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“Did you get blood on the sculpture, on my private one?”

I hadn't. I had used my other hand, just so I wouldn't get blood on it. “Yes,” I lied.

“Good,” she said. “Lie down.”

She walked to the bathroom and when she came back with a bottle she said, “Give me your hand.” She sat at the edge of the bed, her toes curling underneath her feet and goose bumps rising on her skin.

I guided her hands to the cut. It had stopped bleeding, and it had closed. Only a half inch long, but I still wanted her to take care of it. She kept her thumb next to the small cut while she wet a cotton ball with hydrogen peroxide.

“It's like you have extra hands,” I said. She painted the cut with the cotton. Little white bubbles appeared.

“That's because I need extra hands.” She bandaged the cut and said, “Is it too tight?”

I sat quietly, looking at the angle of her neck, the rise and fall of her chest, the white tips at the end of her fingernails, which had paint and clay stuck beneath them. They looked wonderfully dirty. The window blind clicked against the sill behind me.

“No,” I said, “it's perfect,” and I began to undress.

LIVING FOR MORE
than a few days in a hotel is like being dead and resting in a morgue. Everything you need is at your disposal, but you need nothing.

Nothing seemed real at the Hotel Thomas. I never watched the television but left it on. I rarely felt like reading but I requested magazines and newspapers that at first piled up, then were replaced with new issues, then were placed in order of arrival, all without ever being read. Once-used bars of soap were switched out for new ones. Clean glasses in tissue paper appeared, lip prints and finger smudges on the old ones gone for good.

I lived in a constant state of consumption. I ruined new things. Such a life is a form of constipation: plenty of effort without any sort of productivity. Food arrived
like an offering, beautiful to look at. It left decimated. Porcelain designs were revealed as I ate—a farm scene in blue, trees and fences around the edge of the plate, farmhouse from all sides at the center, animals in a circle, an overhead view of life on a blue farm that only God and I could see from this angle. Chicken carcasses or steak gristle piled at the rim of expensive plates. Tough asparagus or broccoli stems pushed over the edge. Bread crumbs under the napkin. Little wastelands dripped from my fork or fingers.

I sat in my room over the remains of a meal and stared at the window. The sounds of Times Square reached me, even on the tenth floor, and without looking I knew it was a carnival. The theater across the street was showing a revival of a play I'd never heard of and the audience members lined up outside, whatever the weather, clucking to one another about the opportunity to pay to see it.

Word came from Michael occasionally, work leads here, packets of research there. Mal was right, I did get work. Hiko's sculpture of me made the cover of the
Village Voice
, which raised interest. There were some advertising companies thinking of using me, and an early-morning talk show. Michael promised a “grand opening” of some sort.

I was considered for the cover of
Details
. Michael called to get me prepared for the photo shoot. I kept steering the conversation to Mal, awkward attempts
really, his name blurted out in the middle of Michael's detailing time, place, and money. I couldn't help it: even though things had ended so strangely, I still felt that I owed him for both getting me out of Caesar's cage and helping me get to New York. Even if Michael had shown interest, I couldn't have gotten word to Mal. He wasn't at the St. Mark's anymore, and Redbach's bar had been shut down, finally succumbing to the roaches and who knows what else the Board of Health form nailed to the door didn't elaborate on. Michael took my interruptions in stride, always with a smile in his voice, but made no promises. Noticing an intake of breath after a sentence, about to reintroduce Mal into the conversation, I stopped when Michael stumbled over some information.

“We found it. That is, you know, we've located the company that used those cards.”

“What cards?” It wasn't that I didn't know what card; it was that for a heartbeat I couldn't stand knowing that I knew. A swallow of air traveled the wrong direction in my chest and my head spun.

“The card you found in your suit pocket. You know. That card with the blood on it.”

I tried to say something, to ask a question perhaps, any question; I failed.

The smile on the phone line faltered. “I'm afraid they didn't have any missing suits. They don't think it's theirs. They admit it's their card, but have no idea how it got into your pocket. They'll look through their inventory,
make sure it's not missing, but they seemed pretty certain. I'm sorry. Really. Very, very sorry. It seemed like a good lead.”

Michael and I listened to each other breathe over the phone. I don't know what he thought, but I felt genuine comfort in being on the line with him. His normal bravado, his confidence, his ability to remedy the ugliness of a situation with his own effortless effort had fallen away and in that moment I heard his compassion and understanding of my disappointment. He felt bad for me, and for that I was grateful.

Michael said, “We'll keep looking, of course. It was only the first, not final, attempt.”

“I know. Thanks.”

“Don't mention it.”

Over several days I watched the windows of the buildings across the street and wondered what Michael had done with the card. I worried that he might have given it to the company that denied involvement; I regretted that I'd given it up. Aware of my obsession, I turned my thoughts to my confusion over Hiko and her invitation for me to move in with her, which I'd been ignoring for a week already. I visited her studio and bedroom most days, and during the spans where her work kept her too busy for the distraction that I must be I wondered why she had invited me to live with her. I worried what I might do to her. Her life was clean, simple. Around my room sat pile after pile of promotional gifts, magazines, shirts, towels,
all of which would disappear as soon as I left for more than ten minutes. Women in gray smocks, speaking little English but always smiling, would descend. Perhaps they came from invisible cracks in the walls to clean up after me. I'd become accustomed to not having to touch my surroundings. Objects moved without any action on my part. I consumed dry towels at a pace normally reserved for tissues. How would I live if I lived with her? What would I have? I also didn't know if we should be together. I didn't know if I was good for her.

Nothing was mine. There were things around me—a toothbrush, a jacket, clothes, other objects that would someday be “garbage”—that people would say belonged to me, but in reality they belonged only to some future scavenger lurking in an as yet unmade municipal dump.

Day and night lost their meaning. The lobby, designed to be cut off from the streets, glowed under low-hanging glass spheres. Forty-seventh to the north, 46th to the south, at the west side of Times Square. On the street rumbled chaos. Not in the hotel. Inside hunkered little children inside a womb. No noise, little light. The unnerving electric lights hummed with the same low intensity twenty-four hours a day. Men and women in blue suits hovered behind the counter. Requests were filled before I returned to my room—extra towels, clean glasses, ice—and I'd just asked for them five minutes before. Was the brief wait for the elevator really long enough to take care of this? Did they have a clairvoyant
staff? There was only one reason why things could be this way: I was the center of the universe.

Every morning the bathroom looked like a tiled paradise: white, chrome, reflective, cold, dry. I left it damp, foggy, littered with wet towels. Like paradise after the dinosaurs came. Wrappers from the glasses, toothbrush, shampoo, and soap in the garbage or on the floor. Used washcloths on the counter. Toothpaste like bird droppings around the sink edge.

The happy consumption continued as I went to Hiko and she felt me for the sculptures or in bed. She felt me for hours and we would talk. Weather, traffic, the strains of waking up. Sometimes she brought up the possibility of my moving in and I again and again deflected the discussion.

Once, as she was cleaning sculpting knives in a green bucket beside her sink, she said, “Why is it that every time I ask you to move in, you make a joke?”

“Do I?” I said. I knew I did. It even annoyed me that I did it. It bothered me more and more.

“Yes.” She ran the water over the stained metal. I could see dents and worn spots on the wooden handles. She had held on to these tools for years.

“Are those knives old?” I asked. “Were they the ones you started with?”

“There you go again.” She knocked a spatula against the side of the sink. A dull clang rang out. “You never talk about it.”

The water kept running and as it trickled down the drain I stood up and walked over to her. I didn't know what I might say. I touched her shoulder and looked down at the sink. Off her hand, along the aluminum blade of the spatula, and down the drain with the swirling water, ran a thin stream of blood.

“Hiko, you're bleeding.” She had a small cut on her thumb, just where the blade had been when she hit it against the sink. I took hold of her hand and washed it with the soap she used to clean her tools.

“These tools are sharper than they look,” I said. As I cleaned out her thumb my neck got hot and my face turned red. I had nothing but guilt in me, because when she hurt herself I felt relief that I wouldn't have to talk about moving in.

I returned to the hotel that evening and sat by the window. As usual, I fell asleep in the chair. I fell asleep quickly and early. Exhaustion draped me. I woke shortly after noon the next day. I called for breakfast and then went to Hiko.

This continued for weeks. I wouldn't allow myself to think the word
lonely
. Around Hiko I didn't have to worry about thinking it.

One month to the day that my beer commercial hit the air, Michael called to say that Dave's people wanted me to fill in for Regis, who was filling in for someone else. Regis had just gotten another game-show deal and was on a jet to LA. Dave's producer had told Michael in
a breathy voice while on his in-office treadmill that Dave was “just dying” to have me on his show.

“This is it,” Michael said. He'd been right: my commercial was a hit. It showed me nail-gunning empty cans of beer to my legs while “Stuck on You” played. A ticker-tape warning scrolled across the bottom of the screen:
Trained professional. Do not try at home.

The greenroom at the Ed Sullivan Theater was freezing. They asked that I wear shorts and a tank top, to show off my scars, but when my teeth started to chatter Michael ended up telling them I needed a suit.

“I just need pants,” I said.

“No,” Michael said. “You look like an ass in a tank top. You need a suit. Trust me.” To my surprise they brought me a nice-looking gray wool suit from wardrobe.

When the production assistant handed it to me, she said, “Of course, we'll need this back.”

As I pulled the suit on over the shorts, a monitor on the wall showed images of the stage being prepared for the show. A dark-haired man in a black jean jacket and sneakers sat opposite me reading a worn copy of
Helter Skelter
. His large glasses had thick black frames that made him look fragile. He grinned at me and said, “Hi, I'm Johnny.” He'd had a show on MTV that I could have been a part of, stupid stunts and near-death experiments.

“Hi,” I said.

“I'm a big fan.”

“Thanks,” I said. After a moment I said, “Of what?” I thought back to some of the stupid things he'd done on his show. I wondered if he had as many scars as I did.

Johnny showed a smile nearly more gums than teeth. His laugh made him likable. He never told me what I'd done to make him a fan.

Not counting the commercial, shot in an hour in an out-of-the-way soundstage with a cameraman, an advertising exec, and me with a nail gun, this was my first time on television. It reminded me of the circus. Trying to judge which people are in charge by watching how they behave during the taping of a show is like trying to decide what you want to eat based on your favorite number. I had production assistants on either side of me, both talking at the same time. Their voices made me wish I could put nails in their hands. The blond guy with the headset said something about looking directly into the cameras, and the woman who brought me the suit pointed at two chairs set up center stage.

“How are we going to be interviewed all the way over there?” I said.

“Because if you look right at the camera it looks like amateur hour, so try to look at Dave instead,” said the headset guy.

“You aren't,” said the woman. She held a clipboard between her knees while adjusting the ponytail at the back of her head. Her blond hair had dark roots.

“What do you mean?”

Johnny stood behind me and said, “Didn't they tell you? We're having a little contest.”

Mr. Headset waved to two production assistants as if directing traffic. They came to either side of me and each took an elbow. As Mr. Headset walked away he shouted, “Just pretend you're having a private conversation with Dave.”

I was led onstage by the assistants, Johnny still behind me. When the taping began Dave introduced me as “that sideshow freak everyone is talking about,” and Paul laughed. I wasn't sure how to respond so I just stood and smiled, waited for further instructions, and tried to ignore the hundreds of people watching me. Finally Johnny and I were asked to sit on the two chairs pointed out to me earlier. In the end, only I actually sat. Johnny had trouble staying down. Around fifty 2-inch nails stuck up through the bottom of each chair. We were going to see who could stay seated longer, Johnny or me. I won. Johnny clowned and the audience screamed. Dave offered him a new chair.

“No, Dave, I think I can do it,” Johnny said. He took off his jacket so it wouldn't get damaged. “Man,” he said to me, “you are for real, aren't you.”

I held a magazine, a
Rolling Stone
with Johnny on the cover, chest sprayed with a target and pelted with paint pellets. The magazine prop had been handed to me by a pretty, blond, large-breasted assistant producer with a warning to not “get any freakin' blood” on it.

“Are you sure you'll be able to sit?” she had asked. “When you sit down, open this up and pretend to read it.” She had walked away without waiting for an answer. I felt like a mannequin.

Johnny jumped off his chair again. He laughed hard, his glasses nearly falling off his nose. “Man, this is…” I could tell he censored himself. “It's very painful, Dave.”

“Uh-huh.” Dave sat behind his desk, hand on the coffee mug stagehands kept filled for him. Steam floated off his drink. He looked as if he were watching the evening news. “Hey there, buddy,” he said to me. “How are you doing?” Other than introducing me, he hadn't said two words to me. I felt like I had to do something to make everyone there realize I wasn't an idiot.