Williamsburg

2009
He loved the tingle of a foot waking up, long dormant cross-legged and paralyzed,

now stretching and filling with blood and needles. He loved the sting of his after-shave, his razor’s burn, his scorched earth. He loved mosquito bites and the swirling itch, which surrounded each tiny pustule, filled with venom and water, which he’d pop, pick and prod, but to scratch was taboo, to scratch was to scar. He preferred masturbation to the real deal, the friction burn he’d feel on his skin, both sides, the tiny places that hurt to the touch every time he unzipped his pants. He loved running his fingers along wet concrete- his grandfather used to name it “walking over your grave”-the rush of adrenaline that spun and surged through his spine, softly sweeping through his arms numbing his fingertips to the rest. He hated the feeling of wet concrete; he loved “walking over your grave”.

He hated his mouth, thin lipped and jagged, even toothed and craggy. He longed to lose his teeth and smoke a pipe on his front porch when he was older, old enough to complain about anything and rejoice in not needing to chew. He loved foods that slid down his throat- oysters, Jello, and soft-serve ice cream.

He hated his mouth.
He missed pigeons.
He searched these sensations out from a young age, since he could walk and feel

or not feel, his choice. School trip to a cranberry bog at 13. While the other children threw fistfuls of fire engine red, scatter shot like shot gun shells, he lay his hands over water’s surface, skating his fingers like water spiders, never breaking the tension. He’d let the berries bounce buoyant beneath his hands making his skin pucker and pimple.

When no one was looking in his high school biology class, he’d sneak leeches to his desk, hide one on his left ankle. He loved the serrated circular cuts, and made patterns on his legs with them; he could spare the blood.

On a trip to a peer, he fed rice to pigeons to see if the myth was true. He hoped their stomachs would explode in front of him, a gastric rocket. He started small, salt on slugs. It got bigger in Florida, he waited a whole winter alligator watching- he had fed it some fried chicken during it’s hibernation- and watched it’s stomach curdle and blow. Four feet of the ground, spinning counterclockwise. He was hit by a scale, two, three, their outlines leaving skin sticky, a cut or two on his arm. He didn’t wash for a week; he wanted to preserve their outlines as long as he could, like the Venn-Diagrams he’d draw in Biology.

He missed pigeons.

He’d walk Williamsburg, conversing in Spanish with the Orthodox, and Hebrew in the Stores; he was always understood, by every party, Yiddish even made sense to most beneath the rail lines and cold-lipped blue skies. He walked into a woman, wheelchair bound, thin-gloved hands pushing and scraping the black tar wheels with her blond hair long and loose, constricted snake like by her scarf. It curled around her neck like smoke.

He ran his fingers along her wheels, her feet blanketed beneath satin, royal purple with a flash of silver beneath, her hands made impressions on her lap, she wrote her name in the cloth while they spoke. He watched her fingers trace Amanda while he traced the rivets on her wheels and walked across your grave. He twitched and squirmed and she laughed, breathy and asthmatic, anemic and light. Feather light, paper plane light: it

soared through the frigid winter air on a frost covered paper airplane, billowing from her nostrils and throat, and freezing before her eyes- tiger’s eye brown and caramel like a necklace his mother had.

He apologized for bumping into her chair, how stupid could he be for not noticing, pigeon feathers got into his eyes, what’s wrong with him? He loosened his scarf, tri-color nit from his mother, and pushed his hair aside, got a better look at her. She giggled at his frankness, his bluntness, and his serrated sharpened mind; obviously dull from lack of use or else he would have seen her. Blush on his cheeks, from the blue- lipped cold he told himself though it wasn’t there a second ago, apologize again, sidestep.

She caught his hand as he moved away and around, palms of her gloves worn ragged and soft from the wheel-strain, he left his hand in hers and read her palm with his fingers, walking on her second skin. Coffee they asked simultaneously, a shop not far, more time to talk, no pressing business, sit, stay a while. Paper airplanes from her lips as she giggled.

Whole day out turned to whole night in. Tragic accident while jogging a couple weeks ago, broken pelvis still healing, wheelchair bound for months, she told him. Mother’s over a lot to check in, limited mobility, terrible for such a young girl with such a strong sexual urge. Wheelchairs were not in that season she whispered while blowing steam from her coffee, voices talked over hers, always background noise to her voice; he listened intently. Walked and rolled back to her apartment, he let her hands relax for a little, let her head loll and hair blow in the night wind while he pushed, singing little songs for her, dirty limericks mixed with Doo-wop ballads. She sighed.

Her place, two stories up with an elevator miraculously, doorman waving curtly, asking if assistance was needed. He asked for the door, while the doorman frowned, muttering about his wasted degree in philosophy, no one comes to a doorman with existential questions of existence. He walked past, other things on his mind and tongue, hoping they were on hers too.

In the elevator, he asked about her apartment. She asked him to be forgiving, it was messy and cluttered, organized to an eye used to disarray, throw the jackets and scarves on her couch and chairs, there’s wine and beer cold in the fridge, he’d need to get the glasses. She blushed, long and lasting red cheeked, full lipped cut on her chin. When she smiled, her teeth met in an overbite, endearing and sweet, he wished his teeth were that interesting.

Drinking and talking to drinking and kissing to helping her out of the chair and out of her cold clothes, and onto him. She stopped him, warned him of her pelvis, he blushed and apologized, kissed her lips again and lay her down on the bed spread with his body next to hers. She winced in pain while pigeons watched wordlessly from the windowsill, waiting. Her skin puckered and pimpled to his light touch, her lips fire engine red and open, eyes fluttering. Because of her broken bones, she was off limits, so they made do with his body, side by side. Friction burns which he didn’t mind.

They slept together. He held one eye open, looking around the room, the animal posters on the walls, one a grizzly bear, unframed with post-it-noted on its bottom, a shopping list he guessed. A stuffed crocodile with a crown, the silent eyes of pigeons on the windows red and unblinking. He settled back.

Waking up, arm asleep, dead to the rest of his body, foreign beneath her shoulders and neck, alien. He rubbed it. Spider bites on his toes that had been exposed from the covers, little webs on the webbing beneath his digits. He moved away from her, letting her sleep softly, still. Limited movement was just what he wanted. He jumped in her shower and washed the sleep from his eyes and the actions of the night before from his skin; his chest pimpled making tiny pools and mountains.

He thought of when she would heal, vacations to the west coast, to Italy, to Thailand, to Estonia, to anywhere he could be alone with her, savoring that first time when they could escape her injury. He picked up her razor, unused for weeks, he remembered the night before, her prickly leg hairs, unreachable in her position without a lot of pain. She was embarrassed, he was practical and changed the blades to shave his face, sharp quick growing hairs from a young age he had to keep under control. He had no later, only warm water, his face seared.

He stumbled out of the shower, water in his eyes, looking for a towel and found only tiny cloth squares, hand towels. He squeegeed himself off with his hands on her bath mat then used a couple cloth squares to dry his face, arms and chest. He put on the boxers he had worn the day before. Struggling and losing to his boxers, he grabbed for support, the towel rack on the door, slipped on a square and took it off its screws.

The thump of his back hitting the floor woke her up and the loose screws made his hand bleed. She asked what happened through the door, the blush was back, blood red this time as he opened the door holding his palm and apologizing for the mess and the break. She squealed and demanded he get a Band-Aid in the medicine cabinet. He walked

forward, it was fine, just a scratch, just needed to wash it out, he was sure it was fine, he just wanted to clean himself up-

He slipped on the croc with the crown, flying forward on the hardwood floor towards the bed, his arms outstretched to catch himself. She grins then grimaces as his forehead plows into her lap, healing pelvis re-shattered by her lover’s thick skull and the unfortunate slip of a stuffed animal from home. He raises his head as she lowers hers towards the bed, blood pooling around her legs. Her eyes close. He scrambles to call an ambulance.

The fire engine red lights of the ambulance and the blue lipped cold made his near naked body shudder and scream as he held her hand on the ride to the hospital. Her mouth lost the luster of the night before, now blue-lipped like the cold, she smiled and laughed weightlessly and held his hand and passed out.

She didn’t wake up, and he went to her funeral and kissed her mother’s hands with tears in his eyes and begged for forgiveness while his legs stood bloodless. She looked coldly at the back of his head, and pulled her hand away, slapped the unshaven, even jagged mouth that kissed her daughter last. Her ring, tiger’s eye, left its indentation in his cheek, he clutched at the mark, didn’t wash for a week cause he wanted it to remain forever on his cheek.

So now he wanders Williamsburg waiting with Hasids at the corner, trying to spy pigeon’s red eyes staring sternly through the sky and through windows. He hasn’t seen one in weeks, and he misses them.