On both sides of the Mississippi, outdated buildings with limestone foundations that once housed mills — flour and lumber and woolen mills, once the source of the city’s wealth — stood in bleached floodlight like museum artifacts that no one was permitted to touch anymore.
He detoured past a coffee shop and through the front window saw his friend Elijah, a pediatrician who had moved to Minneapolis from the Bay Area a few years ago. His friend was sipping espresso and reading a copy of City Pages in the corner. Benny went inside.
“Doctor.”
“Takemitsu.” The pediatrician took another sip of his espresso. “Funny. You don’t look Japanese,” he said automatically, for the hundredth time, peering at his newspaper. They’d been friends ever since they’d met at a Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party precinct caucus, where they’d both volunteered to be delegates to the county convention. They canvassed in their neighborhood, and on Election Day they both drove oldsters to the polls.
“What’re you reading?” Benny asked.
“The sex advice column. I’m married, so it’s irrelevant. How’s tricks, by the way?”
“Tricks? Oh, the tricks are fine,” Benny said. He sat down. “So, Doctor, you’re not home again? How come you’re hanging out in a downtown coffee shop at this hour? What’s the appeal?” The questions were all rhetorical, a means to get conversation started. Benny knew perfectly well why his friend was sitting there.
Elijah seemed to droop for a moment. He had a heavy five o’clock shadow and bags under his eyes, and he pretended to ignore his friend. “Fuck you,” he said tiredly. “I’m decompressing. Just came back from rounds at the hospital, and I’m not ready for the homecoming. I’m embittered. See me? An embittered man sits before you. Would you explain to me what got me into doctoring? I can’t remember now.” Benny said nothing. The doctor shook his head. “It’s hard to witness, kids being sick, kids with mitochondrial disorders, kids being brave, et cetera. I feel like Ivan Karamazov or somebody like that. See how fat I’m getting?” He reached inside his coat and snapped his suspenders. “And what about you, Mr. Architect?” Elijah, his spirits visibly lifting at the prospect of irritating his friend, leaned back and finally grinned affectionately at Benny. “Did you design any big-box stores today? In one of those new beautiful Bauhaus strip malls they have now? Fluorescent lights and linoleum to remind us all of our proud humanity? Man, I do love strip malls. Incidentally, you kinda look like a vampire tonight.”
“That’s how you know I’m Asian. All the great vampires are Asian.”
“I’ve noticed. Except you don’t look Asian. You just look like a vampire.”
“Vampires are hot.”
“Benny, you sound like a girl when you say that,” Elijah said, still smiling amiably.
Benny shrugged. “So I sound like a girl. Big deal. Girl vampires have it going on. Anyway, people dig sexual ambiguity. They find it attractive. And Reena likes me.”
“Likes? What about loves? And she doesn’t live here, does she? Your pale vampire complexion hasn’t moved her to move here, I’ve noticed.”
“We need our solitude. She doesn’t…I don’t know. She doesn’t want to commit.” He pronounced the word as if he were holding it at a distance, with a pair of tongs. “And, get this, she says she doesn’t want, or like, children.” The doctor shook his head in disbelief. “Which is all my mother ever wants out of me, those grandchildren. I can’t do it alone. Hey,” Benny said, “speaking of girls, I heard a girl screaming this morning while I was getting dressed.”
“Not in your bedroom, I hope.” Elijah sat up and examined Benny with a kind of doctor-expression. “And?”
“I didn’t do anything until she screamed a second time. Then I ran outside. But there was no one there. Only this.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out the ringlet of red hair.
Elijah examined it. “There’s something I want you to do,” he said. “I want you to get rid of that.”
“Why?”
“You shouldn’t be carrying someone’s hair around in your pocket. It’s like a horror movie. ‘Creepy’ is I think the right word for carrying hair around in that manner.”
“Okay.” Benny put it back in his pocket. “When are Susan and you going to invite me to dinner again? I miss your hospitality. I miss the free meals.”
“Oh, any day now, possibly when we like you again. But that hair is a kind of disincentive. You could invite us to dinner, you know. One of those meals? That you cook? You could open the door for Elijah and Susan. You could heat something up. You could make a social effort.”
“Soon,” Benny said. He stood up. “Soon. Doctor, I’m on my aerobic walk, and I gotta get my heart rate elevated.”
Elijah gave him a dispirited goodbye wave.
—
Three weeks later, on his way out to his evening stroll, Benny passed two of his friends, the lesbians from down the hall, Donna and Ellie, just outside the building. They referred to themselves alphabetically as “the D and the E,” and tonight they were walking their keeshonds. Engaged in conversation, they waved to him as he crossed the block. He waved back, not wanting to interrupt them. When the two women were talking together, the bond between them — heads turned in a mutual gaze, slightly bowed, the conversation quiet and slow and half-smiling — seemed more intimate than sex. Their friendship, no, their love, resembled…
what? Prayer, or some other category that Benny didn’t currently believe in.
By the time he reached the Washington Avenue Bridge across the Mississippi, he had worked up a light sweat. He planned to cross the river, turn around, and then head back. He would shower before bed and be asleep by midnight. Tonight the joggers and lovers were out in force, along with the shabby old men who held out their hands for money. A panhandle was like a scream: you never knew what was appropriate, how much help to offer, what to do.
Crossing the bridge on the pedestrian level, he counted the number of people on foot. He liked taking inventories; solid figures reassured him. About seven people were out tonight, including one guy with a backpack sprinting in Benny’s direction, two people strolling, and a young woman with a vaguely studenty appearance who stood motionless, leaning against the railing and staring down at the river. The sodium lights gave them all an orange-tan tint. The young woman tapped her fingers along the guardrail, took out a cell phone, and after taking a picture of herself, dropped the phone into the river below. She licked her lips and laughed softly as the phone disappeared into the dark.
Benny stopped. Something was about to happen. As he watched, she gathered herself up and with a quick athletic movement hoisted herself over so that she was standing on the railing’s other side with her arms braced on the metalwork behind her. If she released her arms and leaned forward, she would plunge down into the river. One jogger went past her without noticing what she was doing. What was she doing? Benny hurried toward her.
Seeing him out of the corner of her eye, she turned and smirked.
“Stop!” he commanded. “Wait. Don’t!” He wasn’t sure what to say. “What are you doing? Who are you?”
“I’m nobody. Who are you?”
“I’m just Benny,” he said. “That’s dangerous. Please. Why are you doing that?”
“No reason. For fun. A cheap thrill. I’m bungee jumping,” she said. “Only without the bungee. See the cord?” She pointed down to where no cord was visible. “Just kidding! It’s imaginary! Also, I’ve been feeling real cold behind my eyes,” she said, “so I thought I’d do something exciting to heat myself up.” Her speech style was oddly animated, and she seemed very pretty in a drab sort of way, like an honorable-mention beauty queen who hadn’t taken proper care of herself. Something was off in the grooming department. Her long brown hair fell over her shoulders, and her T-shirt had a corporate logo and the words JUST DO IT across the front. Her eyes, when she glanced at Benny, were deep and penetrating. Her feet in sandals displayed toenails polished a bright red, so that under the streetlights they had the appearance of war paint. She gave off a shadowy gleam. “I’ve been feeling kind of temporary lately,” she said. “How about you, Benny? You been feeling permanent?”