Fiction

Three Years in Brooklyn

The apartment was suffocating. When Loren cooked with garlic the smell sunk into the walls and upholstered armchairs for days—longer in the winters when she couldn’t stand to crack the windows and let the intrusive Brooklyn cold in. Tonight, Tuesday’s stir fry lingered in the studio, and at 5pm she clutched her brown tweed coat on the coat rack, felt for her keys in its pocket, and stepped out.

She slipped her arm through the silk-lined coat sleeve and tied the thick belt around her waist as she walked up 3^rd Street. She passed the Dominican men on the stoop next door and nodded with a timid smile, as she always did. Then left onto Union, past the skeleton bike that had been chained to the NO PARKING sign for weeks with no wheels (it was missing a seat now, too), past the pair of eyes spray-painted yellow on the telephone pole, past the dip in the sidewalk that always filled to a pond of a puddle, past the carousel on the corner of 1^st, always empty. She kicked up drops of the afternoon rain with each step and could feel them beginning to seep into the toes of her suede boots.

Here in the fog she thought.

She couldn’t get her own poem out of her head. It felt masturbatory, her own words tumbling over and over in her mind, but this line was persistent. The title line. The line that had come to her first.

The Brooklyn Lit had emailed her in the afternoon to say they would publish “The Fog” in their spring issue. It was her first poem for The Lit. They’d pay her 50 bucks. Her electric bill.

Loren’s salary was patchwork. 1,000 words to The L for groceries. 250 words to Brooklyn Vegan for beer. Four shifts a week at the Wilburg Café for her tiny studio. When tips were good, she would get things fixed—a broken zipper on her boot, a popped tire on her bike—or buy a broom or a new CD. She pieced this together monthly, and couldn’t believe she’d made it three years without missing rent.

She might get 50 bucks for a gig but she never booked them.

Here in the fog

We don’t make resolutions

She could smell the garlic on her coat as she pulled the collar up around her nose, holding the corners with both hands for a moment before fastening the top button. She had left the house with no destination but fresh air. She could feel her cheeks reddening, her lower back starting to sweat in the cold. She’d go to Glen’s.

Glen lived on Ainslie, in a three-bedroom with a fence and a concrete yard. She patted her pockets for her phone but she had left it at home. She buzzed at the gate.

“Hello?” Glen’s voice crackled in the speaker.

“Hey, sorry I left my phone at home. I was just walking by.”

“Loren? Great, come in!”

It buzzed. She pushed, and there was Glen in the open front door, the light warm inside. She was surprised at how good it was to see him.

“Hi,” she said. “I have missed you.” She had just realized this.

“Yeah, you haven’t been by in a while, babe.”

“I know. I’m sorry. I’ve been busy.”

“Are you holing up in that little place? Hibernating, Lor?”

“I’ve been out some,” she said.

“Right, we just missed each other at the Alligator Lounge last week. That’s what Nora said.”

“I had to get home. That was my break beer, but I had a deadline noon Wednesday. I’m sorry I couldn’t wait for you.”

“Finish ok?”

“What?”

“Did you finish ok. Did your piece turn out alright.”

“Oh. Yes, it did. It, uh, it turned out great.” She smiled.

“Here, come in. We don’t have to stand in the hallway,” he pressed against the wall and ushered her into the living room, his hand on her back.

His beard was long. He grew it out in the winters, and Loren liked it that way. His hair was short and his beard was long, the way she liked, and it felt good to be there.

“I’m a little surprised to see you,” he said.

“Glen. I know I owe you some phone calls.”

“Yeah. No, I mean, you don’t have to apologize.”

“I’m sorry.”

Here in the fog

we don’t make resolutions

Return phone calls

Drink less coffee

Write more poems

Because we know we won’t keep them.

He stood up. She looked around. In the adjoining kitchen, he bent over to look in the bottom of the fridge. She had forgotten how comfortable she was in his home—the tired denim couch, the honeysuckle walls.

She thought of the antique beige wallpaper peeling in the corner of her studio. Loren’s landlord wouldn’t let her strip it and paint, but the apartment was rent-controlled, and for $650 in Williamsburg, albeit fringe Williamsburg, she didn’t complain out loud. She could escape the beige walls in the streets. She walked a lot, especially in the evenings when she couldn’t work anymore, especially when her bike had a bum tire.

She had lost 20 pounds since college. Over-eating was now a luxury reserved for visits to her parents’ house. Their fridge was always stocked like a good suburban fridge should be—hummus and choices of cheeses and sandwich meats and Snack Packs. Loren was 24 and an only child and her parents still bought Snack Packs. At home, in Brooklyn, she budgeted. She ate light and cheap. Eggs. Tuna. Stir fry. Sundays she went to the City to the outdoor market in Union Square and filled a bag with veggies for the week. She liked the simplicity of this.

She thought of her neighbors. When she left the house, she had tucked her scarf in her purse until she got well up Union Street, hiding the offensive tan and red and black plaid. She unwrapped it from her neck now.

“Still in love with Brooklyn?” she asked. “Think you’ll live here for a long time?”

“Forever,” he said. “As long as I can afford it. I bet within ten years this place will be like the Heights. And we’ll get the boot.” He walked back into the living room and handed her a beer.

“Maybe we’ll have some money by then.”

“Maybe. Maybe we’ll get rich as Williamsburg gets rich. We’ll get gentrified.”

“I hope so,” she said.

“I do love the grit of this neighborhood, though. I love that everything’s a bit dirty, you know?”

“Yeah. I do.”

“So Lor, listen, I have really big news.”

“Yeah?”

“So do you remember in October when I went with Nora’s dad to that Condé Nast cocktail thing?”

“Yeah, I remember that.” Nora’s father did ad sales for Wired.

“Well I’ve been emailing with one of the editors that I met that night—Martin, a good friend of Nora’s dad’s—and I’ve been sending him a couple of things here and there. He’s at The New Yorker. And last week he emailed me to tell me that he finally got around to reading my stuff and that he loved my essay on Internet memes and he wants to use it.”

“Use it like publish it?”

“Yeah, in July.”

“Glen that’s—that’s incredible! I can’t believe you. I mean I can believe—your stuff is really smart, I just—“

“I know!” he said. “I know, it’s wild.”

“Really wild. The New Yorker.”

She shifted in her seat. The denim couch was no longer comfortable. It was the discomfort she had felt when she first read Glen’s writing, a year and a half ago.

*

They had met through Glen’s younger brother, George, who worked at the Café with Loren. It was August. A bunch of Wilburg kids were out after work at the Alligator Lounge on Metropolitan Ave and Glen came by. He pulled up a chair at the end of their table, next to Loren.

“Glen,” he said, sticking out his hand.

“Loren. I work with your brother.”

“It’s nice to meet you, Loren.”

He was a writer, had gone to Laguardia High School for the Performing Arts for the violin, to Brown for journalism and loved The Arcade Fire and McSweeney’s and Brooklyn. He loved Brooklyn. And he loved Tom Wolfe and Joan Didion, and he loved Messiaen and Stravinsky, and he wanted to write full time but he loved his job at the bike shop, for now.

She was a writer, had gone to public school in Scarsdale, to Syracuse for magazine journalism, played the guitar and wanted more than anything to be able to play the violin. It was on her list. She had heard of The Arcade Fire, had read The Believer, and loved Tom Wolfe and Joan Didion just as much as he did.

The journalistic compulsion to question on both ends kept the conversation going until four in the morning, when the bar closed and they were on the street, and when they kept trying to say goodbye and kept finding new things to talk about, they started walking. They walked the long way to her apartment (she hoped he didn’t notice) and when they stood on her stoop and still had things to say, they sat. They sat and talked until six. They watched the lights turn on in the café on the corner, and the man in the window flip the CLOSED sign to OPEN, and they went inside.

At 3 o’clock that August afternoon she woke up and reached over the side of her bed to grab her MacBook from the floor. She pulled it up onto her lap and opened her email to find songs in file attachments and a link to an article, as he had promised to send. It read,

Loren,

It was so great chatting last night. Here’s some of my work—I’d love to read and hear yours, too, so send it along.

My girlfriend Nora and some friends of mine are going to an Arcade Fire show next Wednesday and you should think about coming with. It’d be great to hang out again!

Cheers,

Glen

She read and listened into the evening, tracking links to find more of his writing, reading until she couldn’t find anything else with his name on the whole Internet.

It was stunning. All of it. And all she could think was I wish I had written this.

*

“So that’s my news,” he said. “I’m hoping this opens some long-term doors. Oh, man, I still can’t believe it. Anyway, tell me about you, Lor. What’s your news?”

“Ug, kind of the same old,” she said. “Yeah, I can’t think of much new to report.”

“You’re getting work?”

“Yup, getting work.” She felt her throat tightening.

“Good. For the usual places?”

“For the usual places.” She sipped her beer and looked at the wall.

“And how about music? You haven’t been sending me things lately. Are you writing anything new?” he asked.

“Yes, I have been. But,” she took a deep breath to loosen her throat, “it’s shit. It’s no good. I haven’t written anything I’ve loved in a year.”

“Who has? Isn’t that the thing?” he asked. “You know, I think you just have to get out there and play. Your stuff’s great, Lor. It’ll grow on you. Haven’t you heard those ‘wow’s in the audience at your stuff?”

“I don’t have time. I don’t—“

“See about Pete’s Candy Store—they do songwriter residencies. You just gotta get out there, Lor.”

The deep breaths and sips of beer were not enough and she cried. The tears were few and were caught heavy in her eyes, but Glen saw them.

“You ok, babe?” he said.

“Yeah. Just—“

“Are you ok?”

“Just stuck. I’m feeling—stuck.”

“Stuck with life? Stuck with work? Stuck with what?”

She thought.

“This time of year gets me down. March. It’s been overcast for months. Winter’s too long. It’s only that.”

Here in the fog

We don’t make resolutions

Return phone calls

Drink less coffee

Write more poems

Because we know we won’t keep them.

Here in the fog we are much too numb

To dig through worms and earth

To put our hands on the root

Sinewy and caked and rough

At the very bottom.

“I’m sorry, I don’t mean to—I actually have to go,” she said, standing up. She walked to the door, and he followed.

“Deadline?” he said.

“Yeah, tomorrow morning. A review. I’ve already head-written it, I just have to get it down.”

“Oh. Well, let me walk you home. We can talk through your piece on the way?”

“No, Glen, I am fine to walk alone.”

“Loren?”

“Goodnight.”

She shut the door.

It was raining. She buttoned her coat all the way up to her chin and sunk her neck into the collar, feeling her breath caught in the tweed. In the rhythm of her steps her mind got stuck in her own words again.

Here in the fog

We don’t make resolutions

Return phone calls

Drink less coffee

Write more poems

Because we know we won’t keep them.

Here in the fog we are much too numb

To dig through worms and earth

to put our hands on the root

sinewy and caked and rough

at the very bottom.

In our apathy

We are unkind to ourselves.

We float above the garden entirely

Here in the fog.

Her throat was hot and her eyes were wet. It was a shit poem, she thought. Not long enough. Not cohesive. Why did The Lit want it? When she was halfway up the block, there were footsteps, first slow and far behind her, then faster and closer and then right behind her. She tensed, shoulders up to her ears, and swung around and in the panic didn’t expect to hear a familiar voice.

“Here,” Glen said.

She regained her bearings. She could make out the shapes of his face in the dim fluorescent streetlight.

“It’s raining,” He put his umbrella over her head, wrapped her hand around the handle, and turned home.