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Show Moon -149 Another New York day comes, heralded by horns and throngs of people who move with purpose, like fervor-driven pilgrims. I ride the Second Avenue bus to see my old apartment. It must still be rent-controlled, for the front door lock hasn't been fixed and the hallways are still black from the fire someone set to the trash under the stairs. It's a slum. Yet I'm filled pride for having lived here. I think it was a brave thing to do, considering how little I had to go on. I wander towards Yorkville, past the elegant thrift stores, the German restaurants, the Irish taverns. Old men sit in circles of chairs outside the tenements, smoking pipes, being together the way not many people get to be these days. My period still hasn't come. I'm usually to the minute, but my body must know that I'm holding back from it, putting everything I have into this journey. I feel betrayed nonetheless. I realize how I have depended on these rhythms to tell me: you are here, now; this is who you are; this is the time and the body you are bound to. I call Josh before I go to sleep, though I don't feel like talking to him. He sounds angry. Windfall is chewing the wood in her stall, the new batch of hay that just got delivered is weedy, and it's rainy and cold. He can't find the can opener. These details depress me, and I'm trying to end the conversation, when he says, "I had a horrible nightmare last night." Josh, the sunlight man, never has nightmares. "These men were holding you hostage on some planet with a deadly atmosphere. They'd let me take you back only if I visited that planet. But first I had to consent to some sort of terrible brain surgery." "Sounds awful." I am appalled at the truth of his dream. |