Perforated Heart Read online

  Leon sent flowers. The publicity person called to let me know my airline tickets for the book tour had been canceled. I will have a lot of time on my hands. I think of old Aunt Sadie and her letters. I have no letters. I have nothing. I spent the afternoon lying around listening to the Renaissance choral music of a guy named Guido, a singer at the papal court in Avignon. Wonder what his last hours were like.

  January 5, 2006

  Still in the city. I wander the apartment with nothing to do. Can’t even masturbate or enjoy a low-tar cigarette. Against doctor’s orders, I unwrap the wound. It is garish, black and red, fierce like a revolutionary poster. It speaks to me and tells me that “it” is much stronger than I am. That “it” can kill me at any time. This scar has the authority of being the visible manifestation of a much greater scar, one I honestly can’t comprehend.

  I picked up If This Is a Man by Primo Levi. I’d read his Auschwitz journal before but for some reason, I relished every terrible detail anew, couldn’t put it down. And yet it was probably the worst thing I could be reading right now. I am completely engaged with my core self and what was this book saying but that there is no core self? When he arrived at the camp, Levi asked a guard why he couldn’t slake his thirst with a small piece of ice. The guard brutally answered, “Warum? Hier ist kein warum.” (“Here there is no ‘why’!”)

  Levi’s reasoning was simple: Take away a man’s every possession and you take his memories. Steal his clothing and shoes, shave off his hair and you take his dignity. Take away his hope and you take away his desire. When all that is gone, there is no man left. What is a man but memories and desire and hope? I wonder what Emily Dickinson would say to Levi if they were to meet?

  When I first read this book thirty years ago, Levi’s story was about something distant and foreign and as such, awesomely fictional. Like Borges or Kafka. I didn’t understand that he was telling the truth. Because thirty years ago, any failure of mind, body or humanity was what happened to and by others. It could never happen to me. I couldn’t comprehend death, real death. But life does end. And when it does, complete anonymity arrives and smothers each one of us.

  January 6, 2006

  Kirkus and some of the national press have weighed in on my new book, A Gentle Death. Not particulary enthusiastic. One review was absolutely hateful, as if I have devoted years to writing a novel for the sole purpose of irritating the reviewer’s delicate sensibilities. Doesn’t matter. Fuck him. Fuck all of them. All that matters is that the book be read. By someone, anyone.

  I’m no good in the city. Can’t write, can’t think, can’t sleep. Every day I grow more disconsolate. Sarah suggested a drive up to the country house. I made her promise not to touch me.

  January 7, 2006

  Sarah and I are in the country. Recuperating from heart surgery makes more sense here. Sarah mothers me to the best of her capacity. It’s not her thing. She can’t cook, she can’t give a good massage, she can’t even change the dressing on the wound. Her most comforting aspect is her ample bosom. Large breasts generate calm. This morning, as she leaned over me to adjust my bedcovers, a breast brushed against my cheek and I was an infant all over again. Maybe I have a mother fixation because Mom died so young. Was she young? She died when she was my age.

  Later, I stood before the mirror, contemplating my naked, saggy self. The wound improves my appearance. Such a beautiful scar. Diligently stitched up, red slice/black thread. Obviously, something important happened there. This wound signifies survival. If a mugger’s knife had made it, I’d be dead. It’s like a badass tattoo, but better because it is authentic. Sarah wanted to kiss it, but I warned her off. Last thing I needed was an infection.

  We ventured out to the Old Mill for lunch. Brilliant sunshine, bitter cold. We ordered brook trout, wild rice and zucchini. The waitress was peppy and bright-eyed. I now divide the world into those with problem-free hearts and those living on borrowed time, like myself. The waitress trotted back to the kitchen and the werewolf in me rose up. I wanted to grab her from behind, tear her chest open and taste her pulsing blood. I had to content myself with the trout and zucchini. I enjoyed the food, but waves of depression continued to ripple through me and wear me down. I was crushed with fatigue. Couldn’t lift my fork. The meal, like every meal now, was accompanied by a cocktail of pills which only served to remind me how fragile I was. Sarah and I exited the restaurant, me creeping like a retiree. The waitress waved to Sarah as we left, mouthing “Bye now!” I realized she thought Sarah was a dutiful daughter taking her old dad out for an airing.

  January 10, 2006

  The New York Times review yesterday used words like “compelling” and “insightful,” which is critic code for “Don’t even bother reading the dust jacket.” The killer line was: “A less heavy-handed writer would have given this material a much brighter treatment.” Of course it was compared to the short story collections from twenty-five years ago. The Philosophy of Paradise was also mentioned. I have written five novels but I will forever be a “renowned writer of short stories one of which was adapted as a film, directed by Paul Schrader.” Read: “not a major talent; negligible; a clown.” Tell that to Kafka, to Nabokov!

  The critic missed the gist of the book, of course. Completely ignored the themes of biography and anonymity and personal reinvention. Didn’t mention the assassination sequence, probably the most exciting chapter. Skirted the shopping mall subplot.

  That’s how they get you, by synopsizing the plot incorrectly and then criticizing you for their mistaken sense of what the book is about. Or focus on the weakest chapters, in this case, the dreary relationship between Carin and her son, something I added at the last minute only as a background to Frank’s story. Roth and Ford can digress all day long and every syllable is fawned upon. Me? I’m a dartboard.

  I complained to Leon but he insisted it’s a positive review and said the marketing department was delighted. They’re calling it a “thinking man’s thriller” (whatever the fuck that means). Leon claimed my agent, Blake, has already sent copies to Brad Pitt, Johnny Depp and George Clooney. He quoted the “compelling” line. I said, “Leon, no one ever bought a book because it was ‘compelling.’” He changed the subject and started blathering on about how Bush choked on a hot dog yesterday.

  In a sinister mood, I insisted that Sarah go back to the city. Against her protestations, I drove her to the train station and kept the car. She doesn’t want me to drive, afraid I’m going to seize up while sailing the two-lanes, but I feel fine, physically. Emotionally is another story. As the Amtrak diesel chugged in I thought, “One step is all it takes.” (Then the book would sell like hotcakes! Nothing like suicide to get stacked at the front of the store.)

  On the platform, Sarah and I kissed tenderly. All clichés, all the time! Even my self-destructive thoughts are clichés! As she trotted off toward the conductor I contemplated her backside and almost forgot why I wanted her in my life. Then I remembered: She’s a beauty, she’s mine. And my next thought was, so what?

  January 11, 2006

  If I got myself a dog I could adopt the dog’s priorities as my priorities. I could name him Zuckerman and he would stand patiently by the door, waiting and watching. He’d know when I needed to go out. He would become my boss. Then I would never have to think.

  In the late afternoon, I allowed myself one glass of wine and became instantly drunk. Found myself in the middle of the living room singing my lungs out before a roaring fireplace. I was deliriously happy about nothing at all and it seemed so obvious that I should always feel this way, that nothing was so important that I should ever not feel this way. Then, in a span of ten minutes, I fell from total elation to thrumming despondency.

  The juncos and black-capped chickadees raise a ruckus around the feeder as the squirrel industriously steals their lunch. My heart feels like gray meat.

  January 12, 2006

  I woke this morning refreshed and ready for the day (I slept like a log), I was even slightly mot
ivated. I couldn’t write but at least I could move around, do something. Maybe it was the glass of wine. Wine’s good for the heart, right?

  For no particular reason, I unfolded the little ladder that drops down from the bedroom ceiling and clambered up into the crawlspace which serves as an attic to the house. When Elizabeth and I were putting this place together almost twenty years ago, we had hauled all sorts of stuff up there. Under the bare lightbulb I recalled that Elizabeth had carefully stowed away boxes of my research, manuscripts and books under the eves. Perfect place for them in case of a fire.

  Good old Elizabeth. The cardboard boxes lay just as she had arranged them, in rows, labeled and sealed. She was in her supportive mode then. She worshipped my work. And so they waited for me. Carton after carton. I attempted to wrestle one box down the ladder but it was too much for me in my condition. How had she gotten them up here in the first place? I descended, gingerly. I’d had enough exercise for one day.

  I should have it carted away. The accumulation of my life. What am I saving all this for? The museum wing that will house my papers? Fuck me. I was exhausted. I’d lost my appetite altogether. Couldn’t even piss. I took a nap.

  January 13, 2006

  I’ve phoned Leon five times in the past week and today he finally returned my calls. Pretended to be very positive about A Gentle Death, then immediately changed the subject. Insisted I should take it easy. I wanted to query him about sales, but if they were any good, he would have been the first to tell me. I didn’t ask him about Brad Pitt or Johnny Depp. Lots of long pauses.

  After a particularly long pause Leon dropped me onto hold, then returned to say his daughter, who recently graduated Brown, was on the other line and he had to take the call. Yeah, right. Whatever.

  I’ve been here before. I built a career on bad reviews. On rejection. Me and Bukowski. Or somebody. They can’t kill me. I hope. But they have set me adrift one more time. What’s the alternative? Figure out what “they want” and write the same shit over and over, move those units, make those bucks for the Man? If I was smart I’d do that, right? Stick to the tried and true, the formula. That’s what all the successful artists do. And in my case, that would be what? What is my formula for success? I knocked ’em dead with a collection of short stories twenty-five years ago. What was I writing about that was so appealing then? Anger? Ambition? Drugs? Sex with my movie star girlfriend Elizabeth? Maybe I was dumber then, more outspoken and thus easier to read. Doesn’t matter, that voice is no longer my voice. I’m not that guy anymore. Can’t do it.

  I write my novels because I have to. That’s all. And Leon publishes them. And now the new one is out there languishing. That’s the way the artistic cookie crumbles. Not that anyone gives a shit. Just my own thing. Absurd, isn’t it? Writing for my own benefit. What’s that? If no one’s interested in what I have to say, then my writing is nothing more than the inner monologue of a lunatic, right? Might as well be pacing the streets of Manhattan in an old overcoat, flinging my arms about, ranting. What’s the diff? Yes, I’m a petty, self-involved egotist. But I’ve dedicated myself to this thing. What does Ian McEwan call it? This “writing project.” It is important. It has to be important or I could never stick with it. What difference does it make what they think? My conviction is what makes the art. (Spoken like a true mediocre artist.)

  I want to get drunk. I want Sarah to come up here and kill me with her mouth.

  January 15, 2006

  Back in the crawlspace, I broke into the boxes, my life, entombed in crumbling cardboard. What could I have been thinking? No one gives a shit about this stuff. Storing the detritus of my personal history, as if I’m a Hemingway and everything I’ve ever touched will someday be prized by scholars. Old report cards, essays, newspaper clippings. Photos of classmates: Mike, Rich, Larry. Susan. Where are they, right now? A flat, dried prom carnation, a rusty lapel pin piercing its faded stem. An arrangement of DNA and memory. But forgotten.

  Volumes upon volumes of journals, one to a year. I know I wrote them, but I don’t recall so many. They begin in high school, continue sporadically through college and continue to when I first moved to New York in the seventies. For the most part spiral-bound notebooks, the sort you’d need for a “101” college course. All carefully inscribed in black ink. I remember now, I had that fountain pen I would lovingly refill. I thought the flowing ink gave my words greater weight. Where is that pen now?

  Crouched in the crawlspace, I tried to read but the light from the one bare bulb was too faint, so I grabbed up five and carefully made my way down the ladder. I brewed fresh coffee, settled onto the couch and began.

  The writing was hilarious in its way. Portrait of the Artist…etc. Embarrassing. Awkward. The most terrible aspect was that the young me had no idea what a total idiot he was. He thought he had some kind of insight when he had none at all. Of course I wrote all this for posterity. The ultimate absurdity. But here and there I found nuggets of personal history embedded in the writing and so these things have some worth.

  They are half-diary, half-journal, contain all kinds of information about what I was doing then. I had forgotten how I spent my days. I remember I had some fun, but these entries were specific. Names, places, acts.

  I will read them and burn them in the fireplace. My more recent journals are worthy. These are an embarrassment. My funeral is coming soon and I don’t want anyone going through this stuff.

  September 11, 1976

  I saw a man wearing an old-fashioned signboard on the street, handing out leaflets to the passing parade. He looked like someone out of Puritan times. I wonder if he was being punished? He was advertising custom-made suits.

  I like to peek at people in parked cars. All kinds of private stuff going on in there, all kinds of stories. People kissing, talking, arguing. I even saw a guy shooting up drugs. A few days ago I saw a bald man crying while a young woman held his head to her chest. Maybe they had had an affair and were breaking up. Maybe he was telling her he couldn’t leave his wife. Or she was leaving him for another guy. Who knows? Stories. It’s all stories.

  Finally got settled into the new apartment. Complete and total feeling of a new beginning. Like the start of a new school year. Except it’s not school, it’s the rest of my life. My future. I’m taking one step into my future.

  Living in Times Square was very stimulating, but in the long run, dangerous. After eleven p.m., there is no law. The police disappear and I could get my throat cut and everyone would just stand by and watch me bleed. Besides, I knew it wasn’t permanent, they weren’t going to let me stay in that attic forever. This is much better. No transvestite prostitutes outside my new Upper East Side apartment!

  And I start the new job on Monday, which gives me all day tomorrow to finish unpacking and go grocery shopping. Have to remember to pick up vitamins and ginseng powder and tea. And a toothbrush which I seem to have lost along the way from there to here.

  The new roommates seem like okay people. Haim and Dagmara. He’s an Israeli and she’s from some Eastern bloc soviet satellite, either Hungary or Poland, I’m not sure. I don’t think they’re a couple, but they haven’t been very clear about that. (I think Haim wants to have sex with Dagmara, but she’s not into him.) They live in the bedroom together, which has a door, and I’m going to live out in the dinette area where I will be exposed to the comings and goings of anyone who visits the apartment. I’m going to build some kind of bookcase/wall to block off the living room. Altogether the three of us live in about seven hundred square feet. But it’s a modern high-rise so we have big windows and a view.

  Dagmara is some kind of Slavic femme fatale. Nice round breasts, very white skin, big blue eyes. I think she bleaches every hair on her body. She’s sexy in an Eastern European way, which takes a little getting used to but she actually is sexy.

  Haim is a dopplegänger for the guy from Fiddler on the Roof. Big bald shtarker with a bushy beard. He sells fine art posters (e.g., Mo-digliani’s nude, Van Gogh’s Star
ry Night, da Vinci’s Mona Lisa) on the sidewalk in front of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. They both speak perfect English but have accents, so hanging around them is like being in a foreign country or something.

  This journal will track what I see and hear in New York. Who knows how long I’m going to stick it out, but I figure I should keep a careful notation while I’m here. Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man etc. etc. The things I see on the “mean streets” (M. Scorsese) will provide a foundation for my future writing. Can I remember everything? Kerouac is the pole star. Remember everything, write everything.

  So back to the journal: Once I got all my stuff moved over from the first apartment, I ate a quick lunch with my new roommates (Haim is loud and boisterous, Dagmara smiles shyly at me) and then I went out for a stroll in Central Park, and roamed under the leafy oaks and maples. It’s a beautiful place, this park. But I’ve been warned to stay away at night. While I was walking I saw a few people who looked like they might be dangerous. Not only is our apartment close to the park, it’s close to Harlem. 96th Street. After Times Square, I’m both less worried and more on alert.

  When I got back to the apartment, Haim was gone, so Dagmara and I hung out, drank some Darjeeling tea and had a nice talk. She’s a poet, but while she’s waiting for her poetry to be published she works at a real estate agency here in the city.

  While we sat talking, she smoked cigarette after cigarette. And she kept gazing deep into my eyes and then looking down at her lap and taking these long pauses. A terrific gravitational pull was happening between us but it would probably be a bad idea to have sex with her. Especially if she and Haim had something going. I asked her if she wanted to smoke a joint but she said she didn’t do drugs.