Right after Joe and I moved to Seattle, we went to the state fair, my first one ever. It has since become a tradition. Of course this native New Yorker was horrified at the parolee vibe and average weight of my fellow milling attendees. Around every corner, teardrop trailers sold raspberry scones. PRIDE OF WASHINGTON, the signs beamed. I thought, How sad for Washington State, to be so proud over so little.
Such could be said of the entertainment offered. We were expected to marvel over goats in pens, be amazed at vegetables arranged to look like the Washington State flag, gather around for jewelry-cleaning demos. I must have been on my feet too long, or maybe it was the September heat, but when I saw the genuine delight Joe took in cheering his entry in a pig race (“Look at that! They’re chasing an Oreo!”), my defenses went kaput. I actually felt at one with the doughy white mass of humanity, these Washingtonians with their guns and Jesus and BluBlockers.
And I thought, How sad for you, New York City, you self-absorbed crack whore, with your status-obsessed, edgy, darting eyes, your choked sidewalks, your cancerously reproducing starchitect-designed Prada stores, your breathless yak about real estate prices drowning out all civilized conversation, your deafening restaurants impossible to get into, your cheap TV stars muscling out real talent on Broadway, your smelly streets clogged with blacker SUVs with darker-tinted windows ferrying richer and richer hedge-fund creeps. And where does it leave you? Still chasing yesterday’s high.
In that moment I loved our new life in dumpy Washington State and especially Joe for dragging me here and saving me from my Manhattan-centric worst self.
“Remember how last year you wouldn’t let me get a funnel cake?” was Timby’s takeaway. He passed the photo back up.
“Why are you sad?” Timby asked.
“I worry I haven’t been paying enough attention to your dad,” I said.
“It’s okay, Mama. That’s just how you are.”
I pulled over and rested my forehead on the steering wheel. My breath flittered about high in my chest.
“I don’t want to be that way,” I said, tears filling my voice. “I really don’t.”
I unbuckled my seat belt and turned around.
“What are you doing?” Timby asked, his voice edged with alarm.
I was all butt as I attempted to clamber into the back.
“I need to hold you,” I grunted, struggling to pull my foot up and over.
“Don’t,” Timby said, a sitting duck in his car seat. “Mom, stop.”
“I want to be worthy of you,” I said, panting like childbirth. “You deserve better than me.” I became stuck between the console and the roof in an unsightly gargoyle crouch.
“Oh God, look at me,” I cried. “I don’t know what I’m doing!”
“Neither do I,” he said. “Go back.”
I screwed my shoulders around to face front. Timby’s foot gave me a shove into the driver’s seat.
I grabbed my hair at my scalp. “And now on top of everything, I just acted really weird and scary.”
“Put it behind you,” Timby said. “Good job.”
I shifted into drive and headed up Elliott Ave., a busy thoroughfare lined with rail yards, abandoned factories, and crappy teardowns, all on their way to becoming LEED-certified tech hubs. In other words, no pedestrians.
Which is why the one guy hulking north caught my eye.
It couldn’t be. I slowed down. It was.
“Oh, come on.” I rolled down the window and drove abreast of him.
“What?” Timby asked. “Why are you stopping?”
“Alonzo!” I said. “Get in!”
The top half of him kept walking.
“I couldn’t do it,” he said over the traffic. “I’m not going back.”
“I’m in a bus lane,” I said. “Get in!”
Alonzo fumingly complied. He was in a royal snit, arms crossed, refusing eye contact. I drove off. The seat-belt alert dinged helpfully, then angrily.
“Seat belt,” Timby said.
Alonzo didn’t budge.
“Does he have differences?” Timby asked me.
“What differences?” Alonzo said.
“Nothing,” I said. “It’s just they can’t say retarded.”
Timby tapped Alonzo on the arm. “Excuse me. May I borrow your phone?”
Alonzo passed it over his shoulder and sat there.
“Alonzo!” I said. “What happened?”
“I walked back in and the first thing I saw was a brick of Christmas bows the size of an ottoman. It sickened me and I reversed direction. Did you know that for years I’ve been working on a novel? Ben Lerner’s agent said I could send it to her when I was done.”
“That’s terrific!”
“But I can’t finish it because my soul is a slaughterhouse.”
“‘I have measured out my life with coffee spoons,’” I said in commiseration.
Alonzo pressed his back against the passenger door to get a wider perspective of me. “Thank you. But my hell is a private one.”
“Or not,” I said. “You know that book deal I have? It’s been canceled. My editor doesn’t even work in publishing anymore. She’s editing cheese in Nyack.”