The Tune is Nothing In Particular

In his black suit and red tie, he is whistling as he walks up Fifth Avenue. The tune is nothing in particular, the tune is unfamiliar. Perhaps he is making it up as he goes along. Yes, it is improvised, as any good whistle should be. Nearby, construction is taking place inside of an old building. It is gutted like a fat fish. Soon there will be new walls and floors and things to be sold. It will not take long at all.

The suited man notices that they have barricaded 16th Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. He can see orange and yellow air-filled things - contraptions, tents; he doesn’t know what to call them. They are for bouncing. He thinks of the Barthelme story that he was made to read in college. It was about a balloon. The balloon reminds him of the giant red wall workers have built around the construction site. The red is so very festive, he decides.

He can then see a volleyball net. He hates volleyball. It demands too much waiting and looking up into the sun. Besides: it hurts the hands.

Closest to him, he can see teams of whiffle-ballers. The ball they use is yellow. The teams are made up of students from Xavier High School. He wonders what they are celebrating. Perhaps the end of the school year, he imagines. It is spring.

He would like to play whiffle ball. He hasn’t played since he was young, but he believes he can still hit any pitch. The last time he played, he struck out three times. A hat-trick, they call it. On the last swing and miss, he demanded another chance. Upon receiving his extra chance, he swung and missed again. Four strikes. He accused the pitcher of cheating and charged the pitcher’s mound.

He wonders why he didn’t simply laugh. Instead of charging the mound, he could have laughed. Would he laugh now? Yes, definitely. He would laugh.

The tune he was whistling has transformed into one more familiar. He knows this song well.

Departing Departing Departing

A small, anonymous cough is let loose, setting off a chain-reaction of coughs - some bigger, some smaller - throughout the entire PATH train car. He sits still and quiet and alone; he does not cough. Outside the car, a flashing yellow light announces:

DEPARTING
DEPARTING
DEPARTING DEPARTING
DEPARTING DEPARTING DEPARTING...

The flash gets faster and faster until it is no longer a flash, but only a hard, solid yellow light. An old, raspy buzzer buzzes. It is neither high nor low, but somewhere in the middle.

A woman dressed in many layers of green and orange and brown races into his car just as the doors are about to close. She sees the empty seat beside him. He sees this green and orange and brown confusion approach, and he makes room. The two recognize each other.

“Oh,” she says.

“Hello,” he says, “I haven’t seen you in a long time.”

“I just returned from Savannah, Georgia.”

“Oh, yeah? Do you have family down there, or...?”

“I was visiting a friend.”

“That’s nice. I would love to go down south.”

“It’s beautiful.”

“How was the weather?”

“Well, I couldn't get in the water, but I could dip my feet in.”

There is a long, magical pause. Or is it a common pause? Regardless, there is a pause, during which he looks up from his folded hands and into the lap of the couple across from him. Their hands are joined. From their hands, his eyes rise to their faces. They are smiling. He looks elsewhere. He stops for a long while on the face of a sleeping woman. Her hair is short, black, and curly; her eyelids are large; her cheeks are angled sharply; her lips are full; her skin seems very smooth. She reminds him of someone else. He leaves her and notices a person who is reading a paperback; a person who is listening to music through headphones; a person who is standing, holding onto a shiny pole, sighing. Finally, he returns to his folded hands.

“Are you still working on that magazine?” she asks.

“No. I wrote one article for them, and then decided I didn't want to do it anymore. I needed to take some time off from things in general.”

“Why is that?” she asks.

He’s surprised by the question – it demands some intimacy, doesn’t it? – but he answers: “I felt as though I was doing a lot of things for the wrong reasons. I was doing things for other people. And I just wasn't happy.”

“I can understand that,” she says.

He wants to say more, but he realizes that he is about to cry. He is now struggling against letting the tears go loose. And then it occurs to him. He thinks to himself:

There is nothing wrong with crying. It’s just like anything else we do. It’s no different than laughing or talking or reading or sleeping or sighing or coughing.

Still he doesn’t cry. He wonders what would happen if he did. Would it set off a chain-reaction of cries? And what would that be like? Would we all hug and console one another? Would we do anything to stop the person closest to us from crying? Would we make love? Would we promise each other eternal life and love?

He thinks about it again. He decides he doesn’t want to use the word eternal. He deletes it from the thought.

The train comes to a stop at the Pavonia/Newport station. The woman wraps up her layers of green and orange and brown and rises quickly. Over her shoulder, she lets out, “Have a good night.”

“See you soon,” he says.

He closes his eyes and tunes in to the band that is playing in his mind. The music is soaring, the singer is singing:

...and if the snow buries my neighborhood / And if my parents are crying / Then I’ll dig a tunnel from my window to yours / Yeah a tunnel from my window to yours.

Introduction

“Yes,” he admits.

“Well, why the fuck did you tell her that?” she demands.

His hand is finding some sort of comfort, doing a clumsy dance with a wet bottle of Budweiser. He doesn’t know what else to say. He looks down, smiles at his Budweiser, shrugs.

“She probably sensed something in your voice,” she continues. “Girls aren’t stupid.”

“I felt like I was lying to her.”

“You don’t always have to be completely honest.”

“What am I supposed to do?”

She looks at him.

He returns her look. “I’m asking you – seriously,” he pleads.

Imagine her aggressive, jagged motions hollering frustration. Her hands suddenly taking off like pigeons and exploding into the blue-lit air above their small, glass table.

Quickly now, and her words are circling around him: “You’re killing yourself with this bullshit. Why should you have to tell her everything? You don’t have to think of it as lying. Come up with a way to deal with it. Call it something you can handle. I don’t know –

“Call it – ”

She pauses. He waits.

Trying to untangle himself, now, he waits.

And then, finally – finally – she ties the strings with one red word:
“Discretion.”