The Color of Sadness

Veach 04/07/2010
First Chapter of a Novel, The Color of Sadness

The night I completely lost my mind began in a pet store. Suzie and I stared into a fish tank from opposite sides. She stared at the goldfish. I stared at Suzie’s face. On the subway Suzie held the bag up to her face, watching the fish swim around and looking at the New Yorkers and out of towners through water. I stood a foot away, in the corner of the door and seat bars. I said, “Should we name it?”
She said, “Should we name her.”
I sighed. “Her? Do you see its vagina?”
“Her vagina. His vagina. No, I’d rather not call her it is all.”
Suzie was a very pretty girl with black hair in two braids. She was just pretty, smart and experienced enough for me to be too shy to attempt to make her more than a friend. Unlike the other girls I liked, she was 21 like me. The dot on her face made her seem important.
“Should we name the fish?” I asked.
“She’s not our fish. Why? What would you name it?”
“Suzie, after you.”
She smiled. “So if I buy you a fish will you name her Suzie?”
“I think so, if the fish is a woman fish.”
“What if the fish is a man fish?”
I bit my lip. “I would name the fish Zack.”
“Zack?” After who?”
“Zack Morris.”

A bell rang instead of a buzzer at the apartment door. “Super weird,” Suzie said. Now she was wearing her rimmed black hat like some sort of detective, hair in her face. The door opened and I followed her white stocking legs up the stairs.
The door opened. A tall guy with taped glasses and frizzy black hair greeted us. He said, “It’s a fish.”
“She’s a fish,” said Suzie.
“Who? You? You’re a fish?”
“Excuse me? The fish is a fish.”
“It’s a fish.”
“No, she’s a fish.”
He turned his head with his eyes on her, suspiciously. “Are you Suzie?”
“At your service.”
He walked into the apartment wordlessly and after a moment we followed. Then I recognized people. Alvin, my musician friend was laughing it up with two women. He wasn’t an attractive dude but he told great stories. I vaguely knew those women but Wiley and his girlfriend Dana were in the deep windowsill. I went to them first.
“Wiley. Dana.”
“Manny,” Dana said, kissing me. Wiley said likewise, patting my shoulder. He pulled me down onto the sill between them.
He said, “Did you drop out of Wagner’s class?”
My heart lost air. “Did I say I was going to?”
Wiley had a deep voice and a gigantic Adam’s apple followed by lightening bolt sideburns. He said, “I don’t know. I took Wagner, remember?”
“You didn’t drop it though, did you?”
“Strangely no. Anyway, that girl came with you.”
I looked across the room. Suzie was showing the fish to some people by the faucet. I said, “Suzie. We brought a fish for whoever lives here.”
Dana said, “Why?”
I was blank. “I don’t know. Suzie just wanted to buy a fish but we didn’t want it.”
Dana said, “You kind of seem like a married couple.”
“You banging her? Asked Wiley.
I looked at him blankly. Dana said, “Wiley.” Then she said to me, “Manny. What’s the deal with Suzie? Are you having intercourse with her?”
I smiled and decided not to answer right away, hands gripping the sill. “We’re just friends. We never had sex.”
Suzie came to us with the frizzy haired kid and a girl whose hair was in a big bun and wore a sparkly, black retro dress. She stared at me, smiling with the fish thing. The tall guy suddenly gave me hid handshake. “Louis,” he said.
“Manny.”
The girl doing likewise said, “Kristin. Manny, Suzie says you wanted me to have this fishwoman.”
“Wiley said, “Fishwoman?”
Suzie giggled. Louis said, “Suzie says you thought we could all name it as a ceremony.”
I lost more air in my head. “I guess we should get everyone in a circle.”

There were about eight of us. Louis, Kristin, Wiley, Dana, Alvin, the two girls next to hum and myself found spots to sit around the rectangular coffee table. Only candles were burning. Kristin joined last, gently placing a small wooden salad bowl on the glass table next to the oddly plopped bag of water. She held the bag above the bowl, slowly untying it. She said, “What shall we call this fish?”
There was a cough. Alvin said, “Can we decide on the gender first?”
Kristin replied, “I doubt it.”
Dana said, “How about Tigris, after the river.”
Wiley said, “Or Babylon.”
Kristin replied, “You guys have a biblical thing going on?”
I said, “Babylon or Tigris is good. Since Babylon reminds me of the town on Long Island that I only know for being a train line and for being the place I brought drugs when I was 17, I’d prefer Tigris personally.”
Suzie said, “I second that.”
Alvin said, “Right on, man.”
Kristin said, “Any objections to Tigris?”
There was none. She said, “I hereby declare this fish, Tigris,” and poured it into the salad bowl. All of the water poured in. She put the empty bag on the table and stared into the bowl with drooping shoulders.

Alvin later played us a song on an acoustic guitar. Whatever he sang made everyone laugh but I paid no attention. I looked at on of the girls that Alvin was talking to, all dressed in blue, shoes, stockings, skirt, shirt, vest, jacket, necklace, bow. I leaned over to Suzie and whispered, “That girl is really wearing blue.”
She hesitated, smiling, which almost made me laugh and she said, “She’s like sadness.”
I put my face in my hands. What was Alvin singing? “All day long I listen to the neighbors live.
“I listen to them argue, and talk about film
“I listen to them flirt and eat their food
“I listen to them scheme a way to do
“Something that would make me stop listening.”

When I was in the window by myself, Kristin came to me. I asked, “Yes?”
“I like the fish.”
I shook my head. “I’m sorry. Now you have to feed it and wonder it it’s your fault when it seems sad and you have to wonder what to do when it dies.” I put my chin on my palm, looking out the window, feeling as though I was killing her.
She stood silently. I could see her dimly in the glass. She muttered, “Are you alright?”
I stared back, hollowly, not sure what the answer was. “I, um, am glad you like Tigris. It was really Suzie’s idea. She’s very creative.”
“She’s having a wild conversation with everyone.”
“What about Alvin? Is he telling stories?”
“I don’t know.” She sat next to me. She played with her shirt.
“Are you alright?” I asked.
She smiled, “So is Suzie your friend but you want her more than that?”
“Did I give you that impression?”
“I don’t think so. Let’s just say I like to figure people out.”
“Do you go to school?”
“Yes. Anthropology.”
“Oh.”
I know. Not whatever you were thinking.”
“I’ll come back and stop shitting on your party.”
“You can be sad in the window if you want.”
I laughed. I stared at her.
She said, “I can sing you a song.”
I pulled my legs together and sat cross-legged.
She began, “Oh Manny man, getting a suntan in my window.
“Oh Manny man, where is it that you went to?”
“Everyone wants to hear you laugh.
“Everyone wants to hear you cry.
“Everyone wants to hear you say the wrong thing at the wrong time, Manny man.”
I got up and joined everyone and sat down. Suzie continued. “That was the last time I ever used a public pool.”
Louis said, “Yea, that’s pretty gross.”
Suzie said, “Manny. What was one really gross thing that happened to you?”
I thought about it. “Um. Well, no I can’t tell that story.”
Come on!” cried Alvin. “We all shared some gross, embarrassing story.”
“Um. Well. There was a pedophile in the men’s room at the Jay Mart when I was 16. Well. Man. He showed me his dick…” Everybody leaned in to hear. “And it was covered in some sort of lotion.”
Alvin said, “That’s it?”
“No. That’s not, sadly. He- you see, I’d rather not say.”
Everyone cried, “Tell us!”
So I said, “He shot his stuff on my shirt and on my arm.”
There was an anonymous “Ew.”
One of the Alvin girls said, “What did you do?”
“I left the bathroom and walked all the way across the store to the food court and took some napkins.”
Suzie said, “Is that why you won’t go in big stores like that?”
“Maybe that’s partially why but I still get bugged by guys like that, especially at Grand Central Station.”
“Well, if you were a girl,” said Kristin, “Even regular guys would bug you out everywhere.”

On the subway with Suzie, I looked over at some girls in short skirts, wondering if I was one of those “regular” guys. Daringly, I said, “I hope I’m not creepy to women.”
She stared rather blankly at me. “Why would you be?”
“I don’t know. I talk to girls I don’t know sometimes.”
“But I’m sure you don’t holler at them. You also probably do it like, if you’re sitting next to someone in a waiting room. You ask them about an article they’re reading. You say, ‘What’s your thoughts on cloning because I was just having an intense conversation with my professor about that?’”
“Yea,” I sighed. “Yea. Is that creepy?”
“Well, if you start off with talk of cloning mice, or any mouse experiment. The point is, you know, like when Natalie Portman goes over to Zach Braff in the waiting room in that movie, it doesn’t count because she’s Natalie Portman with pigtails, sitting with her legs up on the chair and if it were the reverse and he was smiling and being adorable, it wouldn’t be the same.”
“She didn’t have pigtails in that scene.”
“No?”
“Anyway, there’s a dozen people every day that I might want to talk to but don’t.”
“I bet there are people that are already your friends, that you have alone time with, that you love, that you want so bad, but for some lame reason, you never go for it.”
At the thought of what I might say my chest hurt. I tried to not premeditate or think too much of it, like a Zen warrior, like life is just a dream and it really doesn’t matter how things turn out, as long as you take chances and live a little bit. “I like you. You know that right?”
She stared at me emptily again but with some intense gloom. Her eyebrows afterwards, went up.
I looked over at the subway door. She punched my arm. My stop was coming up. What to do? I looked at her eyes but she didn’t look back. I said, “This is where I get off.”
“I was just going to ask,” she said.
“I’ll see you soon. Today was fun.”
She nodded. “I’m sorry I make you feel awful.”
I for some reason smiled. “I’m pretty sure it’s not your fault.”
The doors opened. She hugged me quick, her open arms over my closed ones, and I went out. The train shot away and ethereal bees buzzed around above my head.
I wrote about the whole experience on the remaining ride home and only occasionally thought about the war, space travel, artificial fertilizers, show tunes I liked, and how much money I had left. “When I get home,” I wrote down, “I’m sleeping. No internet hysteria for me.”
I walked inside. It was almost 3AM. I refilled my water bottle, put it in the fridge, brushed my teeth and crawled into bed. I got up and went on the computer. I looked in my inboxes and saw nothing but petitions I might have missed the deadline for. Then I broke my chastity and went into Face Book. Suzie didn’t send me any messages. I searched Stacy and checked out her profile. It said she was interested in men but married to Rebecca Troy. What? I was into Rebecca Troy too so I clicked on her. Hers was the same, strait, married to Stacy Magette. Whatever, I thought. I clicked on ‘send a message’ to Rebecca and wrote, “Hi.” Then I realized if I like both of them it was going to be weird if I messaged Hi to either of them in the longer run. I turned it off and went to bed and tried to escape under closed eyes. I began to think about gypsies. Were there still gypsies? Do gypsies have websites?
I fell asleep and about 15 minutes in my phone vibrated on the floor next to my bed. Oh man, I thought, “It’s probably Jane in some funk on Long Island.” I reached over and mumbled, “Yes?”
There was a soft, nice voice, “Manny?”
“Yes?”
“It’s Suzie.”
“Oh, shit. What’s up?”
“I’m sorry. Are you sleeping?”
“Maybe. I think I have this dream often.”
“What? I didn’t hear you.”
“Nothing. Never mind.”
“I just wanted to apologize for not really responding to what you said. For some reason it didn’t occur to me that you might feel that way.”
“Thanks. Hey. I um. See, I didn’t want you to avoid hanging out with me.”
“So you didn’t think I would feel the same?”
“You might.”
“I don’t. I don’t feel the same.”
“You shouldn’t. I’m bad news. Once you get stuck on me you’re in serious jeopardy.”
“I like jeopardy. I watch it with my grandmother. For some reason I know stuff that she lived through and she forgets the names of things.”
“Do you ever just not say the answer or question of things?”
“That’s my goal but so far I’ve not successfully held back. I think it’s because my father used to compete with me when I was a little girl. Say the answer was, “This mermaid wanted to be part of that world.’ He would scream, ‘What’s the Little Mermaid?’ before I got a chance.”
“Does he still behave like it? Does he pressure you to do well in school, like that?”
“He sort of stopped paying attention when I was 15. Don’t worry about it.”
“I’ll not worry about it but maybe later you can tell me.”

The sound of machines woke me up after five hours of sleep. It was a constant grind. I put on the same pants as yesterday and a new t-shirt, put my water bottle in my bag and went out down the sunny street, past the construction site, wondering if they knew they woke me up and were ruining the Earth. I grabbed a coffee from the deli and got on the subway. I took out my journal and right away tuned into a conversation.
It was a late teenage girl, maybe 17, wearing job interview clothes, talking to apparently her mother. “If I don’t get in,” the girl said, “I will stop believing in God.” The mother laughed but the girl’s face was strait.
“Then Ashley,” the apparent mother said, “I hope you don’t get in.”
The girl’s head turned sharply. “Why? Why would you say that?”
“If you’ll stop believing in God just because they don’t accept you,” and she was staring at me seemingly consciously, “I hope they reject you. It’s better to lose your faith when you’re younger.”
“What does it even matter if I believe or not when I don’t get into this school, when it’s the only thing that’s mattered to me for, shit- my life.”
The mother laughed again. The daughter looked over at me and I didn’t bother to look away. “Hi,” she said.
I put one palm up, not even moving my arm, half smiling. Then I wrote the date in my notebook.
“Mother and daughter. Daughter is stupid. Mother’s smart. They know I’m listening. Anyway. Coffee is good. Another day I’m off track- tired. Don’t give a shit. Need to find a job but I’m on train. Will probably just walk around all day.” I drank my coffee, looked at the girl who saw me look at her. “Need a plan. Should go to Robin’s office with a plan. Text her I need a plan. Plan in Central Park. Then go to Robin’s office with a plan.”
In Central Park I sat on the grass tapping my book with my pen. It said Plan up top. I wrote the number 1 on the top left corner. A tall, skinny man wearing only white from shoes to weird hat with antennas sticking out like a bug and white gloves sat ten feet from me. He had a beard and glasses, seemed lost in reverie. I nodded at him. He nodded back. I wrote down, “We could start easy with petition. Video petition is more spreadable, animated. I can start with this dude.”
I approached him with my camera. “Hi.”
He just nodded.
“Can I video tape an interview with you?”
“Yees,” he said.
“Cool.” I turned the camera on. “What do you think about gas drilling in New York?”
“Umm. Umm.” He put his finger on his chin. “Is it bad?”
“Yes. It wastes and contaminates water.”
He gasped. “I like water!”
“Me too.”
“Are you done?”
“What is your name?”
“White Thing.”
“Do you live in New York City?”
“Yees.”
“What is your occupation?”
“Umm. Um. I make comic books and I perform as my characters at some places.”
“Do you have powers?”
“Yees. White Thing can white our errors.”
“Can you white out Natural Gas Drilling?”
“I guess. Umm. I maybe can.”
I stopped recording. I asked for his information. In my book he wrote. “White Thing. 719-519-7219. WhiteThing00@gmail.com www.SpaceBrainComics.net.”

I walked through the park. After some time, thinking about microwave usage, how much money I had left, going to Robin’s office, and jumping through sprinklers as possible a dated childhood activity, I spotted Kristin, that hostess from the night before. I walked right to her, quietly. She said, “Hey… Manny.”
“Kristin.”
“So strange.”
“Well, you’re not too normal yourself.”
“What? Oh,” she pushed me. “No. This is strange. It’s a huge park.”
“And I only saw you,” I counted on my fingers, “ten hours ago.”
“I saw you five hours ago.”
“Oh, um, on the internet?”
“No,” she rolled her eyes. “In a dream.”
“Is that true?”
“Could be.”
“Are you going somewhere?”
“I have studying and so forth to do so yes.”
Okay. Listen. Let’s talk again. I’m not always manic by the way.”
“Damn. I love mania.”
“Well too bad because I’m sane and not-oh, whatever, I don’t know. Oh! Well like, can I interview you for this environmental thing some time soon?”
“Okay.” She jotted information in my book and I was off to Robins.