Carrie Pilby (31 page)

Maybe I
do
usually suffer from depression. Maybe the way I feel now, everyone else feels most of the time, and that's why they're so much more comfortable with the world than I am. Maybe it's chemical. Maybe Petrov was right. How would I know, if I've never felt any way other than the way I usually am? And this feeling I feel now, what if I can replicate it with antidepressants? Even if they're drugs, so what—if I can feel this good with them, why shouldn't I? Is this what it's all about?

I don't really believe I'm depressed, though. But that whole idea is something to think about, the question of whether we should reject anything that could make us feel better. Even if it's a drug.

But tonight, lying under the stark black sky, I need to think about something more important.

I need to think about how I view the world.

Okay, so I think I'm smarter than other people. Okay, I don't have much patience for them. I've already started confronting that. But why am I like that?

It is true that my great acceptance always came from grades. A smile from a teacher was like an embrace for me. I was able to elicit them routinely, just by doing an extra good job on my homework or on a test. I could do that several times each week. It was within my power. Work hard, get a hug.

There were deadlines, assignments, quizzes, contests. Compliments abounded. Teachers would gush on my report card. Each A was a pat on the back. It happened sometimes in college, too.

But now I am out of school. Whenever I figure out what it is I should be doing, I certainly won't be embraced for it.

Instead, I sit in my room. It has structure and it's safe.

One thing I need to do is accept that the value of people, and
myself, has little to do with test scores or what college they went to—if they went. I guess I do know that, inside. I can accept people who are different. This is something I know.

But I also have to acknowledge that what truly excites me is learning and understanding new things. I can't help it. When that bulb snaps on and I can see something in a new way, it's exhilarating. And when someone is excited to share this perspective with me, that is wonderful. That's the way I am. If people want me to accept them, they have to accept me.

I also know that the part of me that needs to analyze everything to death leads to the part of me that needs to understand and feel comfortable with the morality behind what I do. If I have to give up these concerns, I'm not me. If I have to be just like everyone else, something's wrong.

I can compromise
a little.
I can decide not to turn up my nose at those who aren't like me, while still staying true to my own beliefs. I can do this without changing myself. I can be strong and still discourage those who pressure me. I can recognize middle grounds.

Yet, there are some other things I know.

I know, standing out here tonight, that I will never be the person pressed up against the wall at a party getting a teeth cleaning by Barn.

I will never be the one horsing around in Harvard Square with a guy and his Saint Bernard.

I will never be the one holding four guys' attention at an alumni club.

I will never be the one sitting on the floor, smoking pot in apartment 3B.

And that's okay.

I need to believe I'm doing the right thing, and maybe learning something if I'm lucky. If others don't think that's valuable, so be it.

I loved being with Professor Harrison. I never felt like a misfit when I was with him. I guess I still was one, but he was, too, and misfits aren't misfits when they're in each other's company. Anything he said that I knew would be considered out of place in society, that a normal person wouldn't say, only made me like him more. He seemed to think the same of me. When he talked about not feeling at ease growing up, I wanted to hug him. We had a comfortable similarity whose milky depths I never wanted to leave.

People might believe that such a relationship, young woman and older male authority figure, always would be ultimately harmful. Maybe it was. Then again, if I hadn't met David, I probably would have spent all winter in my room, studying and reading and not talking to anyone. I would not have been out meeting other students. I would have been with myself.

But if I do end up with myself sometimes, it's not so horrible.

I'm not the be-all and end-all, but I
like
myself.

I sit up. A wind blows. It's cold. The roar of the crowd is getting louder.

I had fun tonight; I would not have admitted that before. I didn't do anything too horrible, and I stayed true to myself.

But I am still alone.

Who would think that a person could sit above a crowd of five hundred thousand people, in a city of eight million, and still feel alone?

 

I walk back to the stairwell, take the elevator down and make my way through the crowds toward the subway station. It's packed.

Waiting on the platform, I hear a conversation among the din. “Yeah, he never drank in college because his father was an alcoholic, but he didn't tell anyone in the house why he didn't, and they treated him like shit the whole time.”

I'm reminded that it doesn't matter if a thousand people around me aren't anything like me. I'd understand that guy, whoever he is, who didn't want to drink and stood by it. I would have accepted him. But the problem is, I don't know that I'll ever meet him.

When the subway car slides over to us, the crowd squeezes in. It's so stuffed it's hard to breathe. Finally I get out at my stop and walk back through the cold air.

I still don't feel ready to sleep. The world is going crazy, and I want to be a part of it. If I don't, I'll still hear it outside my window.

At my building, I see that Bobby's shades are down. He's either asleep or out. I quietly trot upstairs and put my key in the lock. My apartment feels warm.

It's about eleven-thirty. Now what?

I check my answering machine, but there are no messages. I should get caller ID so I can see if anyone called just to hear my voice. Half the people who have it have it for psychological reasons anyway.

I get an idea. I dial 1-855-NYC-COPE.

A man answers. “COPE hotline.”

“What are you doing inside on New Year's Eve?” I ask.

He pauses. “Volunteering for the COPE hotline.”

“That's nice of you.”

“Someone has to.”

“What's your name?”

“Bob.”

“Bob…?” I say. “I think I love you.”

He laughs. “Is there something you'd like to talk about?”

“A lot of things, but I'm dealing with them,” I say. “I do want to wish you a happy new year. It's very nice of you to be doing something good tonight.”

“Ah, we got a few of us here. We're happy to be here.”

“Well, I'm happy you're happy,” I say. More people who aren't out depending on drugs and alcohol. And they're actually giving up their party time to do something nice!

“Happy new year, mystery caller,” he says.

“Happy new year, Bob.”

I hang up.

Now what?

 

I take my journal and flashlight and climb out onto the fire escape. I don't worry that it hasn't been inspected. I sit on one of the rusty metal stairs. It makes my buttocks cold. There's enough light outside that I don't need the flashlight.

“New year's resolution,” I write, “figure out which rules I should stick by. Philosophize.”

I need to come up with a better resolution than that.

Suddenly I hear the squeal of a little gear. Someone's screen door is opening. Three fire escapes to my right, the person steps out.

It's Cy, only he's not wearing his hat. He does have suspenders on, and his hair is slick as ever. Man, is he gorgeous. I half expect a high-heeled woman to step out next, and for the two of them to start slow-dancing in the moonlight. But it's just him and one of his music books.

“Hey!” I call.

“Hey!” he yells, noticing me. “I was going to practice here. I figured no one would notice tonight.”

Wow, someone at eleven-thirty on New Year's Eve who can talk without hiccuping or slurring. “Have you been out?”

“Not till now,” Cy yells. Below us, a fat man in a beret is dancing with a stuffed pig. “This is a little much for me,” Cy yells. “I'm from a different decade. Reincarnated.” He smiles. His face is so clean shaven. “You know ‘Man of La Mancha'?”

“Yes,” I say.

He looks at his book, then extends his hand and croons “The Impossible Dream.”

I hear sirens go off in the distance.

“See what you did?” I say.

He laughs. “Usually I only break glasses.”

I hear something crash.

“You want to come over here?” he asks. “It is New Year's. I mean, I guess normal people don't like to spend it alone. Not that I'm normal.”

I have to smile at that. “I know you need to practice your music.”

“I practice too much. 4R.”

That's an apartment number I won't forget. I crawl back inside, then stare at myself in the mirror. Save for a piece of green-blue confetti in my hair, I look pretty good. A fast beat passes by, obviously from someone's car, and I brush a tiny bit of corn chip from my sweater. I lock the door and run downstairs, outside, then three doors down.

Cy's apartment shouldn't surprise me, but it does, in its tastefulness. In his kitchen, he's got framed Broadway show posters, a pile of records, a phonograph and a piano keyboard. “I can't believe I'm finally in New York,” Cy says. “It feels great.”

“It took you a while?” I ask, really fishing for his age.

“Ronald told you, right? I was living down in South Jersey. I shouldn't admit this, but I was in my parents' garage. Which was ridiculous. But I wanted to come to New York on my own terms, as someone who was making a living in the theater, not owing money to my parents or having four roommates. You can't always do that.”

“Some people never get to,” I say. “You should be proud.” His chin is about even with my nose. I want to nuzzle against his shaven face. I don't even worry about whether it's the alcohol. “Did you study theater in college?”

“Yes,” he says. “At Mason Gross.” He tells me what year, and I put him at twenty-nine or thirty. Eleven years older than me, but Petrov did say I was mature for my age.

He walks through the kitchen. It's expansive, with a clean white floor. “This is the only room in the house with room. Check this out.” He drops a 78 on the phonograph. “Was my grandmother's,” he says. “That was when I started learning to love this stuff. I was a weird kid.”

I can't help but smile at someone so into something that's not alcohol or drugs. He spins around, then stops and holds out his hands for me.

 

Cy is the most unusual person I've met since moving here, which is a good thing. We dance for a while, slow, and then he sits me on a couch and shows me half a million things. It's as if he's waited ten years to show them to someone. He's got that stack of 78s, an electric piano keyboard, and he's writing a musical. The guy can play any song on the piano you ask for.

I don't detect anything scheming or self-conscious—I get a sense that rather than purposely trying to avoid bad behavior, bad behavior isn't an attraction for him. He makes no excuse for listening to old records or wearing a hat. It's just the way he is. I can't help but be entranced by it.

I don't ask what he got on his SATs. I don't ask if he avoids moral indiscretions or whether he has read Rabelais. Maybe he isn't even real.

“Look,” Cy says, and he finds his hat. “I'm wearing this in the revue.” He does a little dance. It's haphazard and funny.

“I first saw you in that hat,” I say. “You were in the subway muttering to yourself. I thought you were crazy.”

“I am,” he says, and he steps onto a chair, then onto the coffee table, then onto the kitchen counter. “Did you ever do this when you were a kid, pretend the floor was the ocean, and if
you touched it, you'd drown, so you had to see how far you could go without touching the floor?” No wonder he doesn't drink. He doesn't need to.

“I must have,” I say. “I know I played runaways-on-a-boat.”

“And the bed was the boat?” Cy says. “That worked until you had to walk across the floor to refill your bowl of Cheetos.” He jumps down and puts his face next to mine. “You know what it's called when you do that?”

“What?” I ask.

“Cheet-ing.”

“Ugh,” I say, but of course, I like it.

He kneels in front of me. “I would give you anything if you can tell me a worse joke than that.”

The first one that flashes into my head is the Pinocchio one that Douglas P. Winters told me at legal proofreading that night, but I can't do that. I tell him a joke I heard once about an Amish drive-by shooting. He laughs. I had told it to Michael at Barnes & Noble, and he didn't get it.

Cy puts the hat on me. “Looks good,” he says.

“It's kind of big on me,” I say.

“It's Victor/Victoria.” He sits on the couch. “A woman pretending to be a man…”

“Pretending to be a woman, pretending to be a man, pretending to be a woman, pretending to be a man, pretending to be a woman….”

He smiles. “You know it!”

“Well, it's kind of famous.”

“You'd be surprised how many people know so little. Did you have musicals in your high school?”

“No. They would hold auditions and start practicing, but they kept falling apart. No one would show up for rehearsals. All the drama people went to the arts high school. They drained all the talent from my school.”

“Except for you,” he says.

“I'm not talented.”

“Yes you are. I can tell.”

“Nah.”