The Patellar Reflex

Psumner turned a corner. It was too cold now for his jacket and no one was out walking. He glanced at himself in a shop window and scowled. He felt fine. 

Old Town had been decorated for Christmas. A twenty-foot tree by the door and real garland behind the bar, an enormous wreath in the center of the garland wishing everyone a Merry Christmas with a glittery sign they must have bought in the sixties. 

Psumner hadn’t been listening to Sarah. He was staring at the owner of the bar hanging candy canes on the tree. A mess of silver hair and glasses askew on his face, he always wore a sport coat over a polo shirt and khakis with penny loafers. In the summer he lost the coat. Old Town is Psumner’s favorite bar. The candy canes stopped about seven feet up the tree.

“It’s the music, I think,” said Sarah. She pushed her curly hair up onto the top of her head. It fell back exactly the way it had been. The light from the windows glinted off her glasses, eyeless for a flash.

“Yeah.” Vague Psumner.

“Around Christmas.”

“I’m seeing someone.”

“I’m telling you I’m unhappy. Always at Christmas.”

“Because of the music.” 

“I don’t know. That’s part of it. That’s what brings it out.”

“They say suicide goes up around Christmas.”

“The holidays.” They laughed.

Burl Ives played on the sound system.

“You’ve been single long enough,” said Sarah.

Psumner walked north on Broadway. Anthea smiled at him over coffee. He thought about the easiness of their coming together. Over the past few years Psumner had developed a state of constant availability to every woman. An offhanded flirt who’d perfected the open-ended sentence. Since Anthea that had fallen away. He’d begun to notice a new comfort some women seemed now to enjoy around him. If he ever thought about it closely he might feel strangely about this, but he didn’t. He thought about Anthea. A graceful walker with a long neck and a quick smile. There was no seduction. No wedge he’d needed to develop. That had caught him off guard.

“Chuck, did you know Sumner was dating someone?” Sarah had asked when Chuck arrived. Chuck was drunk as any Texan Psumner had seen. Beefy with hooded eyes with bags and an unnaturally pale face. He wore his shirt tucked in. 

“Oh yeah?” Chuck had a hard Texan stare. Psumner hadn’t wanted Chuck to be there. Chuck and Sarah had been friends years before they met him. “That’s great news man.”

“Sure,” said Psumner.

“He felt he had to tell me,” Sarah said.

“I didn’t say that.”

“You asked me to meet you. When was the last time we had a drink?”

“It’s Christmas.”

“Like I’m some kind of goddamn rite of passage. Did you know that, Chuck? He felt the need to run it by his ex.”

“Oh hell yeah,” said Chuck. “Listen buddy, I’m ‘own buy you a shot. What’re we drinkin’?”

“Kentucky Gentleman,” said Sarah. That had been a joke between the three of them.

“The only corked whiskey,” said Psumner.

Chuck ordered shots and leaned on the bar. Happy now, he wore a constant half-smile. He stared at Psumner’s belt buckle when he spoke.

“Sumner,” he said, “Great job, buddy.”

Psumner caught a downtown R train at 23rd Street. There was a man standing across from him wearing an elf hat. The most unhappy man. When he was younger, Psumner had seen someone who he thought looked just like him. Remarkably similar. He began telling friends he’d seen his doppelgänger. He knew this wasn’t the case. You live your life building a brace of stories to share with friends and some of them stick. He thought occasionally about what his doppelgänger might be doing with his life. Might he be leading the secret life Psumner wished he had? And what exactly did he wish for? Might the doppelgänger wonder about him? Psumner considered for a moment that he might be the charmed one. Sarah had been right. He’d needed to meet with her. Nothing is real until you tell someone. He thought it would be a good idea to tell Sarah. She’d reacted like Sarah. Irritable Psumner. 

When he was with Anthea Psumner found himself speaking in the incredibly long-term. He was not normally given to do so. Realistic Psumner. He thought again about the places which would be ruined for him when they broke up. He could never return to the coffee shop, nor the bar, nor that one restaurant with the upstairs. Is it worth it? Psumner thought about poetry. 

The R stopped running at Union Square. He had to transfer to the L then take the G to Fort Greene. 

Everything ends. Psumner thought about Sarah and her downturned mouth. Had it always been like that? Would he eventually make Anthea unhappy? Sarah had broken up with him. Things were going too well. Uneasy Psumner.

Fort Greene was quiet. He walked down Clinton Avenue under the trees. It was already dark. 

Anthea sat at the bar of Roman’s, elbow on the bar, her chin perched on her upturned palm. Low lighting on the white tiled walls. Brightly colored framed mosaics at regular intervals around the room. Tiny white tiles for the floor. Psumner half-recognized the music under the din of the crowd. No one on the streets; everyone was at Roman’s.

Psumner was hot. He stripped off his jacket and sat down, feeling under the bar for a hook. 

“Goddamn it,” he said. Anthea took his jacket and hung it on her hook. “Sorry I’m late.”

“I just got here.”

“The R stopped running.”

“It’s okay.”

“They didn’t even announce anything. The doors just stayed open.” Psumner looked around for the bartender. He was chatting with a waiter at the service bar. “Maybe someone jumped on the tracks.”

“Jesus!”

“I mean, I don’t know. Might have gone down like that.”

“Or there was train traffic.”

“It stopped running,” he snapped. “What are you drinking?”

“He hasn’t come over.”

“Fucking Brooklyn.”

“I just got here,” she said. “It’s nice to see you.”

“Totally.” Anthea leaned in, he kissed her cheek.

“You’ve been having a great day.”

“I have been, thanks.” Psumner wondered what he was doing.

The bartender came over and they ordered cocktails. Psumner looked around the room. Four seats away at the bar was a woman Psumner knew. She sat with what he took to be her boyfriend. He remembered they lived together, and had done for a while. Psumner thought that it was a small world. The smallest ever. 

“How are you?” he asked and took a drink.

“I’m good,” she said after a pause. 

“Great.” He wasn’t looking at her.

“You’re distracted.”

“I’m fucking great.”

“Okay. I’m going to the bathroom.”

Anthea got up. Psumner glanced over at the woman four seats down the bar. She met his look, then looked away. 

Anthea came back. He looked into her face. The band of tension that had been tightening in his chest since he’d left Old Town snapped. It evaporated. Things were okay. Look at her. Psumner becomes overwrought. He finds himself untrusting; himself and those around him. He obsesses and it paralyzes him. There is no moving forward while running scenarios in your mind: they never pan out the way you think they will anyway.  The coffee shop, the bar, and the restaurant with the upstairs would never be ruined. He would visit them with Anthea forever. 

I’m sorry, I’m sorry, he thought. “I’m sorry,” he said. 

He leaned forward and kissed her. She smiled.

“I love you,” he said. He hadn’t meant to. They hadn’t said it yet. He hadn’t thought it over. He wasn’t worried if she’d say it back. He felt it and out it came. She smiled.

“Psumner,” she said.

He beamed. 

Suddenly pain exploded in his jaw. When he thought about it later, he wouldn’t say it was actual pain immediately, more of an immense pressure coming from the inside of his face. He was on the floor. Looking up he saw the woman’s boyfriend standing over him. Psumner tasted blood and swallowed. His face felt three inches too thick on the left side. He felt the jagged edge of a molar with his tongue. It had broken and the edge had cut deeply into the inside of his cheek. 

Our children will have crooked teeth, he thought, then began to laugh. This was right. This was the shoe he’d been waiting for all day. Something like this. It didn’t matter now, though. This was already the past. Psumner didn’t believe in punishment.

Tableau: People around the bar in various states of standing or stooping form a bowl around Psumner. He lays on the floor, the bottom of the bowl, laughing loudly, blood streaming out of his mouth dripping on the bright white floor. The boyfriend is about to kick him in the stomach, the woman from four seats down the bar glares at her boyfriend, Anthea’s hand has shot to her mouth, but stopped just before her fingers cover it. 

Psumner, still laughing and looking up at her, manages, “That was all before I knew you...”

Quiet New Year

I had finally decided which story to tell as I approached The Woods, a bar near the river in Williamsburg. It was about the pale, freckled bastard on the train that afternoon with the red hair cut into messy faux-hawk. "He asked what I do and I told him and he was like, 'Oh, really? I thought you were going to say you were a lumberjack.' I said, no I wasn't but if we were judging on looks I'd say he was a gay Croatian soccer player. I thought that'd shut him up. No such luck."

The bar wasn't very busy yet. Only eleven o'clock on New Year's Eve. The group I'd come to meet were friends but not very close to me, and in this kind of situation you have to pay your rent to the group with a story.

I went on, telling them he seemed bitter at everything, and maybe that was because he wrote non-fiction. He came from Portland and I noticed in him a hard-edged self-aware irony typical of the region. He couldn't say anything straight. A cynical joke barbed every anecdote or comment. He kept talking about Jews, too, how they run everything. Speaking ironically, always. Daring us to take offense, the smirking, knife-faced prick. I think it was mainly aimed at the soft, quiet white man from Toronto who wrote for a First Nations newspaper and had some poetry published.

We were on the Amtrak, all of us stranded in various cities around the country because of the blizzard. Cancelled flights necessitated train tickets. The discussion turned to the Civil War, as it always will when talking with non-fiction writers. "He said, 'I found a very interesting quote by Otto Von Bismark about that one. He said that Jewish European bankers decided definitely there would be war. Had nothing to do with Lincoln, or the secession or any of that. I mean, take a look at the Rothschilds. They were all over that. Made a ton of money. And I think we all know that's been happening ever since. I mean, c'mon.' Then our beers came. I raised mine to theirs and wished them a happy new year. 'Next year in Jerusalem, guys,' I said. 'Am I right?' That did it. The kid blushed to his faux-hawk and was like, 'You're not really...' I nodded and we had a very nice quiet end to our lunch."

You pay your rent to a group with stories and rounds of drinks. I ordered shots of whiskey with pickle juice chasers. "But you're not Jewish," the tall one in my group with the winter fedora said. "So what?" I said. "Prost."

A line of people came streaming into the bar. We had about half an hour left. There were more shots, and High Life, and the music got louder. Pretty girls ate tacos from the truck in the back yard, snow and salt staining their shoes. I looked around, my group had broken and were scattered across the bar. I got in line for the bathroom. I peed and came back to the bar just in time for the ten second countdown. At the new year all the bartenders shot confetti poppers over the crowd and there were rows of glasses of champagne for everyone to have.

A thin woman with curly blonde hair piled on her head sidled up next to me at the bar. Her eyes were bright and the skin over her jaw tightened and relaxed. She stared wildly into my face. "Happy New Year!" she chirped. "Cocaine on a key, and the champagne's free!" "Where'd you hear that one, kid?" "Oh, just kiss me, foolish."

While we kissed I thought about my time away. My short, fat, gay, Indian companion and I had left New York fourteen months before. We lit upon Chicago just in time for New Year's Eve and found a large, well-lighted bar. There was a girl there, too. After a few hours she told me I looked old, didn't dress well, and wasn't her type, anyway. "But what the hell," she said. "It's New Year's. Maybe I'll give you a fresh start." We left my companion at the bar and wandered around. We stopped on a bridge to make out for a while and she said, "Listen, I want to take you to my house, but I'm not going to nail you." I said we'd discuss it, and anyway it would be the other way around, and we holed up for three days. One week later my companion left Chicago, bound for New Mexico, and we hadn't spoken since.

The blonde with the hair piled on her head pulled away. "My friends are leaving," she said. "Where do you live?" I said some nonsense about living in the hearts of the faithful. I'd had my hand on the back of her neck, caressing her hair, and I came away with a hair pin. I put in my pocket as she strolled away. I turned back to the bar and there he was behind me, the shortest, fattest, gayest Indian you ever saw.

He nodded to me. "Cocaine on a key, and the champagne's free," I said. He asked me how I was. "Irritable," I said. He pushed a glass of rye at me.

An hour later the bar was almost empty, and the sidewalks were filled with knots of dressed up children, picking their way along the edges of snow piles in slippery dress shoes. There were no cabs and no cars at any limo service that could take us anywhere for the next two hours. My companion and I made our way south, passing under the Williamsburg Bridge where there weren't so many bars, talking a little. He'd learned in the past year what it was to have an open relationship. He said he thought it was totally gay. It's only ever gays you hear of having these and he resented it. "Why should I be okay with this? Why should anyone else be okay with it? And why do I get these pitying looks from all these old faggots like I should grow up or something?" He'd asked his husband for his ring back and returned to New York a few weeks ago to think things over. He said he couldn't really face even thinking about it and simply tried to call his husband as much as possible. They rarely spoke. I called him an Indian giver. "Yeah," he said, "Indian like that."

We came to a Hasidic neighborhood on the edge of a housing project. Three black kids stood on a corner trying to hail a gypsy cab. A minivan pulled up and the driver looked us over when one of the kids asked to go to Bed-Stuy. The driver said he'd take all of us there for a flat fee. The kid looked at me and asked if I wanted to go with them. He was young and skinny but bulked out with a large North Face coat. He had a discolored scar at the edge of his right eye. With a blizzard mentality you feel that moving anywhere is progress even if it's nowhere you really want to go. My companion and I climbed into the back of the van.

The destination was a New Year's party in a very large apartment on the ground floor of an old brownstone. When we arrived two of the kids split off and disappeared around the corner. The third, the one with the scar walked right into the building. My companion was surprised to find a friend there. She was a harpist with a PhD in medieval choral sheet music publications. Unassuming woman with wide, flat hips and a sharp nose, her nostrils ever white like she was always concentrating.

A crush of people. Music played and someone strummed a guitar. Laughter and the lights were too bright. The kid with the scar told me he knew everyone here thought he had blunts just because he was black. He said they were right, but not because he was black. The harpist pricked up her ears at this. She was very drunk by then and her husband stood behind her chair protectively. He had a bland Park Slope face, bearded and bespectacled with gentle eyes. He was alarmed to hear his wife ask if she could guest roll a blunt. "I don't smoke, you see," she said, but she'd dealt weed through most of college and had a great technique for rolling anything. Joints, spliffs, whatever, but her favorite was a blunt. People would come over to pick up a bag and she and her partner would match them and they'd smoke. She laughed at the concept of matching. "It seems so childish now," she said. Her husband backed away as she went to work breaking the buds down, color peeking up over his beard. My companion couldn't stop laughing and the harpist's husband tried on a half smile that he couldn't keep up.

The blunt was passed around. I got involved in a dice game in the corner of a bedroom. I lost twenty dollars, one at a time. I drank Old Grand-Dad by the cupful and asked a beautiful illustrator with red hair out to dinner. "You mean like a date," she said. I said I meant like a date. "I'm not allowed on dates," she said. "I have too much of a boyfriend." I said I'd never heard of this guy but he sounded like a dick. "What can I say?" she said. "I like him anyway." I told her she was getting a text from a strange number and that it was mine.

I found my companion on a couch stoned out of his brain. I touched my finger to my brow and pointed it in his direction. He nodded and went back to letting his head fall slowly into the cushion.

I stepped outside and lit a cigarette. I wondered why I'd been so irritable lately and I thought about women. The last I'd heard from my woman was on Facebook in a status update that she was waiting for her connecting flight to Jakarta. But Facebook only posts your status for a few weeks and if you don't update, you disappear. I called a limo service and they answered after two tries. I'd heard she was in Chicago last year and I went out there partly to look for her. Instead, I found the other and we lasted two months. I look for her everywhere, in all women. I spend long nights in bars with them and have too much coffee with them in the afternoon. I wondered if maybe my companion's husband didn't have the right idea. Keep your darling close, but always sniff around. I knew, though, I wouldn't be able to keep up. I believe there's just one for me. I look for her everywhere and I haven't changed my number since the last time we spoke, in case she ever wants to get in touch.

The black kid with the scar joined me on the stoop. Five deliberate, steady gunshots rang out a few blocks away. Then one more seconds later. The kid said, "Listen to them fools lettin' they guns clap on New Year's Day. Talk about gettin' a fresh start." I took my phone out to see if she'd texted. She hadn't, but the illustrator had. My car arrived.