When I remember Pablo

There are some days when I think I’m in love with her. But the day after, I wake up with a throbbing headache. Mostly, we drink wine and smoke cigarettes, and she talks about Pablo. Pablo is her boyfriend. Or a dead poet. I can’t remember which. One is Pablo, and one is Paulo. She talks about them both a lot. I take a long drag from my cigarette and make a low, thoughtful sound.

“Hmmm.”

And then it doesn’t matter whether she’s talking about Pablo or Paulo - the lover or the poet. She’ll smile at me, and come back from that far-away place. We’ll make love and she’ll fall asleep in my arms. But I’m still there, in that far-away place. My therapist calls it disengaging.

“You refuse to emotionally inhabit your life, because that would mean taking responsibility.”

I wanted to punch her in the face. I imagined my fist smashing the bones in her Upper East Side slanted nose, the red spreading across the milky, academic pale of her face. I pull at a thread from my borrowed jacket, and smile. That was my first session. I never went back.

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Today is lunch with my dad, a doctor, a dead-beat, and a drunk. A shame he never got round to the only ‘d’ he ever really wanted for himself. He talks fishing and drinks whiskey. I don’t know bait or bourbon but this talk is safe. My father has always looked young, younger now that he is divorced. The waitress, or the couple across from us might guess that we are buddies. These are easier parts, and we play them well. My father drains his drink and leans forward, “You’re a good friend to me Joe.”

I ask him what that means. He takes out a cigarette, and places it un-smoked on the table between us and pays the cheque. My father leaves with the waitress’ number, I leave with a buzzing head. I am not used to whiskey.

I pull my coat around me but some of the buttons are missing. Still, I avoid the subway and its cars full of people and purpose, and begin the long walk back to my apartment. I can’t survive another New York winter. I look in my bathroom cabinet for headache pills but there is nothing in there but bug spray and a full pack of condoms. Perhaps I’ll go to the travel agent tomorrow. I have some money saved up, and the boss owes me a week off, I could take a trip. No Izzy, no friends, just me. I put on some coffee and smoke a cigarette. The phone rings but it is now Saturday evening and I let the machine get it. It’s Izzy; in between sobs she says she wants to come over. She’s had a fight with – but she bursts into tears again and I can’t quite make out whether she says Paulo or Pablo. I delete the message, and I can’t help laughing out loud. There’s a lyric that’s been going round my head about remembering only what you want to. Or is it a line from a poem? One of his maybe. How perfect, I think it is.

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I wake before the alarm and shiver in the shower – a cheap trick of my landlord’s to punish me for being a day late on rent, one of many in his arsenal. Izzy calls again whilst I dress, no tears this time just a plea to call back. Her voice is strange – hopeful, almost. There’s something that perturbs me about the message so I replay it but I can’t be sure of what I’m looking for. I play it again and again, over and over – more out of something to do – until I barely recognise her voice. I like to do that, try to make things strange. I’m not sure why, I’m mainly amazed at the human mind and the traps it plays. It’s barely eleven but I reach for my Stoli and pour a generous measure into my juice, drinking it by sips.

I pass the day this way, drinking and moping, watching the rain come down like outside. I do parts of old crosswords from the Times that I’ve squirrelled about the apartment. I’m not sure what I was saving them for. I fall asleep on the couch sometime in the afternoon – waking at nine, rushing around like I’m late for work. It is not until I find my alarm clock in my bedroom that I am able to tell it’s still evening, pulling off my jacket bashfully, as if someone had been watching. I’m ravenous now, though typically there’s nothing in the fridge. I order a large pizza and twenty minutes later, there’s a knock: no food, just Izzy, drenched but smiling.

I prepare myself for a long sobbing performance of her fight with the Latin lover but all she wants – full of smiles still – is to go out for a drive. I sense the destination is yet to be decided, and fear that the monologue might come in the car, when I can’t escape. I stand and shrug, “I’ve pizza coming.” She stares right through me and replies, “I’ve borrowed his Buick,” as if that answers it all, and in a way it does – I can’t resists the glamour of that car. I grab my coat, leave a twenty taped near the doorstep and head out into the downpour after Izzy; she’s still smiling, almost glowing in the light from the car.

Driving in New York is strange, stranger still on a Sunday night. The city doesn’t stop, it doesn’t care that its children will have to haul themselves out of bed the next morning to earn their crumb; the lights spin on regardless. I rarely see the streets from behind a windscreen, and as the rain bounces off the glass I can’t shake the feeling that this is the last time Izzy and I will be like this. Very little is said but Izzy heads down to Battery Park, just by the Ferry Terminal, as if drawn by huge magnets in the hulls of the boats.

It’s no longer raining but everything is washed with it. It’s still early enough for weekend workers to be heading back from the city, heading back to their husbands, their wives, a dinner of leftovers, and the reliable dross of Sunday night television. I like to watch them, watch the Island, whilst Izzy likes to look back at the city. I guess that’s the difference between us, I guess that always will be.

We sit there for a while in silence, stunned at our world before us, and then I hear it: loud and distressed from the bushes, a desperate call that seems to vibrate through my whole body. Izzy is lying against my back and starts when I move towards the noise. I get very close before I can see what it is: a bird, a jay or no, something altogether duller. The poor beast has tangled itself in some garbage, got its foot stuck in a disposable barbecue. Of course, barbecues aren’t allowed but people as always have paid little mind to signs that say such sombre things. The bird has its leg against the sharp metal, it’s bleeding, that much is clear. I can barely see what’s what but I figure I can help the little thing if I grab its whole body and tilt it away from the metal like that. The bird is agitated and pecking hard at anything it can reach, so easier said than done. I’ll have to be careful, so careful; delicate is not in my nature, despite my father’s childhood jibes. I haven’t been near an animal for a while, certainly not one this small. I plan it all in my head, trying to imagine how the creature will move but it is impossible; it’s living, you can’t predict how it will be.

I lean forwards, stop, then kneel by the bird. The screeching the bird was making has stopped now and it appears to stare at me in a kind of wonder. I haven’t read enough to know if they have the capacity to behold us like that but that’s what it felt like. The cold or the wet of the ground seeps into my pants, chilling my legs further. It’s funny, usually I hate being wet, and even more, I hate dirt but I don’t want to rush this rescue. I reach out finally, wrapping my hands around its body. It quivers when I touch it. For a moment, I’m stalled, wondering at the tiny heart I can feel hammering against my palm, the frailty of its whole being; I could crush it right now in my hands. I take a moment to slow my own breathing, steady my own pulse and begin moving it. By twists and turns – the bird pecking at me all the while – I manage to free the little thing. It hops away for a few metres, unsure, before taking flight once more. It heads away from the city, towards the Island, and for a few moments, I go with it. Very quickly, it becomes far away, then a dot. I can’t tell if the injured leg will turn out badly for it or not.

I return to Izzy who is still staring at the city, sitting cross-legged now and very upright.

“A little bird got tangled up in some trash. People had left a barbecue or some such. I set it free,”

There’s no pride in my voice, my tone is matter of fact, even cold, this is the most I’ve said to her all evening.

“It’s going to rain again,” Izzy replies, looking at the ground not the sky.

“A little bird,” I repeat, not really hoping for anything now.

“We should go before it starts,” Izzy says, looking at me finally.

“Perhaps you’re right,” I sigh, after a long wait, “Drop me home then, if you’re able,”

We trudge towards the car, I mechanically hold Izzy’s elbow as she slips on some mud.

“I can drive,” I add rather pathetically as we reach the Buick, which seems to shiver in the winter air. Izzy doesn’t even look at me as she goes to hand over the keys then stops, remembering. She squints up at me; we both know me driving is not the best idea.

I fight to stay awake as Izzy winds her way back to my place but I suspect Izzy doesn’t want talking anyhow. I turn and wave from my doorstep but there’s no way she can see me from where she’s sitting. My twenty is still there by the door, though crumpled, along with a dented pizza box. My hunger returns, rumbling loud and low and I take in my dinner and wash it down with a vodka soda. I can’t help shivering, despite taking a bath (warm for once) and downing a few coffees – I remember my mother’s voice, “Bone cold”, she used to say. I stare out the window, in search of some clue of the temperature outside, is it winter still? I make myself watch until my eyes hurt, and blurry spots start to form, until it all becomes strange to me. Despite Izzy’s warning, it doesn’t rain again all night.