The Jeweler
You land the internship at Solomon Brothers
after your freshman year, it continues every summer
until graduation,
when you get,
the offer.
It’s a salary higher than anyone in your class.
It’s obnoxiously high, 350K,
more than a lot of doctors with years of experience.
At twenty-three, you surpass the income of your parents
who are pretty well-to-do,
you surpass them put together.
And you earn every penny,
working late hours.
You do the research, the analysis, the leg-work,
you find foreign investment opportunities
relatively safe, offering the magic +12% return.
You are out one night at the Tapas bar by the office.
They have a special on charred octopus,
the Tempranillo is flowing
You are working late and agree to go out
with the one other woman on your floor, Sherry.
You don’t even like Sherry, but you need
to keep the lines of communication open,
even if you have to listen to her vent
about all the episodes of sexual harassment she endures.
Normally, you would be sympathetic,
normally, you would go to HR, and encourage her
to sue the shit out of the firm.
But Sherry’s been somehow accessing your files at work
and presenting them as her own.
A few changes here and there for plausible deniability,
but you did a test. You created a bogus report
on a Brazilian rare metals mining concern.
She presented it to a partner, and was called out
on a group email for inaccurate numbers and projections.
But, Sherry wasn’t chastened by the experience, no.
She gave that partner a blowjob, and
all was forgiven, and
she kept riffling through your directory,
looking for work to pass off as her own.
When Sherry tells you about the junior associate
who keeps showing her DP porn on his work-station,
you make a half-assed attempt at outrage
until you notice a man who seems out of place in the bar.
He clearly does not work in finance
or trading,
Cute messy hair,
not fussed over intentionally messy hair,
the real thing
His clothes had paint splattered on them,
Not like the artful paint splotches of some thousand-dollar jeans,
No, genuine, paint splatter.
He’s tall and pale with thick-rimmed glasses, kinda nerdy,
but you can see he is well built.
There are some muscles filling out the sleeves
of his faded, thread-worn T-shirt
Who invited Art Loft Bed-Stuy Boy to the finance-bro bar?
You wonder.
He sees you looking at him,
and immediately excuses himself
from the suits he was talking with
and walks straight over.
You can look hot, if you’re going out, but it takes time
It’s an operation: wardrobe, hair, make-up.
You are not in hot mode tonight.
You’re wearing your “dumpy” suit, it’s a bit more loose fitting
for when you are on your period,
which you’re on.
You don’t have the killer Jimmy Chu shoes on
It’s the comfy brown, round toe flats with a bow.
Your hair has been in a ponytail all day, and it still is.
You were feeling haggard after a long day of work.
So it was a bit surprising that this man is approaching you.
“Hey, I’m Dave, do you wanna go for a walk?”
Not exactly the most artful pickup line, but then
you were never particularly wooed by clever banter.
It was a defining moment for you.
You were always so measured, a planner, risk averse.
The beat of the music,
thumping in the background, becomes very present.
It had been there, but until Dave spoke you hadn’t noticed it,
but now you feel it, and it drives you off your bar stool,
Sherry looks on, eyes wide, mouth agape.
You take this stranger’s arm and march out of the bar,
leaving her with the hefty bill.
Dave is the polar opposite of all the men that you work with.
He’s an artist.
He’s not focused on money, at all.
He paints extremely realistic street scenes,
“Photo-realistic,” is the term for it, you learn.
He talks about finding beauty in concrete sidewalks, parked cars,
and the garish facades and signage of fast-food restaurants.
“You should see them. Do you want to go to my studio?
It’s like a fifteen minute walk from here.”
As you walk, you told him about your drive to succeed
in the gross old-boys club.
He tells you about his dual citizenship: Swiss and Mexican.
You had walked the well-worn, albeit, typically male path
to success and wealth.
He had wandered, making friends all over the world,
making art, enriching his soul.
He is the yin to your yang,
You were never terribly creative,
but you always appreciated art, music, and film.
You see him as a way to encourage and nurture that creative side.
And he admires your strength, and your ‘cunning’ as he put it
Infiltrating the frat house and sticking it to the ‘man’
just by succeeding in that world
When you get to the studio apartment:
large windows full of light, exposed brick,
And breath-taking pictures, almost more real
than photographs.
The piece that he is working on is
the exterior of a Dollar General at night,
the yellow light cast from the sign reflecting
off the shiny surfaces of the cars parked nearby.
You tell him, “You captured the light perfectly.”
He kisses you.
There in front of his canvas,
the intoxicating smell of oil paint, pigment, and
turpentine hanging in the air.
It is unlike any kiss you have had before
unlocking a deep feral lust
you never knew was inside of you.
At first you were nervous because you were on your period
But when you tell him, he says,
“I don’t care. I like it.”
You fuck Dave, really fuck him,
This is not love making,
though you feel very strongly for him,
This is dirty monkey sex, bodies slapping together
And unlike your past experiences
it doesn’t come with any bullshit:
none of the games of waiting to see when he’ll call, if he’ll call,
none of the games of wondering if he was seeing other people.
He calls a few hours after you leave
and tells you that he is falling in love with you
and wants to see you right away
It’s a lightening courtship
You both know right away
It’s love, overpowering and inevitable
It feels like fate,
Something you are both somehow powerless to stop
You decide to move-in together after just three months of dating
You have enough saved for a down payment
You buy a condominium in the financial district
Close to your work, plenty of space for the two of you
And his studio
He is the missing piece and once he is firmly in place
You feel solid ground under your feet
In a way that you hadn’t felt since you were a little girl
Living in your parent’s house.
All that wasted time and effort in the dating scene,
Done forever.
That energy can be expended at work
Where it was repaid handsomely in salary increases and bonuses,
Real Money, lots of it.
Before long, you make partner,
the first woman at Solomon Brothers to do so.
You pushed Dave to commercialize his work more effectively
You hire a social media consultant, Misty
She has a great portfolio, she’s young and cute,
And fortunately, gay, which eases your mind
Because of the time she spends with Dave.
She creates time-lapse videos of his paintings and posts them
You hire a designer to create a website and a portal
to purchase limited edition prints of the paintings
with links to upcoming gallery shows
Dave starts earning some money
He hires an assistant to help with the paintings
He’s getting a little cocky about it too.
You joke about turning an anarchist painter
Into a robber baron capitalist
Success seems to be building on itself to new towering heights
Marriage and kids just made sense
You ply your connections and get an announcement
In the New York Times
A destination wedding in Zurich where Dave’s family live.
You meet them for the first time just days before the wedding.
His parents regal you with stories about Dave.
All of them somehow share the theme
the primacy of all things Swiss.
As a young man Dave, bought a rusty old Cadillac convertible
And drove through the desert in Northern Mexico
where he struck an Armadillo causing the car to veer into a ditch
flipped over,
he was ejected from the car and mangled his left arm, nearly severed
He made a call on his cell,
Swiss medical insurance
They helicoptered him out of the desert within an hour,
He was stabilized and
on a chartered flight to Switzerland within hours,
and under the expert care of his Swiss doctors
He fully recovered.
There always seems to be more to Dave,
Some wild story of his past, or some hidden talent
That you do not know about.
Back in the City you settle into a routine together
You work long hours
and he adjusts his work and sleep schedule
So that you have time together every day
The weekends became sacrosanct,
you do not work on weekends unless there is a project
that absolutely demands it
You travel with Dave, quick getaways to
Paris, Mexico City, Zurich, London, Athens, Barcelona and Madrid.
He has friends in every city
there are fun gallery shows and amazing dinners
where you are treated like royalty
After a couple of years you get pregnant
You both feel that this is a continuation of the adventure
You are sharing together
You have to keep going at work, the salary is just so high,
And the year-end bonuses are breathtaking.
You buy a pied-a-terre in Paris with your last one.
You keep working,
Dave is happy to spend time with baby,
And you hire a nanny, so that he can get work done
Your son, Paris, arrives after twenty-six long hours of labor
So named for the city in which he was conceived
He is an absolute delight, you never imagined loving someone
As much as Dave, and now this beautiful little baby
‘somehow draws even more love from your heart
Your body aches to be away from him
But after two weeks of maternity leave,
you return to work as planned,
But you tell yourself that you’re playing the long game
Building something for your son’s future.
After a move to a larger apartment with Central Park views
your daughter, Amantea, is born less then two years later
While her birth is much faster and easier,
Your pelvic floor is ruined,
A sneeze, a cough, any kind of exercise
Triggers a small flow
You have a surgical mesh implanted
And that helps, but does not fix the problem
Dave keeps joking about having a threesome
With another woman
It is probably because it was taking a while
To lose the baby-weight
With the assistance of a personal trainer, dietician,
And plastic surgeon, you get your pre-baby body back,
Not your pelvic floor though,
Nevertheless, you are starting to feel invincible.
You truly have it all: the husband, the kids, ownership of a central park view,
a fit body, and the career.
It is at this pinnacle, when it starts.
You are out for dinner,
The new Michelin starred restaurant
It took considerable time working your connections
To get a reservation
You are supposed to be celebrating your recent promotion
To managing partner,
a significant increase in profit sharing is on the way,
including a grant of options that will create generational wealth.
your as yet unborn grandchildren and great grandchildren
will benefit from you and your ambition and work
It’s in this champagne moment of triumph
that Dave announces: “I want us to do marriage counseling.”
“What?” You respond, dumbfounded.
Counseling:
“I feel like you don’t respect what I do.”
“That’s ridiculous, of course I do.”
“Please don’t try to invalidate Dave’s feelings.”
“But it is ridiculous, I support him, so he can do art.”
“Do you see how she lords her money over me?”
“Dave is right, you are using your financial position as a weapon.”
“I’m not, and I love his paintings. I hired the social media consultant and the web-designer, and came up with the idea of limited edition prints to help make more money off of them.”
“So now, my success as an artist is because of her.”
“Can you see you how from Dave’s perspective, it may seem that you are trying to take credit for his art with comments like that?”
“No. This is bullshit!”
Somehow each of the therapy sessions
Seems to revolve around the theme
of your toxic relationship with money
According to Dave and the therapist
your pursuit of money is ruining the marriage
But, Dave knew you were in finance at the outset
He enjoys the lifestyle you share
How is it? that your working hard
for the benefit of the whole family,
is something negative?
“All this talk about how toxic money,…
Is it though?”
“What are you driving at?”
“Well you don’t seem to mind my toxic money. You don’t seem to have a problem with taking seven hundred and fifty dollars for two hours of therapeutic bullshit.”
That was your sixth and final session of couples therapy.
Shortly after,
you are at your desk, a zoom meeting
with some of your highest net worth investors.
The market has been extremely volatile.
They are spooked.
The returns on the firms accounts is not keeping pace
with the accounts of some competitors,
You sell the long game,
the firms investments in Singapore maritime infrastructure
will start generating healthy returns in the next year,…
You are midsentence when a scowling, stocky, bald man
wearing a shirt and tie under a warm-up jacket
bursts into your office.
You reel back in your chair
a stack of papers is thrown onto your lap
You yelp
“You have been served.”
“It’s a shock.”
That’s what you keep repeating in conversation
With your girlfriends and family,
When you describe your grief
At the loss of your partner, the failure of your marriage,
And the feelings of rejection.
“It’s a shock.”
that’s what you tell the partners
during an emergency meeting
that was called after your investor meeting
You were nervous about it
But felt you were on fairly solid ground
A divorce, a personal family matter,
With feelings involved, is out of your control,
you couldn’t be reprimanded
For it, could you?
Ron, one of the founding partners, chair of the board,
Did not waste time, no greetings, welcomes, introductions,
Or formalities,
“You cannot, under any circumstances, allow discovery orders
from a Court, to get into firm accounts.”
“My lawyer says that it is fairly routine in order to get a valuation
for dividing assets.”
“Routine, or not, you will be terminated for cause, if it happens, it is in your contract.”
“Ok, but my lawyer talked about protective orders and measures to insure our client’s confidentiality.”
Charlie, another founding partner chimes in, “We don’t give a rat’s ass about protective orders. The lawyers, once they get one piece of information, they use that to try to get more, and more, and more. It will be hundreds of thousands in legal fees just to keep up with the requests and limit them.”
“The cost is not the point,” Ron chides. “It is the potential loss of confidence from our clientele. Their identities, the amounts held with us, the returns on their investments, all of this must be held in absolute strict confidence. To allow some Family Court hack attorney to root around in our financials, we can’t have that.”
“How can I possibly stop it?”
“Negotiate your way out of discovery.”
“But, I’ll have no leverage.”
“Yes, you are going to take a bath. You are going to swallow the bitter pill, because there is no alternative.”
Frankly, it’s a little concerning to all of us that you didn’t have a pre-nuptial agreement in place,” Charlie chimes.
Because you earn the money, you have to pay Dave’s attorney’s fees.
In the first year those fees amount to a quarter of a million dollars.
Dave is granted full physical custody of the children.
You share legal custody.
You are granted visitation
on the condition that you and not a nanny
spends time with the children.
He gets to remain in your apartment
and you have to move out.
You will split the value of it, if he ever moves out, which he won’t.
You move into a one-bedroom apartment on the Upper Eastside.
It has two small windows facing north, one in the living space,
and one in the bedroom.
There is a third small window in the adjoining kitchen area
that opens onto an airshaft.
You discover that it must be kept closed
because the smell of pigeon dung
is overwhelming if it is open.
Dave gets half of everything,
half of your savings accounts,
half of your actively traded stock account.
He gets half the value of your partnership stake in the firm
which because you could not engage in discovery
was overvalued and you had to offset that
by signing over the deed to the apartment in Paris,
and more than half your retirement account.
He also gets a sizable alimony award, as his attorney explained it,
he is entitled to remain in lifestyle proximate to the one
he enjoyed during the marriage.
Two weeks after the divorce is finalized Misty moves in with Dave,
And her girlfriend, Leighton, moves in as well.
You had assumed that Misty was safe because she was gay
You realize the fallacy in that assumption and
Wonder if she and Leighton have been fucking Dave this entire time.
They are living as a threesome.
For a moment you wonder if this arrangement
Might give you leverage to gain back custody
But a few google searches suggest that a Court will not care
About non-traditional relationships,
Provided that the children are well cared for.
When you go to pick up Paris and Amantea for your visit
These two bitches are in your apartment, that you paid for,
They are playing ecstatically with your kids,
You should be living there, playing with your kids in your apartment
“We just love them sooooo much,” Misty declares,
her voice dripping saccharine.
“Can I talk to you a sec?” Misty pulls you aside in the foyer as you watch Leighton play with your children.
“Sure.”
“This is a little awkward, but Dave asked me to address a couple of things with you.”
“….”
“First, we’ve decided that we want the kids to grow up without screens, and we know that you have tablets and TV in your apartment, and we would really appreciate it if you would support us in not exposing the kids to screens at such a young age. You know, it’s about brain development, and it’s just not healthy to bombard them with that kind of stimulation all the time.
“…”
“Also, I know it probably is not your fault but Paris was talking about the cockroaches in your apartment. He’s really scared about them and says he doesn’t want to go there anymore. I really think you should get that taken care of.”
“Are you finished?”
“No, sorry, no, the cockroach thing was something I just remembered, no the other thing is: it’s really not ok for you to talk with the kids about the custody arrangement. You’re traumatizing them. Dave, Leighton and I went to the court’s parent education program together and we really got a lot out of it, that was one of things. I know that the last time you were in Court, you hadn’t done it, but you really, really, I mean really you should do it, not just because it’s required and everything.”
With each of the items she goes over with you
You feel yourself getting more and more angry
Somehow her reprimand about the Court ordered parenting class
It causes something to snap inside you.
You had heard of out-of-body experiences
you had never experienced it,
When misty reprimands you about the parenting class,
You start to watch the entire scene as if it was a movie
You can see yourself grabbing two fistfuls of Misty’s hair
And driving her face down with a jerking motion
Onto your right knee, which shoots upwards to meet it
You had never done anything like that before
Maybe you had seen it before in a TV show?
“Where did that come from?”
“Who is this person?”
You question as you watch yourself from outside yourself.
Misty let out a shriek when her hair was pulled
It was cut-off when her face crashes into your knee
Her nose explodes, gushing blood
Onto your suit pants, and the floor.
“Misty!” Paris yelps.
“Just Go! Leighton screams at you.
You are brought back inside your body.
“Go, now!”
You stumble out of the apartment.
The word, “Fuck” cycles like a mantra in your mind
on the cab ride back to your shitty apartment.
When you arrive outside of the building
There’s a police car with flashing lights.
They ask you your name
when you get out of the cab
And when you tell them,
they grab you by the arm,
Cuff you and
Warn you not to make any statements.
You were pushed onto the hard plastic seat
in the rear of the cruiser.
As you are driven to the police station,
The officer says,
“You broke her nose.”
“…”
“Bad luck for you. They had a nanny-cam, caught the whole thing.
Hey, you train?
“What?”
“Do you train? You know MMA, it looked like maybe Muay Thai, so have you been training?”
“…”
The police photograph, fingerprint, and book you.
You learn that booking is just getting all your information
The booking officer tells you
that you will be released on bail
From the police station,
as soon as an officer authorized to grant bail
comes into the precinct.
You wait in a holding cell,
A few hours longer than all of your products
Can keep you smelling beautiful
For hours your only company
is the malodorous mélange of
Your own feet, armpits, ass,
and bad breath,
growing in intensity with stress
of wondering what would happen
“Get you a shower, girl” an officer advises
as you are released and handed:
a summons to appear in criminal court
and a restraining order.
In the cab ride from the police station
You get a call from one of the in-house attorneys at your firm.
Per your contract you will be terminated if the case is arraigned.
They will not have a high-level employee much less a managing partner
with a criminal record of any kind.
You go home and get into your dingy shower.
You used to have a spacious one
with floor to ceiling tile
A glass partition, multiple shower heads,
A radiant heated floor, heated towel bar.
Your new one is a plastic bathtub that is delaminating
It is stained and pitted and impossible to clean
The space inside it is so small that
The polyethylene curtain always seems to cling
To some part of your body at all times.
Nevertheless, after your stint in lockup
You take a shower that lasts forever
Soaping and re-soaping, washing and conditioning,
But somehow the smell of your own body
It is stuck inside your nose.
It does not go away.
The next day you called Dave’s attorney,
“You are the gift that just keeps on giving.”
She tells you that Dave and Misty are willing to drop the criminal charges
if you agree to supervised visitation with the kids,
once every six weeks,
so that they can adequately deal with their trauma.
When you hear those words, you weep.
You weep for hours,
snot flows, you turn bright red, you can’t catch your breath,
and you vomit, and only then fall asleep.
The financial part of the bargain didn’t register
Until later.
You have to increase the alimony and
“adjust” the division of marital assets,
Signing over the entirety of your interest
In the apartment.
You can’t afford to live in Manhattan.
You move to Bayonne, New Jersey.
It is a large house converted into three living units.
Your neighbors in the other two units are on Section Eight vouchers
you learn from the real estate agent
who takes thousands of dollars in a finders fee
for this almost windowless gem of an apartment.
You are demoted from managing partner
with a significant cut in salary and profit sharing,
because of concerns about your legal troubles.
A company-wide email heralds the announcement
Of the new partner, blazing new paths, and setting
a fine example of the firm’s commitment to
gender diversity in leadership positions, Sherry.
When you call Dave’s attorney to ask about a reduction in alimony,
she laughs.
“I am almost going to feel bad about billing you,
my one hour minimum of $1,000.00 for this call.
I’m almost going to feel bad because
I haven’t laughed that hard in a while.
Just to be clear,
I am charging you though.”
You can no longer afford independent coffee shops or Starbucks,
You get your coffee in the morning from Dunks.
The only way to make it taste ok is to add some sweet foam
It’s not even that many calories
And you discover that the food there, breakfast wraps,
Are affordable, if not that tasty, convenient
You forgot how much you loved
donut holes as a kid
You ask for just a few with each order
Undressing one night after a long day at work,
You notice a deep welt around your waist from your suit pants
You put the pants back on to make sure that they are the cause,
One of the semi-elastic seams lines up perfectly
with the angry red groove in your skin
You notice that the button is straining in its closure,
some of the threads are loose
That’s it, no more .
But, that’s not it, in the morning you get your Dunks,
Resolving to buy a coffee machine
and make it at home
You’ll save money and
You’ll avoid the temptation for sweet things
You can’t seem to get around to
Buying the coffee machine
You are being careful about it though,
only a few donut holes, here and there,
you splurge on a coffee roll only once a week,
but that’s only once a week
maybe more than that, but only if you need a little
cheering up, like a little pick me up.
You buy one pair of suit pants,
A size up, from Marshals,
Because you’re not going to spend money
On pants you’re not going to need
Once you get in shape.
And these pants are only for those days
When you’re feeling particularly puffy
But the pants are pretty comfortable
And you find yourself wearing them, all the time.
Then one morning during the hustle
To get ready for work
You put on your comfy, one-size up pants
And they are tight, really tight
You buy a cheap digital scale from Duane Reade
On the way home from work
After everything you’ve been through,
The math of it, hits you real hard
It’s been six months since
You’ve been able to see Paris and Anatea,
Outside of your once every six weeks
Supervised visitation at the YMCA
With all the other criminal parents
And over that period you steadily gained
Five pounds a month
You are thirty pounds over your ‘normal’ weight.
That’s it, this is your call to action
Your doing supervised visits at the YMCA anyway
Might as well hit the gym there too
It’s a heavy downgrade from your previous gym membership
An exclusive, invite-only spot in midtown
where Celebs tended to go.
There would be no smoothie bar, cyro-chamber, or massages
You pull out your old workout gear
It’s been over a year since you’ve done anything serious
You get on the treadmill at the Y
And do thirteen minute-mile pace,
That was slow for you before
It is painful now,
you feel your body jiggling
that extra weight seems to send
shockwaves through your joints
and your baby-wrecked pelvic floor
causes urine to leak out of you
with each footfall
You had planned for this by putting
A heavy flow maxi-pad in your panties
It quickly became wet and heavy
Like a sodden diaper
And the inside of your thighs chafe
Terribly against the edges of it
You barely manage a mile
You are flushed and unable to catch
Your breath.
As you make your way back to your apartment
You feel a throbbing dull pain around the front
Of you right knee.
“You can’t go from 0 to 60,” your doctor admonishes you
After an examination he concludes that it is probably,
“runner’s knee, your weight gain is putting stress on all your joints, no gym for six weeks, and when you do go, start with walking a few times a week for a couple of weeks, then look at a look at a ‘couch to 5k plan,’ you can start mixing in some short runs with your walks, intervals. Also, I want to get some blood-work done, in light of the weight gain.”
There goes your fitness plan.
You may as well indulge a little now
You can’t do anything about you fitness for six weeks anyway.
You’ll get back on track, once you can exercise
You’re not going to stress what you can’t control right now.
“I have bad news but I am going to off-set it with some good news”
“Ok.”
“The bad news is that you have pancreatogenic diabetes. The good news is that with some weight management and medication we can get it under control.”
“Is that like pre-diabetes?”
“No. We don’t use the classification type 3, it’s problematic for a number of reasons, but your past pre-diabetes, stages one and two.
“I don’t understand.”
“It’s not your fault. It’s most likely a genetic predisposition. All of that being said, adopting a healthy lifestyle with a lower carb, lower sugar intake, as well as regular exercise will go a long way to preventing further development of the disease. You will have to take insulin to manage it.”
“Like injections?”
“Yes, but it’s not like you have to jab yourself with needles like in the past. There are pneumatic systems. You will have to get a blood sugar monitor, and you may need to jab your finger from time to time to get a reading.”
You are on your way home from work one evening
And you start to feel sick, headache, nausea,
Your heart starts racing
You feel shaky and your vision goes blurry
After trudging a few blocks
You realize that you are feeling, low blood sugar
And there is the orange and pink sign
A few bites of a strawberry frosted donut
And you feel good again, like magic
It is comforting to know that you can do something
When your body starts rebelling against you
There are things that can be fixed.
You spend every minute of free time
In the six weeks before your visit
with Paris and Anatea,
Planning how the visit is going to go
The activities you’ll do together
You’ve taken to craft projects for Paris,
Something that he can take home and keep
To remind him of you and your time together
Fingerpaint for Anatea
On the eve of your next visit
You get a call from Misty
“Misty, I don’t think I’m allowed to speak with you because of the restraining order.”
“Leighton, couldn’t call because she’s at bar class. And, I think it’s ok, if I call you, anyway, Paris does not want to go to the visit tomorrow.”
There is triumph in Misty’s voice.
She knows that this is wounding you
More than anything else.
“I’ve told him that he doesn’t have a choice, and he’s having a tantrum about it. He is saying that he won’t go. I was hoping that you could talk to him.”
“Of course.”
“I’ll put him on.”
“Hello?” his tiny voice, just the sound of one word pulls on your heart.
“Hey Paris, I’m really looking forward to seeing you tomorrow. Mommy can’t wait. I have some really fun stuff for us to do.
“No.”
“I’ve got this 3-D wood dinosaur puzzle for us. We’re going to make a little dinosaur together.”
“No.”
“What’s the matter honey?”
“I no like that place, it smells bad.”
“Well maybe we can meet somewhere else?”
“No, I don’t like fat mommy. I like Misty and Leighton. I like my new mommies, not old, fat mommy.”
“That’s not nice Paris.”
“Fat mommy isn’t nice.”
“Paris, mommy is very nice to you and don’t use that word, that is very hurtful to mommy, you don’t want to hurt mommy, do you?”
“Smelly, smelly, fat mommy, fat, fat, fat.”
With a click of the receiver, your beautiful boy hangs up on you.
You are wounded by his words so deeply
that you are unable to call back.
And, you know that you are powerless to discipline
Your own child or process with him
The things that he is saying and thinking.
This is the first time someone has commented
On your changed appearance
Over the months you are closing-in on
Sixty pounds over your pre-divorce weight
That’s how you measure it
That’s the demarcation line
But you don’t smell
You have very good hygiene
It’s the Y
He associates you with
That mixture of rubber, sweat, piss,
and Antiseptic cleaner.
You have your fingerpainting session with Anatea
There is a void inside of you
Because Paris is not there.
To distract from that void
The following week you go on a date,
Marty, an accountant from tax firm,
that you work with from time to time,
asks you out.
He had asked a number of times
And you had always refused
You didn’t have time for
A bean counter
Now you do.
As you get ready,
After your shower
You are trimming your toenails
When the clippers nick
The flesh of your big toe
You put a band-aid on it
And go with closed-toe heel
For the date
When you first meet at the restaurant
You see his face register disappointment
In your appearance
He had made a date with pre-divorce you
He hadn’t seen you since
You had forgotten how alarmingly small his ears were
And his deeply and darkly recessed eyes
His body physically closing the sensory intake of the world
And his footwear, ugh
Brown leather wingtips with white sneaker bottoms
You imagine his thought process when picking them out,
‘dressy, but practical and above everything else, comfortable.’
When you ask questions about himself
He becomes animated, boastful even
Marty is training for a marathon
His first, he’s done lots of shorter length races
And last year, his first half, and now
He’s training up for the NYC Marathon
You joke about your recent treadmill and knee fiasco
He doesn’t laugh.
When you talk about yourself, he starts looking at his phone.
He pays for the dinner
and while you are finishing your desert
he excuses himself,
“I am sorry I have to get up really early tomorrow
for my run before work.
This was fun. I’ll call you.”
Marty doesn’t call.
Which is fine, because he was and still is boring.
There’s part of you that finds it hilarious
that Marty is ghosting you after your date
Later that week, at night, alone in your apartment
after a few glasses of white wine
You find it hilarious to leave Marty a VM,
“Marty, why did you leave me, I love you,
I want to have your baby Marty,
A bean counting, accountant baby
with you Marty,
You’re all I have ever wanted
I love talking about tax brackets
And qualified business expense deductions
I want you to tell me about the deductions, Marty
Tell me about them, while you fuck me.
I’m going to grab onto those tiny ears
While I ride that tiny cock.”
You cackle uncontrollably after each call.
It is the most fun that you have had in a very long time.
Of all the people who would get this joke,
Dave would have been right there with you,
‘Oh Dave,’ you muse.
And it becomes a ritual, once or twice a week
You have a few glasses of sweet white wine, Muscato
Even though you know it will give you a headache
And you crank call Marty.
There’s no harm in it. He’s clearly ignoring you.
He probably doesn’t even check his voicemail.
But, he is.
You are served a summons to appear in criminal court
The summons goes to you at work
This time it is not a partner that meets with you,
Or the firm’s attorney, this time it’s HR.
“This is all a misunderstanding. Don’t worry, I’m going to get it cleared up before the arraignment.”
“I’m afraid management has decided that your conduct with a valued vendor is unacceptable. We have a zero tolerance policy for sexual harassment, as I’m sure you know form the handbook.”
“Ha.” You snort, thinking of Sherry.
“This is no laughing matter. If you are not going to take this process seriously, I am going to terminate your employment here and now.”
“No. Sorry. I’m with you.”
“I am authorized to make you an offer with respect to discipline, short of termination.”
“Ok – what is it?”
“You will be demoted from associate to account communications coordinator. There will obviously be a reduction of pay commensurate with the new position, and opening that we have, is in our Houston office.”
From managing multi-million dollar accounts
you are now writing copy,
drafting client correspondence
and newsletters
When you step out of the airport at Bush Airport,
You are struck by the heat, over 100°
There’s temperatures like that in New York in the summer
But the humidity in Houston is other worldly, thick and heavy
The sweat from your body and the humidity in the air
Dampen your clothes almost immediately
You gave yourself a week before starting work
To get settled in and find an apartment
There is nothing, a commutable distance
You found yourself in a redhot real estate market
With skyrocketing home values, rents
And no availability
You talk with a local realtor who says ,
“Houston is a happening place, it’s a sellers market
and a landlord’s market”
There’s an opening not far from the office tower
Where you will work
She takes you there and you discover
That it is a trailer in Highland Meadows,
RV and mobile home park,
$1,400.00 a month, first and last month up front
with a security deposit equal to one months rent
and the realtor fee.
You have to liquidate more of your retirement
And incur all the penalties and fees to pay for it.
Still, it’s cheaper than New York City,
And it’s furnished and it’s clean.
You have never sat in a reclining chair
Your parents didn’t have them
You didn’t even know somebody who had one
Now you have a brown velvet Lazy-boy
Your now slightly larger frame
Fits perfectly into it.
And you quickly discover the lever
That raises the footrest
‘Hey, this is pretty good!’
You kick off your sneakers
and put your swollen feet up
For months now they’ve been swelling up
By the end of the day your feet and ankles
Are almost double size
The bandaid on your big toe is loose
The wound from the toenail clipper
had never really healed
You peel it off and you notice
A foul smell
Coming from the bandage,
Coming from your toe
You can’t really get a good look at it
You’ve lost some flexibility since the weight gain
It’s swollen and kind of wet looking
But it doesn’t hurt that much
You decide to wait for your first appointment
With your new primary care in Houston
In a couple of months.
It’s a pain to dress the wound every morning
But you don’t want your new co-workers
To see a weeping wound on your toe
And in the heat and humidity of Houston
You’re not wearing closed-toe shoes.
And though there’s a faint cheesy smell
About your foot
You can cover it with baby powder
When you finally are able to go
to your new primary care physician
He sends you immediately to the ER
Where you are diagnosed with gangrene
Emergency surgery is scheduled that day
To save your foot, to save your leg,
The surgeon explains, they have to remove
Your entire big toe
It was during the physical therapy
In the aftermath of transmetatarsal amputation
That you realize, you will never run again
You never understood how much you relied
On that big toe for stabilization and balance
Without it, you can barely walk
And with the decreased mobility
The pounds keep packing on
You have to endure the glances
And the too quick, look aways,
Of your colleagues at work
And people in the grocery store when they see
That your big toe is gone.
But you endure it
Because you can’t bring yourself
To wear confining closed toe shoes
In the heat
You favorite thing now
Your happy place is your Lazy-Boy
Watching HG network shows
Your feet up
You throw a tea towel over your foot
So you don’t have to look at the missing toe
And you have a little sweet treat from Dunks
There’s one not far from your trailer park
With a drive through
The Lazy-Boy starts smelling a little sour
You can’t help it
Every time you sneeze or cough
A little urine leaks out
And into the recliner.
Also you can’t help sweating into it
The rooftop mounted AC unit wasn’t great
To begin with
And you have to turn it off or you can’t
Hear your shows on the TV
It’s ok though, because you’ve discovered
This amazing candle that
smells exactly like fresh-baked cookies
You had been flying for your visits with Paris and Anatea
Every six weeks,
Misty did make Paris go
But when you lost your toe, you lost a couple of visits
And you noticed that the cost of the visits
Would not be sustainable with your mounting credit card debt
And the continued alimony and child support payments.
You keep a couple of photographs of Paris and Anatea
that you had printed at Walgreens on the side table
next to the cookie candle.
It’s like a little shrine.
And you plan to have a nice place,
Like one of the HG re-done homes
And some money so that Paris and Anatea
Can come and stay with you
Maybe for a whole summer.
You just need a little side hustle
On your drive into work you see a billboard
for Houston Community College.
Over lunch that day,
there’s a Filipino food truck that comes
to the office park where you work
and you just love the bistek tagalog
it’s a marinated beef stir fry with onion
and French fries mixed in,
While you much on your Bistek,
You search the classes at the Community College
And you land on a jewelry making class
The class is a taught by a Native American woman,
Galilahi, she is an excellent teacher
Able to describe the different processes
For creating settings,
She makes detailed drawings to illustrate her points,
And then demonstrates each step with
An overhead projector, so the entire class can see
You are a quick study
and before long you are soldering
silver bezel settings on turquoise, perfectly
You always thought that the stone and the color itself
was cheesy, somehow
But you learn that the Coushatta People
Believe that the stone will protect the wearer
From negative energy
You could use some of that protection
So you make a number of pieces
And you wear them
After class one night you approach Galilahi
“Where do you sell your pieces?”
You don’t really care about the answer
You are brimming with ideas about setting up shop
On Etsy and producing the jewelry on a larger scale
“I tried to sell online on Ebay, then Etsy, sometimes through social media, but it was all a bust. If you look online you’ll see piles of the stuff and the price is all that matters. The buyers online can’t see the attention to detail in the craftsmanship, or the choice of the stone: the properties, the tone, the depth of the color. And they don’t care. It’s just price and click. So, I stopped selling online. You can get way more from an in-person sale, and you can help the buyer see the value in it. I’ll show you. Do you want to see?
“Yes. I would love to.”
“Why don’t you bring a couple of your pieces, and you can sell them.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, it’s not a big deal, really.”
You discover that Galilahi has set up a make-shift stall
in the parking lot of a Raceway gas station
off of Route 45.
You see how she talks to the customers.
She tells a story
About the meaning of the stone
And her ideas about the piece.
She is very good.
Most people who stop by the stall,
buy something from her.
But, her prices are so low.
She is barely making a profit.
“Do you ever think about increasing your prices, maybe catering to a more high-end crowd?”
“I’ve tried selling to jewelry stores, selling on consignment with different stores. I’ve tried selling at higher prices. It doesn’t move. They don’t do me any good, gathering dust in a display case. I want to make my pieces and get them out there for people to wear and enjoy. I really like this, to meet the person who is buying one of my pieces and see them face to face, look them in the eye. You will see when you sell one… You haven’t sold one yet. We need to work on your look.”
She pulled a brightly colored wool poncho
from under the table and put it over you.
She also placed a large brown felt hat
with beaded band and a single brightly colored feather
on your head.
“That’s better.”
It was not better.
It was very hot in the garb
Out in the heat and humidity
of a Houston afternoon.
You roasted, your clothes soaked through under the poncho.
But, the outfit worked.
You sold a ring, to a teenage girl.
She talked you down on price.
It was exhilarating to sell something that you made.
You were able to sell all four of the pieces that you brought.
You made sixty dollars.
You planned to treat yourself to a nice dinner
in an air conditioned restaurant with table service,
nothing too fancy.
You would go home and get cleaned up and make a night of it.
But, when you pulled off the poncho it was damp and reeking
The hat was darkened with sweat
Large jagged blotches brushed with
The white salt of your sweat
You offer your hard won sixty dollars to Galilahi
for the hat and poncho.
She accepts.
“This was fun. You should come next weekend. Wear the poncho and hat, though, I don’t want your white lady mojo, messing with my sales, ok?”
“Ok.”