Moon Square Venus - 1. Moon Square Venus

Moon Square Venus

He’s standing in the window. Just standing there. Why? It’s not like here’s a lot to see. Just a few dumpsters, their tops open, empty still since yesterday was collection day. In the daylight, the houses and stores are painted pastel colors; at night in the streetlight, everything’s washed out to various shades of gray, looking like that deserted town on that Caribbean island that’s covered in volcanic ash. The only colors that break through the grays are the Asian gang taggings spray-painted on the garage doors. Well that and the black metal grills locked up tightly over isolated doorways.

It’s just a block or so from the convention center, and during the day the traffic from Sixth street sounds through the apartment, coming in on the breeze from the windows that are always open - you can’t escape from it. But tonight it’s silent as a tomb -- Tehama street’s as dead as a doornail after dark. It didn’t use to be like that. Back when the sex club up in the next block was still open, there would be people coming and going all night. Isolated figures striding with purpose down the street around midnight, looking for all the world as if they were on their way to an important meeting. An interview perhaps. And then around three or four in the morning, the same figures moving in the opposite direction, walking with a jaunt if the evening had been historic or with a slink if it had not. But all that had stopped years ago when the place closed down. Now the neighborhood was locked up tighter than a drum after the few Italian and Thai fusion restaurants closed around eleven.

By now there can’t be anyone out or anything going on, so what’s he looking at? The clock says it’s after three and he’s opened the blinds and is just standing there. The bay window sticks out about four feet over the sidewalk, and the light from the streetlamp shines through the half-open blinds, stippling his body in black and white horizontal stripes as he stands on the fake parquet floor.

He’s been doing that a lot lately, standing. In the window. In the grocery story aisle. And in the park next to the fountain, under the stand of tall, skinny eucalyptus trees that smell like Pine-Sol and have their long strips of bark perpetually falling away like the skin of a burn victim. I almost scared him shitless the other day when I came upon him in front of the paint chip display at the hardware store, pinching a small square of Federal red and staring at it, lost in thought. I hate it when he thinks. I hate it when I think. Too much thinking is too much of a bad thing.

I’ve always thought too much. Analyzed too much. Teased the strands of truth out until there was no thread left. Endlessly debated all sides of a proposition. A committee of twelve living in the head of one. Tevye grafted onto Escher-Bach, the paralyzing discussion running endlessly back and forth, feeding on itself:

But on one hand…

But on the other hand…

But on the other hand…

But on the other hand…

If fate gave me an unlimited treasure, I could analyze it into a worldwide depression. That’s just the way my mind works. I’m fifty-two and he’s barely forty and we’ve been together for ten years and I don’t look as good as I used to and what does he see in me now and what did he ever see in me anyway and I’m sure there’s someone else out there that he’d be much happier with and he’s just staying with me out of pity and will I cringe and beg when I see resentment in his face and what will I do when he ends it, lowers the boom, let’s the other shoe drop, walks away?

(Breath)

See? That took all of a few seconds. From treasure to depression.

On the way home from the restaurant tonight it was clear, no fog, no clouds. You could see the stars, which is unusual in the city. As we cut through the park, I slung my arm around his shoulders and looked up and was amazed. The moon, full and big and brighter than I’ve ever seen it. Bigger and brighter even than the Harvest Moon from the headlands above the Golden Gate in May. And off to the side, Venus, too bright to be just another star. And off to its side, Jupiter, fainter and a little lower. All three in a row, blazing against the black sky, beautiful and significant and terrifying, like something from a horror movie – a sign portending the end of times, the apocalypse. Vanessa would know what it meant. She knows all that astrology stuff. I should call her next week and we can get together for lunch and she can tell me what it means. I only remember a little of what she taught me all those years ago - the moon is emotion and Venus is love and Jupiter is….well, Jupiter is a good thing, I just don’t remember what exactly. And houses and orbs. And aspects. I remember about aspects: trines are good but squares are bad. Something about resistance and challenges and lessons to be learned. There are always lessons to be learned in my horoscope, dammit. That’s one reason I stopped having them done.

The wind was cold on the way home, cold as the wind off the bay seldom gets. Cold and hard. But after the wine during dinner and the brandies following, it felt good, breathing it in and out. We made it home from the restaurant with no conscious effort, like we always do. We used to love stumbling down the street in the cold after a night at the bars over on Folsom, drunk on cheap beer and holding onto each other for support, sputtering and laughing loudly at something neither of us could remember the next morning. And once we would get here, we’d get out of our stinking, smelly clothes and curl up together on the red velvet fainting couch in the bay window, naked, trading sips of kirsch from a half-full plastic cup and holding each other for warmth while shivering from the cold draft that blew in through the window whose sash was broken and was jammed and couldn’t close all the way.

Damn, this apartment is always so cold. I don’t know why he stays here. It’s not like he can’t afford a real place now. He’s come a long way from the kid just out of school who I met one night at the Rawhide. He looked so alone sitting against the wall on one of those stupid stools with the fake bronze saddle seats. God, those things were uncomfortable. Not to mention impossible to get into and out of with any dignity after a few beers.

What line did I use? I don’t remember, but it worked. If I’d known at first how impossibly young he was, I would have turned and walked out and saved myself three hours of agony working up my courage. But I didn’t. I spoke and he replied and the rest, as they say, is history.

I’m freezing. And with the real estate market in the toilet now, it’s not as if he can’t afford something better. But God knows I’ve tried talking about it.

“Why don’t you leave this place?”

“You know I hate moving.”

“But I worry about you. This isn’t the best part of town.”

“It’s not that bad. And it’s getting better with all these condos they’re building down here now.”

“You could move in with me. Or you could move into a new place. Somewhere else.”

“I like it here. If I moved into a bigger place, I’d just buy stuff to fill it up. Besides, it’s rent controlled here. I don’t want to give it up. It’s cheap.”

Cheap. Right, like either of us needs to worry about where our next meal is coming from. But “rent controlled” always signals the end of the conversation. Three spades over two hearts. A sign-off bid -- saying one thing but meaning another. We used to play bridge with Angelica on Sunday afternoons at her house out in the Avenues. She would tell us about the sermon from that morning’s mass over cards and sherry and cigarettes. He always hated going there even though she was his aunt not mine. I miss her. I should have had an aunt like that.

He’s standing in the window, his skin reflecting the light. The streetlight outside is level with his head, so his shadow against the wall is perfect, neither elongated nor foreshortened. Crisp, like a figure in a Masaccio fresco. I hate my shadow. It isn’t crisp. It’s fuzzy and has a secondary shadow around the edge. A gray penumbra. Gray, like my aura. Vanessa tells me my aura’s gray when she’s pissed at me. Or gray like my hair, I guess.

He reaches up and lightly scratches his cheek. When he is finished, he doesn’t remove his hand. What’s he been thinking about so much lately?

What would I do if he left? If it were really over? If I were alone? We’d still be friends I’m sure. I could be free. He could be free. He’s still young and he deserves a life, after all. And anyway, what am I bitching about? I should be happy with the life I’ve had. It’s better than the lives of any of those idiot kids who tormented me when I was growing up. I’ve been places and seen things that none of them will ever visit or see, hell, that I never thought I’d visit or see. I may never make the A list, but I’m damn sure never gonna land on the C list either. Yeah, I should be should be satisfied. I should be happy.

He’s standing in the window.

“What are you doing?” In the still room, it sounds strange, flat. Something’s off with the intonation.

No answer.

“What are you doing? Is something wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong. I’m fine. Why do you keep asking?”