What's Important Is Feeling: Stories Read online

  Kendra was waiting by my car when I got out. She looked different under streetlight, less affable, as if posing for an album cover. She stomped a cigarette, leaned up against the car.

  “Here to break my kneecaps?” I asked.

  “Something like that,” Kendra said.

  We drove through the residential areas, past Sam’s and the cul-de-sacs, past Roland’s apartment complex, through the north side and around the lake, out to the quiet byway that connected us with the next town over. The area was mostly woods, the undeveloped limits of our municipality. Soon Uncle Marion would kill these trees too, build mansions, make more money from the ugly.

  Kendra flipped through my CDs, found something acceptable.

  “Are you tired?” she asked.

  “No,” I said. I wasn’t. Work had worn me out, but I was eager. The long run of it—life—looked mostly unhopeful. I would go to the JC, stay on at the restaurant, siphon from my parents until they cut me off for good. But tonight was open-ended; it would be hours until sunrise.

  “I’m tired,” she said.

  “Long day?”

  “Just tired,” she said. I knew enough to let it slide. Kendra turned up the music. She opened her compact but didn’t apply any makeup. She studied herself.

  “The thing about cars,” Kendra said. “Is that you’re going somewhere, but you also are already somewhere.”

  “Totally,” I said, and took a left.

  “But that place you are isn’t a real place. I mean, it’s moving. You haven’t arrived yet.”

  “Right.”

  “I don’t want to arrive,” Kendra said. “I don’t ever want to arrive.”

  “I’ll need to get gas eventually,” I said, an attempt at a joke. Kendra didn’t laugh.

  “Park somewhere,” she said.

  I doubled back to the women’s fitness center, found a spot in the sequestered lot. It was late but the lights were on in the center, the tennis bubble lit white. Kendra and I stared at each other across the car’s console.

  “Hi,” she said, and gave a thin smile.

  I leaned in for a kiss, but Kendra pulled away.

  “Not that,” she said.

  She opened her door, stood outside, lifted her dress over her head, and dropped her panties to the ground. Clothed only in Doc Martens and a couple of bracelets, Kendra stood with arms at her sides. My headlights were off. Kendra’s black hair blended into the dark. Her body looked like a child’s; the skeleton seemed uneven, south-sloping. One breast was bigger, about the size of a golf ball. The other was almost completely flat. Her bush was dark and wispy and trailed up to her belly button. Her legs and belly were bruised in places. For a moment I thought she might disappear, fade into nighttime, vanish in a slow roll of gray smoke.

  She got back in the car, fit herself between my body and the steering wheel. Objects dug into us: seat belts, soda straws, empty cigarette packs. I tried to kiss her again, and this time she sort of let me. Her lips were dry. Her cheeks were wet with tears.

  “We don’t have to,” I said. “Are you sure?”

  “Shut up,” Kendra said. She raised her body, lowered herself onto me. I didn’t last long. My penis went flaccid. Kendra bounced up and down with increasing vigor.

  “I’m soft,” I whispered.

  “Just shut up,” she said, and kept on going.

  The band was getting better. I’d written a song, not the meerkat one. It was a minor-key ballad called “Car”—the refrain: “I don’t want to arrive.”

  Kendra liked it. The others were indifferent, but her vote counted more than theirs. We’d secured a gig for the following weekend, playing Wyatt’s July Fourth bash. The band needed a name.

  “It sounds like a fart,” Sam said, and tried to twirl a stick. The stick slipped from his grip and fell. “A womanly fart.”

  “It doesn’t,” I said. The name was my idea.

  “Well, not like an actual fart,” Sam said. “But a description of one. Like if someone asked, ‘What did that fart sound like?’ one might reply, ‘Oh, soft thunder.’ ”

  Roland shrugged, plucked an E string. His amp produced a low and reverbed note. I took this as a vote on my behalf.

  “I like it,” Kendra said. “It’s retro, kind of seventies. Kind of Fleetwood Mac.”

  “Exactly,” Sam said. “A shitty decade and a shitty band—just what we want to be!”

  “I like it,” Kendra said, which settled the matter.

  “No dizzout,” Alex said.

  “Fine,” Sam said. “Whatever.” He picked up his drumstick, played a snare fill, silently fumed.

  After practice I drove Kendra to the Bickford’s out on Route 1. To get there, you had to pass this big oak where some kids were killed a few years back. They’d been speeding and lost control of the car. For a while the tree was decorated, surrounded by framed photos, drawings, flowers, notes tacked to the trunk. Now there was no memorial. Weeds grew back in around it. It was hard to remember which tree was the right one.

  “Some kids died there,” I said. Kendra paused a moment before responding. She inhaled deeply. I thought she was being dramatic. It’s not like she knew them.

  “I’m gonna die,” she said.

  “We all are,” I said. “Everyone in the world. Everyone we’ve ever loved.” It was something I’d heard someone say in a movie. What I wanted to say was that I’d never loved anyone, not yet, but maybe if she’d let me I would fall in love with her. I could lie on top, blanket her body.

  Bickford’s had that unbearably cold air-conditioning that comes from the ground and freezes your flip-flopped feet. Everyone in there was old—waitresses and patrons—life’s cooling leftovers. There was a nursing home across the street, the Star of David, an unkempt drop box for Jewish seniles. Trish was always threatening to put our parents there.

  Kendra and I ate in almost silence. Well, I did. She ordered chocolate-chip pancakes but didn’t take a single bite.

  “Not hungry?” I said, sneaking my fork into her food.

  “Go ahead,” she said. “I don’t eat.” She said it like it was supposed to be funny.

  “Oh,” I said. “Okay.”

  “It does sound like a fart,” she said.

  Later, entwined on my futon, after many minutes of unexplained crying, Kendra told me that as a girl growing up in Hungary, she would sneak into the living room at three in the morning to watch a show that played American music videos. She said that her whole life all she’d ever wanted was to be in a rock band, to have sex and get high and wear outrageous outfits, and that she was glad she was getting to do that now. She said she was happy. I wasn’t sure what to do—what the appropriate response was—so I reached for her hand and held it. I said, “That’s good.”

  “Drinky-pinky time!” said Wyatt, brandishing a waiter’s profuse armful of plastic cups. His T-shirt said “Put a Little South in Your Mouth.” The cups were filled with a fruity concoction, heavy on vodka, garnished with floating gummy bears. I was on my third. The party was in full swing. A sign said “Welcome Homos and Hookers!!!” The crowd consisted of the former costumed as the latter. According to Wyatt, it was the summer of leather short shorts.

  Wyatt lived in a ranch-style condo with a couple other gay guys. The décor was Hawaiian, apropos of nothing. Leis and grass skirts were handed out at the entrance, and the yard was lit with tiki lamps. We were on the porch, a perfect little outdoor stage. Ernesto wore three leis around his thick neck. He slugged his drink, crushed the empty punch cup in his fingers.

  “These fruitcakes sure know how to party!” Ernesto said. He had an arm around Wyatt.

  “Oh, you’re bad,” Wyatt said, and flicked Ernesto’s puffy cheek. My friends watched in awe, unsure whether to be embarrassed or amused. We were setting up our amps, waiting for Kendra to arrive.

  “The thing about these fruitcakes,” Ernesto explained, “is they know a lot of sexy ladies.”

  “True dat,” Alex said.

  “Depen
ds on your definition of sexy,” Sam said.

  Claire was in a group of women with perms and press-on nails. They smoked long cigarettes, and their laughter led to coughing. The gays were teaching them dance moves. The girls giggled as they tried to two-step in stilettos. I’d never seen Claire out of work, gussied up. Maybe it was the booze and mood light, but she looked younger for once, face softened, less severe.

  Even my sister was at the party. I’d invited her by e-mail but didn’t think she’d bother. Trish had hardly been out of the house since her return. She’d arrived alone, looking tentative, too pale for summer. But the gays had welcomed her into their fold, fed her tequila shots, commiserated about her ex.

  “Oh, that sorry little man-child,” said Wyatt, and waved a finger. “He gon get what he got coming.”

  Trish was nearly too drunk to stand. “I’m a fag hag!” she screamed in my ear. “Benny, I’m a fag hag!”

  “Awesome,” I said. Soft Thunder were the only ones not having fun. We scanned the crowd for Kendra. I hadn’t heard from her in days.

  “I saw her Wednesday,” Sam said. “We went and saw Titanic.”

  “Really?” I said. “Titanic?”

  “Just the two of you?” Alex said.

  “Yeah,” Sam said, “Just us two.”

  “I took her bowling,” Alex said. “I think that was Thursday.”

  “Bowling?” I said.

  “Bowling’s dope, yo. Don’t fuck with bowling.”

  “I saw her yesterday,” said Roland.

  “Okay, boys,” Wyatt interrupted. “Let’s get rolling before this crowd gets any rowdier.”

  The conversation would wait. There were bigger things at hand. Sam sat behind his drum kit. Alex strapped on an American flag bandana he’d bought for the occasion. He took off his T-shirt, waved it over his head, tossed it into the audience, played the lion’s roar on his keyboard. A few people clapped. Wyatt killed the stereo. I tapped my finger on the mic.

  We opened with the sixties sing-along, vamping on the chorus for a good ten minutes before seguing into “Car.” Our third and final song was a surprise for Wyatt. We’d been practicing an awkward cover of “Like a Virgin.” The crowd gasped, applauded. Wyatt appeared onstage wearing nothing but jockey shorts. I moved away from the mic to let Madonna do his thing.

  It would have been triumphant if Kendra hadn’t then appeared. She’d snuck onto the stage and was suddenly standing next to me. Her head was completely hairless.

  There’s something unsettling about a shaven head. Maybe it’s that you can really see the skull, the shape of it, all its lumps and juttings, skin stretched tautly over bone. So little separates our brains from the world.

  Kendra blew out the melody on her un-amped clarinet. No one could hear it, but she played on. The rest of us—Roland, Alex, and myself—circled in on her, a pathetic pack of teen wolves. Even Sam’s drum kit seemed to gravitate toward her.

  When the song ended we were pulling at her arms and saying “Baby” and “Kendra” and “K.” She broke out of our huddle and escaped into the party. We tried to chase after her but were plugged into our amps.

  “I’ve been,” I said. “I mean, she and I have been—you know?”

  “You?” Sam said.

  He swung at me. I ducked and he missed, tripping over some cables. Alex charged us both, windmilling with a look of pure insanity, knocking everyone over. Except Roland—he shook his head. Wyatt helped me up.

  “Where’d she go?” I said.

  “Big Daddy,” Wyatt said. There was wisdom in his tone. “Oh, Big Daddy.”

  Someone turned the stereo back on. ABBA blew in and the dance lawn exploded. It looked as though the dancers were jumping, trying desperately to launch. Fireworks went off over the lake. They were the cheap kind of bottle rockets that flare low with white sparks and then fall into the water.

  When I found Kendra, she was in the neighbor’s yard, openmouthed, Trish’s tongue stuck down her throat. They groped like babies at each other’s breasts. Trish had her shirt off. She was swimming in sweat.

  I ran, leaving my car and equipment. The fireworks were still going; they sounded like gunshots, aimed at me. I was drunk and hadn’t run since I’d quit soccer sophomore year. After a couple minutes I tired out. I stood in the middle of the street with my hands on my knees, head hung between legs, crying, vomiting. I was a few miles from home.

  We didn’t see Kendra at all during chemo. She was with Roland now; we got word through him. Roland was a rock, the right man for the job. Everyone agreed. He stayed evenings at the Brigham until visiting was over. After, he’d sometimes stop by Sam’s garage, but he never stuck around more than a few minutes. We’d offer bong hits and beers, but he refused. Said he just wanted to give us the update. Said he was tired.

  The rest of us were at it full force. We drank every night, smoked until we couldn’t stand. It wasn’t long until we got onto other stuff—stealing pills from Sam’s mom, buying Oxy and blow from this friend of Roland’s sister. I got fired from Norm’s for showing up high, sold my guitar to stay that way.

  The chemo killed more cancer than her doctors had expected. A marrow donor was found. According to Roland, the operation went well. The cancer had been excavated, and I wondered what was left; there had been so little body to begin with.

  One two a.m. I heard rocks against my window. I hadn’t been sleeping—not that night or any others. I would stay up online in chat rooms with pseudonymous strangers, saying the most awful things I could imagine—really sick things I wouldn’t wish on anyone. The words flowed from my fingers in manic bursts. I could type like this for hours. I felt possessed, as if there were some other me controlling my emotions, sending all this vitriol into the world.

  When I opened the window I was expecting Kendra. I don’t know why—I had a feeling. I thought she would be down there, hair grown back in, looking just like that night when I’d first seen her at the restaurant. We would apologize and she would kiss me and from then on we would never leave each other’s sides.

  I came out in pajama pants. Summer had passed and it was getting on fall. The wind hit my face like cold fingers. Roland looked me up and down. I could feel that I was shaking.

  “She wants to see you,” he said. It pained him to say it.

  “Now?” I said.

  “They’re moving. Back to Hungary.”

  “Why does she want to see me?”

  Roland stared at me for a long minute. “You’re an idiot,” he said. “I always thought you were the smart one, but you’re an idiot.”

  “I can’t,” I said, and went back inside.

  I work for my uncle Marion now. We’ve built a new town where the woods used to be. We bulldozed all those houses on the lake. Not us personally, but the people who work for us. I sit in an air-conditioned office playing fantasy sports. From my office I can see our new skyline, shimmering silver, blotting out the stars.

  Sometimes I eat at Norm’s. Wyatt’s gone—who knows where—but Claire is still around, still the same. The last time I saw the others was at Alex’s memorial. We stood in his parents’ kitchen, making small talk, looking at old photos. There were photos of the four of us—one from that night at Wyatt’s. We have our arms around each other. We look so young. It was only a few years ago.

  Alex seized in his sleep, choked on his tongue. Sometimes in bed, I grab hold of my wife and pretend that she’s Alex. I put my hand to her mouth and imagine reaching in, past tonsils and esophagus, elbow-deep, down to his intestines. Alex trembles. I make a fist around his innards. I’m waiting for the moment when it all goes still.

  The Long In-Between

  In August of 2006, during Israel’s relentless bombing of Lebanon, and days after Mel Gibson said his piece about the Jews, I came to New York City to live with a woman who had once been my college professor.

  Her name was Elizabeth, and she was staying, for the summer, in a SoHo loft previously occupied by an internationally famous daytime ta
lk-show host. The Host had since moved one flight up to the building’s penthouse, where he threw lavish parties, audible through the floorboards, a weekly reminder of New York’s immutable social infrastructure. No matter how high you climbed, there would always be someone above you.

  I knew none of this when I arrived on the Fung Wah bus from Boston. It was a hot day, and humid. The sky was purple-gray, clouds swollen with coming rain. My hair was a mess. My bra clasp dug into my spine.

  I dragged my suitcase from the subway, eyeing the women on lunch break whom I’d come here to become: interns in bubble skirts tapping furiously at cell phones, their legs moving in long, deliberate strides. They appeared to be members of a similar but distinctly different species. A taller species.

  The elevator opened directly into the apartment. It was an oblong, open space decorated in a series of large abstract paintings accented in gold leaf, and ugly. The furniture looked imported from a Palm Beach condo: white shag area rug with matching throw pillows on white leather love seats and recliners. The walls were cream colored, or crème colored, according to Elizabeth, who occasionally affected a Pan-European patois. The other walls were windows. From certain angles you could see across Greene Street into the Apple Store. A kitchen emerged at the end of the room, complete with two industrial sinks whose gleaming hoses wrapped themselves like long bracelets around the spouts.

  I was not particularly impressed. I’d grown up middle class in an upper-class suburb of Boston and had spent countless hours in friends’ McMansions just as tastelessly gaudy as this Prince Street apartment. The décor signified a brand of generic wealth that I had come to find provincial.

  Elizabeth appeared from behind the fridge.

  “Darling, you’re here,” she said. “Welcome. Isn’t this place hideous?”

  Elizabeth walked on tiptoe; she still fancied herself a dancer, though she’d quit ballet in college. She wore a terry-cloth robe that showed off striated thighs and taut, toned calves. She was three inches taller, but otherwise we looked almost the same: flat chests, no hips, prominent cheekbones, “penetrative” brown eyes, Ashkenazi noses, and pale skin caked with foundation. It was a look that had failed me through high school and most of college, but I had high hopes for my new life among the sun-fearing fashionistas. Androgyny was back after an overdue hiatus.