“I think I do,” I say. “Sometimes I wonder if it’s worth the effort after all the good it’s done me.” “Is it that simple, though?” “No . . . it’s not. And that’s why it hurts my head. It’s easier to just check out with a bottle in your hand, most of the time, than it is to try and put the pieces together. That’s what alcohol does for me; it just puts the pieces into place.” “By tearing them apart.” “Yeah. It stops you from feeling guilty,” I say as I step past her and onto the balcony. I light a cigarette and hand her one. “We’re a rare breed around here. In church three times a week right out of the cradle. Then you get out of the cradle or maybe the cradle falls apart. That’s when you’re left feeling lost.” “Did you know Mom still insists — insisted — I go with her?” “To church? After all of that?” “I always get high first. Makes Pastor Toby incredibly more interesting.” “Sounds like you use the same methods I do.” “It does sound like it, doesn’t it? The one downer about getting high is it makes the services really long. But I guess you win some and you lose some.” We stand silently and I watch the traffic down on FortyFirst Avenue; a tall woman wearing sunglasses pushing a stroller and smoking a cigarette. I wonder if she’s aware that she’s blowing the smoke directly into the baby’s face. Light paints the buildings on the other side of the street a deep sunflower yellow that inexplicably reminds me of home. “You wanna start cooking?” she asks, and we go inside. “Tilly’s coming over later,” I say. I take a drink of my coffee and try and gauge Chelsea’s response. The plates from our lunch of cheap pasta mix lay discarded on the table. So far, her exposure to Tilly has been limited to walking in on us getting it on. Not actually having sex per se — though earlier today we were well on our way — but if you walk in on people getting into each others’ throats often enough then it can do a lot to skew your perception of a person. “Is she coming for another rousing session of sucking and fucking?” “No reason to be hostile.” “I was just asking about the nature of her visit. So far, that seems to be the totality of you guys’ time spent-together. No hostility here, certainly not.” Her eyes are sparking, burning in the corners. I sit down and cup my hands around my coffee. “Tilly’s not just a fling, okay? I’m not sure how to make that clear.” “How many days were you together before you slept together?” “A couple weeks.”
“Okay. So maybe so.” “Thanks for allowing the possibility.” “I’m a champ like that. Really.” I smile. “You still don’t believe me.” “No. I really don’t. I wonder if you even really know her. But if she’s the ‘life raft in your raging sea,’ then by all means, do what you have to do.” Tilly won’t be here for another half hour or so. I sit in the kitchen and contemplate cleaning the dishes, but don’t move. Chelsea’s in the bathroom showering and her words about Tilly being “the life raft in my raging sea” are repeating in my head like the echoes of a child calling for her mother down the hallway of an empty house. I think, if we are nothing more than bloodsuckers, then what Chelsea says is true. I am a collection of emotions trying to save myself from self-destruction through an endless pursuit of healing, sucking life out of the people and things I think I love . . . and in light of that pursuit, I’m not sure if it’s as completely reprehensible as it is utterly devoid of hope. But I don’t have an answer for that. I don’t have an answer for most things. I have a sister that I barely know anymore. Our most common bond is that we both engage in substance abuse to make our minds quit the screaming that keeps our anguish alive. I have a father who lives in blissful oblivion of the world around him and a mother who is lonely and betrayed and more neurotic than Woody Allen could’ve ever dreamed of being. I have a girlfriend who I haven’t been with long but seems to me like the first light after an Alaskan winter. But I don’t have an answer for the things that split us apart or the things that make us use each other. When Tilly comes in, I hold her in my arms for a second longer than usual. She raises an eyebrow at me and smiles as I go in for a kiss. We go out onto the balcony, and sit close together on the couch and don’t talk. There’s nothing but the sound of traffic but an uncanny quietness has settled on the city. I look down through Tilly’s blonde hair glowing slightly red with the sunset and try and find my way into her eyes. She looks at me, her expression blank, yet satisfied — this is enough, she seems to say. There is nothing in her that wants. Do I know you? My eyes are asking. I haven’t had enough time to know you. But I do know you, I think. (Touch for touch, the expanse of perfect skin that covers her back, centered by her vertebrae as if she is a work of art: a chain of forgiving hills on which I can move my hands, her nakedness like an offering, like an open hand. How can this not be pure?) The way she leans into me. The trust that is here, in the energy created by our separate warmths coming together.
Summer 2011 ▪ The Battered Suitcase ▪ 85