Joshua Cohen - Book of Numbers

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I’ve been realizing only lately what I’ve lost. I used to just sit in a chair at a desk and search myself up and suddenly I’d be sitting in a certain type of chair at a certain type of desk, on a certain date, at a certain time, and at certain coordinates, with a certain weather forecast outside. Those days are over, though, those days and their access I’ve been withdrawing from gradually, groggily, like from an addiction, a relationship. I’ve been realizing only lately the exact precise upholstery of my ignorance. Everything creaks. Especially in the dark, the dark trafficless silence — everything creaks, internally.

How perverse is it that thinking of Rach, with her fly’s memory, consoles me? — how perverse that the only thing that calms me down is thinking of her in the same situation, unable to handle it, going insane? Her pda had this app that by the time I’ll be finished with this job, finished with this thought, will already be outdated, outmoded — by the very thought that it might be, it is. She’d hold her pda out in front of her like a cleaver, and click to camera a pic or vid or to record an audio snippet, and by that alone the app would tell her what it is, or was, which intel she’d then use to preempt me, test me, correct me when she suspected I was guessing, when she suspected I was lying in the hopes of appearing better or smarter or sexier: wondering by the reservoir, “What kind of dog is that, sniffing around?” Click, “A Pomeranian.” Wandering on Riverside Drive, “What kind of cat is that, grooming in the window?” Click, “A Siamese.” That woman ironing is La repasseuse by Picasso, and that’s a Morandi, I told her at the Guggenheim, at MoMA, and I was correct, but then later I called a Dix a Grosz or a Grosz a Dix and she checked and was irate — I told her the cab radio was playing September Song, composed by Kurt Weill, lyrics by (but everyone forgets lyricists), and she checked and yelled that it was James Brown, but then I yelled how it was a cover version, and though the app agreed she never apologized: “I wouldn’t have to do this,” she said, “if your confidence wasn’t such bullshit.”

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A memory, unsubstantiated, inherently “unsubstantiatable” (is that a word? what site can prove it’s not?). The first time Rach dragged me to psych, to Dr. Meany’s office, I spent the entire sessh inspecting the office, telling myself that its decoration would tell me everything I needed to know about him or perhaps would tell me nothing I needed to know because he too must have had this thought and decorated accordingly, which, were that the case, would tell me everything. I’d get the same intelligence from his wearables. His wordchoices.

Another memory. Once I arrived early, or late, on a Monday but the appointment was for Friday — rather it wasn’t an appointment with Meany but with one of the fertility doctors, though he was out, his receptionist was out, and I was all alone amid the indirect tracklighting and minimal tulips, and snooped. Or I tried to. The cabinets wouldn’t budge — they were all childproofed, or adultproofed, they were proofed against adults who wanted children, proofed against adults who were acting like the children they didn’t want to have (the greatest breakthrough I’ve ever had).

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I’d forgotten just how much of myself I’d outsourced, offshored, externalized. To Rach and Lana, to Moms. Externalized online. I’ve become so reliant.

It’s as if I’d presumed there would always be some woman or mother around, if not then some dusty storeroom in Ridgewood or even just a Jersey of unlimited storage that would hold everything for me, that would safekeep and recall me, so that no matter how far I’d go or how long I’d be gone, and no matter how many people I’d ghost, my own being or inborn self, who I was supposed to be, not who I was, would always be secure, if only in another’s sense of how they’ve been frustrated, disappointed, or betrayed by me.

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From: madamimadam@tetmail.com

To: jcomphen@aol.com

Fri, Sept 30, 2011, 10:24 AM

RidgeWood

We’ve been indated with rehearsals and gym and to have to deal with this I’m insensed but also pity you. Still we have had no response besides your agency’s assistant, Daniel Maleksen, finally reaching out to me to state (in writing) (email) that because he hasn’t been able to contact you if we were serious on the office front he’d have to hold onto your computer, though it’s Rach’s computer, but being over four years old it might as well be dead to her.

We are working to meet up.

You’re lucky that tomorrow 10/1 is a Saturday — Shabbos Shuvah, or Atonement — and that today I had no time to deal with this or Bob Onders granted us the last — the last — extension.

So if you have any interest whatsoever in salvaging your office on terms that are your own you must get in touch now immediately.

We have also had to take issue with the Amex. This is either between us or between our laywers and you and the fraud department unless you can admit it and be absolutely honest. Rach’s Amex has had a number of interesting charges recently that have only recently come to our attention, which none of the charges we have made. Rach does not remember ever having given you this card (copy of your own) and her own card she has in her wallet. But the fraud department has stupulated that a card for that account HERS WAS ISSUED IN YOUR NAME on 4/29/11 and mailed to you not at the billing address I’m writing from but to you c/o your office. I was activated on 5/4/11 for a charge so negible we must have missed the statement at the time, which would be June, for Amazon.com, who would not conform or deny or eithr turn over an account or shipping destination unless the charge was contested in which case they would but directly to Amex. We are guessing books. And you. And this is unconsciousable that you would commit fraud like this but we are “hoping for the best” even after a period of no activity besides Rach’s own legitimate purchases how it was lately brought to our attention (the account has since been canceled).

Namely (you might have had it stolen, or in loo of robbery had lost it, or the worst of the scenarios: you had it all this time and only now are using it impunitly): because now we received an irregular activity fraud alert for charges in excess of $4,482.62 from Baby Phat, Chanel, Dior, and “ASAQ” outlets, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. I tetrated ASAQ and got that it was “Abdul Samad Al Qurashi.” Then again about a week or so after that attack of 9/12, the card was used at “Kaufhaus des Westens,” Berlin, and throughout the month at Karstadt, Edeka, all Berlin, all tetrating as groceries, and then again repeated attempts at cash withdrawal including one just 9/ Monday that was rejected, according to the shah of the fraud alert team, “Teri” Lakshmi, for multiple wrong PINs, which you must have if it was you forgot. The Monday location was a Deutsche Bank AG, Kurf_rstendamm 182, and then a Sparkasse, Friedrichstra_e 148. We found this out only by luck because the primary number Amex calls to alert to fraud is our landline, which we just reinstalled after a full kitchen renovation (chelseakitchenry.com, maison-de-fantaisie-nyc.com), and the secondary number they are supposed to call with no response to the first is the cell, Rach’s old work cell, which she had paid for you on her plan, and attempted to obtain back verbally by leaving a msg on it that was never returned and neither was the cell relinquenched. This msg would have been left, Rach’s guesstimation, way back around 6/10. The cancellation of that phone from her plan was 6/24, but she is very angry with herself that she didn’t switch in her own cell as backup emergency with Amex, and you are cognizent I would hope of how it traumatizes Rach and gets her ticked to neglect something to neglect something.