he called me during his morning commute from Broome to Greenwich CT. Dad had died earlier that year, I was going by Nikola, inspired by London Fields. My insomnia allowed me to sleep after noon, every 3 days. Lorenzo's absolutely silent car, and his voice telling me about what he's going to do at work today, helped me ground and sometimes I'd fall asleep on the phone, and he was still there when I choked on my apnea and woke up.
Anyways, he sent me stuff once. He insisted on sending me Brazilian jeans and bikini, bc that's what Brazil is known for. I think he wanted to confirm that I had really left NY. I again had a private landline, and he called in the mornings, from London, while he left work. Our energies no longer matched. His rate of speech and requiring response from me, while I lay on the carpeted floor of Jen's former Shalimar bedroom, I went mute on the phone. There were no curtains, no lamp nor light, no pillow, and Dad was burnt alive. There was a private landline.
Then, I tried cocaine. And he had once said he had tried it, so I called him out of the blue. That was the last time we spoke.
I never had a coke problem, other than coke is a problem if I am in the same building. This is how it went: I'd have an anaphylactic response to one alcoholic bev, pot makes me a normie, so someone would give me coke all night, i'd tell them everything about my family, they disappear, I fiend, I am relieved by McDonald's dollar menu for the next 2 weeks, and neglect Amy extra. I mean let's be honest, coke was a stand-in for Burger King. I rarely acquired coke, it showed up a lot, so it was free. Whenever I went in search, I was unsuccessful in the present. Someone might come through weeks later.
I liked hanging out with Paura Stella Heo, bc she so thoroughly knew me. She was absolutely ok with my multiple days in a row of silence and surreptitious eating. And her nastiness was like a dilluted Steph, her emotions were familiar and I and it was effortless to provide a logic proof confirming mathematically that Stella is perfect.
Paura, as well, just showed up. Now I see it was Steph begging Stella's mom to keep me while the rest of the family attended a wedding or something of the sort. Since Accel, I was kept at one degree til dissociation.
Stella was familiar, she was comfortable giving detailed instructions, when I went catatonic. She was kind and thoroughly convinced me that I don't snore. Every 215 visit I got to buy her a pizza cheese steak, and watch her enjoy as if she hadn't had meat in days. She did give me bubble guts, and people who hadn't spoken to me since 7th grade told me to stay away from her. For 20 years, she was the only person who repeatedly asked me to hangout, called on my birthday, sent rolodex cards filled with random words like "white panties".
Anyways, Stella shows up at Derby Court while I'm visiting. I am in UD to visit childhood PCP bc of my persistent sinus infection. Stella says she will stay at the house while I'm at the Dr, can she use the community pool, can she borrow a bathing suit. The last time I owned a bathing suit I was in elementary school. Stella asked if I still had Lorenzo's bikini. I did have Lorenzo's bikini. I'd kept it in the original mailer bc I thought it smelled ever so faintly of his cologne. Not as if he sprayed the package, more his scent imbued in his suitcase, flying from Sao Paolo, with the rest of his belongings.
It was white with magenta orchids painted over much of the white. I had told Lorenzo I'm a 27. I didn't know what size I was ever. Steph mostly bought me clothes I should aspire to fit into. But Helen had said once, if you can fit into 27 Sevens, you know you're hot. At the time, I learned at the PCP, I weighed 220lbs from eating a pint of ice cream every 2 days all of Spring semester. The bikini was 4-3 inch isosceles. 4 triangles total, 2 on top, bottom front, and bottom back. On me, it did not cover my crack and cleft. Only either or. Stella said she wouldn't go swimming in it, preserve the smell, and only sun bathe. She took it home and laundered it. Derby Court's green space was large, but was shared by a dozen townhomes.
25 years later, when Jack and I would smoke cigs together by the window, he regularly brought up how the upstairs neighbor's daughter sunbathed on the patch of grass, in front of their Flushing walkup. And how the entire neighborhood was astir,
"I was scared to ever look out the window if the weather was nice enough to possibly suntan!"
"I had to cancel my appointment bc I couldn't walk past her laying out."
Repeatedly, I'd laugh at Jack's retelling of the boobage. He spoke of it as if it were a pig slaughter or gorey car accident. The incongruity of his level of emotion over a bikini was, I thought, humerous. And then Bok would wrap up with, "she wants the attention. She's young and pretty, why not. Except this is not the beach, it's a 6 by 3 patch of grass in center of the buildings one parking spot in front of the garage. It's a shared space. Her mother apologized for a year."
Over the next 3 years, they'd repeat the story with a rotating series of how uncomfortable her bikini made everyone. I thought they were being good story tellers, she was laying still, possibly asleep, where was the threat?
Until living in Queens, I never knew cigarette smoke could travel in from the outside. I'd chain smoke on Derby Court's tiny deck. Throughout a decade, none of the family ever mentioned the cigarette smoke. Not once.
