the city is wet and hot all of the time now. it smells like hell. vomit and garbage and piss.
i ride my bike six miles one way to the bar where i like to play pool. i do it a couple times a week. there’s a shark there named paul and we get into trouble at the table. mostly because we win and win and win. i’ve only ever seen him wearing a black t-shirt, black slacks, and black loafers. he’s ukrainian. we don’t talk much, but communicate in glances and hand signals. it works for us. i like him a lot.
i’m more awake at night than i am during the day, which is irregular for me. something switched.
at my creating characters class we’re given an exercise to spend fifteen minutes writing a story about someone who has a theory or fantasy or both.
this is what i write:
“i knew i was a different woman – changed now and forever by what i’d seen up there. bright lights and beeping machines. a vastness the like of which i’ve never imagined. i wish i could have stayed longer – wish my earthly obligations weren’t such a stubborn tether to the drudgery of humanity.
i’ll have to make due for now. i’ll have to pretend i don’t know anything different. and when i do – when i give birth to my beautiful alien child – then i’ll be taken up and away forever. they can’t leave me down here with something that’s one of their own. no way, i’ll be saved. and the seed in me now, growing every minute into the first of its kind, that’s what keeps me going.
i push past the hoards of pedestrians. pay no mind to the violence in my heart. i’ll be back on that spaceship in no time. nine months? or will it be longer? shorter, i hope.
i’ll say this – i don’t care if i never touch grass again. i’m fine to go without another cheeseburger. to hell with driving a car or swimming in the ocean. space is my home. and when i’m there, it’s heaven.
they chose me for my intelligence, of course. for my photographic memory and substantial vocabulary. not to mention my physicality. they wouldn’t want their precious genetics mixing with just any human. no, they needed someone ripe with skills and passion and curiosity. they needed someone who wouldn’t ask any questions of them, who trusted them. they needed me. because for as long as i’ve lived, i’ve known. known i would be chosen to carry the first extraterrestrial hybrid baby. i’m like the virgin mary that way.
my friends and family don’t believe me and it’s only to their detriment. when the earth burns and i’m far away they’ll think of me and my child then, in a universe that selected us. in a bliss so sweet.
i think i’ll name the baby charles and call him chip. i doubt it will be a girl but if it is i’ll go with charlotte and call her chip too. chip, like microchip. a mockery of all those people down on the third planet who have been sold and bought and herded like cattle to slaughter. enemies of their own minds. creators of their own destruction. too slow to pick up on the truths i discovered here, at burning man, where my soul at last collided with destiny.”
–
the piece was more or less inspired by a woman i knew in college who believed she had been impregnated by aliens. her, and my best friend, who is currently at burning man.
and anyway, it was fun to write.
my friend brian comes to visit and we spend a day driving around the hamptons. he shows me where capote wrote in cold blood, and all of the places he used to hang out. everything is pretty and green. we eat citarella fried chicken on the beach and breathe in the salty sea air. every home is surrounded by bushes. more bushes than i’ve ever seen. privet, they call it.
privet, as in privacy, as in keep out, as in this is exclusive and not for just anyone. i get a feeling i don’t totally belong there. that my clothing isn’t pressed enough. that i don’t have anything that’s been professionally tailored. that i’m lacking plastic surgery. that my shoes aren’t clean enough. but i also get a sense i’ll be back and wonder under what circumstances.
i hope it’s because i’ve struck gold. i hope it’s because i’m dripping in cash. i hope it’s because i’ve got to get on my yacht and cruise down to the florida keys where i’ll get a tan and eat seafood. goddamnit, i hope i return to the hamptons to buy a three-zillion-dollar estate and hire gardeners to plant more privet than anyone has ever fucking seen.
“trim it to the heavens!” i’ll say. “make sure god can see it.”
brian and i drive slowly through the neighborhoods while i take videos with my cellphone.
“it’s not the same as it used to be,” he says.
“nothing is,” i say.
