Taipei (7 page)

“It’s okay,” said Paul. “I’m sorry about the butter thing.”

Laura blushed and looked down by slowly moving her eyeballs. Paul apologized and said he wouldn’t talk about it anymore and that he liked Laura’s eyebrows, which were black, in contrast to her naturally blond hair. They talked tensely, with a few long pauses, about the difference between Scottish and Irish people and Paul began to worry about the rest of dinner, but after they finished the 40oz and mutely focused on their menus a few minutes they settled into a calm, polite, somewhat resigned manner of leisurely occupying each other. When their mashed potatoes, chili, corn-bread, noodle soup arrived they talked less and Paul began to feel a little sleepy. Laura thanked him for showing her this restaurant, which she wanted to try lunch from soon.

Outside, on the sidewalk, Laura immediately walked toward the 1st Avenue L train station at an unleisurely pace, seeming
less rushed than resolutely continuing with a prior, focused, unobstructed momentum. Paul realized, with some confusion, that he’d obliviously assumed they would do something together after dinner; more than once, as they waited for the bill, he’d considered suggesting they see a movie at a theater that was in the opposite direction they were currently walking. Laura was crossing streets and sidewalks at unconventional angles, as if across a field, in a diagonal, it seemed, to get there sooner. Paul wanted to stop moving and sit or lay on the sidewalk, partly as a juvenile tactic to interrupt Laura’s departure.

On the train Laura became significantly more talkative and, it seemed, happier. Paul thought of how at every job he’d had, in movie theaters and libraries and restaurants, almost every employee, probably especially himself, would become predictably friendlier and more generous as closing time neared. At the Bedford station, before exiting the train, Laura apologized again and unsolicitedly said “maybe I’ll feel better and come over later, in a few hours,” which seemed to Paul like a non sequitur, or an extreme example of the “closing time” effect.

In his room, with the light on, Paul lay entirely beneath his blanket, aware that Michelle was the last person who’d affected him this cripplingly—to zero productivity, not even listening to music, motionless between his blanket and mattress like some packaged thing. He heard a ringing noise, or the memory of a ringing noise, which meant another of his limited number of nonregenerative hearing cells had died, though his room was nearly silent. He became aware of himself remembering a night when he and Michelle, alone in her mother’s mansion-like house in Pittsburgh, made salad and pasta for dinner and sat facing each other, bisecting a
long wood table like a converted canoe. Paul had begun to feel depressed without knowing why—maybe unconsciously intuiting what life would be like in a giant house with a significant other and a routine, how forty or fifty years, like windows on a computer screen, maximized on top of each other, could appear like a single year that would then need to be lived repeatedly, so that one felt both nearer and withheld from death—and within a few minutes was silent and visibly troubled, staring down at his salad. Michelle had asked what was wrong and Paul had said “nothing,” then she’d asked again and he’d said he felt depressed, but didn’t know why, then at some point she went upstairs, where Paul found her on her bed, in her room that seemed too big for one person, in a fetal position on her side—oval and exposed, on top of her sheets and blanket, as an egg. Paul dreamed something about his cube-shaped room being a storage facility in which he’d been placed by an entity that believed in his resale value. While in storage he could interact with others, look at the internet, go on a book tour, but if he damaged himself he would be moved to a garbage pile, on a different planet. He woke a few times, then remained awake, obstructed from sleep by his own grumpiness and discomfort, the main reasons he wanted to sleep.

He reached outside his blanket and pulled his MacBook “darkly,” he felt, toward himself, like an octopus might. It was 12:52 a.m., almost three hours since leaving Angelica Kitchen. Laura, to Paul’s surprise, had emailed twice—a few sentence fragments apologizing for her awkwardness at 11:43 p.m., a paragraph of elaboration at 12:05 a.m. Paul emailed that he understood and liked her and thought she was “cool.” She responded, a few minutes later, seeming cheerful. After a few more emails she seemed almost “giddy.” They committed—earnestly and enthusiastically, Paul felt—to get tattoos together tomorrow.

 • • •

Laura arrived around 4:30 p.m., seeming tired and distracted, with cheese and a bottle of wine and knitting materials in a plastic bag. Paul said they should go to Manhattan before night and Laura asked why and Paul said for tattoos. Laura said she wanted to stay inside to work on her set of a dozen “monster masks,” which she wanted to use in a music video for one of her songs (and which, based on photos Paul had seen on the internet, she seemed to have been knitting for more than a year). They shared a Klonopin, and when it began to get dark outside Paul suggested a restaurant two blocks away, but Laura didn’t want to go outside, so they ordered Chinese food—minnow-size pieces of slippery chicken in a shiny garlic sauce, six fortune cookies—and ate only a little, then shared an Ambien and sat, at a distance from each other, on Paul’s mattress.

Paul patted the area beside him and Laura said “stop trying to make sexy time” in an earnest, slightly annoyed voice. Paul grinned and honestly said he wasn’t and felt confused. Laura, who had finished most of the bottle of wine herself, lay curled in a corner of the mattress and was soon asleep. Paul absently looked at the internet a little, then woke, three hours later, around midnight, to Laura putting her things into her plastic bag. She was going home, she said, because she had to feed Jeffrey and had work in the morning.

The next night Paul was with Mitch and Matt—another classmate from Florida, one year ahead of Mitch and Paul, currently “on vacation” alone—at Barcade, a bar with dozens of arcade machines. After one beer Paul texted Laura “hi, how’s it going” and interpreted her almost instantaneous response of “super” as her wanting to finish an undesirable
task as quick as possible. Paul texted he was at Barcade with “high school friends” and if Laura wanted to come. Laura texted “I’m all out of quarters” after five minutes. Paul texted “I have some quarters for you” with a neutral expression and a cringing sensation, then showed Mitch and Matt the texts, saying he felt depressed. Matt’s friend Lindsay (whom he was staying with while on vacation) arrived and everyone walked six blocks to a bar with outdoor Ping-Pong tables. Daniel arrived with his friend Fran, 22, whose intriguing gaze, Paul noticed with interest, seemed both disbelieving and transfixed in discernment, as if meticulously studying what she knew she was hallucinating. Paul looked at his phone—it had been more than an hour since he texted Laura that he had quarters and, as expected, she hadn’t responded—and heard Daniel say “a Mexican place” and something about “six tacos” to Mitch.

“Eight tacos,” said Paul absently.

“I said six tacos,” said Daniel.

“Six tacos,” said Paul. “Was it, like . . . a taco platter?”

“No. This place has small tacos.”

“It wasn’t a taco platter?”

“It wasn’t a taco platter,” said Daniel.

“I don’t get it,” said Paul without thinking.

“Bro,” said Daniel grinning.

Paul asked Fran what she had eaten.

“Enchiladas,” said Fran.

“I can never remember what those are,” said Paul, and went to the bathroom. When he returned Lindsay invited everyone to her Cinco de Mayo party—in five days, at her apartment—then everyone, except Fran, who Daniel said was an undergrad at Columbia and had left to do homework, walked eight blocks to a bar called Harefield Road to meet a group of people Paul knew as acquaintances from his involvement in poetry. Seconds after sitting in the outdoor
area Paul openly said “I want to comfort myself with food” without looking at anyone, in a relatively loud voice, with a bleak sensation of unsatisfying catharsis from having accurately, he felt, expressed himself. “I’m just going to eat whatever tonight,” he said, and stood, asking if anyone knew about food options at this bar. Two acquaintances said there were, at this time, around 2:30 a.m., only paninis. One of Daniel’s two suitemates, who said she’d written an article about Paul and reviewed books anonymously for
Kirkus
, went with him to order a panini. Paul asked if she liked a baseball book, which she mentioned having reviewed, and she talked without pause for what seemed like ten minutes, during which Paul, staring at her calmly, thought “she’s definitely drunk” and “normally I would be interested in her, to some degree, but currently I’m obsessed with Laura” and “she seems maybe focused on not appearing drunk, which is maybe affecting her perception of time, of how long and off-topic and incomprehensible her answer has become.” Paul carried his panini outside and “openly exchanged witty banter while feeling severely depressed,” he thought while speaking to various acquaintances. One said she’d met Paul, when he lived with Shawn Olive, at least three times. Paul said he didn’t recognize her, but also had forgotten that he’d once lived with Shawn Olive. He ate half his panini and said it was unsatisfying and left the bar and returned with Tate’s cookies and Fig Newmans, which he offered to each person. He asked Lindsay what her roommate, whom she’d been talking about, was doing. Lindsay said “sleeping, watching TV, or smoking weed” and Paul said “we should go to your apartment,” aware he was somewhat desperately, if maybe sarcastically, trying to direct his interest away from Laura, toward any girl he had not yet, but still could, meet tonight.

“This bar’s special feature: ‘paninis until really late,’ ” said Paul to a drunk-looking acquaintance on the way out.

 • • •

In Lindsay’s apartment’s common room Paul sat eating Fig Newmans on one side of a five-seat sofa with Mitch and Daniel on the other side. Lindsay’s roommate was sleeping. Paul was vaguely aware, as he reread texts from Laura, of people pressuring Matt to smoke marijuana. Matt was standing alone in a corner of the room—seeming in Paul’s peripheral vision like a figure in a horror movie—saying things, as explanation for his choice not to smoke marijuana, about his grandfather’s alcoholism. Paul half-unconsciously mumbled something—to himself, he felt—about feeling thirsty and within a few seconds Matt was standing above him asking if he wanted water. After bringing him a glass of water Matt asked if Paul wanted to use his MacBook to look at the internet. Paul felt endeared to a degree that—in combination with his distraught emotional state, and as he dwelled a few seconds on how Matt’s behavior was like the opposite of pressuring someone to smoke marijuana—he felt like crying. Matt returned with a large MacBook from the room he was sleeping in while on vacation.

“Thank you,” said Paul smiling.

“You’re very welcome,” said Matt.

“You’re being really nice to me.”

“You’re the guest here,” said Matt, and Paul gingerly asked if he “by chance” had an iPod cord, sensing he would enjoy further indulging an appreciative subject with his gratuitous helpfulness. Paul accepted Matt’s iPod cord with a sensation, he felt, of daintiness, which remained as he transferred mostly pop-punk songs from Matt’s MacBook to his iPod nano. Around 4:30 a.m., in his room, Paul bit a piece of a 150mg Seroquel and listened to songs he hadn’t heard since high school, mostly the EP
Look Forward to Failure
by the Ataris. He woke at night fifteen hours later and, while showering,
felt like he lived in a module attached to a spaceship far enough from any star to never experience daylight.

Three days later Paul exited the Graham L train station carrying beer and guacamole ingredients in a paper bag from Whole Foods for Lindsay’s Cinco de Mayo party. Sitting cross-legged on the sidewalk against a Thai restaurant was a girl with dyed-black hair. As Paul approached she looked up knowingly with an innocent, wary gaze.

“Hi,” said Paul. “Are you Fran?”

“Yeah,” said Fran.

“I’m Paul.”

“I know,” said Fran, and slowly closed her notebook.

“Are you doing homework?”

“My friend’s homework.”

“Nice,” said Paul staring transfixed at Fran’s delicate and extreme gaze, like that of a skeleton with eyeballs, or a person with their face peeled off. Paul began talking—slowly, before accelerating to a normal speed—about how Daniel had sounded “really drunk” on the phone but had sent witty, insightful, elaborate texts of mostly long, elegant sentences. Fran said Daniel was like that when on Klonopin. Paul asked if he could have a Klonopin and Fran gave him one and looked to his left, where he was surprised to see Daniel standing in place, a few feet away, looking at Fran with the fixed, discerning, earnest gaze of a three-year-old processing information without considering utility or personal relevance. Paul asked Daniel how many Klonopin he had taken.

“Five,” said Daniel.

“Jesus,” said Paul.

 • • •

When Paul entered the party, ahead of Daniel and Fran, Lindsay wreathed a plastic snake around his head and pulled him toward a hallway designated for photographs. Paul mumbled the word “bathroom” and walked away grinning into the kitchen, where Matt was standing alone, not apparently doing anything. Paul asked about his vacation. Matt said he drove a rental car without a plan to Maine and ate seafood in a restaurant alone, did other things alone. “It was really good,” he said, and briefly displayed a haunted and irreducibly unenthusiastic expression before reaching for chips. Paul walked out of the kitchen and looked at Fran sitting alone on the sofa where he’d eaten Fig Newmans five days ago and returned to the kitchen and, while peripherally aware of a self-conscious Matt slowly creating guacamole, asked Daniel what he’d meant—in one of his dense, interesting texts—when he said he felt like there’d been “strange occurrences lately.” Daniel said he read all of Paul’s books last autumn while in San Francisco and told his friends he had a feeling that when he came to New York City he would meet Paul and they would become friends. Daniel was alert and expressionless as an advanced cyborg as he explained that he’d gone to Paul and Frederick’s reading because Amy didn’t want to be alone with Lucie and that none of them had known Paul was reading.