| |
Zeke’s cough was better by the next day. He lounged in front of the fire most of the day and slept under two down blankets with me at night. I kept up my workout routine and had been slowly adding to it for something more to do. My ankle was feeling stronger, and I went back to running the stairs with my ankle wrapped. My shoulder was no longer tender, and I’d stopped wearing the sling the day after Julia died. I could see remarkable changes in myself. I’d been in shape during my soccer days, but considering that I’d only focused on my flaws then, I couldn’t imagine that I’d appreciated it enough. My arms and legs were toned, and my stomach was flat and slightly six pack-ish. And my shoulders! In soccer, we didn’t work out our arms much, so the results were confined to the lower half. But since I’d been doing push-ups and working out with my ten-pound weights every day, man alive! My shoulders looked amazing. I’d always been slightly slope-shouldered, but now they were broad and alert, ready for anything. I felt powerful and invincible. I was beginning to think it was a first step into my new self, a violent shove into the person I hoped I was becoming. It was like wearing those panties. If I could make myself feel powerful physically, maybe I could make myself feel powerful mentally. At the very least, I had that.
I looked at myself in the mirror and took stock. My Norwegian-Mexican mix, which my dad jokingly called “Norwexican,” had given me some nice features. I’d always looked at my face as a whole, not as a sum of individual parts. And because of that, I had invariably felt plain and unembellished, unlike other women. But as I perused my face, I noticed each feature independently of the others. The shape of my face reflected more of my Norwegian side, but I had the olive skin and dark hair and eyes of my Mexican side. Not a bad mix, I thought, admiring my face anew.
However, as I looked at myself as a whole again, head to toe, I clearly saw that my hair didn’t fit this new mighty version of me. My hair had always been long and wavy, and I hadn’t cut it since my breakup with Brian. It was much longer than usual and had grown past my shoulder blades, falling almost to the middle of my back. I’d been putting it in a bun most of the time to keep it out of my way, so I hadn’t noticed how long it had grown. It was time to cut my hair to go along with my new body and mind.
I remembered that Kelly was a hairstylist, so I ran to her apartment in search of ideas. In her bedroom, I found a stack of magazines called Hair’s How. I flipped through five of them, dismissing most cuts as not fierce enough before I found an image of Michelle Williams with super-short hair and longish bangs. It felt right and totally different than any style I’d ever had, mainly because I’d never had the courage to cut it that short. There was a step-by-step guide on how to cut the style, and I knew I wasn’t going to find anything better.
I snatched a pair of Kelly’s fancy scissors out of a black leather case by her bed and headed to the bathroom with the magazine. I pulled my hair into a low ponytail. I took a deep breath and exhaled, then cut off everything below the rubber band. I shook my head back and forth, and it felt like a hundred pounds of misery had been lifted, as if I’d chopped off bad juju. I threw a good fifteen inches of my hair into the trash. I wet my hair then checked the guide and sectioned it out to match the diagram on the page. I was ready to start cutting. I pulled each section through my middle- and forefinger and began cutting like the woman in the magazine. Each snip was like a step in the right direction, and I could feel myself emerging from a shroud of biting regret. When I was done, I put my hands on the sink and leaned forward to examine my work. Who is this person?
For the next few days, every time I caught my reflection in the mirror, I took a few moments to admire it. I was feeling stronger, with confidence that I’d never felt before tingling under my skin. I had an urge to read the end of the book about the bitter woman. I rushed to my bookshelf and spent the next hour reading the last pages. The woman ended up scrambling to find her long-lost family and friends in the last days of her life. They gathered around her deathbed while she used her last words to poetically list her regrets. I closed the book with determination. That will not be me.
I guarded my newfound spirit for the next two days, intentionally turning away from anything that would threaten its strength. There was no dwelling on failed relationships or enviously brooding about my married friends’ happy kids. No ominous sounds outside or creaks in my building could make me crumble into a pile of anxiety. Walking away from those thoughts kept me grounded. Instead, I focused on ideas for how to make it to the border.
The bike in Tom’s apartment wasn’t a good or safe idea, but it was all I had. I’d dismissed it at the time because I didn’t think I was in shape enough for that level of activity, but my workouts left me in pretty good shape, and I felt more assured that I could manage it, at least until I found a car with keys. But the bike needed to be my last resort, not my first. There were more cars on other streets that I hadn’t checked.
Since I was feeling more confident, I decided to make another foray outside. I waited until just before sunset. While the low light would make it harder for me to see anyone lurking, it also meant they wouldn’t be able to see me as easily. I brought a flashlight along with the box cutter and crowbar.
When I climbed down the fire escape on the east side of the building, my hands weren’t shaking, and my breathing was even. I darted behind a car and looked around. Finding nothing, I rushed across the street and made my way to the next street over. As I rounded the corner, I spotted about ten cars along the block. Slowly, I made my way down, checking the doors, but I only found two I could get into. One was unlocked, and the other had a window opened enough for me to slide my arm in and unlock from the inside. Neither had keys, and I tried hotwiring, but again it didn’t work. I wondered if I was doing it wrong or if the batteries were just dead from sitting on the street for so long. Without the internet, I couldn’t watch the tutorial again.
I managed to check the next two streets but had no luck with keys or tapping the wires together. The last car on the third block was locked, but I could see a set of keys in the cup holder between the seats. My hopes soared. While I was nervous about smashing the window and drawing attention to myself, it was worth it. I grabbed my crowbar, held it like a baseball bat, and swung as hard as I could. The glass shattered loudly, a few pieces hitting my arms and face. I opened the door and slid into the driver’s seat. I tried every key on the keychain, but none of them fit into the ignition. They looked more like apartment and mailbox keys than car keys.
The sun had fully set, and only a light glow illuminated my surroundings. As I dashed back toward my building with the intent of checking the streets on the other side, I heard a car engine close by that seemed as though it was heading in my direction. Not wanting to take any chances, I ducked into an alleyway across the street from my apartment. The car was coming closer, but I couldn’t see any headlights. A few minutes later, I saw an SUV heading north along the main road. I pulled back into the alleyway until the engine faded away.
With my breath coming in shorter gasps, I decided to go back home. Over the next couple of days, I scoured the streets around my apartment but didn’t venture past the park. There were too many hiding places for someone to lie in wait. My courage was weakening at the idea of going farther than I already had. I’d searched all the way to the bridge leading to Brooklyn on the south side of my apartment. On the north, I’d made it seven blocks. Past that was mostly industrial buildings where I would have been too out in the open. In total, I estimated that I’d checked at least twenty-five cars and come up empty. But I did find two granola bars, a half-eaten Snickers bar, and a switchblade.
On the fourth day, while trying to convince myself to check the streets past the park, I heard the tinkling of an ice cream truck. That can’t be right. I walked over to the window and looked outside. I couldn’t see it, but I could hear it, which led me to believe maybe it was in my head, but god, I hoped not. A few seconds later, the big white Mister Softee truck eased into my line of sight. It was going as slowly as an ice cream truck would if it were trying to lure customers out of their houses to buy a swirled soft serve with sprinkles. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. In an effort to clear the surreal image, I closed my eyes and shook my head. But when I opened them again, the truck was still there. It looked as if there was someone in the driver’s seat, but all I could see from this angle were legs. The truck’s tinkling and its slow progress on the deserted street were eerie in the silence.
I walked away from the window and thought for a minute. It just didn’t make sense. I ran over to my dining room window and looked out again. The truck made a right and drove slowly toward the waterfront. I watched until it disappeared and the music faded away. I didn’t know if it was real or not, and I didn’t know which I wanted it to be. Neither option made me feel any better.
A minute later, a car alarm began wailing somewhere in my neighborhood, that annoying, repetitive wah wah alternating with a deeper buzzing that everyone living in a city was familiar with. Great. By the time I went to bed, it was still howling, and I’d failed to gather enough courage to head back outside. The next day, the alarm was still blaring on and off, maybe. It could just have been a residual scream in my head. It was driving me crazy, and I needed it to stop, but instead it seemed to be getting louder. I was having a hard time drowning it out even with my noise-cancelling headphones on.
All the progress I’d made was waning, and I knew I was standing on the edge of a mental breakdown. It was taking everything in me to not give in and let it happen. The car alarm continued wailing off and on, vibrating the walls of my ear canals and making it more difficult to tell if it was still sounding or not. The car can’t still have battery power left, can it? And without my sound machine, I couldn’t sleep with the alarm blaring. I remembered the combo pack of batteries, so I loaded two of the double A’s into the sound machine and put it on the campfire setting. The pack had eight double-A batteries, and I hoped they would last as long as I would be there.
Zeke and I huddled under the blankets, and if I concentrated hard enough on the crackling fire sounds, I could convince myself I was in a warmer place. But the alarm still screamed during the day. I reread a couple of books that I’d only read once before. The alarm faded to the background until one glorious morning when it was gone for good.
But then I heard some banging that sounded like it was coming from inside the building. I couldn’t be sure, so I needed to discuss it with Zeke.
“Zeke, what do you think, is that inside or out?” I said offhandedly, looking around and listening.
He looked at me and tilted his head. Another bang sounded. He looked toward the door then back at me. His eyes were still on the door when we heard another bang, which was loud enough to make me jump. He looked up at me and whined.
“That sounded close, but it could still be from outside,” I said hopefully. He followed me over to the window to look around, putting his paws up on the sill. I didn’t see anything on the street. There was another bang. “Where is that coming from?” I whispered.
I looked down at Zeke, and he blinked at me, pulled his paws away from the window, and went to lie on the couch. He’d lost interest. Am I being paranoid? I followed him to the couch. “That sound is outside, isn’t it?”
He raised his head, and I could have sworn he nodded, his chin moving up and down. My eyes were wide with fear.
Did I imagine it? “Was that a yes?” I asked, testing him.
His nose came up, then he put his chin down between his paws.
That was another nod! I barked a short laugh. “You nodded. I can’t believe you nodded!”
He sighed heavily as if annoyed.
“Hey, no need to have an attitude about it.”
He snorted in return, and I realized how crazy I must have looked, sitting there and talking to my dog—not just talking, but interpreting what he was saying to me. And furthermore, I was sure I was right and knew what he was saying.
Did I jump off a cliff somewhere? I’d always had conversations with Zeke, but they’d been one sided. I suddenly felt certain he was communicating with me. I remembered laughing with my mom at this woman on a talk show who claimed to talk to animals. She’d seemed so certain of it that we’d thought she was crazy. Does that make me crazy too? I felt myself starting to panic about my sanity, so I decided it was best not to spend too much time analyzing it.
I needed a glass of wine to calm my nerves from the exchange. I went to the fridge but found only one glass left in the open bottle. I checked my stash, but in alarm, I realized it was my last bottle. Crap, I hadn’t been paying attention to my stockpile of wine, only my food. I leaned back against the counter and sighed. There were still a few bottles of whiskey, but I really preferred the wine. I’d better make the most of this last glass. I poured it and went to sit with Zeke on the couch. But as I set the stemless glass down on the coffee table, it hit the edge of the remote control and rolled over, spilling all of the wine.
I gasped and screamed, “NO!” Because of my slanted building, the wine was slowly making its way across the table to the other side. Instinctively I ran over and put the glass under where it began to run off. After my glass was almost full again, I looked in. Little bits of lint and Zeke fur were floating around. Dammit! How badly do I want this wine? Very badly. I went to the kitchen, grabbed a sieve, and poured the wine through it a few times. I looked again. No fur. I knew it was gross, but I didn’t care. I drank that wine as if it was liquid gold.
Zeke continued to communicate with me here and there with his various nods and facial expressions, convincing me I was right. He didn’t seem interested in lengthy discussions but had no qualms about motioning for an extra scoop of food or a belly rub whenever he wanted one. I kept having bouts of uncertainty about some noise or glimpse I caught outside in my peripheral vision, which chipped away at my courage and kept me in my building.
I imagined more intruders, someone larger and more frightening than Charlie and Tony. Sometimes, when I saw trash or bottles of recycling that had spilled out of the bags on the street, my mind saw it as a dead animal. I would shake my head and squeeze my eyes shut, begging my mind to work properly. When I opened them, I could see what was really lying there. The hallucinations left me shaking and sweating as if they were symptoms of withdrawal from reality.
I didn’t know how much longer I could take it. I clung to the concept of the new person I hoped I was becoming and used that as something to pull me back from my inner nightmares. My mantra had become “You can do this!” and I repeated it over and over when I heard noises. I took my mom’s advice and put “You can do this!” and “You are strong!” and a variety of other self-affirming Post-It notes all over the house to reassure myself, but I wasn’t sure if they were helping.
I had another vivid dream that night about finding a hidden door in Mr. Stanhope’s apartment that had DUFRANE written across it in bold, black letters. The door opened into a long corridor that came out under the elevated seven train. An airplane was nosing into the street, and Zeke and I contemplated boarding it right when I woke up, feeling out of sorts, not able to reconcile that I was awake. I lay there, thinking back on my dream and about the other dream with the hole in the floor. I was going through doors and floors to find my freedom.
Something had to give. I had to get out of that building. I resolved to make my escape and revisited the bike idea. It had a box on the back for groceries. Zeke would have to ride in there. I told him about the plan, but he just looked at me, his eyebrows raised skeptically, and put his head down with a grunt. It did not seem like a resounding vote of confidence. I can do this. I can do this. Someone, please tell me I can do this. I heard nothing, not even Zeke.