“She was never the slightest bit judgmental. She was interested but not fascinated, and she didn’t see anything wrong with it, or wrong 138
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with me for having spent those years that way. Who else even knows, who else that’s still in my life? You and Danny Boy, who knew me then.
And TJ. I can’t think of anybody else.”
“No.”
“Listen to me, will you? I’m making this all about me. My God, he tortured her. She must have been so frightened. I can’t imagine it, and I can’t stop imagining it. I don’t think I can handle this, baby.”
“You’re handling it right now.”
“This is handling it? I don’t know. Maybe it is.” I drank half my coffee, and she had a couple of sips of tea, and we went outside and walked uptown for a few more blocks. Then she said she was ready to take a cab, and I managed to flag one.
On the ride home she said one word. “Why,” she said, and there was no question mark in her voice. She didn’t sound as though she expected an answer, and God knows I didn’t have one.
She sat down at her computer and spent an hour working on a paid obituary notice for the Times, then printed it out and brought it to me to see if I thought it was all right. Before I could read it she took it back and started tearing it up. She said, “What am I, crazy? I don’t need to run an ad to tell the people she’s gone. The papers and TV’ll take care of that. By this time tomorrow everybody she ever knew is going to know what happened to her, along with the rest of the world.” She went over to the window and looked through it. We’re on the fourteenth floor, and we used to be able to see the World Trade Center towers from our south window. Now, of course, they’re not there to be seen, but for months afterward I’d find her at that window, looking out at their absence.
Around six the doorman called up to announce TJ. She burst into tears when she saw him and he gave her a hug. “You must be hungry,” she told him, and turned to me. “You, too. Have you had anything to eat since breakfast?”
I hadn’t.
“We have to eat,” she announced. “Is pasta all right? And a salad?” We said it was fine.
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“It’s all I ever make. God, I’m boring. How can you stand me? I cook the same meal all the fucking time, the only thing that varies is the shape of the pasta. Maybe I should start cooking meat. Just because I decided to be a vegetarian doesn’t mean the two of you can’t have meat.”
I said, “Why don’t you just make us all some pasta.”
“Thank you,” she said. “That’s what I’ll do.” I hadn’t intended to go to a meeting, but when the time came Elaine suggested it. I said I’d just as soon stay home. She said, “Go. TJ and I are going to play cards. Do you know how to play gin rummy?”
“Sure.”
“How about cribbage?”
“Yeah, a little bit.”
“That’s no good, then. Casino? You know how to play casino?”
“I used to play with my gran.”
“Did she let you win?”
“Are you kidding? She’d cheat if she had to.”
“I bet she didn’t have to. There must be a card game you don’t know.
How about pinochle?”
“Takes three players, don’t it?”
“I’m talking two-handed pinochle,” she said. “It’s a completely different game. You don’t know how to play it?”
“I never even heard of it.”
“Perfect,” she said. “That means I can teach you. Matt, go to a meeting.”
They’ve got a men’s meeting on Wednesdays at St. Columba’s, a small church on West Twenty-fifth Street. It’s specifically for men over forty, and it’s almost exclusively gay men who attend, although that’s not a requirement. The demographics of the neighborhood support its makeup. It’s in Chelsea, where most of the male population is gay, if not over forty.
I could have gone to my regular meeting at St. Paul’s, five minutes from my front door, but for some reason I didn’t want familiar faces, 140
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and people asking how it was going. It wasn’t going well, and I didn’t want to talk about it.
There’s a bus that goes down Ninth Avenue, but I just missed it and took a cab, which made this a banner day for cabs, if for little else.
They were reading the preamble as I got there, and had already taken the collection. I decided they could probably make the rent without my dollar, and I helped myself to a cup of coffee and found a seat. The speaker, dressed and groomed like an ad in GQ, told a story of solitary drinking at the Four Seasons bar, where he’d try to
