Carmiel Banasky - The Suicide of Claire Bishop

C3 (FROM C1, C2, A2, & P4): NICOLETTE USES THE ENERGY SHE CAPTURES FROM PAINTING TO TRAVEL THROUGH TIME.

I must find the falling woman, who is now most certainly alive — for the painting is keeping her from jumping. Because if one of those unfortunate events, for instance the suicide, were to actually occur — well, it’s impossible according to the logic, but if it did, it might, mightn’t it, rip a hole in something important.

With my glasses off, it is much easier to press my cheek firmly to the street Nicolette painted in the fifties. But the fifties mean something different to her than they do to the rest of us. They might, mightn’t they, be tomorrow from her perspective!

There is no reason to assume that the way we experience time and space says anything about the way it actually is — the math shows us as much and so does literature. Western stories rely on linearity, but some African storytellers will tell multiple stories simultaneously and one story will trip into another, entwining past and future. They’re on to something true and here’s that truth: there are many more dimensions than we can possibly imagine. Our inability to experience them only goes to show that our experience isn’t sufficient to say anything about anything!

A young couple passes me and points. From where I am, pressed to the ground, the bottom halves of them edge quickly around the corner. I feel terrible for them. They have no idea what a beautiful, magical world they live in.

The saddest part about all of this is that Nicolette will never experience her own end. She’ll never be her own old woman. She pops up here and there, reappearing and disappearing without a trace — which explains her absence this past year, and why her phone stopped working.

It must seem natural to the people around her; she fits into whatever timeline she lands in. She’s probably seen all of history, she might have fended off the Spaniards with the Lenape Indians or been a Viking. But that kind of power must be taxing. I saw the rage she carries firsthand and it was like a jug of sand balanced on her head. But I never realized its vastness, and that in it was all the sand of all the beaches in the world. There’s gold buried in there, sure, but who would want to dig through all that despair to get at it? In that dangerous handbag, she lugs around suicides and murders and loss and sorrow. She must be terribly sad.

A car honks. Three deliberate honks. From my hunched position, I spot a sedan sitting behind me. I hop up on the sidewalk, wave and watch it pass. And there — did you catch the license plate, Watson? A vanity plate that says BEE-OCH with a sassy cartoon bumblebee on its frame. Everything points to Jill.

Here’s a truth: she thought my disease was her fault, that she triggered it. I never told her otherwise.

How much do you know about schizophrenia? Not much, probably. Maybe where you are, there is no word for schizophrenia, it’s just normal. Like asking the universe what it calls the universe. But don’t feel dumb — even the doctors in this dimension don’t know much, especially its origin. Is it hereditary? Unclear. Is it frontal lobal? Don’t know. How do we treat it? No clue! Even though we have neuroimaging now! All these generations of medication are guesswork.

One more stop: Bushwick. A detour to verify my previous conclusions, which could still be false. If Nicolette were just avoiding me, it would be simpler. She wouldn’t be in danger.

The apartment building — the address the jerkwad posted online — is an old tortilla factory, or maybe it was pencils, not meant to be residential. You can smell the asbestos and other things that could kill you, seeping from the mortar. Apartment fourteen — but the buzzer doesn’t work. No choice but to try all the buttons then wish I could wash my hands.

A Hasidic man opens the door. “Can I help you?” he asks.

“No,” I say, about to turn, but I cannot let my fear get the best of me. “Yes. I mean. I’m looking for Nicolette.”

“Hm. Are you a relative?” he asks.

“No.”

“Lucky you,” he says. “She owes me rent. I haven’t seen her since spring.”

“Oh,” I say. All I want to do is leave. “Maybe it got lost in the mail.”

“If you see her,” he says. But he doesn’t say what I’m supposed to do.

It’s all coming from Jill. He’s the one who told me to read about the bees, and all this talk of disappearing names. Since Jill works in the gallery building, it follows that he works for the Hasids, but he’s never mentioned them, and is that a clue in itself? Jill is either my friend or foe and I must find out which to move forward with my plan.

I figure there can’t be many male Jills running around New York City. Back at home, I run a quick search for “Mr. Jill” NYC law , since he said he did some law work. And what do you know — there’s article after article about him breaking the law. Jill Hayes, the anarchist. Jill Hayes, the draft dodger. I follow him from one protest to the next. He’s easy to spot in the Village Voice archives even though he’s since acquired forty years of wrinkles and weird facial hair. He was at nearly every draft-card-burning rally ever and went to jail like six times — which is, for some reason, exciting to me. There’s a great picture of him in handcuffs, looking like he’s about to bite the camera. He probably keeps that clipping with him. Another photo has him holding up an anti-fascist banner with three other boys and a woman under the Washington Square Arch. The woman’s face is blurred in an attempt to escape the picture. There’s also a small article in a local paper from Rochester, Michigan, of all places, about Jill and a cleaning company being accused of robbery in the eighties, the charges dropped. Unless there’s another Mr. Jill Hayes floating around, exactly the same age.

There is so much information. And it’s all mine, only a millimeter or millisecond away. It makes me euphoric. It almost makes me feel like I’m in love. When I get incredulous about information technology, I imagine myself in a period film, and that period is now, and people in the future are watching and I’m voicing my incredulity in dialogue, and they laugh because it will be an inside joke with the audience because yes they do have cell phones that work underground but they aren’t called phones anymore because they’re implanted in their brains.

But then sometimes, there’s so much information I feel nauseated. I can’t differentiate the vital from the trivial. Like the consumer reports I read every day: it’s all there, on the same plane, equalized, and how should I presume? How should I know what to read? Who am I? I am no one. I am only a consumer, a ragdoll sponge of language.

And the National Geographic that Jill gave me? Turns out there’s some mite going around and whole hives are disappearing around the world. That’s the gist of the first couple paragraphs anyway, but it’s hard to concentrate with letters coming unglued from the page.

And in the gallery, the Hasidic man said, “We are disappearing.” Who is “we”? The Hasidim?

My phone chirrups on the table. It’s Jules, as if she’s listening in on my thoughts and is trying to interrupt them. Could she be? But she wouldn’t understand. Jules never knew Nicolette.

“Jules, quick, tell me how big the Hasidic population is.” I hope that Dan isn’t there but I’m afraid to ask in case he’s listening in.

“Hello to you, too.”

“How many people you think?”

“What? I have no idea.”

Calmly, slowly, I say, “Hello. Isn’t there a census number you know or something?”

“No one I know fills out the census. Are you all right?”

“Why?”