Deep Cuts

Running Up That Hill

Running Up That Hill

I stayed in Indiana through the first week of fall semester. My boss at the restaurant in New York fired me in a voicemail. When Nomi called, I picked up and told her the whole story, which she absorbed with kind yet baffled patience. I considered dropping out of the writing program—staying put, paying off my debts, finding some stern midwestern therapist to fix my brain. In the end, it was the sunk-cost fallacy that got me on the bus back to Manhattan. I was in thirty grand deep at Columbia; the least I could get for it was a degree.

My old room was brutally depressing. It had always been depressing, but after a summer at Raj’s and a week in a real house with a yard, it felt roughly like a prison cell. The door to my room had been left closed so the air was warm and stale, even though it was late at night when I arrived, and the jeans I’d changed out of the morning of the wedding were still crumpled on the floor. I hung up the Prada dress and then I couldn’t make it across the room to the bed. I just sat down on the floor next to my dirty jeans. I tried to cry but the misery had become too flat inside me, too normal. Finally I pulled myself up into the chair by my desk, where my laptop was open, screensaver undulating.

I addressed an email to Zoe Gutierrez and started writing. At first I didn’t think I would send it; I just needed a project. I told her everything, beginning with an apology for what I’d said to her at Cafe Milano and going all the way up to Interpol and the Brooklyn hotel. I begged her not to yell at me for not reporting Harrison, the shame of which was already unbearable. I told her I could see what she must’ve seen that day in the café, and what Raj saw now: that I was, on some level, a terrible person. I asked her to tell me what to do—with my life, with my hands when I walked, with my face when I saw Raj in class. I worked on it all weekend, deleting and revising, and then, because my project needed a conclusion, I sent it.

She wrote back the next day.

Oh babe. I wish I could hug you, roll around a nice California park with you. Remember when you let me feel you up? That was so sweet of you.

Your apology about Milano is accepted. You can let it go.

I’m okay. Uganda is weird as hell, not the country itself which I love, but my job and the expat scene here. Everyone does too much coke and nobody’s gay—it is actually illegal to be gay—and the nonprofit is doing the kind of work that may not actually be helpful in the long term (I won’t go into the details, which I am positive will not interest you, but suffice to say the experience has been questionably fulfilling). No, I don’t have a girlfriend, but I did before I left. She lived in San Francisco and worked at a coffee shop. We broke up for no good reason other than my move. I’ve already decided I’m moving to San Francisco next, once I’ve put in enough time here, having determined it is the only place where I can be surrounded by lesbians while also being a short drive to my dad’s cooking.

Honey it’s your own damn decision whether you tell people about being dry-humped at Interpol, I won’t yell at you about that, but I would scream this straight into your face if I were there: SHAME ON HIM, NOT YOU. Don’t you dare feel shame about any part of this horrible thing he did to you, including your own stupid shame. Ugh. Hugs.

You want me to tell you what to do? Sure. Howfun.

With your life: fight back. No, fight forward. Forget him: fight forward. With your hands: put them in your pockets. Don’t wear clothes without pockets. When you see your ex, give him a smile but don’t speak, even if he does, just keep walking once you administer that smile. On the weekend, do whatever needs to be done for school and then rent a bunch of mindless DVDs and get some Chubby Hubby. If the store doesn’t have Chubby Hubby, walk to another store (the salty sweet is key, and the walk will do you good anyway).

I expect a report back that you have successfully done these things. You’ve always been a bossy bitch, it’s fun to role reverse. BTW being a bossy bitch is not the same thing as being a terrible person, nor is infidelity. Being a bossy bitch is how women learn to be heard in this world, duhhh. Infidelity is, in this case, probably, your body telling you something you needed to hear. Just forgive yourself, it’s too exhausting not to.

I love how authoritative I sound right now. Should I become a therapist?

Forgiveness, forgiveness: I hadn’t thought of it for myself. The idea seemed so insane I almost laughed. Forgive my self ? That crazy bitch?

I must’ve read Zoe’s email fifty times that day. By night my sadness seemed to be morphing into a more manageable shape, something I could fit into a livable existence. As long as I could get emails like this, I thought, I would be okay.

In my reply, I asked her what to do about a gathering that a professor was hosting the following night, which both Raj and Harrison were certain to attend. Zoe instructed me to show up late with unwashed hair, drink exactly two glasses of red wine, and talk only to women. I did as I was told. Nomi asked if I needed to borrow shampoo, but the embarrassment was not mine, entirely; I was just following orders. When Raj and I encountered each other in the bathroom line, he gave me a long look that began as cool, then turned slightly tender, then flashed with confusion when I forced a smile and walked away. I left the party, as instructed, at 11:00.

The next night I asked her what to think about before falling asleep, which was the only time I ever missed Raj. Most of the time, if something reminded me of him, his words would quickly follow— Fuck off. I wish you well. —and then the feeling of missing him would self-destruct before it had fully formed, swallowed up in a blaze of horror. But at night in my small bed, his absence seemed to pool around me, outside of thought or reason.

Zoe’s reply: Think about the saddest thing you remember from childhood. And the following night: The first time you got turned on. I enjoyed having an assignment and I tried, but I could never remember the things she wanted me to remember. My own past was indecipherable to me, like some invisible forearm had smeared the ink before it finished drying. All I could locate were random scenes adjacent to each ask: watching my mom beam with pride at my brother’s first big game and hating him with an intensity that scared me, or the time some high school boys had rated me “gross hot” in a survey. Typical stuff. I had been lucky, I would end up thinking, though inevitably I fell asleep crying. (Zoe, of course, had very clear memories of these milestones—that’s why she assigned them. The first time she felt turned on was watching Peg Bundy shimmy across the screen on Married…with Children, which made me laugh so hard I forgot to be depressed for nearly a day.)

She seemed to have lightened up since coming out, traded in the chip on her shoulder for a wary enthusiasm for life. One day a couple weeks after I’d returned to New York, I emailed her with the subject line “Running Up That Hill.”

Do you know this Kate Bush song? It’s about wanting to swap places with someone, temporarily, so you can understand each other’s experience. The experience —that’s the key, that’s what you can’t get through conversation or talking about your feelings, you can share the facts but you can never really get across the full weight of how it felt to be you in that moment. And it’s the experience that matters, not the facts. It’s the experience that drives the stupid things we say in relationships, all the nitpicky fights and the weird decisions and those moments when lust takes over.

I know it’s well-trodden in any number of Freaky Friday rehashes, but this is why music is so much better than books and movies, because you’ve got Kate Bush’s art-rock singing and intense production making it feel all raw and fresh, and because there’s no need to resort to dumb magic tricks to tell the story—you can make a whole masterpiece just out of a wish.

I’ve been thinking lately that if I could make a deal with God and swap places with Raj, he’d forgive me, fully and completely. And if I could swap places with Joe, I’d forgive him. Maybe.

Her reply came in minutes:

See I don’t relate to this song because I have so little need to understand men anymore. Women don’t need a deal with God. You and I have already been doing this in our emails, from our lonely perches in our respective exiles—we’ve been exchanging our experiences, and I don’t feel confused by yours at all. Like for example it makes complete sense to me why you didn’t tell that creepy fiction writer to stop. I can hear the droney music pounding in my ears, I can feel the terror, the shock of it, like those first seconds of an earthquake when you just sit there thinking, “Is this really happening?” and then it ends and you realize you didn’t do all the things you’d planned to do in the event of an earthquake. I understand why after such an event, Joe’s sluttiness on the road bothered you so much. I understand why you’re writing me every night instead of writing stories for your expensive MFA program. Kate Bush must be straight is what I’m saying. If I could trade places with you I’d just play with my boobs all day.

—

ileanpercy: should we IM?

ringfingrr: YES!!

ringfingrr: whoa sorry that was overly exuberant

ringfingrr: i had too much coffee this morning

ileanpercy: remember when joe drank so much red bull he thought he needed to go to the hospital

ringfingrr: hahahahaha i still can’t believe you had sex with that nerd, and that it was good

ileanpercy: ugh it was so good

ringfingrr: i can’t handle this new sentimental you

ileanpercy: it’s not sentimental because it’s irrelevant!

ileanpercy: imagine you had the best burger you’ve ever had, but later you found out it was made of cockroaches—would you be sentimental about that burger?

ringfingrr: insects are high in protein and commonly consumed in many countries

ringfingrr: and what’s this about burgers anyway, aren’t you a vegetarian

ileanpercy: i’ve been making exceptions

ringfingrr: gross dude. i’d rather eat cockroaches than the flesh off the neck of a cow bred for slaughter using precious resources, but anyway

ringfingrr: here’s a theory:

ringfingrr: maybe joe did learn something from all those groupies

ringfingrr: maybe that’s how he got so good

ileanpercy: ew

ringfingrr: i’m telling you he was not good two years ago

ileanpercy: you were gay!

ringfingrr: okay, yes, i was gay

ringfingrr: i just don’t think it’s the worst thing in the world that he wanted some experience, you know?

ringfingrr: before he stepped up to the plate with you

ileanpercy: and AFTER, let’s not forget

ileanpercy: THE SAME NIGHT

ileanpercy: i was but a mere interruption in a steady stream of groupies

ringfingrr: you know the word groupies is misogynistic right?

ileanpercy: why are you defending him?

ringfingrr: i don’t know

ringfingrr: because maybe i’m the one who messed himup?

ileanpercy: ooooh he’s making you blame yourself! like a republican! right?

ringfingrr: omg do you ever forget anything

ileanpercy: but it’s not just the groupies, zo

ileanpercy: it’s this feeling i’ve always had

ileanpercy: this feeling of wanting to BE him

ringfingrr: oof

ileanpercy: right? who can live like that?

ringfingrr: yeah that’s gross

ringfingrr: okay here’s my question:

ringfingrr: can you get off to it?

ringfingrr: to the memory of your cockroach burger sex?

ileanpercy: haha

ringfingrr: i’m serious

ileanpercy: that’s private!

ringfingrr: whaaa

ringfingrr: are you seriously so repressed you can’t talk about masturbation

ringfingrr: guess you didn’t have the most sex-positive upbringing out there in indiana

ileanpercy: i mean it wasn’t sex-negative

ileanpercy: i had tori amos

ringfingrr: thank god

ringfingrr: well what i’m saying is if the memory of the sex can get you off, then it has served a positive purpose

ringfingrr: and maybe that’s all you needed from him

ringfingrr: maybe this is the legacy of joey morrow

ileanpercy: the memory can get me off

—

Almost daily, since I’d returned to New York. Standing in the shower, cooking eggs, writing at my laptop. His hand would appear on my shoulder, rest there a minute—the memory arriving like a PA announcement: Put down your pencils, folks—then slide, slowly, up to my neck. I’d become instantly wet. Then I’d let the whole hotel scene unfurl, with occasional fictional flourishes, as I finished: my first successful jerk-offs, if you must know. That much of what I did to myself had been learned from Raj was something I tried not to think about. Afterward I felt a dark mix of shame and anger, though this exchange with Zoe had the effect of dampening that feeling somewhat, like a hand in the bell of a French horn.

Joe,

The review is so exciting. Impressive debut! Considerable pop sensibilities!

But my answer is no. I hereby terminate my position as your muse/collaborator/whatever I am. It’s not good for me, this job.

Anyway, I’ve been wondering lately what you might produce without my influence. Didn’t you get tired of my shit, when you were writing Funny Strange ? You were always either not trying hard enough for me or trying too hard. Hah! If there was any truth to either of those complaints, it’s because the standards I held you to were ludicrously high. I mean, do you lack discipline as a writer? Compared to Cole Porter, sure, you’re a lazy piece of shit. Do you sometimes overwork things at the cost of naturalness? It’s like I expect you to be Robert Johnson, possessed by the spirit of some otherworldly talent-demon. God, I’m the worst.

You’re all you need, Joe. I’m all I need. This is America, land of the individual. Lay off the women and get it done.

I can’t wait to hear the new album for the first time, like the fan I am.

Eileen Percy Marks