On My Knees (3 page)

Hanna: “I wanted to make sure he was attractive, which always helps.”

Me: “I can’t believe this. And?”

Hanna: “I gave him my address and about an hour later I open the door and there is a tall, lean black man standing there! I said, ‘That’s not you on the website, is it!’ And he said that it was! I just assumed he would be a white guy—not that I’m racist.”

Me: “You are racist, actually. You always have been.”

Hanna: “Well, maybe I am, but that’s not the point. The photo of him on his website is black-and-white, so you couldn’t really tell and I didn’t want to argue with him. Then I asked him where his massage table was and he said he doesn’t use a massage table. He said he does the massage on the couch or the bed and that was when I started to hyperventilate.”

Me: “Why did you start to hyperventilate?”

Hanna: “Because I realized what I had done and that I couldn’t get out of it, and that was when I asked him if we could just do a regular massage.”

Me: “And what did he say?”

Hanna: “He said he was there to make me comfortable and I was the one who decides how far he goes.”

Me: “Okay.”

Hanna: “Right then and there I wanted it all. I knew I was going for it.”

Me: “Why? Because you felt like you could trust him?”

Hanna: “No, I just figured if I was going to pay a hundred bucks, I may as well get something out of it.”

She was a cheap racist, to boot.

Me: “This is an amazing story. Go on.”

Hanna: “He wanted me to get naked right away, which made me uncomfortable but then I thought of him as a doctor, so I got on my bed.”

Me: “Were you naked naked?”

Hanna: “Pretty much.”

Me: “What’s pretty much? Yes or no?”

Hanna: “Yes. But I put music on.”

Me: “What the fuck does that have to do with anything! Putting music on makes you
not
naked?”

This story was getting more outlandish by the minute.

Hanna: “Yes, Peri! I was naked! But I didn’t want to hear my thoughts so I put music on and buried my head under a pillow. He gave me a regular massage for like half an hour so by the time it turned sexual, I was really comfortable.”

Me: “And then? Were you turned on?”

Hanna: “Kind of. He was definitely teasing me, going around all the areas but not going there yet and then, next thing I know, he was going there. I was on my stomach and . . . oh my God . . . maybe I
should
call him again.”

Me: “Oh my God! Will you please go on!”

Hanna: “What do you want to know?”

Me: “What do you mean,
What do I want to know?
You get to the best part of the story and you ask me what I want to know?
What did he do! What happened next!
”

Hanna: “After thirty minutes of regular massage, he just started, you know . . . I can’t say.”

Me: “What do you mean you can’t say! Have you lost your mind? You’re a grown woman talking about sex! Get it together!”

Hanna: “Okay, okay! He started massaging me down there.”

Me: “
Down there?
What, are you a victim of child abuse? What’s
down there
?”

Hanna: “In my privates! I think he put condoms on his fingers.”

I started to freak out.

Me: “I’m not going to even address the fact that you just referred to your vagina as your
privates.
He put condoms on his fingers?”

Hanna: “I told you he was professional.”

Me: “I
cannot
believe he put condoms on his fingers! So he was fingering you?
Fully
fingering you?”

Hanna: “Yes. In both places.”

Me: “In
both
places? No fucking way! In your butt?”

Hanna: “Yes, Peri, in my butt! That’s what we’re talking about, isn’t it?!”

Me: “Keep going.”

Hanna: “The part that’s most important is that he was desperately trying to give me an orgasm and I wasn’t having one.”

Me: “Let me just get this straight. You are lying on your bed, naked, with an erotic masseur you found online fingering your anus, and you’re thinking what, exactly, at this point?”

Hanna: “I’m thinking that he needs to lay off the butt. And I told him to stop and he never did it again. Which was a real bummer. I’m sorry I ever said anything.”

Me: “So what happened next?”

Hanna: “He kept saying that he wanted to me to come. And of course, I couldn’t. I asked him if all the other women come when he massages them and he said yes. He really wanted me to have an orgasm and I told him it wasn’t him, that I can’t orgasm with
any
guy and then we started talking about it. He seemed genuinely concerned and then he stayed in my apartment for like four hours trying to get me off and of course, it wasn’t working
because I can’t come!
After a while, I wasn’t even horny anymore. I told him he should leave and on his way out he told me he could help me with my sexuality!”

Me: “So then what happened?”

Hanna: “The next day I called my relationship coach and signed up for ten sessions.”

I
started to wonder if this is what would happen to my life, too. I could deal with getting fingered by a handsome black stranger but I would kill myself if I ever wound up with a relationship coach. What Hanna needed and very likely what I needed was some good old-fashioned introspective therapy—and probably a swift kick in the ass.

3

On My Knees

W
hile Hanna was busy making a mess of her personal life and I was busy judging her, my own life was totally falling apart and I was doing everything humanly possible to ignore it. I missed Noam terribly and it had become eminently clear that we were not getting back together. Instead of getting easier, it was getting more difficult. I felt like a part of me had died and the only thing I could muster the energy to do was light my cigarettes. I felt totally unstable, like I was riding a wild bull. My safety net was gone and I was second-guessing myself in a way I had never second-guessed myself before in my life.

It’s not like Noam was an asshole or had done anything terrible, and this made it harder to reconcile the breakup. Ultimately, he was a wonderful guy who adored me. Most girls would have gotten married and started having kids with him—which is precisely what Noam had wanted. Part of why we had broken up was because I knew I couldn’t commit to it. And after being with him for a decade, I knew that if I still couldn’t make that kind of a commitment, I probably never would.

It wasn’t fair to either of us to stay together but I still felt broken and totally defeated. I started to wonder if I would feel like this forever and if I would ever find anyone who loved me like Noam had. After ten years, I was totally and abruptly unshackled. I had never been a depressed person but suddenly I didn’t want to do anything but lay on the couch.

In the midst of all this, my grandmother, in perhaps the biggest favor she had ever done for me in her entire life, dropped dead. That sounds a little bit more dramatic than it actually was. It’s not like she was fine and suddenly fell off a cliff. Since my grandfather died ten years earlier, her health had steadily declined. And even though she was pushing ninety I don’t think anyone expected her to die. She was tough as nails and a real firecracker. Grandma was born in 1918 and she was really kind of a groundbreaker. She went to college in the 1930s when it was unheard of for women to do that sort of thing and she didn’t sew or cook or clean. Nothing ever stopped her from doing anything and in a way I think we all thought she’d be around forever.

Her personality was larger than life and she said what was on her mind, no matter what. Even toward the end, while we were in the hospital, she complained that the doctors weren’t doing anything to help her and that she was being starved to death. When her doctor, a lovely Japanese woman named Dr. Fujita, offered to get my grandmother a sandwich, Grandma said, “Chicken sandwich? Chicken sandwich? How about you get me some chicken chow mein!”

Dr. Fujita giggled in the way that Asian people giggle when they are embarrassed and something really isn’t funny at all and quickly scurried out the room.

I was so mortified I almost crawled underneath her bed. I was like, “Grandma! First of all, that’s horrible! Second of all, Dr. Fujita is Japanese
,
not Chinese!”

My grandmother, who was essentially on her deathbed, said, “Your grandfather was almost killed in Pearl Harbor.”

Me: “What does that have to do with anything! It’s still a horrible thing to say! And since when did Grandpa serve in Pearl Harbor? I thought he was a traveling salesman!”

Grandma: “He was.”

Me: “So he served in Pearl Harbor before that?”

Grandma: “Peri, don’t drive me crazy with details right now. And you should really do something about your hair. I could turn you over and mop the floor with your head.”

It was impossible to tell if my grandmother was just being racist as usual or if she was suffering from dementia. When Jyllian, a cousin we hadn’t seen in years, stopped by, my grandmother didn’t recognize her at first. After she left, Grandma spat, “Who could be surprised I didn’t recognize her? She’s so swollen she looks pregnant!”

While Jyllian was telling Grandma about her new boyfriend, Grandma said, “Well, he’s got to be better than the last one. The last one looked like you dragged him out of the gutter.”

After Jyllian left, someone mentioned it was nice of her to have stopped by, and Grandma said, “You can’t make a silk purse out of sow’s ear.”

That, in a nutshell, was my grandmother. She was quick to judge, had a tongue like a whip, and regardless of whether you were interested, she always said exactly what she thought. She was funny and smart and the only compliments she ever gave were to herself. She could be great fun to be around, but she was super self-absorbed.

I had begged her for years to add my name on her lease so I could one day inherit her giant, rent-controlled apartment but she categorically refused. She was worried she would be evicted, she said, which was nonsense. Even at the end of her life, when there was no risk of anything, she wouldn’t do it. So while my father and his brother, who is affectionately known as Uncle Bark, were busy making funeral arrangements, I was doing what any New Yorker worth her salt would do—plotting to take over her apartment. The rest of my family was so fractured and dysfunctional no one even noticed that I had become a full-blown squatter. I thought maybe Jyllian would have the gall to show up with her hand out (which I was prepared to cut off) but she never did.

Uncle Bark, for his part, was pleased to keep the apartment in our clutches, as it was just another way to stay close to Grandma. As the youngest son, he was the baby of the family and very close to his mother. Uncle Bark is one of my favorite people in the world but he is extremely sentimental and hysterical, in every sense of the word. Uncle Bark is constantly bugging out about something totally insignificant.

For example, the first Mother’s Day after Grandma died, the whole family planned to go out to a Korean barbecue restaurant for dinner. Well, Uncle Bark had a fucking meltdown. He started going on and on about his diet and his high blood pressure. And then he started screaming, “I am
not
going to a Korean restaurant so I can have a stroke from all the sodium! You can all go to the Korean restaurant and I’ll go weep over my mother’s grave.”

So while he can be a huge pain in the ass, his bark is much worse than his bite, which is how he got his nickname. But I digress. Other than Uncle Bark and my parents, I’m not even sure anyone noticed I had moved in. Even during the week we sat shivah to mourn, I was surreptitiously hauling suitcase after suitcase into the apartment, but the errant family members were so wrapped up in their own greed that mine went unnoticed. My role as grieving granddaughter was never overshadowed by my real role as new tenant.

And just to be clear, I was tight with my grandmother. She was awesome in her own way. She wasn’t a particularly warm person but I knew she loved me and I loved her, too. She taught me to stick up for myself and not to take no for answer. And even if she didn’t really mean to, she taught me to follow my dreams.

I eulogized her at her funeral. And even though she would never have admitted it, I think I made her proud.

I have to start by thanking my father and Uncle Bark for setting such an incredible example. Though they can both be a real pain in my ass, I am positively humbled by the way they took care of Grandma. But to pay true homage to Grandma, this speech has to be spunky not sappy.

So here goes.

I am so my grandmother’s granddaughter. From my stunning sense of style to my fabulous fashion to my good looks, I inherited all of Grandma’s good points. And there were many. She was smart and sarcastic and sassy and witty and wise and she was fiery and funny and you could always count on her to tell it like it was. I’ve inherited that, too.

Grandma never gushed over me or showered me with compliments—not because she didn’t love me but because that just wasn’t her way. She showed her love in other ways. Like how when I told her I loved her, the way she would say, “And I love you, too, dear.” Or just the way when I would crawl up beside her and hold her hand and she would let me. Letting you was a big deal with Grandma. With Grandma, there were no free rides. You had to earn your keep. Grandma didn’t mince her words. Compliments were few and far between and that was fine because when they came, you knew she meant them. She said what she meant and she meant what she said.

Like when I would say, “Don’t I look gorgeous, Grandma?” She would answer, “You get it from me, dear.” And I did get it from her. I got a lot of things from her.

Many years ago, I fell down a flight of steps and hurt my back. Grandma rushed to meet me at the emergency room. They were taking forever to see me and Grandma wasn’t having it. Finally, a nurse came up to me and said, “Please, we’ll do whatever you want, just please keep your grandmother away from us.” I can only hope that I was half as helpful when she needed me.

Anyway, it went on a bit, but that was the gist of it. After the eulogy, Uncle Bark’s rabbi (who pulled up to the gravesite in a convertible red Porsche) told me that my grandmother was lucky to have had such a good-looking granddaughter, which was superclassy.

The other person who was classy was Aunt Ruth. Uncle Bark was fuming because Aunt Ruth, who didn’t even like Grandma and certainly hadn’t lifted a finger to help while she was alive, had actually approached him at the funeral home and literally, while standing over
Grandma’s dead body,
tried to take Grandma’s gold cuff off her corpse because it was “a shame to bury her with it.” If that wasn’t bad enough, she then asked what her cut would be.

I was like, “Listen, B, just tell her that you and I went through the will and what she’s getting will probably fill a condom. So she can bend over and I’ll shove it up her ass.”

Uncle Bark began howling with laughter. I knew he was devastated but I also knew I could always make him laugh with a good Aunt Ruth joke. Aunt Ruth was ridiculous. She was tall and large like a man, and she wore so much mascara she looked like a drag queen. She acted and dressed like she was a sixteen-year-old prostitute. A typical outfit for Aunt Ruth was a skin-tight dresses with her tits hanging out and a Hello Kitty handbag. Just looking at her was embarrassing. Beyond that, Aunt Ruth wasn’t even really an aunt; she was Uncle Bark’s second cousin or something. The whole thing was ridiculous, but apparently they had some huge falling-out about ten years prior and he was
still
upset about it. Pretty much what it boiled down to was that Uncle Bark might be crazy but Aunt Ruth sucks.

What made the whole thing that much more absurd was that there wasn’t even anything to divide. I mean it’s not like Grandma was a fucking Vanderbilt. Beyond that, as far as I was concerned, I was the one living there and possession was nine-tenths of the law.

And anyway, Aunt Ruth and Jyllian didn’t deserve anything. Ruth was a greedy, self-absorbed bitch. She didn’t even offer her condolences. And the apple didn’t fall from the tree. Jyllian, her illegitimate half sister, showed up at the hospital after years of being MIA and then again, out of nowhere, at the shivah—and with an entourage, to boot. We literally hadn’t seen her in years. She had distanced herself from the entire family upon finding out we had Spanish roots. And when I say Spanish roots, what I mean is that a hundred some-odd years ago some random ancestor was apparently of Spanish descent. As I’ve understood it, she was on FamilyTree.com or something and came across this and became irate at the whole family for “hiding” this information from her. As if anybody knew. Or gave a shit. In any event, Jyllian moved to Spain and hooked up with some dude who owned a youth hostel in Madrid. When she showed up at our grandmother’s house to pay a shivah call, with Felipé in tow, she was actually talking to me with a
Spanish
accent. And if it weren’t bad enough that she showed up at all, there were like six other Spaniards with her.

I was running around cleaning and serving, as was Uncle Bark, while Aunt Ruth was shoveling bagels into her mouth. To watch her would be to think the woman hadn’t eaten in a year and believe me, if you saw the size of her, you would know for shit sure that wasn’t the case. Before she piled whitefish, tuna, lox, cream cheese, and egg salad on
one
bagel, she said, to no one in particular, “I’m
starving.
”

I looked at Uncle Bark and whispered, “She doesn’t look like she’s starving.”

He immediately started laughing uncontrollably. The great French philosopher, Henri Bergson, in
Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of Comic
, concludes that laughter is corrective. I may have been depressed but at least I could still summon my sense of humor every now and again.

While I was trying to laugh my way out of a deep depression, Jyllian, Felipé, and their amigos sat in the corner, speaking among themselves
in Spanish
and barely even glancing at anyone else in the room. It was about ten o’clock at night and I’d been cleaning up for the better part of the past hour, trying to kick everyone out, but they didn’t bat a fucking eye. They were just sitting and talking and eating and I was at the end of my rope and couldn’t take it anymore. So I was finally like, “Listen up guys, I’m not running a tapas restaurant here. If you haven’t noticed, I’m cleaning up. If you haven’t noticed, I’m trying to close up shop here. In case you haven’t noticed, people are actually
mourning
here.”

A
nd I
was
in mourning—not only over my grandmother’s death, but also over my life, which was becoming a bigger shit show than ever. After I finally got everyone out, I went to bed. I woke up feeling like I had been hit by a truck and became totally consumed with dealing with the logistics of the apartment. Nightmare as this was, it was easier than dealing with my life. More depressed than ever, I spent the following days languishing about the apartment, drinking too much espresso, chain-smoking, and lying on my grandmother’s fifty-year-old pink, plastic-covered couch, watching episode after episode of
Law and Order: Special Victims Unit.

It’s funny how things work out. I had been coveting this apartment for nearly my entire life. And now here I was, actually
living
in it, and I was more depressed than I ever knew possible. To say nothing of the fact that the place itself was depressing—the apartment hadn’t been renovated in over half a century. My grandparents were cheap
and
had bad taste, which was reflected in everything they owned. The apartment was filled with all of my grandparents’ earthly belongings, and though my grandfather had died years earlier there was still tons of his crap strewn about as well. Plus, my boxes were everywhere and I was pretty much living out of a suitcase since there was no room to put anything.