Motherless Brooklyn

Dial and redial were sitting on a fence. Dial fell off. Who was left?

Ring.

Ring.

Ring.

Click. “You’ve reached two-one-two, three-oh-four-”

“HellokimmeryIknowIshouldn’tbecallingbutIjust-”

Clunk. “Lionel?”

“Yes.”

“Stop now.”

“Uh-”

“Just stop calling now. It’s way too much like some really bad things that have happened to me, can you understand? It’s not romantic.”

“Yes.”

“Okay, bye, Lionel, for real now, okay?”

“Yes.”

Redial.

“You’ve reached-”

“Kimmery? Kimmery? Kimmery? Are you there? Kimmery?”

I was my syndrome’s dupe once again. Here I’d imagined I was enjoying a Touretteless morning, yet when the new manifestation appeared, it was hidden in plain sight, the Purloined Tic. Punching that redial I was exhibiting a calling-Kimmery-tic as compulsive as any rude syllable or swipe.

I wanted to hurl the doorman’s cell phone out onto the grassy divider. Instead, in a haze of self-loathing, I dialed another number, one etched in memory though I hadn’t called it in a while.

“Yes?” The voice was weary, encrusted with years, as I remembered it.

“Essrog?” I said.

ut onto tht=”0em” width=”1em” align=”justify”›“Yes.” A pause. “This is the Essrog residence. This is Murray Essrog. Who’s calling, please?”

I was a little while coming to my reply. “Eat me Bailey.”

“Oh, Christ.” The voice moved away from the phone. “Mother. Mother, come here. I want you to listen to this.”

“Essrog Bailey,” I said, almost whispering, but intent on being heard.

There was a shuffling in the background.

“It’s him again, Mother,” said Murray Essrog. “It’s that goddamned Bailey kid. He’s still out there. All these years.”

I was still a kid to him, just as to me he’d been an old man since the first time I called him.

“I don’t know why you care,” came an older woman’s voice, every word a sigh.

“Baileybailey,” I said softly.

“Speak up, kid, do your thing,” said the old man.

I heard the phone change hands, the old woman’s breathing come onto the line.

“Essrog, Essrog, Essrog,” I chanted, like a cricket trapped in a wall.

I’m tightly wound. I’m a loose cannon. Both-I’m a tightly wound loose cannon, a tight loose. My whole life exists in the space between those words, tight, loose, and there isn’t any space there-they should be one word, tightloose. I’m an air bag in a dashboard, packed up layer upon layer in readiness for that moment when I get to explode, expand all over you, fill every available space. Unlike an airbag, though, I’m repacked the moment I’ve exploded, am tensed and ready again to explode-like some safety-film footage cut into a loop, all I do is compress and release, over and over, never saving or satisfying anyone, least myself. Yet the tape plays on pointlessly, obsessive air bag exploding again and again while life itself goes on elsewhere, outside the range of these antic expenditures.

The night before, in Kimmery’s alcove, suddenly seemed very long ago, very far away.

How could phone calls-cell-phone calls, staticky, unlikely, free of charge-how could they alter what real bodies felt? How could ghosts touch the living?

I tried not to think about it.

I tossed the cell phone onto the seat beside me, into the wreckage of Zeod’s sandwiches, the unfurled paper wrapping, the torn chip bag, the strewn chips and crumpled napkins gone translucent with grease stains in the midmorning sun. I wasn’t eating neatly, wasn’t getting anything exactly right, and now I knew it didnșt matter, not today, not anymore. Having broken the disastrous flow of dialing tics, my mood had gotten hard, my attention narrow. I crossed the bridge at Portsmouth into Maine and focused everything I had left on the drive, on casting off unnecessary behaviors, thrusting exhaustion and bitterness aside and making myself into a vehicular arrow pointed at Musconguspoint Station, at the answers that lay waiting for me there. I heard Minna’s voice now in place of my incessant Tourettic tongue, saying, Floor it, Freakshow. You got something to do, do it already. Tell your story driving.

Route 1 along the Maine coast was a series of touristy villages, some with boats, some with beaches, all with antiques and lobster. A large percentage of the hotels and restaurants were closed, with signs that read SEE YOU NEXT SUMMER! and HAVE A GREAT YEAR! I had trouble believing any of it was real-the turnpike had felt like a schematic, a road map, and I in my car a dot or a penpoint tracing a route. Now I felt as if I were driving through the pages of a calendar, or a collection of pictorial stamps. None of it struck me as particular or persuasive in any way. Maybe once I got out of the car.