Rittenhouse Square
Figue suddenly feels unnaturally warm. He stops to look at his reflection in the window--flushed, color drained from his cheeks, his face transparent in the glass. Barnes and Noble. Rows of bookshelves. A man in a dark blue shirt and white tie, magazine in hand, turns his way--sees through him to the shaded park beyond. Figue, transparent, entwined in a pointalistic tapestry of leaves, feels his forehead: cool, sweaty. A new form of cancer? He feels the tissues under his skin dissolving. Poisonous rays penetrating the vanishing veil of ozone--instantaneous metastatic sun-generated cancers, topiary tumors gape-jawed like gargoyles devouring him from within. His impulse is to race across the street, run for the cover of trees. Must restrain himself. Rapid movement can only serve to over stimulate, spread the toxins. The sky is blindingly bright--a few cirrus wisps in an unbroken stretch of blue. He trembles, waiting for traffic to clear, for the light to turn green.
Trunks of plane trees with parchment bark, their shaggy pillars bear a canopy of green like a great tent spread over the square of the park. Cool misting lawn sprinklers, their umbral spay--brick walks glisten in the mottled light. Fading blooms of rhododendron. Dodge the man with the two cell phones, one to each ear. Two young mothers, two carriages, two infants. The world is twofold: one, a sun-splayed screen of seeming, the other unseen, unseemly, spinning darkness out of light. Matter and antimatter. We are penetrated by its rays. Drilled through. Pierced like painted saints.
A woman in shorts licks a melting ice cream cone, slurry of sweet chocolate on her tongue. The lawns on either side (a blaze of green) are strewn with sunbathers. Women, shirts rolled up, bare midriffs. Shirtless men. A couple on the grass eating fries from a square of shining foil--a quizzical Weimaraner follows their every move, hand to foil, hand to mouth, hand to foil. A young woman, sketch pad before her, clear plastic bottle of water at her side, draws what she sees: the semblance of a day in the park, time stopped at the end of a century, late June, mid-afternoon--shadows on the wall of the cave. Starlings. Sparrows. Pigeons glide through foliate passageways, search for scraps at the feet of three old women on a bench, two in black, one in flowers and dots. A terrier pulls at his leash. A fat man, bald, blue sunglasses and black goatee, leans back, legs crossed, looks up from his Inquirer to watch a woman in a red sweater, Philly's cap, motoring past on her tri-wheeled scooter decked with: water bottles, saddle bags, oxygen tank, large flashlight peering like an alien eye from a leather satchel tied athwart a rear fender, a gas mask a-dangle dancing from a bouncing strap. 
Figue finds a bench in the shade. Dedication:
Samuel L. Gomez
 June 6, 1960 - April 17, 1993
Only 33. Like Jesus. Did he die of AIDS--the bench paid for by his lover? An accident? Crossing Delaware Avenue after a night out, run down by a careening car at 3:00 AM? Was it the sun that killed him? 
A bad omen. 
Figue finds another bench. Does not read the memorial plaque. Better not to know. He unwraps a granola bar, closes his eyes: laughter behind him. Someone speaking Chinese--not Chinatown sing-song--Cantonese: shoe show shoe shoe he hears. Mandarin. Drone of traffic never stops. Rises and falls. Sparrows chirping.
Pardon?
He opens his eyes. Two matrons dressed in black have settled down beside him. Acknowledges them.
What day is this?
Figue has to think. Wednesday, he says. The woman closest to him smiles graciously, looks at her companion.
I told you, she says.
The truth is, says the other to Figue, the truth is, neither of us knew for certain.
Figue stands up. Blinks in the sun, a patch of it blinking through the trees. The granola bar seems to have helped. He moves on.
Two infants, naked, bronzed, holding over them... a globe? No, a sunflower. Petals encircling a sundial.
 The Hour Passes Friendship Abides
Evelyn Taylor Price the sculptor. Back out of the sun, down the tree lined walk. It ruins the skin. Would she have carried a parasol in her day? Avoiding early wrinkles. Leathern face. Melanoma. Stop! Stop thinking--it only brings it on. Magnetism of negativity.
To the central square, past the giant frog where a replica of a 19th century guardhouse stands. To the side, a group of men are gathered around a pair of chess players. A heavy-set black man straddles the concrete bench, thighs and lower belly bulging. His opponent, white, chain smoking, thick black eyebrows, a mole on his forehead. They move rapidly. Lifting the pieces, setting them down sharply, slapping a clock with each move. 
Click
Click
Click
The smoker misses a pin on his queen. Gives up a rook to save her, but it's not enough. The lion rends the serpent. Game over. They set up and start again. Above them. Liberty One, monument to the defeat of Edmond Bacon: a grid of pinnacles against the sky, glass-blue, ethereal, as though made of air. On another bench two younger men play. A black man in a red cap, hooded sweatshirt--despite the heat. His opponent, a boy--seventeen? Eighteen? No. Older. A baby face. Figue watches him unfold a long elegant combination. The man in the cap shrugs. Prostrates his king. Shakes hands, hands him a dollar and leaves.
One of his foster families: the father was a chess player--would drive to new Jersey once a month to play in rated quads. Never missed the tournaments that came three or four times a year to the Adams Mark on City Avenue. Didn=t play in the open sections Mostly hung out in the skittles room taking on other lower rated players in ten minute games. Figue would tag along--and proved to be a fast learner.
The foster father arranged for lessons with a Russian immigrant and International Master. Once they drove to New York where Figue played in the Manhattan Chess Club's Under-13 Saturday Swiss. Up the winding stairs (too long a wait for the tiny elevator): back entrance to Carnegie Hall, from rehearsal rooms, muted trumpets heard in passing, pianos sounded from darkened passageways. He won the first two games. Number three--a nine year old girl named Irina Krush. Crushed him. Sees her photo now in chess magazines, a Women's Grand Master, grown up and lovely. Dreams of her brown eyes.
It didn't last long. Before two years had passed, Figue was with another family, but he kept playing chess. It was one of the few things he could do without losing his concentration. Chess calmed him, stopped the internal static, the arguments, doubts, speculations, the endless verbal flood that inundated most of his waking life. When he sat down before a chess board, nothing else existed.
Serious study, however, was beyond him. He needed the challenge of competition. He would never master the game at its highest levels. Nonetheless, an excellent memory, a highly developed spatial intelligence and the savvy that comes from playing regularly and often made him a better than average amateur. On most days, he could spend an afternoon in the park playing blitz or ten minute games--a dollar a win, and come home with ten, fifteen bucks in the black.
The park regulars knew one another--knew each other's strengths, weaknesses. Sometimes he would spend a day challenging the best of them to keep his game sharp. If they played for money, he could only hope to break even. But it wasn't about the money. It was about the buzz.
He preyed on the lunchtime businessmen, but it was never a sure thing. There was always the down-at-the-heels IM, or the occasional Grand-Master to watch out for. One of these guys could come along, and if you let your guard down, he=d loose a few to soften you up--or let you get close enough to sucker you in and you'd go home broke.
This kid was new. Never seen him before. A slight accent, definitely Russian. Worrisome, but it had been a slow week. They were coming off a long spell of bad weather, rainy and cool; the business men were sitting in the grass with their shoes off taking in the sun, watching the pretty women. If he was good (the kid), that was okay: Figue needed the challenge to keep sharp. He hadn't lost for a while and he could feel his game going downhill. 
Figue straddled the bench, picked up two pawns, black and white, switched them a couple times behind his back--stretched his arms straight out: a pawn in each fist. The kid slapped his right hand.
White. The advantage of the first move.
I haven't played for a long time, he said, setting up his pieces. I'm kind of rusty.
Sure you are, Figue said.
I mean, haven't' played anybody very good. By the way, my name is Max. Held out his hand.
Ari. Ari Figue. Your move.
The park was in shadow. The heat of the afternoon had lifted and Figue was beginning to feel chilled. He studied the board one last time. The game was lost. He'd won the first two, struggled for a draw in the third. The forth game had been a long battle--down to a rook and pawn endgame. Max had found shelter for his king and with his rook holding Figue's king to his last two ranks, where it could neither help his own pawns nor aid in the attack-- free to march a pawn to the eighth rank for a queen and the win. Surrender. 
The fifth and last game, fig had struggled from the opening. Forced to play defensively, he fought for a draw. It proved hopeless.
He reached out to shake hands.
You play pretty good, Max said. It's been a long time.
Yeah, that's what you told me. Figue, rolled his eyes.
We broke even, Max said. gathering up the pieces and dropping them in a leather bag. You didn't lose anything.
I didn't win anything. 
You have some bad habits. But you're not bad. Play here often?
Depends. 
There was a woman across the way, by the serpent and lion. Watching them. Seemed to be spying on Max, whose back was to her. Beginning to make Figue nervous. If Max looked up from the game, she would duck behind the lion. When Max stretched--looked as though he might be preparing to get up--she turned on her heels and vanished. 
Figue looked into the trees, whistled through his teeth, swung his leg around the bench, hands to his head.
What's the matter? Max asked.  
But Figue was already gone, staggering off in a slow motion corkscrew spiraling waltz down the walk and out of the park.  
 
 
 What She Wanted
What she wanted, really wanted, dreamed of in dreams beyond the reach of memory, was to be good. Not to do good, to be good. A good incomprehensible to the mindset of her contemporaries. A good beyond the judgment of living and dead. A good, above all, that would be entirely her own. She was not entirely sure this was the right word--good, but whatever the state of being it was meant to name, this was the word that came first to mind and she accepted it.
Once, she and a friend found a leather-bound book rummaging through boxes in the attic where they played as children: a nineteenth century hagiography. It became a shared secret, a scary treasure to entertain them on rainy afternoons or bitter cold winter days. 
Aren't they awful! her friend said, pointing out illustrations of martyrdom, gleefully reading lurid descriptions of women being burned, branded, holding their severed breasts in hand, flayed alive. 
Why? they would ask, puzzling over images of halos, angels and implements of torture-- incomprehensible marriage of sadism and transcendence. She closed her eyes; shadows of flayed animals danced before her, crowned with glories.  
See what happens to you when you're good! they would say, and burst out laughing, pressing their bodies close together to hide the dread that drew them back again and again.
Though she had only recently become aware of it, and could assign no content to its meaning, the wish had been there all along, growing without her realizing it﷓﷓hidden--until--in a moment of panic, sexual excitation, guilt and moral terror--it leapt out of her like an infant fully formed, a Blakean homunculus, naked wild piping loud, dancing over her lover in the act, his young body suddenly no more than a shadow cast by this glistening, all penetrating radiant being.
Poor Max.
He would never understand. She had dreamed she was in a chess game with giant pieces--like Alice through the Looking Glass, leading a knight through a field of poppies﷓﷓and when Max told her how he was chosen to learn the game from grandmasters, she took it as a sign. And it was! 
But he was the wrong chess player!
The right one she met later in the park. Max told her about chess in Rittenhouse Square, and that's where she went to find him--her own Grand Master, and when she saw him﷓﷓there was no mistake. 
He was playing with a man in a tie and white shirt, suit jacket laid out behind him, newspapers spread open over the wall to sit on. The man in the shirt and tie was concentrating with great intensity, his eyes on the board, gripping and stroking his chin between moves--while the other--the young one, seemed to pay little attention to the game, gazing up into the trees, his lips moving, as though silently talking to himself. Thin and tall, with lovely gray eyes, his hands moved with exaggerated gestures, sweeping over the board to take up a piece, holding it aloft for the span of a heartbeat, placing it on its new square then up in an arc and down to press the clock. 
She was spellbound, could not take her eyes off him. It was a dance--and the performance was for her alone, a secret message coded in ritual movements. He didn't see her, didn't look her way, but she knew he was aware of her presence, had to be. Could feel it in her body. 
Wren watched from behind the lion and serpent, watched until her feet began to hurt and her legs began to cramp. She was waiting without knowing what she was waiting for. On the edge of despair when a single gust of wind whipped through the trees sending a flurry of leaves over the brick walk, over the chess players feet. The lunch time business man had left long ago, his jacket over his shoulder, newspapers, carefully folded, deposited in a trash basket as he left. Figue looked up at the suddenly darkened sky, picked fallen leaves off the board.
They were alone. Or as good as alone; under the threat of rain (though as yet not a drop had fallen); people were hurrying out of the park. Wren moved closer. Still, he didn't notice. Gave no sign. He was choosing not to see, she thought, to test her. 
She stood behind him as he scooped up the chess pieces and dropped them into a leather bag, rolled up the vinyl board, took the battery out of the clock, slipped clock and battery into the bag with the pieces. When he turned around, he almost knocked her over. 
Sorry! I didn't see you there. 
Wren said nothing. Her heart was beating so hard she swore he must have heard it. 
Did you want something? he said. He wanted to leave, but the way she was looking at him--it didn't seem polite. Perhaps she might be lost? Wanted to ask directions?
Could you walk me to the subway? 
Only because he could think of no reason why he shouldn't, he shrugged, told her, sure, and headed out of the park, Wren at his side, walking double time to keep up. Neither one spoke until they came to the station entrance at 16th and Market. He stopped at the top of the stairs. Wren took one step down, turned around and burst into a long explanation--how she had seen him in the park and watched how he moved, and there was this dream--as stupid as it was to say such things to a complete stranger, even though he wasn't completely a stranger because she'd seen him a bunch of times at Silk City and once on 5th Street so they were almost neighbors. She couldn't help it--it was like they had known each other in another life, and no she didn't believe in reincarnation or anything stupid like that and she wanted to know--because she didn't want to give him her number just like that--could he give her his and they could talk and maybe if it seemed okay get together someplace that seemed safe and okay for both of them she would call him, and she dug into a small white canvas bag she was carrying and pulled out an address book and searched some more until she found a ball point pen... 
You don't have to, she said--holding the pen and book, not quite offering it to him, ready to put it back in the bag and flee at the first hint of rejection. I just thought... you know?
He reached for the notebook, took hold of it. Tugged gently. She let go. He opened the book, thumbed through till he came to the letter 'F.' Waited.
It's okay... you really don't have to.
He pointing to the pen. He could see how her hand trembled when she handed it to him.
He thought about using a different name, but wrote 
 A.Figue

and his phone number.
Ari, he said, returning the book and pen.
Ah, she said--before running down the steps to the subway, leaving Figue alone on the street above just as the rain began to fall in earnest.

 

Marta Agonistes
You'd be wrong to call her paranoid--suspicious, yes. 
Suspicious. 
An extreme example, if you will. But not paranoid. 
 You see, her suspicions were well grounded in her own mind, which may sound like the very definition of paranoia (and there may be something to that), but in her case, her grounding was also empirical; it was ever to experience, first and last, she would appeal to justify her suspicions, to counter the counsels of the Theologians of Hope, the Doctors of Uplifted Countenance, the next door neighbor's It Could Always Be Worse. They did not, could not understand. Above all--they did not know. They did not know, and she could not tell.
Not that her life had been all that bad--certainly not measured on the global scales of history, recent or ancient. What would you see if you saw through her eyes: the usual youthful broken hearts, failed dreams, failed marriage, divorce. It was the last, the failed marriage and divorce, beyond all the rest, which, true of failures in general for her, significantly outweighed whatever small successes, bits of luck, happy happenstance had fallen her way since. 
But the deeper laceration, the second wound that lay open the first, was her daughter, Karin. What might have been consolation for her loss became its exacerbation, and the salt in the wound resided in the name--or rather, what had become of it... of her: a twittering mockery of what a good daughter was meant to be: her Karin had become a Wren.. 
  Oddly enough, the most trying time of her life, a five year bout with cancer and a difficult and painful recovery, never figured into those calculations of doubt that cast over her memories such somber shadings. This, the cancer that nearly killed her, she would present, point to her recovery, as the one irrefutable evidence of good luck: a testimony that never failed to elicit spontaneous and unreflective ascent from friends and acquaintances, so highly have we come to value the accident of survival that the very word borders on the sacred, spoken in hushed and reverent tones, the one remaining (or should I say, surviving?) sign, by which we may identify the chosen remnant, the elect--which, I suppose, if you think about it--including as it does, all those, without exception still drawing breath upon (or circling near) our beautiful blue marble in the depths of space--suits our democratic age. Needless to say, it was for her, given certain childhood fantasies (never entirely surrendered) a word which had acquired its own special resonance. 
Marta opens the little secretary that serves as her command post for domestic affairs, pulls up a chair, lays both hands palm down on the writing surface as though commencing a devotional ritual. She has her mother's hands, she notes. Long fingers, deep nail beds. Notes how the fine lines are deepening. She surveys the compartments; letter slots, cubby holes, little drawers--each with its designated use: one for debts paid and waiting to be filed; one for debts owed, one for stamps, one for envelopes. Everything is here: paper clips large, small and medium; tape and dispenser, stapler and staples, staple remover, glue stick, letter opener, ink pad; rubber stamp with her name and address, address labels, assorted pens and pencils, markers, envelopes, stationary pad, notepaper, Post-its, keys, address book; a small hand carved lidded box for pennies, tokens and loose change. From one of the compartments she pulls a photograph and index card with the address of the house she had seen Ari Figue enter, the news clipping of the neighborhood bomb maker (photo cut out and removed). She lays them out before her, side by side. 
I survived: therefore, God is Good.
The fact remains--the man she'd seen on the el. who she knew had been watching her﷓﷓had aroused her suspicions, and suspicion in Marta Schevreteski, ounce aroused--once provided with a clear object, was not likely to dissipate, would rather, grow stronger, more focused, accumulating over time an arsenal of associations, reasons, intuitions﷓﷓all serving to justify her instinctive mistrust. The point at which this passed from what might have begun as a transient feeling, quickly forgotten, to a nagging and persistent dis-ease, was likely that moment when she arrived home, and, about to insert her key in the lock--saw his face in the glass pane of the door. Though she realized in an instant that she was looking at her own reflection, it so startled her that she dropped the key. Even after she had let herself in and locked the door, she could not still the anxiety clutching at her bowels. When she searched her thoughts to find why it should have so unnerved her--seeing her own face in the glass--she remembered seeing his face through her own on the window of the train, with the added sense that this had happened before--that his face was somehow familiar, that she had seen him, must have seen him--without noticing, paying him no particular attention. If this were so, she reasoned, it must be that he had been following her. There could be no other explanation. The question was, why? 
And for how long?
And then she saw him with Karin. There could be no doubt (at least not in Marta's mind). The same man--a week ago, across the street disappearing into the subway entrance. Thought she had seen Karin--but uncertain--started to call out--raised her arm--but they must have seen her first. Then in the park. Why? Why would he be following her? The only thing that was certain: it was no accident, their encounter. 

Walk in Liberty Commons
Out into the morning sun. How did she get herself up so early? Not a morning person, Karin, AKA Wren, though it seemed a good idea in theory, waking with the sunrise. It was her illuminated self revealed, she told herself reflexively--awakened fresh and bright at the unheard of hour of 6:00 AM (answering what summons? what inner calling?); eager to meet the day head on. What does it mean, to be good? she thought--in her own bright, visionary sense of the word? Her near coital revelation, a question no sooner asked, than seemed ridiculous. A question for philosophers. Players of chess. Knowing and Doing, when what matters is Being.  
Whatever it meant in words, she knew already, without the words, and who knows, she reasoned, but with the words it would be lost? Wasn't that the point? Naked. Stripped down. A soft breeze on her skin. Wasn't this good? Goodness itself? The rush and rustle of leaves at that moment struck her ears--like a distant singing, recordings she'd heard﷓﷓harmonic overtones, a Rumanian woman's chorus. Or was it Bulgaria? Could never keep the countries in that part of the world sorted out. Kosavo. Serajevo. Why?
The leaves--the leaves, wind, trees﷓﷓the air that carried those vibrant cords, together--singing in some exotic tongue. She thought﷓﷓if she listened closely, closed her eyes (and she did), that she would understand them, the words sung by the trees﷓﷓assimilate the language effortlessly.  
But what did it mean to know a language? Knowing the words, the words and how they work together--but even if you didn't, didn't know the words, you could still hear how they worked together, their harmonious order. Better without the words. Without the words all languages are the same. What was so mysterious, then, about standing on a corner in Philadelphia, in Northern Liberties, the community garden stretching before her--the playground, the dogs running on the grass, Ben Franklin in blue arched across the Delaware--what more natural than suddenly understanding, say... Rumanian? Without the words? Her aunt's story of the Quaker and the Indian in the wilderness: I to like hear where words come from. What could be simpler? And that's what it meant when she, suddenly, in a burst of insight, saw what it had meant, heard (but not in words) what it meant--her life, that is, her purpose in being here (wherever here might be at any given moment--that she was good, that what she wanted was good, that it was good now, at this moment, to be walking and breathing in the early summer air, sucking in each breath between her teeth the better to feel the air on her tongue, to taste it﷓﷓good to want to do this. That she wanted him herself, to herself--not to be wanted, but to want, and this is what it meant, being good, and it was going to change her life. Of that she was sure. That was the important part--that it was going to change everything﷓﷓she could feel it, taste hear see and feel it. Language without words. How everything works together. Everything in the life of the body, everything good.
She walks across the grass. There are children playing on swings, two of them, a boy and a girl. Their mother (she assumes it's their mother), stands behind them, pushing them, alternately, so the arc of their swings cross in opposition. He goes up as she comes down, and he comes down as she goes up, returning to their mother's waiting hands, waiting to push them away (two opposing forces in counterpoint), knowing they will return, the very laws of the universe impelling them to return, knowing she will send them up and away again...  
She sits on a wooden bench, the voices of the children at her back; follows the progress of a bus on the street. It stops at the corner; starts again, soon out of sight. A thread on her shirt, a lose thread--her left hand finds it before her eye has noticed. Strange, she thinks, looking down at the thread, holding between finger and thumb. As though her hand had a mind of its own. It seemed that it (this hand) had been, even as she listened to the children playing, as she watched the bus drive by, stop, and disappear--that all along her hand, on its own, clumsily, without success, had been trying to pull the thread free, to break it off. She sends her right hand to its assistance, and together--together they completed the job.
 
A Glass of Wine
Wren stands at the foot of the stairs, clutching a canvas bag to her chest. The hall and stairwell smell of cat. At the first landing, a small window, almost opaque with grime, opens to a narrow yard filled with trash. Two flower pots sit on the ledge outside the window, dry stalks, long dead, tremble in the light breeze. A weak shaft of sunlight plays on the wall, fly-stained, pocked, peeling. Wren freezes when she sees the door at the top open a crack. A cat's face peers out, followed by a hand, which scoops up the cat from under its belly. The door opens: Figue holding the cat--a yellow shorthair with pale tiger stripes. 
Come on up. He won't bite.
The voice doesn't sound like the one on the phone. He wears a faded dark blue t-shirt with bleach stains. Long bony feet, pasty white, stick out from under the folds of a pair of camouflage cargo pants, several sizes too big. A long angular face, softened by large gray eyes, a long neck--in the shadows at the top of the stairs, like an El Greco saint. 
Wren gives serious thought to turning around, running down the stairs out on the street and home, but can not move. Can not speak. Figue too, seems at a loss. The cat grows restless, twists loose and flees into the apartment. She marks it as a sign that she is meant to follow, and when the door closes behind her, she hears it as a seal of fate. 
  Inside--she finds the tiny apartment disordered, but clean. The window glass, clear. It's warm, but there's a cross-draft from the window in the kitchen, and not unpleasant. She stares at the mattress. 
Do you want me to get undressed, she asked, in another version of another life, almost inaudible. Or with cavalier bravado. Or purring, her fingers already working at the buttons on her blouse. Yes, he said, watching, giving her the once over, the old up and down. Or blurting out denial! Offended! Pointing to the door. Get out! I was just testing you, she cried! 
In their common world, what she says is--where do you sit in here? Never taking her eyes off the mattress.
There. Mostly. I told you it wasn't much. 
But you don't have to. I mean, I don't have to. If you're uncomfortable. I can stand.
Why would I be uncomfortable?
  Why did you invite me?
You asked me to.
Why did you say yes?
I couldn't think of a reason not to.
That's it?
I didn't see what it could hurt.
You didn't want to see me? She did a full pivot taking in the room, the picture-wall, covered with clippings, photographs, obituaries. Oh, nevermind. Forget I said that. 
You must think this is pretty weird.
Oh no! It's cool, I mean really.
At that, she plops herself down on the mattress, places the bag at her feet, looks up at him, pats the spot next to her. It's all right, she says. I won't bite.
 Figue watches the cat return from the bathroom. 
His litter box is in there. It's clean, though. 
Wren clutched her knees and waits.
If you need to use it--the bathroom, I mean. I keep things up pretty much.
Figue chews on the inside of his cheek. She brushes back a strand of hair. He walks around to her side of the mattress, sits down. A respectable distance.
Do you want something? 
Something?
You know. To drink?
What do you have?
Tea. Ginger ale. Coffee, I could make coffee. Do you want some?
What I'd really like... is a glass of wine.
Wine I don't have.
Surprise! she says, holding up the canvas bag. She reaches in and pulls out a bottle. 
Nothing special. But good. What's wrong. You're looking at me funny.
Wine. I don't I mean, not very often. I never used to. Well, lately I have. A lot, actually... but I don't think I have a corkscrew.
If you did, would you have a glass with me? (she reaches into the bag) Ta da! A corkscrew! How did I ever guess? Don't just stand there--bring us some glasses!
Figue gets up and went to the kitchen
Once when I was a kid, she calls after him, The first time I wine I hated it. Lisa--from her mother, she knows about wine. She knows all the best ones. I was a bartender, did you know that? But how could you? For a caterer. Mostly we did weddings. I learned to like it pretty much--wine. Are you a good cook? I guess not if you don't even drink wine. You have to drink wine to be good cook.
Is that right? I only cook for myself. Figue comes from the kitchen with two wine glasses.
Wow. I was expecting jelly jars.
I got 'em at the dollar store. 
But real wine glasses--for someone who doesn't drink wine?
They were a bargain.
You sound like my mother.
She pulls the cork out with a pop. Pours them each a glass. Figue starts to sip his--stops himself. Waits for Wren.
You never know who's coming for dinner.  
Go ahead, she says, raising her glass almost to her lips before noticing that Figue has raised his for a toast. 
Oh! she says. Returning the gesture. What are we drinking to? 
To whatever, he says, touching his glass to hers.
To whatever. To... being good. 
To being good? Okay. They each took a sip. Being good will do
Wren wants to talk. She wants so badly to tell him--to ask him if he knows, but now that she's here, she can think of nothing to say. Nothing but banalities. All the way here she's imagined what he would do. Imagined as though it had already happened. How he had asked her to undress and she refused. How he had worked on her all afternoon﷓﷓drinking wine, like they were doing now, and how she held out. And maybe later, he would take out some pot and they would smoke, and all the time he'd work on her, softening her up. He'd put on music and they'd touch. And yes, at last she did. She undressed for him while he watched. They both did. And though she wanted him, she resisted--held him off. He caressed her. He had lovely hands. Long fingers, she let them trail over her body till she shivered. Gave in. Gave in at last, lying back to let him do as he wished--her eyes on a thin shaft of sunlight that sliced through the room from the edge of the shade. He labored, pushed himself closer and closer. She gazed at the light. He was almost there, almost at the point of release when something came over her. He saw it. Saw it in her face and stopped, breathing hard, red faced, streaked with sweat. Are you okay? he asked. Her eyes--she could see herself in them as though in a mirror--her eyes were wide, dilated--staring at some point beyond him, past him. Something came over her. She frightened him. She felt him wither inside her, but when he started to withdraw, she grabbed his shoulders, glared at him in a kind of rage, clutched him by the hair and left ear, pulled his face to hers, pressed his mouth against her own with such violence that both their lips were bloodied. Aroused by the shock of the blow and the taste of blood, she seized his lip in her teeth, bit and sucked. Feeling him go flaccid, slipping out of her--she thrust him aside and onto his back, twisted round, lunged for his now almost limp penis, striking him a blow in the face with her knee in her rush. 
At first he struggled to get loose but she pushed him back, pushed him back again until he gave up all resistance, a perfectly symmetrical reversal, flung his arms out wide and clutched the sheets as she pulled sucked licked and fondled his penis back to life, resuscitating his erection, taking it full in her mouth, working it with controlled fury, and when he cried out for her to stop, when she saw that he couldn't hold up, she backed off, knelt beside him, over him, hands cupped to her breasts. He did not see the tears in her eyes, only her voice, the words, like stones. He would feel his nakedness under her eyes, an intensity of shame, and then he would dress, run down the stairs, leaving her as she was there on the mattress naked, still clutching her breasts, trembling in humiliation. 
What was she going to do with Max?
They sip their wine. Neither speaks until the glasses are empty.
We must never do that, she says, as he fills her glass with the last of the wine.
Do what? he wants to ask, but it sounds stupid. He twists his fatigues to hide his arousal. 
What do you want of me?
She looks at him--really looks at him, into his eyes, watching his mouth, his eyes again, and this time she doesn't look away. 
To help me to be good. 
 
Each Untouching
Wren woke quickly morning light at the window a beam of sun--only for the briefest moment confused at not being in her own bed. Ari is awake beside her. She reaches toward him, lets her hand hover over his, close enough that he feels its warmth, untouching and untouched. He doesn't stir. 
She closes her eyes, feels something heavy and sweet settling over her body, something fluid and moving, and for a moment she is floating in a salt sea as warm as a bath. They are both naked. She can feel a single hair that grows from a small mole beneath her left breast, stirred by the fan that blows across their bodies, lightly tickling her skin. 
Ari sits up. He lets his legs swing round over the side of the mattress, pulls on his pants. He turns, and for a moment, allows his eyes to play over her body, the whole length of her, from her feet to the of the top of her head﷓﷓the white irregular furrow of scalp through the accidental part of her hair where it falls left and right to each side. She feels his eyes and does not want to move or hide but rather to rise up to meet him, confirmed by the deep trough of longing that runs through her--that he had not, that they had not--that they had lain the night side by side breathing one another's exhaled dreams and had not, had not. 
She opens her eyes. 
Don't, she said. Not yet.
What?
Get dressed. Not while I'm still like this.
Ari blushes. 
I didn't want you to... 
It's all right she says. If you think you can. If you think... we can, be like this--just for a moment more. 
She is visibly aroused. Her breath comes in soft, quick rhythmic sighs. She watches him, letting her eyes go out of focus. He slowly unzips his pants. Still uncertain about showing himself, he hesitates, but she gives him little nods to let him know it's okay.
He lets them drop to the floor, stands exposed before her, both of them now breathing hard, like rowing in a dream across a deep lake; they do not move, they do not touch... only their hearts and lungs to carry them over the waters to the far shore...
* * *
Later, they sat at a table in front of a coffee shop on 3rd Street. Sparrows fought for a bit of pastry on the walk.  
It's like being unborn.
She speaks in a whisper, her eye on a couple brushing past as they entered the shop.
  Like being bound and tied and buried under a huge weight. Like being buried alive and then... suddenly, you're flying. Like unmaking the world.
She holds her hand out to the sparrows and watched them take off as one.  
Ari closed his eyes--it seemed to her, as she would wish--in silent agreement.
 It's better that way, isn't it? She said.
He watching a passing cyclist with a child in a pull cart. It=s never ending. Goes on and on and on. Doing it forever. Always wanting... and then... 
And then?
Like it never happened, always ahead of you!
Yes, he said... but is that good?  
Wren dipped a crust of pastry in her coffee. It broke and fell into the cup. She fished it out with a teaspoon. Good? she said, cocking her head; what do you think is good?
Figue shrugs; this coffee's not bad, he says. 
You never want to commit yourself, do you? To the things I say, I mean.
I don't know what to say. 
The sparrows returned. First one, than another, and another. They hunt for crumbs at their feet. 
I'm still thinking about what happened.
You mean, what didn't happen? 
Yes. What didn't happen. That's what matters... what makes it good.
He tossed some crumbs for the sparrows, reached across the table.
Na-uh! she said, pulling away. No touching.... You said. Promised...  
Figue rubbed his knees. Took his head in his hands, massaged the back of his scalp with his fingers.
How will we know? If we don't undo ... everything? Wren tosses another crumb to the sparrows, who had flown away and returned with reinforcements. That's the experiment, she said. To find out. I thought you got it. That you understood.
I don't know... there's something not right... .
But you'll go along with me? Do it with me? Touch... without touching? You said it was for you, too. Not just for me. That it was good?
I don't mean about me, it's them... 
We're different people. We unlace ourselves from our bodies from different directions. Remember? Remember what you told me? 
... trying to find me. 
Those people... following you?
Maybe... maybe I can help. Don't you see?
She fishedthe last soggy pastry crumbs from her cup with a spoon. 
He pointed to the scars on her arm. The cigarette burns. 
I don't talk about this, remember? 
I don't understand, but I remember. 
Wren pushed her cup aside. So you're all right with this? You don't think I'm crazy?
Figue rubbed his eyebrow.
Is something wrong?
He takes a deep breath. Looks at Wren. At her knees, her breasts. She smiled. 
I have time if you do. 
Figue nods.
Each with hands most carefully kept to themselves, they head back to Figue's apartment.
 
Left Side of the World


 A soul starved for human contact is like a green plant growing in the dark. It grows lean and tall in search of the sun; one day the porch that has cut it off from the light is torn down and the sun--the very thing it has missed and sought--overpowers and kills it.

I saw her on the train. Saw the wounds. She was nothing to me. A stranger. One of millions. What could I could have done to save her?
Is that really your question? 
How do you mean?
To save her? Isn't it the other way around?  
I wanted to find her. 
 When you came here... you were looking for Wren?
 I don't remember.
 Go back. Back to the that morning. Tell me what you see. Tell me as it happens.
I am climbing the narrow stairs, the stairs to your apartment, getting nowhere. For every step up, I fall back three; the door at the landing recedes, grows smaller as I approach--up a down escalator in time: 1953, a crowd pours out across a concrete mezzanine from Connie Mack Stadium around and past a man with bloodied head lying on the floor at the foot of the stairs. The baseball game is over. We had come, the guests of a friend bearing four tickets, a gift for his birthday--the first of our gang to pass officially into his teens, the rest of us, still twelve and dying to be older. The crowd moves around the fallen man, water flowing around a rock mid-stream. His eyes are open and his mouth, gaping, toothless, wide. The crowd pushes past. I stare at him, frozen in place until my friends tugs at my arm, pull me away.
I could not have helped, I tell myself. I was only a child. 
Another incident comes to mind, one no longer fixed in place or time: lying on the sidewalk of a busy street, a dying man. A paramedic is working on him, a gift of breath to the dead. Passersby stand in a circle, frozen, transfixed. The victim's shabby rags, his filth, the bundle of blankets on the walk, the cardboard box where not long before he lay asleep. A rosewood recorder with an ivory handle clutched in his lifeless fist. We watch as one body, bound by curiosity and wonder. drawn, not so much by hope for his rescuer's success, as by our common desire to follow a story to its end. How else to explain how a man who had not existed for anyone--maybe not even for himself, no longer part of the world inhabited by those now keeping vigil, invisible until that moment, should--at the hour of his death become in all his strangeness--a presence?
How often those things that change our lives happen just beyond threshold of awareness. The pieces we notice, fragments of a dream, distractions to lead us astray, to throw us off guard: a photograph in the snow, a phone call, conversations in a bar.
We go missing in our own illusions; what is to be done but kill the gods we've invented to shield us from the truth? 
 What happened that made you think of visiting me?
 It was the night before. I woke before dawn in a night sweat. I'd dreamt that I found, lying on the floor of my room, two pieces of paper: one, a letter from Sorrel, the other, a note from my former landlord, which, by some fortuitous intervention of the gods of chance, Max found as he mowed a neighbor's lawn next door to that House of the Dead. How was I to save myself? This is what I kept saying in my dream. How am I to save myself--as though appealing to some invisible authority: come to take me away! It was the photo, I thought, all over again. 
 How so?
 Like the photo, it was meant, meant for me to find. But to what end--being helpless to prevent what was unfolding before me? Words whispered without presence are less than passing dreams. I had to find her. Had to make her real. If you have no life in common with others, consciousness becomes your prison. Why should I feel guilty for happened in a dream? Only a dream that I stole the money, only a dream. Like the dream of the Snow Angel, of what I saw through the frosted glass that night, the naked branches of the dead oak in the yard like a hanging tree, the cicadas calling out to me the afternoon I saw her on the el, the raptor tearing at the wings of the pigeon, feathers falling like snow, of what I knew I had to do ... a dream, nothing more. The money order, the photo--they fell into my hands. An accident. I didn't choose to take it. One who sets out to commit a crime can be held accountable, an act open to remorse, and so, forgiveness. For what happens in a waking dream there can be neither guilt, nor forgiveness.
* * *
The door is open. Apparently, he's been standing there for some time. You can hear Figue in the kitchen. The kettle is whistling. He's preparing tea or coffee. 
What else do you want to know? he asks, calling from within, conversation in mid﷓stream. 
That he's still standing in the hall--has not yet entered the room--seems not to concern Figue.  
I'll assign you a role, he says, coming back from the kitchen, two cups of coffee in hand. ... if that's what you want. I can do that much. But first, I need the rest of your story,
to hear you out. Figure out where I'm going to take this. 
What do you want to hear? he says--closing the door behind him.
The works. Right from the beginning. I know, I know--we've gone over this. But there's things you've left out. Things you're not telling me. You're hiding something from me.
Like what? I've told you everything. Showed you my journals. How could you possibly think...
The money.
What's that?
The money, what about the money. You know what I mean. The check you stole, the...
It was a money order. And I didn't steal it.
Check, money order, whatever
Only a dream. I explained that. A bad dream.
A dream. Why are telling me your dreams? And if it's only a dream what are you afraid of? And the photo? What about the photo? Was that a dream too? 
I showed you the photo. I mean--I don't know what you expect me to do. How am I supposed to help you. Look at me? I can't even help myself.
It was her, wasn't it. In the picture. Wren. I saw you with her at Silk City. It was you at the table with her, wasn't it? 
You keep telling the same story? The snow angel. The voices. But then you leave out the one thing that is real. You said you're in trouble. What kind of trouble? 
I'm losing it. The voice. Interference. Everywhere I go, there's interference. No sooner do I start to think something over than ...like it's been hijacked.
Your voice?
The words won't come together. They fly around my head, like on their own. I can't get hold of them. Can't pin them down. I keep telling myself... look at my hands, my legs--I swear I can see through them! I look in the mirror and it's like I'm made of fog. Look at my hand, look at it!
What do you want me to see?
The holes! Can't you see? My whole body--it's like Swiss cheese. You, of all people, I thought you'd understand. I can't explain it. I don't pretend to. I just know how it is. 
Figue sits back, cocks his head.
What?
I'm thinking.
What?
If you don't exist... the null set.
The null set. 
Stop saying everything I'm saying. The null set, okay? As in, all members of the null set are equal. You don't exist. God doesn't exist. Therefore... 

Figue is standing by the window, gazing at the street below. Impatient drivers honk their horns as the traffic backs up, comes to a stop. Down the street, out of sight from his window, the light changes from red to green; the traffic begins to move--the only sound: paper clippings tapping lightly against the wall and the drone of the fan. The sun is low in the sky, the street in shadow. It will soon be dark. 
What's it about, this script? Your Fringe piece.
About a man, a man who claimed he couldn't see the left side of the world. Couldn't read the left hand page in a book, the left side of a clock. If he looked at you, he'd only be able to see one side of your face, your body, so if you waved at him with your left hand, say... he wouldn't know. For him, it's like it doesn't exist. But if his right eye is covered, a sudden close movement to the left of his face will make him blink, so he really can see; that is, his eye sees--without his knowing it. What do you think?
This is your play?
Script. There's more. No evidence of stroke. Test after test, nobody can find a thing. Nothing wrong him! You seem to have suffered a trauma of an undetermined nature. That's what they his doctor tells him, the words he uses. an undetermined nature. What kind of help is that? He knew that much himself. Something happened, he told them, but he couldn't say what. No memory of what it might be. I slipped through, he tells them, and that's all he will say about the matter. End of story.
This story... we see things happening, I'm telling myself, but we don't know what it is that we see. But if we do know, somehow, know without knowing, there's got to be ways to get at it. Think about it. Color blind synesthesiacs who can't tell red from blue or green--show them a certain number, or say a particular word, and guess what? They'll see the very colors they are blind to. 
Figue gestures, takes in with a sweep of his arm the array of clippings and pictures on the wall. There, he says... There it is. Scanning...Constellations.
Dreams.
You got it!
He sits on the edge of his mattress stroking Figue's cat. He closes his eyes. A voice, Figue's voice. He hears the fluttering paper, the drone of the fan, and in the hiss of tires from passing cars, other voices now, murmuring, whispering, singing softly.  
There are times, Figue is saying, especially at this hour of the day... that I'm carried back in time. It's not memory. It really happens. I'll be sitting in my parent's car. I'll see them--see them again, those men standing in the road, see their dusty uniforms, their hands, the weapons they hold--the dark barrel pointing at my father's head, the knife at my mother's throat, but I can't see their faces, not anymore. As though erased. You see... you're wrong to look for her. You don't want to find her. You don't want it to be real. I know. I know because if they should ever appear to me--on the right side of the world, if ever I should see them face to face... . 
Why didn't they come for me? Why did they leave me in that car--a potential witness? There can only be one reason: they didn't know I was there. On that day--like a crack in the glass that reflects the world, we each slipped through--but to opposite sides. Me to the right, them to the left. The left side of the world. We see each other, but don't know what we see. We know... without knowing. Like the man in the story. The man in the script.
Figue picks up the cat, returns to the window. 
What am I to do? he says, after a long silence. 
About Wren?
Yes, about Wren. What am I to do? 
Figue bites his lip. His face is flushed. 
A motorcycle passes by. A car with a boom box playing a song by a Mexican singer, recently dead.