And for the briefest instant, I considered getting back on the horse and riding the chaos that was life with Deirdre, surrendering to her dark charm, allowing my personal life to mirror the violence that was all around me. If nothing else, I could stop feeling guilty for dumping her.
I realized that as soon as I sleep with a woman I feel responsible for her happiness. Pretty much for the rest of my life. I’ve no idea why that is. Two or three years of therapy would probably uncover the reasons.
I thought of the 911 collection, of her complete lack of distress as she played calls for me. It was a soothing methadone that killed thoughts of reconciliation. Besides that, Colin and Jeannie would never speak to me again if I got back with Deirdre.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
And Deirdre was gone.
I downloaded her bio-vid. I couldn’t resist. How would Deirdre present herself to a prospective date? Would it be raunchy sex scenes? Footage from one of her flash concerts? I wasn’t sure she’d emphasize the rock star part of her life, given what had happened at her last concert.
I couldn’t wait—I played her bio-vid during the sixty-second break before my next date. It opened with an eleven-or twelve-year-old Deirdre squatting in a little garden on the side of a garage, a wood pile in the background. She pulled a big red tomato and held it up, grinning. The scene drifted into another: An eight-year-old Deirdre sitting cross-legged on a hardwood floor in pajamas, working on a puzzle, pieces spread all around her. Then Deirdre buried in Christmas gifts and torn wrapping paper, sitting beside my sister, Jilly, in front of our tree, both of them grinning wildly. Deirdre, getting on my school bus on the first day of kindergarten, waving goodbye to my mother. Pedaling a three-wheeled bike, my cousin Jerome standing in the big basket on the back, his hands on her shoulders. On vacation with my family in Puerto Rico, sunburned in a restaurant with half a dozen leis around her neck. Sitting on the porch of my childhood home, before a hurricane tore it apart.
It was beautifully done, brief moment drifting into brief moment, all of them happy, nostalgic, all of them scenes adapted from my photos, with Deirdre in my place.
I cried as I watched. It was so pathetic. My heart broke for her. Suddenly I wished I could give her some of that childhood—that garden, that puzzle, that vacation, instead of whatever it was she’d really gotten. I didn’t like to imagine what she’d gotten. I’d once asked her about the little scar under her chin, and she said it came from the button-eye on her teddy bear, when her stepfather hit her with it. Maybe she was actually doing well, given the memories she was trying to keep crammed into the basement of her mind. I don’t know.
As the images faded to black, I thought again of my conversation with the wheelchair woman, whatever her name had been—Maya. There would be no more childhoods like that for anyone, not when a kid had to carry a gas mask, pass through security checkpoints, run from a hungry stray dog out of fear that someone had surgically implanted a bomb in it.
A lovely red-haired woman materialized. I was a wet, sobbing mess. I wiped my eyes. She tried not to notice.
“I’m sorry,” I said, “I’m not feeling very well. I’m going to discontinue. No offense.”
I terminated my session.
The room seemed dingy and scuffed after the virtual garden. I went on crying. I felt my hope for a better tomorrow, for blue skies and a button-nosed girlfriend, slough off like dead skin, leaving me pink and raw.
I felt like I’d been struggling in every aspect of my life for a hundred years—struggling to earn enough money to survive, struggling to find love, struggling to not die a violent death. The weight of all of that was crashing down as I considered the possibility of things actually getting
The selection screen dropped down, startling me. For a long time I just stared at the little pictures of all the women I’d met. Then I started tapping profiles. I didn’t look at any of their bio-vids, I just started tapping away at the women I would be interested in dating. Danielle, the Italian happiness-machine; Savita, the Indian princess; three, four, five others.
I hesitated at wheelchair woman.
I sniffed, wiped my nose on my sleeve, stared at her smiling picture.
I had a connection to her. She was my sensei—she’d whapped me with a stick, and I’d awakened to the truth. I tapped her profile. What the hell.
Then I came to Deirdre’s profile.
I didn’t tap it, and my tape of neurotic Deirdre-thoughts didn’t start playing. I felt a warm sadness—that was all.
I read somewhere that we choose to date people for reasons that are lost in our personal histories, and we keep making the same choices—the same mistakes—till we figure out why.
The Civil Defense alarm went off while I was walking home. I pulled out my gas mask and flipped it over my nose and mouth in one deft motion, a gunslinger fast on the draw. People raced in-doors—their masks (in a wide variety of colors and styles) and their tight, hunched shoulders made them look like strange chimps.
Six boys in red-brick camouflage ran by clutching short, square weapons that swung from their fists like lunchboxes. I stepped out of their way. Shit, they were recruiting them younger and younger. I had no idea who they worked for—police, CD, Jumpy-Jump, fire department. They were all pretty much the same now—gangs fighting for power.
I walked on, enjoying the sun on my face, the light afternoon breeze. I realized that my mood had shifted—I felt light and empty. I took a deep, easy breath. I fished my phone out of one pocket, the printout of phone numbers for my speed-date matches out of another.
“That was quick,” Maya said.
“I don’t think I can handle the wheelchair; I want to be honest about that and I hope it doesn’t hurt your feelings,” I said. The honking of the alarm went on in the background.
“Okay. Is that what you called to tell me?”
“I just don’t want to waste your time. I don’t want to hurt anybody. I—”
I wanted to tell her that the world was fleeting and beautiful. I wanted to tell her that the white windmills on the roofs of the exhaust-blackened buildings were all turning in unison, and that somehow she was responsible for me seeing this.
“I’d like to ask you to spend some of your time with me. If you give me some of your time, your precious time, I won’t waste it.”
She didn’t answer. I heard a sniffle and thought she might be crying.
“I’m good at that part—the now part,” I added.
I was right, she was crying. It sounded like she was wiping her nose with a tissue. Then I realized that wasn’t possible.
“I think I’ll pass,” she said.
“Fair enough,” I said, both disappointed and relieved.
“I’m looking for someone I can count on. I’ve had enough of casual to last a lifetime.”
So was I. It was the wheelchair. It was dumb in a way, rejecting someone out of hand for being in a wheelchair. I’d never dated someone in a wheelchair, how did I know I wouldn’t be fine with it?
Because I knew. I didn’t want a woman of these times. I wanted Ms. Right.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“No problem.” She hung up.
I stuck my phone in my pocket and headed home.
There was a crowd gathered in Chippewa Square. I peered through the heads into the open space by the statue of Oglethorpe, and felt a sick sinking sensation: they were carrying out executions, right near my home. Six or seven members of the DeSoto Police—the local segment of the Civil Defense that was controlled by “Mayor” Duck Adams—were conducting them. (Three or four other “Mayors” had control over smaller sections of the city, last time I checked.)
A fat DeSoto thug with a flattop shoved a gas gun—the kind with a black mask on the end of the barrel—into the screaming face of an old lady while two other gas-masked DeSotos held her. The gun squealed; the old lady went stiff as a board, then dropped to the cobblestones, twitching and jerking like all the muscles in her body had spasmed at once (which they had). Her mouth formed a rictus “O”; her eyes were rolled up, exposing red veins on white.
“Wicked shit,” a kid next tome who couldn’t be more than thirteen said with a mix of disgust and excitement
