Emma Who Saved My Life (6 page)

Susan crushed her cigarette into an ashtray, shaking her head in dissatisfacton. “He didn't say he was sorry. I wanted him to say he was sorry.”

The party at large: “Susan, get over here and get your pot!”

Lisa and I were still on the sofa. Emma went to get another drink, leaving us with a thought: “Watch for a Nixon comeback in the '80s, mark my words.”

Lisa slapped her knee. “Well,” she sighed, still thinking about the speech, “that was short and sweet. No grandstand play.”

There was brief drama as two guys attempted to hijack the TV to watch the Bogart movie on Channel 9, while Sally and Joan demanded to watch the followup and news analyses of The Resignation on PBS. Then Susan swept in—“Here it is, gang! I bet Dick is doing some serious drugs tonight, too!”—and a group of potheads devoted themselves to rolling joints for the party. Susan turned her attention to the TV squabble: “
No
TV at my party! Put that away and come with Mother Susan…”

I expected something longer, I said to Lisa, concerning The Resignation.

“It's like
Richard the Second
by Shakespeare,” said Emma, descending on us from out of the blue, sitting right on top of the drinkstain on the sofa, oblivious. “A man presiding over his own disintegration, his kingdom going to hell while he makes speeches, postures, eloquently defends himself—does everything but save his ass like a normal human being. Oscar Wilde too.”

“You are probably the first person in history to compare Nixon to Oscar Wilde,” said Lisa.

“You know what I mean, the idea of setting up your own downfall and then playing out this grand tragedy as you martyr yourself. Remember Oscar brought it upon himself—he was the one who sued his boyfriend's daddy for libel. At the trial, of course, Wilde loses, loses everything, his respect, his career, his wife and kid, throws it away so he can sit up on the witness stand being witty and brilliant. It's like Nixon and the tapes. Both men insisted they were innocent, eloquently, authoritatively, and yet they
knew
they weren't, they knew their very ‘proofs' of innocence were going to condemn them. You need to be more of a psychologist than I am to figure out that one.” Emma hit me gently on the knee. “But you know all this, huh? Being in the theater: Oscar and
Richard the Second.
”

Yeah sure.

Emma was about the smartest person I'd ever met up to that point. Maybe even after that point—intelligent, I mean. I should mention that I was officially drunk at this point too. In fact, I told Emma artlessly that she was the most intelligent person I'd ever met.

“Well you must not get out much,” she said, patting my knee again.

Lisa and someone I really had to meet when they got back from buying cigarettes named Mandy were gone. So I tagged along beside Emma, who left me standing outside the bathroom. I thought about making a pass at her. NO, that would mean abject mortification. Just the first day in town. Unless I came up with a really good line. How about: you know, I think I'm sexually attracted to intelligence. Flattering, different, sincere. No, on second thought, that was CRAP. I could pretend to be interested in Lisa and ask her advice. Waitaminute. I
was
interested in Lisa. That was three hours ago. Now I was interested in Emma. No. I'm just going to tell her outright, when she comes out of the bathroom.

“You waitin' for me?” she asked, emerging from the bathroom. “No towels of course—turn around.” She wiped her just-washed hands on my T-shirt. I recall at the time I found this arousing.

“I like you, Gil,” she said.

Good I like you too.

“If I was a normal person and not so screwed up—oh good god, look at that.” Emma nudged me to look across the room where Susan was putting makeup and lipstick on her male friends, everybody drunk.

(C'mon, Emma—finish your sentence!)

“You're next Bill!” Susan called, spotting me. “You'd look lovely with a little eyeliner.”

But Emma, when I turned back, was gone, off to talk to a woman named Janet. Janet and Mandy-I-had-to-meet worked for this feminist gazette called the
Womynpaper
—smart, urban women, new women of the '70s, women who wouldn't put up with any male nonsense from me, no ma'am. Emma promised to come retrieve me in a few minutes.

All right, leave me then.

I'm independent, I can hold my own here at a New York loft party. I'll mingle. I'll meet exciting people. Maybe a woman, the woman I've waited all my life to meet, someone I could fall in love with—

“Oh shit…” moaned the woman Cindy as she threw up beside the sofa. Everyone groaned, turned away, Susan ran to the rescue.

Anyway, Operation Mingle.

I found myself talking to someone who was writing a book.

“It's this book, and I've been working on it, oh hell, say, three or four years,” he said. “
In my head,
I mean. In my head only—I haven't put any of it down on paper yet; it will come rushing out at the right time when I've let it gestate.” Yeah. “It's about this film director and how the films he makes become indistinguishable from his own life; it's called
Lights Camera Action.
”

Wasn't there something called that already?

“No, no,” he said excitedly, almost spilling his drink, gesturing, “that's the amazing thing! Not for fiction, I looked it up in the Library of Congress catalogue—can you believe it? No one's thought of it. And I think film is such a good metaphor for life. It has a beginning and an end and you gotta fill up the space in between; it's also visual just like life…”

I drifted away after a while and ran into one of the skinny gay guys I had met at the beginning of the party talking opera with a bored-drunk woman.

“Oh christ, honey no, she's awwwwwful—you like her? She can't sing a note. How can you mention her in the same
breath
as Sutherland? Her
Tosca
—good god, take her out and SHOOT her. Name me one thing she can sing…”

The bored-drunk woman said a role and he nearly went through the ceiling: “Chriiiist, you bought her in THAT? Oh if you'd ever seen Caballe in that, my dear, you wouldn't even breeeeeathe her NAME…”

Susan was screaming with hysterical laughter, asking someone “Do you think I should? Do you? Should I?” Instinctively, drunkenly I drifted in an opposite direction, toward two older women, two nice-looking, serious-looking women who … no this was a mistake.

“What does she mean
too old?
I'm not old—what? She thinks I'm old? You know I'm not old, don'tcha baby, huh?” The older woman began to french-kiss the other woman. These are lesbians, I said to myself. “She said what? What, I'm dried out, am I? I can bleed, I can goddam bleed—I'll spread my legs and bleed with the best of 'em…”

Bad drunk. Embarrassing drunk. Take this woman away.

Somewhere in here I was seized by Susan who was making a full-party sweep, devastating all in her wake. “Anyone a virgin in here? Come on, any virgins? 'Fess up! I'll cure that right away—oh you think I'm kidding Julian, I'm not, I'm not. You dare me to do what? Look, I don't care—man or woman, I'll take you on right now … Wait, where was that Bill farmboy? Farmboy, where are yooooo? Ahahahahaha. Sooey sooey sooey—I can smell a virgin a mile off! Bill, there you are!”

Oh god oh god oh god—

“Billy's a virgin isn't he? Look at him blush! Oh he is, he
is!
I'll fix that honeylamb!” She made a lunge for me as I dodged, slipping behind someone I'd seen before as she rampaged in another direction, after another victim. I made conversation with the someone—god, please be normal …

“Hi. I'm Bruce. Hey, haven't we met? Wait we met a month ago at this party.”

No I just—

“Don'tcha remember? We talked about jazz.”

I don't know shit about jazz but we talked about it and then I excused myself to the bathroom where I threw cold water on my face and heard through the bathroom wall: “C'mon Dave! Show us—don't be shy!” Followed by: “Oh Susan you're wild—you're a madwoman!” And then (I was waiting for it): “Ahahahahahahahaha…”

I'd gotten high in here somewhere and now I was starving. I went to the refreshment table. I gnawed on a crust of flavorless, yeastless, dusty-tasting natural brown bread.

“Good isn't it?” said Joan, extending her hand. “I'm Joan and I don't think we've met.”

I said I was with Lisa and Emma.

“Oh,” she said grimacing. She bent down to make a sandwich out of sprouts and bran dust, natural mustard and the flavorless bread, and I happened to look down her front as her loose homemade knit top sagged forward.

Interesting breast—uh,
bread,
I noted.

“I made this bread,” said Joan, eating her creation. “And I made this top myself. I'm trying to earn money for a loom. If you need a scarf or anything, give me a call.”

Susan from the bedroom, after a whooping laugh: “Oh come on, we allll masturbate…”

Then suddenly:
AAAAAIIIIIIIII!

Sally was in the middle of the room, standing like a zombie, screaming at the top of her lungs. Everything fell silent at the party. Joan ran up to her, and others followed … Sally, what's wrong? Honey tell us … Please, speak to us …

“What?” Sally said, as if awakened from a dream.

“Why did you scream, baby?” said Joan, holding her.

“Scream?”

Others in the support group, taking her hand, stroking her hair, asked her why she had screamed.

“Did I scream? Yes, I think I did … I … I don't know why I did that. I just…” Tears formed in her eyes.

“Talk to me,” said one heavy-set woman, beseeching.

“I don't know … I just don't know…”

WHERE WAS EMMA? WHERE WAS LISA? WHERE WERE THE WOMEN I LOVED? I wandered about desperately, dodging the bores, avoiding the intimates of Susan. There was a partition in the far darkest reaches of the loft and a gray, flickering light emanated from behind it. I peeked around it and Emma was watching TV; Lisa was beside her in a beanbag chair, mouth open, lightly snoring, dead to the world, a spilled drink to her side.

“Oh it's you,” said Emma, looking up and starting a little. “I thought you were Susan. I am acting in violation of the Host-esse.” She patted the floor beside her. “Sit down. Come be my co-conspirator.”

I told her Susan was looking for her; she shrugged.

“This is Channel 6,” she said, nodding to the TV. “All night long they rerun all the great old shows, when everybody else is off the air. Situation comedies, black-and-whites, and
The Family Compton
which I never miss. I love that old show—just got turned on to it a few months ago—don't make 'em like that anymore. Lots of sex and sadness and death, they kill off someone all the time, someone is always critically ill, such good melodrama and I always cry. The show is so old that most of the illnesses can be cured now, so it doesn't affect my Perpetual Death Obsession which flares up from time to time.”

Susan made a brief pass near the partition. Emma turned down the volume and the brightness so all was dark and quiet. Susan left our vicinity shrieking, “Wait for me, wait for me!”

Emma turned the volume, brightness back up. “I hope the Harpies aren't having an orgy. No, you laugh, you think I'm kidding—last month they did. Three fat women all kissing each other and caressing each other's flab. You had to see it.” Emma's show was over, the credits and music whined from the small black-and-white TV. “Okay, here is the big moment.”

What was, I asked.

“To see if
Lollipop
comes on.”

Lollipop
was this old, bad sitcom with a little adorable tyke named Laliana Papadopolous (Greek ethnic-stereotype family) and she was called Lollipop for short and she went around the tenement making people's days and patching up quarrels and all things would be resolved because of her, and each episode would end with people hugging Lollipop and saying she was an angel and Lollipop would cock a smarmy little childstar smile at the camera which would zoom in on her, and the theme music would come in for the final credits, amidst the sound of canned clapping …
Lollipop, Lollipop, Lala La Lollipop / Lollipop, Lollipop, Lala La Lollipop
 … all sung by this '50s nebulous chorus of children. It was the worst TV show in the History of the World.

“I'd like to find that Felicity Glenn, or whatever her name was,” said Emma, glaring at the child actress, “and personally annihilate her. You see Gil, I wrote Channel 6 and told them that what they should do is run two
The Family Comptons
and can the godawful
Lollipops,
and they wrote back and said they appreciated my letter, blah blah blah, but no. So I was looking through this
Channel Six Fan Club Magazine
which they put out for old movie and TV show buffs and they always feature a staff member and there was this middle-aged man named Harry Langston who was their nighttime engineer and button pusher and I wrote him and I told him I would give myself to him, sleep with him unconditionally, if he'd run back-to-back
Family Comptons
and scratch the
Lollipop
show—and he DID, because next week there were two in a row. Well I wrote again and told him thank you, I knew he couldn't do it every night, but if he could JUST see his way to doing it one more night that next week…”

Did he do it?

“That's what we're going to find out tonight.”

The commercials were over. The TV went black for a second and then:
Lollipop, Lollipop, Lala La Lollipop …

“Shit,” said Emma, “not tonight.”

Well you can't have your way every night, I said.