Dogrun Read online

  “Is everything all right?” the guy asked, concerned.

  “I need to be alone.” I went over to Zoë.

  “You ready?” she asked. Her blond companion had finally evaporated.

  Outside we debated getting a cab to the East Village. It wasn’t that far away, and neither of us had worked out in eons, so we decided to stretch our legs.

  “What was that little romance you had going?” Zoë asked, apparently noticing my interludes with the variety of sad male specimens.

  “Me? How about you and Anne Heche?”

  “Oh, please. I’ve known Chase for at least five years. We were just horsing around.”

  “You knew her!” I was surprised.

  “Not well, but yeah.”

  “She looks about seventeen.”

  “She’s loaded with preservatives.”

  We bantered our way through Soho and finally headed east. She asked me how my fortune cookie crumbled with Sue Wott. I explained that it was someone else, but Minnie Belle knew her and still had a common friend; she was going to pass my number to her. I dropped Zoë off at her place on the far side of Tompkins Square Park, on Tenth Street.

  Avenue B was becoming a roulette wheel for gambling restaurateurs who figured that if they could offer an exotic cuisine and an interesting ambience, they could win the Avenue A crowd while paying a cheaper rent.

  I wouldn’t have been aware of these if it weren’t for Joey Lucas. During the first three months of our friendship a few years ago, he twice invited me to these underpatronized dives. Now I associated two of the Avenue B dinners with two major depressions in my life.

  Zephyr, which was located somewhere around Sixth Street, had a strange fusion of German and Arabic food. Like my relationship with Greg, it was costly while the service sucked. I remembered bellyaching about what a reptile he was while eating that meal with Joey.

  “Don’t waste your time,” Joey counseled. “Move on.”

  The next time he took me out to dinner, we went to either Mediterranean or Baltic, or some such squalid piece of real estate from the Monopoly board. It substituted a quirky-looking interior for good food and service. I remembered sitting at the table drinking a lot more than eating, stuck in the doldrums of singlehood. It was just after I had been dumped by Greg. I was grateful to be with Joey that night so I didn’t have to witness another evening turn to cigarette smoke in Zoë’s ashtray bars.

  “Believe me,” Joey refrained, “it’s painful now, but once the scar heals, you’ll look back and wonder how you put up with him all this time.”

  “I know,” I whined, “but—”

  The entire evening was that riff played in a million different ways. With each replay, I got drunker and more teary, until he had the good sense to taxi me home. When he tried to leave, I asked him if he wanted to watch TV. He must’ve sensed that I was lonely, because he stayed until I passed out, pulled a blanket over me, turned off the lights, and left.

  I felt too embarrassed to return his call the next day, but a few weeks later, when he showed up at Starbucks, where I was working at the time, he ordered a coffee.

  I gave him his drink and told him I was getting off in twenty minutes.

  “Are you making a pass at me?” he kidded just loud enough for the woman behind him to hear.

  “It’s just another service we provide for our bachelor customers here at Starbucks.”

  “You folks really are friendly. I’ll be sitting next to the window.”

  It was the week of the loud and smoky San Gennaro Festival, so after work we headed down Mulberry Street, which was covered with plastic archways laced with cheap Christmas lights. Overpriced mobile game arcades and vehicular grills blocked a slow-moving jam of dumb tourists. Pickpockets must have had a field day. By evening’s end, when he walked me to my door, I first realized that I felt the psychospiritual indigestion that could only mean I had a serious crush on my former upstairs neighbor.

  chapter 5

  A few forgettable days passed. Neither Mrs. Schultz nor Lydia, the mysterious friend of Sue Wott, called. I kept meaning to put up notices to give away the dog, but as I procrastinated and took it to the various dogruns in the area, I discovered a new cache of available men—meaning a temporary home and short reprieve for Numb. I chewed Twizzlers and smoked up a storm, getting ready for the old dating circuit again.

  One serendipitous bonus from the Baby Doll Lounge was meeting the youthful smoothy Alphonso Del Guardio. Out of disdain for sitting around and waiting to be picked up, I called him, and we agreed to have dinner and see a flick. We met early one evening at a Thai restaurant between Tribeca and Chinatown. He didn’t look so bad in a nonseedy milieu. Over a steamy dish of pad thai, he asked all about me. I tried to be witty, light, and evasive—what every guy wants. He laughed a lot, and seemed aggressively interested. Afterward, since it was still early, we went for a walk. In Chinatown each of us got a cone of green tea ice cream; then we headed southeast, across Worth Street, over the Brooklyn Bridge to a movie theater on the other side.

  Once we were above the East River, I popped the big question. “What do those initials after your name stand for?”

  “You mean on my business card?”

  “Yep.”

  “Well,” he cleared his throat. “I have a graduate degree in paranormal psychology.”

  “What exactly is that?”

  “Ever see the movie Ghostbusters?”

  “You don’t—you’re not—”

  “Have you ever felt someone was watching you while you were all alone?”

  “Yeah, but it always turned out to be the creep across the courtyard,” I kidded, hoping he’d tell me the truth, not “The truth is out there.”

  “The University of Minneapolis is one of three institutions in the country with such a graduate program.”

  “You are bullshitting me, right?” I stopped walking, refusing to take another step.

  “I’m afraid not,” he said, looking at me sincerely.

  “So you’re saying you can communicate with the deceased?”

  “I’m not a clairvoyant, but yes, that’s one of the skills I’m trying to develop.” I looked him deep in the eyes; unflinchingly, he looked right back. Over years of watching stupid TV news magazines, I had seen video footage in which strange lights and shadows moved wispily across the screen, coupled with eccentric types who made claims of feeling their restless unincarnated souls. I immediately wondered if there was anything I wanted to say to Primo.

  “What were you doing in that strip bar?” I asked, trying a different strategy.

  “It was close and cheap. How about you?” He somersaulted the question back to me.

  “My ex-boyfriend just died, and I was trying to notify his ex-wife.”

  “Ex?”

  “Well, he was my boyfriend, but the relationship was falling apart.”

  We talked a little about past relationships. He told me that he dumped his last girlfriend about six months earlier, but now, after learning about his paranormalcy, I doubted him completely and wondered about his sanity. Why were guys like this always attracted to me? When we reached the halfway mark on the bridge, I stood against the railing and just looked south over the Narrows. Under the setting sun, in the greenish brown waters, I could see Governors Island and Staten Island. A tugboat was passing one of those floating tourist traps that rounded the island—a Circle Line. I couldn’t get enough of views like that. Alphonso slowly banked up against me and started pressing close. I could feel his throbbing urgency against my unexercised upper buttocks. I made a subtle sound that indicated a civil distance. He ignored it, pressing harder.

  Reaching behind me, I poked him gently in what I estimated to be his beanbag.

  “Ow!” he shouted and stepped back. Upon recomposing himself, he said, “I’m sorry.”

  “Just take care,” I cautioned.

  “I didn’t mean I was sorry for rubbing up against you,” he murmured back.

  “For
what then?”

  “For the fact that those initials after my name don’t mean anything.”

  “What do you mean?” I turned around.

  “I snagged you.” He laughed glibly.

  “You’re kidding?” I jumped back.

  “I wish I had some kind of graduate degree,” he said. “I do watch The X-Files.”

  There should be a covert government agency that protects people from academic initials that don’t stand for anything. Pissed, I stormed off. He raced and begged my forgiveness.

  “Come on,” he appealed. “I owed you that.”

  “Owed me it,” I repeated.

  “Sure, after all you put me through at the Baby Doll, then vanishing just when we started talking.” I remembered dashing off when Minnie Belle became approachable, but I didn’t know I had created some kind of debt. He had let his ghostly little lie last for about twenty minutes, bringing it to the outer limits of a practical joke.

  “So, what exactly do you do with your life?” I asked after deciding not to walk away and just leave him there.

  “Oh, this and that. I really haven’t found myself yet.” A cute guy with a fascinating career turned out to be just another slacker. Shit.

  “How do you afford to live?” I inquired, trying to show my disappointment.

  “Well, okay.” He regrouped his thoughts and charged forth. “For one thing, I inherit. I have a modest trust fund right now, but when another one of my rich bachelor uncles dies, I should be getting a very nice townhouse, and when a third uncle kicks, I’ll be getting a country house and probably a couple of cars.”

  “So you just spend your days praying for their deaths and watching game shows?”

  “Not at all. I stay in shape.” He slapped his loose polo shirt. “I have a lifetime membership at my gym. I can work out as much as I want, and I’m always reading. I go to the Strand every day. I have a library of books and videotapes.”

  What next? Was he going to impress me by making a cellular call? He continued dazzling me as we climbed down off the bridge and headed over to the Brooklyn Heights Twin. This coincidentally was my favorite cinema in the city. In this strangulating age of flavorless megaplex conglomerates, it was the last of the small, cozy, inexpensive theaters. We watched a foreign movie about a shy misunderstood girl who dated a loud misunderstood guy. Then we cabbed it back to the city. As the taxi idled in front of my rotting apartment building, I shook Alphonso’s hand.

  “Can I call you again?” he asked. He had paid for the dinner and flick, inexpensive as they were. Unless he was still lying, he should soon inherit all the resources of someone who was hardworking.

  “All right.” He leaned forward, hovered around my face for a moment like a mosquito looking for a place to sting, and finally gave me a peck on my cheek.

  Over the course of the following weeks, he didn’t call me, but Zoë—who asked me a million details about the date—insisted that I could do better. During the week, aside from temping, I cleaned out my account paying the rent and utility bills. I also put an ad up in the Off-Campus Student Housing Office at NYU: Female, nonsmoker, no more pets. Numb was enough. In doing this I took the opportunity to jerk up the price of my rent beyond half in order to relieve myself from some of my fiscal flab.

  By Monday, my phone machine was loaded with homeless students. By Friday, I had interviewed twenty-two potential roommates and narrowed my list down to the two top candidates, who looked and acted pretty much alike. They both seemed perky and reticent. They claimed they had no boyfriends. Both resembled Winona Ryder with their nervous cute looks. The edge that Winona A had over Winona B was that she didn’t make a nasty face when I told her that my boyfriend had died in the apartment. But when I called Winona A and told her she had been selected, she explained that she had already got a place. Winona B won by default.

  “I’m sorry, but I got another place,” the second Winona mimicked the first when I broke the news to her. I indiscriminately pointed to the next name on the list. It was a heavy, sweet-faced girl named Carolina. When I told her that she was my very first choice, she screamed in ecstasy.

  “Can I move in tomorrow?”

  “Do you have first and last month’s rent?”

  “Yes.”

  “Come in the afternoon.”

  In a way I was looking forward to having a roommate. Someone younger to pal around with, to watch Oprah and Rosie with, who I could laugh and cry with. The next day at nine, the doorbell rang. Carolina, whose name reminded me of rice, clumped up the stairs with a pair of chunky parents, each one carrying a large, colorful trunk. They looked like circus people.

  “These are my folks, Marsha and Ross.” They both said hi.

  “The sublet was for one,” I said groggily.

  “They’re just helping me.” I didn’t respond. “Here are the checks.” She handed them to me.

  I stood naked and groggy with a sheet over me, holding growling Numb with one hand and my sore head with the other.

  “I wasn’t expecting you until noon.”

  “Sorry,” she said meekly.

  “I hope this isn’t going to turn into some passive-aggressive behavior pattern,” I cautioned.

  “It won’t.”

  I took the checks and gave her the keys. Amid the bumpy rumpus of moved furniture, I slept for two more hours. All was quiet when I finally stepped out of the room. There was no sign of her, and for the first time since Primo had moved in, the door of the other room in the house was closed and shut.

  The next time I saw her, she introduced me to her boyfriend, a tall mop-headed kid named Dorn. I shook his hand, and he smiled. I knew at once by his dialect, demeanor, and dress that he was gay. Carolina was unknowingly dating a sweet gay lad, yet it wasn’t for me to tell. That was the kind of news that only life could teach her. I retreated into my room.

  During the balance of our roommateship, we never watched TV or gal-pal’d once. The few times I saw Carolina, she was with Dorn. I wondered when and how she was going to find out the distressing truth.

  Good roommates are born, not made. They are also neither seen nor heard. Carolina was pretty good on both counts. There were few signs of her existence: ever tightly curled tubes of toothpaste, ever smaller concentric circles of toilet paper. Fortunately for her, she never touched my food, and I never saw hers. The real test that she always passed was that most of the rent and half the electric bill were always on time. I wouldn’t share my phone.

  On that first day, I wanted her to feel comfortable in her new digs, so I leashed Numb and met Zoë in Tompkins Square for the annual Art Around the Park and Music Festival. She was dressed to lure. I deposited the dog in the run, and we watched a lineup of local bands and Beat wannabes in the portable bandshell. While listening to some obnoxious young kid reading off a laundry list of gripes under the banner of poetry, I recalled Primo telling me that the old Tompkins Square had a permanent stone bandshell, but the homeless slept inside it until it reeked like a cement armpit, so the city tore it down.

  On one of our first dates, he gave me a walking tour of the neighborhood, pointing out where Jack Kerouac lived on Seventh Street, right down to the beautiful dilapidated outdoor theater in the East River Park where Joseph Papp supposedly performed Shakespeare back in the fifties before he had the Public Theater or the Delacorte in Central Park.

  Zoë and I headed down A, where she bought a fruit smoothie, then we wove through the crowds along the west side of Tompkins Square Park where each artist was given a paper canvas and had only the length of that day to fill it with his or her labors. Zoë sucked her frozen drink out of a straw and made dismissive proclamations about each artist’s day-long endeavor: “Silly crap, political crap, hippie crap—”

  “Cut them some slack,” I replied serenely. “They’ve been working on their canvases for less time than it takes for you to do your makeup.”

  When she ran out of art to criticize, Zoë started teasing me about my low writing productivity
: “You need a boyfriend who’ll crack the whip.”

  “Dating other writers is a bad idea.” I spoke from experience. “They’re either jealous of you ’cause you write more than them, or they taunt you ’cause you write less.”

  We finally parked ourselves in two over-upholstered, brokendown armchairs in the Alt.café on A. We both ordered decaf lattes while silently hoping that someone would stumble across us.

  Forty minutes and two decafs later, this catty bitch named Cathy, friendlier to Zoë than me, sauntered in. She was a sculptress who never sculpted. She talked about her latest love interest—some twit named Phido—and how she was nervous he was just using her for sex.

  “This is the time in the relationship when you should write down his bank account numbers,” Zoë said while manically checking her makeup, “and try to get in good with his friends and parents.”

  “Why would I want to do that?” Cathy asked.

  “That’s the group he gets his opinion from. If they like you, he’ll like you.”

  “Why the bank account?”

  “I don’t know,” Zoë said, lifting her empty cup because it looked good, “just seems like a good idea.”

  “Also try to get him to a doctor for a general workup,” I counseled. “You don’t want someone who will conk out on you after a Simpsons episode.”

  Zoë suggested we all go to one of the local multiplexes and catch some birdbrained blockbuster, but I still hadn’t gotten over the last Hollywood mega-gyp. There was no way I was going to shell out ten bucks to watch another two-hour video game. Zoë said she knew films were junk, but seeing one would give us something to gab and giggle about. Where the youths of yesteryear argued about Marxism and French philosophy, we had dumb films. She and Cathy called 777-FILM, picked a flick that started in twenty minutes, and headed over.

  After the coffee shop, I browsed through several clothing stores, which confirmed that fashions didn’t improve, the prices just went up. While looking through racks of “recycled vintage wear” and listening to lame nonstop rock tunes, I decided that life doesn’t really get better or worse, but people do. As we get older and less naive, our expectations rise. That’s when films, clothes, and other people start turning to crap. A few years ago, wandering through these alphanumeric streets, I could meet a half a dozen catty Cathys, mindlessly throw away a wallet full of cash on trashy Hollywood flicks and enjoy it all. I could wear stupid clothes, dance to studio-contrived music, meet an army of Primos and Alphonsos and Phidos, and just have a really good time. All that was over. Nowadays, if I could meet one entertaining guy, buy one self-respecting CD, find one decent, not ridiculously priced dress, and catch one engaging film per season, I was way ahead of the game.