In any way about her. She was perfect—
Beautiful, elegant, intelligent.
I want to say divine—probably because
The first time that I saw her she was bathed
In golden light against a colonnade
At the Met’s temple of the goddess Isis.
The vision was purely theatrical—
Tom’s party-planners doing their paid magic.
But even tricks bestow a sense of wonder.
I watched him climb the temple steps to join her.
They were magnificent, and utterly
Asexual. They seemed like seraphim
Who had transcended bodily desire.
Their love, so eminently evident,
Expressed in warmth and courteous attention.
I was a caveman staring at the stars.
III.
After they married, I saw less of Tom—
The occasional lunch or cocktail party.
Eden was always gracious. So was he,
But his success took all his time to manage,
Not just his business but his boards and charities.
Then suddenly the invitations stopped.
I didn’t feel insulted or surprised.
I had expected such a break for years.
I barely had a life. Tom had it all.
Later I read his firm had been shut down.
I figured Tom had cashed out and retired,
Still young enough to sail around the world,
Climb Everest, or whatever it is
Ex-CEOs do with their portfolios—
An afterlife of private jets and yacht clubs.
One night I found myself at the St. Regis.
I’d made another unsuccessful pitch
Over a dinner I could not afford—
My shabby life about to crash again.
Angry, depressed, I lurched into the bar.
There at a table, by herself, sat Eden.
She wore a silver-sequined evening gown
And held a glass of wine between her hands.
She didn’t drink but rolled it back and forth,
Staring at the bright murals on the wall.
Seeing her there gave me a twinge of joy.
“What a surprise to find you here,” I said,
Acting as if I came there every night.
“Waiting for Tom?” She barely raised her eyes,
Looking at me as if I were a stranger.
“No,” she said, after a pause. “Not for Tom.
There was a benefit upstairs. I needed air.”
Then came another pause. “Didn’t you know?
Tom and I are not together now.”
I probably should have left her at that point,
But I’m not skilled in social situations,
And so I simply blurted out, “What happened?”
She turned the glass around again and told me.
IV.
“About three years ago, Tom became ill.
The doctors couldn’t pinpoint what was wrong.
He was in constant pain, but he insisted,
‘We won’t let this condition slow us down.
It’s just another problem to be solved.’
We both knew he was good at solving problems.
But month by month, the symptoms got much worse.
The doctors offered different diagnoses.
They gave him drugs, more drugs, then radiation.
If it had only been the pain, I think
We would have made it through this trial together,
But something unexpected happened to him.
His looks began to change. His face puffed up.
His features thickened, and his hair thinned out.
He didn’t look that bad, at least at first,
But he no longer looked at all like Tom.
One morning he stopped going to the office.
He was the one who always closed the deals.
Without him, business slowed, the clients fled.
A few months later Tom shut the place down.
His face kept getting worse. One afternoon
When I came home from work, he left the room.
Shutting the door, he cried, ‘Don’t look at me!’
I leaned against the door and said I loved him
No matter what he looked like. I see now
What a mistake that was. Later that night
He took the mirrors down in the apartment.
I didn’t like it, but I understood.
I hardly saw him after that. He hid
Whenever I was home. A few days later
I saw that all our photographs were gone,
Even our wedding book, all thrown away.
I screamed at him, then cried. I asked him why.
He said, ‘I didn’t like them anymore.’
Six months ago he simply moved away—
No note, no warning, nothing else was missing,
No clothes, no books, not even his cell phone,
None of the beautiful things we chose together.
I thought he would come back. I waited for him.
I worried that he might have killed himself.
Then a new check came through on his account—
Just for a small amount, but signed by him.
Finally, some detectives tracked him down.
They gave me an address. And so I went.
The taxi took me to a tenement.
Could the address be right? The place was sordid.
I hesitated to get out alone.
I had the driver wait along the curb.
Garbage was piled on both sides of the door.
The corridors were dark and smelled of grease.
How could Tom leave me for this awful place?
I found his door and knocked. There was no answer.
I knocked again, and then I lost control.
I pounded wildly, screaming at the door.
Finally, a voice spoke. His voice. It said,
‘The person that you’re looking for is gone.
Tom isn’t here. Tom isn’t anywhere.’
I begged and wept. He wouldn’t let me in.
A neighbor came out in his underwear
And stared at me. I felt ashamed and left.”
Back in the bar, as Eden told me this,
She started crying, sobbing quietly.
I reached to touch her hand. She pulled away.
Then she looked up at me. Her eyes were blackened,
Smeared from her streaked eyeliner, but they shined
With the intensity of the insane.
“Charlie,” she said. “You’ve got to talk to him.
Tom always said you were his closest friend.”
V.
The “sordid” tenement turned out to be
An ordinary place, down on its luck.
Despite the filthy brick façade, it wasn’t
Much worse than the apartment where I lived.
His hallway, though, really did stink of grease,
And half the bulbs were burnt out in the stairwell.
I knocked three times, then shouted out my name.
After a pause, I heard the deadbolt turn.
Then a familiar voice responded softly,
“Come in, old friend. I hoped that you would visit.”
I walked into a dark and empty room.
Only a folding table and a chair—
The sort of junk you see left on the street.
Piles of old newspapers littered the floor.
Some slats of light leaked through the window blinds.
I did not recognize the man who sat there,
His coarse, flat features or his bloated face.
His hair was gone. One eye was swollen shut.
He was dressed only in a dirty robe.
His body was a leopard skin of bruises.
“Welcome,” he said, “to the Kingdom of the Dead.
I wish that I could offer you a chair,
But don’t expect good manners from the damned.
I should apologize about the smell,
But once apologies begin, where would I stop?”
“I’m here,” I told him, “because Eden asked me.”
“I hope you’ve seen enough to understand
I can’t go back. The man I was is dead.
I’m just the fellow waiting for the hearse.