On My Knees (7 page)

Indeed, the only people who disclose their sexual orientation and preferences are people who are selling sexual services. So, while I did finally find a therapist, I could tell immediately by his photo that he was not a homosexual. It was obvious, for starters, by the poor lighting and tacky clothes. Also, a gay would have never used such an unflattering photo of himself. This was disappointing, but it was the best I could come up with. Plus, there was some stuff on his website that jumped out at me: “You deserve to be happy. We all go through times in our lives where we are down and we need to share our feelings with others. Let us help.”

And: “You can have your life full again. You are not broken. You are not damaged for life. You are in a place where it is hard to see a way out. We can help. We can help you build the life you really deserve.” Suddenly, I understood how Hanna had fallen for her masseur.

As I was walked over to his office, I thought,
I do deserve to be happy! I do want my life back!
But then, I started wondering,
Who even knows if this guy is a real doctor?
I mean I could place an ad on the Internet claiming I were a therapist or a doctor and really, without some serious investigating, who would be the wiser? There was a real chance he had placed that ad in hopes of luring a victim to his lair.

In a moment of genius, I decided to leave evidence on the sidewalk in front of the entrance to his building. I reasoned that the smartest thing would be a piece of identification, but I wasn’t about to toss my driver’s license. I lit a cigarette and tried to think.
Duh.
I finished my cigarette and left the butt right under the buzzers. Now, if I disappeared, at least the police would have something with my DNA on it. This would help them create a timeline of my last-known whereabouts, which they would need to piece together the events that led up to my disappearance. Watching so much
Law and Order
was clearly paying off.

I loved the idea that I was an active participant in helping the police find me. I wanted them to know that I left the butt there specifically for them, so I picked it up, took a pen out of my bag and wrote “PA” on it. Then I texted Hanna the address and told her where I was going. If something terrible
did
happen, I hoped she would be able to pull her pussy off the Internet for long enough to make herself useful.

The moment I walked into the office, I knew things were not going to work out. There was dust everywhere and the furniture was cheap and worn. How was I supposed to heal when my aesthetic sensibilities were being offended at every turn?

I realized that my first instinct was, in fact, correct. I did need a gay. If I were going to disclose personal information about myself to a complete stranger, I wanted to feel some sort of connection. I needed to be able to feel like I could relate on some level. With a gay, at least I knew we were coming from the same universe. At the very least, I knew that culturally we’d have something in common—like an eye for aesthetics or a scathing sense of humor or perhaps even a penchant for designer clothing.

Clearly M. F. Benning and I were not off to a great start. I was having a hard time getting over the fact that his first name wasn’t really even a name. I was always skeptical of people who didn’t have real names. What name in the world could be worse than using M. F. as your name? I was tempted to ask if people ever called him Motherfucker, but I restrained myself.

Even though I was trying to keep an open mind, it was clear to me that we were doomed. But I was determined to persevere. I told M. F. that my entire life, as I knew it, had come apart before my very eyes. That even though I was the one responsible for tearing it apart, I was still suffering terribly.

M. F. fingered his goatee, looked at me dead in the eyes, and I swear to God, said, “Are you an alcoholic?”

I really think my eyes nearly popped out of my head. I said, “I’m sorry? Did you just ask me if I was an alcoholic?”

M. F. Benning, as though this were the most linear jump in the world, said, “Yes, I did.
Are
you an alcoholic?”

I don’t have any academic qualification in psychology or psychiatry or psychotherapy, but I’m fairly fucking certain that nothing I said or did suggested in any way, shape, or form or gave any indication or impression
whatsoever
that I was suffering from alcoholism. Depression, maybe, but alcoholism? I was like, “I just told you that I’ve been sitting on the couch for nine months eating frozen pizza and watching
Law and Order
. I did not just tell you that I have been sitting on the couch for nine months drinking scotch until I blacked out. Do I
look
like I’m an alcoholic? Do I have blown-out blood vessels crawling all over the tip of my nose? Do I
smell
like I’m an alcoholic? Given that I’m pouring my soul out to you, baring the most humiliating details about my life, don’t you think that if I were here because I were an alcoholic, I’d be
telling
you that I’m an alcoholic?”

M. F. Benning didn’t say anything.

“Look, I’m not trying to play games with you over here. I
know
what’s wrong with me. I’ve just told you, in a very articulate way, exactly what’s wrong with me. I’m not trying to figure out what my problems are. I
know
what my problems are. I’m trying to figure out how to make them better and given the fact that I’m a fairly intelligent human being, I thought it might be prudent to seek the assistance of a professional.”

M. F. Benning continued to sit there, staring at me like a cat.

What do you do with a person like that? You can’t do
anything
with a person like that. I wanted to scream, “I’m talking to you. Don’t just sit there and nod your head.
Do
something.
Say
something insightful. Give me some sage advice. For the love of God, aren’t you a therapist? Isn’t that the point? Aren’t you supposed to
give
me therapy? This is not supposed to be a passive exercise. I’m not here to listen to myself speak. I do that all day long. I’m a writer, for God’s sake. It’s not like I don’t know what’s going on; it’s not like I’m not introspective. I know exactly what is going on and what’s going on is that I’m fucked-up and I’m becoming
more
fucked-up, which is why I schlepped all the way over here and if you could do something to help me, it would be greatly appreciated. If not, please let me know so I can find someone who can. Thanks so much.”

Even though I was feeling homicidal, I tried to articulate this in a less aggressive fashion. I was like, “Listen, I know my life isn’t that bad. I know that all things considered my life is pretty great. I’m not dying; I wasn’t molested as a child; I haven’t been raped; I’m not homeless; I’m not starving; the list goes on. I know I have a lot to be thankful for. I know that what Anaïs Nin said is true: ‘We see the world as we are, not as it is.’ I am aware of all of this. And yet I am
still
suffering.”

And then I threw some of the stuff that was on his website in for good measure. I said, “Like it says on your website, I think I’m just in a place where it is hard to see a way out and I just need some help.”

M. F. Benning opened and closed his eyes and said, “I think I can help you.”

I looked at him expectantly.

He said, “Have you ever had green tea?”

Not following, I was like, “Uh, yeah.”

M. F. Benning said, “Oh good. Let’s make an appointment for next week then.”

Needless to say, I walked out of his office more depressed than I was when I arrived. The outlook was fucking bleak.

Part II

7

Life Is Like a Bowl of Cherries

T
he one thing—dare I say it felt like the only thing—I had to look forward to was the recent news that my cousin Roy was coming to visit from Tel Aviv. I hadn’t seen him in ages and the second I got the news, I pried apart the giant bed so he would have a place to sleep. His timing was perfect, which was not utterly surprising; our histories were intertwined and our lives, in many ways, ran parallel since we were infants. Plus, he had just broken up with his girlfriend, so I knew he’d be the perfect shoulder to cry on.

Because I was an only child, Roy was the closest thing I had ever had to a brother. Our mothers were not biological sisters, but they had grown up in the same one-bedroom apartment in Israel. Our respective grandparents had escaped the Holocaust around the same time and arrived in Israel with very little money and, as such, moved in together.

My grandparents had moved to New York when my mother was thirteen. Roy’s mother, Talma, stayed in Israel but she and my mother kept in touch. Roy and I were born the same year, one month apart. My parents took me to Israel for the first time when I was three years old and from then on, we went back every summer and we always stayed with Roy and his parents, Talma and Yochanan. They were as much my family as my own. They had a beautiful house in the suburbs outside Tel Aviv with the most amazing backyard and garden I had ever seen. Growing up, it was my home away from home. Because of this connection to a faraway land, I always felt like I had something special, something that other people didn’t have. I’m not sure what it was—maybe roots, or history, or a unique connection to a foreign place, maybe all of the above. Israel was the polar opposite of New York but I always felt at home there and unlike in New York, I was free to roam about. Even as a kid, I could walk alone outside without having to worry that I would be kidnapped and I could walk barefoot without having to worry that I would step on an AIDS-infected needle. Wild flowers grew everywhere and the scent of honeysuckle was so strong that it made me dizzy. The sun was always shining, you could go to the beach almost year-round, and the food was the freshest I had ever tasted.

I thought Israel was a magical place and when I was there, I didn’t have a care in the world. And as long as there were no bombs going off it
was
a magical place, but as a little girl I didn’t know about things like suicide bombers and precarious political situations. I only knew that there was the sea and the earth and the flowers and I had Talma and Yochanan’s backyard and I had Roy, my partner in crime.

Also, my mother had insisted that I attend a Hebrew day school and since I was born, she only spoke to me in Hebrew, so by the time I was about six years old, I was pretty fluent and could converse freely, which only strengthened my bond with Roy and his parents.

Because we were the same age and we were inseparable, everyone thought we were twins. We took all our family vacations together and we went everywhere from Disney World to the Austrian Alps. When we were old enough, our parents foolishly put Roy and me in our own hotel room and we would stay up for hours, drinking, smoking cigarettes, and just generally getting in all sorts of trouble. Once we made a “spa” and flooded a hotel room. But the biggest mess we made was in Munich, when we were sixteen and our parents left us alone on New Year’s Eve. To celebrate, we lit firecrackers. Problem was, we were inside and nearly burned down the building. All this is to say that even though we lived on opposite ends of the earth, almost all of my most vivid childhood memories involve Roy and his parents.

When we were eighteen and left home for college, I moved to Arizona and Roy moved to New York, where he became like my parents’ surrogate child. By the time I had moved into my grandmother’s, it had been several years since we’d seen each other—the longest we had ever gone.

The second Roy walked into my grandmother’s apartment, he took a quick look around and was like, “What the fuck is going on here? I can’t believe you are living like this. What’s wrong with you?”

I filled him in on what a nightmare my life had become and I spared no details. We sat up for hours and drank whiskey and talked and talked and talked. I figured that given the fact that he had just gone through his own breakup, he would be particularly understanding. But Roy is Israeli, which means, among other things, he pulls no punches. He gave it to me straight and he didn’t sugarcoat it. He said, “For starters, it’s a good thing you broke up with Noam. He was a nice guy, but it was obvious that it was never going to work out. And this bullshit with Nico has got to end. Now.”

This may sound harsh and maybe it was, but it was also extremely helpful. I needed a good kick in the ass. And just being around Roy made me feel better. His sheer presence reminded me who I was, where I came from, and I started to have faith that I could become whole again.

The night before he went back to Israel, we went out and got shitfaced. On our way home, at like three in the morning, we were starving, so we stopped at Papaya Dog. I’ve lived in New York on and off my whole life and had never even stepped foot inside Papaya Dog. It has a very nice healthy-sounding name, which is incredibly misleading because Papaya Dog may well be the most disgusting place on earth. They serve cheap hotdogs that are long and skinny and probably made out of cow anus. But we were trashed and starving and happy to be reunited. We swore that night, over grape soda, that we would never go so long again without seeing each other. By the time Roy went back to Israel, I was in much better shape. In many ways, his visit saved me.

And it was a good thing that I was getting my shit together because I had a huge event coming up and I needed to be on top of my game. This was one of the perks of my job—I got to go to really interesting events and meet really interesting people all the time. Some people were more interesting than others of course, and I’d learned that meeting the people you admire is often a bummer. They are generally shorter, fatter, and uglier than you imagined, but that’s neither here nor there.

In this particular scenario, I was being introduced to Philip Roth, my mother’s favorite writer, whom I had heard her refer to as “
the
literary lion.” And while I’ve never been particularly starstruck, I flipped when I found out Roth was going to be there. Next thing I know, a mutual friend takes me by the hand, drags me over to Roth, and introduces me to him in this fashion: “Philip. Zis is Periel, she is a grrrreat writer.”

I could not imagine anything more humiliating in the entire world. I wanted to curl up in a hole and die. Adding insult to injury, a friend of Roth’s who was lingering around us, nodded toward Roth and said to me, “So you like him, huh?”

In attempt to salvage whatever miserly bit of self-respect I had left, I said, “Well, I don’t know him, so I can’t like
him,
but I do like his work.”

This was an out-and-out lie. I had never read a single word Philip Roth had written. Roth, for his part, was sitting at a table with a large bowl of cherries in front him. He looked up from his cherries and stared me up and down, his gaze lingering for a moment too long on my chest. I wasn’t wearing a bra and I wondered (and secretly hoped) if in the dim lighting of the restaurant he could make out the faint outline of my nipples. Even at his advanced age, he was quite attractive. I could just imagine my mother’s reaction if I told her that I had had sex with Philip Roth.

Roth looked me dead in the eyes and said, “So, you’re a great writer, huh?”

I returned his stare and said, “I like to think so.”

He looked back down at his bowl of cherries, then back up at me.

He said, “Sit down.” And he nodded toward the chair across from him.

I have never followed instructions so quickly in my life.

As I sat, I thought, all the torture and bullshit has finally paid off. I could already envision Roth’s endorsement of my next book. Maybe he would say something like, “Periel Aschenbrand is the most brilliant young writer I have ever encountered.” Or, “Brilliant, screamingly funny, deeply moving—everything you could hope for in a book.” Obviously he wouldn’t say something so banal, but that wasn’t the point. The point was that I was hanging out with Philip Roth, one of the important living literary figures
of our time.
And that was a big fucking deal.

I was trying to make a good impression and sound mildly intelligent, so I started talking about French critical theory. This was definitely a gamble since I don’t actually know anything about French critical theory. Had I read
The Dying Animal
before I met Roth, I would have known this was a colossal waste of time. But I hadn’t read
The Dying Animal
before I met Roth because I hadn’t read
anything
by Roth before I met him.

As it turned out, it didn’t really matter
what
I was talking about because Philip Roth spent the vast majority of the time I was with him alternately talking about his great love for cherries and staring at my tits.

While I was droning on about the great French feminist philosopher Monique Wittig, who is both famous and obscure enough that I thought I could get away with it, Philip Roth interrupted me, “I have a question for you.”

I was already formulating my answer.
Yes, Mr. Roth, of course, I would be thrilled to have you write the foreword of my next book.

I look at him expectantly, the way I imagine a dog would look at its owner right before the owner is about to fill its bowl with food. I was anticipating a very serious literary question.

Roth said, “Do you like cherries?”

Trying not to skip a beat, I licked my lips and batted my eyelashes. “Who doesn’t like cherries?” I asked as I smiled sweetly.

Roth got a devilish twinkle in his eye, “Would you like to taste one of my cherries?”

He pierced a cherry with his fork. I opened my mouth, and Philip Roth, one of the greatest writers maybe
ever,
popped a cherry into my mouth.

“Mmmmm,” I said, as I smiled at him, “Delicious!”

It was actually revolting. The cherries were preserved in some heavy, sugary red liquid. They tasted like cough syrup. But hey, who was I to ruin an old man’s good time?

The whole thing was pretty sexy and I kept wondering if he was going to ask me to come home with him or something but he didn’t. He did, however, tell me to “keep in touch” and wrote his address down on a little piece of paper for me. I tucked it snuggly into my bosom and then gave him a sweet, soft kiss good-bye. On the lips, no tongue.

T
he second I stepped foot outside, I called my mother. I was like, “You are never going to believe who I was just with!”

My mother: “I’m scared to know.”

Me: “You shouldn’t be. You’re going to be thrilled. Philip Roth!”

My mother: “I don’t believe you.”

Me: “I swear.”

My mother: “That’s unbelievable!”

Me: “It was unbelievable. It was pretty pornographic, too.”

My mother: “Peri, please!”

Me: “What? It was!”

My mother: “What does that mean, it was pornographic?”

Me: “It means that I probably could have slept with him if I wanted to.”

My mother: “Oh my God. I can’t believe this! That’s terrible!”

Me: “Why is that terrible? I thought it was wonderful. I’m actually sort of regretting that I didn’t go home with him. Or to a hotel, that probably would have been better.”

My mother: “Peri, are you telling me the truth!?”

Me: “Yes! I swear! I literally just walked out of the restaurant. He even gave me his address.”

My mother: “You’re telling me that Philip Roth just tried to have sex with you?”

Me: “He didn’t exactly
try
to have sex with me, but he was very flirtatious and I could have probably had sex with him if I wanted to. That’s all I’m saying.”

My mother: “Well, I think that’s terrible. A man of his stature shouldn’t behave like that.”

Me: “Behave like what? I just told you he didn’t
do
anything.”

My mother: “Yes, but you said he was flirtatious and I would expect him to behave in a more dignified fashion. After all, he’s a professor!”

Me: “What does that have to do with anything? Aren’t all of his books totally pornographic?”

My mother: “Well, yes, but . . .”

Me: “You don’t think I made a mistake by not having sex with him?”

My mother: “Oh my God. Peri, please. No, I do not think you made a mistake by not having sex with him.”

Me: “He could catapult my literary career.”

My mother: “You can catapult your literary career by yourself with your own talent, not by sleeping with Philip Roth! And isn’t he in his seventies!”

Me: “Yeah. So what? Picasso was forty-five when he met Françoise Gilot and she was seventeen.”

My mother: “Did he catapult her career?”

Me: “Well, everyone knows who she is, so I guess so.”

My mother: “He did not catapult her career. He catapulted her notoriety.”

Me: “That’s a first step, isn’t it?”

My mother: “No, Peri! It is not.”

Me: “So you’re against sleeping your way to the top?”

My mother: “Yes, I am.”

Me: “Well, I’m not and I think I may have made a big mistake. I really think I should have had sex with him.”

My mother: “Oh, you are talking such nonsense. Why don’t you read one of his books instead of wasting your time with this idiocy!”

Me: “Maybe I’ll do both.”

My mother: “You are not to sleep with Philip Roth! Do you understand me!?”

T
he next day I bought every single Philip Roth book I could find. After I finished
Portnoy’s Complaint,
I cursed myself again for not sleeping with him. I decided to send him a token of my appreciation and I had the perfect idea for a present. I quickly discerned that Traverse City, Michigan, was world renowned insofar as cherries were concerned. I ordered an enormous crate of them to be delivered to his home and was very pleased with myself.