Sitting in the pizza place with a shit-eating grin on my face, I smelt the legacy of our fuck, but I didn't miss her when I wasn't with her. I missed having that experience in my life for the hours between our meetings, but I felt no need to communicate with her. Therein lay one of the true mysteries of our relationship. Since I didn't participate in the usual idealization, since I had no feeling of being incomplete without her, there was no drive to be with her. 1 didn't look for her on the street, 1 didn't hope to run into her, neither did 1 imagine myself turning away so as not to greet her at a particular moment because 1 would at that moment fall short of the ideal image she had of me.
What brought us back to each other? Animal memory is based on presence. A dog will run to his master, but from the neurological point of view he doesn't have the ability to retain the image of his master when the master is not proximate. This is supposedly what separates man from beast, the process of subjectivization by which image is turned into memory (the price for this ability is that man is deprived of a certain truth since these retained memories are all filtered through the distorting lens of consciousness). The infant's ability to retain the image of the mother is one of the things that allows for separation. I'm human. Naturally, I was fully capable of imagining her, but I didn't. The electricity generated between us occurred only when we were in each other's presence, this is the key-it was far greater than any romantic passion created by thought. I became an animal in a man's body, a centaur, a creature out of mythology who was like a man in his capacity for retrospection and an animal in his acts. But still, under the circumstances, what brought us together?
From the day 1 found myself lying on her bed with what would become the ritual of her nails in my back followed by the gentle prodding of my anus, 1 have been filled with the same sense of wonder. How did I get here? Was our fucking the product of some healing force of nature existing multi-dimensionally and at the same time surreptitiously-a hidden vein in the universe that the right collocation of moon, suns, stars, of micro or macro particles of multi- and mini-verses had suddenly unleashed in us? Would it end just as it had started, without drama, forethought, or explanation? Would the magnetic pull one day cease to exist to such an extent that 1 might find myself in her presence wondering how 1 could ever have fucked her, wondering how 1 could have licked and touched, literally wined and dined on such foul-smelling meat? Beyond being the most pleasurable thing in my life, she was nothing to me. if the magic left, we would have no history. There would be nothing to talk about, to reminisce about, no standard of comparison by which 1 would hold this relationship up to any other, unless 1 were to read off a succession of sexual events, one remarkably similar to the other-and I wonder about my access to these fragments. Without the reality of the memory of a person, is it still possible to relive a passion? And if not, is it possible I would receive no payback for all my effort, nothing to immortalize the heights to which she and I had ascended?
I had been so hungry that I burned my tongue on the pizza. The cold Corona I drank with it didn't help matters. Sometimes when you try to salve a pain you make it worse. Despite the burn, I was still hungry, but everything in town closes up by eleven except for the pizzerias and the all-night diner. If I'd had a car 1 would have driven out to Route 1 with its line of KFCs, McDonald's, Wendy's, and Burger Kings, which stay open late into the night. 1 got voraciously hungry after our fucks. After all, they were a workout, but this time, my hunger notwithstanding, 1 was also infected with wanderlust. 1 couldn't bear to return home with some garlic knots from yet another pizzeria or the fries 1'd find in the all-night diner, and turn on the televisionwhich was what 1'd done with the rest of the evening after our previous encounters. I felt claustrophobic just thinking about it. I couldn't simply plunk myself down on my sofa and stuff my face. The Greyhound Terminal was only ten blocks away and it had dispensers with candy, potato chips, and soda, which would be enough to stave off my appetite until I could decide if I actually wanted to hop on a bus and go somewhere.
It was as if someone were shoving me. I fell forward and before 1 knew it 1 was being hit in the head. 1 took the two figures in, but 1 was too scared to look at their faces. Curiously, 1 remarked to myself how well they plied their craft. There was a crunching sound that 1 later realized was my elbow hitting the ground-after a left hook found the side of my head. They started kicking me and calling me a "geek." 1 said, "1 didn't do anything. I'm not who you think I am," before 1 lost consciousness. I don't know how long I was out. When 1 awakened, a couple of the methadone addicts who linger in the shadows of Chapel Street were standing over me. I couldn't move my arm and 1 was sure they were going to rifle through my pants, but they didn't. I recognized the heavyset one with the belly that stuck out over his belt. A lot of the addicts talk loudly as if they've lost the ability to modulate their voices. Of all of them, he was the most notorious.
"You want us to call the cops?"
"A lot of good that will do, but yes." I felt in my pants and pulled out my wallet. The thugs hadn't taken any money. It made no sense. 1 guess that's why they call it a shit-eating grin. 1'd been just a little too happy with myself. Now instead of feeling complacent, relatively carefree, I wanted help. If 1'd known her number 1 might have called, but we'd never exchanged numbers. All we'd done in all our times together was fuck. Besides, her boyfriend was likely to pick up.
A police car rolled to the curb where I was sitting. The two cops inside were slow to get out. The methadone addicts were always getting beaten up, and one of them had been hit by a cab the week before when she nodded out while crossing Chapel. I figured the cops thought I was one of them. My elbow seemed to be hanging out of its socket, but it didn't hurt as long as I supported it with my other arm. 1 still wanted to board a bus, but I consented to get in the police car to look for the two guys who'd beaten me up. We cruised around the block once and then once again. The cops asked me to describe my assailants, but I was tongue-tied. They looked like you two guys, big husky white guys of Italian origin. They looked like jour relatives. I didn't say it, and when they'd finished with the obligatory tour, they gave me a card with the precinct's phone number and told me to call if I had anything to add. They left me off at the bus station, where I acquired two bags of Wise potato chips and a Diet Coke. Eating and drinking I found were a problem unless the arm was supported.
I was sitting on a bench, really a series of flimsy red plastic chairs welded together. The bus station was filled with homeless people trying to look purposeful, playacting the part of travelers. These homeless had an almost frenetic air, moving back and forth between the varying gates so that they wouldn't be evicted from the warmth of the station by the ubiquitous security guards, but opposite me sat a desolate character who had given up. He sat perfectly still, staring at his feet. Another group of homeless men had momentarily congregated around a column. The guards were edging them away with their clubs. He would be next. A solitary shopping bag was wedged between his legs. Some of the others were wheeling shopping carts filled to the top with coats, pans, books, and boxes of cereal (many of the homeless inhabiting the station seemed to love Sugar Smacks). At least he didn't have much to carry.
"Pssst… psst." He didn't look up. "Eh, they're gonna nail you. C'mon, don't just sit there like a stooge."
He was totally motionless. It's hard to institutionalize anyone these days with the new laws, but they have a heyday with the catatonic cases. I hoped he had a lot to think about-if that is what goes on when someone is in this kind of state of mindbecause with cases like his they lock you up and throw away the key.