She's Not There (27 page)

The New Equator

Trudy killed herself on Thanksgiving. She'd spent the day eating turkey and stuffing and sweet potato puff with her family, told her parents that she loved them, then went back to her apartment and threw a noose over one of the rafters. Apparently this was more efficient, when the time came, than helium.

She never got Gonzo's Wild Ride, either.

I don't know. Maybe they have vending machines where she is now.

I knew a guy at Wesleyan named Huang who manufactured his own LSD in the chemistry laboratory. It was sad. Chemistry wasn't his major.

Things went from bad to worse. One day he showed up at my dorm room pulling a little red wagon. My guess was he'd stolen it from a child.

The wagon was packed full of books. A change of clothes. “The new ice age is coming, man,” he told me in a thin, wavering voice. “The poles have come off center. All the magnetism is out of control.”

Huang leaned forward. “I wanted to tell you in advance, man. I'm only letting a couple people in on it. The people who deserve to survive. Before the new ice caps start forming.”

“Well, thanks, Huang,” I said. “You're nice to include me.”

“Of course I'm including you, Boylan,” he said. “I mean, the eyes I've got now—I can see
into
people.”

Then, as if to demonstrate, he looked into me with his X-ray vision. It was a little bit frightening for both of us. “Whoa,” he said as he riffled through my interior.

“What?” I said nervously. “What do you see?”

“Boylan,” he said pityingly, “I never knew.”

“What?” I said. “What?”

He reached out for my hand. “It's okay,” he said. “Don't worry. It's not the worst thing in the world. Having secrets.”

I didn't know what to say. I asked him if he was all right.

Huang looked at me as if I were insane. “Of course I'm all
right
, man. Aren't you listening? I'm giving you a
chance
.”

“Okay,” I said. “What am I supposed to do?”

“Get everything you want to last. Go up in the graveyard. It'll be all right there.”

“The graveyard?” I said. There was this big eighteenth-century graveyard near the college. “What's going on there?”

“Well, you'll be
fine
there, man,” he said as if I were an idiot. “That's going to be the new
equator
.”

From: “Jenny Boylan”
To: “Russo”

Dear Russo:

I was thinking earlier today about how you have had to prove your love for me, or some such damn thing, in this last year or two. I am, of course, inexpressibly grateful.

The thing is, though, that you know that if our positions were reversed, somehow—that I would be there, just as you were, when you needed me.

I guess what I'm observing is that of the two of us, only you have had to actually answer the summons. That you did, under such tough circumstances, is something I will be considering the rest of my life. But that I have not had the opportunity to do the same for you leaves me, in equal measures, both thankful and restless— deprived, on some weird level, of the opportunity to show you I wasn't goddamn kidding, either, when I said I was your friend.

I am also aware that since you were on MacNeil/Lehrer tonight, this e-mail will be buried along with about eight million other good wishes, and people asking for a piece of you. Which is as it should be, I guess.

I love ya, big dummy.
J

From: “Russo”
To: “Jenny Boylan”

Boylan—

I have always known, and never doubted, that if I called you'd be right there. I had no idea you'd show up in heels, but that's hardly the point, is it? Remember that early scene in
The
Godfather?
“The day may come when I will require a service, but until that day . . .”

Yours is the first message about
Lehrer,
actually. I'd heard it was going to be on, but I'm far too squeamish.

Anxious to see you and Grace on Friday.
R

One morning toward the end of transition, I was in a pickup truck, driving toward Ithaca, New York, with Grace's brother,Tex. We drove past a graveyard, an old one. That cemetery got me thinking. I remembered the night I'd walked through the pitch dark with Russo, the sound of the ocean coming all muffled through the trees. Then I told Tex the story of seeing my father's ghost, when he'd stood by my bedside and spoken my name for the first time.

“Wait a minute,” said Tex. “What was that your daddy said to you, in this dream you had?”

“My father said he wasn't going to look out for me anymore. If I became a woman, that is. I was so annoyed with him.”

“How do you figure that?”

“Well, I thought it was a kind of manipulative thing to say, for a ghost. Like he isn't going to watch out for me anymore.”

We drove on in silence for a while.

“I tell you what,” he said. “I think you've got that all wrong, Jennifer.”

“What do I have wrong?”

“About how he meant that, about him not looking out for you anymore.”Tex looked at me with his kind, well-lined face. “The way I see it, he was saying, Jenny, once you're a woman, he won't
have
to.”

Sabbatical over, I returned to Colby in the fall of 2002. I resumed my academic career as the co-chair of the English Department, a job I assumed along with a brilliant, charming colleague named Peter Harris, whom I had once almost killed during a hike along the Knife Edge trail up Mount Katahdin, although not on purpose. Peter had never quite forgiven me for nearly allowing him to fall to his death on that occasion, which I felt ensured that we would probably have a good relationship as the department's co-directors. It's hard to trust anyone you haven't nearly murdered, at least in academia it is.

The week before school started, a young woman appeared at my door. She had short hair and big clunky black boots.

“Professor Boylan?” she said.

“Yes?”

She came into my office. “I'm Diane Bloomfield?”

“I'm Jenny Boylan?”

“I wanted to know if I could ask you to sponsor me for this independent study I want to do?”

I invited her to sit down.

“I'm a double major in women's studies and English? And I had this idea to do a project on women in contemporary American novels, and how they, you know, transcend our understanding of the archetypes of femininity and womanhood?”

I nodded. “That sounds interesting,” I said. “But you know, I'm a professor of creative writing, a novelist. You really ought to ask one of the Americanists, like Cedric or Katherine.”

She looked alarmed. “But I want
you!”
she said. “I mean, I've put together this whole reading list! And I have a sample of a paper I wrote, last year, for you to look at if you want. I'm a good writer. I mean, you're the perfect person to do this project!” She paused. “Please?”

I thought about it for a moment. “Diane,” I said, “is the reason you want to work with me because I'm . . . well, you know, because of my history, because of my issues?”

She looked uncertain. “What do you mean?” she said.

“You know,” I said. “Because I'm transgendered—or because I used to be. Is that why you think I've got some particular insight into these works?”

Her forehead crinkled. “You're trans . . . what?”

Diane looked at me like a pitcher shaking off bad signals from a catcher. Then she looked embarrassed. “I don't know anything about that. I just thought—”

“Wait,” I said. “You didn't know? You hadn't heard?”

She shrugged. “No.” Then she added quickly, “Not that it makes any difference or anything—it's just—”

“Well, why me, then? Why not one of the American literature professors?”

She shrugged. “Everyone says you're a good teacher, that's all. I just wanted to work with you. I didn't know anything about the other stuff.”

“Oh,” I said.

“Everybody says you're funny.” She smiled hopefully.

I nodded. “I'm funny all right,” I said.

When Diane finally left my office—I convinced her it'd be in her best interest to approach my other colleagues first—I sat there for a moment, in wonder. I looked up at the poster on the wall. Groucho, Harpo, and Chico.

Whatever it is
, Groucho sang,
I'm against it!

I picked up the telephone and dialed information.

“In Freedom, Maine? The last name is Brown, Stacey?” I wrote the number down. A moment or two later, I listened to a phone ringing.

“Hello?” said a woman's voice.

“Stacey?” I said.

“Yeah, who's this?”

“You probably don't remember me,” I said. “But my name's Jenny Boylan. I picked you up last year, when you were hitchhiking, you and your roommate. I drove you over to that guy Speed Racer's house, when you went to buy the pit bull?”

“Oh, hi!” said Stacey, as if we were old friends. “How have you been? I saw the Roy Hudsons playing in a bar a couple months back, thought about you. Are you still playing with them?”

“Actually, I haven't played out with them since that time I picked you guys up. I should call them sometime.”

“Well, it's great to hear your voice,” she said, and started coughing.

“I was calling about your roommate, Lee—I was wondering if she was there.”

“Oh, no, she doesn't live here anymore. She moved in with Mike last winter.”

“Mike?” I said.

“Yeah, you know, her old boyfriend. They let him out of prison early, for good behavior, if you can believe that.”

“Oh,” I said. “Well, okay. It's none of my business anyway. I just wanted to encourage her . . . you know, if she wanted someone to encourage her . . . to go back to school, finish her degree.”

“You know, she was talking about that when Mike got out. I don't know if she'll still do it, though. Mike's got all kinds of plans. He wants to get married, have kids, you know, all that.”

“Well,” I said. “Whatever. It's none of my business anyway. It's just that the last thing she said to me before she got out of the car was that she wanted to talk sometime. I didn't know if she really meant it, or whatever, but I wanted to encourage her, as best I could, you know?”

“Oh,” said Stacey. “Man, well, that's awfully nice of you. I mean, it is true that it's hard to find people to talk to sometimes—”

In the background, there was a deep growling. This was followed by the sound of something hitting the floor and breaking into lots of small pieces.

“Hey, Jenny, I have to get off the phone, okay?” She sounded annoyed. I wondered if she'd made the mistake of leaving a remote control out where the dog could see it.

“Hey, wait,” I said. “Is that the pit bull? You've still got her?”

“Yeah,” said Stacey. “I got her. Like I said, I gotta go—”

“Let me ask you something—I know you have to go, but can I just ask you one more thing?”

Stacey sighed. “Sure.”

“What did you name the dog? Remember when you picked her up, we forgot to ask what her name was?”

The dog barked again.

“Spike,” she said. “We named her
Spike
.”

In the fall, the band played at a bar in Mexico, Maine, called Mrs. Whatsit's. The bar was not far from one of the largest paper plants in the state. Even inside the tavern, you could smell the mill. We took a break at ten, and I went to the bar to get a drink. As I waited, a man with a mustache came up to me and put his arm around my waist and announced, “You're a beautiful blonde.”

I took a step backward and gave him his arm back.

“Thanks,” I said with contempt.

Jake the drummer, who was leaning against a pole and watching this interchange, laughed quietly to himself.

“What?” I said.

“Nothing,” he said. He gave me a strange look I hadn't noticed before. Now that I thought about it, Jake the drummer was cute. He had sparkling eyes and a peg leg.

“C'mon,” said Jake the drummer, and finished his beer. “Let's play.”

Back on stage, sitting down behind the keys of the synthesizer, I felt safe.

Jake, who was sitting closest to me on stage, leaned over and said, “Hey, Jenny.”

“Hey what?”

“She's not there,” he said.

“Who?”

“No,” said Jake. “The song. ‘She's Not There.'” It wasn't a song we usually did, but Jake counted it off and sang.

We were tearing down the equipment. Mrs. Whatsit was walking through her tavern, giving the malingerers a particular
look
she'd perfected. This expression made it unnecessary to shout, “Closing time.” When Mrs. Whatsit gave you that look, you put your coat on. No one knew what would happen if you didn't. In all the years that she had been running the bar, no one had ever risked finding out.

On stage the band was disassembling the lights, putting all the guitars back in the cases. Shell collapsed the tripods that held up the PA speakers. I detached the music stand from the Kurzweil and looked out at the dissipating crowd. My ears were still ringing. It had been a good night.

A man named Pete, who wore a T-shirt that read “Desert Storm Vets,” came over to Nick, holding a pint of Shipyard. “Here you go, Nick,” he said. “Last beer in the state of Maine.”

Pete had known me as a guy, years ago, and had heard the rumors I'd been sick. He didn't recognize me now.

“And who is
this
?” he said, looking over in my direction.

“That's Jenny,” said Nick. “Jenny, this is Pete.”