Lucy Howard moved to New York from Foley, Alabama, the strip mall town\u00a0over from Orange Beach on the polluted Gulf Coast. She left to escape\u00a0her husband, Greg Howard, a Baldwin County cop who beat her, all the\u00a0time, or at least whenever he found the need to beat on something and\u00a0a suspect was not in custody. He didn\u2019t drink or use drugs he just\u00a0liked to hit.<\/p>\n
Everyone in Foley knew Greg beat her. They\u2019d been together since middle school. Lucy blew Greg under the student-stomped bleachers and he thanked her by stomping on her face after throwing her to the floor, her head crashing into the stove warming his dinner.<\/p>\n
One night she called the sheriff\u2019s office. The sheriff personally came over and even sacrificed his own handkerchief so Lucy could dab a bleed above her eye.<\/p>\n
\u201cMove to New York,\u201d he suggested. \u201cIt\u2019s another country.\u201d<\/p>\n
That\u2019s what gave Lucy the idea to come up north. And anyway, her sister had been telling her a slight variation on that theme for years. She just needed to hear it from Greg\u2019s boss.<\/p>\n
In New York she found herself homesick for Alabama, though, even for the traffic that piles up during the high season on state route 59.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have Fifty-Ninth Street here,\u201d I say, \u201cbut we don\u2019t have state route 59. I don\u2019t think we even have routes in New York. Unless they\u2019re for evacuation.\u201d<\/p>\n
She tells me her story the night we meet, we\u2019re in bed, it\u2019s the only night we sleep together. In the darkness she holds my finger to a scar above her eye.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think I\u2019ve ever known a girl who\u2019s been beaten,\u201d I say. \u201cBut that can\u2019t be true.\u201d<\/p>\n
And while Lucy and I are going at it, with the lights on, I observe the last of the fading bruises on her lower legs, thighs, the whole right side of her fleshy abdomen. A large blonde with light-tanned skin and, where they aren\u2019t bruised, shiny, juicy legs, Lucy is warm-blooded with arched feet and cool, delicate hands. She\u2019s an expert in bed, she doesn\u2019t think too much. Her crooked row of front teeth bunch diagonally, like they\u2019re prisoners against a high wall, in the gangster lean. She has soft green eyes that remain closed when she\u2019s answering a question or thinking. Just before coming, she lets out what she later defines as the \u201crebel yell,\u201d a corralling, yodeling sound I recognize only from the Paul\u2019s Boutique <\/em>track \u201cFive-Piece Chicken Dinner,\u201d although she tells me afterwards that it\u2019s also a Billy Idol album. She tells me she hasn\u2019t rebel-yelled with another boy since Greg in middle school.<\/p>\n \u201cWe don\u2019t call it middle school in New York,\u201d I say.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat do you call it?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI guess junior high. What\u2019s it like?\u201d I ask her about the physical abuse. She herself uses the word \u201cabuse\u201d in a casual manner. \u201cI\u2019ve been kicked,\u201d I say, \u201cbut I\u2019ve never been punched by another man. You have.”<\/p>\n Now I\u2019m reclining on one elbow, facing her on the bed. Her eyes are closed. She says, \u201cI can see him, Tyrone. This is how it goes. He doesn\u2019t think he has a problem. Beating is not his problem. Beating is my problem.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cDo you think you have a tendency to get beaten?\u201d<\/p>\n Her eyes are still closed. \u201cNo. When he\u2019s around the tendency pops back up. Do you want to beat me, Tyrone?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNo. I don’t think so. Let\u2019s be friends. Like let\u2019s hang out like all the time.\u201d<\/p>\n I can\u2019t tell what she thinks, or if she thinks anything at all. I hear a murmur in her hair, or is it just the sheet.<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019ll be my first friend in the city,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n The next weekend we\u2019re on a bender. Our first and last stop is Brandy\u2019s, our spot, where the bartender makes strong martinis. We sing calorie-burning camp songs all night, tunes from Tommy\u2019s piano, but Tommy left for the night an hour ago and it\u2019s getting late. The bartender puts up the lights and starts pushing us out. We leave the bar and sit down against one of the stoops up the street, with enough light to keep away the rats and roaches, or at least spot them before they get too close.<\/p>\n Two people follow us out of the bar. The woman, Becca, has short hair with styled bangs and a sharp nose that bends in the opposite direction of her bangs. She either works in hospital administration or as a buyer for J. Crew. The man, whom Becca promises us she doesn\u2019t know, calls himself Viktor. Lucy asks him how he spells it. Becca asks if he has an umbrella. He doesn\u2019t. Becca isn\u2019t too surprised. Viktor is one of those beefy Germans who moves to New York and sits on his stoop all day waiting for someone to shoot him. Even in the toasty streetlight, Viktor has the pallor of an innocent bystander.<\/p>\n It does start raining. Becca requests an umbrella, any umbrella. I produce one from my back pocket but mention I\u2019m not sure it\u2019s time to use it yet. She says that since it just started raining, now seems like the perfect time to use an umbrella if you have one. From my seat on the pavement I am close to a Band-Aid on the back of Becca\u2019s heel.<\/p>\n The rain picks up. Lucy plays with her lipstick. Becca stands over me, her crotch so close to my face I can smell it, and she asks again, in baby-talk voice, for my weensy umbrella. I stand up, engage its properties, hold it over our heads. She inches closer to me, ducking, and now it\u2019s time to go. But Viktor won\u2019t leave us alone and Lucy has no interest in him. I hand the umbrella to Becca and plop back down on the concrete. Lucy places her hand on my shoulder.<\/p>\n \u201cAre you guys out of gas?\u201d Viktor asks slowly, concentrating on his American idiom.<\/p>\n \u201cNo we\u2019re out of life,\u201d Lucy responds.<\/p>\n \u201cYes, that\u2019s right,\u201d I glower. \u201cThat\u2019s it. We\u2019re out of life.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cMe too,\u201d perks Becca, who is now sitting on my lap. She\u2019s very light.<\/p>\n \u201cLet me walk you home,\u201d I whisper in her ear. \u201cWe\u2019ll keep dry.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m at the Marriott in Times Square.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI love Times Square,\u201d I say, which is true. \u201cWhat are you doing all the way up here?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m not with him. This bar is famous.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s right. I guess it is.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019re beautiful,\u201d Becca says. \u201cWhat\u2019s your name again?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cTyrone. Ty.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYes. Ty is a hot guy name.\u201d<\/p>\n We kiss. Becca kisses my temple like she\u2019s known me forever. I think I need to vomit. Viktor moves towards Lucy\u2019s lap. He has reasonable mathematical justice on his mind: if he spent all night talking to Becca, and I am now going to be with Becca, that means he deserves the privilege of being with Lucy.<\/p>\n \u201cDon\u2019t leave me with him,\u201d Lucy whispers in my ear, using Becca\u2019s body for balance.<\/p>\n \u201cReally?\u201d I moan, taking my lips away from Becca.<\/p>\n \u201cI can\u2019t. No.\u201d She smiles her overcrowded, slanted teeth, the gangster lean smile, highlighted by her freshly repainted lips.<\/p>\n \u201cOnly for you, sailor.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cLet\u2019s walk me home,\u201d Lucy says to the whole group.<\/p>\n The cocaine and spirits have left me impatient, and Lucy\u2019s apartment is one block north and two blocks east, almost all the way to York Avenue. That sounds like, and is, a vast Manhattan distance. No one in our shabbily assembled foursome wants to walk that length together, pretending we\u2019re great friends who have brunch plans the next day with a different set of great friends. But Lucy has requested monitoring and possibly protection from Viktor, who is now showing his true self. He says \u201cat least blow on me\u201d to Lucy and I respond, in what I think is a German accent\u2014\u201cno, no, that\u2019s enough, nein<\/em>, and this term, this term is not even the proper term, this term blow on me.\u201d<\/p>\n We walk uptown, Viktor under store awnings, Lucy curbside, Becca and I happy in the carefree romantic middle with our umbrella built for one, but also blocking and play-tackling Viktor\u2019s path to Lucy, who has no umbrella and is getting soaked. Viktor curses me and asks the thoughtful, interesting question: \u201chow much does one man need?\u201d He lunges at Lucy on the northeast corner of Eighty-Ninth Street. I stiff-arm him as we turn east. Two drugged rats follow each other out of a garbage can. Viktor shrieks. We all laugh.<\/p>\n At Lucy\u2019s door, she blows us all a kiss goodnight.<\/p>\n \u201cBlow on me, babe,\u201d I say.<\/p>\n Once Lucy locks her hallway door, Becca and I run up the street, ditching a howling Viktor in the pouring rain, and we grab a cab back to Becca’s Marriott Hotel in Times Square.<\/p>\n When I wake up, I realize I\u2019m in Times Square.<\/p>\n I meet Lucy in the morning and we walk to The Shops at Columbus Circle. She tells me Viktor moaned for so long outside her window she gave in and let him upstairs. He had the biggest cock she\u2019d ever seen and he had no idea how to use it.<\/p>\n I don\u2019t talk to Lucy for a few weeks. On a gray weekday morning I walk up Eighty-Fourth Street and notice Brandy\u2019s has an awning.<\/p>\n Brandy\u2019s has an awning?<\/p>\n Brandy\u2019s? Awning? Really? What? So why did we need those umbrellas the other night? <\/em><\/p>\n Ha. Does it? It does. I never thought about it. Doesn\u2019t every bar have an awning? <\/em><\/p>\n No. Definitely not. <\/em><\/p>\n It\u2019s not a law? I think Viktor left some of his dick in me. <\/em><\/p>\n Really. Is that good? I left my umbrella at Becca\u2019s hotel. You know, the Marriott in Times Square.<\/em><\/p>\n Did you ever figure out if she was a nurse or buyer 4 J. Crew? <\/em><\/p>\n I did, yep. The answer will shock you.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n We fall into the habit of going on like this. At first we save texting for immediate plans. Otherwise it gets too easy to never even make plans, too easy with the smarts and commentary and theories. We need the phone. Especially when we\u2019re hungover and need the crutches of saying something else that follows something else. Or the grace to break speech as ambulances race failing hearts down Second Avenue. Texting means I get to complain about the emergency. Talking on the phone means the emergency wins. The emergency, I think, should win.<\/p>\n We talk on the phone during my walks home up Broadway and she has me laughing the whole length of the city. I like hearing her conjunctions. The way she flubs \u201cbut\u201d in a southern way makes me think of the oily Gulf Coast bottom. Lucy thinks she\u2019s going to hell. She talks sin like it still exists. Most people don\u2019t believe in sin and talk shit about sin because then it doesn\u2019t mean they\u2019re sinning. They think they already paid in the past or their Mom paid. But Lucy knows white Alabama and she knows the white Christ. She has a different way with Christ. It reminds me of something I read on a bar plaque that Al Capone said: when I sell liquor it\u2019s called bootlegging, when my patrons sell it, it\u2019s called hospitality. Lucy\u2019s Christ isn\u2019t the cleaned-up Christ we have up north. Lucy talks about redemption like it\u2019s a real thing, a word until her I associate only with brown weed and Bob Marley. Redemption is a new level, just like planet earth is an oblate spheroid, not a circle, and within that drastic shift in diction lies the imperfect power of peace and forgiveness.<\/p>\n We\u2019re both out of it, we\u2019re out of life, we say, but she seems to be out of it more often and more consistently. Guys that make Viktor sound like a good catch start popping up in her stories. You can turn-out Lucy Howard for the price of an overpriced Bud Light.<\/p>\n By the end of the summer, she\u2019s complaining about having to walk five blocks to Brandy\u2019s. It\u2019s years, she says, five block years. She starts hailing taxis. It\u2019s such a short distance the base fare is always higher than the metered. She starts drinking earlier than I do on the mornings we\u2019re both hungover. Late into October she\u2019s still wearing summer clothes\u2014boat shoes, white shorts with pinned cuffs, an Auburn Tigers sweatshirt tucked into the shorts, a braided belt a different color from the shoes. These are the same outfits she wore in August, but back then it was on Sunday afternoon, not Saturday night.<\/p>\n We keep going to Brandy\u2019s and drinking gin martinis, singing longform camp songs like “Scenes from an Italian Restaurant” and \u201cParadise By the Dashboard Light.\u201d After hours, my role is to keep strange men curbside while Lucy hugs me on the inner sidewalk. I wonder, what\u2019s the difference between me and these men? Which one of us is luckier: the one who goes upstairs with Lucy, or the man who moves on to the next bar? My role is to get her to clean up, my role is to command her to take off her Auburn sweatshirt\u2014maybe that\u2019s pasta sauce, maybe it\u2019s dried blood\u2014and put on a turtleneck and enjoy this heartbreaking autumn weather we\u2019re having. My role is to tell her she belongs in New York. She can\u2019t go back to Greg in Alabama. She confesses to me they never got divorced. She\u2019s been living in sin. Come on, I say, we\u2019re all living in sin. You can\u2019t go back to Alabama. You were so courageous to come here and make it yours. You can\u2019t go back. You left, that\u2019s the hardest part. Everything is easy after that. My role is to drop Lucy at home, boil water and dump in an entire box of pasta to restore her spirits, carb her to sleep.<\/p>\n Part of me thinks I\u2019m a good friend. I don\u2019t judge Lucy. Another part of me thinks that I receive the catharsis. I latch on to someone else\u2019s problems while I ignore or mishandle my own. This is one of the joys of being the good listener. This is one of the perks of being the friend. My role is to kick junk mail and community handbills from Lucy\u2019s front door. My role is to carry her up these warped, curry-scented stairs. Her place is a mess. When I flip up the kitchen light, family-sized roaches scatter around the sink top. The biggest ones don\u2019t move, knowing there\u2019s no reason to rush. On the stove, pasta that\u2019s been nibbled by mice. There are mice droppings in the utensil drawer. There are roaches ollieing on the rims of her cracked serving bowls. Only the bed, a few feet away from the kitchen, seems to be safe. I fluff out a bed sheet of unpaid Bloomingdale’s and damp, rolled-up daily newspapers. On the floor they hit makeup tubes, spray bottles missing spouts.<\/p>\n We’re both sweating from the drugs. Lucy turns the AC on full blast. I\u2019m tired of my role of being the friend. I come on to her and we have sex again as the sun comes up, it\u2019s so bad we both have to be the ones to leave, even though we\u2019re at her house. Then her sorority sisters visit one weekend. Lucy says I should come over and party with them. One is named Aurora, which means dawn. She wears only low-top lime green Chuck Taylors, no-show socks. Samantha answers only to Sammy and smells of detergent pen, strained olives, failed matchsticks. Sammy isn\u2019t very bright. Aurora turns me on to the poetry of Essex Hemphill, I tell her Gansevoort Street is named after Melville\u2019s grandfather. The both of them like Lucy, tall, old blonde hair, long birth-tanned arms overcome with bangles and bracelets. None of us wake up until the sun is down.<\/p>\n I can\u2019t do it. Especially when I\u2019m high. It\u2019s five block years, sailor. It\u2019s five block years away. I can\u2019t walk.<\/em><\/p>\n It\u2019ll take you seven minutes to walk there. This is a walkability city, that\u2019s the idea.<\/em><\/p>\n It\u2019s another galaxy.<\/em><\/p>\n It\u2019s Brandy\u2019s, not Betelgeuse!\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n Another problem with texting. On the phone, I joke she can take a break on every corner. Or I say it\u2019s Brandy\u2019s, not Mars, it\u2019s not an icy Kuiper object, it\u2019s not the Oort cloud, or even\u2014maybe this is most likely\u2014it\u2019s Brandy\u2019s, sailor, not Alpha Centauri. But in a text message I chose Betelgeuse, the macaroni star, an up-and-comer in Orion\u2019s red shoulder, the second city in his constellation. I\u2019d rather see Orion and say nothing, but that\u2019s not the kind of person I am. I\u2019d rather be a gentleman and not play the accordion, but there are songs Lucy must hear. And I don\u2019t know how to spell Betelgeuse. And I don\u2019t know how to pronounce Betelgeuse. But I know how to text it out of my stargazing.<\/p>\n After we clean up her apartment, and just before Lucy\u2019s money runs out, after Sammy, after Aurora, after Betelgeuse, we lose touch. The truth is we\u2019re both too embarrassed to look at each other. Turns out sin helps you be friends with Jesus but it doesn\u2019t do much for being friends with other people. We really have no friends in common except for the bartender at Brandy\u2019s. I start going there alone, figuring I\u2019ll run into Lucy, but I don\u2019t. I ask the bartender what he knows. He tells me he heard that Lucy\u2019s husband, Greg Howard, the Baldwin County cop, came to New York for terrorism training. He found Lucy, or Lucy found him and Greg planned to force her back to Alabama. I send her a bunch of texts asking if she\u2019s back in Alabama with her Greg.<\/p>\n No, sailor, I\u2019m not.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n A funny thing happens to Lucy on her way back to Baldwin County. She meets Andrew Pippin, a soil scientist from Madison, Wisconsin, and falls madly in love. They meet randomly in the lobby of a SoHo hotel, an odd location for a soil conference but what can you do, love can\u2019t be arranged. Andrew takes Lucy away from New York, away from men like me, away from men like Greg, and moves her to a college town in Wisconsin. Lucy doesn\u2019t know how to function without a man, and I don\u2019t know how to function without a woman, so we\u2019re both really happy she finally met someone as stable and boring as Andrew Pippin.<\/p>\n The last message I receive from her (but how can I say \u201clast\u201d unless I one day change my number) says it all happened so fast, sailor. I\u2019m becoming Mrs. Andrew Pippin. Right now I\u2019m volunteering at a barn dance off highway 94. Soil scientists make jokes about spending all day with their hands in the soil. I think they eat dirt when no one\u2019s looking. So I\u2019m scooping potato salad sunk in mayonnaise from an aluminum tray. All the other wives keep asking when I\u2019m going to have a baby. I can\u2019t imagine being sober for nine months, although I\u2019ve been laying off, and I feel better. I feel lighter. I used to be so good at getting messed up, but now I suck at it. I eat a lot of greens. We\u2019re all very agriculturally-conscious here. What can I tell you about where your tomatoes come from? Did you know apples sometimes come all the way from New Zealand?\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n New York feels empty, now that I know Lucy isn\u2019t here.<\/p>\n I write back: Nice. Remember that morning when I realized Brandy\u2019s had an awning? \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n Of course I do! Wait, Brandy\u2019s had an awning? Then why did we get stuck in the rain that night??<\/em><\/p>\n I\u2019m not invited to the wedding because, I suspect, Andrew doesn\u2019t like me, and he certainly doesn\u2019t like New York City, which I represent to him via Lucy, based on the select things she told him about me. He doesn\u2019t think that men and women can be friends. And that\u2019s not only because Andrew is a soil scientist from the American interior, his most cosmopolitan memory being bored at a luxurious SoHo hotel until the blonde southern woman of his dreams fell into his lap. Actually, I agree with Andrew Pippin. I think he\u2019s on to something by mistrusting me. I\u2019m merely the leftover man who turned-out his wife, a remaindered man, a threat to the budding sanctity of his new family.<\/p>\n Congratulations! I\u2019m so happy for you! <\/em>And I am, but I\u2019m not invited to the party, or included on the registry information, and these exclusions aren\u2019t easy for me to handle. I want to take a plane to Madison, Wisconsin. I want be there to celebrate the happiest day of Lucy\u2019s life.<\/p>\n They say the people who need to know, know. Well, I know, but where does it get me? How do I know? I meant to send Lucy, as an engagement gift, a set of martini stems. More than anything else, martinis are what we shared together.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Lucy, <\/em><\/p>\n I am so happy for you and Andrew P. And I am so happy for what you and I shared. I feel like you left New York just as you becoming a New Yorker, but what can you do, I keep telling myself, love can\u2019t be arranged. The city misses you more than anyone else. At least you\u2019re in the top 100,000 of those it misses tonight. Mix a martini, think of me. Do they have gin in Wisconsin? You and I, sailor, are redeemed by the days of olives. <\/em><\/p>\n Love, <\/em><\/p>\n Ty\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n I write the note on my dark gray stationary with light gray trim. It hurts to write all those eeee\u2019s <\/em>in redeemed. This is wrong. I can\u2019t tell Lucy I love her. But I love her more than anyone else. Maybe it\u2019s because I never got to beat her. I lick the envelope closed. I feel like my hands are falling off. I pick up the box of martini stems. They crash to the floor, shattering like flowers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Choice 1: He had the biggest cock she\u2019d ever seen and he had no idea how to use it.
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