as published in Fiction, FICTION, Inc. No. 66, 2023, Pgs. 173-76
*Winner* of The Stark Award in Fiction in Honor of Henry R. Roth at CCNY
Walking down the avenue today, I saw someone dressed as the Gingerbread Man. It’s important to note that it’s mid-February. I had just come out of work, and I needed to pick up some quick food to stave off the endless hunger that plagues me during these cold winter months, so I headed over to that corner store where we used to buy our 40oz beers. Do you remember the clerk who would yell at us? We’d get so nervous we started to run in and throw our money down on the counter, grab our beers, and scamp out. He doesn’t work there anymore; a decade has seen the passing of titles to three different owners. But today, after I paid $3 for my six packages of ramen (and yes, I plan to eat three of them in one sitting), I stepped out and nearly ran into a 6-foot brown-felt replica of the holiday icon. Somehow, I was both astounded and unbothered. You wouldn’t know, but I’ve been trying to turn my usual cold shoulder into a welcome mat of conversation. So, after my initial shock and urge to play it cool, I stopped, turned to him, and said, “I’ve always felt October was the wrong month for Halloween.” And without missing a beat, I swear, he said, “I’ve always felt one month was too short to taste my sweetness”.
I stared at him.
Unphased, he smirked, patted me on the shoulder, and continued his trip south.
There are more moments than not when I find something within this city that fills me red hot, boiling a fever that rages above the tepid temperatures of my rattling radiator, but things like this, things that remind me of you — short and sweet in their melancholy minutia – fuel me brighter and lighter to a place of contentment and non-homicidal tendencies.
I keep a count of the days we haven’t talked, a kind of countdown to my implosion. The scariest part is I don’t know when the ignited fuse will reach the powder keg. Each day tags on to the next, the anticipation worse than the inevitable blow. And even more: the possibility that it will all fizzle out, and the past will fade as quickly as the color from my hair, and I’ll forget what I was even angry about.
This same avenue I walk every day — from home to the train, the train to home; back and forth again – holds more memories of you than it does trees, or coffee shops, or bodegas, or homeless people. I see your face more than I see my own in the reflection of passing store windows. When a car honks behind me and I jump a little, I immediately think of that man – what did we call him? Boom Voice — who scared the shit out of us when, from a block away, he called out, yet it sounded like he was hovering over our shoulder. We turned around and were bewildered as to who just screamed in our ears. But there he was, jogging up the block and waving us down. I don’t even remember what he said, but we laughed and laughed as we carried each other home, our bodies quaking from shock. Eventually, that shivering, terrified laughter was distilled into simple terror.
It seemed we were always living in fear, worried about what was next. We lived in a city where goliaths fell from their untouchable perch in the sky, subway stabbings became as common as bagels on the weekends, viruses floated along the smog-thick air, our friends escaped into other cities and we were left to bob alone in the sea of litter on the streets. Faced with it all you grew tired, falling asleep everywhere you went; asleep on the train, asleep in the booth at the diner, asleep with your eyes open. I, on the other hand, grew more wired; riding my bicycle as fast as my legs could pump, racing away from the sirens behind me, my eyes peeled open in a silent scream, anticipating a pedestrian stepping into the bike lane or the sudden opening of a car door.
Yet our Avenue always kept quiet. Never boring — always safe.
But I’m not afraid anymore; the worst has already happened.
At home, I sit at my desk and stare through the clouded double-pane window which overlooks the block below. The people down there are misty blobs who carry on without a worry in the world, or so I like to think. This same window used to be clear, once upon a time. The only obscurities were the curtains at night or the cold rainy mornings which kept us in bed. I would look out at the listless gray, wondering: did you hear raindrops tapping their way into your dreams? Is that why you laid there so long, with your eyes shut against the muted light of the day? I knew you floated in that between place of pillows and sheets — clouds and imagination. I would lay there too, feeling your warmth grow under the bundle of Sunday morning blankets, eager for the toasted scent of coffee and tea, the burnt edges of cinnamon toast, and the inevitable migration from bed to couch. But for that moment, I kept my head on your chest, waiting to hear if your heartbeats would match with the dripping water that came from the open window onto the avenue.
Sometimes, when I focus with my entire being, I can still hear your heartbeat. With my eyes closed and my earplugs in to drown out the noises from the neighbors, it stays steady and deep. I know it’s probably just my own heart — reverberating in the darkness of my head — but I’ve gotten better at suspending my disbelief. And on those nights with the cold of winter loneliness expanding the gnawing hunger that lives within, obscuring anything else from thought, I put my ear to the mattress and thump my finger ever so lightly on the corner of the bed; the sound vibrates through the box spring and is almost enough to get me by.
Today, after the run-in with the Gingerbread Man, my anger has momentarily departed. It’s probably downtown somewhere with the cabbies, fighting with the bicycle delivery people, relishing the weekend rush of mayhem. Alone in the apartment, everything seems to be silent. Usually, this emptiness has me scratching at the walls, but instead, I sit here at my desk, staring out the window at the avenue, thinking of you. The candles are lit, I’ve got my favorite wool socks on, the tea kettle is bubbling on the stove and preparing for its soprano solo, open journals flow around me, and finally, I am warm; my interminable hunger for something impossible is briefly satiated.
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