John Kenney - Talk to Me

“I’d say a one,” Ted said. “Maybe less than one. Can I go with less than one? I’m joking.”

“Are you?” Foot was still smiling. So was Ted.

“Not really.”

“Would you say you’re having suicidal thoughts or tendencies?”

“Thoughts? How do you mean?”

“Mmm. Great question.” Foot lit another cigarette. “I guess I’m wondering if you think about dying.”

“Maybe a bit.”

“Who doesn’t? Especially when I hear this rap music. I’m joking, of course. Do you ever think about dying, say, by your own hand?”

“Suicide?” Ted asked.

“Sure, let’s call it what it is.”

“Well, yeah. Yes. But doesn’t everyone from time to time?”

“Interesting. They don’t but that’s okay. No judgments. Do you have a plan?”

“Not really,” Ted said, taking a final drag of the cigarette, stubbing it out in a small ashtray on the desk. “I mean, it’s a loose thought more than a plan, a fleeting fantasy. Loose, though.”

“I make plans all the time. I planned on getting a haircut yesterday. Did I? Nope.” Foot laughed. “May I ask what the plan is?”

“Well, hypothetically…”

“Sure, sure,” Foot said, still smiling.

The idea seemed to come to Ted as if a forgotten memory, suddenly there, so clear. “I’m going to jump off the roof of my building. In my underwear.”

“Okay.”

“But first I’m going to defecate in the elevator.”

“Of the building?”

“Yes.”

“Interesting. And why is that?”

“Co-op board.” Ted shrugged, as if these two words spoke volumes.

“Good for you. Co-op boards… forget it.”

Foot tossed the second cigarette out the window and sniffled loudly.

“Okay. So, a little concerned here. There are all these… rules and regulations if someone tells you what you just told me. It’s a lot of paperwork, frankly, and a headache for both of us. Do you think you’re really going to do it?”

“Depends how much I have to drink tonight.”

“Ha! I’m right there.”

Ted laughed but it came out too loud.

“Bit of a curveball here, Ted, but would you say you’re sexually active?”

“Well… the divorce… and the incident… I’m not the most popular catch these days.”

“Still. You’re Ted Grayson.”

“True.”

“So…”

“I’m not…”

“It’s called a little blue pill.”

“It’s… I’m not… I’m not interested.”

“Not sure I understand.”

“I have no interest. It doesn’t cross my mind.”

“Like, for a whole day?”

“Days. Many days. Months. Longer.”

“This happens.”

“Does it?”

“Not often. But I’ve heard about it.”

“You have?”

“Not really. I want you to see someone.”

“Are they going to put their finger up my ass?”

“You mean my uncle Morty?”

“Ha.” Ted faked a laugh.

“I’m joking. I don’t have an uncle Morty. What good times we have, Ted.” Foot laughed. “How long has this been going on?”

“What?”

“The lack of drive, shall we say?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Since the incident?”

“Yes. Maybe a little before as well.”

“Could this divorce business have precipitated it?”

“Yes. Definitely.”

“My God, she’s an attractive woman, Claire.”

Foot stared off at his wall of diplomas and Ted had the sense that Foot was thinking about Claire.

“But also before the divorce?” Foot said after a few seconds.

“I think that’s right.”

“But maybe before that, too.”

“Possibly, yes. Maybe a bit.”

“A few months before, would you say?”

“Yes, I think that’s fair, a few months. Or maybe years.”

“Hmm. Ted, do you think you’ve been depressed your entire adult life?”

“I think that’s also fair to say.”

“Do you like pound cake, Ted?”

“How do you mean?”

“Pound cake. It’s nice.”

“What, like, as a cure for depression?”

“There are worse things,” Foot said.

“Okay. I’d like you to see someone.”

“So I’m depressed? That’s it?”

“I think that’s part of it. But I want to do a complete workup. The headaches worry me, though the stress in your life is enough to grow a tumor the size of a grapefruit.”

“You think I could have a tumor?”

“No one said anything about a tumor.”

“Didn’t you just…”

“I’m sure everything is fine.”

“Really?”

“No. It rarely is.”

Foot began coughing and couldn’t stop.

Ted walked across Central Park.

He made his way to the 1 train and got on a northbound train by mistake, only realizing at 110th Street and Cathedral Parkway. It had been a while since he’d taken the subway. He wore a baseball cap and had a three-day growth. Baggy clothes. To the casual observer on the 1 train southbound, he looked a bit like that guy on TV, only older and dirtier.

Ted came up out of the subway at Houston Street. He stood at Varick Street and had no idea where to go. He’d eaten half a banana at breakfast. He walked east. He saw a church at the corner of Houston and Sullivan and decided to enter on the Sullivan Street side. The doors were open and a priest was finishing Mass. Ted removed his hat and sat in the last pew.

The smell of incense, the place cold, a dozen, maybe fifteen parishioners. Mostly very old women and a few men, scattered about, heads bowed. He envied their good lives, their reverent lives, their giving lives, their spotless home lives, their Pine-Sol–smelling lives. Their Irish-soda-bread-made-each-Saturday-morning lives. Their chicken-and-potatoes-and-carrots-for-dinner lives and Jeopardy! at 7:30 and a crossword and to bed, up with the first light, the early Mass. Bless me, Father, for I have sinned .

Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us…

Ted listened, the words coming back from high school. Something about them, the rhythm and cadence, felt grounding. He folded his hands, and let his head fall forward. “Forgive me,” he whispered. “Please.” He sat for a time, after the Mass had ended. Go in peace to love and serve the Lord. What if you didn’t know how?

He walked outside, needing a bathroom. He walked down the stairs and entered a basement room in the church. Folding metal chairs were arranged in a circle, men and women of varying ages sitting and sipping from paper cups of coffee. The person who was talking stopped when Ted entered and everyone turned to the latecomer.

“Are you a friend of Bill’s?” one of them asked.

“Who?” Ted asked.

“Are you here for the meeting?” the man asked kindly.

“Oh,” Ted said, embarrassed. “No. I… I just needed a… a bathroom.”

The man smiled and pointed. Ted hustled away. He could tell some of them recognized him.

In the bathroom, which smelled heavily of disinfectant, Ted had a hard time starting a stream of urine, even though there was pain in his overfull bladder. He felt foolish for being here. Like some alcoholic homeless man. Don’t judge them, Ted, Ted’s other voice said. For God’s sake, these are good people just trying to make their way. They didn’t choose to scream at a sweet young woman, to call her a vile name, you selfish prick.

The shame washed over him again, as it did more and more. He winced and moaned audibly. His head hurt. His right testicle throbbed in pain. He’d leaned his head against the cold tile and had inadvertently changed his aim so that now he was peeing on the tiled floor, the splash hitting his five-hundred-dollar suede chukka boots. He was urinating on himself. This struck him as a new low. “I’m peeing on myself!” he said aloud.