The Apartment

by Mel Waldman

Part 1 appears
in this issue.

conclusion

Gee, I miss Rosemary. I miss the good ol’ days. (I miss the very, very fine old friends who thrived on explosive happenings. I miss the weird relationships. I miss all that strange stuff. Sure.) Rosemary was a very sad person. She was a very pretty very sad girlish woman, I believe. And she drifted into the unknown. She vanished into unknown territory. One day became our very last day together. How I loathe endings! There is something tragic about endings. They’re just so final. Well, one day, Rosemary split. And that was our last day together.

Afterwards, I heard a lot for rumors. Well, my best friend, who was living with this older woman in an East Side apartment in Manhattan, called me one day. He gave me this matter-of-fact description of this brief affair he had with Rosemary. I didn’t respond. Quietly, I informed him I didn’t care. I was having this beautiful affair with an older woman who was absolutely divine and pretty and sure, she was wrinkled too. But I didn’t care who he slept with because... since... well, you see, I couldn’t respond then.

The following month I called my friend and told him I cared. And apologetically, I told him we could no longer be friends. Especially true-blue buddies. I told him I wished him well, but that I decided to be healthy for once in my life. Indeed, I told him my wonderful masochistic days were gone. But he didn’t understand. He tried to reason with me. He insisted that Rosemary meant nothing to him. She was only a pest, at best. She was only a crazy girl who was in love with him.

I almost blew up. But I didn’t. I wanted my friend to understand my pain and my hunger for inner peace. So I rambled on about my bad marriage and how Mary, my beloved ex-wife, had deeply hurt me. And how it had taken years to stop hurting. I talked about my boy who was missing because Mary had stolen him, had wrenched him from my being. One day, far into the past, Mary kidnapped my boy. Mary took my boy away. And that loss still grabbed me and cut my soul many times. That too, split me into many insignificant and ineffective pieces of manhood. I was almost finished then. I almost snapped.

I tried to explain all of this and more. “Wilson, listen to me,” I told my old buddy. “Listen carefully. I really loved Rosemary. And it took so long. Because I really had loved Mary. Both women mattered very much to me. And my boy too. Especially my boy.”

Wilson continued to block out my words. He said the past was the past. It was finished. It was of another era. And so, I listened to Wilson, as he was not able to hear me. Afterwards, we said goodbye.

You see, some people mattered to me. And of course, endings are painful. But loyalty counts too in this strange game of human relations. Feelings and loyalty count. Well, perhaps I am old-fashioned. Wilson’s old lady didn’t leave him when she found out about his affair with Rosemary. In fact, she told me she had lost more than I. Moreover, was a brief affair more important than a friendship? Gee, don’t ask me!

I suppose I’m too sensitive. When my wife hurt me, I muttered: “Look at those shiksas. They screw you. I ought to try my own kind.” Afterwards, when Rosemary deserted me, I became sour about Jewish women. (But is Rosemary a Jewish name? Well, I couldn’t say. This is fiction, my dear friends. Well, pretend a little and use your imagination. Visualize a Jewish gal named Rosemary. Look! There she is!) I blamed them for all my misfortunes. Also, I fantasized about non-Jewish women. And in general, I created ridiculous categories about women and religion and intermarriage. I just stopped looking into myself.

I can’t take all this turmoil. It’s an atavistic leap into a crepuscular universe. And now, today, I’m not too far from the past. I mean, I live not too far away from Brighton Beach. Poor Rosemary, she left me there many, many years ago when we were young and madly in love.

Afterwards (after a very long and futile and heartbreaking affair), Rosemary vanished for a while. She disappeared into the grotto of my inaccessible mind. And then, Mary entered my self-effacing life. How swiftly I recovered from a broken heart! Mary was a lovely piece, though terribly aristocratic. Despite our differences in background, we were strongly attracted to each other. We became inseparable and finally, we made that fatal commitment to one another. We had this insatiable desire for each other. It couldn’t be quenched, it seemed.

But one day, Mary left me too. (That catastrophic day always comes!) And then, in one empty and tired moment, I called Rosemary. Gee, my intuition was correct. She was still living at home with mommy and daddy. She was 28 years old, I guess. (I readily forget those trivial facts of life and nature.) She was older and heavier and bitchier than before. Gone was the tall, slim, wide-hipped sex kitten of yesterday. Women change, you know. Nonetheless, I became attached to Rosemary again once we started seeing each other. I stayed around for two years and got this recalcitrant, untamed girl to openly admit she couldn’t live without me. I was extremely proud of myself for a few quiet and futile moments.

And what are the consequences of all this perseverance in the life of a young, frustrated, horny, disillusioned Jewish man? Actually, one should ask: What is the punishment for a young fool? For Rosemary moved into my dilapidated apartment and subsequently, abandoned me twice. Finally, she lost a lot of her aging flesh and fat. Feeling once again like a lovely, bitchy, sexual object, she had this bizarre affair with Wilson. G-d bless them!

And now, I’m back in Brooklyn, an old-fashioned womb for a 33-year old embryonic man. Look inside! There’s Kings Highway! It cuts into Ocean Parkway and if you drive east you’ll be on the Prospect Park Expressway soon. And then you’ll hit the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. Everything’s connected, you see.

Welcome home, kid. You’re back in Brooklyn. Perhaps, I should visit my mother’s grave and say Yizkor. And what about my wonderful aunt, may she rest in peace? She stayed with me into the soul of the night. And promised me a just tomorrow. She gave her word. Still, nothing happened.

Of course, there were years of loneliness and desertion and disappointment. And later on, after continuous defeat, I had this ludicrous faith in an Invisible Force. This Force was gonna make everything okay. It gave me the incentive to remain a fool. And so, I followed myriad paths of illusion. I chased impossible goals and had flimsy dreams. Moreover, I refused to quit. Quitting was ungodly, I believed. And I had a solid faith, for sure.

Today, they’re all gone. And I’m here again. Somewhere, my father lives too. I hear he’s remarried and terribly unhappy. Well, he never handled joy well. When we played handball in my early childhood, he enjoyed winning and teaching me CONTROL. Also, he taught me the Psychology of Angles and the beautiful Geometry of the handball court. In addition, he taught me the proper cupping of one’s hands and other wondrous things. He was good then. But that was long ago.

After Mother died, he kicked me out, took me back, and kicked me out again-into the unknown world. Even today, the world is unknown and quite mysterious. Isn’t it?

I don’t speak to Father. The old man and I don’t connect. We can’t relate. I guess the situation is hopeless. He’s a familiar face from childhood. And he’s a stranger too. Maybe we never got to know each other. Maybe we never can. I might look him up in the future. (He only lives down the block.) Or perhaps, I’ll wait for him to give me a call. He knows I’m back here. I’m sure of that because my sister told him all the relevant facts a few days ago. She told me this today. I speak to her now and then as she lives in the old neighborhood, a few blocks from me. It’s a small world.

Today, I’m visiting my 23-year old cousin. She lives in a four-room apartment on 19th Street in this section of Brooklyn. (She lives around the corner from me.) She is my aunt’s daughter and has her vibrant personality and that same refreshing optimism although she is an orphan too. But she is unaware of the ludicrous Truth of my particular existence. When I was galloping across the sprawling city streets, she was a little girl. Her mother knew me then.

Well, I visit her from time to time. I talk to her in my aunt’s apartment which is now my cousin’s place. We drink coffee late at night and talk. We drink black coffee and regular coffee with sugar or Sweet ‘n Low. It doesn’t matter. And we sit at the same old table and talk about the unknowable future. Also, I remind her of the good ol’ days which were terribly sad and tragic anyhow.

Then, I spoke to her mother about very important matters. We talked about Rosemary and Mary and my beautiful future but always, we remembered the dead. My aunt knew all my crazy women and my fantastic dreams. And she had this austere faith which sometimes ripped me apart. It was too strong for me. Yet when we talked about the dead, my aunt wore a sad, dark mask. In those poignant moments, when we sat in a Waste Land of Despair, I wondered if she still possessed her potent faith. I didn’t!

My cousin didn’t know most of my women. She only knew this last woman who lived with her daughter in that futuristic part of the Bronx, far away from this bitter moment. She felt I was gonna make it this time with my woman. But I couldn’t.

We sit at the table in the living room late at night, whenever I visit her. We talk a lot. (But we never talk about my lost son or her dead brother, who died of an accidental overdose or suicide. We’ll never know my cousin’s true motives. And although I keep searching for my son, I fear we will never be reunited. I’m only 33 years old, but I feel like a very old man dying of intolerable grief. Yet when I sit with my cousin, in the vast silence between words, I share my unbearable sorrow with her. She too sits with me in the Waste Land of Despair, covered-buried by a deep snow-our tomb of Hell!)

We talk a lot. But her voice is not her mother’s voice, although she has a similar smile and an uproarious laugh. She is different. Another person with much enthusiasm. Her warmth and faith and strong feelings blend together with other thoughts and emotions. Still, we try to figure things out. Maybe in another ten years, it will all be over. I mean, how much longer can this endless death continue?

So we sit and look quizzically at each other. And she smiles like her mother but... No one else is left, not really. (I do not know if I will ever speak to Father again. And although I love my sister, we have drifted apart at this dark and devastating point in my life. Yet perhaps, someday, we will find each other.)

Here we are together, once in a while, in the borough of Brooklyn, back here in Flatbush, which is somewhere in today’s infinite and obscure world. Right HERE, I guess. In this fatal moment which spans the length of an old-fashioned table in an historical apartment. It began, once upon a time, when I was a boy, and especially when I was a young man growing up in my familiar environment. Yes, it was familiar then.