She took my thumb and my forefinger and pressed them together.
Un, deux, trois… My mouth filled with water.
OPEN SEA
Sally. Sally. Sally. I sailed.
I felt so alone that my skin could have peeled off with the wind.
S
I am sipping a cold strawberry-flavored ice cream from a straw. Around me, it smells like fried potatoes.
A
What is it that the Greeks tried to teach us? Loss may be our only fortune?
L
I open my mouth. What a gentle Anglo-Saxon tone. I ask the waitress for a serving of fries. She brings me a plate of fries.
“Careful,” she says, “they’re hot.”
I pick one up carefully with my thumb and my forefinger. I dip it into my cold cup of ice cream.
Fire and ice.
“I like eating them that way too,” a man says to me, twisting his baseball cap deeper onto his head.
I don’t understand what is metaphor and what isn’t.
I pull the sleeves up on my cardigan. It’s so soft. I can’t stop touching the rosy pink weaving.
L
The waitress tells me to call her Lisette.
Y
“Sally…” Lisette is calling my attention.
I look up. “Yes?”
“The most important thing is,” Lisette says as she leans over the counter, “that now…” she leans in even closer and whispers, “you’re with us.”
US
It’s not what I would have expected. There are no angels. No apostles. No saints. There is only Cosa Nostra.
“This is your home, now,” Lisette explains.
I dip a French fry into the cloud of whipped cream atop my new ice cream drink.
EXERCISES
Lisette tells me we have to do regular exercises to help my mind stay on this side of the story.
EXERCISE WITH THE PHOTO
Lisette shows me a photo and asks me who this is.
“This is little Nicky from floor five,” I reply.
“Good,” Lisette says. “And who is Nicky?”
“He’s the one who killed me.”
“Correct,” Lisette says. There is a fine dip in her lip and I like to stare at it. Lisette taps the photo to get my attention.
“Sally,” she says.
“Yes.” I look back at the photo.
GENERAL QUESTIONS
“Sally, are you in pain?”
I take a moment to reflect.
“I don’t know,” I respond.
“Do you remember what pain feels like?”
I take a moment to reflect.
“I suppose it’s unpleasant.”
“That’s right. And…?”
“And…” I’m concentrating, “it preoccupies the psyche at large.”
“And?”
“And…” I keep thinking, “it feels very personal.”
Lisette refills my glass of water, and the ice cubes crackle.
SPECIFICS
“Can you remember the last time you felt pain?”
I think about it carefully and I see no evidence to share. I shake my head.
IMAGINATION EXERCISE
“Close your eyes,” Lisette says, “and I want you to imagine the sea and the waves coming toward you. Do you see it?”
I close my eyes. I can feel Lisette’s hand on my own hand, resting on the counter. She is softly pressing my thumb and forefinger together, so that they touch and separate, touch and separate. I hear the waves, squeezing, curling, rushing forward.
“I see the water,” I tell her.
“What do you feel,” Lisette asks quietly.
I shrug.
“Nothing.”
Now both of my hands are being guided by Lisette. Touching and separating. Touching and separating.
“Can you see a little boy on the shore?” she asks.
IMAGINATION EXERCISE REVISITED
There is a little boy, pattering his feet in the sea foam on the shore.
“Yes,” I say, “I see him.”
“What do you feel?” she asks.
I shrug. “Nothing,” I say.
“Keep watching,” she whispers.
The little boy runs into the water. He starts swimming.
IMAGINATION EXERCISE REVISITED
There’s a little boy out in the water. I see his head bobbing up and down. The waves are getting bigger. There is another boy. Their arms are twining together.
IMAGINATION EXERCISE REVISITED
There is a little boy out near the horizon. He is all alone.
“Do you see his face?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“I think he would like to get out of the water.”
“Why doesn’t he?”
“I think the water wants him to stay in.”
IMAGINATION EXERCISE REVISITED
There is a little boy being sucked into the water.
“Sally?” Lisette whispers.
“Yes?”
“If you feel nothing,” she asks, “then what’s coming out of your eyes?”
JOKEBOOK
Lisette has given me a book of jokes. She encourages me to memorize them. It’s important to have a sense of humor about my situation. I memorize the jokes.
TANYA
Lisette tells me to visit a girl named Tanya and tell her my jokes. The girl named Tanya lives in a room with one wall made of bars. When the guard opens the bars, I step inside her room. Tanya tells me to get the fuck out. Tanya tries to scratch up my face. The guard hits her knuckles with the baton.
TANYA TELLS ME THAT I’M A CRAZY MAMA
She has strong opinions. She has a willful sense of character. Tanya tells me I’m the most pathetic old hag she’s ever seen. I tell her I don’t understand what she means. Tanya tells me that she’s seen my boy. My boy? Yeah, Mama, your fucking kid. I don’t have a child. Yeah you fucking do, Tanya says. I smile and shake my head. Tanya grabs my head with her two swollen hands. Wake up, Crazy Mama, she screams into my face.
IT’S OKAY
I tell her that she has a difficult character, but it does not bother me.
She tells me if I show my fucking face in her cell again she’ll pull my eyeballs out with her fingers and stuff them up my asshole.
I ask her if she wants to hear a joke.
WHAT DID ONE MURDERER SAY TO THE OTHER?
Tanya waits for the punchline like a child.
Tanya is a child.
Tanya wants to punch each line out of my mouth.
Tanya wants a good laugh so she can be a good girl.
“Knife to meet you.”
WHEN SHE LAUGHS
There’s a sinking feeling. A drain in my heart gulping up her voice. It feels dirty and thick.
I don’t know why, but when it’s gone, I miss it.
I tell Lisette so.
RUSSIAN DOLLS
“They are unbearable, aren’t they?” I say to Tanya.
“Oh yeah?” Her eyes light up.
“Well,” I continue, “they are just so full of themselves…”
MY CHEST
Feels like it’s
