THE DEAD SEA

I stood alone, very still, in the exact center of the universe.

Some nights are poetic by nature. Everything lines up perfectly. I had showered, combed my hair and it stayed in place. I was wearing olive green pants, my denim jacket with the patches over a Beatles t shirt. It was a Saturday night. I had just been paid, so my pockets were full of money. My acne had cleared up.

She was a stripper, a rave planner, a writer, an avid reader. Her name was Natalie, or maybe it wasn’t. That’s what she told me. She was from LA, of course, and she was extrovert. She was into the astrology of it all, and the south of France and her own sexual energy and how it fit into the ebb and flow of the great big something. She was standing across from me in the smoking area—she smoked, thank god—and digging through her purse, looking for a photograph that she was going to use as the cover of her book, when she wrote it. I was standing with my feet spread so that I would keep my balance as the world turned, turned, turned. I had a cigarette in my left and an Irish whiskey in my right, living high. She had an all-white cigarette between pale slender fingers, and she was pushing aside secret somethings in the purse, trying to find this photograph. It was important that she show me. She kept saying it.

I smoked my cigarette, sipped my drink, waiting to see what it was that she was going to show me. I had shut off very recently. Things were falling apart all around me, and I had finally just blown a fuse or something. I was running on two hours of sleep because I had been up late Friday night, talking my ex-girlfriend Charlotte out of suicide. We’d dated three weeks, and I had broken up with her on the same day that my grandfather died. She told me that she loved me after I had told her that I wanted to break up, and I couldn’t say it back, so she cried and stomped around the apartment and yelled that I was just like her father. Her friends picked her up and she threw up in their back seat that night.

But she was a mature adult, and when the booze had worn off, she texted me an apology for the way she had behaved. She had left her jacket at my place, and she stopped by to pick it up.

“Can I talk to you?”

“Sure.”

“I feel bad about some of things I said to you last time we talked. I was upset, and I was drunk. I said a lot of things I didn’t mean.”

“I didn’t handle it the best either. I’m sorry.”

“You’re a cool person. I’m really glad that I met you, and I’d really like to keep being your friend, even if we don’t date each other.”

“I’d like that.” I said, “How’s your play coming?”

“I finished writing it yesterday.”

“I’m really glad to hear that.”

We drank. By two o’clock in the morning, she was telling me that she had been ready to commit suicide when she met me, that I was the thing that had stopped her.

And now that I had left…

“I’m right here.” I told her.

“You left. You dumped me. That’s what I mean.”

“I care about you. I just don’t think I can date you —that I can date anyone—right now. I have too much to learn about myself before I could hope to be in a healthy relationship. But that doesn’t mean I want you to die. I still care about you.”

“You’d get over me.”

And what do you say to that? As awful as it is, she was right. When you lose somebody, you grieve, but also you move on. It’s just what you have to do.

You can’t say that to somebody who has just told you she wants to kill herself. And I couldn’t ask her to go home either. That would be monstrous. So, I stayed with her, or she stayed with me, and we talked about other things but mostly she talked about she was nothing and nobody would miss her. I kept telling her it wasn’t true but she kept bringing back the fact that I had broken up with her as proof. I wasn’t trying to get back together, even under the duress of a suicide threat, and I didn’t want to lead her on, but I didn’t want her last conversation to be me calling her bluff either.

Jesus Christ. I’m so tired of talking everybody out of suicide all the time. What about me?

Back in the smoking area, back in the present moment, the polaroid came out of the purse, and Natalie held it away from me, to build the anticipation or something. Everything she did was a tease, by intention and by profession. She laughed in beautiful silver bells.

“What’s the book going to be called?”

“Jambon Fromage” she said in French.

“What’s it mean?”

“Ham and cheese.”

“What?”

She handed me the polaroid and it was herself, nude on the beach, her legs spread. Covering her most intimate details was an open-faced ham and cheese sandwich on a baguette.

“Oh.” I held the photo close to my face, and my eyes devoured everything. Fortunately, I keep a good stoic façade, and the fact that the animal within raged and raged at the sight of the golden body, the tear shaped breasts, the curve of the waist, the slender legs was concealed. I handed the photo back, looked at Natalie. I made a point of looking her only in the eyes, just to tell her that she had no power over me. She laughed.

“What do you think?”

“Have you read Ham on Rye?”

“No, is that a book?”

“Bukowski.” I said.

“Oh,” she said, “I’ll check it out. I don’t really like Bukowski, but I should probably read anything that might be associated with mine.”

My eyes slipped down her neck to the very low neckline of her dress. I couldn’t help it. I jerked them back up. She was smiling at me, and I smoked my cigarette so that I wouldn’t have to smile back.

“What’s the book going to be about?”

“A stripper living in LA, trying to figure it all out,” she told me.

“So it’s about you.”

“Of course. It’s about me. It’s about my body and it’s about my ass and it’s about power and what it means to be a woman.”

“Groovy.” I said. The sliding door that connected the bar to our private microcosm slid haltingly open and a young man with short blonde hair and milky blue eyes came out, stared at us through a champagne haze. Natalie hugged him, left her arm around his shoulder.

“This is Adam, and he’s very gay,” she informed me. I shook his hand.

“Peter” I said.

“Peter is a novelist.” Natalie told Adam. Adam nodded blandly, without smiling. He fished a pack of cigarettes from the breast pocket of his white corduroy jacket. They were Parliaments, all white, and I realized that Natalie was probably smoking one of Adam’s cigarettes. I offered my lighter, but Adam pulled a book of matches from a pocket and lit his cigarette, staring me in the face. I got the sense that he didn’t like me. That was alright. I didn’t need him to like me. I didn’t need anyone to like me. I had switched off. That was alright.

I switched off that evening, before I even went to the bar. I can never predict, never control when I switch on or off. Charlotte had spent the night on my couch, because I didn’t want her to go home alone on the off chance that she wasn’t bluffing. I had been a good boy. We hadn’t slept together or kissed or anything and I was proud of myself for not giving into that temptation, which is always there.

She was gone in the morning, before I woke up. She’d left a note on my coffee table, saying thank you for having her over and telling me to have a good day at work and saying goodbye.

The goodbye worried me. I texted her that morning before I clocked into work, just to check that she was alright and still among the living.

And then I went to work and thought about it for eight hours because she didn’t text me back.

I was worried sick because I am a human being.

So, when night came and I hadn’t heard anything and I was properly on the brink of panic, I texted one of her friends to ask if they’d heard from her that day.

And her friend responded telling me yes, Charlotte was okay, and they’d been hanging out having a good time all day and why was I asking.

So, she’d told me that she wanted to kill herself, then ignored my texts for a whole day.

I was angry for about an hour. Then, suddenly, I wasn’t. I didn’t care anymore. About anything. I had just shut off. So, I went home and took a very hot shower, styled my hair, and gone out to the bar, drifting listlessly on the wave of feeling nothing. I was floating on my back in the middle of the Dead Sea.  

I didn’t need Adam to like me. He could burn all the matches he wanted.

Ham and Cheese. Jesus Christ.

What manner of beast is man? I felt the animal tearing at my internal organs, grasping wildly for anything at all. I went inside. The place where I had been sitting, the place where Natalie had bought me a drink and struck up a conversation, was now occupied by a young couple very much engrossed in each other.

“We’ve lost our seats.” I said to Natalie, who had followed me in.

“You can join us at our table.” Adam said from behind Natalie’s shoulder. I looked at him and was surprised.

“Is that alright?”

“Of course.”

“Thanks.”

At the table, I was introduced to Gavin, a brown haired man with his nose pierced and “so it goes” tattooed on his bicep. He looked strikingly like someone I used to know, a guy named TJ who was now two years into a contract with the Air Force. I asked Gavin if was related to anybody named TJ, but he wasn’t and it was all a grand coincidence. That was nice.

Natalie put something on the juke box, stood by the screen for a while, her body moving to the music with sensual grace. She laughed and tossed her shoulder-length hair around and I remembered that she was a stripper. She was good at it. I watched her dance for a little while, sipping the drink that she bought me. I could feel Adam and TJ looking at me, maybe judging me or wondering if I had any nefarious plans for their female companion. I turned my attention to them, tried to smile but not too wide so as to look false.

“You’re a writer?” Adam said, “Natalie said you were a novelist.”

“I am.” I said, “I just published my first book a few months ago.”

“Congratulations, that’s really cool.” Gavin reached out to shake my hand. I shook it. He had a strong grip. A man’s handshake.

“What do you do?” I asked, so that I could sit back and let them talk and maybe finish my drink. I learned that Adam was a freelance event planner who spent most of his time either in Paris or Argentina, but he was in town visiting friends and family. Gavin was a sales representative or something. They’d both gone to school in Sacramento. I got the impression that they came from family money. Certainly Adam. I wasn’t sure about Gavin. I usually dislike rich people, but these seemed alright.

“So, if you’re a writer, you must read.”

“Yes.”

“What do you read?”

“Anything I can get my hands on.” I said and laughed. TJ laughed with me. Adam kept up that blank milky moody stare. He was waiting for me to tell him about what I read so he could decide if I was satisfactory. Natalie came back, sitting down. She scooted her chair close to mine.

“Well, I love Kurt Vonnegut.” I said, knowing that would please Gavin because of his tattoo. I was right. “Hemingway, of course. Steinbeck. I’ve just gotten back into F. Scott Fitzgerald.”

“So you’re a fan of the American classics?” Adam asked.

“And a little French existentialism.” I said, “The Stranger is my comfort book.”

“I love Camus.” Natalie said. I turned to look at her.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, but The Fall is better than The Stranger.”

“I haven’t read that one.” I said, “I’ve read The Plague and The Myth of Sisyphus and The Last Man and Exile and the Kingdom.”

“Check it out,” she said, “I think you’ll really like it.”

“I will.” I said, “Hold on, let me write it down.” I pulled the notebook out of my back pocket, the one I always carried with me when I went out to bars at night. I wrote it down.

“You carry a notebook?”

“Yes, in case I accidently think when I’m away from my computer.” I said.

“Can I see it?” she reached out slender bones of fingers, opening and shutting her hand.
            “Minu minu” I said without meaning to say anything.

“What?”

“Nothing.” I said. Sophia used to open and close her hand like that when she wanted to be handed something. She used to say “minu minu” because it was what she’d said as a child instead of “mine”. It had quietly become part of my vocabulary. I’d have felt sad and nostalgic about that if I hadn’t suddenly switched off some three hours earlier. I handed Natalie the notebook. “There’s nothing very good in there.” I said, “Just some scattered thoughts.”

She flipped through the book, said nothing. I wished she would say something, react in some way. But she didn’t. She handed it back. I took it, tucked it away. She left her hand on my arm. I let it rest.

I had decided before going to the bar that night that I was going to be open to whatever happened, that I was going to engage with whoever I ended up talking to, that I was going to let myself be carried on whatever inertia that night had for me. If she wanted to establish physical contact, that was fine with me. She was clearly not ashamed of her sexuality, of her putting herself on display as a sexual animal, a primal being, lovely and free in the flower of her youth and physical perfection. That much was obvious by her showing me the polaroid. It was very Left Bank of her, and I thought that was sort of the point. But I was letting things go where they would, and to hell with it all.

I finished my drink with my left hand because Natalie’s hand had stapled my right arm to the table.

Let it ride.

I got the sense, too, that Natalie enjoyed the feeling of power she got by being forward with men, liked to see the surprise and then the following struggle as they had to contain the animal behind the bars of their ribs, as she was doing with me now. She was laughing, the tip of her tongue sticking out past her teeth just a little bit. The night moved on, and Adam and TJ told me all about the different writers they were reading. I learned about their respective first experiences with psychedelic drugs while Natalie’s hand crept slowly, slowly, slowly up my arm. Sensual caterpillar, and my mind showed me the replay of the polaroid in sudden bursts. I shooed the image away, tried to focus on the conversation, but the image came back as quickly as I could dismiss it.

“You don’t wear a watch.” Natalie said suddenly, unprompted. Her fingers had been making a circle around my wrist. I pulled my sleeves back a little to show the table.

“I am unadorned.” I said.

“We can’t have that. Here, look at these.” She showed me her own wrists. They were encircled by silver bracelets, one with jade rectangles, the other with opal circles. “You can wear these.”

“Really?” This woman hadn’t stopped surprising me all night.

“Sure. It’s important. I’ll put them on you. Give me your hands.”

I was letting things ride, I reminded myself. I gave her my hands. She explained what the stones meant as she fixed the jade around my right wrist. When she got it on, she brought my hand to her full lips, kissed my palm. Kissed each of my fingertips. The beast thrashed.

“Alright.” I said, offering the other hand. She had trouble getting the clasp on this one. She got it using her teeth. Hot breath on my wrist, soft lips and I knew she was kissing me where she could feel my heartbeat. God and Jesus, ham and cheese.

It was almost one in the morning. I had to work the next day, had to be there by nine o’clock. I knew that I should go home, that I was already sleep deprived and that I would hate myself in the morning if I didn’t get to bed soon. But I also decided that I would hate myself in the morning no matter what I did at this point, and so I would have another drink.

Natalie was sitting at the bar, chatting with the bartender. I stood up, grabbed my tumbler, pointed a finger at Adam and Gavin.

“Want another drink? I’m buying.”

“Sure.”

            “What are you drinking?”

            “Two Rivers.” Gavin said.

            “Champagne.” Adam told me. I nodded, went to the bar. I leaned one elbow on the counter next to Natalie. She looked up, beamed widely, drunkenly, joyfully at me.

            “You know, you ought to read some Murakami.”

            “Yeah?”

            “A Wild Sheep Chase or Norwegian Wood.”

            I took out my notebook, wrote them down.

            “Will you have another drink?” I asked her.

            “Sure.”

            “Hey, Lucas” I said to the bartender, who was watching it all go down, “I’ll have two more whiskeys, a champagne and a Two Rivers.”

            “Got it buddy.” Lucas turned away. Natalie took my hand in hers. I let her, let my arm go limp and let her guide it where she would. She kissed my fingers again, and her lips were warm and soft and lovely. She put my hand on her waist, reached out and took my other hand, repeated her ritual. Kissing my fingers, blessing the house. She guided my other hand to her waist so that now I was standing, wrapped around her, holding her body against mine.

            “Mmmm.” I put my head down, fighting the beast. Fending it off. I felt her hand on mine again, felt her leading it up her ribs. She pressed my hand against her breast. I felt the point of her nipple under the thin fabric of the dress. Lucas brought the drinks and I pulled away. I needed to pull away. I would have pulled away anyway.

            These things I tell myself, these possible lies and possible truths in order to maintain the last remaining shred of the moralist I formed in my youth. She was laughing, laughing with her teeth and tongue and eyes. She took the beer and her own whiskey, blessed the house, and carried them off the table. I looked at Lucas and he looked back at me. I took my drink and Adam’s champagne, turned around. There were two young men standing there. One, with a beard and baseball cap, was standing with hands loose and free, his feet wide spread, looking me up and down.

            “Can we have our seats back?” His tone was indignant, mean, tough. He was shorter than me, built stocky and hard, with a weathered face and his beard was wiry. I was drunk and buzzing with electricity. I smiled only in the corners of my mouth.

            “No, you can’t.”

            “Oh, we can’t?” He looked ready to fight right then. I laughed. I didn’t care if he hit me. I sort of hoped he would. Getting into a drunken barfight and being thrown out whiskey soaked and sexually awakened into the cold January night would have been the perfect completion to my growing beatnik costume of the night.

            “I’m playing, man. Of course you can. I’m just getting my drinks.” I said. I took my drinks and went back to the table. He hadn’t said anything, but I saw him looking back at me, looking at Natalie, who had sidled up next to me and was touching my leg again. I raised my glass to him, sipped my whiskey. I felt wonderful.

            I was an animal.

            Natalie’s hands on my leg made me an animal.

            But she was too drunk for her own good and I knew it and also, somehow, even as she whispered nothing with all the hot breath into my ear, even as she kissed my cheek, I knew that I wasn’t going to hook up with her or probably ever see her again and that was alright. I looked at the bracelets on my wrists, put my hands together and held them up.

            “I am shackled.” I said, realizing now that I was slurring a little, “Fettered with silver and jade and opal. Isn’t it beautiful?”

            “You’re adorned.” Natalie said. Gavin studied me. Natalie started kissing my cheek. He, the man who looked so much like TJ, held up two fingers, walked them in the air, wordlessly and benevolently suggesting that I beat feet and get out of there before Natalie got herself too excited. Her lips landed on the corner of mine, and I turned into it, gave her just one real one, for the hell of it.

            “I’m going to finish my whiskey” I said into her mouth, “give you back your bracelets, and then I’m going fuck off into the wild indigo yonder.”

            “What?”

            I finished my whiskey. I took off the bracelets, poured them into her hand. She tucked them away and looked up with big, startled eyes. She hadn’t expected me to leave without making a pass, I think. I liked that look of surprise. I cherish the memory now, place it on the mantel of my scumbag parlor where I, the gnarly spider, entertain the altruistic flies for long sensual evenings in my mind. Next to it, framed, is a polaroid of a ham and cheese sandwich, and the elegant, sophisticated naked stripper that comes with it. There’s also a spent book of matches there, and some salt from the Dead Sea. I stood up, shook hands with everyone in the world, and left.

            I smiled as I walked, weaved my way home. I fell into bed and managed to sleep without throwing up and still made it to work on time the next day.

            And, man, everything felt pretty alright.