"I don't know." I bite my lip. "Why do you want to go? Why would you want to leave me?"
Madeline Blue stands. She pulls her coat around her and arranges a hat on top of her head. "Because, Sybil." Her eyes are glassy with tears. "I don't like my life." She leans over, kisses me on the cheek, straightens, and says, "Bye, Kitty." She walks away through Bryant Park, heading to Rights International, where human rights are fought for on a daily basis.
I return to my temp job, my cubicle, my copy of New York Shock. I finish the day in a flurry of administrative know-how. On my way home, I stop at Mohammed's Gourmet, my neighborhood deli, to buy ice cream.
I pay my favorite Mexican immigrant nearly four bucks, which is a perfect binge price. A pint of Ben and Jerry's is the ideal binge: consumable in one sitting, contains countable calories, pricey for ice cream but cheap for an act of desperation.
I'm embarrassed because my immigrant friend can tell I'm alone. He knows that sometimes I eat like a deer, feeding on trees, grazing on grass. At other times, I clear shelves. In the morning, coming back from the gym, I buy a mango. Later, after work, after undisclosed disappointments, it's chocolate brownie pie.
Ask no questions, my Mexican friend. Yes, I'm alone. Yes, I'm not what I appear to be. Hand over the New York Super Fudge Chunk, buddy. Put it in a paper bag. I don't need the neighbors talking.
When I get home, I unplug the phone. I'm going to eat the whole damn thing. Nothing will be left. I think: Do it. Do it now.
So I do it. I push in a spoon. I work it under the cream. I like the texture. I like the taste. It's better than any friendship with a woman, better than any man's love. It's better.
I'm alone, alone at last. I turn to "Abscess." I have this column; that's what I have. In it, I say everything. I say it all. It sounds crazy, but I don't care.
Sybil Weatherfield at the top of the page. Sounds theatrical, tripping with melodious syllables. A poem, a folk song, something to count instead of sheep. Other things should be attached. Sybil Weatherfield, Lady-in-Waiting. Maybe I'm a lady-in-waiting. Or I could be Sybil Weatherfield, Writing in the Tradition of Jane Austen and Those Crazy Brontë Sisters. Jane and her Sense and Sensibility, her Pride and Prejudice, that goofy girl with her genteel writing: we've abandoned her. Forget propriety and manners. We've got Sin and Sensuality, Death and Duplicity. As for Charlotte and Emily: Wuthering Heights, you say? We're talking Washington Heights, honey. Sybil's name sounds regal, but she's not noble. Add Punchy and Pretentious to the budding list of titles, fine examples of clever and descriptive alliteration.
I study my tabloid. I meditate on my terrain. I eat ice cream.
Exposés on the hard-core history of Chinatown, on where to find the Italian mafia should you be looking, on male escort services, on supermodel love, on the poetry of Henry Rollins, on what members of the underground (What underground?) do dur ing the day, on Katie Couric sightings, on dog-run politics— these garnish our pages. We take polls on how many times New Yorkers have been victimized by a pigeon undertaking a waste management project. The mayor is a constant target. Celebrity-club christenings are frequent. Anecdotal columns are favored.
Me. That's me. "Abscess" is my column: a wound that doesn't heal.
And so we arrive joyously, enthusiastically, ecstatically, at my personal contribution to the alternative press. Sybil Weatherfield, my moniker. The year, a red line in time indicating where I am at thirty years of age, what I do at the beginning of 1995, maybe a good year, but possibly a year to forget in the maelstrom of years, of decades, of sweeping changes in the lifetime of a woman poised to write another into love.
That said, I have little in the way of expectation.
Five -Antibiotics 1
from New York Shock From Friday, January 13, 1995
I like you; I really do. But the
fact that you laud this segment
of society while admitting that
you shop at the Gap and are
worried about the job market
suggests to me one of two
things: extreme spinelessness
or insincerity.
Bite the bullet, girlfriend.
Forget the flapjacks. Get a
waffle on your ass.
—Vic, Chelsea
You and your romantic idealism,
Weatherfield. It's dumb.
—Terry, the Bronx
—Joe, East Village
You're a coward. Be a freak, or
change the subject.
—Sue, SoHo
Six -Cafe' Michelangelo
Friday, January 20, 1995
The Fedora is under a trendy restaurant called Without Delay on Lafayette. Without Delay is gold, black, aquamarine— possibly Turkish, Mediterranean, Moroccan, something Greek. The floors are mosaic; the salads are big, the people pretty.
I've never actually eaten there, but I've been to the Fedora a number of times.
In contrast to the nouveau riche Delay, the Fedora is swanky. Narrow tables clutter a charcoal-gray nightclub. As one leaves WD to enter the Fedora via a dark staircase, a girl in a very tight t-shirt stands poised to stamp hands. The Fedora serves drinks and finger food. I fantasize regularly about the stuffed potato skins and fried mozzarella. Up front, there's a stage: inelegant, unglamorous, made for the music.
The place is packed. Madeline and I sit down at a narrow table in the middle of the club.
"I'm excited." She wears a silver top, loose and shimmery, with what looks like black silk pajama bottoms.
"Don't do anything weird when we talk to him. If we talk to him." I'm in my going-out Gap dress. Dramatic, the color of charcoal, tight. I'm okay with "tight" tonight, because I've barely eaten all day. Disturbing things are appetizing to me about now. Goose liver. Beets.
"Of course we'll talk to him. Your name was at the door, wasn't it? He didn't forget, did he?" A waitress squeezes by. "I'll have a gin and tonic," Madeline says to her.
"Diet Coke for me." I scan the room with a fake smile on my face, my elbows on the table. By the stairs, a skinny guy sells Glass Half Empty's one and only CD, which both Madeline and I already own. The skinny guy is always around, always selling CDs. If our eyes meet at shows, I turn away in embarrassment. I feel caught; I feel like a groupie. I hate that feeling, because while it denotes repetition and belonging, it also suggests patheticness and nowhere-else-to-go-ness. I'm thankful that he hardly pays attention to me. Tonight I try looking warm, comfortable, and sophisticated, but it's hard, because I think I'm supposed to do something special with my hands. "What should I do? Should I be doing something? Am I supposed to go backstage and look for him?"
"Go up to that guy over there." Madeline tosses her head back quickly in the direction of the bouncer standing by the stage. He's bald, tough, and tattooed; he looks like a pirate. "Say, I'm with the band. Ask him if you can go backstage. See what he says."
I try it out. "I'm with the band."
"Try again," she says. "Deeper, more confidence."
"I'm with the band," I repeat an octave lower. When I see a blank expression from Madeline, I add, "Damn it."
In that secret, sudden way that men have when they approach girls in bars, Rob joins us, sitting down at my side. "You made it!" He smiles hugely. We're like