The Mustache

In late August Jim decided to grow a mustache and by early September it had begun to take over his brain. Take for example, the new hat. Jim was not ordinarily a hat wearer. But this hat, a black fedora, went so well with the mustache that, after trying it on, he had walked directly to the cash register and pulled out a fifty dollar bill, the hat never leaving his head. They spoke the same language, the hat and the mustache. It was the language of early noir films in which women were “broads” and sentences often ended in “see.” Jim had consulted a book of mustaches before beginning the growth process—he’d never grown one before and wanted to make sure his mustache didn’t look amateurish—and chosen one in the style referred to as “The General.” But with the addition of the hat, the mustache took on a decidedly gangster lean—and so did Jim. He noticed, for instance, that he’d started talking out of the side of his mouth—quickly, and in what could only be categorized as a mutter. The other day he had accidentally called his boss “toots” after a particularly “high stakes” meeting with some clients and had had to fake a violent coughing fit to cover it up. His boss was a jowly man in his late 50’s, graying around the temples and ardently clean-shaven. He did not react well to pet names of any kind.

Jim’s girlfriend, Samantha, seemed to find the mustache endearing at first. “My manly, manly man,” she’d say, smoothing its well-trimmed tips. She treated the mustache as a novelty gag, something to spur amusing conversation among their culturally savvy and well coiffed friends at dinner parties or over drinks. But when months went by and the mustache was still firmly planted on Jim’s upper lip, she was no longer so keen on it. She complained that it was scratchy against her face when he kissed her and that it gathered particles of food. She complained that it smelled funny, like sardines and bourbon and pipe smoke (yes, Jim had also started smoking a pipe since the advent of the mustache). It reminded her, she said, of her sleazy Uncle Melvin. The mustache was still a humorous topic of conversation at dinner parties, but now Samantha’s laughter was strained, and she tried to change the topic as quickly as possible. At home she always seemed to find something to do in another room of their tiny apartment, and most of their conversations were held this way—him in the bedroom, her in the living room, him in the living room, her in the kitchen, and so on. Jim’s new style of speech wasn’t helping matters, and Samantha was always yelling “What?” from her station in the other room. Sometimes she simply pretended not to hear Jim at all.

Jim noted the growing tension in his love life, and yet he had never felt so alive—in a shrewd, cynical sort of way. In the past he’d always felt like a bit of a fraud, turning up the bravado in the company of other men, feigning his way through talk of football games and lawnmowers with older relatives or coworkers. Now he felt justified in remaining silent through these conversations; his mustache put him above this kind of tedious interaction. He was a man of few words, a man of action. He was a man with nothing to prove.            

And he was a man with an acute understanding of the complicated and shady workings of the business world. For instance, when Bob came into his office to ask if he had the numbers for the Phillips account, Jim said, “Bob, the numbers aren’t the point. There’s something larger going on here. We have to think about motivations. Those guys at Phillips are up to something, see? We’ve got to keep our eyes on the big picture, that’s the ticket.” Jim pulled out his pipe and lit it.

“I don’t think you can smoke that in here,” said Bob, looking confused.

 

For Thanksgiving Jim and Samantha flew to visit her family in Montana. Jim had always liked Samantha’s family. They were salt-of-the-earth types, trustworthy and well intentioned. Sam’s mother wore a checked apron and baked pies by day but wore extravagant cocktail dresses to dinner. Sam’s father was a carpenter and prize-winning wood whittler; he was known for his ability to whistle any song on any jukebox anywhere in the US of A. Sam’s grandmother knit bikinis for Sam year round. But then there was Grandpa Jack. Grandpa Jack had fought in an indeterminate number of wars and had sported a handlebar mustache through all of them. He did not take kindly to newfangled mustaches of the Generation X variety, no matter how seriously the wearer took his status and responsibilities as a mustachioed man. When Samantha and Jim walked in the door, Grandpa Jack took one look at Jim and made a harumphing sound deep in his throat. Samantha went over to give him a kiss where he was seated in the Barca Lounger.            

“Hello, sweetheart,” he said, his face softening for a moment. Just as quickly his scowl returned as he looked over her shoulder and gave Jim a curt nod, followed by another, barely concealed, harrumphing noise.

“Don’t mind him,” said Grandma Rose, and ushered her guests into the kitchen to sample the gravy.

Up until the actual Thanksgiving meal Jim was able to avoid Grandpa Jack, and in fact spent most of the day lurking on the front porch, smoking his pipe and muttering to himself about the Phillips account. But by 4 PM everyone was seated at the large dining room table and the showdown could no longer be avoided. Grandpa Jack scowled at Jim over the steaming mashed potatoes. He purposely passed the string beans to the other end of the table when Jim complimented Grandma Rose on their nutty flavor. In fact whenever Jim spoke at all, Grandpa Jack suddenly had something to say, expounding loudly on the outlandish price of oil or his recent bout of arthritis. Samantha, seated across the table from Jim, shot him meaningful looks. They were of the “Just keep your mouth shut” variety.

“So, Jim, how has work been?” asked Samantha’s father, looking sincerely interested as he scooped mash potatoes onto his plate.

“Well, the thing is, see—” Jim began. He was prepared to bring everyone in on the shady dealings involved in the Phillips account, but was quickly interrupted by Grandpa Jack.

“This boy doesn’t know the meaning of work. Back in my day, a man worked with his hands.” Grandpa Jack swirled his leg of turkey in gravy and tore off a hunk of flesh with his mighty dentures.

There was a moment of awkward silence. The old Jim might have been stymied by this sort of remark, but the new Jim didn’t take lip from anyone, even old-timers like Grandpa Jack. “That’s where you’re wrong, doll fa—”

A sharp kick under the table silenced Jim. Samantha shot him another meaningful look. “You better quit while you’re ahead, buster,” the look said. Jim didn’t take kindly to admonitions from an uppity woman, but he saw that he was caught between a rock and a hard place.

“Excuse me,” Jim said. He got up from the table, grabbed his fedora from the coat rack, and went out on the porch to smoke his pipe.  The nerve of the old man! Well, Jim wasn’t about to crack; he was made of tougher stuff than that. What he needed was a plan, see? A real man doesn’t get mad, he gets even. Jim smoked his pipe and plotted revenge. Then he went inside and poured himself a double Scotch.

Half a turkey and several Scotches later, Jim and Grandpa Jack were the only ones left at the dinner table. Grandma Rose had fallen asleep in front of the TV in the living room, Samantha had gone, pinch-lipped, upstairs to read, and her parents had retired to their room. Jim squinted across the table at Grandpa Jack. The man was matching Jim drink for drink and looked none the worse for the wear, although truth be told, he hadn’t looked too good to begin with. He was a small man, with shrunken cheeks and only a few wisps of white hair sticking up from his wrinkled, sun-spotted head. The theme song for “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly” drifted in from the living room, along with Grandma Rose’s snores.

“So, how long did it take you to grow that thing?” Grandpa Jack leaned in, looking formidable despite his diminutive size.

“Three days.” It had taken exactly three weeks and two days for Jim to achieve the glorious state of mustache he now displayed, but he wasn’t about to admit that to Grandpa Jack. Hold your cards close to your chest and bluff to high heaven—those where the rules.

But Grandpa Jack wasn’t buying it. “Harumph,” he said. “Used to be,” he said, “a man had to earn his mustache. A man worked with his hands, earned a living, supported a family. A man knew how to ride a horse.” Grandpa Jack sat back in his seat and narrowed his eyes. Tell me Jim, what exactly are your intentions with my granddaughter?”

Jim set down his glass and gave Grandpa Jack the once-over. “Jack, you’ve been living on the shady side of yesterday. My intentions are clean as a whistle, see, but I’m not sure how that’s any of your business.”

Grandpa Jack’s face grew red and furious; his eyes bulged. “That’s mighty big talk for a two pound guppy. I may be getting on in years, but I’m still the head of this here family. And we don’t take flak from outsiders. So are you going to apologize, or do you want to take this little matter outside?”

“Let’s go, old man.” Jim reached for his hat.

“Stop right there.” Sarah stood in the doorway in her nightgown, hands on hips, hair a-tangle. “I don’t know what’s going on here but you two have had too much to drink, and it’s way past both of your bedtimes.”

 Jim gave her the eye and considered his options. He wasn’t too keen on the notion of backing down from a fight, but his mistress had a point: three drinks was his limit and he was usually in bed by nine. And if he pushed this thing too far he could end up sleeping on the couch, like a bum on a losing streak with a deuce in his pocket and his shoelace untied.

He turned back to Grandpa Jack and gave him his best glare. Grandpa Jack glared right back. Jim decided to change tacks. He shrugged his shoulders, grinned at Sarah and Grandpa Jack, pushed his chair back and stood up. As he walked past Grandpa Jack toward the stairs, he couldn’t help but mutter: “This ain’t over yet, Jack.”                                                

Samantha turned on her heel and led Jim up the stairs, her round form teasing him from underneath the gauzy fabric of her gown. “You’re lucky your so beautiful, dollface,” he told her backside, and followed her into bed.

Jim woke in the middle of the night feeling queasy and disoriented. Samantha was straddling him, and he seemed to be somehow attached to the bed. “What the…?” She was holding something in her hand; on closer examination it appeared to be a razor. His brain felt like it was swaddled in toilet paper, but he recognized this turn of events all too well. The conniving vixen had turned on him! The right half of his lip was catching quite a breeze.

“I’ve had enough, Jim. This charade has gone on for too long.” She leaned over and applied the razor to the left side of his lip, which he now realized was thick with lather. The razor scraped like a snake whisper against his skin. He had been undone by a woman, who would have thought? He struggled against the gym socks that held his arms to the bedposts, but to no avail. His own socks, used against him! “You’ll get yours, you crazy broad,” he slurred. The scotch still had a fierce hold on him.

“We’ll see about that,” Samantha said, her deft hands finishing the job with two quick strokes. She swung her leg over to the side and untied his hands. “Now go back to sleep.”

Jim was suddenly, inexplicably, exhausted. His head hit the pillow like a man down for the count.

In the morning Jim woke with a clanging headache and a feeling of rebirth. He felt his clean-shaven lip with the tip of his finger. Yes, the mustache was gone. Samantha rolled over and gave him a lazy smile.

“Good morning, Jim.”

“Good morning, Sam.”

Samantha put her hands to his face and kissed him full on the lips. Then she climbed atop him, her body writhing as if to a disco beat. The beat reverberated through Jim’s body with a growing urgency, a refrain playing through his mind that he couldn’t quite make out. He pushed against Samantha. Oh yes, there it was:

Well, you can tell by the way I use my walk,
I’m a woman’s man, no time to talk…

Jim’s hips were moving in all sorts of ways they had never moved before. This was passion served up right, a new jungle heat, an all-consuming rhythm of desire that emanated through Jim’s body. He even thought he heard Sam call him “tiger” at the moment of wild, pinnacle thrust. Afterward Sam fell to his side, her breath raspy. She reached over to smooth her fingers across his cheeks. Her hands stopped when they reached the newly sprouted scruff near his ears. “What’s this?” she asked.

“Sideburns, baby,” said Jim. He snapped the fingers of both hands, flashing her the universal sign of double guns. “You ready to go again?”

 

 

 

 The Seagull

 

The seagull peers in my direction, first out of one eye and then the other, turning his shrewd head from side to side. I look around to see if there is someone else who he might be giving the eye, but no. I do believe this seagull is in love with me. It’s possible that he is actually considering an attack—it’s a fine line, sometimes—but I prefer to call it love. I prefer to believe he is admiring my avian bones, the swanlike curve of my neck. I stare back with what is intended to be an encouraging look but is probably imperceptible behind my fashionably oversized sunglasses. His feet are a translucent pink, almost delicate in contrast to his surly demeanor. The little red mark on the bottom of his beak makes it look like he has been sipping Kool-Aid. A surly Kool-Aid sipper with delicate feet: I like him already. But one mustn’t appear smitten too soon, so I look coyly look out at the water. I’m sitting on the stone steps above the little strip of beach along the San Francisco bay, between Fisherman’s Wharf and Fort Mason. Because it’s Memorial Day I am free from the stifling confines of my office but not sure quite what to do with myself. I haven’t done much exploring of the city on my own since I moved here almost three years ago. In fact I spent most of the last three years with my ex-boyfriend the poet, but since we broke up over a month ago he isn’t actually speaking to me at this point in time. Since then I’ve decided to become one of those women who goes out and does things on her own. I am trying to learn how not to feel lonely in a crowd. But there is something particularly lonely about a holiday after you have recently broken up with someone—even an innocuous, decidedly unromantic holiday like Memorial Day.

I am surrounded by people—people walking, people riding bikes, people lolling in the sun. On the beach children dig in the sand with large, brightly colored spoons, and in the water swimmers, slick like seals in black wetsuits, move in seemingly nonsensical loops. The braver ones wade out with nothing between them and the icy cold except bathing suits, swim caps, and goggles. Farther out there are sailboats and barges, and beyond that, the abandoned shell of Alcatraz, and the regal arc of the Golden Gate bridge. It’s a warm day for San Francisco, one of the few that jump out at the end of the summer like party guests from behind furniture: Surprise!

I turn back to my feathered admirer, who is still giving me the hairy eyeball. Perhaps, I think, he is a man trapped in the body of a seagull. Perhaps he is trying to communicate something to me with his intense bird stares—a longing to transcend his form, a desire to be known and understood as more than a seagull—a bird that is, after all, merely one of many common scavengers flocking to the California coast.

 When I was maybe nine or ten my father bought me a copy of the book Jonathan Livingston Seagull. I obstinately refused to appreciate its philosophical value, as was the case with all the books my father bought me as a child, but it did instill in me a sense of the seagull as a majestic being. 

My ex-boyfriend the poet despised seagulls. “The pigeons of the sea,” he called them. “Mean and dirty animals. Even Gary Snyder didn’t like them, and he was a nature lover if there ever was one.”

My ex-boyfriend the poet had a penchant for the California Beats, who I never much cared for. A lot of verbal masturbation, if you ask me. But I didn’t argue with him: we had enough to fight about without adding seagulls or Gary Snyder to the list. We argued about how to pit an avocado and whether intelligence was based on nature or nurture. We argued about the girls he’d slept with during our first break up, whose identities I discovered one by one, in various unpleasant ways, after we got back together. We argued about how much I drank; we argued about how much he drank. We argued about who needed therapy and who was emotionally unavailable. We argued things that had happened months ago, years ago.  We argued about who had said what five minutes ago. We built fortresses out of petty resentments and irrational jealousies; we pronounced our hatred over the walls. We went to bed furious and then clung to each other in the morning, whispering apologies in the baptismal light.

Nearby a dark-haired woman in red shorts has begun running up and down the stone steps. Her daughter, a prettier, effortlessly slender version of the woman, sits down nearby and begins to speak casually into her cell phone in a language I can’t quite make out from where I sit. I’ve been reading this book lately about being present in the moment rather than dwelling on the past or obsessing about the future. I wonder who is more present in this moment, the running woman or her daughter. Obviously it should be the woman running—in tune with her body, her mind uncluttered by other people, other places. But what if she is thinking about the fat on her thighs and the disdain that wrinkles around her husband’s mouth and how much she will have to run to eradicate the knowledge that her marriage has died a boring and predictable death? And maybe her daughter is telling her friend on the phone about the ripples in the water, the way the floating loons disappear beneath the surface to catch a fish and appear again, like a sleight of hand, twenty feet away.

There were moments with my ex-boyfriend the poet when we would consider the future, not as something ominous looming in the distance, but as something to lean into together, a warm and hopeful wind. Sometimes, in the apologetic light of morning, my ex-boyfriend the poet would talk about having a baby. As if that could hold us together, turn us into the sort of normal, balanced people who are capable of raising a child. We could barely take care of ourselves. But there were moments, I admit, split seconds, when I entertained the fantasy. After all, who doesn’t want to believe that she could change herself, change her life, just like that? Who doesn’t want to believe in ‘through thick and thin, for better or for worse, in sickness and in health’?

Perhaps I was just looking in the wrong direction. Perhaps my seagull has come to rescue me from the quotidian human plight. It’s not unheard of, the love between a woman and a bird. Take for example, “Thumbelina”: one of my favorite stories as a child. Of course, Thumbelina was very small and could fly on the back of her beloved swallow. I, although unusually petite, am of human size and would have to learn to fly on my own. But just the other night I dreamt that I could fly. Usually in flying dreams I start off on the ground and take big leaps into the air but don’t go very high: even asleep I’m afraid of heights. But the other night I was soaring at cloud level over vast landscapes.           

My mother told me about a book she read recently: the author was a woman who, like me, was single and closing in on thirty, and so she vowed to say yes to every man who asked her out for an entire year. In the end, of course, she got married. The lesson here is that one should be open to possibility. The problem for me, however, is not choosiness. I am not a woman who gets asked out a lot, period. I am a woman who smiles too little and ends up hugging the bar at last call, disheartedly eyeing her prospects.

 When I was fifteen my father left—the freewheeling musician type, he was never quite cut out for the responsibilities of family life. My sister, who was only twelve at the time of the divorce, tells me that afterward our mother didn’t get out of bed for days at a time. Oddly, I can’t remember, although I do recall standing outside her door one night, listening to her sob. Now when I ask my mother if she wants to get remarried she says, “Why? I’ve already had kids, what would I do with a husband?”

My avian love has been joined by another gull and is momentarily distracted from his pursuit. Or perhaps they’re discussing his chances with me. Maybe the second one is giving him emotional support: “She obviously digs you. Go for it, man!” Unless he is one of those misogynist, frat-ish companions: “C’mon, let’s go. You can’t be serious about that chick, she’s like, landlocked and shit. C’mon dude, bros before hoes.”

It must be the latter, because there they go, off into the sky, flapping their awkward, unfathomable wings. Ah well. He isn’t the first, he won’t be the last. It probably wouldn’t have worked, anyway. We might have been soul mates—social misfits with hearts full of longing—but physicality is not so easily overcome. Now that I think of it, Thumbelina did not marry her swallow. He left her in a flower where she met a small prince who had arms the right size to hold her through the night.

With my ex-boyfriend the poet, what it finally came down to was this: I no longer wanted him to touch me. The arguments about avocados and past lovers became irrelevant. The petty resentments and irrational jealousies sifted through our fingers like sand.

Out in the distance people continue to swim their nonsensical loops. They call to each other every now and then, with indecipherable staccato syllables. From where I sit it sounds like a game of Marco Polo—one in which the boundaries keep shifting, and finding each other is no longer the point.

           

 

          

Inflatable Love

Becoming real is not quite like Lucinda expected, but she enjoys it in many ways. Speaking is a miracle. She opens up her mouth and the words tumble out and line up in neat rows that other people understand. She gets a real kick out of ordering a pizza, handing the delivery boy a twenty and telling him to keep the change. Watching him stare at her chest and turn red and stumble over his Thank You as if it was him that had just started talking three weeks before. She knows the delivery boy finds her attractive, which is why he reacts so strangely when she tells him to keep the change—she has seen this sort of thing on many comedy sitcoms. Jasper, Lucinda’s boyfriend, notices the delivery boy’s reaction too. He laughs with Lucinda about it, nervously. Jasper is pale and slightly underweight, with the hesitant manner of someone used to being overlooked.

After dinner they often go for walks around the neighborhood and this, too, Lucinda enjoys. Jasper bundles Lucinda up in a large coat and scarf and holds her hand tightly as if she might blow away in the gusts of wind, although she has been gaining weight steadily and has as at least as much substance now as the women she sees in the fashion magazines. They stroll past quiet lawns and well-lit houses. Jasper explains theories of waves and particles. The streetlamps make all things magic. The air wisps from their mouths.

What was it that brought Jasper into the adult novelty shop on that overcast day two months ago? A physics-major at the community college, Jasper spent most of his free time making models of the universe with items he found discarded on the side of the street. Often he walked past the shop on his way home from class but had never had the desire to go in. Until one day, inexplicably, he did. On this day he plucked the doll box off the hook without a second thought, which was most unlike him; usually Jasper was the sort to analyze every potential action to the point of paralysis. He made his purchase and then tucked the box under his arm to protect it from the light rain that had begun to fall.

In the adult novelty shop Lucinda had spent many days watching pasty men walk the aisles with unreadable expressions. What she’d wanted then, more than anything, was to be loved. But there were newer toys in the shop, shiny gizmos with impressive, complicated parts, and these were what the men wanted. An inflatable sheep hung next to her on the wall—an animal wise beyond her years. Sometimes, after the store had closed for the night, she whispered to Lucinda in the dark: Those toys are fun now, but they won’t last. They can’t truly be loved, the way you and I can. And it’s love that makes a toy real.

On the day that Jasper brought Lucinda home he took her immediately from the box and put his mouth to the valve on the back of her left thigh. Lucinda bloomed in his hands. She was beautiful—her blue plastic eyes fringed with dark synthetic lashes, her mouth a shapely pout, the plastic of her skin smooth and satiny to the touch—but lifeless. He propped her up on the couch and sat down beside her. He politely introduced her to Frank, the iguana who sat equally motionless in his aquarium across the room. After a moment he brought out his newest model of the universe to show her. And finally, he took Lucinda to bed. And those hours between the sheets, if we squint a bit and try not to imagine too closely, were no more sordid than any other hours spent by any other couple between the sheets. Jasper was, in fact, more tender than most men in his affections. In the morning Jasper walked into the kitchen to find Lucinda at the table, pouring the last of the milk into a bowl of cereal. He swallowed the beating apple in his throat. Looks like we need more milk, he said.

Lucinda watches a lot of television while Jasper is at class, or working in the lab at school. She has learned many things about the world from watching television but little of it makes sense. For instance, people seem to start out very small and grow bigger and bigger until they are full size and then they grow smaller again and become wrinkled, and then they stop working, and get put into a box. Is it because they are no longer loved?

While watching television she pays close attention to the way people say I love you: quietly, as they stare into each other’s eyes, or loudly, from across the room, or quickly, as one or the other is walking out the door. Jasper doesn’t say I love you but sometimes he looks into her eyes the way they do on television. And then there are the things Jasper and Lucinda do in bed—this is the part on television where the lights are dim and one person says something and the other one laughs and the screen fades to black and usually goes to commercial.
Jasper does love Lucinda, of course, in his shy, physics-major sort of way. And the day that she is sure of this is the day that she will leave him for another man, perhaps a more worldly man who drives a sleek car and speaks fluent French. A man who knows less about the universe and more about the shape of the horizon.

The Neon Artist

The neon artist’s hands are perpetually tinged in phosphorescence. Faintly glowing fingerprints speckle her apartment—the juice of modernity is difficult wash off. The neon artist never wears gloves; it is essential to feel the heat building up in the glass tubes that she bends into letters and shapes. Each kind of glass has its own properties, and the neon artist must know them intuitively. Once a bend is made, it cannot be corrected or undone.
The neon artist’s studio is cluttered with many signs, some of her own creation and some that have been left on her doorstep, half-lit or blinking. They spell out hours of availability, the allure of alcohol, invitations to erotic massage. In former days neon proudly advertised Broadway shows and French perfumes, but now it is devoted to the seamier side of things, and in some areas of the country it has been banned for this very reason. Soon neon will be a thing of the past. Other technologies are taking over—ones more efficient, easier to manipulate. The neon artist realizes this, but what can she do? Neon is in her blood; it is how she understands the world.

The neon signs blink and breathe like wounded animals in the dimness of the studio. They wait calmly for the neon artist’s magical touch. She is like the fairy in that old children’s story, the one who turns beloved toys real.

Outside of her studio the neon artist is often lonely. In the world of people her magical fingers turn toxic. The asbestos from the paper on which she draws her designs collects beneath her fingernails, and the mercury she uses to intensify the colors leaves a slight residue on her skin. The neon artist has built up a tolerance to these substances, but the few lovers she has had developed curious illnesses in response to her luminescent touch.

The first man grew feverish and began to repeat himself. His speech grew rapid and nonsensical, his words falling over each other as they rushed to leave his mouth. The Neon Artist didn’t know what to say in response and so she said nothing, spent more and more time locked in her studio. When the man told her he was leaving, she listened for a moment to his sad babble before nodding and silently showing him to the door. “It seems to be over,” she heard him mutter as he walked down the steps. “It seems to be. Over, it seems.”

The next man began to lose his hair. It nested in the sink, snagged in the air vents and coiled inside her coffee cups. He stared at his balding head in her mirror and grew enraged. “I’m only 29!” He yelled. He glared at the neon artist. Somehow they both knew this was her fault, even if neither of them could quite figure out how.

The last one was perhaps the worst. Within weeks his skin grew scaly, like a snake’s. He spent hours in the bathtub but still complained of dehydration. He became disoriented, forgot the name of the season they were in, the year. Finally it dawned on the neon artist. “Please,” she said, sobbing, “just go.” And he did, with a perplexed and disheartened look on his face—his body too parched to produce any tears.
It did not occur to the neon artist to adjust the use of toxic chemicals in her process. There are certain rituals involved in any form of art—certain steps that become internal, innate. The neon artist has already bent herself into this particular shape—it cannot be corrected or undone.
Downstairs from the neon artist lives an old man, a French socialist with terrible arthritis. He, too, is lonely. He has watched the lovers come and go with little comment. Sometimes the neon artist pauses on their stoop in the fading evening hours to ask him how he is.

“Not so good,” he always answers.

If she asks why, his reply is also the same: “Because I have not won a million dollar.”

The first time this struck her as contradictory—a socialist with his hopes pinned on winning a million dollars—but who was she to question? The second time she noticed the twinkle in his milky blue eye: it was his own private joke, this response, even if he wasn’t entirely unserious.

Although the Frenchman can barely walk, he still manages to ride about on his tomato-red bicycle. He rides to the market two blocks away and returns slowly, grocery bags dangling from each handle. Sometimes he knocks on her door to offer her things—day-old bread, canned corn, potatoes growing eyes.

“On sale,” he says, “three for a dollar.”

He finds great joy in these deals, regardless of whether the items are things he wants or even needs—the bargain is the point, more so than the purchase.

The neon artist can see him pedaling up to the house from her studio window when the shades are open—but today she is working on a new piece, and has them closed. Often the neon artist likes to work in near-darkness, finding any source of light other than the neon itself to be distracting. She holds a length of glass tubing over the ribbon burner, feeling not only when the glass is ready to bend, but what shape it is that this particular tube wants to be. The ringing of her doorbell shatters her reverie, and the glass tube droops limply in her hand, useless. There are times when her own art betrays her, when, even in this realm, her hands lose their effect. She sighs, sets the tube aside, and makes her way down the rickety stairs.

The Frenchman is at the door. “I bought some wine and cheese at the store, I thought you might like to come over and have some. For Easter, you know.”

No, the neon artist didn’t know, hadn’t been paying attention to things like holidays, or time. She doesn’t particularly want to go to the Frenchman’s apartment, prefers to keep their interactions limited to the brief moments on the stoop, but he is so frail, so pathetic, and seems so hopeful in his anticipation of her response. “Just let me put on my shoes,” she says.

The Frenchman’s apartment is dim, like her own, and terribly cluttered with odds and ends. He leads her down the hall and into the kitchen, where she sees the “wine and cheese” on the table: Kraft singles and Manischevitz.

“Please,” the Frenchman says, “sit down.” He sets two small jelly glasses on the table, and hobbles over to the pantry to fetch a box of crackers and a plate.

The neon artist perches gingerly on a kitchen chair, its vinyl seat the color of a Shirley Temple cocktail. “So, she says, “have you won a million dollars yet?”

“Eh,” he says, “no, not yet.” He chuckles. “I need to go to Las Vegas to find my million dollar. Maybe one day we will go together?”

“Maybe so,” says the neon artist. She has never been to Vegas, though she has pored over many pictures of its magnificent artistry. It is one of the few places in the world where neon is not only still allowed, but celebrated. The Las Vegas night is borne of neon.

The Frenchman pours the Manischevitz and holds up his glass. “Salud.”

The neon artist takes the smallest of sips. The liquid is thick and sweet, difficult to get down. The Frenchman empties his glass and pours himself another. He offers her more, saying, “The Jews make good wine, no?”

No, she thinks, but nods politely and takes another sip.

“What is it you are doing up there all this time?” the Frenchman asks, gesturing above his head.

“I work with neon—signs mostly.” She sets down her glass. Already the wine has a fierce and sticky hold on her tongue.

“Ah, the neon light. It is from France, yes?”

“Yes, that’s true.” The neon artist smiles, pleased that he knows this.

The Frenchman refills their glasses and holds his up in the air.

“To the neon!” he clinks his glass against hers and downs the contents.

The neon artist takes a larger sip. The terrible sweetness is becoming easier to tolerate. It zings a heated path down her throat and into her chest. “It’s a bit like lightning, neon,” she tells the Frenchman. “The electric principle is very much the same.”

“A beautiful thing,” the Frenchman says, and the neon artist isn’t sure if he’s referring to lightning, or neon, or both. “I remember during the war, the lights went out for days,” he says, growing somber. “A terrible time that was, so much fear, and poverty. You’ve never seen such poverty!”
“Terrible,” the neon artist agrees. She agrees with a solemnity precipitated by wine. “Did you know,” she says, “that during the 30’s, when one company still had a monopoly on neon, there was a wave of bootleg neon sign makers? It was valuable then, sought-after. There was almost a craving for neon.”
“Ah yes, but that was long ago,” The Frenchman nods, his gaze reaching somewhere over her left shoulder. Then his face brightens. “I know what we need,” he says, pulling himself to his feet, “music!” He totters over to the corner, where a record player rests among a jumble of appliances, all in different degrees of disrepair. They remind the neon artist of her wounded signs. The Frenchman adjusts the needle on the record player and it miraculously comes to life—a lilting melody, a woman’s voice like soft fruit spilling into the room.

“We must dance.” The Frenchman stands precariously in the middle of the floor, one hand held out to the neon artist. She looks at him skeptically but stands to meet him, and his hand on her back is light, although she knows that without her frame it is a struggle to remain upright. She follows his shuffling 1-2-3, 1-2-3, a clumsy approximation of a waltz that grows steadier as they find their rhythm. She lets her eyelids droop and the kitchen recedes and for a moment it is as if she floats above them, watching the dance. Stocking seams disappear beneath a gauzy sapphire dress, her hair in a fiery pile atop her head. The Frenchman is young again, the shine of his shoes almost as brilliant as the gleam in his piercing blue eyes as he lifts her into the air. This is what it could be like. Surrounded by the whirl and crash of bodies, the air thick with molecules of perfume and thoughts spun to a blur—what is there to think about, really? Hand against back, wrist against neck, tempo and exhalation. And beyond that, life stretched out like a banquet table, gleaming with possibility. When the music stops the ground rises to meet the neon artist’s feet with a jolt. The Frenchman is old once more, smiling at her with his three good teeth, sweat beading on his wrinkled skin. Again his gaze falls somewhere over her left shoulder, and she realizes that he must be going blind. She helps him over to his chair.

“One more toast,” he says, pouring the Manischevitz again, this time spilling several drops on the table.

The neon artist obliges, although the wine has grown too sweet again, and the air too thick. She is suddenly anxious to get back to her own apartment, to the quiet comfort of her studio. She glances over at the Frenchman and sees he is nodding off in his chair. She goes to his side and puts her arm under his. “Let me help you to bed,” she says. He stands up, and this time he is quite heavy, almost heavier than seems possible for such a frail old man. Her hands have grown ineffectual, lost their magic. Together they stumble to his bedroom, and, dropping onto the bed, the Frenchman begins to snore.