Flatscreen (7 page)

“Probably a failed surgeon who went to dental school,” Sheila said.

“His own teeth look like something out of Dracula. I don’t know why we still go there.”

This was a family that made regular trips to the dentist. Teeth were all pearl, no stain (no gap).

Benjy held Erin’s hand. Sheila and Mary exchanged private approving glances. Norman Rockwell for the new millennium: happy kind lesbians, black adopted daughter, couple cute college kids. Where did I fit in? I sat in the corner with an aquarium in my spine, lightning in my head, smiling giddily, scratching the shit out of my neck, hoping no one would talk to me.

False hope.

“What’s with him?” Natasha said, pointed at me with her fork.

Her accusing eyes were a chestnut brown that matched her skin. Hair pulled back tightly into dual Afro puffs. Body petite, but her presence so large, secure, surely prepped to kick white-boy booty if necessary. Pushed the tofu around my plate, waited for Benjy to save me.

“Eli just got up from a nap,” Benjy said. “He’s still a bit tired.”

“Yeah,” I managed. “Sorry, I’m out of it.”

Raised my eyebrows to appear more alert.

Natasha moved on.

“I’m sick of this vegan shit,” she said, stabbed a tofu cube. “My people are carnivores.”

“Natasha, honey,” Sheila said. “We’ve been over this many times. Just because you’re of African descent does not mean you’re not part of this family.”

“I’m not talking about the blacks,” Natasha said. “I’m talking about the Jews. Fuck this new age bullshit. I want some fucking brisket.”

“When you’re out with your friends you can eat whatever you want, but this is a non-flesh-eating household,” Mary added.

She smiled as she said it. Not condescendingly, more “Kids these days.” Sheila caught Mary’s eye, nodded. They would recap in bed tonight, laugh together at their daughter’s antics, whisper that they were raising strong, independent women. Good mothers, I could tell; they followed your mouth when you spoke.

“Dad lets me eat burgers.”

“Well, your father’s getting his own place soon, and when he does, you can go eat burgers there. But while you’re here, you’ll get your protein from peanut butter and tofu.”

“I think it’s delicious,” I said, in defense of what I viewed as a personal attack on Sheila, my angel. A ridiculous comment, considering I hadn’t eaten a bite. But I liked how it looked on my plate, how it smelled in the dining room, the way Sheila spooned the tofu with the respect it deserved, careful not to mush the cubes during ladling.

Natasha looked at me dismissively, returned her attention to the destruction of her food.

“You guys just want me to be skinny like a white girl. Don’t you know I need some booty if any brothas gonna wanna take me out?”

“Oh, yeah,” Erin said. “Like there are ‘brothas’ at your high school.”

“They bus ’em in.”

“I’m Benjy’s brother,” I said, trying to make a joke. “And I’d be happy to take you out.”

“Fat boy, I wouldn’t let you fuck me with Denzel’s dick.”

“Natasha!” Sheila said. “Eli is our guest.”

“No, he’s not. He’s Seymour’s guest. Besides, he’s so whacked out from being in Seymour’s pool house, he won’t remember half this shit in the morning.”

Sheila looked at me with tender eyes, like a caring, disappointed mother on a well-acted serial drama. Benjy’s eyes were not so caring, just disappointed.

“I should go,” I said.

“You don’t have to,” Sheila said, though I’d already turned my back to the table. Drifted out the door without noticing if anyone put up more of a protest. Stopped back at Kahn’s pool house. He was in the La-Z-Boy watching a midget hum-job a tranny on the flatscreen (
Taint Misbehavin’
7, Vivid, 2004).

“This is what it’s come to,” Kahn said. “I take Viagra just to watch porn. It takes a half hour for it to kick in. First time in my life I’ve made it past the first fifteen minutes of one of these things. You know they have plots and everything?”

“I know,” I said.

The tranny was tall, blackly brown, built like a big-titted power forward. A dead man’s face inked on her arm. RIP Jon “J. Dooz” Dee, 1982–2003. She cupped her sucker’s head with an oversized hand. Gently stroked above the ear. Sucker spit, kept sucking, sank tranny-stiff wang down his regular-sized throat.

Kahn turned toward me, reached up, placed his hand over my heart.

“BPM slightly above average,” he said, slipped his hand down my breastplate, over my ribs, all the way to my pudgy left love handle.

I dropped an eighth of weed in Kahn’s lap.

“Can I have some more of those pills?”

Facts About Me:

On the way home, shamed, still made of rubber, enjoying the cool air, saw Dan’s maid struggle with two large plastic grocery bags, walking toward the bus stop. Something pretty about her face I’d never noticed before. Maybe the too-bright kitchen lights accented the flaws in her complexion, but outside beneath streetlamp there was grace in her slow stride, youth in her wind-kissed cheeks.

“Can I help?” I said, pointed at the bags.

She gave me a look that said, “I’m too tired to be proud.”

Took the bags from her arms. They smelled good.

“Food.”

“Yeah, food. She was going to throw it away. They waste so much.”

I’d never heard her speak before. Assumed an accent, but she spoke like an old Quinossetian.

“I buy into all that green, recycle, reuse, sustainability stuff,” she said. “Gotta believe in something.”

“I shop at Whole Foods, myself.”

“Whole Foods, Schmole Foods, those people charge up the ass.”

“It’s true.”

“What we need are local farms. Co-ops. Make Wife Three pick turnips in the sun.”

“Hmm…”

Sniffed her bag. Weird, I know, but I was still high, getting hungry.

“Cilantro?”

“Yeah. They want guacamole fresh every day even though they don’t eat it. They think it’s a good thing to have in the fridge.”

“I love cilantro. I’ve been making a lot of black beans recently.”

She nodded.

“Where are you from?”

“Roadway C.”

“Before. I mean, originally.”

“I grew up outside of Santo Domingo. In the Dominican Republic.”

“It must be beautiful there. Baseball in the streets.”

“It’s very poor. Lots of crime. Mostly the same idiots as you have here.”

“I like to make ropa vieja,” I said. “But I have trouble getting the meat tender enough. Is that racist of me to mention a Spanish dish just because you’re from a Spanish-speaking country?”

“You’re funny.”

“I’ve heard.”

“Americans always try to rush. Cooking is mostly waiting. Low heat. It will get softer.”

“I don’t do anything quickly.”

“It means old clothes. In Spanish, ropa vieja, old clothes. A man was so poor he couldn’t afford food for his family. He took his old clothes and put them in a pot and added all the ingredients: tomatoes, pigeon peas, green olives,
potato. He let it simmer for a long time. When it was done, the old clothes had turned to meat.”

“I like that.”

“It’s a dumb story,” she said. “But sometimes dumb stories have good advice in them.”

Then silence, conversation replaced by growing rapport between the cilantro and the bakery-fresh sourdough. We reached the bus stop.

On Being Funny:

Back home, eighty milligrams up the sniffer, jay-ski to the dome-ski, eyes dancing glassy in computer reflection, I searched the Internet for Alison. She wasn’t there, not in the usual places. Google gave me nothing. Facebook gave me five Alisons, from as far away as Western Oregon, none her. As if her actual physical existence (which I’d yet to shower off) nullified the need for a 2-D online surrogate.

Instead I wrote to Jennifer Estes, who still wasn’t real. She was a set of identity-markers (hair: black; lips: glossed; favorite music: Beyoncé) I attached to an imagined angel of empathy.

“J,” I wrote. “Can I call you J? You know, like J. Lo. J. Est? Does that work? In French est means something. To be. I remember that from French class. I want to be. I don’t know what I want to be. Just to be something. Were you in my French class? Do you know who I am? My name is Eli Schwartz, and I am a rich Jewish kid you smoked pot with once who’s put on a few pounds in the past couple years, but cleans up nicely. Actually, that’s not true. I’m not rich anymore. I used to be basically rich a few years ago before my dad left, but now we’re moving out of the house, and
though I wouldn’t exactly say we’re poor (that would be patronizing to real poor people—not that I’m assuming you’re poor, or that there’s anything wrong with … okay, I’ll shut up), I would say we’re moving down a tax bracket or so, relegated from the grandiose upper upper middle class to the boring lower upper middle class. I’m not sure why I’m telling you this, other than the fact that I saw you at temple when you were parking the cars, and I thought you might have given me a look, though I wasn’t sure what it meant, and I wanted to come out, say hi, but then I got high with Kahn. You don’t know who Kahn is. He’s this handicapped guy who used to be famous. I’ll have to introduce you to him sometime. He’s really quite a character. But what am I talking about? We haven’t even hung out yet. Let’s just take things slow here. I just figured since we’re both still in town, and there aren’t many other people around, that maybe we should hang out or something. What do you think? I know this is out of the blue, but isn’t that how this thing’s supposed to work, getting in touch with people from the past? I’m pretty bored these days. I could cook you dinner. I’m a good cook. Great, even. I have so much love in me, and nowhere to direct it. If you don’t write back just know that I don’t mean anything weird by this message. I’m a good soul who’s gone a bit off the deep end. My brother is a nerd, my mother is a drunk, my father is an asshole. I’m trying here, I’m really trying. Please write me back?”

To Be Clear:

Woke to a text from Kahn:

“Brattle Theatre, 2 pm.”

Groggy on the Green Line, ducking Fenway-bound Bro Sox and their pink-appareled gal pals. All shades—from Saxonian pale to sunburnt—forced into bodily contact as the D train hopped the suburbs, inbound. Faint smells of lunch meat and feet-stink. Windows oppressively closed. I had a standing spot between two frat rats, each excessively sideburned, each with a goatee full of sausage crumbs, each tribal-tatted in the bulbous triceps region.