Free Spectacle: Stories by Susan Steinberg Page B

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    But there is nothing to say about one’s man.
    One’s man was only in one’s mind.
    In one’s mind he had those long legs one loved and ragged jeans.
    He had hair hanging into his eyes.
    But this is not about one’s man.
    Because there was no man.
    Forget the man.
    There was only one standing alone in a room.
    There was one’s friend saying, What.
    It was too hard a question.
    One had a sudden need to be melodramatic.
    One had a sudden need to be difficult, loud, one’s default before one learned to perform.
    Then came the need to be driven fast across the bridge, the need to see water, seabirds, houseboats moored to a dock.
    A sign on the wall said to avoid drinking liquor.
    A sign on the wall said to avoid eating shark.
    But one could now drink heavily.
    One could now eat shark.
    One would try to remember to say this to one’s friend.
    I can eat a whole fucking shark, one would say.
    But one would quickly forget this joke.
    And what good is it, sitting here now.
    One stayed undressed until the nurse knocked on the door, knocked again, said one’s name, knocked again, opened the door still saying one’s name, still knocking.
    The menu said the espresso was the best in Sausalito, and, not having tried it elsewhere, one believed it was.
    The Mexican food, too, one feels was the best.
    One liked to see the theater again.
    To be reminded that one cannot force a spark in another.
    That one can get undressed, get into his bed, and still get sent home in a cab.
    That one can watch a sunrise by oneself on one’s living room floor, a perfect cliché.
    That one can make decisions about one’s future on one’s living room floor, as the sun moves from chair to couch to wall.
    And the silent melodrama of this.
    One used to think mourning was spelled morning, and then, as morning, it was a different kind of dove, a different sound they made.
    That was in Baltimore, and then one was young and one was dumb.
    And then one thought one was tough.
    And that was then, and everything then was Baltimore Baltimore Baltimore.
    And the brilliance of this.
    Now though.
    This is the West.
    This is what it is to be an adult.
    And one cannot handle the accuracy of these birds.
    One cannot handle the sentimental fuckload that is these birds.
    One cannot even write these birds without feeling like one of those people one detests.
    One of what people.
    You know what people.
    But this is not the time to detest those people.
    This is not the time to detest oneself.
    This was not a thing one could control.
    Because one was never in control.
    Because nothing was ever in control.
    The technical term was spontaneous.
    The technical term was involuntary.
    There was no explanation.
    There was only rising as if pulled by strings.
    There was only wondering what next.
    And never knowing what next.
    The café would close and the ride back to the city was looming.
    There would first be a joke about cigarettes, about picking up smoking.
    There would first be a joke about whiskey, about drinking oneself sick, about drinking oneself under the fucking table.
    There would first be the hope that one’s friend would head the car north instead, along the coast, that one would never return.
    But one’s friend needed to get back to the city.
    One’s friend had a wife, kids, waiting on the other side of the bridge.
    For one’s friend, there was dinner waiting, warm, and talk of the safe and dull events of a day.
    And for one there was night, then later night.
    And the melodrama that was a ceiling coming into view.
    And the melodrama that was one’s brain considering the ceiling.
    And the sudden deep thoughts one had that only seemed deep, that only seemed sudden.
    About each man for himself.
    About out with the old.
    And so on and so on.
    Listen to this, friend.
    One had it going on in Baltimore.
    One was never safe, never dull.
    One had different aspirations.
    But that was then, and now a new city forced its way through the windshield.
    And one could