Famous Builder (29 page)

I turn back toward the room. If it were mine to do such a thing, I’d secure this moment with the heaviest anchor: Arden taking up all the space he needs; Beau resting a thick paw on Mark’s forearm; Mark touching my leg as I walk by, just to let me know he’s thinking of me.

And Portia and Thisbe: Could the two bitterly competitive cats already know they’ll both be gone soon, within days of each other?

But a long, long drive ahead. Tomorrow, we’ll leave the room exactly as we found it, no pet smells, no spilled food, not even a trace of our being here but for an impossibly heavy trash can. And my pen, which I’ll leave beside the sink, or under Arden’s bed, though we’ll be miles past Nashville before I’ll even realize my pocket feels deep.

Jasper soldiers up lower Broadway, vulnerable and fierce as the buildings above our heads. He doesn’t care if anyone rolls his eyes. He’s not consumed with thoughts of running into one of his patients, or someone from his building, or even his mother, for that matter, who might be in from Manhasset to catch a show. He’s walking down the street with his shirt off. Not because he’s exerting his power over anyone, not because he’s expecting anything returned from another stark, handsome face, but because he wants to feel the world on him: every song, taste, and smell penetrating his tall flexed torso this unseasonably warm November night.

I’m walking beside my friend. Faces surge toward us, casting the occasional glare. Everyone else is fully dressed, in coats, suits, jackets. Why is my brow hot? If shame has a taste, then it’s the cheapest wine on the list. It trembles the palate, dries out the mouth, slides down the gullet where it takes up in the stomach and sours, making you want some aspirin.

“Let’s head over to Fifth,” I offer.

We’re stopped at the corner of Astor Place. “I thought you wanted to walk on Broadway.”

“Yes, but—”

Who could have known he’d leave the gym like this? His eyes fix on my face. And he sees purple-black shapes moving inside my head. And it pains him that he’s embarrassing me. And it pains me that I’m embarrassed for him, and we balance on the curb for a second, stranded, before the WALK sign flashes on.

“We’re in Manhattan,” he says, with a hurt smile. And though I’m not quite sure what he means, and I can’t quite ignore those purple-black shapes, I can’t help but see that he’s part of something larger: just as the sleek black woman with the plaid bag is part of something larger, as is the thin Japanese kid with the absurd blue tassel swaying back and forth from his cap. And we walk on and walk on, past the drunks slumped outside the ATM, the bus to Fresh Meadows puffing out its sprays of exhaust, the salted golden pretzels tied to the sides of a vendor’s silver cart absorbing every scent, texture, and cry of anguish.

And yet? And yet?

Ahead, a coffee shop. Pendant lights hang from the ceiling; a white moth hovers above the raspberry pie in the window. Jasper stands with a smile around the edges of his lips, like some enormous, alarming child who’s been presented with a tray of cupcakes. “Would you like something?”

“Sure.”

“Stay here,” he says. “Hold this for me.” And he hands me his gym bag full of sneakers and sweatpants and God knows what, so heavy that my shoulder hurts, and I have to put it down on the sidewalk, lest I run out of breath.

I watch him through the frame of the window. No fear that he’s not behaving like the rest. No fear that he’s going to be asked to leave or put his shirt on. He walks right to the counter, past all the faces he’s silenced, the cluster of muscle boys, the NYU student who wants to gaze up at him but can’t because he’s the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen. The girl takes Jasper’s order, talking with incredible animation about the tattoos that rope around his shoulder, and all at once I’m reminded of my father, who’s walking in and out through the steakhouse in some distant corner of my memory, and filling up the doggy bag with the scraps from people’s tables for Taffy, our miniature collie. He doesn’t care that I’m beside the door with my mother and brothers, arms folded, blushing. He doesn’t care that Michael’s calling for him to come to the car, or that the couple by the salad bar is so perturbed that they’ve actually stopped eating, holding their knives and forks in stillness above their plates. All he’s thinking about is Taffy, how her eyes will gloss over once her bright blue bowl fills up with the meat.

“Drink up,” Jasper says, passing me the cup.

“Thanks.” And it’s bitter and delicious. So weirdly delicious that I imagine he’s slipped something inside it, something to keep me nervy, opened to the city and everything beyond in all of its wildness and danger and beauty.

And yet? And yet?

When I look up from my sip, he’s gone. Hats bob up and down like inflatable balls on the waves. The street’s darker, chillier. Second by second, it’s losing its luster. Wind silences the horns. It catches the loose trash on the sidewalk, blowing air into the bags, lifting them up, up above the city before they fall, like emptied paper lanterns. And then I spot him again, soldiering on, defying anything that tries to tell him to cover up. Time’s a bullet fired, his walk says. Planes are flying toward us as we speak. You are the buildings protecting us. You are the boy slamming the sidewalk with his skateboard wheels, the woman with the plaid bag slung over her shoulder, the cold salted pretzels served up night after night by the vendors. The bones groan beneath the layers of Washington Square Park. Be mighty, his walk says. Be struck, pierced by the light on your skin. I spill hot coffee down the front of my shirt. “Wait!” I say. And I run down the sidewalk after him, trying to catch up.

Books, like houses and cities, are never built by one person alone, and I’d like to thank the following people for their contributions to this project. Karen Brennan, Bernard Cooper, Alice Fulton, Denise Gess, and Elizabeth McCracken all read the earliest, fledgling versions of these pieces, and I’m grateful for their friendship and feedback, in addition to the inspiration of their work. I’d also like to acknowledge Jo Ann Beard, Polly Burnell, Stephen Briscoe, Kathleen Cambor, Allan Gurganus, Barbara Hope, Robert Leleux, Jonathan Rabinowitz, Katrina Roberts, Joy Williams, Lisa Zeidner, and my late friends Agha Shahid Ali, Betty Jones, and Robert Jones for their support. Enormous thanks to Barry Goldstein for the photograph. Thanks, too, to Carol Houck Smith for her encouragement and astute suggestions. And Deborah Lott—her keen-eyed feedback was crucial at a late stage of this manuscript.

I couldn’t have wished for a better editor than Fiona McCrae, whose steady attention, gentle push, and fierce intelligence helped to make this a better book. Thank you, as well, to Anne Czarniecki, Katie Dublinski, Janna Rademacher, J. Robbins, and everyone else at Graywolf for their interest and generosity.

To the Lisickys: my brothers Bobby and Michael must be thanked for their contributions both great and small. Love and bright wishes to my parents, Tony and Anne, who gave us enough room to be ourselves. I dedicate this book to them.

Finally, most important, I want to thank my partner, Mark Doty, for his support and belief, and for going along with my occasional need to drive through an old Levitt development.

PAUL LISICKY is the author of the novel
Lawnboy
(Turtle Point, 1999). His stories and essays have appeared in
Ploughshares, Boulevard, Sonora Review
, and in many other magazines and anthologies. His awards include fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the James Michener/Copernicus Society, the Henfield Foundation, and the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown. He teaches fiction and creative nonfiction at Sarah Lawrence College and in the low-residency M.F.A. Program at Antioch University, Los Angeles. He lives in New York and Provincetown and is currently at work on a new novel.