It wasn’t even a normal showing of stand-up circuit comedians. It was worse because it was just joke writers. Most of the jokes were about how they were Jewish or hated themselves or both. People laughed anyway, too much, because they had paid and they had made plans that night to drink watered down cocktails and fucking laugh. They even laughed at the joke set-ups, like they had been so conditioned to the situation that they couldn’t help but flinch laughter. So I drank extra so I would laugh more, like my laughs would soothe him. I drank extra so he would drink extra, too, and maybe he wouldn’t think too much about the news that his grandfather had died that morning.

It might have been the morning, or the night before. He didn’t know, and he didn’t ask. I don’t know why it mattered to me. I guess it doesn’t matter when time stops, if you think about it. When the ride is over you have to get off.

The comedians were terrible. We each had six scotch and sodas and shared an order of greasy fried shrimp. I had the urge to pat them off with a cocktail napkin but I didn’t want to garner the attention of the comedians. I had a panic attack that they would run out of material and angle in on the audience, notice me patting off a basket of fried shrimp and ask what I was doing there, and I would blurt out, “His grandfather just died,” and everyone would laugh and laugh, looking at the joke writer for the punchline.

I go back and read through old posts and remember that person. Or, I remember the feelings, but not the agony and anxiety and razor-sharp reflexes that led me to the corner of the room. My heart was always in my throat. My lungs were always full of heat and sweat and New York subway air.

Then the goodness came through me and I softened. We all do. Everything unclenches and the edges all blur just enough to look less threatening. It’s a careful assumption, just sweet enough to wrap around all the paper cut needles in the haystacks.

I don’t think he’s left that apartment in years. Through the smoke and dust, there was an amazing outline of our apartment’s former self.

“I just picked it back up a month ago,” he confessed. He put the pipe down on his bookshelf, guiltily. “Another good reason to quit.”

time I spend on others

and removing skin cells

in the bathroom.

To us? I asked.

We can’t see them.

But we know they’re there.

I guess I don’t know what you mean by invisible.

This was a typical conversation. Intelligence overwhelmed by passive aggression.

Something completely ambiguous captured in a box. With a flag. With a bomb.

Stars, I said, aren’t there for our benefit. They’re just there, no matter what.

She shook her head and smiled. You’re wrong.

I crossed my arms.

She kept smiling.

A tiny explosion. A disagreement agreement.

I think he thinks that I
confuse memories with imagination

like I confuse the Internet with electricity
and the steam out of the radiator with thunderstorms
and the hot hiss of the rain on the pavement

I traced my hands around the corners down
the absolute hallway the edges
developing under my fingertips like film

Because he remembers ideas and
I remember everything

You took five pictures that night
four in a row, the last in a hat
the red blush of the night behind you.

— Marilyn Monroe