Truth in Advertising (19 page)

They laugh and wander down the hall. I hear Stefano say something about cake.

•   •   •

Did I mention that I live in MORON?

MORON was the idiot brainchild of a small group of investors who, flush with money from the days before the Big Correction, were planning a new, very expensive, and exceptionally ugly high-rise on the edge of Little Italy. The building—on the corner and across the street from the 100-year-old building I live in—would in no way blend in with the neighborhood, a glass-and-steel monstrosity, Frank Gehry on acid. Huge, glossy posters went up around the proposed site, a sliver of a space surrounded by four-, five-, six-story buildings.

The developers wanted to create buzz. So they thought,
Why not create an entirely new neighborhood?!
It would be the new “it” neighborhood. SoHo, TriBeCa, Nolita, DUMBO, MORON. It stands for Mott on Rim of Nolita. Which doesn't really mean anything. It's Little Italy. But they thought both its meaninglessness and its inanity played perfectly into the early-twenty-first-century zeitgeist of
knowing sarcasm and idiocy.
We know it's stupid. We mean it to be stupid. That's what makes it funny. But we're also hoping you think that, within the open stupidity, it's cool.

They blogged and tweeted, Facebooked and LinkedIn. They essentially campaigned for coolness. It never caught on. Part of the problem (besides inanity) was very bad PR. For the building to go ahead it would mean tearing down a small, family-owned shop that had sold fresh mozzarella and cream sauces for generations. A story appeared in
The New York Times
. People rallied for the shop. The investors hired a PR firm and an ad agency, as well as a Web design firm in Los Angeles. None of it worked. What did work was razing the mozzarella shop in the middle of the night and then constructing the building in six months. The
New York Post
headline said it best:
MORONS LIVE HERE
.

That was three years ago. Today the building is barely half full, the rents too high. I've heard the original developer defaulted, was indicted, and left the country. At some point every late afternoon, the new building blocks the sun and my apartment goes dark.

I go home to shower and change but instead head straight to the couch to review the many personal letters I've received in the mail that day. These include notes from my dear friends American Express and Con Ed. And a letter from Lady Gaga appealing for money (always an awkward subject between friends) for the children of Darfur. “Dear Caring Friend,” Lady Gaga writes (and I can picture her writing it, too, longhand, no doubt). I read the first paragraph of the letter and am acutely aware of how the writing style engenders in me not empathy and sadness—as this subject most certainly should—but annoyance and laughter. Which then leads to sarcasm and mild anger. Which then leads to guilt and shame. Which then leads me to the refrigerator for a cold Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, which makes me remember the phrase
nancy boy,
a phrase my father reserved for men who drank beer that wasn't Miller. I'm an uncaring nancy boy who drinks fay beer and my father is laughing at me and bizarre Lady Gaga no longer wants to be my friend.

I briefly consider masturbating but decide I don't have the energy, so I shower instead.

I bought this apartment five years ago. In fact, the bathroom is one of the reasons I bought it. The toilet is in its own room. Like they do in Europe. How great is that? I often say this to people upon showing them my toilet and they rarely react with the kind of excitement I hope for, the kind of excitement that I, myself, felt upon seeing it for the first time. The Realtor actually apologized for it. It's a small box with a window high up. In a separate room next door is the actual bathroom, sink and old tub with a wraparound curtain. It's got great charm and character, but it's a pain in the ass to actually shower in because the space is small and the curtain often clings to your body.

The apartment itself is a small one-bedroom, sixth-floor walk-up, top floor in the back. It's Connecticut quiet, except for the pipes in the winter. Uneven, wide plank floors, exposed brick wall on one side, old, drafty windows, a small working fireplace. Things break a lot but we have a great super on the ground floor—Ahmed—who is very fond of me, as I let him stay on my couch for two weeks last year when his wife briefly kicked him out. He was a dentist in Yemen.

It's sparse, clean, perhaps a bit monastic. I could pack and be out of here in half a day. Ian helped me buy some things, most of them at the Chelsea Flea Market on weekends, including a large, old leather chair that I don't really like and never sit in. There's a farm table that I do like and I use when I give my frequent lavish dinner parties (I've had two in five years). For the most part the walls are bare, which I like. Above the mantel, however, is something I'm quite fond of. It's an advertising poster from 1934 for a Swiss department store. It's a giant white button, 35" by 50", with the letters
PKZ
under it (the store's name). I can't say why I like it exactly.

I have plans to redo the kitchen, pages torn out from magazines as guides, notes and bad drawings about how I'll do it. But I haven't even started the process. These things take time.

I almost didn't buy the apartment. I panicked at the closing. I was putting down almost everything I had in the bank and began to have second thoughts. I realized I was happy renting. I liked the idea of
impermanence. But I signed the many documents with a fake smile on my face. I convinced myself that it was the right thing to do. That it would make me happy. That it was a smart financial move. It's amazing how you can talk yourself into almost anything.

Now, I sit on the couch, my iPod on shuffle, and half watch TV with the sound off because I can't stand the commercials. Currently the iPod has chosen “Worried About You” by The Rolling Stones, which is making a Pizza Hut commercial much better. I look at the pile of mail. Along with the catalogs from Crate & Barrel and L.L.Bean are two pieces addressed to Amy. One is a 1.9 percent introductory offer from Citibank and one is a yoga clothing catalog featuring remarkably fit women with lovely bums. I still get junk mail for her once in a while. We lived together here for nine months, during the engagement.

For a while after canceling the wedding, I tried to avoid the medicine cabinet or the top two drawers in the bureau (which I'd given her to use). Her prescriptions and lotions and face creams and lip balms and Lady Schick razors and Secret deodorant and underwear and bras and wonderfully formfitting Lululemon pants.

When she finally did come by, many weeks later, with her two best friends and a car to get her stuff—remaining furiously silent almost the entire time as she threw things into trash bags and a knapsack—I stood, slouched, afraid, regretful, sweaty, confused, ashamed, guilt-ridden in the middle of the living room with the smile of the village idiot on my face.

Finally she spoke as she was going through the books, packing hers, shoving mine back onto the shelf as if she wanted to hurt them.

Holding up a book, Amy said, “I think this is my
Infinite Jest
.”

I laughed. The wrong response but it seemed funny to me. She laughed, too, for three seconds, then burst into tears.

Take your
Infinite Jest, I wanted to say.
Take my
Infinite Jest.
Take all of my jests and my infiniteness. Take the books, the plates, the glasses, the oddly large button poster. Take anything you want. Just please stop suffering because of me.

“Amy,” I said, but had no more to add.

I took a step to her, to hold her, perhaps, put a hand on her shoulder. It's how I would have directed the scene.

“Stop,” she said. She shook her head back and forth slowly. “Do you know what you've done?” she said. “To me? To my family? Do you have any idea?”

One of her friends—Barb? Mandy? Erin?—came to the door, panting, having gone up and down the six flights several times carrying the trash bags. “All set, Amy. We'll be in the car.” Barb/Mandy/Erin gave me a look as if to say,
I'd like to throw up in your mouth
, then walked out.

Amy started for the door and stopped.

She looked at me and said, “Why did you ask me to marry you?”

There are basic questions in life that you need to have answers for.

Why do you do your job?

What can't you live without?

Who is the most important person in your life?

I do not have the answers to these questions yet. This is not good. Not on the eve of forty, alone, in an apartment whose most striking feature is a toilet in a boxed room.

Here's the answer: I have no idea why I asked her to marry me. Wishful thinking? That it was the right thing to do? That it was what she wanted me to do? That if I did it I would come around to agree with the idea of it? There are people who believe that life can be lived rationally, that we are in control of our deepest, most powerful emotions, that we can perhaps even escape the deep markers from the early days, the crucial days, where we learn it all. Those people are called crazy. In reality I was playing a part, doing what I imagined I was supposed to do. The words sounded right. That's why I asked her. How could I stand here and tell her that when I asked her to marry me I was imagining a scene, like in a commercial or a movie, about how one would ask someone to marry them? That it was all distant and unreal to me? That ultimately I did it because it was safe, because I didn't love her?

Here's what I knew about myself when it came to Amy: I knew I couldn't be responsible for her happiness. She was too good, too kind, too loving, too giving. And it was only a matter of time before I let her down. But you cannot say that. Not out loud. Not when you've already hurt someone so badly.

I said, “I wanted to make you happy.”

Amy's face contorted, as if she couldn't quite believe the words.

“But you
didn't
want to make me happy. You just liked the
idea
of making me happy.”

“Yes,” I said.

“You're so . . . you're so pathetic.”

I was running my tongue across the back of my teeth and my ears were hot. I was embarrassed and wounded and angry but ultimately I had no response because she was right.

•   •   •

I call Phoebe.

“Do you miss me?” I ask.

Phoebe says, “No. Do you miss me?”

I say, “Maybe. How are you? Where are you?”

“Skiing in Vermont. I told you like a thousand times.”

“I meant where are you this moment?”

“In front of a fire with a glass of wine the size of a Big Gulp.”

“How's the snow?”

“Amazing. Crazy cold, though. Do you smoke pot?”

“No. Maybe. Do you have any?”

“My brother got me stoned the other night. It was awesome. I haven't gotten stoned in so long. I can totally see how someone could become a pothead.”

“Like, totally, man.”

“Shut up. What are you up to?”

“Work.”

Phoebe says, “How's it going?”

“Shitty.”

“That's a pun. I get it. If I were stoned I'd laugh my ass off. You doing anything fun?”

I'm about to say
I have a date tonight
, but decide against it.

“Me? Mr. Fun?”

“I'm sorry, who did you say you were?”

“I'm Mr. Fun. I'm all about fun. Finbar Good Times. That would be my mob name. Johnny the Gun, Guido Three Balls, Finbar Good Times.”

“The Frenchman called me,” she says.

On the TV obese people stand on a scale and compete to see who's lost more weight. Some of the obese people are crying. Some version of
Law & Order
is on four different channels. Far up the channels is a repeat of the women's college softball World Series from 2003 between Texas Tech and Cal State Fullerton. Phoebe has only mentioned the Frenchman to me once. We were talking about whether we'd ever had our hearts broken.

I say, “You okay?”

“Yes. No.”

There's a silence.

Phoebe says, “I was crushed when it ended. When he ended it. I'd call and leave long messages. I wrote him letters. God. I threw myself at him like a . . .” She drifts off.

I don't know what to say. I'm tempted to say he's a selfish asshole but that's probably not what she wants to hear right now.

Phoebe says, “It was a message. I didn't talk with him. Out of the blue. He left a message saying he was thinking of me, that he saw an old letter of mine and that he missed me and just wanted to say hi. I mean, you don't get to do that.”

“Maybe he does miss you,” I say.

“He cheated on me. Left me for someone. Maybe she left him. Maybe he's lonely. Maybe he's horny. I don't know. I don't know what the fuck men want sometimes. Some want sex and at least you know where you stand and some want a part-time connection and some want a mother and most are just boys and confused and they don't know their own minds. They don't tell the truth. They don't know what they want and it's tiring.”

Cal State Fullerton has brought in a new pitcher. She is short and
stout and she looks exactly like the previous pitcher, to the point where I'm wondering if they are twins. I couldn't hit her pitching in a million years.

Phoebe sighs. “Sorry.”

“I wish I knew what to say.”

“There's nothing to say.”

“Are you going to call him?” It's out before I can pull it back.

“I don't know. It's just . . . It's unfair to throw a little bomb from the past into someone's life, when they've worked so hard to lock it away.”

“Yes.”

“Where are you?”

“Home.”

“What are you watching?”

“Lesbian softball.”