Unburdening

Ice floes surrounded me as the water temperature dipped to 50 degrees Fahrenheit. My toes curled, and the rest of my body shriveled inward, seeking the warmth of my heart which beat faster and faster. I was acutely aware of every breath as I struggled to breathe at a normal pace. The water was translucent, and yet, at the same time, seemed to be nearly a perfect blue. I shut my eyes, trying to relax and keep the cold at bay as I’d been taught. It was weird, the air around me even felt colder than normal too, so I opened my eyes and breathed out, hoping to see my breath. Nothing. Mint filled my nostrils, as if I were walking through a field of soft green leaves. I couldn’t take it any longer. “Mmmmm,” I sighed in relief, rising out of the ice bath like a sea serpent as I reached for the lush spa towel, bleached to an impossible white. 

“Well, what’d you think?” Jamie asked as we swung open the door to the Manhattan winter a few minutes later, another burst of cold splashing our faces. It had been her idea to bring me. She was a true believer in the power of the cold. “Interesting,” I answered, unwilling to commit, but not terribly interested in a repeat experience.

“Interesting?” she laughed. “It’s the best thing you’ll ever experience. Come back with me next week?”

It was dark out, but the yellow lights blared around us, unwilling to be crushed by a moonless night. We’d spent a few hours at the spa and finished with the ice baths. The streets were lined with black trash bags, and already I saw the night’s descent on the city as rats that might eat cats scurried from trash bag to trash bag, feasting. 

“It’s pretty expensive,” I responded, hoping to get out of it without sharing a dissertation.

“June bug. Come on.” I rolled my eyes. We’d known each other since we were eight, so she knew every pet name I’d ever had, including the one my mother used out of love until I was 13, and to annoy me after I was 13. “You’ve gotta leave that job. Working for the nonprofit is almost, well, volunteer work. What do they pay you anyway?”

I tightened my scarf, wondering if I could choke myself if I got it tight enough.

“And look around. Clearly your work at Home and a Hope isn’t doing too much.” 

She wasn’t wrong. I didn’t have to look around to know it either. Nearly one in 100 New Yorkers are experiencing homelessness, surging some 18 percent in 2023 to touch 100,000 people. I could tell you the causes. I could tell you how to help; and I did, all day, every day, meeting with the wealthy to ask them to give $5,000, $10,000 and to help solve the problem. Everyday I looked in the mirror in the morning and tried to inspire myself, but usually I just said, “June, you are not a poverty pimp. June, you are part of the solution.” And then I went out and schmoozed the wealthy as they paid for $15 coffees and $50 lunches and $100 dinners and listened to my pitch. But I did look around as she suggested. They were men and women too. But they had boxes and tattered clothes and forlorn looks that said, ‘no one has engaged with me as a human being today.’ “I don’t feel great about spending that kind of money to take a cold bath, Jamie.”

“Then we can spend my money on it, June. Don’t worry about it. But I want you with me. It gets so droll at the consulting firm. Sunday is my only day to myself. The only day without emails and emails and emails and instant messages and instant messages. Ya’ know?”

I shrugged, trying to avoid stepping on a man hovering beneath two blankets, his eyes on the street where two rats were fighting, darting back and forth in a dangerous bout, too close to him, and to us, for comfort. “That’s what you’re compensated for. That’s what you used to say.”

“Sure, but that was when I started. Now I’m tired. I’ve been there eight years. Since I finished my MBA. Can you believe that?”

Sometimes her problems made me want to stick my fingers down my throat, gagging myself. Instead, I said nothing. She was my best friend. We were supposed to support each other, no matter what. A trendy bar came into view in front of us, dark glass paned to the street view where we could only see a sliver of soft lighting emerging as the bar mostly descended into a basement. Grabbing my hand, Jamie dragged me inside, “come on! I’ve been wanting to check this place out. And it probably won’t be busy on a Sunday anyway.” I didn’t even have time to groan before I was bathed in a warm elegance and took my earmuffs off. “Seats by the fireplace!” Jamie exclaimed, pointing to the far wall and dragging me to the wingback chairs. “What luck.”

The bearded waiter brought two menus, and we ordered $22 whiskey cocktails. Jamie ordered an old fashioned, and I ordered a boulevardier, hoping the bitterness of the drink would suck some of the bitterness out of my voice. “He’s hot,” Jamie whispered, leaning into the fire and warming her hands. “I’m good,” I answered, hoping to avoid the other subjects Jamie was constantly pushing on me: men and marriage. “His wages would probably help you raise your social standing,” she laughed, casually, and my fingers neared my throat as I thought about ending the night right then. 

“You’ve just got the Sunday night blues, June. You’ll feel better tomorrow. But come on, let’s talk, I haven’t seen you for almost a month.” She pulled back from the fire. “Tell me, June,” she said, waving her arms in a circle, as if over a magical crystal ball, “what is it that you want to do with your life.”

“I have a job, and a life, Jamie.”

She frowned, “I know June. But come on. We’re in our thirties now. It’s time.”

“Time?”

“Life, June, life. Grown up things. Bills. Money. Jobs. Families. Kids. Mortgages. Can’t be a do-gooder forever. You buckle up. You move forward. Life I say. Life.” She threw her arms in the air at the end, as if she was in the Dead Poet’s Society. 

The waiter brought our drinks and Jamie winked at me, as if we were in a secret club. I wondered if it would be better to drown myself in the liquor, or break the glass over her head. “I am living a life too, Jamie. My choices. They aren’t going to look the same as yours.”

“Geez, June. You sound a little put off.”

I wasn’t sure how I sounded, but I must have seethed the words through my teeth as I tried to keep them civil. Jamie was still my best friend. “I just don’t need anyone else living my life.”

Flames crackled in the fireplace. The fact that they had a fireplace had to make them the only bar in New York with one. Drunk people, open flames, old buildings; can’t be a great trio. 

“You know I just come down here to see you. It’s not like Yonkers is that close.”

“Guilty.”

“What?”

“Guilty.”

“I heard you the first time. Why did you say that?”

“This is where I feel guilty for not having my life together, right? For not living in the ‘burbs with my husband. For not having a husband. For being poor. For making you come all the way down to this city to go to the ice baths that you want to go to. Guilty.”

“Geez, you’re in a mood.”

My blood boiled; the cold from the ice bath long out of my system. Maybe it was the heat from the flames. I tugged at my sweater, wishing I could rip it off. “Well.” Jamie looked at me, and I realized for the first time, maybe since I’d known her, that she was afraid. Of me. She was the strong one. She always had been. I’d elicited no fear in anyone growing up. Jamie could, and did, bust some real balls. But me, no. I gathered steam, ready to set the locomotive loose. “Have you looked around this city?” I held up my hand as I saw her start to open her mouth. “That was rhetorical. I know you have because you commented about the people on the street on the way here. You know what that’s like, living on the street?” I had to raise my hand again. “Also rhetorical. Me neither. But I know it’s not great. And I don’t think working to make the world a better place is that bad of a gig. Like really? You hate your job. And it doesn’t even matter if you have that job anymore, does it?” She didn’t need me to tell her that it was rhetorical also. “Your husband makes so much money, and will inherit even more. Talk about a social safety net. You are a walking safety net now, Jamie. So don’t ‘life’ talk me, okay? I’m getting by, with or without you. And definitely without more ice baths. I want a steaming shower in my own miniature bathtub in my own tiny apartment.” I downed the rest of my boulevardier and raised my glass for another. 

“Your mom is worried about you.”

If I had anything in my mouth, I would have spit it up then. “My mom? She put you up to this?”

“She’s worried, June. She’s worried about your finances and more importantly, she’s worried about your stability. You know? Since the last time.”

“I don’t want to talk about that with you. That’s not something to hold over anyone’s head.”

“I’m not holding your health over your head. I’m merely inquiring as to your state. And what you might need. And how to help you. From someone who cares.”

“Cares about me or cares about the money?” She didn’t answer, and I had no interest in talking about my health with her. It’d been five years, and it only happened once. But you break down once. Once. And they hold it over you forever. Unstable. Impossible. Shaky. Unwell. Sick. Manic. I shivered, despite the heat from the flames. Maybe if they’d been there. Maybe if they’d… I didn’t know what they could have done. My mom or Jamie. “I’ve gotta go to the bathroom.”

Jamie nodded and I watched her look into the flames. She was still scared. I went to the bar, faded glass behind it, and whiskey bottles rising high. The waiter gave me my drink. I downed it. “And a shot?” I asked. He slid me two. “That kinda night?” he asked. “Aren’t they all?” He smiled, “you paying?” I looked back. There wasn’t that much bustle, and I could hear Biggie playing over the speakers. Classic New York. “My friend will get it.” I shoved the shot glasses back across the bar and walked out into the street. A gust of wind hit me and the sound of what seemed to be a hundred taxis, lined up in a row and honking. Looking up, I saw snow flurries coming down. I shook the first few off, unburdening myself, but eventually, the rest settled on me as I lay down in the alley, my coat pulled tight, the dumpster and the rats as much a part of me as anything else. Why does it smell so bad, I thought.