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Authors: Stephanie Feldman
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spotlighting his hat, his white hair—even, it seemed, as he turned west out of sight, the strange blue of his eyes.
I rounded the corner. The side street was empty except for the squat, hatted figure, already turning onto the next avenue. His speed was inexplicable. I ran faster, and at the end of the block I was out of breath. I took a few steps past the curb, for a better view up and down the hill, before oncoming traffic forced me back to the sidewalk. He was gone.
“Unbelievable,” I muttered. I couldn’t have seen the color of his eyes from a block away, but I was sure it was him. Positive.
I reached into my shoulder bag and crinkled the paper bag as I watched the traffic stream by and then hush again. Soon it would be closing time; soon it would be morning. Too late for medication. Sleeping through the day would only make it worse. I had come down here so I could sleep, and instead I found myself wide awake in the smoky river of night, headlights fish skipping across its slick surface. I turned slowly in place, and when I stopped I was facing a twenty-four-hour tattoo shop, its borders papered with Chinese characters and retro mermaids. The old man had led me on a nearly identical path to the one Holly and I followed on her nineteenth birthday.
IT WAS HER FIRST SPRING AT COLLEGE IN THE CITY, MY FOURTH. I put the yakitori, the rounds of illicit drinks at Warsaw, where the waitresses didn’t even pretend to examine the fake IDs, on my flimsy credit card, but my real gift to her was to be her tattoo.
We had decided long ago that we would do it together, our rite of passage, finally adults together in the big city. She had been drawing and discarding sketches for the tattoo all semester, and now she held a sketch of a wavering musical staff with two ascending notes (for her) and two descending notes (for me). Around us, the night hung on taxi lights and street lamps, and clouds of cigarette smoke rose from dive bars to the blackened tenement windows above.
I had just stumbled upon the Wandering Jew, and I was trying to describe my interpretations to Holly: language as the law of society, the reality that transcends it, the inexpressible fundamentals written by our bodies. Theory was killing literature, people said, but it had allowed me to see a whole subterranean world: every text meant something profound, if you would only follow it into the dark.
Maybe if I had connected the story to the White Magician, Holly would have shared my excitement. But we had both observed the injunction against Grandpa’s hero all these years, and my explanation fell flat. She was preoccupied and tipsy, her silence passing for polite attention. She was still reeling from her first serious breakup; she had just met Nathan, though they weren’t dating, and she didn’t yet know she would rearrange her life for him.
Holly’s eyes shone under the blazing sign. “We spent all those years telling scary stories after Mom and Dad went to bed,” she said. “And it’s like, now you’re doing it professionally.”
Yes, as kids we spent hours staring at each other across the room, trying to read each other’s thoughts, taking turns emptying our minds so that the other’s could flow into the vacuum. We watched slasher films. Holly read my palm and speculated about my past lives; she led slumber-party séances with candles and magic incantations and bowls of water.
This wasn’t the same thing. I was steeping myself in sociology, psychology, history. I was learning German. I was building my life around this. I was hurt that it sounded like just a silly ghost story to her. We had been best friends when we ran to each other and hugged beneath the Japanese-printed awning; now I felt the first painful doubt worm into existence. We didn’t know each other’s friends. We didn’t see the same skyline outside our windows in the morning. Our bond could no longer be effortless. We had to make a choice.
She folded the sketch in half
I rounded the corner. The side street was empty except for the squat, hatted figure, already turning onto the next avenue. His speed was inexplicable. I ran faster, and at the end of the block I was out of breath. I took a few steps past the curb, for a better view up and down the hill, before oncoming traffic forced me back to the sidewalk. He was gone.
“Unbelievable,” I muttered. I couldn’t have seen the color of his eyes from a block away, but I was sure it was him. Positive.
I reached into my shoulder bag and crinkled the paper bag as I watched the traffic stream by and then hush again. Soon it would be closing time; soon it would be morning. Too late for medication. Sleeping through the day would only make it worse. I had come down here so I could sleep, and instead I found myself wide awake in the smoky river of night, headlights fish skipping across its slick surface. I turned slowly in place, and when I stopped I was facing a twenty-four-hour tattoo shop, its borders papered with Chinese characters and retro mermaids. The old man had led me on a nearly identical path to the one Holly and I followed on her nineteenth birthday.
IT WAS HER FIRST SPRING AT COLLEGE IN THE CITY, MY FOURTH. I put the yakitori, the rounds of illicit drinks at Warsaw, where the waitresses didn’t even pretend to examine the fake IDs, on my flimsy credit card, but my real gift to her was to be her tattoo.
We had decided long ago that we would do it together, our rite of passage, finally adults together in the big city. She had been drawing and discarding sketches for the tattoo all semester, and now she held a sketch of a wavering musical staff with two ascending notes (for her) and two descending notes (for me). Around us, the night hung on taxi lights and street lamps, and clouds of cigarette smoke rose from dive bars to the blackened tenement windows above.
I had just stumbled upon the Wandering Jew, and I was trying to describe my interpretations to Holly: language as the law of society, the reality that transcends it, the inexpressible fundamentals written by our bodies. Theory was killing literature, people said, but it had allowed me to see a whole subterranean world: every text meant something profound, if you would only follow it into the dark.
Maybe if I had connected the story to the White Magician, Holly would have shared my excitement. But we had both observed the injunction against Grandpa’s hero all these years, and my explanation fell flat. She was preoccupied and tipsy, her silence passing for polite attention. She was still reeling from her first serious breakup; she had just met Nathan, though they weren’t dating, and she didn’t yet know she would rearrange her life for him.
Holly’s eyes shone under the blazing sign. “We spent all those years telling scary stories after Mom and Dad went to bed,” she said. “And it’s like, now you’re doing it professionally.”
Yes, as kids we spent hours staring at each other across the room, trying to read each other’s thoughts, taking turns emptying our minds so that the other’s could flow into the vacuum. We watched slasher films. Holly read my palm and speculated about my past lives; she led slumber-party séances with candles and magic incantations and bowls of water.
This wasn’t the same thing. I was steeping myself in sociology, psychology, history. I was learning German. I was building my life around this. I was hurt that it sounded like just a silly ghost story to her. We had been best friends when we ran to each other and hugged beneath the Japanese-printed awning; now I felt the first painful doubt worm into existence. We didn’t know each other’s friends. We didn’t see the same skyline outside our windows in the morning. Our bond could no longer be effortless. We had to make a choice.
She folded the sketch in half
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