BEEP
Everyone knows Thursdays are wacky. It was a Thursday when the new shopping center opened, when, thrilled by its proximity to my apartment, I spent some money on ceramic pots I didn’t need. Also, a few books I already had but couldn’t resist rebuying. I came home carrying bags of purchased happiness, but no one was there to share my excitement. And then I heard the beep.
I looked for the source of the beep everywhere: nothing. Under the blankets, behind the TV, inside the refrigerator: nothing. Every time I thought it was gone, it would beep again. I counted the seconds. My discovery: inconsistency. Five seconds, eight, two, twelve. Beep, beep, beep, beep. I stopped counting. I tried to convince myself it was one of those things that happen on Thursdays, no big deal. I wasn’t buying it.
Jojo got home around seven. Hi, honey, I said, how was your day? I was waiting for the first beep we could share. I was waiting for him to go crazy trying to figure out where it came from. Jojo was the kind of guy who would. I waited: no beep. More than eleven minutes: no beep.
Hungry, babe? Jojo asked, and went in the kitchen to fix dinner. No thanks, I said. And it beeped. Hear that, Jojo? Hear that? I shouted. I was excited. Hear what, babe? he shouted back. The beep, the beep, there was a beep, didn’t you hear? I was mad at him for missing it.
Then I thought: Maybe it’s my own private beep. Maybe it won’t beep when Jojo’s around. Weird, I thought — everybody usually liked Jojo. Then dinnertime came and refuted my theory. My beep was beeping all through dinner. Jojo was right there. He couldn’t hear it. I asked, almost every time: he couldn’t hear it.
* * *
Then: the particles. They were small at first, so I didn’t mind them. Small particles flying through the air can be distracting, yes, but I’ve seen worse.
We were at a restaurant. Jojo, I said, did you see that? Then I asked the waiter, and a woman sitting at the next table. I was thinking there might be something wrong with Jojo. There wasn’t. They couldn’t see the particles either.
Then the particles got bigger, and then even bigger. Soon there were things flying in the air that could potentially be hazardous. For example: the stop sign that got knocked down by the storm the other day; an equestrian. Despite the danger, I felt relieved; my particles were part of something larger. I kept dodging: I had to. Jojo thought it was a twitch. He made an appointment for me to see a neurologist. Jojo, I said, there are fucking horses flying around in here. Babe, he said, you crack me up.
* * *
Then the strangest thing happened. Jojo came home from work one day, and he wasn’t Jojo. He was Dora. He had breasts and everything. He didn’t even look like Jojo, or sound like him. For three days, he denied it. Denied the breasts, denied the voice, denied the blond hair. Finally, she cracked. You’re right, she said, I’m not even sure who Jojo is. That’s it, I said to myself. Jojo’s gone. I’d always known that one day he would leave me.
Dora couldn’t see or hear any of it either.
One day Dora came home from work and said, We gotta talk. Babe, she said, you’re seeing things, you’re hearing things, I’m worried. Aren’t you, I said, hearing things, seeing things? I gave examples. Babe, she said, it’s not the same, it’s stuff that’s real. My stuff’s real, too, I said. Who’s to say what’s real and what’s not, I said. You’re not being supportive, I said.
Dora said nothing.
Then I said: If that’s really how you feel, I don’t see this relationship going anywhere.
Dora said nothing once again.
We both said nothing for a very long time. Then the beep started beeping, Victorian chariots were flying in the air, and the ceiling was going up and down.
I forgot to say that sometimes the ceiling would go up and down.
Maybe you can try to see it, Dor, I said. My voice was very sweet. Loving.
Dora smiled.
I can try, she said, but I can’t make promises.
That’s fine, I said. That’s all anyone ever does anyway. Try.
* * *
The first thing Dora saw was a dreidel. She said it was tiny, and purple. I couldn’t see it. Then she said there were plenty of them, in all colors of the rainbow. It sounded beautiful. They were flying in all possible directions, she said, and they were too small to hurt anyone. Dora didn’t have to dodge.
* * *
My mother was coming to visit. Dora and I were baking a cake. Dora said, Remember, babe, not a word. I used too much baking soda. I committed to memory: not a word, not a word. I knew I might still forget.
My mother’s visit was the oddest thing. She kept calling Dora Jojo. Dora didn’t seem to mind. That’s fucked up, Dor, I said when we were in the kitchen and I thought my mother couldn’t hear. I was wrong. What’s fucked up, dear, my mother asked: standing in the doorway. I spilled the beans. All of it.
My mother said, Sweetheart, you are imagining these things, yes?
I said, No, Mom, you are imagining that you can’t see them.
She said, Surely, sweetheart, you realize that you’re bored. When you were young you used to try to fly. That was out of boredom too.
I don’t remember that, I said; that’s pretty stupid.
Actually, you pulled it off once, she said, but that’s hardly the point.
My mother made hot chocolate, cut the cake. Then, on the sofa, she was stroking my hair: her attempt at making me hopeful. That’s rather annoying, she said all of a sudden. What is, I said. Something is beeping, sweetheart, she said. Can’t you hear it?
MY WIFE IN CONVERSE
1.
My wife and I took a cooking class recently. My wife and I take classes. It is a passion of my wife’s, taking classes. My wife is good at most things one could take classes in, which, when you think about it — and I’ve thought about it — means my wife excels in all things. And I believe that is in fact true. I believe my wife excels in all things. I am not blinded by love when I say this — we have been together eight years. They say after seven, whatever blindness you had is gone.
* * *
While my wife was chopping things or perhaps sautéing them, the instructor came over. I stopped what I was doing, which wasn’t much. He was a man in his sixties trying hard to look French. He smelled like years of garlic. We looked at each other until some time passed. You might want to take up poetry, he said finally.
2.
The poetry class conflicted with the cooking class — the one my wife was excited about, the one from which I was now banned. I make curtains for a living, and most of the work is done from a tiny shop I set up in the back of our house. In other words, my schedule is flexible; this sort of problem never happened before. What do you want to do? I asked my wife. In my chest I was hoping she’d say we both quit. I was imagining her saying, Intro to Tarot Card Reading. Or: I heard of a place, just a short drive north, where you can take horseback-riding classes. My wife loves intro classes, and loves anything that’s a short drive north. But instead she said, We are not one person, you know. My wife had never pointed that out before.
3.
The poetry class was led by a young man with too much gel in his hair. His bio listed literary journals with exotic animals in their names, and words in Latin. I’m a poet before I’m a teacher, he told us the first day, a poet before anything. Everyone nodded.