Chapter 39
In the days and weeks that follow, I check in on Chris here and there, and we go on a couple walks with Arnie, but I make
sure I’m not his emotional crutch. That wouldn’t be helping anyone. I understand more now about the value of grappling with
the silence inside yourself before you can figure out who you are, what you want, and all those other juicy existential questions.
It means I devote more time to the Redstockings. I tell Hal and Jenni what I remembered up at Breakneck Ridge. Hal brainstorms
different businesses I could start—a nonprofit or a sexual offender tracker app or a song production platform to help people
heal through music. I have no desire to pursue any of those, but it’s still nice knowing she’s on my side, seeing my own fury
and hurt bubble up in her blue eyes. Jenni hugs me for about two hours straight and then showers me with gift cards to expensive
vegan restaurants, which is pretty great too.
All of it helps the Redstockings spring back from the dead with weekly potlucks in the garden all fall. Attendance is pretty
good and there’s a lot to celebrate. Hal and Astrid raise fifty thousand dollars in pre-seed funding for their app. That sounds
like a shit ton of money to me, but Hal says it’s just baby dollars, that they’ve got a long way to go.
“Okay, Hal, but don’t be so laser focused on the destination that you forget to do some cartwheels on the journey,” I advise, because I’m quite the sage these days.
Jenni’s got updates too. She’s thriving as a new mom, says she’s found her passion after all this time. The way her whole
body lights up when she says it, I can tell it’s the path that’s truest for her, at least in this season, and I feel some
guilt for all the judgmental things I used to say about stay-at-home moms. I probably stunted Jenni’s path a bit, but she
got there in spite of me and it makes it all the better.
Tara and Niles are going strong, and I ask Tara if he might want to move into the Inn. It would help me save on rent but it’s
more than that. I want to show that I approve of their relationship so I don’t wind up pushing Tara away like I did with Jenni
and Hal.
“Niles and I are actually thinking about getting our own place,” Tara tells me, looking sheepish as can be. “It’s obviously
nothing against you or the Inn. We just feel like we’re ready for that step.”
The news hits me harder than I thought it would. “Good for you,” I mutter, sardonic spice sprinkled back on. I can’t help
my injured instincts. It’s not like I hadn’t suspected this was coming, and it really is good to see Tara taking such big
leaps. Her choices are reflecting her hopes, not her fears. But I still put up a good pout because this means I’ll have to
move out of the Inn. I have no interest in finding a new roommate; it would be too much of a letdown after the Redstocking
era, and I can’t swing the rent on my own even being the savant of a stock trader that I am. Equities have been tumbling down
recently, a ruthless bear market.
“You don’t need to move out,” Hal says as we’re talking about it over dinner one night, chowing down on falafel and breadsticks.
“You just need to find a way to monetize the Inn. It’s basically a historic landmark as the Redstockings’ headquarters. You
could charge people for tours.”
“Yeah, I anticipate massive crowds lining up to pay big money to see a grimy basement apartment where four unknown women lived,” I say wryly.
“Hal’s onto something, though,” Tara pipes up. “This garden is incredible. You could open up a restaurant.”
“Except for the fact that I hate cooking and our kitchen would never pass the health and safety exam.” I feel myself withdrawing
behind my armor. I hate the habit, but it’s one I don’t think I’ll ever fully get over. Even now that I’m enlightened, I don’t
feel light all the time. The darkness is still there; I just have greater peace that it’ll pass soon if I let it, which I
don’t always want to.
“You could turn it into a bar,” Tara goes on. “Recruit the Lone Wolf crowd over and have your own speakeasy. I’d bartend for
you.”
“I appreciate the help, but I’m going to start looking for a studio apartment. Or maybe I’ll just rent out someone’s closet
and put a sleeping bag in there,” I say to elicit maximum sympathy. “It won’t be that bad.”
It feels bad, though—very bad. The Inn is the first place where I’ve ever really felt at home. The only place that’s made
me feel truly safe and like I was enough. It’s how the walls wink joyfully at me, how the floorboards never make me feel like
I’m taking up too much space, how the sun gushes through the tiny windows to illuminate the shadows, how the double lock on
the front door never falters.
“I’ve got it,” Jenni says. She’s looking around the garden like she’s seeing it for the very first time. “You can turn this
place into an outdoor theater.”
The rest of us stare at her for a second, trying to digest the suggestion.
“I can’t believe I never thought of it before,” Jenni prattles on. “The stage can be there.” She points to a spot in front
of the ivy-lined wall. “And then some folding chairs here. And then we can serve drinks back there.”
Jenni’s swiveling her head this way and that, and Tara’s nodding along. “It’s perfect, EJ,” Tara says. “You can write the scripts and then see them come to life right here. Charge people for tickets. You’ll have your own theater company.”
“A one-stop shop,” Hal says, joining in. “You’ll stick it to the bureaucratic theater industry for shutting you out for so
long. Just like you skipped over gatekeepers to bring stock trading to the masses. You can call it the Populists’ Playhouse.”
“The Populists’ Playhouse,” I repeat, peeling out of my bad mood like a ripe banana.
So I start planning it out hypothetically. I run the numbers and determine that to cover rent plus utilities, I’d need to
sell eighty-three tickets a month at thirty dollars a pop, and that’s not even counting the cost of the chairs and stage and
all that. The garden could probably fit twenty people, maybe twenty-five, and I could write a new script every month and perform
the same show one or two nights a week.
But I don’t find the answer in the math; I find it in the aftermath. How I’m bouncing off the walls like a kid on a sugar
high. I’ve got to go for it and if I fail trying, it’ll still be less of a failure than not trying. Or at least that’s what
I keep repeating to myself.
My first play will be a short, I decide. It’ll just have two actors and be about fifteen minutes. Start small and scale up
from there, as Hal says. This also means I won’t have to pay for a cast because Tara and I can do it all ourselves.
With this grand plan underway, Tara feels less guilty about leaving me. She and Niles move into their own place in East Williamsburg.
It’s not far away, but I shed some tears because it still marks the end of a chapter I wasn’t done reading.
On my first day as the Dunge Inn’s lone resident, I go into the garden and do some yoga on my own to adjust to the new energy.
It’s not as lonely as I thought it would be because the divine woman is still there.
I can never shake her and that’s one of my favorite things: how I can’t sabotage our relationship no matter how hard I try.
She’s EJ-proof and that’s no small feat.
During a wobbly tree pose, my mind wanders to how many years I spent accidentally imprisoning the Redstockings. I start getting
all self-critical, but then the perspective shifts and I can observe it from the outside without the icky attachment. And
it hits me that this is the greatest plotline for a play.
After savasana, I open up my computer and type up a ten-page satire from the perspective of a zookeeper who gets some cheetahs
to believe they’re living in the wild African savannah when really she’s keeping them trapped in a tiny backyard in central
Florida. The dialogue is between me (the zookeeper) and Tara (one of the cheetahs who’s caged). It’s this amazingly self-aware
critique, totally brilliant.
Tara isn’t sure what to make of the script at first, but once she sees me laughing about it, she starts laughing too and can’t
stop. “I wasn’t sure if you meant it as a comedy or not.”
“Of course I did,” I say. “I’m very self-aware these days. It makes for delicious satire.”
“Proud of you,” Tara says, and I know she’s not just talking about the script.
Opening night is the beginning of November, that lovely time of year when the leaves are still tacked on the trees but the
air is crisp and cool. I’ve sold twenty-three tickets and budgeted a 10 percent no-show rate, per Hal’s recommendation, but
everyone who RSVPs shows up, and even two more buy tickets at the door. I guess it should be a vote of confidence, but it
makes me nervous instead.
Jenni has arranged the garden perfectly.
She’s brought back the Christmas lights that she stole and strung them again.
Instead of chairs, we decided on cushions on the ground for people to sit on.
It’s more relaxed and helps everyone in the back see better since we don’t actually have a real stage.
Tara and I are just going to imagine we have a full-blown set and trust the audience to catch up.
It’s a motley crew that shows up, a bunch of locals I recruited. It wasn’t hard with a name like the Populists’ Playhouse;
there’s never been anything more Bushwicky. Elijah the trumpet player is there and my landlord comes too. I gave him a free
ticket so he can see how I’m turning our building into a cultural mecca and in hopes that he won’t put a stop to all the fun
or evict me if it’s a total bust and I come up short again for rent.
Then there’s the Manhattan crowd. It’s easy to spot them, all collars and ties. Chris bought tickets for the eight people
he manages at his accounting firm. It’ll be a good team-building outing, he’s told me—more inclusive than golf, right?