Free The Hand That Feeds You by A.J. Rich Page B

acts to satisfy the avenger.
    I found a share with two medical students in Vinegar Hill, one of whom was Kathy. I’d taken the waitressing job at this diner in Bushwick to finance an extension class in poetry at the New School. Poetry felt like the most natural form for me, and in fact, I had written a couple of poems about Doug and Candice.
    Their breakfast cost $21.12; they left me a tip of less than a dollar.
    •  •  •
    I saw one more patient at Rikers that day—a walk in the park compared to the exhibitionist joker. After, Amabile dropped me back at my apartment and asked if I wanted him to go in with me. I said I was okay and thanked him for his kindness and concern. We had stopped seeing each other when I had met Bennett, and I was glad we had remained friends.
    After he drove off, I walked to Mother’s and got a veggie burger, sweet-potato fries, and a Diet Coke, aware of how pointless it was to drink Diet Coke with fries.
    I opened all the apartment windows because the smell of the cleaning solvents was still pervasive. A Buddhist friend offered to come in and “smudge” the place to neutralize the horror, but could I continue to live here even after such a ceremony? I felt dizzy and found that I’d been holding my breath. I put the bag of takeout beside my computer, had a couple of fries, and checked my Hotmail account.
    I’m the person you’re looking for. There are others, too. You are not the first woman to comment on the familiarity of my experience. The man I knew as “Peter” is about five-feet-eight, carries a little too much weight for that height, is dark-haired with a small scar across one eyebrow—not particularly attractive but it didn’t matter. He has an assurance about him that is charismatic. Did the man you were involved with fall for you very quickly? Did he bring you Bvlgari Green Tea perfume and insist you always wear it? Did he hate your pets? If you want to talk, I’d prefer to do it in person and in a public place. Are you in Boston? I can meet you at Clarke’s bar right outside South Station on the Atlantic Avenue side. I’ll be wearing an orange hand-knit scarf. Is this convenient for you?
    The next morning I took a train to Boston.

C larke’s bar was closed. Not for the day, forever. A FOR RENT sign was in the window. I couldn’t remember if she had said to meet her inside or outside, but when I saw the sign, my memory settled on outside. I stood there for thirty minutes. Why? The same reason I walked up and down the rue Saint-Urbain looking for Bennett’s omelet place. I noticed a policeman on the corner and started toward him, then realized that I wouldn’t know what to ask him. I had no name for her, only knew that she worked for the police department and that she had fallen for the same man.
    Had she changed her mind about meeting me? I concluded that she was brave by posting the letter in the first place, and by the fact that she was an officer. Maybe an emergency came up? We hadn’t exchanged phone numbers. I e-mailed her and then walked across Atlantic Avenue to a coffee shop to wait. I chose a booth with a view of the shuttered Clarke’s bar. After my third cup of coffee, I decided to go to the closest precinct, where I imagined she worked. In her posting on Lovefraud, she had said she was an incident-reports analyst. How many young, female incident-reports analysts could there be at a precinct? I had brought a picture of Bennett, or half a picture, the one I had found on my coffee table, left by the cleanup crew. I had cut my likeness out.
    The precinct was ten blocks away, a large brick building that might once have served as an orphanage or a library. It was statelier than the local 90, the Brooklyn precinct I passed by every day on my way to the J train. The local 90 could never have been anything but a police station.
    The officer at the front desk was being harassed by an older woman who demanded to know where they’d taken her son. I waited until