dear janet

dear janet,

how are you, little plum? i left off, in my last letter to you, at the point when i went to the holiday market in Union Square and drifted off to Berry Park later, on the collar of Williamsburg in Brooklyn, only to be depressed at the sight of shrewd circus-goers vandalizing a car, a porch and a by-lane. i got on the L, hurriedly, came to Manhattan shortly after, and took the 6 back up to the Upper East Side. safe in the clasp of my neighborhood, i went to bed feeling absolutely naked; deprived, somehow, of the energy to revolt. i am a wuss, perhaps, but i felt terrible inside of me.

i am curious what you are doing right now, as i sit on my bed, by a column of lights, listening to my table fan mumbling by the door. maybe you are singing, or writing some poetry, or dancing on ice or having an orgasm. or thinking about cock, about being a hoochie, about Darla's appendicitis or Warby Parker. maybe you are showering, or wringing your thongs, or sewing your socks, or pinching your nipples, or yawning or burping or drinking coffee. i can only keep guessing, but i really want to know. i have to find a way, perhaps, to peek into your daily life and keep myself restrained, like a prisoner of reality, in a carton of milk. but i need to be sensitive, considerate and aptly articulate as your ex-affiliate of sorts, drawn by the strings of etiquette, conscience and logic. if i over-step, or if i go too far, i hope that you will bring that to my immediate attention.

come to think of it, i have been here for almost 2 years now. almost 2 years. i guess it is not considered, by most people, a very long stretch of time, but it feels almost like a century has gone by. maybe because my city has a curiously high rate of turnover, with flopping businesses and flailing commerce, moments simply whiz by. memories parachute from the present to the past in a matter of days, or even hours, leaving me wondering about the subtleties of transactions, advertising and marketing. it is as if the city molts, every trimester, like a cicada in despair, or a mischievous snake, and dons a brand new look. reasonably fresh, temptingly smooth, and passively electric; soulful and blue, tingling and cool, prickly and prim, like that muslin feel of fresh-out-of-water. ready to begin, to re-ignite and to re-inflame a second throe of adventure. 

it is winter time, little plum, and so far it has been quite severe. Hercules and Janus, the polar storms of January, have swept away a lot of lives, of trees and humans alike. my heart folds in pieces, like pleats of a skirt, when i hear the beggars roar in pain, and chatter their teeth, violently and uncontrollably, to generate body warmth and vigor. one 47 year old, the other day, was standing at the corner of 96th Street and Broadway, and seizing almost, was pulsating and yowling with every thrust of wind. it pinned on to him, like a wave of needles, like a hurricane of claws, like a symphony of blades, burrowing through his eyes, his ears, feet and thighs. i ran up to him, gave him my knit hat, and asked, are you okay? in the dimness of the streetlight, i saw his eyes roll, several times, after which he flung it away. why would you want to help a man, like me, live on like this? i did not know what he meant by that. i was trying to be nice, to be compassionate, but i felt completely and utterly dismissed. are you sure, you don't need it? i asked, hoping he'd reconsider. he shook his head, lifelessly and aimlessly, and squeezed the words out of his lips, repeating it twice. this city has defeated me, completely.

it snowed that night after i got back home, untied my shoes and doffed my coat. a warm aroma of spice lingered in the air, where pie had been baked an hour before. i poured myself a glass of wine, clipped my nails and sat by the window with a book in hand. it was sizzling inside, intensely overheated, to a point where i could almost hear layers of my skin crackle and crunch in the immensity of heat. i re-set the thermostat to 70 degrees, turned on a podcast on relaxation meditation and passed out in a matter of 7 minutes. before i slept, alone in bed, i thought about the homeless man again. where is this man? what is he possibly doing right now? did the police find him a shelter? give him some food to eat? may be they did, may be they didn't. it is possible that i will never know. he has escaped, perhaps, the embarrassment of defeat. a well-deserving man, greater than a disposable.

the next morning, around 7, i jolted out of bed and walked to the park to catch a glimpse of a still, January dawn. and what can i say, little plum? it was, indeed, the wonderland of my childhood fantasies. brilliantly white, dazzling and shimmering in the soft rays of the morning sun. my erotic city, my New York, lay curtained and shrouded in a veil of snow. so energized, so rejuvenated, i could cling on to the flecks of water, kiss the lips of dreaming cones, and play with birds by the reservoir with the passion of the maestros, the old geniuses of art, the linearity of babies, forever. the frozen lake, so delicately slick, lay bubbling and cradling in the temperate winds. a soft thrumming of marathon runners rose and fell, like doppler beads, in an abrupt emptiness. the trees in the colonnade, terse and glib, held hands, and kissed, and swayed to the winding melodies of La Boheme, wriggling and fiddling through vibraphones from the one solitary physicians home, snarling in wonderment at The Eldorado in the Upper West Side. i felt so enriched, i felt so full, i felt so emotional that i needed to pace myself, to make sure i was breathing. i was living, as if, in the interior of a snow globe, at once in vacuum as in winds, watching a race of twinkling gems, falling and fighting, ripping the brains of anti-gravity and dancing with the centers of a billion galaxies.

all of this made me miss you so much. i really wanted to, needed to, share my joy with someone at that moment. at that very moment. anyone, would do. anyone. but no one was around. and that made me sad. it made me think of the time when you visited me. in my second-floor apartment at the heart of the West Village. and how we trundled down Jane Street, by the Lilac Chocolatiers, by the wine shop on 43, swiveling with chirps and fluffy giggles of new-age couples holding hands. remember that time on Hudson Street? when you spotted Aaron Liebowitz, your high school crush, kissing a tranny in front of Pet Portraits? and how you laughed for ten minutes, your face turning red the same shade as in stop signs, puffing like strawberries, swelling, uncontrollably, like dough on a humid day? and then we walked to Minerva, saw Earp Dunnington and Cayla Epstein, drank three bottles of wine, ate olives and artichokes and talked about life? in the silence of mid-day my city slept like a baby, while we trekked through lanes and by-lanes of the historic neighborhood. we waved and smiled at Hawthorns and Ginkgoes, nestling to the sides of expansive homes, and ran home, chasing bikes and squirrels at the pinch of afternoon. with a cherry wine sky, at the cusp of dusk, we made love by the pane of the Western glass, pushed against the softness of my aluminum windows. rattling and tittering, squealing and moaning, we came at the end, together, our hearts united, our minds spinning with the dizziness of violent orgasm. we got dinner after, at Extra Virgin, on the east side of West 4th Street, and relaxed in the evening, as night came spinning down. bringing along a tea-gown of fresh, awakening stars, tinkling and glittering against the spire of the Empire State. 

i am in love, janet. in love with a city that dreams with me, holds my eyes and breathes with me. cries with me and sings for me at times of loss, and sadness. while he is away, studying to be a doctor, and my heart seethes with clumps of ringing memories, my city brings me joy, leads me forward and gives me a chance to reinvent myself.

i hope you are well, janet. send Harry my wishes. i love you both. 

T

my encounter with w lieberman

my workplace, a picturesque hospital from the era of Roland Flint and Irene Glascock, has a curious basement cafeteria. it is moderately populated during breakfast, intensely busy during lunch, surprisingly jittery during dinner and frighteningly vacant over the weekend. the workers are mostly Hispanic; strong, olive and supple. there are a quarter Haitians, a speck of White and a granule of African-American men and women, all lobbying for low blood pressure diets. obesity is not uncommon, unfortunately, among the staff, especially in the section of French Fries and Cheese. And the staple is fried plantain, Cheesecake yogurt, spinach pizza and soda.

the families of patients who visit this earthy, low-hum cafeteria always have an array of peculiar expressions. tied to sorrow and worry, a lot of the times, they forget to smile, forget to breathe and forget to eat -as dust and globular microbes settle on the crusts of soup, pie and meat loaves. the Jews sit in the North corner, the Arabs in the left and every one else is in between -flat, unsound and peculiarly dazed. perhaps they worry about a loved one dying, a non-fatal accident, a cousin's childbirth or colon cancer. or maybe they think about stealing food, homelessness or the irony of prayers. i smile at a few of them as i carry my tray across the unsettled, peach-colored lobby area, ringing with the sounds of climatic catastrophes, CNN fables or who wants to be a millionaire? but they never smile back, or open their lips or make any sign of eye contact.

i walk out through the set of double doors in the south side of the cafeteria, balancing my lunch box on my right calloused palm and holding a bottle of Fiji water on my left by the white, corrugated cap and take a sharp right to the docking site. the walls of the hallway are a pale shade of yellow -somewhere between Aureolin and straw-colored if i had to take a guess -and covered with palm smears, coffee stains and wet outlines of muddy shoes. they look like butterfly wing prints, or pineapple skin or a congealment of miniature moons that no one has bothered to clean in seven years. the hallway itself is about 500 feet long, 10 feet high and 10 feet wide and at the edge of 400 feet there is a sign jutting out that says medical physics.

on the left hand side, before the docking entrance, are two rectangular, spacious rooms. the doors to these rooms are sometimes latched, sometimes pad-locked and sometimes left open for transport. i noticed a pair of sky blue stretchers by one of the doors last Tuesday but did not bother to wait around and investigate what was going on. i was already running late for a Strategic Planning meeting for the College and being even a minute later would result in Rosemary Silverstein, our associate consultant, going up in arms about punctuality, unprofessionalism and faulty HR hiring policies. Diana Rosenthal and Heather McRae, the Dean's assistants, would riffle through a long line of courtesies, incredulity of the GOPs tax policies and giggle, cheekily, until another ten minutes had passed. everyone would collect themselves from a maverick of emotional hangings and then proceed with the agenda for the meeting.

today, however, there is a small body bag lying on a stretcher in front of the first door, completely unattended to despite something being inside of it. i spot it from a distance and begin to slow down as i approach it from a hundred feet away. a mild musty smell darts through my nose,wafts through the entirety of my facial cage and tingles my brain with a violent swoosh. i tiptoe forward, and move closer to the body bag. my adrenaline alarm pulsates the outer coats of my circulatory system, making me hyperventilate and roughens my skin with goosebumps. five feet away, and i finally spot an ID card lying on the floor.

name: w lieberman

age: 3 years

cause: neuroblastoma

time of death: 12:34 pm 

my mind goes spinning across the table of a hundred questions, doubts, remorse and shock. is that a boy or is it a girl? what is the pattern of its current disintegration -the effects of rigor mortis, the banquet of flies, maggots and burrowing spirochetes? what is the father doing? is the mother alive? did it have a pastor or Rabbi at the time of shocks? did the nurse cry?

i fall into a daze of alien existentialism. as if shuttling on a plunger between a wide parallel macrocosm and a white, fenestrated micro-cosmos. as if living through the eyepiece of a wide-eyed telescope; burrowing and slithering at 100X magnification on the brim of a crystal jar. as if hauling, in exhaustion, in a game of tug of war between the past and present, distance and proximity, impact and dismissal, knocking on the bell jar of slipping time. i am transfixed within the mesh of a silk cocoon, writhing and playing with chaotic pendulums, snapping my wrists and drumming the beads of molten seeds. i am paralyzed in place, pinched with forks of brazen stones, cold and vacant in the slant of daylight. i am gripped with fear, gnarled with hate and spun with words of reckless grievances. what am i to say, to the empty souls of flesh cubicles? what am i to say to an orphaned jewelry box, motionless and staunch behind the moonwalk of zippers? what am i to do in the world agape, running away from a dead history - frivolous and lunatic in the situation of times? 

i give it a moment, and walk away. through the docking site, till the end and take the elevator to the third floor. back into my own reality, in the queerness of my office space. my mind separated from my body.

for Schwartzberg

do you remember, Cayla Schwartzberg, when we first met at your second floor duplex apartment on the 21st of September? you probably do not. but i do. vividly, serenely and rather embarrassingly. you were wearing a black and creme, crisply fluidic A Line dress, a sequined belt with mildew-colored plaits vanishing down your waistline, a starched ribbon turban stretched across an uneven semi-circle of your anterior head cavity, and retro stackable turquoise rings on your index and middle fingers. the laced bow-tie of your bra was giving your upper breast a supple firmness and pushing your nipples up to the crown of your trimmed collar-bone, giggling playfully through the air barrels of your poplin-tulle fabric. you greeted me with a smile, a cigarette breath and a bouquet of hyperbolic enthusiasm; a general rise in emotive atoms, sprinting through an autumn air, colliding and elasticizing, swaying and lulling to the low trebles of Ella's gramophone discography. i stepped on the threshold, scrubbed the sole of my chain-leather opal Zanotti's vigorously, against the erotic bristles of your Magritte doormat, and proceeded down your hallway.

it was tremendously white, as far as i can remember. you had painted the door moldings a burnt gold and tattooed on them the anatomy of fireflies. you had lampshades of raisin, spatulas of ivory and chandeliers of tallow wax, dandelions and aluminum. bottles of cognac and Spanish wine hung from the ceilings, upside down, with cracked necks, acrobatic lips and breathless apnea. posters of Lolita, Marx, missionaries and pornography lay squatting on your bedroom walls, peering over the mythology book of Aphrodite, sleeping across your window ledge. a condom wrapper by the sofa-set lay diddling in the air, laughing at the aroma of searing spices. it was disturbingly black, julienned across the tip and shriveled with creases of phenomenal age. the topology of the Americas remained squarely displayed across the beige plywood wall of your dining room, and photo-prints and postcards hung disproportionately near the curling curves of the ceiling. you lifted two wine glasses from the kitchen counter-top, the excessive thinness of the stems projecting an illusion of dramatized fragility, and poured copious bundles of Pinot Noir into each of them. the sounds of the trickle amplified along the curvatures of transparent wind columns, resonating and gurgling in the interiors of my ear. a platter of Brie, walnuts, figs and cloves, paralyzed and footless on the teak-wood of the table, joined our smiles in awkward company, in a shawl of contemporariness, frivolity and friendliness.

you introduced yourself as a distinguished photographer, a blossoming linguist, a careful interpreter and a Dali aficionado with an obsession with neck-ties from Attolini and Harry Rosen. you are twenty two, with mocha-colored hair and a smattering of Tuxedo Red lipstick. you giggle at consonants, laugh with your head tilted fifty degrees to the air, gawk at vowels and lisp like the hiss of a neonatal chameleon tumbling and burning in respiratory distress. your fingers are soft, your lashes are brittle, and the shape of your waist is frighteningly similar to the keepsake of an ancient Egyptian cremation urn. your mother was a revolutionary phenomenon of the 80s, erupting in activism, rioting like the Teamsters, and reshaping the grounds of working class literati. you know less than little, however, about Ira Schwartzberg, your dead father, who walked away from your mother's kiss when your were the size of a marble pod, boiling in the age of lonely gestation. you are an immigrant, a second-class citizen, a subject of comedy, modeled like a tumor; a supplement, lacerated, displaced for an extra. despite the politics of an uncompromising government, who disregard your status at the cost of talent, you have managed to stage an act of happiness without a trace of doubt. in your first letter of our correspondence you wrote, i have never lived in a small town, and i feel depressed. and i traveled from Back Bay to your rural residence to provide a formal introduction, relieve your awkwardness, and provide a means for careful assimilation. 

from the very first time we met and carelessly flirted, we became an odd sensation in the binoculars of our neighborhood. we aided in the gentrification of an orchard-town, driving past the city hall, down the intersections on Marcy Avenue, and opening at the northern edge a new pastry shop named Mayefsky and Maldonado's. we talked about sunshine, laughed like parrots, danced like peacocks and dreamed like clouds, aspiring for entrepreneurship, success and education. one Saturday night you said to me, can we fuck, please? i need it badly. i refused. the next Tuesday morning you requested again. i laughed it off, oh come on! i'm not feeling it. and this cycle of lies, these packets of hush-hush excuses kept piling up, one on top of the other, leaning over, gripping under, shaking violently in the humiliation of a bawdy discomfort. the following Saturday you walked into my room, peach colored and virgin, put down a pile of books on the mahogany breasts of my corner table and said, i'm not letting you go if you don't do it tonight. i'm telling...telling you, i will go mad. and sensing your tone of flamboyant desperation, sensing the frankness of your sexual request, sensing the ease with which the words erupted, you broke into silence. and then you cried. and broke into a fit of amazing hysteria, convulsing violently in the middle of piercing ululations. you held my hand, tightly, as the candle by the bed-stand vanished into air, and demanded an explanation for my useless behavior. for the leading on, for the merry rides, for the songs of love we spilled across, for the nights after nights of dizzying words, reading poetry, cooking, clinking Bordeaux stems in vortical shades. what was the meaning of assistance in the holocaust of a heart break? what was the purpose of bed-shares if it meant absolutely nothing? the time, the effort, the collusion and bending, the tripping and gripping, the showiness and sacrifice -for what?

but i never got a chance to tell you, two years running, that none of that was for you to blame. none of my dispassionate front-twirling, hand-swinging and theater act had anything do with a rejection of you. it was me. it is me, Cayla Schwartzberg. it is that i loved solitude, Aaron Keisel, on the foothold of denial, the strawberry tutus of the jewel ballerinas, Brody Saltzman from a night at St Regis, Garvey Einhorn from the polyester store, and above all, the diary of Warhol. you were the palette of breath, in our small town charade, buckling and bending the physiology of time. for this, and the love of man, i welcome you again into my temple of paint, the masquerade of hens and the philosophy of kings.