Her roommate Lyndi came out. She had brown hair and pale skin. Her eyes were large and didn't look at anything particular. Lyndi said, “Petra says you're here to get your picture taken for a magazine.”
I said, “True.”
“Well, that is great. That is really exciting. Are you excited?”
I considered if I was excited or not and said, “I feel pretty good about it. It is better than not getting your picture taken for a magazine.”
“That's great. Well, I got stuff to do; I'll go back to my room.”
Lyndi went back to her small room.
Petra took me to her small room. Nothing could fit in the room but a bed and a computer. There was nothing but a cheap clock on the wall. It was very stark and cell like.
Petra sat down at the computer and checked things on the Internet.
She said without looking at me, “You know The Republic right?”
“The one by Plato or Cicero?”
“The one by Plato.”
“Yeah, who doesn't?”
“You know that line, 'finding it hard to die' in book three?”
“That's a good line.”
“The other day I had an interview with an employer. It was some silly thing, to work helping the mentally disabled for like 13 dollars an hour. I was sitting there and the boss guy kept talking and asking me these really nonsensical questions. Describing all these procedures and I all I could think was, 'finding it hard to die.' I couldn't focus. I kept stumbling through my answers.”
“Did you have a nice outfit on, that's what really matters in those situations.”
“My hair and make-up looked very good. I didn't look slutty and I didn't look proletariat. I looked like a woman who could work.”
“Did you get hired?”
“I haven't heard back from them yet. I walked home from the place. It was uptown. I just kept walking, talking to myself, saying, 'finding it hard to die' over and over again. Like if I said it enough it would extinguish me. It's December though: and no birds were singing. There wasn't any snow. There wasn't any rain. The sky was gray and had no point. People walked by. I looked at them. Many of them had jobs. I assume they had jobs or they wouldn't be living in New York. I had no job and they had jobs. That was the score. And since I was 'finding it hard to die' I had to get a job.”
I looked down at my shoes and said, “Maybe you will get a job soon.”
“I don't know if there are jobs. I'm not even sure what a job is. I came to this city to be a New Yorker. I wanted to drink and walk around looking cute. What a thing to want, to drink and look cute. To feel intoxicated and to have men look at me and think, 'boy she is cute.' While I am thinking, 'finding it hard to die.' Which leads to me drinking more than I should. It makes me feel better though.”
“The men thinking you're cute.”
“Yes, the men. I like when other people that are not me, think good thoughts about me. I have tried all my life to break that habit. But it so nice to be sitting there at a bar with a man telling you sweet things. I like to hear sweet things about myself. I like to be flattered. I like when men buy me drinks and dinner. It shows me that they are going to work at some stupid job not only to pay their bills, but they consider it important that they show up and perform meaningless tasks for the sake of buying me drinks and dinner.”
“Don't expect me to buy you drinks and dinner. I don't have the money.”
“I know you won't. You don't care if I'm pretty. Usually men come in here and start saying all kinds of crazy shit about me being attractive and wonderful and smart. You just came in and sat down not giving a shit about flattering me at all. I'm not used to it. But it is fun to have a new experience every once and awhile.”
While not looking at her I said, “I do consider you attractive. But I assume you've been told that before. And probably already know you're attractive.”
“You like to not tell me I'm attractive. You know that people tell me that and it makes me feel good. And you deprive me of that flattery because you know it disorients me and pisses me off. You're enjoying pissing me off.”
“I have screwed cute, ugly, fat and skinny girls. And it is my experience that whether or not the experience was worth it was not based on how the girl looked. I once screwed a hairy girl and had a lot of fun. If you want to screw someone or love someone just because they are attractive, then why not masturbate to porn where all the women are attractive and you don't have to buy them drinks and dinner?”
“Do you want to masturbate on me?”
“Do you want to tell yourself that I ejaculated because you are so attractive?”
“I like to be thought of as attractive and I prefer when men have huge orgasms on or in me,” said Petra.
“But you're taking advantage of your endowments then. You are endowed with a beautiful face and body because of no doing of your own. It is not your fault you're attractive. Being happy about that is like a rich kid being happy because they have a huge apartment and expensive education because their parents paid for it. It is capitalistic. You view your own body as capital.”
“My body is capital.”
“I'm fucking with you because I'm not that attractive. I've never been known as attractive. People don't talk about Benny being attractive.”
“You're okay looking.”
“When I smile my face makes all these weird lines.”
“Don't smile.”
“I try not to, but when people take pictures you're supposed to smile, so I smile, and my face looks bad and then they post it on the Internet,” I said.
“That is bad.”
“I know. I saw that Youtube video you made, you were walking around with a chicken in Texas.”
“I like chickens.”
“When I was little my family had chickens. It wasn't like a chicken farm. There was only like five hens and two roosters. My dad would make me feed them and bring them water.”
“When I lived in Tennessee my neighbors had chickens. They would walk into our yard. Chickens are like cats they seem to be concerned with their own things.”
Petra went to the bathroom and put make-up on. I sat and looked around her room. It didn't seem like a big deal that I was with her. She didn't seem like an asshole. There seemed no chance of marrying her and impregnating her. It was life. She was there and I needed the friendship of a woman.
Twelve
We slowly walked down the sidewalk with meaningless steps. It was different than walking with Tom White. With Tom it was serious. The city was a disaster. New York was a nightmare of futility and gluttony. Walking beside Petra, it was a different city. New York had become a romantic city full of meaning and purpose. It became a city where people could fall in love. She was not the kind of person that cared about the philosophical constructs of the United States Constitution. She didn't watch cable news programs analyzing the daily events. Petra didn't read Hegel or Wittgenstein. I didn't have to engage in intellectual conversation that would force me to feel uncomfortable and talk out my ass at times. She wasn't uneducated though: she had a psychology degree and knew her profession well. She knew all the big words intellectuals say. I didn't have to watch how I spoke like I did when I was work. I didn't have to make sure I didn't appear a snob. She had her profession of psychology, case studies, cognitive behavior therapy, behaviorism, and abnormal psyche. I had my literature and political philosophy. So we met somewhere else, as two people that had a sincere love for life. It wasn't that we were both sophisticated, or knew about things or both had ambition. It was that life interested us.
Snow started falling and I said, “New York is pretty with the snow falling.”
She responded, “It should be for how much I pay in rent to live here.”