Rabbit Rabbit #21: Kathy, I’m Lost
The day after is unseasonably warm. Nobody knows what to wear this November. A man sits on a bench outside the pasta shop, hunched, in a blazer and shorts. She said the man in the gabardine suit was a spy. Casey and I ride the M train, which creeps slower than usual over the Williamsburg Bridge, while a baby wails. She falls asleep just shy of Delancey/Essex. In the opposite window’s reflection we look dully tired and bored, like it might be any old thing gnawing at us. We were together on this day eight years ago, sophomore and junior in high school. “What are we saying at the meeting?” Casey asks. “I don’t know, I can’t remember,” I say. “I should’ve watched the last cut one more time,” she admits.
The night before, Katherine and I shared an Uber home from Casey’s, riding in silence while a crackly radio station repeated the news about a slimming path to victory. The bygone promise of Pennsylvania, this early in the night. Our driver didn’t speak. We slouched our brows downward and eyed one another, bewildered. “It feels like, like, 1982,” I whispered. “It’s historic,” she whispered back. The night had started feverishly and hopefully, with scoops of vanilla ice cream which melted in their bowls sometime after things began to slide in the swing states. Michigan seems like a dream to me now. Not even John King seemed to be having fun. The streets were deserted except for a bar on the corner of Evergreen and Bleecker, where a small crowd of people stood around a table holding beer bottles. I fell asleep seeing red and blue and the ‘CNN Projection’ checkmark across the screen of my mind’s dreamfield. The voices of nondescript political correspondents droned on in swirls until I woke up too early to upstairs neighbor clomps.
I text all the people who it wouldn’t be weird to text, which is probably about twenty. Some have already texted me. Comforting, when someone thinks of you, even when it’s obvious. I call my aunt. She answers in what sounds like a loud coffee shop, voices chirping. She’ll talk to me later. “Love you, Kyrs.” I picture her turning back to the group. That was my niece. What a relief, to belong to people. Flushed, I hang up, wrap a bagel in tin foil, open my phone for the 11-minute walk to the subway station.
Instagram explodes. Radio silence from the HQ account. It’s really happening, right? I screengrab a Tweet from a story about Locking TF In and creating hyper-local community. That sounds right. A survival tactic. Mutual aid organizations. Collective exhale Zoom calls. Screenshots of people’s dads’ eloquent texts in family group chats. A clip of that one super feminist line from Broadcast News delivered by Holly Hunter. A Toni Morrison quote about how there’s no time for despair; get to work, get to work, get to work. Make art. Write. Write what? Tell me what to write and I’ll write it.
Text from Vi: “I think I’m logging off for like a month”
Casey and I have a three-hour meeting in a swanky, dimly-lit editing suite on Crosby Street. My stomach growls an hour in so I eat the complimentary apple chips and a granola bar. My heart pounds aimlessly (the pounding is always aimless) the whole time and even though I tell myself it’s the perfect distraction I desperately want to swallow a beta blocker from my bag in the bathroom but don’t want to draw concern from our enthusiastic editor clacking away. I’m empty and aching and I don’t know why.
I can barely see due to the glaring sun once we get outside. A yellow haze envelops downtown. We’ve walked these blocks so many different times, it’s like every time is haunted by all the others. Steam billows up from under the concrete and a film of sweat collects on my forehead. We order to-go salads at Dig, which doesn’t have a line even though it’s lunch hour. I wonder briefly if I might pass out. I take the F to pick up two kids from school.
Voicemail from my aunt: Sorry she missed me…keep my chin up today…good luck at the meeting…tell her how it goes. I listen three times in a row.
At pickup all the beautiful Cobble Hill parents stand somberly, nodding to one another and watching their children line up in the schoolyard. I catch pieces of their screeching conversations. “Maybe tomorrow– hey, hey Layla, maybe tomorrow, we can share–” “My mom said that you can come to our house but we have to–” I wonder if the teachers held space for discussion during circle time or morning meeting or whatever they call it now. The teachers look tired. The parents of my kids text me. One of them has basketball at 4:30 and also they both cried this morning after hearing about the election so they may seem a little bit off, especially their eight-year-old son. They ripped up the Harris/Walz signs we colored and hung on Monday afternoon.
Text from Katherine: “wyd tonight”
“Nothing can I come over”
“yup”
“Need it”
“need the aaron hernandez doc and trailer park mom videos”
Text from Crugg: “I think she’s addressing the nation at 4?”
“Oh ya”
The kids are quiet and hold my hands. Halloween candy at home so no bodega stop today. Mrs. Wagner pies. “Can you believe how warm it is?” I ask gingerly. “I don’t even need my coat!” the daughter chimes back. “I made a bracelet that says GO DEMOCRATS in art today,” she adds. I say, “that’s a very creative idea.”
When we get inside the son buries his head in my chest for a second. He never does that. He gives me just enough time to run my hand through his hair. “I’m sorry about today,” I say. “I can’t believe she lost,” he says before twisting away to his room. He sets a 45-minute reading timer, which he never does himself. It’s usually a big fight. I read with his sister on the couch. Basketball, she wears her Clark 22 jersey.
When their mom comes home the four of us gather around her phone and watch a clip of the concession speech. “I saved it on TikTok for you guys,” she says. The kids stare but don’t seem to comprehend the words. “Wasn’t that inspiring?” Sure! Just before I’m out the door, she lays a hand softly on my back, which I think if I turn around might morph into a hug, but I don’t visibly react. Don’t want to create some big dramatic moment.
Salmon at Katherine’s (I have to call her to verify which filet I’m supposed to buy) and a 1500-person Zoom call with leaders from the Sunrise Movement to discuss how did we get here and what is the plan now. They mention something about the year 2029. One girl tells a story about the mosque in her town being burnt to the ground. Everyone thanks her in the chat. I’m slightly stoned and talk for too long in a breakout room with a professor from Pittsburgh. He and his wife sit on their couch in the tiny computer square, holding glasses of wine. Katherine gives me a crazy look from the stovetop and I immediately mute us, cackling. Broad City while we eat. Ilana is such a good friend. How is Abbi so freaking cute? Three episodes of the Hernandez docudrama. Ryan Murphy kind of made the whole thing about him being gay, which makes sense. We both cry when the Patriots draft him because we know what’s coming.
Home again, day’s over. I think about reading but instead open my laptop and watch the scene in Obvious Child when Jenny Slate crawls into Polly Draper’s bed and tearfully tells her she’s pregnant and getting an abortion and then Polly Draper surprise tells her that she had an abortion back in the day. Sometime around midnight all the women who will most certainly never live to see a female president cross my mind. All come to look for America. I use up the remaining tissues in the box. I am very tired. It’s so warm in my room that I fall asleep with the AC on.
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https://open.spotify.com/track/6dfhF1BDGmhM69fnCb6wSC?si=cf8a90d225554ff8
