Chapter VI - Descent
I left town. The next morning, I silently gathered my things, took a train downtown and packed up my apartment. I was afraid of the sorrow I saw in Raphaella’s eyes, it was something I did not know but oddly felt a part of. I imagined that it was me, my foibles, there in her eyes. I imagined myself as the thing that was happening to her, and I could no longer bear being that. I did something, something I vowed I would never do: I left before my child was born.
I went home to California where I began work as a legal assistant in my father’s law firm. I sent money to Raphaella regularly and routinely requested pictures of my daughter. She was beautiful, my Dana. I went out to visit once each year and enjoyed the visits, but I could see that in Raphaella the unseen still moved, inchoate. I felt like she was pregnant again, but not with a baby. We always parted amiably, but her sorrowful eyes always made me worry. Her mother called me when she heard I’d left. She chewed me out, and then told me I wasn’t to blame, given Raphaella’s confusing and independent ways. She added something about how “Raphie got too much of me in her. Chasing men away and all. Like I did her own daddy...” Simon wrote me a letter. He misspelled every other word but I could see he missed me and the thought of his sister with her husband.
I heard little of Mitchell Mitkin. In one of Raphaella’s letters, I got the feeling he was still quite involved. And then he actually wrote to me. I was suspicious. Maybe Raphaella had urged him on as a way to reconcile, as preparation for the big announcement, the one of their impending marriage. His letter was actually an addendum to hers, a little note saying he was one year from graduation and planning to teach high school for one or two years. He said it would be “a service to the city and to education as an institution.” Same old Mitkin. It was timely, because I too was working on my teaching certificate. I had not decided where I’d teach, but the thought of returning to New York lingered. My father was adamantly against it. He warned me to avoid the den of deceit and destruction, the place that ruined me and got me into real, life-altering trouble.
That I was home and working in my father’s law office made my mother happy, but she wasn’t convinced that I’d done the right thing. As much as she loved me she knew that I had a child out there, and that made her very sad. Besides, she knew I was no teacher and surely I didn’t belong in a law office. She nagged me about writing, asked me if I needed more creative outlets, if she could buy me a new word processor, or even one of those newfangled home computers. I always assured her I was fine and that the writing would take care of itself, but that wasn’t happening. I hadn’t written anything since arriving in California, and that included journal entries.
I did read every chance I could. I read a great deal of history and some philosophy. I did not, however, become passionate about anything while in California. I kept saying to myself, one day I’ll discover passion for something and then, there, among flashes of desire I’ll become great, a true light in the darkness. It never happened. Instead I went to many Mexican-style happy hours and reminisced with old high school friends. I often drank too much, and they did too. Most of them, like me, hadn’t graduated from college and together we had little to talk about, except the past. And it was an ignominious past.
I didn’t tell anyone about Raphaella and Dana, and I took special care to keep all my dates in the dark. It wasn’t that I was trying to conceal some detrimental piece of information; I just never felt close enough to any of them. In my bosom, or someplace akin to a bosom, a heart or a gut maybe, I knew I would eventually end up with Raphaella, and telling simple, dull women who wanted to sleep with me about the woman I loved reeked of betrayal. And sleep I did. But each time I regretted it, sometimes just a little, sometimes just for a day, other times for a week. But my regret was always more than a moment.
By July of my third year away, I knew that it was time to go back. I wrote a letter to Raphaella telling her my plans. I would take a huge course load and finish my undergraduate degree locally. Then I’d leave California and teach in New York, and I would start in the fall. That’s all I said. I did not ask for a place to stay or even a suggestion. I just wrote, “See you in the fall.”
I left on my twenty-sixth birthday, taking a bus cross-country. I had always wanted to take such a trip; such a trip just had to be good for a writer, it just had to be. So it was that I mounted a shiny Greyhound bus, captained by an overweight Native American with very long black hair. I sat in the front so I could chat with the big man whenever I wanted. I loved talking to drivers: truck drivers, bus drivers, taxi drivers. They know so much about the passage of time and the meaning of returning home. I wanted to hear some wise words from this modern day Odysseus.
“People? Most are just assholes,” he said.
And that was about all he said until Denver. Okay, I thought, I’ll watch America pass by in this window. It was the sunsets that I liked best. They uncoiled flat against the dry earth, pressing down and out in all colors, following me, romantically. And then nightfall, it was then that I’d look at my reflection in the window, staring dumbly while listening to my heart. It would at once tell me I’d made the right decision to return and then it would bang a beat of doubt and reverse itself. I’d picture Dana’s face as I swaggered home and into the room. She was always glowing and a perfect image of love, and I knew she would take me in. Then I’d picture Raphaella—she was different. She smiled sympathetically, as if forcing the love her daughter felt, as if partaking in it, but not as her own. The effort was tormenting. I’d always stop daydreaming at this point and instead tune in a baseball game played far away. I caught a Yankee game played in Chicago and listened intently, living vicariously through the players whose names had changed, but who still were spoken of with respect, as if more important for their pinstripes. They were the New York Yankees, the team of the past, the team of kids’ dreams.
After three full days, I reached my destination. I hopped a cab and headed downtown where I met a friend. I remember well my first full day back in New York. It was late August, the same time of year I’d left three years before. It was hot and extremely humid, and empty. It sounds odd but a Manhattan August is barren. Echoes bounce louder between the great steel canyons and the streets run fast like raging rivulets, yellow beads of sweat galloping from light to light in search of fares.
In August, Manhattan becomes a red-hot steel village. I walked down 8th Avenue pulling my luggage behind me, looking forward to dumping it at my friend’s apartment as planned. We were supposed to meet at our favorite restaurant, an African joint, where I looked forward to getting something cool to drink. My friend’s name was Jamel, and he lived in a flat above the restaurant, coming and going, making that restaurant his second home. While working at The Plateau, I found him a summer job at a law office and he had done well there, impressing the thin-lipped and very Caucasian woman he worked for. Her name was Ms. Polk, and her firm had never worked with The Plateau. I could tell that Ms. Polk, whom Jamel called “The Brown Shirt,” was quite nervous about this placement. But Jamel was the best. He excelled and impressed everyone. They offered him an extension on his summer job, and when I left he was still working there and getting ready to graduate from high school. A letter from him told me he had now graduated and that he was attending Pace University as a political science major. He would become a lawyer, he wrote.
It was lunchtime and the little, easygoing Malian restaurant was just opening—late according to the sign on the front door. I stowed my bags in a corner and scanned for Jamel. I found him sitting with a tall African girl in the back near the kitchen. They were laughing. He looked bigger and older, more mature. A little tuft of hair sat on his chin. He no longer had a flat-top. Now he sported a ragged half-dreadlock thing, nappy some might say, but uniquely stylish. His clothes were deftly coordinated. Everything on him hung loosely and intimated a cool chic. I hollered. He turned and squinted.
“Is it Big D?”
“’Tis,” I said, extending a hand and a hug. He pulled up a chair, backwards, and laid his arms atop the rest. I leaned back in mine and smiled.
“So where’s old Brown Shirt?” I asked.
“She’s back on the grill, she’s no good with the public.” He grinned.
“You didn’t burn bridges did you?”
“Hell, no Dave, I blew them up.” He laughed and then slapped my hand again. “Everything’s cool D, all is under control. Besides, you’re the one who’s got questions to answer.” He stared at me.
“I’m back. What can I say? I figured I’d had enough of California. Too many blondes for me.”
“You always were the uptown type, D. I figured you’d be back sooner. You left in a rush, you know. I know some people ‘round here are still a bit upset, if you know what I mean.”
I did. I’m sure he was talking about my boss at The Plateau. It had to be. I knew he couldn’t be referring to Raphaella. Or maybe he was?
“Have you spoken to Raphaella?” I asked sheepishly.
“Haven’t seen her one bit, at least not lately. Right after you left, she and I had a little sit down. I went up to see her figuring she was broken up.”
I looked at him, wanting him to continue. Was she broken up? He caught on. “She seemed sad, real sad, Dave. But I got the feeling she thought it was for the better. You know how she is.”
“Well that was a long time ago.” I took a sip of my ice water, eyes down. “How about you?”
“You mean with Cheryl?”
Jamel and I had grown close because we had similar stories to tell. Both of us loved women who didn’t love us back, or at least this is what we told one another. He, like me, had a baby with his woman. He, like me, made a calculated decision to stay out of their collective lives. He, like me, blamed most of his tribulations on her, calling her hardheaded and selfish and whatever else came to mind. Together we girded the other’s insecurities and helped each other through difficult situations. After three years, I was very interested in his story. Could it be as bad as mine?
“She’s still crazy,” he said. “Last time I checked she was with some dude, some older business type. She can do her little love thing as long as she remembers whose child she’s raising. I’m still that baby’s father.” He nodded, affirming his own words. I nodded too but only because it seemed like the right thing to do. The impulse to raise my child had subsided slightly. I was more cautious and less obsessive about my relationship now. At least that was the way I felt sitting there with Jamel.
“You’re here to get back together, aren’t you Dave? You’re taking the big chance huh?”
On the long bus ride east I had answered this question solidly. Yes was the answer, but now, back in town and faced with a real human being and not just my distorted image in a Greyhound bus window, it sure felt shaky. Jamel stared at me as I wondered how the two of us had gotten to this point in our lives. We were absent fathers and confounded lovers. “Tell me something Jamel, why are we still like this? Why are we still bitching and moaning about our women? What is it? Is it us?” The whole question came out more earnestly than the situation called for. It sent him thinking. He cocked his head and studied his shoes, an unlikely place for an answer. I interrupted. “I took a bus here and had time to think. I thought about my three years in California and how I’d done nothing, really. I thought about how I’d always known I’d come back and how I couldn’t abandon my family. But now, sitting here, about to go uptown and see Raphaella, I’m getting these big-question blues, Jamel. I don’t mean to make this too sappy, but why is life between men and women so difficult?”
“Because life is difficult, bro. Women are like everything else in life, sort of messed up, ya know?”
“So our troubles are normal then?”
“Well, look around. Every other man I know has a baby and a woman somewhere, someone he loves but can’t stand to be around. It’s a shame, but not a damn shame.”
“I don’t know,” I said shaking my head. “There’s more to it than that. Gotta be.”
“Well, in your case maybe, but us black folks are just dealing with what you white folks cooked up for us. I mean two hundred years of broken families just doesn’t fix itself because a man thinks he’s in love. That’s a whole ‘nother story though, ain’t it, D?” He grinned.
“Yes it is. It’s just that when I think of Raphaella and of our baby, I think maybe there is more to it than just love or whatever.”
He nodded. “So, you are back to get with her then.”
“Okay Jamel, yeah, I’m here to put things back together with Raphaella.”
He nodded knowingly. “Well when you do, give me a ring and help me out. In the meantime, call me when she makes you want to crack a head or cry some tears. And she will.”
We went on talking for a while. He told me about Pace and his studies. Watching him speak I felt good about my work at The Plateau. Jamel was a success story, a standard of excellence. The Plateau and I had engineered a soul for the world and I thought how that was good. Leaving, I gave him another embrace and my new address. He gave me his number. I left the little restaurant and strolled north on 8th Avenue planning to catch the D-train after a browse through Times Square. The August air felt like wet curtains and as I approached Times Square, the cluttered, neon epicenter of the world, it was true; there was no turning back. An incautious hope emoted in me and I took in the giddy, celebratory excess of this very American square. I beamed. A preacher barked at me from the corner of 42nd Street while a flood of lunch-timers waded into and around me, jostling me ahead and to the corner of 43rd Street. I left it all and slipped underground, into the subway. A bead of sweat broke over my ear as I stood waiting for the train that would take me to see Raphaella.
***
I found her on the stoop. She was cleaning up, scrubbing some crag or other, bent over, her marvelous back bending against a cotton blouse. I watched her as I walked slowly up the street. It had been three years since I’d really conversed with Raphaella. I had seen her several times since leaving for California—baby daddy visits. From these meetings, I surmised she was still racked by that intangible desire to know more about love and truth and beauty and whatever. It was that look in her eye. It hadn’t changed since the last night, the night before the day I left, and if anything, it had become more intense. Coming down the street, I experienced a pang of anxiety and then, laying eyes on her, a long, broad stroke of nostalgia. It warmed me and I did what I believe most men do, I practiced. Under my breath, standing across the street from Raphaella, unnoticed, I ran through a litany of opening lines. They were valiant, valiant lines, oh yeah:
“Time won’t separate us again, I won’t let it…”
“I’m ready to be a man now, please give me the opportunity…”
“Can I tell you about how much I need you…?”
“I want to love you for who you are… please!”
And finally the one I almost rested on, “Three years have taught me what I needed to know. I love you…”
I said this one again, out loud, clearly, as if meaning it. It sounded as bad as it does now. I cringed to a stop. All of my phrases were gross, I thought. Rehearsal was dangerous with such a woman; she was simply too earnest. I stopped practicing and propped myself against the wall of an apartment building, directly across the street from Raphaella. The unique three-story brownstone she lived in preened itself while below Raphaella continued her cleaning.
Like an old friend, the little building reveled in her touch. It had a new paint job; its bricks were more brown than I remember, richer. I looked at the top floor and its bay window. That was the floor I knew best, or at least thought I knew best. I looked at the middle floor. Mitkin’s face came to mind—the brash student. Looking at the window, it was clear he still lived there. Various items, coffee mugs, books, a fishbowl, all sat disheveled on the big sill. I wanted to see Mitkin there too, perched in the window, feet dangling out and onto the fire escape. But I didn’t. He was probably at school, I thought. And then I thought how surprising it was that I could feel such a strong curiosity towards this odd man. I followed the tracery down to the first floor. There the big window sat as it did before, bare and apparently unoccupied.
Could it be that after so many years, no one had moved in? How could Martin Mitkin go so long without the rent income? Was Mitkin’s father dead? I also noted that nothing had gone up beside the old brownstone. On one side, the left side as you stood in front, the lot was the same as three years before. Fat shards of rusty red bricks pocked the lot. Two discarded car tires lay waiting for burial, defying the elements. They were there three years ago too, and just as defiant. The stout fence that encircled the lot had been taken down, and on the other side, the right side, a vital patch of green had burgeoned where formerly bricks had lain. It was a community garden now, a fresh tract of hope, I thought. All the way in the back, beyond all the color of the garden, sat a pack of women. They were having fun cheating each other in a good game of cards.
The entire scene was very meaningful at this moment. It had that cinematic quality to it, a foreshadowing effect, as if the great director of life had chosen this moment to elucidate all those to come. Even the few clouds overhead did their job by standing still, hovering for a moment, like a spirit, floating and intimating something profound, pointing out redemption with a wistful wink. And there at the base, still bent over and scrubbing, was Raphaella. She wiped her brow, stood straight up, and turned around, just as I moved to cross the street. She stared at me but then returned to her work. Had she seen me? I doubted everything in the time it took me to step off the curb. Everything. But I kept going, pulled along by the imperative of having come at all.
“What are you scrubbing?” was my first line. That was it. “What are you scrubbing?”
She smiled a broad, rich smile, wide and supple across her face. I felt welcome. On the stoop I hugged her, we released, and she held me at arm’s length and smiled again. I felt the needles of anxiety retreat, and in their place came the sweet calm of acceptance.
“I’ve come to teach. I thought I could make the biggest difference here. And I wanted to see you.”
“It’s good to see you,” she replied.
“You look good, Raphaella. You seem happy. Where’s Dana?”
“At her cousin’s.”
In the silence I heard the laughter of the women next door. “You seem happy,” I said again.
She looked down and toed a pebble with her sandaled foot. “Yeah, well, it’s a work in progress,” she said. I looked at her quizzically. “Let’s just say...” She took me by the forearm. “Forget that. Come on, let’s get something to eat.”
I paused.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “Do you have a few minutes?”
“Sure,” I said. “Sure, let’s go.”
We walked down the street toward her favorite diner where we took a table in the corner. She made sure I was snugly in before she went to the counter and spoke momentarily with the big burly restaurateur who seemed to be in charge. Watching her go, I noticed she was still beautiful, still thin and shapely.
“Simon had a baby,” she said as she sat down.
“Simon? Your brother Simon?”
“Yep, baby girl. Don’t ask who the baby’s mother is.” I asked, of course, and she told me it was Tina, the same one her mother had called a whore three years before.
“He’s happy,” she said, “but he doesn’t know the first thing about babying. He has no idea what he’s into… does he?”
The question was our history. I nodded with absolute certainty and felt like an old and wily boxer. I sipped my beer hoping to come up with an appropriate topic for conversation. I didn’t want this to be a sappy “remember when” session. I really just wanted to see Raphaella and begin the long process, the one that would bring me back to her and our daughter. A little period of silence broke out and I mostly stared at my beer.
“How’s Dana?” I finally asked. It seemed like the right question, even if I’d asked it already.
“Quite a bit has changed since you left.”
“Uh-huh,” I muttered.
“We’re getting along David, without men. I hope that doesn’t offend you.”
Confuse me, is more like it. “Without men? Like without boyfriends or without me?” Her long smile and good mood had turned to a familiar earnestness.
“Both, I guess.”
“So, no dating at all?” I asked.
“No. None. All the men I meet are so… I don’t know, content.”
“How awful, content men.”
“Not that it’s bad to be content, I’m talking about the shallow thing. They aren’t really searching, I guess. That’s what I meant to say.” The big smarmy waiter appeared with two heaping bowls of salad, one for each of us. “These aren’t on the menu, I had him make them for us, eat that.” She pointed to what looked like a splayed mushroom. Spread over the whole leafy thing was feta cheese. “Eat it.”
“Have you figured it out yet?” I said after a few bites.
“What?”
“What you’re looking for?”
“Wow, the big questions so soon. A man on a mission all right. You get the feeling I’m looking, David?”
“Always,” I said flatly. “Mmmhuh. At least I did when I left. I felt like what you searched for ruined what you had.”
“And what I had was you,” she said kindly, affectionately and without malice.
“What you had was the beginning of something. Something good. If you’d like, you can have it again.” Achh, I thought, this is too quick, too heavy, but I couldn’t stop.
Raphaella was calm. She picked an olive from her plate and held it between her fingers. She popped it in her mouth as she replied. “Have you ever seen a baptism, David?”
“When I was a kid at church.”
“What was it like? Did you like it?”
I furrowed my brow. “I was fidgety.”
“Well, I went to one about three months ago. Yeah, I did.” She leaned forward. “Would you like to hear what happened while I was there?”
She changed the subject and was now talking about a baby’s baptism. I wanted to find out more about us, but at the same time I knew I should slow down with the us conversations, they always got me in trouble. The tug and pull between what I wanted to talk about and what was good to talk about paralyzed me. Raphaella spoke over my paralysis.
“It was nice, real nice. For three months that place, and that music has stayed with me.” This was a change. Though Raphaella had always had a quirky desire for “more,” religion was never the answer. It was the enemy in many ways. I remember her saying just that, long ago, shortly after I’d met her. “Religion makes people slaves,” she told me. “Death scares people, and religion gets them to follow these powerful dudes, men mostly, who tell them how to beat death. It’s a scam.” That’s what she said four years earlier, but now she spoke curiously about God. She put her fork down and clasped her hands, elbows on the table. Her eyes danced.
“First of all, the church was pretty dark. They didn’t have the lights on, just bunches of candles. An old woman told me you should never have the lights on in the church.”
How about that, I thought. Un-enlightenment.
“It was a small church, not much bigger than this diner really, with high ceilings. Right in the middle of the ceiling, way up on top, was a painting of Jesus with outstretched arms. He was dressed with robes, not dying all bloody, but like a king. Strong, I liked that. Icons were all over the place, and most of them had an oil lamp dangling in front, and this made them glow nicely. It was beautiful. All the people had lit candles and placed them around the church in these prayer box things. Also there were candle stands just around, you could walk around easily because there were no long benches or chairs. Well, there were a few, but out of the way, along the walls. And everyone made the cross sign in front of them, it seemed like all the time.” She demonstrated. It did not suit her.
“Where were you?”
“I stood in the back with Dana. Dana was good. I think the music made her calm. It was chant, all chant, nothing was spoken during the entire service. Everything was chanted. And incense was everywhere. It smelled like 125th Street in the summer. I think it was jasmine or myrrh or something.”
“How did you find this place?” I interrupted.
“Wait. I’m not to the good part yet.” Her innocent adoration was out of character. “You should have seen the priest. Actually there were two, one had a long beard, I’m talking real long, like those ZZ Top biker guys. The other was bearded too, but slightly, like he was just getting started. And they had great clothes, man. Their robes were white with gold lace and tiny, handcrafted patterns. They were so beautiful that I just wanted to wrap myself up in them, like I used to wrap my Barbies in my mom’s best cotton napkins. Can you see how ancient and beautiful it was?” I nodded, just slightly. “I was just loving it, but it was tiring, too. Standing up is hard if you aren’t used to it, but now I’m getting better.”
“Better?” I said.
“Yeah, at standing.”
“In church, you’re better at standing now? You’ve been back?”
“Just wait,” she said. “Everything about the service was primitive, right. It made me feel like I was a part of some great sacrifice, like an ancient ritual was happening right in front of me. My mind couldn’t grasp everything that was happening, but you know David, I don’t think I was supposed to. I liked that. I liked the primal thing. Anyway, the part I want to tell you about was when the three people were baptized. Two of them were babies, darling little babies, his baby,” she nodded to the guy behind the counter again. “Anyway, the other one getting baptized was a big burly man, he looked foreign, you know, hair on his back. The priest had set up this big pool, almost like a summer yard-pool, but dignified and lined with beautiful lace. I kept staring, thinking that this big man was about to get into that little pool, in church! I was loving it. Grown people acting like they’d lost their minds. But he did. David, he went all the way under the water—the priest dunked him. Part of me was saying, this is just weird shit. A half-naked man and a little tub, I mean what’s all that about?”
“Yeah,” I said. “What is all that about?”
“But I loved it. It had this absurd feel to it, but not the kind of absurd feel I get when I swipe my subway card like a lemming and stand with thousands of people crammed together, none of us talking, nobody really caring about the other person except if they get in their space, and then caring a lot. That’s absurd too, but not like this was absurd. This was innocent, simple.”
“Simply absurd. Okay,” I said.
“Yeah well, you’re the writer, write it for me one day, huh.” She paused and cracked a smile, but she wasn’t finished. “So, the big guy, they held him under, three times. The kids got dunked too, but in a smaller font. They cried as they were wrapped up real neatly and given to their parents, or godparents or whoever it was. And then the babies and the big man got blown on by the priests.”
It was getting creepy. “Blown on?”
“Yeah, the priests said prayers about devils and stuff and blew on them, the breath of the Holy Spirit or something. And then they anointed them with oil, using a paintbrush thingy. I know I am just going on but all of the ritual was familiar somehow. I don’t know, it wasn’t that the people were real friendly, they weren’t, they sort of wondered who we were. And the priests weren’t real fiery or great talkers. It was about something else. Something familiar.”
“Interesting,” I said. But this church talk made me fidgety, just like being in church made me feel as a child. I bleated, “So you liked it?”
“I don’t know, David. It’s not like I’m born again or anything, it’s just that Dana and I felt... felt... I don’t know, David. It goes back to what I’ve been feeling for two or three years now.”
“How’s that?”
“It’s the death of one world and the birth of another. That is what the priest said in his short talk.”
“Like starting over,” I said.
“No, like going back.”
“Back?”
“Back to what’s really, really right. Perfection David, back to perfection.” Her words were eerily similar and eerily ominous. I waved to the big guy and ordered another beer.
“So where was this place?” I asked.
“You see the guy you just waved to, his family goes there, it’s a church in Queens.” I looked at the smarmy fellow again. I imagined him in Greece dancing to some real bouncy music and swilling Ouzo. Not the pious type, I thought.
“That guy’s church,” I said. “He goes to church?”
She cocked her head, “Yes, I went to that guy’s church, with that guy and his family. So what?”
The anxious fog of our history settled over me and fidgety became really fidgety.
“I wonder why you went,” I said, trying to sound innocent and less suspicious. I truly wanted to be less suspicious and more innocent, I really did.
“You really want to know?” She searched my eyes and I believe she found the part of me that really wanted to know. “It’s exhaustion. I’m tired as hell, David. For three years I have been raising a child, running from job to job in search of the best day care, living to work, eating to stay alive, searching for more and coming nowhere close to finding it. You know I’ve doubted my decision, to you know, go through with Dana’s pregnancy. I have. Isn’t that terrible?” She poked at her salad. “My life is just like that. Everything about it confuses everything about it. One thing to the next, one plan to the next, and all I end up with is nothing, nothing worth having. And I wonder what the hell is worth having and why bother, anyway? If I die with two houses, two boats, college educated kids and lots and lots of money, what’s the point? What does it all mean?” She laughed painfully, “But I’m probably just saying all of this because I’m poor and ain’t got shit really. You think?”
“I don’t think that’s it, Raphie.”
“Well, I hope not, damn I hope not.” She ate a bit and relaxed a bit, her jaw slackened. “This city, it’s tough. Seems like the only way you get measured is by what you do, you know, put out there. It’s not about who you are, I mean your, your…”
“Soul,” I said.
“Yeah, that’s it, exactly. But life can’t be that way, can it?” Her sincerity was inspiring.
“No, it can’t,” I said.
“You agree, don’t you?”
Now, here was a connection, an honest connection. Really, I thought, life could not be about how much you make or how valuable you are to a company. She was right, and I was right, and we, incredibly, were together. Together. Amazing.
“Do you remember how it was when we first met? Can you remember how much I loved life? Do you remember the Hamptons weekend we had, Ellis and his girl and that other couple you invited from work? Remember how we drank and danced and how wild we got afterwards? Remember that house we stayed in with its perfect deck on the ocean and the big bedrooms? And the food? You were good to me David, taking me to get my favorite seafood at all hours, waiting on me hand and foot, loving me. Remember how peaceful everything was between us, how good the romance was, how we were just lost in the living? Well, for two years I held on to that weekend as the perfect weekend, the thing to live for. I really thought that was it. I used it as a marker. When we started to fight I thought about that weekend. When Dana came and life changed, when I felt sad, and no longer free, I thought about that weekend. The weekend became a sort of goal, a sort of way of coping. And this weekend way of thinking, I did it with other things too. Maybe I would plan a big get-together with my girlfriends, or I’d think about saving money to buy a car, the right car, the one that would take me in style to places like the Hamptons or the Jersey Shore, good places, I thought. I planned to buy a house and worked long hours to make the money I needed. Do you remember how hard I worked that first summer when we met? I had a plan. I wanted to line everything up just right, but every time I thought I was there, ready to cash in, something came up. Maybe I got married like an idiot, got pregnant, got an abortion, got into a fight with you, maybe I borrowed too much, bailed out Simon too often. It was always something. I never got the things I wanted, I never got the weekend back. Look around Dave, nothing. And now I’ve lost you, too.”
“But it seemed like you wanted to lose me,” I said.
“I did.”
“Well I don’t get it then.”
“I don’t either. I just know that there is no plan if it’s all about this stuff, this, this,” she looked up and around, “this world. And so, you got to hear about this baptism, man. It wasn’t like all of this. Don’t ask me what it was, I only know it wasn’t this,” she waved her hand in the air.
“Yeah, I hear you, Raphie,” I said. “But, it’s not all bad. Living isn’t just all a horror show.”
“Look, I hope I’m not sounding too burned out, but isn’t there something kind of horrific about a whole country working like plow horses so they can afford the upgrade and get car seats lined with animal skin?” With her fork still prodding the salad her voice trailed off, frustrated.
“So are you going to convert or something?” I asked flashing a hint of bitterness. After all, I had just clanged out of a Greyhound bus that could have used some leather interior, if you ask me.
“I don’t know, maybe. Who knows? I like that place though. It’s peaceful.”
“You’ve been going back?”
“Yeah, now and then. And to another place too, a monastery uptown. Go slow, I say. It’s just that one day I want to find...” Silence, and then a little more. “Whatever it is I’m looking for, whatever it is, Dana and I need it.”
I started to tell her I was back to give her just that, but she interrupted with a quick, exaggerated turn of her head, like in the old black and white movies.
“Don’t mind me, David. I’m sorry for all of this, this outburst.” She shrunk into herself after having been uncharacteristically exposed and excited. “Another beer?” she said.
“Naw,” I said, and we sat in silence for more than a few moments.
“How’s Mitkin?” I finally asked.
Dragging his name through her mouth she said, slowly, “Mitchell Mitkin. Mitch is still plugging along, confident, conceited, and as unlovable as ever.”
“You like that about him, don’t you?”
“I guess so. He’s just so ridiculously sure in a world where nothing seems sure. He acts like a really smart two-year-old sometimes, but it’s what I like about him.”
“And his father?” I asked.
“His father is almost dead.”
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“I’m worried. You should go visit him.” She paused and leaned back wiping her mouth with a clean, crisp napkin. “You know since you left, Mitchell and I have become good friends. He just graduated this summer. He graduated a year early.”
“I heard he’d do that, in fact he told me in one of your letters.” I let the letter info slip and looked for a reaction. She didn’t even flinch, telling me that their joint letter was probably just that, and nothing more, and that maybe I should just relax a little. I continued, “He told me he was planning on teaching. He doesn’t seem like a teacher to me. Could it be true?”
“As far as I know. He has certain principles you know, he feels some debt must be paid. He said, ‘I must contribute something to the backbone of western society, public education.’”
“But he went to prep school and then to Columbia.”
“I know. That’s really why he’s doing it. Guilt.”
The conversation was running low. I didn’t want to talk about Mitkin anymore; everything seemed the same with him. But with us, I had seen something that moved me. California and the emptiness I had experienced there made an impression on me. I had lived with a touch of that angst that Raphaella had been trying to describe. There was hope for us because of this, and I was buoyant. I could have gone on, queried her more concerning the religion thing but that was a conversation I wasn’t really equipped to have, or at least willing to have. I wanted to leave things where they were, afraid to over-water and suffocate the burgeoning soul flowers popping up all around. I’d returned to live the stoic, moral, comfortable, responsible, American dream. My only fear was she wouldn’t see it that way, or wouldn’t want it that way. Maybe that’s why I let the church conversation go, let it dangle. I just wanted her to say to me, “Let’s be good people, together.” That was it. I didn’t need the complications of anything mystical. Forget the magic stuff and just accept what your heart tells you, I thought. I have needs, she has needs, together we assess what those needs are and pledge ourselves to one another in an attempt to fill each other’s needs. That was the key to happiness.
My mind catalogued these thoughts in split second screen shots, rolling through, looking for a safe topic, but like I said, the conversation had run dry. We finished with some talk of Dana and visitation schedules, and this made things clean and happy, fresh and a perfect way to end the conversation. I’d be seeing her again, and soon. We hugged outside the doors of the diner.
“Very good then, David,” she said to me straightforwardly.
“Very good then, Kiwi,” I said in return. “See you soon.”
I took a subway back downtown, contemplating my new apartment and my new life. When I finally picked up my bags from Jamel’s and located the superintendent of my new building, I was very tired. The super was a little man, a friendly Puerto Rican with leathery skin. He watched as I waded about the empty space acting happy and excited. I had to. The place was already paid for, at least for three months. My mother and I had signed the lease blind. Soon, through various glances (like the one he gave me when I checked under the sink and found rat droppings that looked like neatly curled chocolate frosting), we established that this place was a hellhole, a very cheap hellhole. I thought about our (Raphaella’s) apartment with its long hall, capacious bedrooms, inviting living room and decorative window wells, and I laughed impulsively. I laughed to avoid despair, I think.
The little man, his name was Rico, helped me retrieve my stuff and even prepared a little dinner for me in his basement apartment. Speaking to me through a thick accent and a thick mustache, I didn’t understand much of what he said. I just kept smiling and nodding.
In bed, the rhythmic rumble of motorized New York kept me awake and thinking. I thought about my job and the first day of teaching, and whether I’d run into Mitkin. I thought about Dana and about how her mother might ruin her, or make her the perfect human being. I fell asleep and dreamt of her baptism, but this time I was there. I was praying or at least trying to. Everyone around me was doing the same. I saw Raphaella in the dream, waiting in a white robe, stolid-faced and stern, preparing for change. As she stepped forward to be dunked, she looked at me and nodded me forward, urging me to join her. The monotone chant welled and enclosed around us. The dream ended just as Raphaella began her descent toward submersion. Everything but her head was under water when I woke to a humid and bleary Manhattan morn. In my new place, I was lost for a few seconds. The walls were bare and the floor dull and scratched, its old, cheap tiles exposed. My big suitcases were unzipped and their contents spilled about. I rummaged through a bag and pulled out a wrinkled shirt that would get me through the day.
***
Mitchell Mitkin is sipping from a bottle of water. He is about to reflect on the day I returned to New York City.
“Three years, huh,” he says. “I remember, because it was the same day I went to the Board of Education in search of my placement papers.”
He had gone for his last dose of bureaucratic medicine. “I got it all right; they assigned me to the South Bronx High School of Science.” He rolls his eyes and smiles an affectionate smile. “I was very happy at the time. I was starting a new, tidy career, one that would pay back a little to the great institution called public education. My father thought I should teach for a while before becoming a research scientist. He loved public education you know. He was committed to it. It was his life. It would be mine, too. That is what I believed then. I mean, I really believed it. I wasn’t all bad, I guess.”
This was also the day Mitchell Mitkin’s father died.
I must go back and read the previous chapters as I got pulled into this one and found it so well written and engrossing that I can’t wait for the next instalment !