Perchance to Sleep

PERCHANCE TO SLEEP

By Diane L. Goodman

I can’t sleep.

I open my eyes. Streetlights slither though the blinds, casting black shadows like prison bars across the pocked ceiling.

The sheet under me is soaked with sweat. My skin is glowing. August in New York City.

No air conditioning. Not for a rent-stabilized place on the Lower East Side. So an anemic fan cranks out a slow breeze across the foot of the bed.

I glance over at my bed partner. Sweat glistens on his forehead, but it doesn’t seem to bother him. He’s peacefully asleep.

I slide out of bed. The sheet tries to keep me there, sticking to my legs. I remove it quietly so as not to wake Sean. I pick up my oversize t-shirt from the floor and pull it over my head.

I go over to the window and peer between the blinds. A man is slumped against a light pole, sleeping. Or drunk. Or dead. Around here, any of the three is possible. I would call the police to check on him, but we don’t have a phone. Sean says that we can’t afford it.

I walk into the next room. There are only two rooms, a living room/kitchenette and a bedroom. Plus a little bathroom.

I open the refrigerator and bask in the cool emanation for a few minutes. But I must be mindful of the electric bill. I pull out a tray of ice cubes and take it to the sink. I open a cupboard. I suppose that I should turn on a light. Once I opened a cupboard in the dark and a cockroach fell out. But I wasn’t as unlucky as Sean. He once opened the cupboard in the dark, got out a glass, filled it with milk and started to drink it before he realized that there was a roach inside. Ewww.

I turn on the light over the stove, which gives me just enough light to make sure that the glass I take is free of roaches. I crack the ice tray and put some cubes in the glass, then fill the glass with water. I wrap the rest of the ice in a towel. I sit down at the kitchen table and drink some water. I lean back and press the towel to my forehead. Then to the back of my neck. Then I wrap my arms around it and cradle it to my chest.

I could run a cold bath if we had a bathtub. I could run a cold shower, but that might wake up Sean. And he’d say that I was wasting water.

The towel is already getting wet. I wrap it around my neck and lean back. I push my stringy hair off my forehead. I squeeze sweat from it, wringing it like a mop.

I look around the room. Sean and I have lived here since 1969. Four years. It’s rent-stabilized, which means that the rent can’t be increased more than a certain percentage every year. So we can plan what we will need. Of course, that doesn’t mean that they can’t kick us all out, tear down the building and put up a high-rise for way more rent.

I wish that we had a TV. I would like to watch the Watergate hearings. I wonder if President Nixon will be impeached. Sean says that TV is a waste of time. And we can’t afford it.

Sean is studying for an M.B.A. He knows what things cost.

I am a music major. I’m going to be a music teacher.

My piano occupies much of one corner of the living room area. I love the piano. I got it free from an opera singer I knew who was moving to Boston and couldn’t take it with her. I paid $75 to have it moved from the Upper West Side to here.

The opera singer had painted the piano white with gold trim. That was fine with me, but Sean didn’t like it. Too girly, I guess. He insisted that we strip off all paint. It took us several months to get it done. Hours upon hours of scraping, scraping, scraping, turpentine fumes permeating the air. Now we have a brown piano. I think that it was prettier when it was white. And all I wanted was to play it.

I feel like playing now. But of course, I can’t.

I put the towel onto the table and walk back into the bedroom. Sean has rolled over onto his left side. He would be facing away from me if I were next to him. That’s how he usually sleeps.

I go back to the kitchen. The towel is soaked, water running over the edge of the table and onto the floor. I get another ice tray from the fridge and empty the ice into another towel. I roll up the towel and sit down again, placing the towel on the back of my neck.

My thighs are sticking together. I spread my legs wide enough to separate them. That feels better. If only I could lie down and spread everything out. But we have only a double bed. And Sean takes up 2/3 of it.

My chest feels tight. I breathe in and out, slowly. The aroma of stale beer wafts from the table. Sean drinks a lot of beer. Yesterday some spilled on the table and permeated the wood.

I don’t drink beer.

I have a good friend, Claire. We will both be graduating with a B.S. in Music next year. Claire also wants to teach.

She’s met Sean. She said to me, “Honey, I don’t understand what you see that cold fish.”

I was only 18, fresh out of Peoria, Illinois, when I met him. He was 20 and a sophisticated native New Yorker. I looked to him for guidance. For what to do. What to read. What to think.

Now I’m 23. I’ve done and read and thought what he told me. Some of it was useful. Some of it actually blended in and wrapped around the Peoria me. But some of it doesn’t fit me at all.

I think that Sean may be one of those people who – what is the saying? – knows the cost of everything and the value of nothing.

Claire says that when we graduate – and get good jobs, we hope – maybe we could get an apartment together.

I’d like that. Yes.

And I would get a new piano.

I fold my arms on the table, rest my cheek upon them, and sleep.