You’re not a cheap date, but I’m too sad to decide if you’re worth it.
And as Woody Allen said: I need the eggs.
Pain is energy, unharnessed. What genius that you turned mine into money. You stack it neatly and pay for dinner with it. You make the wind that God created power a factory that he did not.
The first time I step into your office, it’s in a foreign airport. And you are the lady behind the currency exchange window who has trouble understanding my accent.
We have different mother tongues, you, and I, but yours is the lingua franca. And my crumpled dollars are good for nothing until you figure the rate of exchange.
We value what we pay for, you reason, but you will slide your scale for me. And so, we begin our work together. The talking cure. Our chimney sweeping.
And every week when your solid wood door closes on the upper east side, my fever dissipates amid your Turkish rugs, ‘primitive’ art, and leather chairs. I see you. You see me. And for a short while, I am happy.
After, I step back into the grey August city. And it is raining so much that I can’t tell if I’m crying. In this city of averted eyes no one holds my hurt heart like you.
We are in love, in our way. And I would move in with you if I could, like Sally Field did with
Joanne Woodward in Sybil. I make a joke about this fantasy as if it is not one, during our hour that is not one either.
But you have a husband and kids. You have a little dog with a smushed-in face that sleeps on a bed at the foot of your own. While I toss on my mother’s second-hand couch. In the morning, I offer you my fierce blue wind and you turn it into the air conditioning that cools your office on these grey August days.
If I had studied the anatomy of pain like murderers study law while in prison, I could be as
mighty as you. I would have the stuff to start a fire with, two sticks to rub together. But as it is, I am running on fumes. And as I was raised in this smoggy city, I don’t have a license to drive.
You ask for the money up front: let’s get it out of the way.
You take my check and turn it over, numbers facing down.
Through sleight of hand’s discretion, you veil this economy’s black magic.
You wear the silky blouses that tell us that you matter. Those of us that need you. I wear
sneakers with undone laces. I bought them in the Bronx. They were made for children, so they cost less, and don’t wear well or last as long.
But at the end of it all, when they roll up the sidewalks, your currency will have none. And I may have to carry you because you can’t walk through the rubble in those high heels. But don’t be afraid, I’ll help you survive in my world, as you have helped me assimilate to yours.
And I will do it for free. I do not tire easily, and in this mind gone mad there is no rate of
exchange.
