It becomes interesting with age, how things end, how one ends. I don’t remember when my parents began reading obituaries in the local paper, ticking off the names and vinculations, fixing the dead in the genealogy of the town in which they would essentially die and be interred. Never a local, deaths escape me, surprise me, months, years after their immediate fact.
But yes, I read the obituaries of strangers, often disappointed by lack of specifics. The ages are of interest. It’s as if my seating group has been called to board for the last flight, and we’re gathering possessions before going down the ramp. We’re already past security, and the girl at the gate will check my passport and ticket, insist on putting my carry-on through to its final destination.…
At nine in the morning, I have my hot cocoa cooling, my “Santa Baby” song playing, and my red dress on. For the first time in my life—twenty-two years—I’m going to celebrate Christmas. I know what to expect because I’ve seen it in the movies.
Yearly, I’ve constructed Christmas in my head with what I’ve learned from films. And I’m not talking about those flicks in which people want to escape the holiday tradition to go to the beach or get drunk somewhere, that’s ludicrous. When I imagine this special occasion, I see a wide-smile-family decorating a real pine tree, children opening presents, a table set with a feast like those shown in seasonal magazines, and everyone gathered around the fireplace wearing a Santa hat and talking merrily while listening to carols and eating dessert.…
From behind a limp curtain the elderly girl detective sees through a row of windows: a hand petting a cobra, a woman’s shadowy profile, a small stuffed .alligator. on. a. velvet. cushion. Clues to what?. The secret of life and death is. only the clock. Down a long linoleum corridor of tarnished numbers,. a door. clicks shut. .Evening light,. slanted, yellow.. She keeps her deductions private, a silence filled up with land sakes, imaginary pie in the. cold oven. .Ghost. granny,. in. worn print.dress,. in. favorite chair. Who is in charge.
At some point, the stars stop looking at us. For them, life is a costume ball, but we attend wearing nothing but our real faces. And our debt. We have our tea and naps. Our struggles to be kind to the jackboots. There is infinite hope, but not for us. The stars have plans about opening a boutique that wouldn’t allow them inside. They want nothing to be left of them but their names and stylized drawings of their eyes. Before they got famous, they spent their evenings looking at portraits of the backs of their own heads. We can barely afford cable. Every door, every eye on the street could belong to tomorrow for them. They say light won’t make you happy, but they’ve never drowned in the dark.…
I remember the night I met God. She was living in a rent-stabilized apartment on 76th Street just east of Amsterdam. I was delivering a DVD for the last store in Manhattan that still rented the damn things. It wasn’t much of a job, with crappy pay to be honest, and no benefits, but I was back in school and you did get to meet all sorts of interesting people in the city. You don’t know what melting pot really means until you deliver a box set of Tarantino to some downtown dive at three in the morning. I suppose I could have delivered pizzas just as easily, and at a more normal time of day, but then I never would have gotten to meet God.…
