Marta ~ May 3

 

It's 10am and there's a man asleep on the 13th floor above Washington Square Park. "Man" will never seem like the right word for him. "Boy" is better, but utterly misleading considering he is almost 69 years old. 

 

I recently tried being his friend after having been his lover 50 years ago, off and on for 10 years, a time I call "my first marriage." 

 

Just like my high school reunion 20 years ago felt like being in high school again, contact with this boy dredged up what it had been like to be his partner. "Partner" isn't the right word either. "Appendage" is better. 

 

The first few stages of the reacquaintance seemed to go well, emails culminating in a phone call culminating in an in-person visit. Not, as I had originally suggested, in my place, Woodstock, but in his place, Manhattan. Not only in Manhattan but in the apartment. In 14D where we had been practically teenagers together, where doors had slammed, where I'd stood out on the balcony trying to jump. 

 

I couldn't resist the lure of stepping back into that apartment, time travel. 

 

It had shrunk since last I was there. 

 

I felt confidant, important always with this person who, even after 30 years, I instinctively knew to be careful around. I stood in the living room, glanced at the kitchen, did not take him up on his invitation to "go anywhere." I left the bedrooms alone. The one we had shared felt completely off limits no matter what he said. 

 

Somehow, though I looked and looked and thought how this was the very same place in which so many of my memories play out, it did not feel like much of anything, as if I was sucking on an orange and there was no juice. 

 

An hour of conversation, then over to a restaurant. Two or so more hours. By now I am feeling like my head is pressing against a cement wall and when he asks if I'd like to come back to the apartment I say no, I'll get going, and I do, our parting embrace fumblingly awkward. 

 

I take myself to a coffee shop, sit down and start writing. I am surprised by how sad I am. I'd been looking forward to that visit for weeks, counting days, and now that it had happened I felt empty and desolate. What I had especially wanted had not happened.

 

I had wanted a friendly coming together over memories, reminiscences, nostalgia...all that stuff, and somehow every time I mentioned something from the past he had treated it as something from his past, not ours, and none of the threads I had offered had led into anything I wanted to pursue. He interrupted me alot. 

 

Soon, it was time for the play that I was scheduled to see, produced by old friends I had been out of touch with for years. The play was disappointing and my contact with the friends minimal and unsatisfying. I found myself back on the street, now dark, the rain pouring, the wind blowing so hard umbrellas were turning inside out everywhere. I had two hours before the train. I called him.