By: Lisa Marie Basile
1
I met a kid from Nebraska.
And he says he watches the freight trains go by. And he says he's gained 14 pounds from sweet tea. He says he can smell honey suckle blowing from behind his window and he read most of The Idiot during a dust storm and he hated the protagonist. His father makes pickles and literally sweats into the pot. His mother braids her long red hair every night. He says he doesn't understand what toxic means.
And I forget everything I've ever known about TriBeCa. And Happy Hours. And the Poetry Project. I forget free AIDS clinics. I forget gentrification. I forget the people I've loved who call themselves musicians. I forget my byline. I forget the way I got there. I just want to sit in the wind. I had met forever.
I never got his full name until I visited the cemetery.
2
Well, I am on Avenue A with a balding, missing-toothed New York Times ex-pat still boasting his one writing credit. "But now I'm a photographer," he says. I study his face and he reminds me of Jocelyn Wildenstein, a half-feline, half-recovered meth addict. I don't believe him. He's a fool. His eyes are sunken and his lips are pulled down, but he was in his mid-thirties. And his hands are shaking, and it's not because he's nervous. I fake an English accent and tell him my name is Emma. It wasn't half bad, but it certainly wasn't creative. He asks me where I lived in the East End of London, and I say, "Near the Water District."
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