Andrea Reising Fiction
Good Enough
Jona left in the spring when everything was beginning to come out of resting places. We had been living together in a two bedroom apartment with a friend of his named Robert. Jona had a job at a record store and spun radio shows on the weekends. Robert made us vegan cinnamon rolls on Sunday, and for a long time we were happy as we were. I was working a nine to five in Manhattan, and every night when I was riding home across the bridge to Brooklyn, I would watch the tiny rows of window lights coming from the dark, formless shapes of buildings. The first time Jona brought me home we rode the bridge. He told me there was something spiritual about it, the outer darkness and the inner light, the clacking subway noises, singing subtle hymns beneath you.
I was lost when he came around. I never would admit I needed him but I knew I did. There’s something about needing that takes the choice out of the matter. I could have tried to be aloof and played a bit more of a game, but I was at a point in my life where I was fearing my own impressive track record of solitude. I had forgotten what it was like to be attached, or rather, I had never really known. It seemed so ominous for so long. Then I realized that its opposite what happening to me. I was becoming more detached than I could deal with and Jona sort of reeled me back into the world. So when he decided to take leave, I sort of fell back into myself.
The thing I noticed most about being alone again was the empty space beside me in my bed at night. I never had to readjust to fit my head more comfortably upon his arm. I never had to fight for my own space and somehow these new perks just couldn’t compensate for all the warmth he took with him. He took the unisons of our legs and arms. He took the quiet conversation that we shared while looking through the window to the street below.
Our bedroom sat below an old man and his racket of a dog and two cats. Sometimes we could hear the dog begin to bark as we made love too loudly in the night. :Jona would waken first each morning and make coffee as I slept and then he’d bring it to me in the mug of his that was inscribed repeatedly with LOVE. He would pull the blankets off of my half-sleeping body and laugh as I jumped out of bed, barely clothed and stumble for cover. Half way through my shower he would join me. Then we’d trek in towels to the kitchen where he’d left oatmeal waiting, warm upon the table. We’d browse the daily news in silence. The animals above us running to and fro across linoleum, we sipped and chewed together, in and out of unison.
Jona, if you are out there, somewhere, floating in the atmosphere, looking down at the world from where you find yourself, please make a sound so I can hear you and then know which way to look so I can feel like I am facing you.
On July third of 1991, I found Jona in the basement, holding up the ceiling with a string. He was hanging, floating there, the rafters of the ceiling slowly creaking with the some unknown draft that was moving his body about just a bit. Jona, glad to see me when I came home for the day, showing me the good that he had gone and done.
Robert cam home in the late evening and found me in the living room. I was motionless as I could be upon the couch, the telephone clenched in my lap faintly buzzing in and out at intervals since I had held it off the hook for just too long. I had not made a call to let the people know who need to know when things like what had happened happen. I was very slow to act. Looking out the window, I was lost for knowledge of the way one spurs a physical reaction from inside, the way one starts to move again. I could not cry, my vocabulary had been stripped of even that capacity.
Jona, I sat waiting in one spot until the morning. I waited that you might come back to me. Faint clackings rising up from two flights down, they must have been. I thought about the subway cars, the dark outside and then I made a prayer that you were riding home on one of them to prove that day was wrong. Your spirit lingered there, beside me, even after every inch of you was gone. A crew of men had come to take the shell of you and I could see the lights move off in the distance of the street, so dark it was compared to the light of the inside. I couldn’t tell the night air from the water, and remember thinking maybe mermaids had you with them, underneath the earth.
I numbly forced my way through the first week trying to act as if nothing much had happened. I excused my constant ache for sickness. I was only sick and would get better I was sure, within a day or two, I’d tell them, those crowds that crowded around me at work, along the street, in every place I went where Jona had once joined me. They wanted to know how I was coping with his death and I said fine, just fine. “It’s difficult,” I would say.
“Yes, it must be,” they would answer.
“I know he’s somewhere better,” I would continue.
“Yes, yes he is,” they’d reassure.
“Thank you for the kindness, but I have to go,” I ended it each time. Then I would hold back my impulse to run and I would move one foot after the other carefully in the direction that I thought I probably should go.
Jona, I was left half-living when you took off to some place that I could never understand. One cannot comprehend the places she has not been. I tried to talk about a country once, to which I had not traveled, and everything just started to come unraveled in my speech. I started stuttering and drooling and then I slowly heaved until I vomited. Twenty sheep have jumped the fence and still, I lie here.
I decided I needed a bit of time to relax and get away from the reminders of my life with him. Roberts and I discussed the situation after about two weeks of awkward silences around the apartment. We were linked by Jona, and we didn’t notice how little we really knew each other until that aftermath. We would try to have nice conversations, but they all ended in stuttered excuses as to we each had to get going. It’s not that we didn’t get along, we just had no good reason to stay there together. Over a small batch of morning cinnamon rolls, I told him my plans.
“I think I need to get away, leave the city for a bit,” I began.
“Oh?” said Robert.
“Yes, I have a cousin in Colorado who I’ve been meaning to visit anyway. Now might be good time.”
“How long do you think you’ll be gone?” he asked.
“I don’t know. A couple of weeks, maybe more.”
“Will you be coming back here, to the apartment? I can keep the room for you if…”
“No, thanks. That’s very nice, but I think it’s best if I find a new place. I was thinking of getting something small just for myself, maybe on the island,” I told him.
“Are you sure?” he asked softly.
“I’m sure,” I said.
I called my cousin Morgan that evening to see if he would mind a visitor.
“Hello, Morgan?” I asked when he picked up the phone with a ‘hello.’
“Yes?”
“Hi, it’s Fran, I…”
“Oh, hey Fran, what’s goin’ on? How are you?” he asked in that same tone that everyone had acquired around me of late. It was that ‘Fran is precious China right now, treat her with great care,’ tone.
“I’m fine. I was wondering if you would mind if I came out to visit for a bit, you know, take a break and all,” I said to him.
“Oh yeah! I mean, that would be just fine, when are you coming?” he answered in an enthused version of the same tone.
“I would probably get catch a flight in the next couple of days, I just have to pack up my things into boxes so I can get out of Jona’s roommate’s hair. His old roommate, I gue…”
“No, that sounds fine! I’ll just come to pick you up and we can go out for something to eat downtown, or get a drink, whatever you feel like,” he offered.
“That’s really great, really. Why don’t I just call you up tomorrow when I know the schedule.”
I responded.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” he asked earnestly. “If you want to talk…”
“Really, I’m fine, I just need a little break, and that’s what I’m getting, so I’ll see you,” I finished.
“Okay, I’m here if you need anything, just call, and don’t worry, just stay as long as you need. You know I have an extra bedroom and it’s very nice out here this time of year. The mountains look just beautiful,” he told me.
“Thanks,” I said. “I’m excited, I’ll see call you tomorrow.” I hung up and exhaled very heavily as I let my eyes inspect my lap for a moment.
Thirty thousand streets could have your name posted on their signs, and still, I would be lost and wandering in search of you. I would be crossing every curbside like a blinded woman, unable to see the signposts everywhere above her. It’s like that, sometimes. Yes it is. I think about December, how the snow falls sometimes and other times does not. I think about your death and wonder why I had to be the one to love you.
Robert helped me pack my things into boxes and we taped them up and put them in a stack beside the front door. I called the airport and made a reservation for a round trip to Denver. Only a few things were needed for the trip and I could carry everything at once.
“I’m going to find a place for when I get back,” I told Robert. “Then I can just come and pick these boxes up.”
“Okay, have a good time, I’ll miss you,” he said.
“I’ll miss you too,” I answered. “Take care of yourself,” I told him.
I hadn’t thought much about how Jona’s killing himself affected Robert. Everyone assumes it will be hardest on a lover. Male friends, especially, are often overlooked. I wondered if Robert could hear the clackings from the basement as I sometimes did. And what about the animals upstairs? We never heard them barking anymore.
The subway took me up across the bridge in daylight and then back into the ground. I boarded the plane in plenty of time and sat there reading the evacuation manual. Colorado did not take long. Morgan greeted me as he said he would. I spent nine days wandering about his home, from kitchen to living room to front door and back again. I nested. I said very little. I thought of bathtubs and pillows and darkness. Morgan would come home from work and tell me stories about the people he had talked with that day and about his high school girlfriends and his Doberman Rosy who had passed away the summer before. We used to spend a week at his family’s cottage in late August and roast marshmallows and throw great sticks into the water for Rosy to swim and retrieve.
Jona was one of the most attractive men I had ever met, although it was not universally so. I loved the dark circles under his eyes, they made him look old and wise. At times when we were not together, I would sometimes think about the fact that he was mine to love and I would feel my chest warm and my hands begin to tremble, just a bit. I had a difficult time finding men I could put up with, let alone love, but with Jona, there was never any question. It took us a bit of time to get things going at first, but I remember seeing him the first time and thinking that if all went well when he opened his mouth, I could most definitely fall in love.
I returned to the city in August. I had spoken with a woman from Morgan’s office who had a friend on the very lower West side who she had just recently spoken with. The friend wanted to move to Colorado, coincidentally, and was giving up her place in New York. Morgan grabbed the opportunity and got the woman’s number so I called her and we worked it all out. I called Robert to tell him I was coming back and that I’d need the boxes. I could see Morgan waving from the other side of the terminal glass as my plane pulled away. I waved, though I doubt that he could see me.
When I arrived in New York, I took a cab to the address I had written down on my appointment book while speaking with the woman. Cindy was her name. I buzzed twice and she came promptly to the door. She led the way up two flights of stairs and apologized for not having any refreshments to offer, having shipped off all her things already. She had been spending the past few days at her sister’s home on Staten Island. The apartment was very small and quiet. Sunlight came in through large windows and gave a soft, comforting feel to the whole place. Cindy and I chatted for a bit. She showed me all the quirks with handles and faucets and warned me of strange neighbors. There was no animal upstairs to waken in the night.
The apartment was just what I needed. I had my own space to hide in. I did not have to talk or answer. I was not going out much, and no one was there to chastise me and force-reintegrate me into the normal social delights. I slept in my day clothes if I had no energy to change. I could succumb to my heavy blankets without brushing my teeth or washing my face, and no one was there to criticize. For the first week back, I lived a life of least resistance. I ate bites of cereal from boxes and peanut butter extracted by my finger from the jar. Warm food was a foreign concept. I spent most of my time sitting very still in one place for an hour or so, walking around a bit in search of something, and then sitting in another spot, very still. I considered television and books, but both seemed much too organized, too industrious. Being alone, my semi-dysfunctional state did not seem out of the ordinary. Jona was the only one that really pervaded my sheltered world, and compared to him, I was doing well enough.
After the first week, I began move around some more. I placed a call to have the daily news delivered to my new address. I would make coffee when I woke up and drink it with dry oatmeal. I’d turn on cartoons just for company. I’d linger on the front stoop, standing with my mug and looking at the life upon the street. I took a walk around the block, then I retreated to the still. I took up grocery shopping once again. It started off with raisin bran and apples and bananas and went back then progressed to milk and yogurt, lettuce and dressing. I paid the bills when they came. I called up the office where I worked and told them I was ready to come back in.
I met Jona like any woman meets a man. We just sort of ran into each other and never quite managed to get free. Just out of school, I was working a job at a small firm on the upper East. He came in one day and asked me where the bathroom was.
“This isn’t a gas station, you know,” I joked with him. I assumed his ratty garb was not the sign of clientele.
“No, I’m dropping off some papers. I’m the messenger, dropping off some papers.”
“Sorry, I was joking. I didn’t mean to…”
“No, I know, it’s okay, are you?…”
“What?” I asked.
“Nothing. I’m Jona,” he said and smiled, offering his hand.
“Hi, I’m Francesca. Well, Fran, really. Everyone calls me Fran,” I told him as we shook.
“So do you eat, Fran?” he asked me.
“Do I eat?” I said.
“You know, dinner?”
“Well, yes, of course..”
“Because I was thinking of, you know, eating dinner tonight and I thought if you’re planning on it too, then we might as well do it together,” he explained.
“Um, I don’t really..”
“What?” he interrupted.
“Know if it’s a good idea.” I said. “I’m not in the habit of going out with strange men.”
“I know I look strange, but I’m not, really,” he said playfully.
“Well, I don’t know, I guess. Why don’t you just write down your phone number and I’ll call you if I’m feeling up to it,” I suggested.
“That sounds fair enough, I guess,” he answered as he searched his pockets for some paper and a pen.
I ended up calling him, mostly out of fear that I was verging on the lifestyle that would lead me into being sixty-five and all alone with cats. We met at an Italian restaurant and drank red wine while waiting for our meals. He told me about the two jobs he was working while he waited for his musical career to take off. He sang in a band that I had actually seen advertised in back sections of the Voice. By the time our meals came, I was already telling him about the time in grade school when I punched Susan Magestro for cutting off one of my ponytails. I hit her so hard she had a black eye for over a week.
We split the bill and rose slowly. We walked very closely next to one another from the table to the door. We held hands from the door to the subway station and all throughout the train ride to Brooklyn. Back at his apartment, we sat for a very long time in the low, brown cushions of the living room couch. We talked more about the things we wished for and things we could not understand in the world. After a very long time, I kissed him and we lay down spooning in our clothes until the morning.
We rose early, both needing to get in to work. I met Robert on my way into the bathroom. He didn’t seem too surprised at the presence of a woman, and I figured Jona brought guests fairly often. I hadn’t planned on turning this into anything serious, so the thought of my own role in a series of Jona’s flings was not too disappointing. When I found Jona and Robert in the kitchen, they were eating cinnamon rolls.
“So Jona tells me you’re the one,” announced Robert when I entered.
Jona blushed and smiled uncomfortably. “Roll?” he held out a plate.
“Yes, thanks,” I said, smiling and taking his offer.
Over the next couple of weeks, we saw each other often. We went out for meals or to the museums. We stayed in and looked at photographs and huddled under blankets. We had amazing sex regularly. Together we agreed I should move in and I gave up the room I had been in up near NYU. It seems strange, looking back, that we were so sure of ourselves. We were so sure that everything was so right, that everything would go so smoothly.
Mostly, I am back to feeling normal. I am feeling like I can get through each day from start to finish and not get stuck half way, unsure of where I am and what exactly I must do. It is on rare occasion that I fall back into thinking of Jona. I will be lying huddled in the blankets of my bed, unable to get warm. I will go to the bathroom, filling the tub almost to the top, and then I will climb in. I will make the water very hot and so that I must get in inch by inch, lowering myself down very, very slowly as I hold onto the sides of porcelain. I will lie, turning periodically from my back to my front, until the water becomes colder than my body, giving me a stiff, sick feeling. Gushing wet, I will hover for second to undo the drain and then I hurry half-wrapped in a towel to the bed. I will leave a dark trail of wetness along the panels of the floor. I will leap into the jumble of blankets and surround myself, still cold and nauseous, unsure of what more I can do.
I have not fallen back in love since Jona. Sometimes I go out if invited. I see Robert from time to time, but I haven’t been back to the apartment. A woman moved in not long after I moved out, but she left shortly after. She told Robert she felt very uncomfortable in the room, like something there was that did not want her there. Figuring it would scare people off, Robert had kept Jona’s suicide under wraps. When he told me this, Robert hummed the Twilight Zone song and said in a strange voice that it is that unrequited love between Jona and I, haunting the room. Personally, I think it was most likely just the wind. There had always been a strange, unsettling draft that crept in through the cracks between the window glass and the metal of the sill. Jona and I tried often to find and fix the places where the wind came in, but for all the putty we layered and manipulated, that outside cold would always reach us.
He once told me that the world is full of crazy people.
“That’s why we go on living,” he said. “If we had any sense at all, we’d shoot ourselves in the head. We’d just hang it up. People just wait and wait for great things to start happening. Then one day when they have waited eighty years or so, they die and no one really cares much.”
“That’s cheerful,” I said to him. “So how come you’re still around?”
“’Cause I went out and found what everyone else is just waiting for,” he answered. “I’m just sticking around for awhile to let it sink in, you know, soak it up so I can take it with me when I go.”
“And what is it you’ve got that no one else privileged enough to have, ‘o ‘Jona of Much Wisdom’?” I teased him.
“You.”
“What?” I said.
“I’ve got you,” he answered very seriously and held onto my arm like he would never let it go.
There, in the low light of an evening long ago, I moved in closely as I could to him and made a prayer that I could let go just this once, and then I fell and fell and don’t remember ever landing..
I can’t say if I am better or worse off for having gone through all of this. I reconcile Jona’s death with my own conviction to go on living. Unfortunately, he didn’t have his theories right. He wasn’t the only one who had found what he most wanted in life. People don’t just keep going because they are foolishly waiting for something they are too frightened to obtain. People stay living because it is enough. Whether or not they are in love, just getting up and making the coffee, riding the subway as it makes its way across the bridge and back into the ground. It is good enough. If I have learned anything, I have learned that it is good enough.