Manhole, Abundance Magazine

I walk down the street.
There is a manhole on the street.
I do not see it.
I fall in.
I hurt myself.
I get angry.
It takes me along time to get out.
I walk down the same street.
There is a manhole on the street.
I know it is there, but I fall in anyway.
I hurt myself.
I get angry.
It takes me an even longer time to get out.
There is a manhole on the street.
I know it is there, but I fall in anyway.
I hurt myself.
I get angry.
At myself. I should have seen it.
It takes me a very, very long time to get out.
I walk down the same street.
There is a manhole on the street.
I walk around it.
The next time, I walk down another street.

--Anonymous
   A woman once handed me a piece of paper with these lines on them. I thought them sophomoric, but I kept the piece of paper anyway.
   I am not so smug any more. I have a thing for manholes, you know. It isn't fair to say that I like falling into them; I'd rather call it a kind of distorted optimism. I don't think I'll fall. But if I do, I think that this time will be nice. Or there are no other holes around to fall into, so I go back to the same old one, the one I know. It's comfortable, the bruises are the same every time. At least I know what to expect.
   He never stuck his foot out to trip me, and my eyes were open the whole time. He's down there, calling, calling. He sounds sweet. He needs me. I fall in, and he's not there. He's probably staying late at the office, creating work for himself because he dreads going home. To her. This information bothers me more than it bothers him. Though my eyes are slits from crying, it is his tears I want to wipe off.
   I always seem to forget that.
Scenes from the diary of a manhole:
   We giggle. We play games. We tell secrets. We write stories together, continuing sagas, each of us supplying every other paragraph. We exchange unspeakable intimacies like tiny wrapped gifts. Sometimes we just stare at each other. It seems like we do this for hours. We share childhood pain: his mother put him in a ballerina dress. My mother slashed up my clothes with scissors. We finish sentences together. There is love in his eyes. I feel him watch me all the time. He is me. I am he. He belongs to me: I possess him utterly. He comes into my office every ten minutes. Or he calls me on my extension. We need to hear each others' voices, especially when we have nothing to say. Sometimes we stay on the phone listening to each other breathe. We share nasty gossip. We complain about the office. We give each other secret glances when others are around; these are especially delicious.
   Once he suggests I put my arms around him while he makes Xerox copies; this obvious display of public affection, he says, would be a cagey way of ensuring that nobody suspects us. I comply, but then I weaken and caress him between the legs. he grins, stares straight ahead.
   I whisper things to him, try to resist licking his ear, fail.
   I stick my finger inside my sex and feed it to him without telling him what it is.
   He figures it out.
Scenes from the diary of a manhole:
   He is on crutches. Basketball. Torn Achilles tendon. I am waiting for the cast to come off. This is the problem. He apologizes for his "macho shit". He wants to be whole and healed before we make love, and I understand. When we finally do get together, he tells me, he wants it to be right. And it can't be right with the cast on, can it?
   I believe him. I believe that the problem lies with some unseen, unknit tissue. Why did you have to play basketball and ruin everything now? Once this heals, he says, giving me a vulpine grin.
   I am happy today. I sing, bounce around; I want to touch everyone I come in contact with.
   Spinoza once described his bliss, knowing without a scintilla of doubt that he was at one with The Universe, feeling the threads of his being connect and pulsate--with giddy, sensual joy--to the rest of the world, a few glorious moments of ecstasy that prompted some to later call him a "God intoxicated man." Oh yeah, I can relate.
   He loves me. I am convinced.
   This is indisputable information.
Scenes from the diary of a manhole:
   She is a clerk. One scene flashes: I return from lunch. Her eyes are puffy, tears streaming.
   It would be impolite for me to ignore her gasping sobs. This is not a status thing; I do not know her and I don't know what to say. She strikes me as immature. She's cute: full lips, small boned, tiny, little boy breasts, a touch of golden brown in her skin, coffee bean eyes. My antithesis. I am easily one hundred pounds heavier than she--I couldn't get her stocking over my arm, much less my leg.
   Before today, I never really though much about her at all. ( It is only when I later learn about her living with him that I struggle to remember all I can about her.)
   She lets me hold her and cries into my shoulder. I like the smell of her, it is pleasant. She chokes out a confusing story about a friend who needs an abortion. It is an ugly and ignorant tale, but I don't remember why I have this impression. I try to soothe her before I hand her over to the clucking office women who circle her like she's a sacrifice in a pentagram.
   I realize now she was crying for him. And why not? He is quite capable of making women cry.
   He is very, very good at it.
Scenes from the diary of a manhole:
   I go out in the rain. I feel alive.
   I want to get soaked, drenched; I love the way my nipples poke through my blouse. As I walk in the rain, I can barely restrain myself from touching them, outlining them with my fingers.
   Something makes me look up.
   Him. Standing in front of our office building. Actually, I see his crutches first, then him. He is wearing vermilion. A beautiful red dot on a dreary gray canvas.
   I start toward him, trying to think of something to say that will make him smile with more than his mouth. Then I see her.
   He doesn't see me, but she does. I don't care for the way she is looking at me, oh no, not at all. Maybe she isn't that dumb: can she see the love written all over my face?
   I hear a voice in my head, a snotty little commentator: Of course she can. The whole world ain't stupid. Helvetica bold, baby, black on white, clear as day. You just keep on walkin', honeybun.

They get into a taxi. It is suddenly urgent that I get away, that they do not see me. I am naked; I need to cover my private parts. I run across Fifth Avenue, gawk at a jewelry display I cannot see, watch a reflection I cannot bear. I feel his cab pass behind my back.
Didn't you see them laughin'? You keep on walkin', honeybun.
The day has been dipped in black.
Scenes from the diary of a manhole:
   He bangs on my office door with extra strength and unnecessary knocks that continue briefly even after I invite him in. It is a silly game that amuses us; I have to scream a few times before he finally enters, smiling, pleased with himself. I wonder now if there is some kind of meaning in this, but I won't think about it. Lately I'm boring the shit out of myself with all this analyzing.
   He stands over my desk. I am very still.
   "Three-o-clock," he whispers.
   "Three-o-clock," I whisper.
   "Let's synchronize our watches," he says.
   "I never knew what that meant," I say.
   "Me neither, " he says, and leaves me alone to shudder deliciously.
   Soon I walk out casually to meet him in the staircase, trying to swallow the shame that's rising in my throat like bile, trying to forget this is the only place he touches me. Yes, I know what I am doing, I tell the snotty little voice in my head. This is enough for now.
   Yeah, sure it is, honeybun.
A shadow emerges from a corner. It is a man with a raincoat and a hat.
   I scream. It echoes on the staircase, and I appreciate the acoustics although I am so scared I am holding my breath.
   "Shhhhh," he whispers, smiling, holding out his arms to me.
   "What are you wearing?"
   "Shhh, it's only me."
   We laugh. I go to him, put my cheek against his. "That is a very ugly hat," I tell his neck. He wraps his coat behind me, and then I am home.
   The man I love is holding me, the man I love is gripping me in his arms, the need to tell him I love him paralyzes me; I am starving yet need to burst. For a time I cannot move.
   Heavy breathing and sighing and the sound of winter clothes being shoved aside to grab the flesh underneath. I unzip his pants, and we both moan as I hold him in my hand, watch him bob back and forth in happy salutation before I take him in my mouth.
   He sways slightly, like a tall building in a strong wind. I check his eyes: they're closed. I wish he'd open them. I need him to look at me, to watch me love him. He is my lover, my son...I want to cram the whole of him inside my mouth, my genitals, as if I can give birth to him again.
   He opens his eyes, and we stare at each other. He spends himself, groans. His hand makes a fist in my hair, hurting me. I feel his shudder.
   He slides down to the floor, closes his eyes, puts his head against the wall.
   I nuzzle him. He allows this with lordly composure, but does not respond.
   "I love you," I say.
   He looks up without answering.
   I twist one of his black curls, unconcerned with his silence.
   He once said he always wanted to kiss a woman with his essence in her mouth, so I kiss him. He kisses me back like I am a wife he's kissed too many times.
   "I love you," I say again.
   His eyes are tearing. Is he crying? Yes. Then he starts to shake his head back and forth, back and forth. It takes me a moment to understand that he is saying 'no'. He is grimacing. Like he had just put himself in a vise instead of my mouth.
   "Don't....love....me."
   "Why?"
   "If you knew who I really was, you wouldn't love me."
   I hear his raincoat rustle and a door close. Then the sound of sobs coming from somewhere outside myself.
Scenes from the diary of a manhole:
   He calls to me. He says my name like he's stroking a harp, so I flow to him. I am wary. What does he have for me today? A sword or a sweet? I approach his closed door.
   I say: "No, Monty, I don't think I'll try door number two. I'll stick with what I already have."
   It occurs to me that I am going crazy.
   "What did you just say?" he asks as I walk inside. I ignore him, waiting.
   "I'm sorry I hurt you," he says.
   I scan his face to see if this is true. It is. His eyes are wet, he is having trouble looking at me. "I am afraid of you. I don't want to...need you. You aren't safe. Do you understand that?"
   I tell him I don't understand anything. That I have become obsessed with trying to figure him out. That I spent every moment planning ways to tear his wall down. That my shrink has heard his name more in one lifetime than anyone should ever have to.
   "You love me," I say.
   "Are you asking me or telling me?"
   "I am making an observation," I say pompously. "I know it's true, I know it."
   He doesn't answer. He looks at his hands.
   "And she, is she 'safe'?"
   "Yes," he whispers.
   This conversation is ridiculous. I wonder what an outsider would think, listening to this. Safe, not safe. Maybe we're really playing baseball.
   "I'm afraid of you. Of needing you. Me and you, it's too big. Too big." No, you're too small, I think.
   "This is it. Get her out of your life. Get her out," I say, "or leave me the hell alone."
   A beat.
   "If I marry her," he asks softly, "would you still see me?"
   I want to spit on him. Too bad I'm taking Elavil, or I'd have some saliva in my mouth. I walk out. I never want to talk to him again. For five minutes. Then I want to talk to him more than anything.
   Amazing.
Scenes from the diary of a manhole:
   I want to kiss him, hold him, comfort him. This may be a maternal thing, but I don't want to look at that right now. I have analyzed my analysis of my analysis; a thousand mirrors of a damaged psyche reflecting into absolutely nothing.
   I want to enumerate all the reasons I am not scary. My thesis: "1001 Reasons You Should Not Fear Me", or "Can There Be Love Without Respect?" Yes. Because it is my fault I don't respect him. I don't trust my lack of respect. Just my passion. There is something I am doing wrong; his defenses are what all sensitive men have. It doesn't make him weak, it makes him Special. He needs softness, he needs Time.
   The Wall. I can peer through the cracks. I can see Candyland. I want to hammer through, I want to sandblast, I want us to have our heaven. Protons and electrons, exploding the universe. We would. I know we would.
   "To look for heaven is to live here in hell." If you tell anyone I quoted Sting, I'll deny it---but I really like that lyric. If you expect hell, you'll never be disappointed. I talk myself into believing that I expect the worst, but it doesn't work. I never really believed in hell anyway.
   Someone once told me I was a cynic with stars in my eyes. Shit on that. I hate stars. Screw stars.
   They only reflect others' light because they have none of their own.
Scenes from the diary of a manhole:
   I can control this thing. If I can only find the right words. The right timing. The right something. I do not sleep much these nights. Most times, I talk to the walls. Sometimes they whisper answers. When the voices come, I demand they identify themselves. I hope they're Gods, but I conjure demons.
   I call his name when I am alone, when I bring myself to orgasm. I think of all the erections he does not let me touch. When I dream of him, he runs away from me, too. I feel doubly cheated: why can't my dreams finish what my life does not?
Scenes from the diary of a manhole:
   It is my last ultimatum. I deliver it casually. I tell him that he is destroying me, that I cannot keep being pushed and pulled. I am tired. I am sagging. I am a black haired Raggedy Ann doll. It says, "I love you!" on my stomach, too.
   I suspect this is my fault; he does not know how I feel. Maybe I have to be more patient. Understanding. Maybe he isn't hearing what I am saying. Maybe I am talking too much. Too little. Maybe I misread him. Or he me---maybe I should just be bitchy. Maybe I am not cruel enough. Maybe I am too flippant. I don't know any more.
   I haven't the slightest idea.
   It's just one more thing I can't figure out.
Scenes from the diary of a manhole:
   The phone. It's late, maybe three in the morning. His voice is soft, beaten. It is a 'you win' voice. I can barely hear him. He says he is coming. Coming to me. Tomorrow. Oh God. Coming. To. Me. Though. My. Front. Door.
   I try to imagine him in my apartment, can't. Will he walk in, sit down on the couch and be gripped with shyness? Will he push me to the floor and take me, a-la Ayn Rand's Howard Roarke, without saying anything?
   I stare at the ceiling all night. I thank Him.
Keep on walkin', honeybun.
Oh shut up, shut up, shut up.
Scenes from the diary of a manhole:
   Josephine. My cleaning lady. Ugly little Josephine with the thick mustache dyed blonde. It would look better if she had left it alone. Black eyes. A vague, sad miasma surrounds her. She shares an apartment with a sexless sister. A lost husband in some exotic war. I like her; she is opinionated and passionate. She has old-world smells and a bald spot.
   I tell her he is coming. I invite her to sit with me and have coffee. I want to talk about him---who she has already had a belly full of---over an endless cup. I show her his photograph, and she is kind enough to pretend not to have seen it before. I quote conversations between us---without omitting a comma---that must have bored her to tears.
   She is happy for me. She suggests champagne. I have already thought of that: I have a delivery coming at two.
   We discuss what I am to wear. Lingerie? No, too aggressive. Would that put him off, frighten him? I recall he once asked me: "if I came over to your place, what would we do?" I try to analyze this. I don't want him to feel as if we had to make love. I cannot pressure him. He is too fragile. And I don't care if we do or don't. I don't care! Street clothes? Lounging pajamas? A big tee shirt might be the very thing: very unthreatening.
   Food! Don't I have to feed him? I look in my refrigerator. A dried-up lemon, two eggs of questionable decade, and something with a nuclear glow pulsing in a petri dish. Should I cook? And what about music? ZZ Top or Billie Holiday?
   I float from room to room, following Josephine, pummeling her with dozens of questions, annoying her, giggling, singing, unable to sit still. I ask her if she ever saw his picture. She laughs, nods. I ask her if I should wear makeup even though he doesn't like it. No--if he doesn't like it, I shouldn't wear it. Her answer delights me, we are sisters, we are primitive women who live to please their men.
   I ask her if she thinks he will be late. Or early. Suddenly I have a terrible thought: does she think he'll get lost? No he won't get lost, she assures me, amused.
   Josephine takes on a fascination for me: suddenly she is the wisest woman on the planet. I listen carefully to her every answer: it is imperative I follow her instructions exactly. I ask her the same things over and over: Can you shine the brass bed? Do you want some more coffee? Do you think that vase would look better over there? Do you think I'm pretty?
   Suddenly she scowls at me. "You are a beautiful girl," she says. "And Lord forgive me, this man is a no-good. He put you through hell. You too good for him, if I can speak plain. Don't let nobody tell you different; don't you let nobody make you doubt yourself. You some beautiful girl, like an Italian Madonna, full body, like a goddess, I tell you. And very smart. Very good brain, I can tell. You make sure he the right guy. A man so scareda you ain't no man. A boy is what you got. You make sure he deserve all this love you got for him."
   "Oh, he deserves it!" I sing gaily, staring at myself in my freshly Windexed mirror, lifting up my tee-shirt, searching the backs of my thighs for an unsuspecting strand of hair to yank.
   I hug Josephine. I thank her every few minutes like an idiot. I am not sure what I am thanking her for: her honesty? Her admiration of me? My clean house? I realize I love Josephine. I start to cry. She holds my moisturized hand in her callused one. I make myself sit still.
   The phone.
   "I can't come. She's just too volatile."
   The door. A small old man, lost in an oversized rain slicker, holds my champagne in a soaked paper bag. I have no air, and no change. I give him a ten dollar tip. I grip the door to hold myself up. I have no sense of balance. He asks me if I need a doctor. I repeat his words out loud so I can make some sense of them. I inform him I'm fine, oh yes really, thanks so much. I suck in air so deeply that I make myself cough; every breath is an effort. Breathing, I realize, is not an involuntary function, no matter what they say. It takes hard work and steady concentration. How is it that my heart continues to beat? What the hell is keeping it going?
   The man tries to give me back my ten, and I shake my head violently. He gazes at me, thoughtful.
   "No man worth that, " he says.
   I smile feebly, close the door, collapse in Josephine's olive colored arms.
   She smells like Noxon.
Scenes from the diary of a manhole:
   My Daddy. We're so close. So I call him, tell him a little. He questions me, so I tell him a lot. Daddy will make it all right. Daddy always makes it all right.
   I don't remember much of the conversation, except the last thing he says before I slam the phone down: "He doesn't want to be seen with you in public because of your weight."
   I take every glass I have in the house---fifteen, easily---and use the bedroom wall as a target. I smash them all---screaming, crying, cursing. I only stop when I see little paws stick out from under the bed. My dog had hidden from me, terrified.
   I take her in my arms, soothe her, and clean up the mounds of broken glass before she could cut her little paws on them. Otherwise, I am sure I would have left it there a long time.
Scenes from the diary of a manhole:
   I am wearing green. Why do I remember that? Green angora with (before my political correctness) with black designs. I bought it in Macy's, hoping he'd notice how it brings out my aqua eyes. But they are red now as I stand inside his office, leaning against the back of his door. I have to lean or I'll slide down to the floor.
   Wear re both surprised at my outburst. I don't know where these tears are coming from. I have never let him see me cry before, and now I can't stop. It's scary, not being able to stop crying.
   "I can't take it any more. When are you going to stop playing with my head? Oh, screw my head! My heart! I want to be with you. I want to be alone with you. I want to make you coffee in the morning."
   "How domestic," he says.
   I don't know what to say to that.
   He does not comfort me, does not throw his arms around me the way I need him to. He has taken away my oxygen mask, daring me to breathe on my own.
   "Don't push and pull any more. Don't do it! I've had enough, I've had it! I can't take it any more!"
   He is afraid. I can tell. His eyes are easy to read.
   I am loud. I do not care. Nothing matters.
   Finally, he says soft things. But behind his words I smell panic. Like he is talking to a homicidal maniac brandishing a blade. His position behind his desk shields him, so I want to fling everything off of it. I want to smack the paperweight---a fucking award he won for his writing---against his skull. I want to be held. I want to see blood spurt from his forehead. I want him to kiss me, leaving his blood on my face. I would wipe it all over his precious papers.
   "When I come back from LA, I am going to fly into Kennedy," he says finally, his voice crisp and businesslike. The dull monotone of it calms me. It is a reasonable voice. "I will come straight to you. We'll be together, I promise,"
   We discuss where the airport is in relation to my apartment, the arrival time. We plan, arrange. My tears make everything surreal; his brown shirt with white pockets looks like a melting, ice-capped mountain.
   I sniff constantly. He impersonally hands me tissues. I inform him that Kennedy is very close, around twenty minutes by car.
   He ultimately chooses the longer route, the road to Manhattan, the way to her.
Scenes from the diary of a manhole:
   Today he is all excited. Excited, happy and sad.
   "I'm telling her today," he says. He leans against the inside of my closed office door. He has that facial expression I watch for: a slightly bitten lower lip. This is a signal: come to me. He holds me in his arms, rocking me slightly. He is meeting her for lunch. He is throwing her out of his apartment. Life is unbearable; he is terribly unhappy. She is violent, jealous.
   I wonder, as I feel his hands push their way under my bra to find a nipple, how my body feels to him. What do I feel like to those hands, after he's touched all those flat planes without folds? Do I feel huge to him? Or does she feel little, like she'll break? I never ask him. I don't know if I can bear to hear the answer.
   It's a funny thing. We never talk about my weight. He doesn't ignore the topic, not exactly, but he doesn't seem overly interested in it, either. I told him once about the emotional component to food. It doesn't seem to interest him, but I can't help but notice that all his girlfriends are extremely, almost unnaturally thin--boyish.
   He has me pinioned against the wall, and he's lightly touching the softness of my belly above my sex. I close my eyes. Poor Moronica, I think without pity. I wonder if she knows something is wrong. I wonder if he knows something is right. Him and I, me and him, we're so right. He finally realizes what I've known all along. He nuzzles my neck and I watch his eyes go glassy.
   "Sometimes I think you cast a spell on me," he murmurs.
   This makes me stiffen, because I really did. I conjured Dambalah. Some guy who told me he was a Santerian warlock taught me how to do it. Candles, photograph, lock of hair, cloudless moon. I had to picture him in the candle's flame, and make him walk toward me. It wasn't as easy as it sounds. He might not walk toward you, the warlock warned. He may stand still. Then he does not love you. But if he walks toward you, you will know he loves you.
He did walk toward me, but it took a long time...as if he was fighting me, or himself. I remember going into some kind of trance, seeing him in the flame, which turned a strange lilac color and shot up high. A month later, when I turned over my mattress, I found the photo and lock of hair that I had hidden there. The picture had bent in the corner from the way I had shoved it in between the box spring and mattress. The part that bent showed his left foot, which he had recently injured. The Achilles heel injury. Holy Jesus, I remember thinking. Then all of a sudden it seemed silly. But I really do wonder sometimes....
    I watch through the window, hoping to make out his form in the rain, aware that I still have his saliva in my mouth. I write the dialogue for their luncheon, and force them to act it out in my head. I hear their voices speaking until they dissolve into one musical note, a note that hums and vibrates with the ecstasy of a Gregorian chant. I hum with it, swaying, watching from the window. (I realize raindrops actually have their own individual shapes. How is it possible that i never noticed this before?) The note explodes into many---spiraling, multiplying, expanding. I can't bear it, hearing every word I have yet to utter bubbling in my throat; watching every memory of him collide in crazy little frames that make me dizzy as I watch them fly by, like a movie directed by a madman. And then I suddenly realize---no, I know---that there is order in the universe, there is no such thing as chaos---that's just a name for a pattern of which we haven't yet made sense. God sits upon His heavenly throne and all is As It Should Be---so I wait for him with calm certainty that all of this was written, I am where I am supposed to be, and those who are foolish enough to fight their destinies are like ants in a cyclone; you'd have a better chance of trying to lasso a mountain with a piece of string. We run around, silly little creatures, exhausted from our efforts, and why bother? Isn't it so much nicer just to sit, to let the assuredness of everything comfortably coat you? I know my destiny and he is it, so there was nothing else to do but trace raindrops down the window with my finger and write his name in the air over and over again.
I hear the front door. I know it's him. If he goes into his own office I will surely collapse. I have not taken a business call all day. I have not spoken to a soul except for him. I am still. My blood and heart are the only things moving because I have no control over them. He is the mad scientist that can animate me; he is my only power source.
   "I told her," he says, coming in. I imagine I can see vines in his hair, like Hedda Gabler's lover. He is wet. I wonder if he looks this way when he comes out of the shower. He pushes me against the wall, and we kiss. I think that if I jump out the window now, I would fly. I add to his wetness as I cry on him. I can't bear him to talk, and somehow he knows that.
   It is a sweet victory. It is a lie.
Scenes from the diary of a manhole:
   I pick at the tuna globbing off the sides of the rye, which is making me nauseous. My life is suddenly an ugly little drama by a lousy hack. I want to tear my hair out in clumps and he expects me to eat tuna fish. I can tell he is annoyed that I am not eating it.
   "I guess you know," he says in a voice deeper than his usual one, "why we're here."
You're getting married, I think.
   "I'm getting married," he says.
   I laugh, play with a celery chunk, push it around some mayonnaise.
   He stares at me as if I had done something in very poor taste, like pick my nose at an inaugural ball.
   "Why are you laughing?" he asks, an edge in his voice.
   I think of picking up the sandwich and throwing it at him. Then I look at my cup of coffee. Hot. Maybe that would be better to throw. He is staring at me. I realize that he had asked me a question. I am supposed to answer him. He wants me to answer him when what I really need is a Heimlich Maneuver. Be a lady. Be a bitch. Be a lunatic. Be cool. Crazy. Classy. Throw a tantrum. Throw something. Throw up. I will my eyes not to water. Please don't cry, please be strong now.
"I am laughing," I say, "because I was just thinking about how strong I am. I am a strong woman."
   "No you're not," he says cruelly.
   This startles me. What other organ was he going to cut up now?
   I look up at him. I am smiling like a gargoyle. I am sure I look scary, smiling like that, like I should be guarding an entrance to a medieval Tuscan cathedral.
   "If you were strong," he says, "you'd save me."
   Yes, I swear to you, that's what he says.
   He makes me take the sandwich with me.
   He can't stand to waste it.
Scenes from the diary of a manhole:
Morning. Office. Daylight. I catch pieces of conversation, little smatterings of blood.
   "I need shoes," someone says. "I don't even have a decent pair of shoes."
   "I bought this fabulous dress," another voice says. "It doesn't fit yet, but I figure by the time of the wedding I can jam myself into it."
   "Oh! You bought a dress!" Third voice. "What color?"
   I am sitting at my desk, feel my chest start to clog. I force myself to get up and close the door, but I can still hear every word. Their voices are seeping through the door like black smoke but it's me who's on fire...
   I turn on the radio. Oh please God, let me hear about war and death. About the presidential race. Anything, I'll take anything. I know I disgust you, God, I disgust myself, but I ache to hear anything that will embarrass me, shame me; something that will show up my pain for the mundane pill of steaming crap it really is. Please, God. Anything. Anything so I don't have to hear them.
"...wear. That's a great culah for you. Off the shouldah?"
   "...I forgot where they're having the reception. I have it written down..."
   "...invitation yet? I didn't get mine."
   I long for a hatchet. For both me and him. I can see the bright red blood spurt out of his ears; his big blue eyes closed in pain now, not ecstasy. Smash it to bits, that wonderful, creative brain, turn it to a lump of gray aspic underneath my feet, so that he can't talk or think or buy tuna sandwiches ever again....oh, God. Something occurs to me.
   Didn't they notice I wasn't invited? Didn't they find it odd? After all, he and I were friends. Always hanging around together, in each other's offices, talking, kidding. Didn't they know something was wrong? Didn't they see?
I get up and lean against the door. I will calmly explain that I am dying, so they'll stop. You must not talk about this, I'll tell them. You see, I am ill. Please stop talking about this.
   Blood would pour from my mouth as I wretched, finally vomiting my heart on the floor at their feet. I would enjoy the horror on their faces, especially the old man's---a hateful fart who runs around he office armed with Fantastick to clean imaginary spots on the walls---I'm sure he'd get a bang out of that.
   I turn up the radio. It's too loud now, but I can still hear.
   "...but we can still meet before the..."
   "cant believe he's marrying her. She's such a..."
   I nastily finish that sentence in my head.
   "...but how much are you spending for a gift?"
   I turn up the radio all the way and the sound distorts. People start to bang on the wall, angry voices scream at me to lower it.
Scenes from the diary of a manhole:
   We do not speak to each other. We pass each other in the hall carefully, two lepers. I beg your kind forgiveness for loving you, I think. We both play dumb when we catch each other sneaking glances. When he has his back to me, I roll my eyes. This juvenile way of expressing contempt is comforting. I am withering up inside. But I am holding on. To my ability to function. To the belief that he loves me.
   I smell him. Like I smell the coming rain. The Ozone Man. I know when he will come to work, even when he is not expected. It still warms me, knowing he's there, close to me. I know the exact sound his door makes when it opens and closes. It is distinguishable from all the other doors in the office, maybe all other doors all over the world. I hear his keyboard making muted clacks. Punching out words that have nothing at all to do with me. His voice, no matter what he says, chills me. I keep seeing my breast in his mouth when he opens it to speak. He reminds me of a cockroach, the way he scuttles around, zipping into cracks and crevices to avoid me, my blast of spray.
Keep on walkin', honeybun.
Scenes from the diary of a manhole:
More rain. I have marveled at all this rain during this period of my life. I like to think it is because He disapproves of what I am doing. How I'm behaving. And don't I deserve all this celestial piss? I'd be disgusted with me, too, if I was Him.
Scenes from the diary of a manhole:
   I beg him to talk to me; I keep asking him to see me when he has a moment. He is ignoring me. No, worse than that---he treats me as if I wasn't there, that he was looking at air.
   I do not exist.
   I have suspected this for some time.
   He never looks at me, especially my eyes. He stomps around, grunts at people in infrequent monosyllables. He seems miserable.
   Today, I catch him in the hall, on the way to the men's room. He offers a pained look and we both smile as he hesitates at the door with a "now?" expression. He agrees to come to my office. After waiting some time without a knock on my door, I go to his. He runs out, mumbling about having to get something. His life clearly depends on it.
   I have this new habit: I talk to myself. It is only when people eye me oddly that I realize I have been having solo, animated conversations. Now I say: I try, I try, I tried. A great Angela Bofill song. I have the song in my head when he knocks with that way of his.
   We play the game still: he continues to knock after I tell him to enter.
   He stands over my desk, clearly uncomfortable. I don't give a damn about his unhappy expression.
   I lie. I do give a damn.
   "You must hate me very much," I say.
   "No," he says. He makes a motion to leave.
   "I realize a lot of things have happened," I continue, "but why can't we..."
   "If this isn't business," he interrupts, "I'm leaving." He does.
   I follow him into the hall. My blood is thunderous in my head.
nbsp; "It is very important to me," I say quietly to his back.
   He looks at me, walks into his office, an almost imperceptible head gesture motions me to follow. I do.
   "Leave the door open," he says, ominously, dramatically.
   I close it.
   "What did I do to you?" I ask him, trying to keep my voice level. "What the fuck did I do to you? Do you really hate me so much?"
   I feel that. I feel that he hates me. That my love never warmed him as much as scalded him.
   He looks surprised at this, but doesn't answer.
   "Why are you treating me like a non person, a non-entity? What did I do to you?"
   "I've got problems," he says, eyes lowered. "Busy, lots of things on my mind."
   "Then this has nothing to do with me," I say.
   He does not answer this either.
   Then I recite what I rehearsed: "no matter what, I've always considered you a friend. I hope you still feel that way about me." I walk out.
   Asshole. Idiot. Jerk. Moron. There is no dignity when you love. I feel better. I feel worse I don't know at all.
   I don't have a fucking clue.
Scenes from the diary of a manhole:

A POEM FOR YOUR WEDDING

Did you rent people
from another affair?
They all look the same.
Though the seat I occupy is empty,
I can still see the Last Rites
when you push back her shroud
for a corpse's kiss.
You gaze at the ceiling
seeking my face or God's
for reproach or Redemption
and you plunge to your death
while I'm living mine.

Scenes from the diary of a manhole:
   He is looking for another job. Going on interviews. I am resigned. I still love him. This, too, is tired knowledge. I am willing to type a resume or letter if he asks me to. He talks about his interviews, about how difficult it is for him to sell himself.
   He told one man that he was looking to leave because there was no place left for him to go; he had gone as high as he could. "And what did you do the second week?" the man had asked. We both laugh at this. I want him to confide in me. I resent being his confidante. How dare he make me laugh.
   I am relieved that he is leaving. Now I can get on with my life. I have been hearing this expression a lot. 'Get on with your life', friends tell me. 'Get on with your life,' my mother tells me. 'Get on with your life,' a cabdriver tells me.
   That poor guy. He earned his tip.
   "He's a skunk," my best friend says simply, nostrils flared in disgust. That's my favorite. So is she. I wish some of her anger would rub off on me.
   He is leaving the company today, three weeks before his wedding. I buy three bottles of champagne---one for each week?---I take no money from anyone. This is my good-bye, and my good-bye alone. To be honest, I couldn't get money if I tried. One of my associates tells me he tried to take up a collection but was turned down by everyone. My darling pariah. I try to protect him, even now. My martyrdom is the only thing that gives me a sense of calm. I return with the bottles. "Stay," he says to me, gazing at me meaningfully. "Please."
   I shake my head at him. I want to go home to think of them drinking my champagne. This gives me a warm, spacey feeling, like the one you get when you've accidentally cut yourself deeply and you feel stoned---past pain, past blood, the giddiness before the dangerous numb.
   "Aren't you going to say good-bye?" he asks in a lover's voice, stroking my arm. I don't answer.
   I already said good-bye. 'Hello' was the problem here.
Scenes from the diary of a manhole:
   He's been gone for over a year. Why is he calling me now? Lunch. He's inviting me to lunch. God, why? Did he make a mistake? Is he getting a divorce? What did he want to see me about? I am cautious. Wary. Excited. I am angry. Most of all, I am angry. I love this, being angry. This is great new stuff. I decided I'd rather burn to ashes than bleed to death.
   I am not going. That would be crazy. I would have to be the biggest idiot in the world, I think, to even consider it.
   Yes, I tell him.
   I see his profile as the cab pulls up. I sit beside him, offer my cheek; he kisses me on the mouth. He would have kissed me intensely, I knew, if I had given him a signal of permission. We sit next to each other, knees touching.
   We are moving downtown.
   I can't see anything.
   He leads me to a trendy restaurant---runway models in a cloud of anorexic unapproachability, bored actors in media shunning sunglasses in a too-bright room with grafittied walls---and I get a Dewars down my throat in one suck, order another. He is saying something, but I can't hear him. I put on a facial expression of rapt attention, but I realize he is boring me. I take the crayons from the table and start to draw obscenities on the paper tablecloth. I concentrate deeply on doing this---flamboyant magenta fucks, aqua cocksuckers and kelly green shits. I don't want to talk about business. I want to pour my drink on his head. I want to ask him what the hell he wants of me now. I want to ask him if he's happy. I want to kick him between the legs.
   I get drunk; the room spins when I get up to urinate. I imagine he is watching my back, so I straighten it, will my ass to seem smaller. I wonder if he will still be there when I return; he is so vaporous.
   I have not touched the food. I want to get plastered. I want to get so drunk that I can say anything I want.
   He comments that I have not eaten anything, almost a complaint. This strikes me as funny. How did this girl get so big? She never eats! I laugh unkindly.
    "Don't worry, I'll take it home," I tell him, smirking.
   The check comes. He mumbles something about being "short" and asks if I would be "upset" if we "split it."
   I run from the table, knock over a glass, shove people aside to get out of the restaurant. He runs after me, begs me to sit down. I turn around and scream at him: "Can't you ever, ever do something nice for me?"
   I try to hail a cab, then realize I have no cash. Shit shit shit shit shit shit. He asks me to stay with him, wait for him. We'll go together.
   "Let's not end it on this note," he pleads. I am spent. I nod.
   I curl against him in the cab, surprising us both with my unexpected affection. He puts his arm around me, looking sad.
   "You look so beautiful," he says. "Like Liz Taylor."
   He's never told me I was beautiful before, and it makes me cry softly. We hold hands. When my stop comes, I get out. I don't say good-bye.
   I wonder if he liked my artwork.
Scenes from the diary of a manhole:
   My boss comes in, sits down.
   She tells me they are considering bringing him back. He wants to come back. I watch her face for knowledge. It is impassive.
   "Why are you asking me?"
   "We're asking key people. You know how difficult he was, moody. He left a bad taste in a lot of people's mouths. But he's changed. So I'm sort of taking a survey. We think he'd be different now, if we brought him back. You know he's really talented."
   Tears stream down my face. She is amazed. Her eyes open wide. "God," she whispers. "What is wrong with you?"
   I look away. I can't look at her. What the hell do I do now? What does she know? Does everyone know, and are they, this minute, laughing at me, my insane love for him? The voice: wake up, asshole. This is why he asked you to lunch. You shoulda kept on walkin', honeybun.
   I start to shake with rage. Now I hate him. I'm dizzy with it, choking on it. I turn to her. "I apologize for this," I say, trying to sound dignified.
   "Oh now, but I just can't imagine what..."
   "I can't be here if he comes back." I realize the truth in this.
   "My God," she says again. "What did he do to you?"
   "Nothing, he did nothing. I am sorry, but I cannot expound on this," I say, hiding behind the pretentious word. I am afraid I am going to become hysterical. "I hate, really hate putting you in this position. Of course you can bring him back. I can't stop you from doing that. But I can't stay here if you do."
   "I will talk to Frank about this," she says solemnly, referring to her partner. She rises. She is dumbfounded, I can see that.
   "I will send him in right away to talk to you." She enunciates each word with excruciating exactness, with a tone of syrupy condescension usually found in female Long Island real estate brokers. She walks out backwards, clearly unwilling to turn her back on me.
   I curse the tears on my face. Control yourself, dammit, they'll think you flipped.
"Aren't you tired of making me cry?" I make my hands fists so I can slam them on my desk. "You sonofabitch," I hiss at the walls. "You spineless bastard."
   Frank walks in and closes the door.
   "What's this I hear?" he asks me softly, sitting down.
   "Oh God, I'm sorry. I heard you want to bring him back."
   "Yes, let me tell you why," he says, clearing his throat, his trademark. He is using the tone he uses when he sells to clients. "We feel he's gotten knocked around. He's humble. He knows that leaving us was a big mistake. He's really eating humble pie. We don't think we'll have an attitude problem with him any more. And he is the best in the business. How do you feel about this?"
   "No," I whisper.
   "We warned him," Frank continues calmly, as if he didn't hear me say anything. He clears his throat again. "No more nonsense or he's out."
   "I will have to leave if you bring him back," I say.
   A very long pause.
   "You're kidding," he says. "Seriously? Really? I mean, you're not joking? You'd really leave?" I have never seen Frank look so shocked. His facial expression amuses me, and I have to smother a giggle.
   "I can't explain why, I really can't go into it." All of a sudden, I need to urinate. Oh, I'm in great shape. I need to giggle, cry and pee, and in front of the guy who signs my paychecks.
   "I'm sorry. I hate, really hate putting you in this position. I'm sorry." I look longingly out the 37th floor window, wondering what it would be like to plummet at 500 miles an hour. Would I feel that final splat? Do corpses cry momentarily, if that's what they'd been doing before they kicked in?
   "You won't even think about it?" he asks me softly.
   "There is nothing for me to think about."
   He stares at me as if he had never seen me before. There's a long silence. I know his lulls. He's a strategic thinker, so I prepare myself for a new tactic.
   Finally, he says, "I don't know what the hell he did to you, but it must be really bad." I have to admire his talent. I've been on sales presentations with him, so I know how good he is. The old sympathy trick is classic Frank: he wants me to open up so he has more information to combat. Following it with silence is beautiful; people always feel compelled to fill a silence with words. That's police interrogation 101. But I don't bite.
   "Really bad," he repeats, shaking his head, waiting. I stare at him.
   "Okay," he says, standing up. "If I have to make a choice between you and him..." he trails off. "Well, don't worry about it."
   I suddenly realize that he, too, is uncomfortable with all of this, and I feel a surge of affection that makes me get up and hug him. I whisper, "thank you," in his ear. Thank you thank you thank you for saving my life.
   He closes the door behind him, and I put my head down on my desk. I sit there a long time.
Scenes from the diary of a manhole:
   He's back. I said it was okay.
    I don't mind---it's been over two years. Hey---you can't wring out a sponge so many times and still get moisture, right?
   Our offices are bigger now, and farther apart, but not much else has changed. I write this as kind of a catharsis because he dusts off the years and screams, "you're it!" and I wonder why I am still tempted to play. I want him to want me and I still want him. I am afraid to tell anyone this; the shame of it is unbearable. But I need to know, you understand? I am the little girl with her nose pressed against the window of the candy store, wondering what it would taste like.
   I ask my friend, "do you think I could have just one bite, and never go back for more?"
   "It's never worked with Entenmann's," she says, frowning.
Scenes from the diary of a manhole:
   He says he's not happy. That's no surprise. I thought I'd get pleasure from knowing that, but I don't.
   His feelings for me, he says, haven't changed. And we move comfortably into our little tribal dance of seduction, and it is so easy to start again, like the candle that relights so quickly that you wonder if you really blew it out. He seems wiser, more communicative now, and I believe in his growth...
Scenes from the diary of a manhole:
Feets, do your stuff. He does it again, pulls the pin off the grenade, wonders at the explosion, and why or why am I the only one surprised by this? Goddammit!
   My friends shake their heads sadly, and I hate what I see on their pinched little faces: an infuriating mixture of smug "I told you so" and thinly veiled pity. How can they understand, then the heat of their blood has never registered a degree above tepid?
   Well, fuck them. And fuck you, too.
   God, help me..
Scenes from the diary of a manhole:
As you have been so patient, I will spare you the gory details: the talk talk talk that made me despise the sound of my own voice; the gaping hole in the chest that I never thought anything but a death could carve inside of me; the self-righteous pronouncements and carefully aimed insults I'd fling at friends who stubbornly insisted on loving me when I was at my most unlovable; those heaving, wracking sobs that burst the blood vessels in my face---making little red cobwebs that took months to fade; the pleading please-pick-up-the-phone-and-just-tell-me-you're-alright" answering machine messages that made me feel guilty, but not guilty enough to respond; the hard-to-look-at revelations about myself that took a long time to stop shaming and start empowering---I don't need to fill in the gaps. I just don't have the strength to put it on paper at the moment, because it's enough to know that I won't go through it again.
   The bottom line? I finally walked down another street----(oh yes, honeybun!) just like a lot of other junkies assured me I could.