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Spit: Revisited

* A different version of this post was originally published on 8/12/04. I have modified it from its original form.

After the attacks on the Trade Center I only lived in fear of one thing-seeing him again. The idea of dying didn't bother me much, and I certainly wasn't concerned about terrorism, torture, the erosion of civil rights, or anthrax laced mail. When the worst thing you can imagine happens, the world holds aboslutely no fear. The only thing I was afraid of was seeing him.

It was a legitimate concern. Not only was I on campus for my job most of the time, but my office was just one floor above the communications department. I talked on my cellphone whenever classes changed to distract me from possibly glimpsing his face in a crowd. I took cabs as soon as classes were over to keep from spotting him on the walk to the subway.

I sat down one night and thought, what would I do if I saw him again. What would I say? If ever I have felt the deficiency of language, it was that day. Tell him he should be ashamed. Tell him I'm disappointed, that he's worse than a christian puppy rapist, that unlike himself even Hitler had redeeming qualities. As if he didn't already know. If he didnt feel shame over doing these things, there was no speech so powerful that could induce it him. I thought about writing letters. Even started a couple. I tore some up. Others I still have. I wrote speeches, scenes, journal entries. But I couldn't even decide on a general theme of disgust or heartbreak or rage or entreaty. And even if I did, all of us who have practiced dramatic confrontations know that those speeches always end up in the garbage. I needed something easy to remember. Something simple. Something that didn't depend on a perfect lead in from the other party.

Spit.

I was supposed to spit when I saw him again. That was the plan. He knew how much I hated it when men spit in public. He saw me recoil everytime a glob of spit hit the sidewalk even if it was blocks away on the opposite side of the street. While we were dating, he would always spit into a napkin or a cup. With his back turned to me. Several feet away. The only thing that could properly display my disgust, my contempt, when I saw him was to spit at him.

A year and a half went by. Didn't run ito him on a crowded elevator or bump into him on a stairwell. He didn't stop by my office or call or write or email or inquire by carrier pigeon or mutual friend about my wellbeing. I began to stop fearing every blind corner, every class change, every knot of students. I took the subway to work. I stopped incessantly calling friends on the phone.

It was a snowy morning a week before the finals. I hadn't wanted to go to classe. I knew my students would show up late, and the majority would take a "sick day" even though I would be reviewing for the exam. I took my time getting ready that morning desperately hoping that NYU would cancel classes. I took my time applying a dark red gloss and liner while eyeing my cellphone. Despite the blizzarding snow, I looked good that morning in my green and black velour hat, my new black coat from Bergdorf's, and my green pashmina wrap thrown over my shoulders.

It was one of those quiet mornings that only happens when it blizzards in NY. It wasn't that I was the first person to walk down Waverly that morning, but their footsteps were quickly effaced by the snow and the wind. I was enjoying the feel of snow packing beneath my feet and fantasizing about drinking hot chocolate and curling up on the couch watching the snow with my cat on my lap after class. I was trying to think of what movies I would watch that night while I made soup.

He was walking the opposite way. The only two people on the street. Everyone else at home hoping for some excuse to stay home, nursing their morning coffees just a little longer, waiting for a delayed train.

It had been 117 days since he had last called, 183 since I last saw him, 234 since his last email. And somewhere in that vast expanse of absence I had forgotten that he was real, that he continued to walk around and wear coats and, perchance, get frostbite in the snow. In his absence, I had made him incorporeal, a ghost, an illusion. Hard to pick up a phone and call when your body has no substance. But now he was struggling in the snow like me, probably a thin sheen of sweat on his skin. I could remember the scent, if I got close enough. As I passed, he gave me an unecessarily wide berth. As if he expected me to become violent. To yell or scream or punch. As if I had even kept my head up to look him in the eye.

But I kept my head down, watching my boots crunch in the snow. The last thing I wanted to do was fall on my ass in front of him, and the snow was deep here. Nine am and the visibility was already bad. The winds shifting the ground with every step.

It wasn't until I reached the end of the block that I stopped. Stopped and stood in the falling snow.

I turned around to see where he was going, to see if he had really been there, to see if he continued to exist outside of my gaze. He was gone already. Not evaporated. Just turned a corner. Or perhaps hiding in a doorway until he thought I had passed, until he was "safe" to continue on his way.

At first, I stood there wondering if it was really him. I hadn't looked into his face, his eyes. It had been at a distance. And the visibility was so poor, I could barely see to continue on my way to my office. But as I stood there, I began to wonder if all of it had happened. Or any of it. How do you walk past someone who less than two years ago was the love of your life and not flinch? How do you keep walking? How do you pass by the person who saved you like she was a less than a stranger? Maybe it wasn't just that it wasn't him that walked by, or maybe none of it happened. Maybe I had blanked out those two years, invented this alternate version and just pinned a random face and name to it. I'd read about psychosis and breaks from reality. I'd read William S Burroughs and watched Cronenberg. Why not? Maybe I was just a girl in the snow staring after the emptiness left by a stranger.

And then I let out a loud yell which echoed on that empty street because I was so surprised by the sight of him, phantom or not, that I had forgotten to spit.

Bad Bunni posted at 2/21/2006 08:40:00 AM |

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