Table of Contents
DEDICATION: TO PARIS
PART ONE
When one realizes his life is worthless, he either commits suicide or travels.
EDWARD DAHLBERG Reasons of the Heart (On Futility)
PROLOGUE
When youre on the streets, you search the ground for a miracle: euros tangled in the plastic bags and newspapers left on the street, a wallet dropped under a bench, a huge wad, thousands maybe, abandoned beneath the bushes in a park by some mobster... anything that will just let you go home.
I arrive in Paris, via Italy, on the fourth of October, 2004. The newspapers I peer at through the shop windows tell me its October still. It feels like Ive been here forever, with no money, no one to turn to, and no place to call home, save the rainy autumn streets.
These are the things that I carry with me in my knapsack: a pink paisley binder stuffed with all my important papers, two books on teaching English, three paperbacks Ive already read, a notebook, a pen, all the things that would fit into neither the large suitcase nor the duffel bag that is waiting for me (hopefully) in the dorm room of my ex-lover Asad.
The bag is heavy, but Asadreasoned that if I left without taking anything, Id regret it and come back to haunt him. As he spoke, he looked right through me, as though already, I were a ghost.
Take the knapsack, said the beautiful boy whod rescued me from the streets, whod tossed me back onto the streets. Take that bag or take it all.
MEMORIES OF MY childhood chase me as I wander through Paris, through grand boulevards and shadowed back alleys alikeparticularly memories of the parents I havent spoken to in more than two years. Are my constant recollections of the past serving to distract me from my desperate situation, or is it just the madeleines they gave us passengers on the train ride over?
Or maybe anyone all alone in a strange country would get a little homesick. Even if the people who were your first home were the ones who made you sick in the first place.
CH. 01
GOODBYE TO ALL THAT
Leaving the country to start a new life is like getting to attend your own funeral: Everyone says nice things and tries not to cry. You look at all the faces at your bon voyage party, and the love for you is so visible, you could reach out and touch it.
Actually, I had more than one send-off. A few months before I left, I was part of an amateur production of The Vagina Monologues, along with a large cast of crazy, caring women. We liked each other so much, we started having regular cast reunions a week after the show ended. Right before I left, we went out for dinner and they toasted my future in Europe, dubbing me a Brave Vagina. My gay friends took me dancing and attempted a futile, last-ditch effort to teach me how to walk in heels. My writing group took me out for a night of karaoke and shots. The bar, a popular after-work spot in Midtowns Little Korea, was still packed a few minutes before closing, and I hadnt gotten a chance to sing.
Try and get the owner to bump you up on the list, the group egged me on. Tellem youre leaving the country.
I stumbled up to the mike and pleaded with the people who were next on the list, Please, I have to have a chance to sing because, um... Im dying! The song I chose was No More Tears.
When she heard I was leaving, my fifty-five-year-oldfriend, Ginnie, dragged me to a psychic near Christopher Street. It was a boiling afternoon in early summer, but we got off the subway early to walk the last half-mile downtown. That way, I could soak up the sight of the winding streets, the cafs and quirky shops, of the West Village.
This is one of the parts of the city Ill miss the most, I confessed to Ginnie. Here and SoHothey always make me think of Europe.
What do you need to think of Europe for, silly? Ginnie huffed beside me, dabbing her face with a handkerchief. In a few weeks, youre going to be there!
Her words made me anxious. Id felt that way all week, ever since Id emptied my savings and bought the cheapest ticket to Florence I could find.
Twenty dollars for a ten-minute reading! I exploded when we got outside the psychics. I showed Ginnie the time on my watch. Isnt it a little irresponsible to be blowing forty dollars on some charlatan when its happy hour?
Ginnie, a hip former hippie who wore her grey hair long and unashamedly down her back, was one of my best drinking buddies. This time, however, she didnt bite.
Its my treat, of course. Even if you dont believe in anything, I do, and I want to make sure youll be safe, she said, then added, I dont want to lose you, too.
I almost protested again, until I remembered that Ginnie had lost her husband to a heart attack, and one son to a heroin overdose; another son, a troubled teen shed adopted had just disappeared.
I believe in stuff! I retorted, as we opened the door and macheted our arms through the love beads. Not this, necessarily, but I do believe in something. Its hardly my fault, I added, if the feeling isnt mutual.
The psychics salon was in a dim, cluttered storefront that seemed to double as her apartment. A TV whispered in a back room. As Ginnie and I fanned ourselves in the poorly ventilated waiting area, a little girl skipped out from the back, threw us an uncurious glance, and shouted toward a closed door leading off to the side: Hey, Ma, wheres my report card?
Im with a customer! came the hissed response from behind the door. And any way, how should I know?
I shot Ginnie a look. This should be good.
When it was my turn, the psychic led me to a red velvet room, gestured for me to sit in a red velvet chair, and wound an egg timer on the table. Her hand, holding my palm upward, was limp.
Your friend says you are here to make a long journey, she intoned, in a voice completely different from the one she had used with her kid, and a mere glance at your lines tells me she is correct. It will be hard for you at first, but in the end, you will be okay. The psychic barely stifled a yawn. Suddenly, her eyes widened and she reached for a pair of cheap reading glasses.
Actually, it will be very, very hard at first. She began holding my palm up closer and closer to her face. Extremely, terribly hard. I mean, really
Thanks! I snatched my hand away. I get it.
THEY DID EVERYTHING for me, the people in my life, except ask me why I was leaving in the first place. Why had I cleared out my tiny, bouncy checking account to relocate to a place where I had no job, knew not a single soul, and most likely would be unable to watch season six of The Sopranos?
If they had, I wouldnt have been able to tell them.
A few months before I left for Paris, I called a suicide hotline. Id been watching daytime TV, searching for a sign. What should I do with my life? Train to be a mechanic in six weeks? A dental assistant in two? Sue someone? Then I saw the toll-free number to the Sunshine House and called before the ad ended.
Good morning, Sunshine, please hold.
Good, that gave me time to think. What, exactly, was wrong? I was afraid of peoples eyes, afraid of setting off the sensors in bookstores when I hadnt stolen anything, afraid of fucking unless I was drunk, afraid that police sirens in the distance were for me. My boyfriend was married. My two best friends, who worked in retail, said things like Purple is the new black in hushed, reverent tones. I hadnt talked to my parents in two years, and no one in the familynot my grandpa, my aunts, my uncle, or even my younger brother, Stewiehad ever asked why. One morning, Id twisted and twisted the pole on the blinds in my bedroom, trying to get them tight enough so that they wouldnt let in a bit of sun. The pole had come off in my hands.
