I explain that I don’t use any of them because they make me feel too squirrelly. Or not exactly squirrelly, more like a rat who can’t stop pushing a lever.
Pellet of affection! Pellet of rage! Please, please, my pretty!
He looks at me and I can see him calculating all the large and small ways I am trying to prevent the future. “Well, good luck with that, I guess,” he says.
Later, Sylvia tells me her end of the table was even worse. The guy in the Gore-Tex jacket was going on and on about transhumanism and how we would soon shed these burdensome bodies and become part of the singularity. “These people long for immortality but can’t wait ten minutes for a cup of coffee,” she says.
* * *
…
A new member of the meditation class tells a story about going to a monastery. He says that the atmosphere was incredible, like nothing he had ever experienced. Margot looks at him. “It is only the people who visit the monastery who feel anything. The people in the monastery feel nothing,” she says. I can’t help it. I laugh. “Sit straighter,” she says to me, and her voice is like a sharp stick.
* * *
…
Okay, okay, I have officially wrecked my knee with all this gallivanting around. Last night, the pain was so bad I couldn’t sleep. Ben insists I get it checked out this week. But before I go, I have some questions. Like what if it’s gout? “It is definitely not gout,” he tells me. “Could it be arthritis? I’m too young for that, right?” He nods. “You are way too young, plus that comes much more slowly.”
That night, I dream that I am in a supermarket. Bad music is playing. It’s pitilessly lit. I walk up and down the aisles, trying to dim the lights, but I can’t find the switch. I wake up, disappointed. What happened to the flying dreams?
* * *
…
On the way there, Mr. Jimmy has questions for me. What are these shows about, really? Is there a takeaway message? No, I tell him. But actually there is.
First, they came for the coral, but I did not say anything because I was not a coral…
At the clinic, the doctor manipulates my knee. He asks me if I have any other conditions. “Such as?” “Gout?” “How would I know if I had gout?” I say, my voice rising weirdly. “Oh, you’d know,” he says. He sends me in for X-rays.
The technician is older than me, relentlessly cheerful, joking about how she can barely stand up after repositioning the machine. “Don’t laugh at the broken-down old tech,” she says. “I’m fine. Don’t laugh at me.” I worry that she is modeling something for me, some sort of way I am supposed to deal with adversity and affliction. “No chance of being pregnant,” she says. Not as a question. She puts the heavy lead apron around my waist anyway.
I stand three different ways. The last one is like a yoga pose, hurt leg bent and forward, the other straight. A wave of pain and nausea hits me. I stand back up, blinking hard. She is still behind the glass, chattering at me. She sends me back into the little room to wait.
The doctor comes back after a while. “Good news,” he says. “Nothing to worry about.” I go home with a piece of paper. Osteoarthritis, minor degeneration, it says. I look it up on the train.
Osteoarthritis develops slowly and the pain it causes worsens over time.
Right, okay, steady on. Later, when I tell Ben the gout story, my voice is less jaunty than I intend. I make a little joke and the room steadies. But I saw his eyes. I know what he’s remembering. That time the dog’s muzzle went gray.
* * *
…
Henry doesn’t seem to notice I’m hobbling a little. He is filling me in on the new job Catherine got him. He’s a copywriter now for some low-rent greeting card company. It’s those kinds of cards that are very long and very specific about all the things the recipient has done for the sender.
To a Step-Aunt Who Was Always There…
To a Hospitalized Second Cousin…
Sometimes they rhyme, but mostly they are free verse. Henry gets paid by the word, so the more flowery the better. Even so, he already got into an argument with his boss about the difference between sentiment and sentimentality.
You have to kiss the ring, Catherine said.
* * *
…
In the morning, the adjunct comes by to say hello. He looks pale. I worry he is selling his plasma again. He tells me that his classroom was locked yesterday and he had to wait in the hallway for an hour until someone finally came to open it. By then all his students had left. But he tells me he is getting better at handling such things. At first, it was unnerving to work somewhere where no one remembers your name, where you have to call security to get into your own room, but as regular life becomes more fragmented and bewildering, it bothers him less and less, he says.
Q: What is the philosophy of late capitalism?
A: Two hikers see a hungry bear on the trail ahead of them. One of them takes out his running shoes and puts them on. “You can’t outrun a bear,” the other whispers. “I just have to outrun you,” he says.
When I get home, Eli is watching audition tapes of those people who want to go on a one-way trip to Mars. This one has found a brand-new way, never before used in history, to skip out on his wife and kids. It’s difficult, of course, to consider leaving his family forever and never meeting his future grandchildren. But he’s intrigued by the idea of making history and seeing things no one has ever seen before. His wife and children don’t like the idea much. They are afraid they will have to watch him die on television.
Breathing in, I know that I am of the nature to grow old.
Breathing out, I know that I cannot escape old age.
Breathing in, I know that I am of the nature to get sick.
Breathing out, I know that I cannot escape sickness.
Breathing in, I know that I am of the nature to die.
Breathing out, I know that I cannot escape dying.
Breathing in, I know that one day I will have to let go of everything and everyone I love.
Breathing out, I know there is no way to bring them along.
Aw, c’mon, man. Everything and everyone I love? Is there one for beginners maybe?
* * *
…
That drug dealer who lives in 5C always surprises me. He’s big and sleepy-eyed, but his reflexes are lightning quick. Today a grocery bag I was carrying broke, and he caught the glass bottle of oil before it hit. He has a baby girl who doesn’t live with him, a beautiful dog, and a small jagged scar on his neck. Once I asked if he grew up in the neighborhood and he smiled and shook his head. I just kind of bounced around as a kid, he told me. A little bit here, a little bit there.