Union

            I never forgot, the day Harry split your spirit did too.

          You told me he left you a check for a place of your own in Union. He wanted you to stay. Union as a future felt exactly like live-in-the-present wax Harry dripped down your body.

          I thought about that night in August, when he brought over a bottle of wine to the volunteer apartments and the three of us drank from solo cups, talked in ideologies.

          “There’s a philosophy that the future and the past do not exist, that only the present is real,” he said, as he poured cheap red. You loved him then, with a ring of wine on your lips.

          You loved him from the second floor window too, watching him and Mary pack up their Chevy. The house they bought was three blocks from where we stayed. The proximity hit you red and angry, like its brick exterior in the picture he showed you. Harry was proud, wanted to break some of that off and share it with you. He said they saved up what little the Americorps paid them to direct the program. They committed themselves to the work. “Rural communities need helping hands, and more honest people planting roots here.”

          Then he pushed your legs apart. 

          The night before Harry moved into his new house, you met him where he parked his car. You were naked in the backseat. His left hand sat heavy on your waist because of his ring. You told me you could feel it indenting your skin.

          “Only the now exists. This is real because it’s hurting,” You said like a proud student.

          “There’s a place above the post-office. It’s a studio but it’s roomy. You could stay, lots of volunteers do. You could find a job in Union, use your grant for grad school. I’d be here, I could help you,” he said.

           You put on your jeans. He slipped the check in your back pocket. Your name was tilting and rushed. It probably touched you that he knew how to spell it— first, last and middle.

          When he drove away I watched you watch him. We had one weekend till July and then we’d get on the bus back to the City. The idea was to leave Union behind us. It hurt me to watch you tear yourself between what he asked and what you answered. You hadn’t told him no, but when you turned around I saw it on your face— you’d be on that bus with me.

          You waved around his check. “Let’s deposit this and go out,” you said. It had less zeroes than I hoped for. It’s not kind that I thought it cheapened you, each time you let him love you. But wasn’t I right, with the evidence in your hand?

          Before we got on the bus, I wanted to be sure you wouldn’t pine for rooms Harry walked in, for walls he kissed you against. I felt a responsibility to send you off from Union with one Harry-be-damned memory.

          So I said, “Let’s take the Metro-North somewhere, it’ll be fun. We’ll go out for the night.”

          You cashed Harry’s check and bought a bottle of vodka and two Sprites. I brought two little baggies of Molly a roommate shared. We sat on a train to New Haven, I handed you one and you passed me the bottle in an easy exchange.

          In Union the paint peeled on the walls of every building. Ruddy-cheeked locals called us Bleeding Hearts. We smiled back with do-gooderness and empty stomachs. Friends back home talked about their offices, a new favorite build-your-own bowl spot, company-wide walking challenges. I told you, I’d die before that was me.

          When you drank, you laughed with your whole mouth, I thought it was beautiful when your eyes crinkled at the corner. I tried to copy it, I’m sure you noticed. You were generous with me, letting me try on different ways of creating myself and ignoring when I steered too close to imitation. I thought you thought it was endearing, that we both hunted for ourselves in other people.

          Like when we first met Mary, you wanted to be all the best parts of her.

          The first night, before our service started, she showed us our rooms and said, “The bathrooms are shared, honestly the concept of splitting up the volunteers by gender isn’t really progressive. You’ll probably all be sleeping in someone else’s bed this time next week, use whichever bathroom you want.” She had a worldly smile and her hair was easily knotted on top of her head. You wanted to be easy too.

          You twisted your hair like hers on our first work day. We were both with Mary in her van headed to the soup kitchen. You sat up front and you helped her grab the gloves, the ladles. She brushed your arm with the tips of her nails. She said, “I think you’ll be my new best friend.”

          On the train, I felt the tips of your nails on my forearm. You took a swig of the vodka and motioned for the Sprite on my lap. You had your own next to you, but I gave you mine. You made a face and passed me the bottle.

          I hesitated. You said, “Don’t be a bitch.”

          It stung when I took a sip. For twelve months we had subsisted on six-dollar wine and twenty-four ounce beers from gas stations. Liquor in glass bottles was a privilege the Americorps stipend never covered. You were proud of the luxury. I was proud you shared it with me.

          “When we get there where should we go?” I asked. I felt the burn of vodka in my throat and I had the idea that the more we drank the more it rubbed us raw, till our faces were red and soft.

          “Wherever the music is loudest. We shouldn’t hear ourselves think tonight,” You said.

          You smiled, you raised the bottle of vodka to your throat and I could see you wanted to be peeled. You wanted newer skin.

          We pulled into the station at a time I recognized as late, but not too late. You ran out onto the platform. You grabbed my hands and walked us out of the station. You stuck your finger in the bag of Molly and had me lick it off. You sucked your thumb when you said, “We’ve got about ten minutes to get where we’re going.”

          You didn’t tell me the moment you started sleeping with Harry, you showed me. And doing so forced my silence, but didn’t shush my curiosity. Your eyes lingered on him during dinner, delivered an answer to the question I had, when I caught your hand on his knee.

          Mary went to bed early most nights. She always went to sleep without him and his worst side pulled up when she pulled out. Maybe she let him indulge his impulses because it kept him coloring in the lines married people drew. I should have let you know I didn’t blame you. Harry made himself special. He was handsome and tall, his voice carried and his eyes always met his audience’s. Moreover, he was so intent on earning the mythic quality we lent him.

          We were starry-eyed the Fridays he took the volunteers to a bar, bought us shots. He asked the bar tenders to play cliches on the radio and he espoused them in tipsy conversations, but from his mouth words sounded novel. He leaned his head back when Bob Dylan came on. He grabbed our shoulders and told us to just soak it in. We couldn’t help ourselves. We were desperate to be grasped.

          You loved him best, though.

          Someone teased you once. “You’re like his little protege.” You two watched Twin Peaks episodes in the common room after everyone went to bed. He gave you books with ideas you inhaled, so needy to know what made his brain big and pink. 

          I saw you loved Mary too. You did your best to keep her close. You helped her load her van everyday even when you started driving with Harry’s group. You wrote the weekly schedule on the whiteboard before she even asked. I wondered if your small kindnesses lubed her up for cruelty.

          I tried showing you what I thought. I never worked with Harry’s group. I sat with other people at dinner. Even still, I muddied it because I ended up knee-to-knee on your bed most nights, sharing opinions on a world we wanted no part of.

          “My first boyfriend voted for Romney, we broke up when he told me.” You said.

          “Was Americorps your attempt to tip the karmic scales?” I asked

          “It was, until I fucked a married guy.”

          I had no idea how one person could attract and repel in the same breath.

          In New Haven, we found a place fifteen minutes from the train station. There was a band and a DJ playing. The sound was disjointed and I felt like I was cracking from my head to toes. I couldn’t stop moving till I was right in front of the stage. You were behind, ordering us drinks at the bar. I was next to an older couple. The taller man had his arms wrapped around the shorter man’s shoulders.

          “You’re doing great Greg!” The tinier man screamed.

          “Do you know them?” I asked him. “The band?”

          “No, I know the DJ! He moved from New York a few years ago, really talented. He’s very experimental,” he said to me.

          “Why do they have both, the band and the DJ?”

          The larger man let his arms drop from his partner’s shoulders and looked at me. “It’s their thing,” he said.

          “That seems stupid.”

          “Everything is stupid before it’s smart,” the shorter man said.

          I smiled at them. I wanted to touch their cheeks and move my fingers like their skin was play-dough. You came up behind me and pressed a cold glass to my shoulder. I turned and you had neon crawling up and down your face. The light was running on your forehead. I grabbed the drink and hugged you.

          “This place is so bad it’s good,” You said.

          “It’s so stupid, it’s smart,” I said. The big man laughed.

          Next to me you had helium in your bones. Your arms moved high above your head and your hair dripped down your back. When you let your head swing left to right you looked like sonnets were written with just the sway in mind. The light saturating your face covered my palms when I looked down at my hands. I popped a finger into my purse, found the baggie, licked the drugs from the tip

          I felt a tap on my shoulder and to my left the short man asked if I wanted a shot. “It’s on me,” he said.

          I followed him to the bar. He asked if I had a preference. “Beggars can’t be choosers.”

          The short man smiled. “Do you go to Yale?”

          “Yes,” I lied. He passed me the shot. There was a lime on the edge of our glasses. “I study sadomasochism in literature.”

          He smiled. “Kinky.” He clinked his glass against mine.

          We drank it down in one gulp. We sucked on the lime, puckered our lips and laughed. I thanked him with a small kiss on his cheek, he pet my shoulder.

          I missed anyone who wasn’t you. I wanted to love them, then never set eyes on them again. The crowd was thick with strangers. I saw lips and elbows and thighs and hands. Everywhere someone was with somebody else. All year I’d only had you. I hated you for that, but I loved waiting for some of you to rub off on me.

          You were off on one side, in the thick of sweat and bodies. You were smiling at a man, your fingers were on his shoulder and his hip thrust against yours. It looked less like you were dancing and more like you were studying the act, practicing for when you were really ready. You were so tentative while your hands looped from his shoulder to the back of his neck. I knew it was intimate, but I didn’t know why.

          Behind me, a man placed his hands on my hips. I pressed my back into him. There was clear liquor coming up my throat, there was Molly dancing down my veins. I didn’t turn around to see his face. His hands were on my stomach moving up towards my ribs.

          In Union there were many men we did not know. They leaned on walls and sipped Pabst Blue Ribbon. They lowered their brows when we came near. In the dark of their eyes I felt like a flighty bird drinking down well liquor and taking up space, till I perched on something bigger.

          A man in Union told me once, “You went to college just so you can shovel other people’s shit somewhere like this?”

          I said it’s more involved than that. He said it didn’t look that way.

          When there was a break in the crowd I stepped away from the faceless hands and I reached for your elbow.

          “Let’s go,” I said.

          “Let’s not,” you said. You were still hooked around the man.

          “I think I’m going to be sick.”

          “So go. I didn’t think you’d be fun, anyways.”

          I dropped my hand from your elbow. You pressed in closer to your man. “You weren’t having fun?”

          “We’ve got one week left, what does it matter now?” It wasn’t said like a question. You pressed your mouth on the man’s mouth.

          I pushed through wet limbs and ran for the front door. The air was muggy with the last sprinkles of June, but it was drier than inside. I stood against the side of the building and leaned over taking deep breaths. A pair of girls passed by.

          “I remember my first beer,” one snickered. All I could see were her pink Havaianas slapping on the concrete.

          I got up but I didn’t go back in. I called a cab for the State Street Station. When I was in the car I put my head on the leather seat, felt the twist of drugs and vodka. I thought of you and your hand around the man’s neck. You told me once you let Harry go down on you while you sat on an upside down mop bucket. When you were little, you said you ate three Reese’s cups the day you found out you were allergic to peanut butter. Your mother stabbed you with an epipen. You said there was a scar, but I wouldn’t be able to find it. Once, you stuffed your underwear in the center console of Harry’s van. He never found it.

          I thought I’d show you, I too could act just for the sake of feeling— regardless of what would be felt. Because, all I ever did was listen. You never asked for anything else. And didn’t it feel special, when you bloomed open and watched me study all your petals?

          I woke up in Union, the next morning. My eyes were red and my brain was molasses.

          Someone in the bathroom asked me how my night was, how the train was. I smiled at them through the mirror.

          “It was fine, made me ready to go back,” I said. I meant it, for the first time that year.

          “One more week!”

          A memory got stuck like gum in the creases of my brain, while we sat on the bus back to the City. Harry had just told you he bought a house with Mary. The same day you asked if I liked you. We sat on a bench outside of our dorms. Dinner wasn’t for another hour and the showers were all taken, so we were sticky with labor.

          I looked over at you, your hair up and your eyes down. “Jury’s still out.” It was less serious than you took it.

          “You don’t have to like me, not many people do. I feel like if we weren’t here you wouldn’t like me as much as you do,” Your eyes stayed down.

          “Relax, I like you. Not just because we feed the unhoused and clean up shit on sidewalks together.” I put my hand on your thigh. You looked up when you saw it. I had the thought, if you liked me best when you needed me I didn’t know what that said about us.

          “Do you think we’ll be friends when we leave?” You asked.

          “I don’t see why not.”

          “Would you stay in Union for another year? Maybe join the corps for another year?”

          “Probably not,” I said.

          “I don’t think so either.”

          I took my hand off your thigh. “Why not?”

          “This all feels like when you’re so scared you press pause on a movie right before it gets to the last part, but then you’re embarrassed when you press play and it wasn’t actually that gory.”

          I lifted myself up off the bench. “Because it’s just 401Ks.”

          “Grad school and boyfriends.” You stood up too.

          We walked to our rooms.“Coworkers and happy hours”

          “Houses and kids.”

          “Nursing homes.”

          “Funerals.”