and giving it a few stirs before tossing the straw onto the bar, as I always did, "it's about an hour and a half out of San Antonio. Outside of San Antonio is Kerrville, and outside of that is...."


"The boonies," he said.


"Well, that's skipping a couple of steps, but pretty much."


My leg prickled; it was my vibrating phone. Phil had texted: did I want to go out in Hell's Kitchen?


Already there, I texted back, telling him where to meet me.


By the time Phil arrived I was dancing with a cute fellow I'd met months before at Birthday Boy's Cinco de Mayo party.


"Hey!" I said to Phil, whose arms flew wide to hug me. "Just when I thought it couldn't get any better."


"Hail yeah," he said. "Where do I put my jacket?"


"Put it with mine," I said, taking his coat and dumping it on the same chair where mine was. "Why don't we go get a drink and you can tell me what's been going on?"


His mind was filled with the frustrations of his job.


"That's what the holidays are for," I said.


"What about you?" he said.


I shrugged. "Did I tell you I applied to the MFA program again?"


"No shit," he said.


"I decided I wasn't happy with any of the stories I had," I said, "so I decided a few weeks before the deadline to write a new one. I found myself struggling with it, and I was up until 2 AM the night before it was due working on it. Falling asleep at the keyboard, quite literally. Then at the last minute I decided it wasn't quite right, so I used an older piece of writing. I mean, it's something I've gone back to over the years and polished up, so that's probably a good thing, even if I did write it a long time ago. It was due by 5 PM, and I filed the electronic application at 4:03."


"Here's to MFAs," he said, toasting me with his glass.


"So was that the birthday boy you were with?" asked Phil as we returned to the couch area where people were dancing.


"No," I said, "that's him," and I pointed to where he was dancing. Birthday Boy saw me, pulled me over to him, and proceeded to grind against me. Shrugging slightly, I responded in kind until he started stumbling a little.


"I'm going to finish my drink," I said, patting him gently on the arm. As I appropriated my glass from Phil, I glanced over at the chair where I'd laid our coats. I saw Phil's coat, but not mine. My heart lurched, I tasted metal.


"Oh, no," I said. "My coat is gone."


I made a complete circuit of the room, going through all the coats on all the couches and chairs. I looked behind and under every piece of furniture. Nothing.


"It's really gone?" said Phil.


"Yes," I said. "I'm sure of it. Fuck. It was my dad's officer peacoat from when he was in the Navy. My winter coat for the past 10 years. Fuck."


"What's wrong?" asked Birthday Boy, who had wandered past on his way to the bar. I filled him in.


"Oh, no," he said. "Did you ask at the coat check?"


"What coat check?" I said.


He pointed down a hall I hadn't noticed before. "Over there. We haven't really been using it, but there is one."


I strode down the hall, looking left and right to see if anyone was holding my coat. The coat check attendant shook his head when I asked whether anyone had turned in a peacoat with gold buttons.


"A lot of coats get stolen around here," he said. "You should have checked it."


"If I'd known you were here, I might have," I said with a frown. "Do you have a card or something in case I want to check back later about my coat?"


He handed me a business card, which I pocketed without looking at it.


Birthday Boy and the cute guy I'd been dancing with had been canvassing the party to ask about my coat, but everyone had said they didn't know anything about it.


"Sorry, dude," said Phil, looking grim. "Maybe it'll turn up."


I shook my head. "My scarf was right on top of the coat. I really don't think anyone would have mistaken it for theirs. Some fucker stole my dad's coat. It's gone, Phil. I'm not going to get it back." And, although I did check back with the bar several times over the next month and post an ad in the Missed Connections section of Craigslist, my unfortunate prediction was borne out.


Birthday Boy was profusely apologetic, and insisted that I wear his jacket home. It was much lighter than the peacoat, and my teeth chattered as Phil and I ducked into a pizza place to get a slice. He bought me one, and I chewed it forlornly.


"What's your dad going to say?" asked Phil, as I dabbed at my lips with a napkin.


"He's not going to disown me or anything," I said, "but he'll find this upsetting. I mean, I'm certainly upset. What son of a bitch would stoop so low as to steal someone's coat when it's freezing cold and snowing? And when it's the weekend before Christmas? I mean, fuck."


"It's shitty, all right," he said.


"I'm not looking forward to this conversation," I said. "I already have to talk to him about that awful email he sent me. And now I have to tell him about this."


"Can't you just not tell him?" Phil asked, reasonably enough.


"No," I said. "He entrusted me with that peacoat 10 years ago. At the very least I owe him the truth."


Outside the snow fell and fell.


###


When I finally reached the front of the checkout line, the cashier scanned the bar code on the antiperspirant I was buying. Then she paused, peering at the label over the top of her horn-rimmed glasses. Unscrewing the cap, she took a big whiff and said, "You're going to smell good!"


I was back in Texas, all right.


My mother and grandmother were waiting in the car when I emerged from one of the few grocery stores in the little town closest to my parents' house. On the drive from San Antonio we'd stopped at a Dairy Queen so I could satisfy my lust for a basketful of chicken fried steak fingers with cream gravy, French fries, and Texas toast. As I'd eaten, the heads of a buffalo and a longhorn had stared impassively at me from their places on the opposite wall.


"How do you eat all that and stay so skinny?" Mom asked, sipping a Coke.


"Laxatives," I mumbled through a half-masticated mouthful.


###


Squinting through the sight, I steadied my aim and pulled the trigger.


About 50 yards away a tuna can leaped with a clang from its perch on a rock, its label shorn off.


"Nice shot, Frank!" said Dad.


"Thanks," I said, tempted to upend the air rifle and blow on the end of the barrel but deciding it would be too showy. I pumped the pellet gun 10 times before handing it back to him and reaching for my Shiner Bock.


I wasn't a Second Amendment groupie or anything, but after two days in my parents' not-huge house with roughly 15 people, I didn't need much of an excuse to step outside, even if it was something that entailed bullets and belching.


My options were limited. The house was so isolated that, to get cell phone reception, I had to drive 10 miles into town for even a weak signal; my parents didn't yet have a landline or Internet service. A guy can play only so much Guitar Hero before the very words "Steely Dan" prompt a seizure.


The most unfortunate part was that, despite the isolation, the experience hadn't been particularly relaxing. My parents had put me in a strange sleeping area at the top of an extremely narrow winding staircase, up which I'd had to lug my suitcase. At the top of the staircase you walked straight into a tiny "room," no bigger and perhaps even smaller than my bedroom in Manhattan, with no door. There was just space enough for a small desk and an air mattress on the floor. I opened what I thought was the closet door, only to encounter the dark attic beyond.


"Isn't it neat?" asked Mom.


"Well, sure," I said.


I didn't need that much space, really, but it seemed odd to be all the way out in the middle of nowhere and still feel about as cramped as I did in New York. The real issue, however, was the lack of a door and the fact that the room was just off the kitchen and the living area, meaning that I heard clearly every single thing going on downstairs. The Niece and Niece II, sorry to say, were early and loud risers. This was, I recognized, fairly normal kid behavior, but I had already been operating on a significant sleep deficit when I left New York and was vexed not to be able to make up for that now.


The Niece was in a willful phase, resulting in a lot of stern warnings from Cleo, while the Niece II was at a stage when Cleo literally could not take three steps across the room for a moment without Niece II beginning to scream, "Mommy Mommy Mommy!" I have been extremely candid in the past about not exactly being a born uncle, and, although I spent some time playing with the Nieces, I found myself retreating often to the garage to look through old boxes of my stuff that I hadn't seen in years. There were books, and old achievement certificates, and letters from old flames and high-school friends. The latter things were what I lingered over longest. Letters, I marveled to myself. Nobody sends letters anymore.


I was skimming over a note, mailed from Mexico the summer before my senior year by the only girl I'd ever propositioned, when Dad entered the garage.


"There's a lot of stuff here," he said. "Want to take any of it home?"


"Hmm, I don't have much room in my bag, but we'll see."


He shook his head. "I can't believe how much stuff you guys have."


"Not as much as you have," I said with a shrug, folding the letter and slipping it back in its discolored envelope.


"That's true, that's true," he said, rubbing his chin absently.


I exhaled through my nose. "Dad, do you want the good news first, or the bad?"


After a one-beat pause, his eyes turned to me and said, as I'd known he would, "The bad."


"Someone stole your old Navy peacoat from me."


"Oh, really?" he said. "Who?"


"I don't know," I said. "I went to my friend's birthday party at a bar in Hell's Kitchen, and I put the coat in a very particular place, and it disappeared, even though I wasn't far away. I looked everywhere, and I asked the coat check guy, and there were a couple of people asking everybody there if they'd seen it. I've called the manager of the bar every day since to see if anyone turned it in, and I even put an ad online, but it's gone. And my scarf was right on top of it, so I doubt somebody just mistook it for theirs. I don't have much hope of getting it back. I'm so sorry, Dad. You earned that coat, and you entrusted me with it, and it was a great coat. It kept me really warm through all those winters. It was something of yours. You know, if there'd been a fire in my apartment, that's the one thing I would have rescued."


"I appreciate that," said my father, visibly affected. "I guess what I always say is that it's all just things, and in the grand scheme things aren't what matter."


"I know," I said. "And I figured you'd say that. But I'm going to keep trying to find it."


"It's nice to hear it means that much to you," he said.


"Of course it does."


"Are you ready to go back in the house?" he asked.


"Yeah," I said, putting the binder of letters back in the box.


"So what's the good news?" Dad asked as we walked down the breezeway between the garage and the house.


"Oh," I said, and I told him I'd booked my overseas flight and which country I'd be visiting.


"Really?" he said. "Why there?"


"Because it sounded interesting," I replied. "And it's not somewhere that everybody goes. I have all this vacation time I'm not using, and I wanted to do something different."


"That's different, all right," he said. Then he told me that his brother--my uncle with the eyepatch and the 250-pound dogs, the guy I'd met only once in my entire life--had been stationed there in his military days and had fucked a local girl in a guard tower.


"Lovely," I said as my father opened the refrigerator door and handed me a beer.


"What are you talking about?" asked Mom, entering the kitchen.


"Did Frank tell you where he's going?"


"No," she said, trying to sound casual, but the anxiety with which she always reacted at the prospect of new and unexpected information was apparent in her eyes.


"Why there?" she said, after I'd spilled the beans, and I patiently explained it all again, slightly vexed that they didn't really seem to share my enthusiasm.


Fuck it. I was going to get on a plane by myself and set off on an adventure. It would be good for me.


I padded into the living room and sat down next to Marc on the couch, sipping my beer. Mom followed behind me and said, "I know you guys are really smart and creative"--I rolled my eyes before turning toward her--"so I need you to help me with a fun game that my friend Irene had us play at her holiday party. She had little slips of paper with clues for Christmas carols on them. Like 'The dozen 24-hour periods of Yuletide.' Do you know what that means?"


"No," I said, taking a giant chug and stifling a belch. "That's way too difficult for me to figure out."


"Oh, shut up," she said, slapping my arm. She handed me a clump of small green slips of paper, half of which I dumped in Marc's lap.


"This is lame," I said to him when she was out of earshot. He shrugged.


"All right," I continued. "If she wants cute little clues, she'll get cute little clues."


###


We had our big Christmas Day dinner on the afternoon of the 25th. I was sitting next to my cousin Eleanor's new husband, whom I'd never met. He seemed nice and was actually kind of cute, but I didn't have too much in common with a small-town physical therapist. We seemed to be doing fine, however, with pleasantries.


"Time for our game," said Mom, circling the table and holding a Santa hat out of which each person drew a green slip.


Marc, unlike me, had kept all of his clues clean. I waited patiently for one of the good ones.


"'Alcoholic German animal'?" said my mystified grandmother.


There was a bit of discussion around the table, but no one could figure it out.


I finally put them out of their misery. "'Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.'"


"Rudolph wasn't a drunk!" Mom replied.


"Says you," I shrugged.


My aunt had a confused look on her face, and I knew she had probably drawn my pièce de résistance.


"What do you think it means?" she murmured to my uncle, showing him the paper. He snorted and shook his head.


"Read it out loud," said my grandmother.


My aunt looked around at the dozen or so of us to make sure that the Nieces had left the table. She glanced at the paper again and read, "'Orgasm upon the transparent twelve.'"


The faces around the table were uniformly blank.


"Okay," I finally said. "'It Came Upon the Midnight Clear.'"


My aunt, who has always had a ribald sense of humor, burst into laughter, and a few of the others snickered. Mom just shook her head.


"You know," I said, "that was a fun game."


###


On Saturday the rest of the relatives went back to San Antonio, so it was just Mom and me in the car on the drive to church the next morning.


"So how are you doing now?" I asked.


"I'm much better," she said. "Frank, it was so strange. I couldn't do anything. I didn't want to eat, or go anywhere, or talk much to anyone. Your dad and I would drive for two and a half hours between Corpus Christi and San Antonio without me saying anything. I didn't want to get out of bed, there was nothing for me to really look forward to. Is that what it was like for you when you were depressed?"


Having always tried to spare her from the unpleasant details of my mental illness, I paused as I considered how to answer. "Sometimes, " I said. "Self-motivation could be difficult. But you're definitely not depressed anymore?"


"No," she said, "I'm basically back to normal. But the stress of the depression did make my hair fall out, and it's pretty thin in places. My doctor said it just has to grow back, and it could take about a year." I stole a glance at her scalp for a second. "I just kept thinking about how it must have been for you that year you were unemployed, when you were up in New York by yourself and dealing with all those rejections."


"It wasn't easy," I said, deliberating how honest to be. "I don't know. There were days when I could barely get out of bed, let alone leave the apartment. But I would force myself. Sometimes I would have to talk to myself. I'd say, 'Okay, Frank, you're going to pick up your left shoe and then put your foot in it, and now you're going to tie your shoelace. Now you're going to take your right shoe and put your foot in it, and tie your right shoelace. Then you stand up, and pick up your keys and wallet and put them in your pocket, and now you walk to the front door and open it and go through it.' I don't really know what else to say about it."


"But it's not that way anymore?" she said, studiedly casual.


"I'm fine, Mom," I said. "I'm okay."


"If that ever happens again, you call me, all right?" she said. "Or anything else. If you go into the hospital like when you had strep, let me know and I'll fly up there to take care of you. You didn't even tell me you'd been in the hospital until a week later."


"Okay."


"Promise?" she asked.


"Yes," I said, trying to lie convincingly. It was far too late to be a child again.


###


After church we had lunch at a big Mexican restaurant with its own Starbucks, a video game arcade, and an animatronic Davy Crockett who sang something unintelligible from the top of an Alamo facade every half hour. On the way home my mother rode with Marc and Cleo and the Nieces, and Dad and I took the other car.


"Do you want to drive?" he asked.


I shrugged. "Sure, why not?" Taking the keys, I settled in the driver's seat and adjusted the rearview mirror before starting the engine.


"So what are you going to do out here once you retire?" I asked, pulling out of the parking lot.


"There's still a lot of work to do on the house," he said. "Boxes to unpack. And some more trees to clear out on the property, down toward the river."


"Will you be making a lot of things in your workshop?" I asked, steering carefully around a sharp bend in the narrow two-lane road.


"Probably so," he said. "Do you like to build things?"


"I don't think anyone would really want anything I could make," I replied. "I'm not very good at that sort of thing."


"I was always interested in figuring out how things are put together and trying to reproduce that," he said. "I didn't know if that was how your mind worked."


"Not really," I said. "I'm more verbal than--I guess spatial is what you'd call it. But that's great that you can do that."


I made a turn onto the road leading to the house. We had several miles to go.


"I know this isn't your favorite subject any more than it is mine," I began, "but I think it might be useful for us to talk about what happened in that email exchange a couple of months ago."


"What email?" Dad said.


"The one about Obama and homosexuality that you forwarded to me," I said.


"Well, I wasn't trying to offend you," he said. "I didn't really think it had anything to do with gay people. I honestly forgot about the homosexuality part."


"I know you weren't trying to offend me," I said. "But the fact that you could forget about that part of the email, when it really did say some pretty awful things, is a deep concern for me. I mean, you witnessed everything I had to go through when I came out, and you've known about it for almost 15 years. The guy who wrote that email was being homophobic, and if you're not really seeing that, or why I found it upsetting, then I'm worried that you could be influenced by that kind of ideology on some level."


"I was just trying to have a dialogue with you," he said. "But you cut that off and said we couldn't talk about politics or religion."


"Right," I said. "Because we both seem to get upset about that kind of thing when it comes up. So we talk about other things, then. Or we have a dialogue based on what we say to each other, not just forwarding on the words of someone else."


Then came the worst of it.


"The reason I don't call or email you much is because you're offended by so many things," he said.


I shook my head. "I don't think that's true." But given his tone, the belief he seemed to hold in this grossly unfair generalization, there seemed no point in arguing my case. Whether he consciously saw it or not, he was dumping the blame for our dysfunctional relationship on me, a fact that would make me furious in hindsight. It wasn't okay for me to express any feelings that he was remotely uncomfortable with; I was hysterical, the madwoman in the attic, a voice to be dismissed when it could not be wholly avoided. In the moment, however, all I felt was profoundly sad.


I had known the truth, in a way, years ago, but I hadn't analyzed it fully. My mother had basically told me that my father didn't read much because he felt if you weren't doing something with your hands, it was a waste of time. "Ah," I'd said to myself, "so my life, which is basically devoted to books...does it seem like a waste of time to him?" But this wasn't the most crucial lesson to be taken from what she'd said. What I'd finally realized was that, essentially, my father mistrusted words, the very things that I consider the sole vehicle to truth.


Dad and I would never speak the same language. All these years I had held out hope that someday I could bridge the gap between us. I had done what I could. But it was time for me to stop looking over my shoulder and go on alone, and perhaps to find a way of mourning something that had never really existed outside my own overly optimistic imagination.


###


One of the bright spots of 2008 was that, after falling out of touch for a while, I'd grown closer to Brian as well as his best friend, Justine. They'd kind of taken me under their wing as I started to reemerge yet again from my habitual shell. In the summer we'd gone to movies and made excursions to the beach and gone drinking for free at the special events Brian organized for work. When Justine found out that I was planning to stay home on New Year's Eve and make a pot of chili, she inisisted that I go out dancing with them instead. "You can be my date," she'd said. The crotchety voice in my head said that I was getting too old for this sort of thing, but I ignored it.


By midnight Brian and his boyfriend and Justine and I were on the dance floor, having already worked up a sweat, poised to ring in the new year with plastic flutes of cheap champagne.


"Goodbye, fuckin' 2008!" said Justine, as Brian looked at his watch and nodded. We bumped glasses all around and swigged it down. Brian and his boyfriend kissed, and I leaned in to smack lips with Justine.


Within half an hour Brian and his boyfriend were sullenly refusing to speak to each other, but eventually the alcohol wore off and all was resolved and we scurried through the cabless cold toward the L, which was not a short walk.


"Why is it so damn cold?" said Brian's boyfriend, shivering as we walked side by side about a half-block ahead of Brian and Justine, who were still back at the last corner scanning for a taxi.


"Let's huddle for warmth," I said, and we put our arms around each other's shoulders. I rubbed his arm briskly with my fist.


"We'd better not let Brian see us," he said.


"Don't tell me you seriously mean that," I said.


"I don't know," he said.


"Oh, fine then, freeze to death," I said lightly, disengaging from him.


We parted ways at the L as they headed deeper into Brooklyn and I turned toward Manhattan again. It was as anticlimactic as any other December 31 I'd ever experienced, and it was terribly cold out, but it was also the first New Year's Eve in at least two or three years that I hadn't spent alone. And while I hadn't been concerned about ringing in 2009 at home by myself, spending the evening in the company of friends had been an unexpected gift.


Much like the barf that trickled around my feet when someone vomited spectacularly in my subway car.


###


The first couple of months of 2009 were a blur, with my continuing to pick up the slack at work while we remained understaffed, and also trying to move toward a conclusion of my outside research project. In my few spare moments, I worked on Entry 250 and read up on my vacation destination. With increasing friction between my boss and me, the prospect of having a week off assumed even more importance. I needed to clear my head, to be free of grousing.


Before I quite knew it, the day of my departure, which had seemed so distant, arrived. I reached JFK about three hours before my flight, and, as I'd anticipated, had a good two and a half hours to kill after passing through security. I ambled through the duty-free shop, looked out the window at planes being loaded and unloaded, sat reading until the odor of an unhygienic European couple drove me away. Airports were merely a means to an end, but what a dreary means.


At last my flight began to board. When my turn came I handed my passport and boarding pass to the employee at the gate. She scanned the ticket, and handed back the stub and the passport.


"Takk fyrir," I said carefully. Our eyes met for a second, and then, nodding politely, I grasped the handle of my suitcase and walked through the gate.

[To be concluded in Part Two.]

2:15 AM

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Tuesday, March 24, 2009

 

DUE DATE


As I had previously conjectured, the final entry will indeed be in two parts. Look for part one on Sunday, March 29, which happens to be The Accidental New Yorker's sixth anniversary. Part two will follow not too long after.

It's time.

12:05 AM

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Wednesday, February 11, 2009

 

WHAT TO EXPECT WHEN YOU'RE EXPECTING

Entry 250 will appear by late March, possibly in two parts.

When I settle on an exact date, I'll amend this post. Because I work best on a deadline.

In the meantime, a small hint:

11:49 PM

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