THE RHYTHM OF THINGS

There she was. I’d say she’s in high school, but it’s May and the middle of the weekday and here she is, standing sullen in the elevator by the buttons. Does she work here? It looks like she does; there’s a tiny pin on her breast that I’m afraid to inspect too closely. Does it say, ‘Frank Cappellino Funeral Home?’ Will she push the button for the second floor? I wait for her to do so, but she just leans against the wall, thinking about loud, strong music that will blast me back out the door.

            So I reach over.

            And she says, “I know where you’re going.” She pushes the button.

            What can I say to her in this achingly slow summit? Can I say anything?

            “See you later.”

            The coffin is a foot or two from the wall at the end of the room, and everyone ignores the woman in it. Powder blue dress, the coiffed bright white hair of a septuagenarian centuries-long denizen of the Upper East Side and East Hampton. Can I look more closely at her? Should I approach her? Yes; that blue-blazered guy with tight khakis just did. That is what it means to pay respects. The hair. It found its life force after it lost its melanin and now it’s for sure the only strong, wily thing about her. When I am gone it will still crown her skeleton head, reminding her last companion, those vapid bits of lazy air interred with her under the damp, dark earth, how she once commanded Lexington Avenue with her two cockapoos under loose pink leash, the bakery and grocery workers she visited daily under much tighter rein. Is it ever too soon to seize your inner spunk and trample the sidewalks?

            Where to go now? There’s a pitcher of water and cups on that gracious waist-high golden bookcase and framed photos on top of that other one. But all the furniture looks like caskets, burnished and beguilingly cheery.

            Truly graciously, a chipper voice breaks through the stricture and solemnity of tragedy, the leeringly pompous tailored blue blazers and khakis.

            “Hi. You can see pictures of me right here. My hair was longer then. I just got it cut. But I think you can tell that it’s me. I’m eight and in second grade. Well, I’ll be in third grade soon, actually. There are more pictures of me over there.”

            “Oh yes. I can definitely tell that that’s you. I see you’re with your grandmother.”

            “Yep. That’s me with Grandma Brower. I think that picture is really recent, like from last month. Isn’t that sweet?”

            “Yes. Very nice that you have a recent picture of you with her.”

            “Yep! I think the pictures over there are better, though. Do you want to see?”

            “Sure.”

            I follow her to another set of framed photos.

            “This is when we went sailing.”

            “Very nice.”

            “So why’d you come here?”

            “I work with Grandma Brower’s daughter.”

            “Oh cool. Do you live in the neighborhood?”

            “No, I live in Queens.”

            “That’s great. I think I’ve been to Queens. Is the zoo there?”

            “You’re probably thinking of the big zoo? That’s in the Bronx.”

            “You should come to my birthday too. It’s next month. Ask Aunt Jacquelyn about it.”

            “I will. Thank you for the invite. On that note, I should probably go say hello to your Aunt Jacquelyn. Give her my sympathies.”

            “Yep, you should. Well it was nice talking with you.”

            “You too!”

            “Goodbye!”

            There’s a line to talk to her, so I go to the bathroom to make sure I look presentable, getting a reciprocal nod from the hallway attendant, a skinny and pasty white guy in a black suit just as young as the elevator attendant. I stand in the golden room, the light gauzy but bright in the mirror. I stare as long as I think I should, steeling for another’s arrival. Had others let themselves be seared by their own exact impression in this place where you can be viewed, finally, without retort? I quickly shove into my pockets some thick cloth napkins and a miniature bottle of hand sanitizer from the baskets by the sink, both branded with the funeral home’s name and insignia in blue.

            A different hallway attendant, an older Hispanic man, gives me less of a nod on the way back. The line to comfort Jacquelyn is still long. I join a group of other people from the office.

            There are utterances in low tones about life’s fragility, its poignancy. Our Chief of Staff talks about bathing his children.

            “My youngest is six months old. After I’m done bathing her in the tub and I pick up my oldest – who is three and a half years old – to put him in, I’m always shocked and a little bewildered by the difference in size and weight. It really makes real the fact that sweet time flies by in an instant.”

            “Yeah. I was thinking just the other day that…”

            I’m in no mood for platitudes so I slip away to find the window with the best view of Park Avenue. It’s a sunny day. The grand avenue is a tessellation of brown, red, and gray, tamped down by a ceiling perfectly blue that becomes white where the scurrying yellow and black boxes lead the way to its apparent terminus. How does the light nourish the city, the bricks and stone – the extirpated earth – that are the dominant organism in this ecosystem? Does the din – the cacophony of humanity’s cries for more and me – comfort us for our inability to hear the rush of our own blood, the tiny sounds of mitosis? Are we just mitotic minions, ready to be cleaved by some unknowable, surprising force to make our true contribution to this battleground biome? Where should we go when the ground is full? Is this why we excavate to go higher?

            My platitudes are just as bad as theirs, so I look for someone else to talk to. Another child would be cool, because they understand better than we do. But I’m single, so I should also find someone to talk to who can ensure that I make that other contribution, an imperative that weighs on me everyday. Is it wrong to look for a mate at a wake? The elevator girl was pretty but probably too young for me. I head for the bathroom again because I was rubbing my nose and want to make sure I didn’t dislodge anything unsightly.

            “Hey.”

            The pasty hallway attendant with a light brown crew cut is calling to me from behind a door at the end of the hallway. The sign on the door is the only thing abrupt about this whole place – it says “Staff Only,” red letters against white.

            “Yeah?”

            “Can you help me with something?”

            “Sure. You want me to come back there?”

            “Yeah. Oh, don’t mind the sign.”

            It’s just a stairwell, utilitarian and ugly, its thick glossy gray paint illuminated by florescent tubes.

            “Hey, I’m Craig.”

            “Nice to meet you, Craig. I’m Daniel. So what do you need help with?”

            “Well, I actually want to help you.”

            “How so?”

            “I like to identify people who could use a certain type of cheering up. Helps me too – makes the job a lot less ridiculous and boring. Check it out.” He pulls out from his pants pocket a little glass vial filled with powder.

            “Cocaine?”

            “Yeah, man. Ever try it?”

            “Nope.”

            “You game?”

            “Sure. I guess. I mean, I don’t want to bug out or anything.”

            “You won’t. Worst-case scenario, probably, is that you’ll get a little too happy and chatty and have to take a shit. But it will be the happiest, easiest dump of your life.”

            “Ok, let’s do it.”

            He unscrews the top. There’s a thin metal scoop attached to the black plastic lid.

            “It’s just like in the movies. Sniff from the spoon. You got to do a bunch, though, since the spoon’s so little.”

            He goes many times; it’s an unpleasant sound. I never made it to the bathroom to make sure my nostril is clear.

            “All yours.”

            “Thanks.”

            It smells like a cleaning product and burns a lot less than I expected. It numbs the back of my throat, or wherever it has hit. Yes, this is the happiest ever. My head (my neurochemical rivers) is hitting up against the highest ceiling allowed, or possible. Young Craig is the most interesting person in the world. We must luxuriate in, get lofted by, the warm, intimate, bubbling seas of conversation.

            “Holy shit.”

            “I know, right?”

            “I didn’t know a person could feel this good. It’s almost too good. What do they say? Better than sex. Indeed. Why is this illegal? I guess because if it weren’t we would do it all day. And we wouldn’t work. And the profiteers wouldn’t profit. And we wouldn’t eat or sleep but would just talk, and be…like gods. But so what? At least we would be happy. Angel Dust? No, that’s PCP. They should call this God’s Dust. Way better, I imagine.”

            “You’re right, dude. You’re right.”

            “So how old are you anyway?”

            “Twenty-one.”

            “How long you been working here?”

            “Six months.”

            “You like it?”

            “Only when I meet people like you and we do this!”

            “What do I owe you, by the way?”

            “Oh, don’t worry about it.”

            “No, let me give you a twenty.”

            “No, no, no.”

            “No, really. I insist.”

            “Sure, dude. If that makes you happier.”

            “It will.”

            “But ten is fine.”

            “I’ll give you a twenty and the next time I’m here – which hopefully won’t be ever, actually – I’ll be covered.”

            “Sounds good.”

            “What’s the name of the girl who works in the elevator?”

            “That’s Melanee.”

            “She’s pretty.”

            “She is.”

            “A detour, again…I don’t think we spend enough time exploring our minds. Maybe we could achieve exalted heights like this on our own if we did.”

            “Yeah, I hear you.”

            “Again, the profiteers don’t want us to. They don’t want us to get distracted. So tell me more about Melanee.”

            “She’s cool.”

            “I wonder if I should go back in. But what was it that Pete Townshend wrote? ‘When I smile, tell me some bad news, before I laugh and act like a fool.’ And the next line after that is, ‘And if I swallow anything evil, put your finger down my throat.’ Uh oh! Ha! I would do anything to hear that right now. Fucking A, what I wouldn’t do to be hanging with Pete Townshend right now. I mean, the three of us. I’m sure he’d have no interest, though. Probably can’t stand his fans. Even if they give him coke.”

            “Who’s Pete Townshend?”

            “Oh. From The Who. I think he’s a brilliant songwriter. Really lasting, human work.”

            “Yeah, they’re cool.”

            “That’s what we need. More reminders of what’s human, what matters, what’s right. Less obfuscation, subversion, manipulation. We should all be so sick of that.”

            “Right.”

            “So, yeah, I think I should head back. Then again, it’s not like anyone’s looking for me or even knows I’m here. What about you, though? Don’t you have to work or something?”

            “All I do is stand in the hallway in case anybody needs anything. And Miguel is out there now, I think.”

            “Excuse the question, but what do you want to do with your life? I mean, work-wise or whatever?”

            “Not really sure. I guess that’s why I’m here. A place for the dead and the basically dead.”

            “Don’t say that! You’re only twenty-one, anyway. Don’t mean to be patronizing. But you really are just beginning with things. Do you have a girlfriend?”

            “Not right now. How about you?”

            “Nope. And I’m thirty-two. How about that?”

            “Yeah, that kind of sucks!”

            “It does. And my parents are expecting grandchildren at this point, you know? Where do you live?”

            “Hempstead. With my parents. I fucking hate it there.”

            “Do you want to live in the city?”

            “Nah. I want to move out west. California, Oregon, Washington. I think.”

            “Why? Ever been out there?”

            “No. I just think it seems awesome. Like more free. A kinder coast. I have an uncle in Eugene, Oregon.”

            “Hippie country.”

            “I guess.”

            “I haven’t been. Just what I’ve heard. Where do you get the coke from?”

            “My neighbor. He’s a small-time dealer, basically.”

            “How often do you do it?”

            “Uh, I mean I’d have to say basically while I’m at work. And when I’m off to have fun with my friends.”

            “Be careful.”

            “I know, I know.”

            “Your parents know?”

            “They know I smoke weed but I don’t think they know about this. My dad used to do it. I think the earliest memory I have is coming downstairs and seeing him doing it at the living room coffee table. I asked him what it was and he said nose medicine. I was probably three or four. I hope he doesn’t do it anymore, but I don’t know.”

            “What do your parents do? Not that we should be defined by what we do.”

            “My mom’s a teacher and my dad is an electrician.”

            “Well, this is certainly electrifying. I feel like my synapses are supercharged and crackling. I think, I hope, this is good exercise for them!”

            “You want more?”

            “Sure. But then I should probably go back in. We should hang out again.”

            “That’s just the coke talking. You don’t want to hang out with me!”

            “Sure I do.”

            “So what’s your job?”

            “I’m a policy analyst for a think tank.”

            “What’s a think tank?”

            “We do research that’s supposed to help society.”

            “Sounds interesting and also boring!”

            “Yeah, that’s about right. My dream is to be a writer, though.”

            “Have you been published?”

            “Nope.”

            “Do you write?”

            “Yeah. Not as much as I should though. I feel like I’m getting too old to be unpublished. Makes me feel pathetic.”

            “Dude, you just told me that life is just beginning.”

            “Yeah, but I’m also, what, like at least a decade older than you.”

            “Not so much in the scheme of things.”

            “Good to keep in mind.”

            “Here, have another bump.”

            “Will do. Thanks. You’re a good guy, by the way.”

            “Thanks. I can tell that you are too.”

            “Does Melanee have a boyfriend?”

            “She does, but I think they’re kind of on-and-off. You want to ask her out?”

            “If I had the balls, sure.”

            “Not too young for you?”

            “I mean, that’s her decision, I guess.”

            “Worth a try.”

            “Yeah. She is really pretty. And I like her vibe. Kind of standoffish because she’s got some good goods to conceal. And she knows how to entice the right type with that front. Ready to go back to reality? At least we’re armored now. Wait, I just thought of something – do you think Coke, as in Coca-Cola, still has trace amounts of cocaine in it? Otherwise how would they sell $50 billion a year of crappy, chemical-y sugar water?”

            “You’re probably right. It definitely used to have cocaine in it. And the recipe or whatever is a secret, so who knows what’s in it? We should get it tested. Imagine what people would say. I guess they’d have to legalize it then.”

            Craig goes back to his post in the hallway and I go back into the main room. The girl I met – did I get her name? I don’t think I did, but it’s probably Samantha or Ellie or something – is taking a violin out of a hard black case. Every single person in the room is silent, standing in a circle around her, watching her, nurturing her with their forced patience and smiles.

            The smiles verge on grimaces as she places the bow on the strings and there’s an errant screech. She clears her throat as if she’s about to speak or sing. She draws a loud, sustained note – high and piercing – from the strings and, maybe because of the state I’m in, I think the room and everyone in it are going to shatter. But she stops abruptly and raises her bow.

            “Wait. I just want to say again that this is for Grandma Brower. She always loved to hear me play. I hope that this is the music she hears in heaven.”

            She sighs, puts the bow back at its starting line, and plays that earth-shattering note again. She lets it ring around the room. And then, she produces a sweet, mournful song, her movements so deft and deliberate, so perfect and soulful, that they belie her age and prior chipperness. It’s the sound of dew and dawn after a day of carnage, a perfect and timeless song for a lone violin. It coaxes tears from everyone in that circle, bubbling up in them the primal knowledge that true redemption and passion spring from the worst that we confront. They each ascribe to it their lowest, most unutterable moments in life, forgetting the now prosaic passing of the elderly woman before them. The tone progresses subtly, moving higher, going from deep pathos to delicate exalt and consolation. The tears dry up – the dawn is now a new day.

            And then, with the alacrity of a madman, she tears into a klezmer tune, skipping the lead-up and exploding right into the frenzied, ebullient climax. It’s impossible not to move, the jumps in pitch we manifest as full-body tics emanating from the hips. Just as everyone cried, everyone begins to dance. She propels us onto higher plains – couches, lamp tables, bookcases, and windowsills. Hands find another to clasp. Jacquelyn is jumping up and down in a full embrace with our Chief of Staff on the couch, laughing and crying.

            I see Craig has come in to watch the spectacle of gaiety. His face finds me and he smiles. He looks extra amped up, his eyes red and wide. Maybe he sniffed some more coke.

            Taking her cue from the audience, the little girl breaks out into another fidgety klezmer song after a moment of silence. This one is even lighter and more buoyant. Instead of up and down, it makes you want to move from side to side. With controllable velocity, Craig runs into the room, doing his conception of the modern jitterbug, a solo dance inspired by 1990s moshing. His lateral leaps in the air clear at least four feet. He smashes into lamps. He smashes into our Chief of Staff and then Jacquelyn, knocking them down. He bounds against a window, and then a bureau. He gyrates while spinning his arms. An oil painting comes down. I think the little girl is still playing, but it’s hard to tell above the shrieking and the visual commotion. His tornado path seems to be avoiding her. He whirls toward the coffin, and his grumpy Hispanic colleague rushes to pin him down. Craig evades him like a star running back.  He jumps onto the arm of the couch, gains balance, and the crowd around him clears. His arms go out and up, and he takes a moment to feel the glory, like a preacher on a mount. He leaps into a swan dive, with the impulsion of a man seeking his messy end, and there’s nothing but the coffin to catch his crowd surfing. You would think that the stolidity of the setup, the thick oak of the coffin and its solid cloth-covered base, could absorb the impact. But it doesn’t; when he crashes into it, the coffin tips over and Ms. Brower rolls out. I rush to the rescue, but I don’t know whom to address first. A man who’s ostensibly the funeral home manager and Craig’s colleague hurriedly roll the coffin into the right position on the floor and put Ms. Brower back in it by her armpits and legs. Craig is lying on the floor beside her, his forehead and nose bleeding. I press a thick, funeral home-branded napkin that I took from the bathroom against his forehead and another one against his nose. Though I’m not sure why, I squeeze some of the gel sanitizer into his palms.

            I’ve run to the roof via the stairwell to escape what I assume will be more confusion, pain, and chaos to come, surprised to find the door unlocked and unalarmed. I can again survey my domain, but this time without distraction and with a much clearer view. The rhythms of everything in sight – the ant-like progression of people and their vehicles, the perpendicular and fixed journeys of elevators behind the bricks, the intent passage of clouds – remind me that the slight disruptions are just part of it all. It’s a 360-degree view of everything, just as the creator sees it – the omnipotent city, the pastoral beyond, California, Europe, Asia, Africa, Antarctica. This breeze has blessed the lips of all the billions. It is sweet and wise and comforting upon my own, like taking communion.

            I hear the roof door open and worry that it’s Craig, unshackled from his oppressors and ready to take that last roaring leap. It’s Melanee, with unlit cigarette in hand.

            “Hey, what are you doing up here? Were you part of that fucking melee down there?” she asks.

            “No, that was all Craig.”

            “Crazy – even for a funeral home. I guess he’s done here.”

            “I would think so.”

            “This is where we come for a smoke. They don’t want us smoking outside the building. This is better anyway.”

            “Craig said your name is Melanee.”

            “Yep.”

            “I’m Daniel.”

            “Hi.”

            She lights her cigarette.

            “So you asked Craig about me?”

            “Well, no – I was just talking to him and he mentioned his coworkers.”

            “Uh huh. I know I’m a welcome sight for people in their ‘time of need.’”

            “Yeah, you’re right. You’re beautiful.” I was more surprised than she that I said that; it must be the cocaine, which is waning but still makes me feel bold and shimmering.

            “Did you do coke with Craig in the stairs?”

            “I did. It was my first time.”

            “I can tell.”

            “Do you do that?”

            “Nope. Smoking is my stupid vice. It’s this place, though – didn’t smoke until I started working here.”

            “I can imagine why.”

            She takes another slow draw, and it kills me, the taking in of vital breath, transformed into decadent wisps as it comes out through pursed lips, the whole thing a sensual and unhurried heave, as suggestive of sex as anything could be.

            “Wow.”

            “What?”

            “Nothing.”

            She does it again and then brushes a strand of hair behind her ear with golden fingers.

            “How old are you?”

            “Nineteen.”

            “Can we talk more?” 

            “We’re talking now.”

            “I mean like in a real way. At a café or in the park, where things come out of the dark.”

            “Out of the dark? That sounds weird.”

            “Sorry. All that clarity I was feeling is leaving and I’m getting muddled. I mean so that we can get to know each other.”

            “I don’t know. You’re kind of old for me.”

            “Yeah. That’s really too bad.”

            “I’ll think about it though.”

            “Great. We could get together when you’re done with work?”

            “You mean like today?”

            “Yeah, sure. Doesn’t working here make you want to take action, and not be tardy with things?”

            “What?”

            “You know, the death everyday.”

            “It’s just a job. You get used to it. I don’t think about it.”

            “I’m just sick of regret. I ordinarily wouldn’t be saying these things to a girl, believe me.”

            “I’m glad you had a good experience today.”

            “Ha.”

            “My boyfriend is picking me up today.”

            “Fuck.”

            “Sorry.” She takes one last drag and exhales like a sigh, with equal parts petulance and ambivalence, both encouraging to me as cues in the game.

            “Well, if I can get your number, I’ll see if you’re free in the future.”

            “Alright, I guess.”

            I take out my phone. “Ok, I’m ready.”

            “Why don’t you give me your number and I’ll text you?”

            “Right now?”

            “Yeah, right now, chill. That way you have my number and I know yours.”

            “Sorry, it’s just that I learned from that mistake once! So it’s 917…”

            She types with the same focus and intention as she smokes, and it makes her even more pretty, reveals her realness, her seriousness.

            “Done.”

            “Cool.” I get a text from a 347 number that just says ‘Hi.’

            “I gotta get back in.”

            We go down the stairs without talking.

            “I better go in first. Wait a bit before you come out.”

            “Ok. It was great to meet you.”

            “You too. See you in the elevator.”

            There’s so much to think about in yet another interlude, in the same gray spot I shared with Craig. But I just stare at the bannister, functional and uncontroversial, the most straightforward thing I’ve seen all day.

            It’s been probably ten minutes, and I emerge like Moses in sight of the Promised Land after his wandering, bewildered by the bright lights and the calm after the crazy.

            No one I know is left in the room with Grandma Brower. I push the call button for the elevator. When it arrives, an elderly man shuffles out slowly.

            “Hello again,” I say to Melanee.

            “Hi.”

            The descent is as achingly slow as the ascent was, and I again don’t know what to say.

            I just say what I said before. “See you later.”

            “Bye.”

            I nod to the attendant on the first floor and head out into the dazzling sunshine. My only thought in leaving this house of demise, abdication, passing, or whatever is an obvious one – that gratitude should reign until the end.

            I stop at the corner to save Melanee’s number to my contacts. The funeral home door crashes open and liberated Craig runs out screaming, “All hail clean assholes and the planets we haven’t found!” A police officer and the funeral home manager follow.

            His trajectory is just as fast and jerky as before and he runs into Park Avenue. The yellow cab, ablaze with the reflected sun, can’t stop in time. It’s all so quick and disorienting that I can’t tell if he bounced off it or was mowed down by it. Regardless, he’s on the street motionless, the cab stopped ahead of him. The police officer is on his radio. He is calm, because he knows that this is just the rhythm of things.