I'm Trying to Reach You Read online

  Somewhat guiltily, I clicked on the carper’s moniker and was transported to his page. He, too, had only signed up a short while ago, and in fact, he only had one channel view – mine being, presumably, the second. He did, however, have a video, evidently just posted. My heart registered with a thunk the identity of the slight, poised figure standing in the tub, eyes downcast, dressed in virginal white: it was the rebel moth! The neck of a miniature guitar, secured by a large, pale hand, was visible in the lower right-hand corner of the screen. The bathroom’s fluorescent light cast a dreamlike glow on the frosted glass of the shower enclosure.

  The title of the video was “bathtub dance (harvest moon).” I clicked play.

  Another plunky little chord progression started up – not Satie, but the old Tin Pan Alley tune, “Shine On, Harvest Moon,” on the uke. After four stumbling little bars of an intro, a scratchy, crooning voice came in:

  The night was mighty dark so you could hardly see,

  For the moon refused to shine…

  Couple sittin’ underneath a willow tree,

  For love they pined.

  The little maid was kinda ’fraid of darkness

  So she said, “I guess I’ll go…”

  Boy began to sigh, looked up at the sky,

  And told the moon his little tale of woe…

  The “boy” squawked his mild complaint, as the “little maid” tiptoed her way around her tub en demi-pointes. At one point she executed a demure little bump and grind. The song and the dance were ridiculous, melancholy, amateurish, luminous, lewd, indecent, and foreboding, all at the same time. With the last chord, the scene faded to white, and the ambient echo of the bathroom seemed to hang for a moment in the air.

  I sat there staring at the screen, trying to sort out my feelings. I recognized that inexplicable proprietary impulse. What was the moth doing on the carper’s YouTube page? Did she want to be there? And was that him commandeering the uke? She never looked him in the eye. Then again, she never looked up in that Satie dance, either. Was she being shy, or furtive, or a little hostile? Was she teasing him with that bump and grind?

  His musical performance was equally perplexing. It was something between a lullaby and a howl. Was he serious about this “boy” and “his gal” business? In the pixelated, low-def video, it wasn’t easy to discern the moth’s age, but, to use that term I recently invoked in reference to myself, she seemed “mature.” The carper, or what you could glean of him, looked older still. There was a moment when he leaned slightly in to the video frame, and a small tuft of silvery hair became visible, along with the edge of a pair of reading glasses.

  I watched this video three more times, even though I found it somewhat disconcerting. On the surface, it was just another oddball home video, but I couldn’t shake that sense of menace. Then I felt embarrassed and told myself I should get back to moving those commas around in my manuscript. I closed the browser. I moved the commas. I stared into space for a while and thought about writing fiction.

  That night Sven texted me: “got u a present.”

  He attached a photo of what appeared to be a cheesy reproduction of Degas’s painting, La classe de danse, with the figure of the ballet master replaced by a bounding, open-mouthed, alabaster-skinned Michael Jackson. The ballerinas looked on in boredom – one staring at the ceiling, one sucking on her fingers, another examining her slippers – this, in keeping with the original. It doesn’t seem like a very likely scenario, really. If MJ were to have shown up in some dance studio like that, I’m pretty sure the ballerinas would have snapped to attention. But the implications were interesting. The painting appeared to be an acknowledgement of his stature as a master of movement.

  I thought I knew where this piece came from. Sven works at the Östasiatiska Museet in Stockholm. While the museum mostly houses Asian antiquities and the occasional contemporary art star, there’s generally a middle-aged Chinese guy who goes by the name of Andy outside the museum selling his own low-brow oil paintings. These are mostly reproductions of European masterpieces, a few with these oddball substitutions. You can also commission him to feature your face on, say, John Singer Sargent’s Portrait of Madame X. He usually charges around 750 kronor for a painting, which is roughly a hundred bucks. But since Sven knows him, he probably got a break. Naturally I was very touched that he’d gotten me this present. I’d mentioned to him my preoccupation with MJ ever since receiving his text.

  You may get the impression from this gift that Sven has a camp sensibility. On the contrary. He’s actually extremely sensitive. That’s why I didn’t send him that YouTube link of Natalia Makarova. I thought it might make him cry. I’m also not sure how much of a sense of humor Andy has about his paintings. While he gives the impression of being a very happy person, Andy also seems pretty sincere about the things he loves. I’m not really sure about my own degree of irony. I think it’s medium.

  Sven said he’d put the painting in a tube and sent it by DHL. It would probably arrive in under a week.

  It was a little hot in the apartment that evening. I don’t really like air conditioning. I thought I’d go down to the garden and sit near the fountain for a while. There’s a homely little fountain they sometimes turn on. I took that queer theory book down with me. It was almost dusk, so I knew I wouldn’t get much reading done. I’m not sure exactly how I thought I might incorporate this book into my manuscript revisions anyway. It seemed relevant, but if I started addressing more theoretical material, I was pretty sure I’d end up expanding rather than contracting the citations, which were already embarrassingly bloated. I had spoken briefly with an editor from Routledge at PSi, and he asked me about the potential market for my book. I made the mistake of saying something about its “citationality” being of potential interest. I could see from the look on his face that I was badly misconstruing the meaning of market.

  I sat on a bench in the middle of the garden and opened the book up again to that passage from Silvan Tomkins.

  If you like to be supported and I like to hold you in my arms, we can enjoy such an embrace. If you like to be kissed and I like to kiss you, we may enjoy each other. If you like to be sucked or bitten and I like to suck or bite you, we may enjoy each other. If you like to have your skin rubbed and I like to do this to you, we can enjoy each other. If you enjoy being hugged and I enjoy hugging you, it can be mutually enjoyable. If you enjoy being dominated and I enjoy controlling you, we may enjoy each other…

  I’m sure a lot of readers might consider some of this a little comical. It has something to do with that question of irony I was thinking about before. About Sven and Andy and the painting. But I also think that Silvan Tomkins was very sincere. So the business about biting and sucking is really not dirty but sort of sweet and also a little eccentric. And the business about being dominated is really not just about sadomasochistic tendencies. It struck me as simultaneously more tender and more disturbing than that.

  It was starting to get dark. I looked up at the moon, which was partially obscured by the branches overhead. I was sitting under a willow tree. There are two very beautiful willow trees in that garden. And suddenly I realized where I’d seen the carper before.

  I was sure of it, and it terrified me.

  It was Jimmy Stewart. From Zagreb.

  THE MAN I LOVE

  After considerable internal debate, I decided I was being paranoid. Really, my various “leads” didn’t seem to point in any obvious direction except away from my manuscript revisions. I knew I needed to buckle down.

  I’m not, as I already said, a particularly paranoid person. I don’t generally assume the worst of people.

  Sometimes little kids will ask me outright if I’m black. If responsible adults are present they usually look mortified, but I don’t mind, of course. It’s an honest question. Sometimes very, very old people will also ask me this. This is a little more troubling, as I sometimes get the feeling they might go on to say, “because you don’t really look that black,” and t
hen expect me to say, “Thank you.”

  I sort of expected Bugs Bunny’s sister to ask me this. But instead, on the morning of June 30, 2009, after making her painstaking trek down the hallway to the impatiently honking elevator as I held the door, after slowly maneuvering her walker into the car, she looked up at me, smacked her gums, and asked: “AH YOU JEWISH?”

  I said, “EXCUSE ME?”

  She said, “I SAID, AH YOU JEWISH?”

  I answered, a little apologetically, “NO, I’M NOT.”

  She looked at me for a minute, and then she asked, “AH YOU CATOLIC?”

  I wasn’t sure if it was worse to be totally godless in her eyes, but I find it hard to lie, so I said, “No, actually I was raised without religion. I’m not really a religious person.”

  She said, “WHAT? I CYAN HEAH YA!”

  I said, “NO.”

  She said, “LEMME TELL YA WHY I’M ASKIN’. I GOTTA FWEN’ WHO’S CATOLIC, AND SHE TOL’ ME, LISTEN, IF YA EVAH LOSE ANYTING, YA GOTTA PWAY TO SAIN’ ANTONY. YA JUS’ SAY, ‘SAIN’ ANTONY, HELP ME FIN’ MY STUFF.’ LIKE… YA LOSE YA KEYS. YA SAY, ‘SAIN’ ANTONY, HELP ME FIN’ MY KEYS.’ AND YA KNOW WHAT?” Bugs Bunny’s sister paused for dramatic effect, her eyes twinkling. “YA KNOW WHAT?… IT WOYKS!”

  I said, “I’LL REMEMBER THAT.”

  She said, “I’M TELLIN’ YA, IT WOYKS!”

  I made a mental note to tell Sven about Saint Anthony.

  Bugs Bunny’s sister also never asked me if I was gay. I don’t really look that gay either.

  I’ll tell you why I know it was June 30. It’s because that was the day that Pina Bausch died.

  I was in New York the day that Pina Bausch died.

  It was a day I thought a lot about loss, and not being able to find things.

  I was out of coffee. I’d forgotten about this little detail when I was at Morton Williams the day before. The weather that morning was threatening. On sunny days, Bugs Bunny’s sister liked to take a lawn chair downstairs and sit just outside the entrance to the building in her Miami whites, sunning herself. But since it was overcast, that day she was contenting herself with a chit-chat with the doorman, Jorge. A chit-chat is another euphemism.

  She screamed, “HOAHAY, WHAT’S DA WEDDAH GONNA BE LIKE TODAY?”

  He said, “Madam, desafortunately ees gonna be more rainy.”

  She screamed, “WHAT? I CYAN UNNASTAN’ YA! SPEAK UP! MY EAHS AH SHOT!”

  I dashed over to Morton Williams and picked up some Café Bustelo and a little demerara sugar. When I got back, they were still yelling at each other about the forecast. Jorge paused to nod politely at me and say, “How are you doing, sir?”

  Bugs Bunny’s sister looked at me and said, “WHAT’S DA WEDDAH GONNA BE LIKE?”

  I screamed, “RAIN!”

  She screamed, “I TOUGHT SO!”

  Back up in my apartment, I boiled a little pot of espresso and flipped through The New York Times. I worked on the crossword puzzle. The wind was starting to rattle the windows and the sky looked increasingly ominous. I heard my cell phone buzz against the table: a text from Sven.

  “im so sorry pina died :( ”

  I stared at the message. Pina? This didn’t seem possible.

  I Googled the news and indeed, there it was: Pina Bausch dead, at 68, just five days after a diagnosis of unspecified cancer.

  Tears spouted out of my eyes. I felt like a cartoon character. Like my tears were arcing little dotted lines spouting out of my eyes.

  Sven knew how sad this would make me. I’d dragged him all the way from Stockholm to Copenhagen on a train a few years before to see Carnations. I’d seen it at BAM in 1988, just before I moved to Sweden. I also cried like a baby when Lutz Forster did that sign language interpretation of “The Man I Love.” When Sven and I saw it together, we held hands and we both cried. When we left the theater we didn’t even talk for a while.

  If you’ve never seen Lutz Forster doing this dance, you should really watch it on YouTube. That’s what I did as soon as I’d verified Sven’s news. The version that’s up is from Chantal Akerman’s documentary film, Un jour Pina a demandé… First she shows Forster rehearsing the song in a casual shirt. He seems to be in a dressing room. You can faintly hear him moaning the words over the recording of Sophie Tucker singing as he signs with his hands. His hands are so beautiful. The sign for maybe is a kind of indecisive wobbling of both hands, palms up. The sign for home is an O shape that sweeps up from the mouth to the cheek. When Tucker sings “just built for two,” Forster holds up two long, thin fingers in the shape of a V.

  He signs roam by tracing a zig-zagging line before him. “Who would, would you?” ends with a wavering gesture, half pointing out, half pulling back.

  We didn’t have to talk about why this moment was so moving. There’s a kind of obvious reading, of course, which is that it makes you think about homosexual desire. Sophie Tucker’s voice can say what Forster can only signal mutely. But I don’t really think that’s the heartbreaking thing about it. If you look at the comments on the YouTube version of the dance, you see somebody called “sagatyba” posted: “nice. made a drunken single_ lady cry. such longing and nostalgia.” It’s not just for the gays. I think it’s more about the lack of an object of desire. That song is about the desire for desire, a love object that doesn’t exist. Desire that doesn’t exist. “Some day he’ll come along, the man I love.” Some day. But right now, Lutz Forster is wobbling his empty hands, zig-zagging an aimless trail, wavering his extended thumb and his pinky finger before him in some vague question in the conditional. “Who would, would you?”

  Of course, you can take all this with a grain of salt. You will remember the original title of my dissertation. My advisor warned me that “Derridean analyses” are really pretty passé. Everybody’s moved on to Agamben and Badiou.

  That afternoon the sky broke open over Manhattan and the rain came down in heavy sheets. It seemed to me the world was crying for Pina Bausch.

  The interesting thing is, Pina choreographed her dancers’ tears.

  She also choreographed their chewing.

  After I pulled myself together, I did my barre exercises in my underwear. Then I thought I’d do a quick load of laundry before getting back to moving those commas around. I pulled on some blue hospital scrubs (my housekeeping outfit of choice) and carted my laundry basket down to the basement where they keep the washers and dryers. An older Jamaican woman had occupied the folding table, and she was singing, “Trust and obeyyyyy, for there’s no other wayyyyy to be happy in Jesusssss, but trust and obeyyyyy.”

  She paused to smile at me. She was folding some fancy little toddler clothes. It was evidently not her toddler. I smiled and nodded back.

  I was pouring in a capful of soap when Felicia McKenzie came in. Somebody had told me she also lived in this building. She danced for years with Paul Taylor. I think she’s married to somebody who teaches at NYU. Anyway, there’s no reason she should recognize me, but she also smiled and nodded as she carted her basket over to an empty machine. She was still pretty but a little drawn. Thin. Kind of harried.

  I wondered if she knew about Pina.

  It was strange, acting as though everything were normal. In fact, I had the sense that my world was under siege. The ominous weather was probably contributing to this impression – but really, first MJ and now Pina… It didn’t seem right.

  Of course my efforts at revising my manuscript that day were in vain. I took out a block quote from Eric Auerbach, and then realized that the subsequent reference to figures and figuration made no sense, so I pasted the quote back in. I tried switching the order, and then switched it back again. I replaced a semicolon with a period. That seemed like something. Sort of. I popped back down to the laundry room to put my clothes in the dryer. I stopped in the lobby to pick up my mail: Time Out New York magazine and some credit card promotions. I prepared myself a light meal (salad, sardines), and afterwards I made a cup of Earl Grey tea. When I finished it, I we
nt back down to get my clothes. I folded them. It was a small load.

  I wrote Sven an e-mail about St. Anthony. I told him this tip came from a neighbor but I didn’t tell him she was Bugs Bunny’s sister. I thought he might find it confusing.

  The next day Sven wrote me back saying that it was time to brush up my Swedish for my upcoming visit: the parliament had just enacted the “språklagen” declaring it the “main” language in Sweden. There were more than a few people unnerved by the ubiquity of English.

  Sven was teasing me, but I did feel pretty self-conscious about how bad my Swedish was, even after years of living there. So many people spoke English. Sven and I had some little pet phrases we’d exchange, but it seemed so futile to actually try to converse in his language. Sven signed off: “p+k” – puss och kram. Kisses and hugs. At least I got that.

  Over the next several days, I watched that video of Lutz Forster a few more times. I noticed a clip from Pina’s Água in the related videos. That was the choreography inspired by Brazil. Frankly, I’m not such a big fan of those choreographies she’d started making in recent years dedicated to particular countries. Even though they avoided the obvious pitfalls of “ethnic dance,” there was still a hint of the touristic about them that made me uneasy. When asked about these pieces, she’d always say it was impossible to “capture” a national culture – that she just wanted to present traces of her experiences in these different countries. But the music in Água was beautiful – it’s hard not to find Brazilian music compelling.

  I scrolled down to the comments. A lot of people were looking at Pina’s work that week, of course, and posting comments. “RIP Pina! We love you forever!” 85orestes wrote, “Could anyone explain me the meaning of this choreography? You_ see,i’m an ignorant,but this is so powerfull,moving and intense that i want to know more…Please…!” To which Phmerz responded that great art couldn’t be reduced to a single sentiment (true).