Denise was upset that Cheryl had signed the petition to make Brooklyn more dog-friendly. Why are you so mad about it? I asked her. Because Cheryl signed the petition only because her boyfriend Keith lives in Brooklyn, she told me. What do you have against Brooklyn? She had nothing against Brooklyn and she was okay with dogs too. It was the principle. But why is that your business? I asked.
You don’t understand, she said, and she started to describe mistakes I’d made in my life. Some I didn’t remember, some untrue. She said I’d had the affair with the jazz guitarist out of spite for jazz. You see, Denise laughed, you do the same things I do—only you get better results. You silly photographer, you—there’s something about the way you work or how your mom bounced you. And she always felt a little uneasy around me because I borrowed money from people and pretended I didn’t know what they were talking about when they came to collect. You’re puerile, she said, adding that my pictures of the peninsula were barren, existing not only out of reality, but out of the realm of the beautiful, and really, what was my point?
And you talk to me about a dog petition? she said.
I didn’t even like dogs, so Denise spoke more truth than she could possibly know. But railing on my peninsula pictures couldn’t be forgiven. I rented a semi and carefully wheeled it into Denise’s Queens neighborhood, only clipping a decade-old Honda on the way. I played with the airbrakes until she came out of her gray house.
Hi Denise, I said. I’ve decided to run over your house with a semi today. She didn’t say anything, just walked to the front tire and kicked it.
I wanted her to remove valuables. She returned to the house and cranked the TV.
Maybe I wasn’t a good photographer, but the maul of machinery into a pre-war two-story made up for all that. I killed a lot during the first run-through and then I killed some more. I slapped the semi’s door like she was my horse.