Any Other City, page 7
I was just thinking about the first time we had sex in a public place. Do you remember? We were in that Second Cup downtown. The one near the library. I was so nervous, but you just took my hand and led me into an out of order bathroom and locked the door. You sat on the edge of the sink and hiked up your skirt. You kissed me hard. Then, you cupped my chin with your hand and told me to pull off your panties. I fumbled them off of you. The room smelled like urine and cleaning products, but by the time I took off your panties, it had already started to smell a little like sex. I need you, you said, to put your fingers in me right now. I slid a finger into you, and it went in so easily. It’s like your pussy was pulling me in. You smooshed yourself against me. (That might have been the afternoon when I suggested the band name Tractor Beam Snatch. You made a clicking noise with your tongue and rolled your eyes. Anything with the word “tractor,” you said, is gonna sound like country music.)
You got into a better position on the sink and told me to fuck you hard with two or three fingers. I slid two fingers into you, and you felt so good inside. I wanted more than anything to taste you, but you’d started rubbing your clit, and I could tell you were already on the verge. Then, with your eyes shut tight under the fluorescent lights, you came, holding on to the sink with your free hand so you wouldn’t fall as your body shook against mine. I started to slow down and fuck you more gently. No, you said. More. I need you to fuck me more. I went back to fucking you hard and imagined my fingers dripping with warm honey, imagined the honey oozing over the lip of the sink and pooling on the concrete floor. After coming a while, you told me to stop. You’d had your fill. Your face was glowing. You stood and tidied yourself. You pulled a fresh pair of panties from your purse. I used to be a Brownie, you said.
Always be prepared, I said. Isn’t that your motto? I kissed you. You tasted like coffee and smoke. I washed my hands with the gunky pink soap from the dispenser. Then, I dried them on my jeans because they were out of paper towels. Maybe that’s why the bathroom was out of order.
Actually, you said, our motto in the Brownies was “lend a hand.” You pulled my right hand to your lips and kissed my damp fingers. Then, you kissed my left-hand fingers. Those ones get all the love, you said, eyeing my right hand, but these ones are also very useful and comely. Did you know “comely” means attractive?
Oh, I know, I said. I used to play D&D.
Oh really, you said. I bet you were a Dungeon Master. I nodded sheepishly. You smirked. Let’s get out of here, you said. This room reeks of piss and pussy.
—
Sadie’s apartment is located in Alley of Branches, the same alley I spent days mapping after moving here. Before going to Sadie’s place, I popped into Mr. Swim, the swimming-pool-turned-coffee-shop, for a pot of green tea. I wondered again about the older woman in the purple-and-yellow swimsuit and goggles.
I arrived at Sadie’s precisely five minutes after the time she’d scrawled on the napkin. When she opened the door, I hugged her and handed her a bottle of good red wine. (I’d found it in a display with a sign that translated to “Yummy and Cheap.” I’ve always tended to select bottles based on their labels, and this one had an illustration of a black cat licking one of its paws. I asked the androgynous salesperson, Is it good? They nodded and punched up my order.)
Sadie toured me around her charming apartment and introduced me to her friends Rosetta and Naomi. I recognized Naomi as one of the women Sadie had photographed and interviewed for Three Imaginary Girls and When We Were a Girl. I told myself I wouldn’t ask Naomi any questions about that unless Sadie brought it up. While nibbling on the spread of charcuterie, I was also introduced to Sadie’s cat, Tufty. Her paws looked like furry little pompoms.
Sadie, Rosetta, and Naomi all talked very quickly and kept toggling between languages. Whenever they mentioned someone I didn’t know, Sadie would turn to me and distill that person’s essence into a phrase. One person was “a vile, vile man”; another was “a dashing but pervy gallerist.” After a while, another friend of Sadie’s arrived. Her name was Algy. I recognized her as another of the women Sadie had featured in Three Imaginary Girls and When We Were a Girl. Seeing her up close, I saw that Algy had the faintest wisp of a moustache. I was reminded of the peach fuzz moustaches grown by the boys who used to punch me in junior high hallways. Those boys often wore Led Zeppelin T-shirts and had ugly stick-and-poke tattoos. The peach fuzz had looked awful on them, but it was positively adorable on Algy.
Hey, Algy said, half waving at us. Eloise has a date with a bricklayer she could not break.
I’m jealous, Naomi said. I’d like to be broken by a bricklayer. Everyone laughed.
Sadie poured Algy a glass of sparkling wine and topped up all of our glasses. Then, she raised her champagne flute, saying, May we all follow in Eloise’s footsteps and have our bodies broken by beautiful lovers. We said cheers to that. I might have blushed.
After Algy arrived, I found myself stealing glances at her. I tried to be discrete. Everyone else in the room intimidated me, but Algy seemed open and welcoming. She reminded me of a gregarious, graceful bird. Maybe I saw her as a bird because she was wearing a blue T-shirt with the silhouettes of two crows perched on a telephone wire.
Later in the evening, when Algy was sitting on the couch beside me, I leaned over and said to her, I like your shirt. Isn’t that the logo for American Crow?
She beamed. Yes! I love the American Crow! My band mailed them a demo, but we never got a letter back. She sipped her wine. She seemed pretty tipsy.
Wait, I said. You have a band?
Yes. We’re not that good. Pause. We are okay. Pause. We have some moments.
What do you play?
I play guitar. Eloise also plays guitar. We both sing. Our drummer, Lottie, left us to join a band called Kelp Goblet.
Kelp Goblet, I repeated.
Yes, Kelp Goblet. Like dark metal. Lottie has always been a metal girl. Now it’s just me and Eloise.
What’s your band called?
So okay, we used to be called Ink Moon. Not Pink Moon. Ink Moon. Now we’re Blood Moon.
What kind of music is Blood Moon?
Kind of like soft and hard. Like pretty and angry. Like quiet and loud. You look confused, and that is perfect. It’s kind of like music for confused people. We will be quiet and pretty, like background music. Then, we will be loud and angry, like with a punk attitude. We play with volume.
You’re talking about music? Sadie asked. Algy is so good! Suddenly, Sadie was standing before us, topping up our wineglasses. Algy and Eloise, she said, are two of my favourite people in the city. And the music they make is raw and simple and smart.
Yes, Algy said, we are certainly simple! She sipped her wine.
Now, Algy, you know I meant that as a compliment.
I know, Algy said. Yes, I know. She smiled.
A few minutes later, Algy surprised me by asking if I ever wore makeup. I told her that I used to wear some makeup when I was a mopey teen.
Mopey? she asked.
Like sad, I said. I was so goth.
Goth is good, she said. But the goth makeup is like a ghost style. You’d make a pretty ghost. You should let me do your makeup one time.
Maybe, I said. I need to go soon, but I want a little more wine.
Algy snatched my glass off the table. She disappeared for a moment. When she came back, both of our glasses were full. She held my glass just out of reach. I have a glass for you, she said. But you must promise that you will let me do your makeup. It will be fun. And you can meet Eloise. Do you agree?
I agreed. She handed me my glass, and we softly clinked glasses to seal the deal.
—
All week, I kept puzzling over what imaginary art to put in my imaginary room before my next meeting with Sadie. I had vague ideas, but they all seemed like watered-down versions of her room. I found myself looping back to the questions she’d asked at our first meeting. Why did I want to make art? Who had been the most influential person in my life so far? What was I reading and listening to lately? And then there was her other condition that the art filling the room needed to be something nobody but me would ever create. So, I had a week to invent something that mattered, something that would resonate, and something that was incredibly specific to my life. What could I come up with that would meet the overlapping needs of that weird artsy Venn diagram?
I started with the simplest question: Who has been the most influential person in my life so far? My dad. He was undoubtedly the answer to that question. I haven’t really told you much about growing up with my dad, but you’ve heard flashes here and there. My mom left when I was six. Much later, I learned that she’d fled to a women’s shelter with me when I was four after enduring several years of verbal and physical abuse from my dad. But he had tracked her down, threatening to kill her if she ever took me again. She knew he meant it. Within a couple of years, things became unbearable again. When she left this time, she left me behind, knowing it was the only way to keep us both alive. Later, she filed for divorce, granting my father sole custody with the stipulation that she have visitation rights. She strove to make our visits cheerful, but I was a sullen and distant kid.
I remember once offhandedly telling a friend that my dad was someone you might read about in a newspaper article that ended with the phrase “before turning the gun on himself.” I’d shrugged and smiled, but my friend appeared shaken. He pursed his lips, scrunched his face slightly, and asked if I was okay, if I needed to talk to someone. I rarely talk about my dad because I don’t know how to be honest without eliciting pity. And I’ve never wanted you to pity me.
I tried to be invisible when I was a kid. I wanted to shrink to the size of a thimble and sleep in a matchbox in a small hole in the wall. I wanted to walk into the wilderness and find a peregrine falcon to share a soft nest with me in a sturdy tree. I wanted to be a different person. I wanted to stop feeling worthless and clumsy and stupid. When you fell for me, I was astonished, because I saw myself as a black hole, physically, emotionally, and socially. And, truthfully, I was trying to be a black hole, because being visible made me feel so vulnerable, like I was walking around without skin.
Eventually, I managed to stitch together some imaginary art to fill the imaginary room. I decided to recreate my teenage bedroom and scatter little memories of my dad around the room on recipe cards, like the kind my grandma still keeps in a metal box beside the cutting board. The memories related to my dad would be a mixture of mundane things and intense things. I jotted down a few memories, which unearthed more sadness than I’d like to admit.
I also decided to put a boom box on a dresser to blast some of the music I’d listened to when I was at my most angsty. I’d make a mixtape that was heavy on the Cure, Public Image Ltd, Joy Division, and Siouxsie and the Banshees. I was less sure about what to call the imaginary work, but I figured something would come to me.
As usual, I arrived early for my meeting with Sadie and ordered my standard coffee and pastry. While waiting, I wondered if Em would ask me about the girl in the pet store, Maddie. But as soon as I sat down, a customer appeared in her shoe store, and soon she was busy being her naturally gregarious self.
Sadie breezed in wearing a long dress with diagonal white and grey stripes. Everything else was grey: her bag, her tassel earrings, her kitten heels. Her lipstick and her chunky bracelet were both blood red. I’ve never understood how certain women seem to effortlessly coordinate their outfits. I remember when you introduced me to one of your favourite movies, Heathers. There’s a line about how Winona Ryder’s character “can’t accessorize for shit.” To me, it seemed like throwaway dialogue, but you said something about how perfect that line was. You paused the VHS tape and broke it down for me. You explained how women put outfits together and how they accessorize. It was dizzyingly complicated. Sadie is the opposite of “can’t accessorize for shit,” whatever that is. Her outfits have a harmony, and there are always one or two pieces that really sing. I was wearing my usual uniform of jeans, T-shirt (today, forest green), leather jacket, and black combat boots.
We caught up on what we’d each been up to since Sadie’s cocktail party. I tried to be expansive in my description, but my life was pretty small. She, on the other hand, had just been invited to sit on a jury at the Venice Film Festival.
After sharing that news, she said, Tell me about your room, Tracy.
I was an apprentice baker with a crummy sketchbook and she was a famous artist, but okay, no problem. I gave her a quick overview of my idea to recreate my bedroom—the memories of my dad on recipe cards, the music on the boom box. And I told her my tentative title, In My Room.
When I stopped talking, Sadie nodded and said it was “interesting” and “clever.” Then, she peppered me with questions. First, she asked about the title, saying she thought it was the name of a Beach Boys song. I agreed that the title needed work.
I like the idea of the memories, she said. But I’m not sure about this scavenger hunt situation. I’m imagining visitors prowling around the room, bumping into each other, like they are participating in an Easter egg hunt. It seems too playful. Too much like a game. Maybe there’s a way to make it more intimate. You mentioned that your grandmother keeps her recipe cards in a metal box. Maybe it would be possible to have little stations around the room, each one with a metal box filled with a set of cards. People might take the cards. Hmm. We might need to think more about that idea. The music rattling the walls in the room is nice, but I think I’d be worried while I was in your recreated bedroom in the gallery that your dad might burst in. If you want visitors to get a sense of the room as a sanctuary, maybe you should use headphones. The memories that you’ve drawn up for the cards are a nice mix of unremarkable and harrowing. You’ve included how these memories make you feel, looking back on them. You might want to remove your feelings from the cards and let people simply sit with your memories. To have them feel what you might have felt. She paused. Does all of that make sense? I know it’s a lot. I’m trying to be helpful and give a sense of how this might actually work in a gallery, which I know is difficult. But I think your ideas are great. I’m impressed. And we’re both fans of post-punk.
We talked about bands for a while, and then she talked about how making this kind of art can stir up “weird and hard emotional gumbo.” I was surprised to hear her use the word “gumbo.”
Sometimes when you create art about painful things, she said, it can be cathartic. But sometimes it can just bring you back to the pain you’re trying to turn into art. It’s a weird alchemy with no guaranteed formula. Sadly, there are no safety goggles that can protect us. Are you okay? Do you have people you can talk to?
I’m okay, thanks, I said. I didn’t really have anybody nearby to talk to, but I felt fine, and I didn’t want to saddle her with sadness.
Okay, she said. But if that changes, let me know. I can put you in touch with someone. I nodded. Algy said she’s going to meet up with you this week.
Yeah, I said. Algy seems cool. I decided not to mention that I’d promised to let her put makeup on me.
Algy is very pretty, Sadie said. She’s quite the heartbreaker.
Oh, I said, it’s not like that. I have a girlfriend.
I know. But distance can complicate things. From my experience, at least. She smeared some butter on a corner of her scone. Unfortunately, she said, next week is the last week I can meet with you. After that I fly to Tokyo. Then, I fly back to Vietnam to spend time with friends and family and maybe a couple of old lovers. That should be interesting. Anyway. What do you want to do next week? She bit into her scone.
Oh right. Tokyo. I forgot. I don’t know. I sipped my coffee.
If you’re still thinking about art school, she said, maybe we could talk about that? I could answer any questions you have and give you a sense of what to expect. Do you like oysters?
Uh, I’ve only tried them once. They feel weird in your mouth. But I liked the juice in the shell.
Well, Sadie said, they don’t feel weird in my mouth, but I know what you mean. They’re an acquired taste. Like avocados or cock and ball torture. Sorry. That was strange of me to say. I should be more professional. How would you like to meet for cocktails and oysters next week instead of coffee? It would be my treat.
I’d love that. Thank you. Just tell me where and I’ll be there.
—
The address Algy gave me for her apartment was in the middle of Silver Alley. True to its name, the cobblestones in the alley were brushed with silver paint, though they had lost most of their shine. (The next time I visited Algy, they were dazzlingly silver. According to my guidebook, they are spruced up regularly with fresh silver paint.) It took me a long time to find the furniture store she lives above, because it’s also a restaurant, which she neglected to mention. There was no street address, and after circling the same part of the alley several times, I spotted a simple hand-painted wooden sign hanging above a doorway. It depicted a bowl of noodle soup with a couch, a dining table, and a bed floating in the steamy broth. At the edge of the sign, a soup spoon with a tiny chair in a puddle of broth was being raised to someone’s lips. According to my language dictionary, the shop’s name translates to “Tasty Furniture.” I went in.
All around me people were slurping from steamy, fragrant bowls of noodle soup. All the tables, chairs, and lamps in the restaurant appeared to have price tags on them. I glimpsed an adjacent room down a hallway with couches, coffee tables, beds, and desks, and yet more customers lowering their heads to soup bowls. There were a few people wandering around, discreetly checking the furniture prices. A woman dressed in black with her hair in a high ponytail approached me with a menu. No, thank you, I said. I finally found the staircase tucked between the toilet and the kitchen.
At the top of the stairs, I was surprised to see that none of the doors had numbers. I spotted the door Algy had described to me. It was bright pink, with a black cartoon heart drawn on it. I was ten minutes late, and I’m never late. I inhaled deeply, exhaled slowly, and knocked.
