TWELVE
There’s a piece of lead where my heart should beat
Doctor said too dangerous to take out
You’d better just leave it be
Body grew back around it, a miracle, praise be
Now, if only I could get through airport security
“BULLET”
COLLATERAL DAMAGE, TRACK 12
Mia doesn’t tell me what the next destination is. Says because it’s her secret New York tour, it should be a secret and then proceeds to lead me out of Port Authority down, down, down into a warren of subway tunnels.
And I follow her. Even though I don’t like secrets, even though I think that Mia and I have enough secrets between the two of us at this point, and even though the subway is like the culmination of all my fears. Enclosed spaces. Lots of people. No escape. I sort of mention this to her, but she throws back what I said earlier in the bowling alley about context. “Who’s going to be expecting Adam Wilde on the subway at three in the morning? Without an entourage?” She gives me a joking smile. “Besides, it should be dead at this hour. And in my New York, I always take the train.”
When we reach the Times Square subway station, the place is so crowded that it might as well be five P.M. on a Thursday. My warning bell starts to ping. Even more so once we get to the thronged platform. I stiffen and back toward one of the pillars. Mia gives me a look. “This is a bad idea,” I mumble, but my worries are drowned out by the oncoming train.
“The trains don’t run often at night, so it must be that everyone’s been waiting for a while,” Mia shouts over the clatter. “But here comes one now, so look, everything’s fine.”
When we get on the N, we both see that Mia’s wrong. The car’s packed with people. Drunk people.
I feel the itchiness of eyes on me. I know I’m out of pills, but I need a cigarette. Now. I reach for my pack.
“You can’t smoke on the train,” Mia whispers.
“I need to.”
“It’s illegal.”
“I don’t care.” If I get arrested, at least I’d be in the safety of police custody.
Suddenly, she goes all Vulcan. “If the purpose is to not call attention to yourself, don’t you think that perhaps lighting up is counterproductive?” She pulls me into a corner. “It’s fine,” she croons, and I half expect her to caress my neck like she used to do when I’d get tense. “We’ll just hang out here. If it doesn’t empty out at Thirty-fourth Street, we’ll get off.”
At Thirty-fourth, a bunch of people do get off, and I feel a little better. At Fourteenth more people get off. But then suddenly at Canal, our car fills up with a group of hipsters. I angle myself into the far end of the train, near the conductor’s booth, so my back is to the riders.
It’s hard for most people to understand how freaked out I get by large crowds in small contained spaces now. I think it would be hard for the me of three years ago to understand. But that me never had the experience of minding his own business at a small record shop in Minneapolis when one guy recognized me and shouted out my name and it was like watching popcorn kernels in hot oil: First one went, then another, then an explosion of them, until all these sedate record-store slackers suddenly became a mob, surrounding me, then tackling me. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t move.
It sucks because I like the fans when I meet them individually, I do. But get a group of them together and this swarm instinct takes over and they seem to forget that you’re a mere mortal: flesh and bone, bruisable and scareable.
But we seem okay in the corner. Until I make the fatal mistake of doing just one final check over my shoulder to make sure no one’s looking at me. And in that little quarter second, it happens. I catch someone’s eye. I feel the recognition ignite like a match. I can almost smell the phosphorus in the air. Then everything seems to happen in slow motion. First, I hear it. It goes unnaturally quiet. And then there’s a low buzz as the news travels. I hear my name, in stage whispers, move across the noisy train. I see elbows nudged. Cell phones reached for, bags grabbed, forces rallied, legs shuffling. None of this takes longer than a few seconds, but it’s always agonizing, like the moments when a first punch is thrown but hasn’t yet connected. One guy with a beard is preparing to step out of his seat, opening his mouth to call my name. I know he means me no harm, but once he outs me, the whole train will be on me. Thirty seconds till all hell breaks loose.
I grab Mia’s arm and yank.
“Oww!”
I have the door between subway cars open and we’re pushing into the next car.
“What are you doing?” she says, flailing behind me
I’m not listening. I’m pulling her into another car then another until the train slows into a station and then I’m tugging her out of the train, onto the platform, up the stairs, taking them two at a time, some part of my brain vaguely warning me that I’m being too rough but the other part not giving a shit. Once up on the street, I pull her along for a few blocks until I’m sure no one is following us. Then I stop.
“Are you trying to get us killed?” she yells.
I feel a bolt of guilt shoot through me. But I throw the bolt right back at her.
“Well, what about you? Are you trying to get me attacked by a mob?”
I look down and realize that I’m still holding her hand. Mia looks, too. I let go.
“What mob, Adam?” she asks softly.
She’s talking to me like I’m a crazy person now. Just like Aldous talks to me when I have one of my panic attacks. But at least Aldous would never accuse me of fantasizing a fan attack. He’s seen it happen too many times.
“I got recognized down there,” I mutter, walking away from her.
Mia hesitates for a second, then skitters to catch up. “Nobody knew it was you.”
Her ignorance—the luxury of that ignorance!
“The whole car knew it was me.”
“What are you talking about, Adam?”
“What am I talking about? I’m talking about having photographers camped out in front of my house. I’m talking about not having gone record shopping in almost two years. I’m talking about not being able to take a walk without feeling like a deer on the opening day of hunting season. I’m talking about every time I have a cold, it showing up in a tabloid as a coke habit.”
I look at her there in the shadows of the shut-down city, her hair falling onto her face, and I can see her trying to figure out if I’ve lost it. And I have to fight the urge to take her by the shoulders and slam her against a shuttered building until we feel the vibrations ringing through both of us. Because I suddenly want to hear her bones rattle. I want to feel the softness of her flesh give, to hear her gasp as my hip bone jams into her. I want to yank her head back until her neck is exposed. I want to rip my hands through her hair until her breath is labored. I want to make her cry and then lick up the tears. And then I want to take my mouth to hers, to devour her alive, to transmit all the things she can’t understand.
“This is bullshit! Where the hell are you taking me anyway?” The adrenaline thrumming through me turns my voice into a growl.
Mia looks taken aback. “I told you. I’m taking you to my secret New York haunts.”
“Yeah, well, I’m a little over secrets. Do you mind telling me where we’re going. Is that too much to fucking ask?”
“Christ, Adam, when did you become such a . . .”
Egomaniac? Asshole? Narcissist? I could fill in the blank with a million words. They’ve all been said before.
“. . . guy?” Mia finishes.
For a second, I almost laugh. Guy? That’s the best she’s got? It reminds me of the story my parents tell about me, how when I was a little kid and would get angry, I’d get so worked up and then curse them out by going “You, you, you . . . piston!” like it was the worst thing ever.
But then I remember something else, an old conversation Mia and I had late one night. She and Kim had this habit of categorizing everything into diametric categories, and Mia was always announcing a new one. One day she told me that they’d decided that my gender was divvied into two neat piles—Men and Guys. Basically, all the saints of the world: Men. The jerks, the players, the wet T-shirt contest aficionados? They were Guys. Back then, I was a Man.
So I’m a Guy now? A Guy! I allow my hurt to show for half a second. Mia’s looking at me with confusion, but not remembering a thing.
Whoever said that the past isn’t dead had it backward. It’s the future that’s already dead, already played out. This whole night has been a mistake. It’s not going to let me rewind. Or unmake the mistakes I’ve made. Or the promises I’ve made. Or have her back. Or have me back.
Something’s changed in Mia’s face. Some type of recognition has clicked on. Because she’s explaining herself, how she called me a guy because guys always need to know the plan, the directions, and how she’s taking me on the Staten Island Ferry, which isn’t really a secret but it’s something few Manhattanites ever do, which is a shame because there’s this amazing view of the Statue of Liberty and on top of that, the ferry is free and nothing in New York is free, but if I’m worried about crowds we can forget it, but we can also just check it out and if it’s not empty—and she’s pretty sure it will be this time of night—we can get right back off before it leaves.
And I have no idea if she remembered that conversation about the Man/Guy distinction or not, but it doesn’t really matter anymore. Because she’s right. I am a Guy now. And I can peg the precise night I turned into one.