The Pisces
Page 52

I lay down on the floor and noticed that I felt better. I was relaxed, somewhat high even. The bad sex had served as some kind of methadone. Dominic came over and licked my face, whimpering. I would take him out later, so what if he shit in the pantry. I could just go to sleep, I thought. Now I felt certain that it would be sleep, and not death. I knew that it would just be sleep.
But as I was drifting off, my phone rang. It was a Phoenix number and I answered it quickly, thinking that it might be Rochelle calling from her office to say that Megan had miscarried, or another piece of news involving Jamie. But it was the advisory committee, both the English and classics chairs, on the line. They were calling to let me know that they had read the outline and sample from my new thesis. Their voices sounded enthusiastic. Well, this was good! They were responding much more quickly than I expected. And having both of them on the call definitely signaled something big. Maybe they were so impressed that they were going to offer me more money? It was strange but I was so worn out that I couldn’t visualize either of their faces, only the rosacea nose of the classics chair and the hatching chick from the Easter sweater of the English chair. When they spoke, I imagined it was the nose itself speaking, with the chick chiming in as it emerged from its egg.
“There’s an unorthodox fluidity about the new work that’s very refreshing,” said the nose.
“Yes, the decreased omniscience, the infusion of romanticism. This new iteration is very powerful,” said the chick.
“The voice of critical omniscience wasn’t your strong suit,” said the nose. “Or perhaps, you didn’t believe what you were saying before and that’s where the thesis faltered. After all, if you couldn’t convince yourself, then how could you convince the reader?”
“I don’t know,” I said.
“The new thematic scaffolding creates a much more sound dialectic,” said the chick.
“Great,” I said.
“Having said that, we regret to inform you that the departments will no longer be able to fund this project,” said the nose.
I was stunned.
“What? Why?”
“To be frank, with this new infusion of personal thoughts and feelings, it can no longer be considered a scholarly text,” said the nose. “This sort of personalized narrative just isn’t what we do around here.”
“The truth is, as readers, we are genuinely glad you’ve pivoted,” said the chick. “Your prior thesis clearly wasn’t working.”
“But unfortunately, the departments only receive funding for projects that further scholarship—not hybrids of scholarship and creative writing,” said the nose.
What was I going to do for money? How was I going to live?
“Can I reapply for it somehow?” I asked.
“Unfortunately, we won’t be able to instate it,” said the nose.
“Can’t or won’t? Don’t you decide what gets funded?”
“To some extent, yes,” said the chick.
“But we can’t deviate too much from what the university has traditionally focused on,” said the nose. “We have to retain a tonal continuity.”
“So what you’re telling me is that this version is much better than the last version. But you were willing to fund the last version and not this one?” I said.
“That’s right,” said the nose.
“Well, what if I just go back to the old version? Hammer away on that?”
“Unfortunately, that isn’t going to work,” said the chick.
“Why?”
“We were always skeptical of the original premise of the thesis and now you’ve convinced us that the reasoning was faulty.”
“Plus, we want to encourage your creative breakthrough.”
“Great,” I said.
“We suggest that you seek out a mainstream trade publisher, or reapply to a program with a more creative bent than Southwest State,” said the chick.
“But you won’t pay for it?”
“No,” they said at the same time.
52.
I returned to the rocks. I knew I belonged there. If there was going to be desolation, no number of terrestrial men could fix me. I needed to go to the ocean, the primal tap, where the catalyst of my illness swam freely. If I was going to be alone and full of despair, let me at least be desolate here. Let me go cold turkey in the place I now loved most. Maybe it wouldn’t be so cold turkey after all? Maybe the fumes of memories could bring me down more gently. Only once in that week of waiting by the rocks did someone bother me. A lifeguard drove by in a jeep and asked me if everything was okay. I wanted to say, Well, actually, if you really want to know… but instead I said that I was fine. Then I told him I was a scientist conducting a study of the waves.
“You know you’re not supposed to be out here this late at night,” he said.
“I know. But it’s for the good of the tides.”
“Are you sure you’re okay?”
“I’m okay.”
Then everything fell silent and he drove away.
I took this to mean that I was supposed to be there. I was surely being tested, to see how strong and devoted I was. It was like I was part of some ancient worship ceremony, only instead of leaving candles, food, or wine at the altar, I was leaving myself. And instead of an altar there was the ocean. I would look out into the waves and for a moment I would really believe that I saw him. I had never seen him out in the waves, he never swam close enough to the surface, but now I constantly hallucinated him. Usually he was a bird skimming across the water. Once he was a dolphin. And every time, when what I thought was him would turn out to be only seafoam, or the wind blowing on the water, I wondered how much of everything I had seen or thought I’d seen in my lifetime had been only illusion like that. I wondered if anything was really living or if anything had ever lived.
53.
One night, asleep on the rock, I awoke to two hands on my shoulders. They were his hands. I was not dreaming, because they never moved or loosened their grip. I was not dreaming, because I had just dreamed that I was alone, back in the desert, and the dream still vaguely lingered in my mind. I dreamt that I was in a diner outside of Phoenix trying to choose a cake from a glass spinner case of desserts. I was having difficulty seeing the cakes. They were blurry, crumbling, old, and stale. In their staleness they were turning into dust right in front of me. They were turning into nothingness. But the waitresses insisted they were there. The waitresses were all members of the group: Diana, Sara, Dr. Jude. Everyone was urging me to pick a cake. They had formed a circle around me and they were cheering me on. But I couldn’t choose a cake, because I couldn’t see them. And when I tried to explain that I couldn’t see them, the group would echo in unison, “But they’re right there.”
When I awoke, I thought that I was still in the diner for a moment. Then I felt his hands and I knew that I was on the rocks, by the ocean in Venice Beach. Immediately I knew whose hands were on me. It was as though I had become the rocks and this was the first time we met, when I saw his hands on them for the first time. Only now, some other part of me was witnessing the whole thing and his hands were on me. Then his face was in front of my face, a wet lock of hair in his eye.
“Hi,” he whispered.
He had always been there.
He kissed my forehead and kissed my mouth.
“Hi,” I said.