ONE
I ran into Charlotte quite by accident one evening just after I had left work. Random meetings of acquaintances occurred on a semiregular basis, New York being a smaller, more intimate place than many realize. I was trekking uptown and we spotted each other amid the skyscrapers of Sixth Avenue, packed with midtown’s early evening pedestrian traffic, noisy cars, buses, cabs. It was, as it turned out, the last time I ever saw her.
How long had it been since we’d last met up? It was scary to contemplate the speedy passage of time. A year and a half? Two? I had news to impart: After a seemingly endless stretch of indecision and dithering, I was going to be a bona fide graduate student. My nose, as the saying went, was to the grindstone—formally accepted, finances resolved, millions of little arrangements completed.
She had always been a fervent adherent of the whole nose-to-the-grindstone ethos, and without really intending to, I emphasized the hard-work aspect of it all, trying—and I’m not even sure why—to garner as much approval from her as I could. I soberly sketched out my intended course of study, shared thoughts on a future career in academe. Then there was a pause.
We both looked at each other. Suddenly, the sheer, imposing enormity of what I was about to undertake washed over me. My façade crumbled.
“My god!” I blurted out. “It’s so adult!” And the two of us dissolved into a total fit of laughter, right there in the middle of the canyons of Sixth Avenue.
TWO
On Charlotte’s last day on Earth, she essentially adhered to her routine; the familiar quotidian of Park Slope, Brooklyn. A cup of café con leche was purchased at the large Dominican eatery abutting Flatbush Avenue. Videos were returned, mail checked. With methodical, chilling foresight, she thoughtfully canceled all her appointments for the upcoming week, informing her various clients that she would be indisposed.
Buddy was still at work when she returned to their apartment on Union Street. As was her habit, she placed his mail in a separate pile, right near the phone.
It is difficult to ascertain exactly what goes through a person’s mind in those final moments. Charlotte left no note. There is evidence, though, of what actually transpired: She took a rope, constructed a sturdy, workable noose, and hung herself.
Was she crying?
THREE
His cubicle was positioned directly across from Charlotte’s. During his first few weeks working at the magazine, she’d found him—which he only discovered later—quite odd. He imbibed endless cups of coffee, seemed glued to his Walkman, and had once engaged in a loud phone conversation with his parents in Portuguese, the preferred language of familial disputes.
It became quickly apparent the magazine was the text definition of “day job,” its ranks populated by musicians, painters, academic aspirants, one or two law students, a former flamenco dancer. His supervisor was prone to elaborate paper-airplane construction, the fruits of which were often found floating down the aisles, or whizzing past the fluorescent lights. An elflike female coworker—punk bassist in real life—would holler “I don’t want to be here!” once or twice upon her arrival each morning, as a sort of catharsis. One of the editors—an older, chain-smoking widow—had been a staple on various soap operas, mostly in minor roles: a nurse, a nanny, the woman on a park bench.
It was still the era of the public address system, and he enjoyed visualizing the faces behind the deep Jamaican accent, the Truman Capote soundalike, the Southerner.
He resolved to do as little as possible.
The industrious Charlotte was a career-minded anachronism, diligently bringing in her lunch each and every day in a laudable display of frugality. She bemoaned the disdain the men at the office felt for a good suit and tie, chastised those who wanted a job and not a career, harbored the opinion that much could be gleaned about a prospective boyfriend’s character by the strength of his handshake. Once she asked him why he didn’t smile more often.
A portion of his job responsibilities entailed attending industry press conferences, almost more crashingly boring than the office routine, the only high point being the abundance of free food. He took to helping himself to the fixings and then leaving. “Your trap’s down,” one of the servers muttered to him cryptically during coffee at one of these events; apparently, his fly had been open for quite some time. Soon he began skipping the press conferences altogether.
With a newfound zeal, he then took it upon himself to revive the moribund company newsletter. He cannily undertook a comprehensive profile of the warehouse, necessitating several trips out to Long Island. Next was a survey of the office building’s other inhabitants. The small architectural firm was somewhat uncooperative, but the spokesman for the Croatian fraternal society was effusively friendly, offering him coffee and chatting away for the better part of an hour. The sixth floor was the headquarters of Caleb Enoch Estensen, apparently a well-regarded fabric designer, a conspicuous presence garbed in long, colorful scarves and foppish hat, who could often be glimpsed—somewhat incongruously—consuming the homey eggs, hash browns, and coffee at the Downtown Diner.
On the surface, it would appear that he and Charlotte wouldn’t have all that much to do with each other. Yet, probably owing to their close proximity, some chatting ensued. To his surprise, Charlotte could be very funny. She too cocked an ear to the public-address announcements. To their mutual astonishment, both shared the same guilty pleasure: The New Interns (1964), starring Telly Savalas and Stefanie Powers. They began making brief coffee excursions to the Downtown Diner. A few times they went out for dinner. And a slow, gradual bond developed, evolving into a comfortable, platonic office friendship. Once, without preamble, she informed him that she had absolutely no romantic designs on him whatsoever. Nor did he have any ambitions to alter the friendship’s contours.
They talked each other into running a personal ad. Both were unattached. What was there to lose? The ads ran the same week and coincidentally both had their respective dates the same Friday night. His was a hideous mismatch with an oddball woman who spoke out of the side of her mouth. He arrived back in his apartment—demoralized—at 7:30, called to leave a message with Charlotte, and discovered that she, too, was home, having had an equally miserable experience.
The deepening friendship was marred only by the undercurrent of her sporadic moodiness. She could be rude to coworkers, occasionally scathing to the design department, short with interns. One morning a comment he made was met with Charlotte’s rude silence. Later that day a joke was received with annoyance. The next day his hellos were disregarded. He vowed to suspend contact and let her make the first move, which never came. For a few weeks Charlotte’s cubicle became a sort of netherworld, an unapproachable structure.
It came time for the Christmas party, a ritual so overtly suburban, so redolent of, say, Dagwood Bumstead, that he couldn’t believe he was actually set to be a participant. But there he was. Over the thunderous strains of Talking Heads, Charlotte suddenly approached. “You’re a really nice man,” she said to him, voice quavering, evidencing a vulnerability he hadn’t known she’d possessed. “And I’m sorry if I offended you,” she concluded. They hugged, all forgotten.
When spring made its first, tentative appearance in the city, the department, en masse, decided to go out for Friday night drinks. He usually took great pains not to see most of his colleagues after work, but this night he relented and partook of the noisy, chaotic revelry: a cavernous downtown bar, lots of hard-to-hear snippets of conversations, chair hopping.
What then transpired was, when all was said and done, somewhat inexplicable. Neither he nor Charlotte had all that much to drink. At some point the two of them drifted away from the main group and sat, just the two of them, side by side at the bar. The hours passed; confidences began to flow.
He sketched out his family saga: the authoritarian, erratic father, the death of a favorite uncle. The disastrous college romance. A bout of depression.
Charlotte had been teased steadily throughout school. In sixth grade a particularly unfortunate sweater, augmented with dangling, colorful little beads, earned her the lasting appellation “Milky the Cow.” She was now gripped by constant feelings of inadequacy, insignificance. Therapy had proved useless. Her parents were hellbent on her marrying, starting a family. “And I think,” she said, her voice crackling, “I’m going to cry now.” And then, matter-of-factly, she invited him to come spend the night at her Brooklyn Heights apartment; a direct offer, no hint of coquettishness, no come-hither.
Their cab crossed the Brooklyn Bridge, the hour very late, passing the giant Jehovah’s Witnesses Watchtower building. Brooklyn Heights was quiet; frenetic Manhattan behind them now. His extreme exhaustion, the unexpected scenario, combined to form an air of unreality.
From Charlotte’s window could be seen an enormous, illuminated clock face, casting its glow over the streets, over the borough. Their time together was methodically organized, almost pro forma, coffee made and briskly served, which—at this hour—did little to alleviate his growing fatigue. When they entered her bedroom, she whispered to him not to forget how much better she was than all the other women in the office; an incongruous, out-of-character bit of bravado. Puzzling sentiments in midst of such intimacy.
He left early the next morning. Monday was a little awkward, but the friendship quickly returned to an even keel, the brief fling forgotten. Secretly—against all reason—he harbored a deep-down wish for it to happen again, which it never did. Charlotte became involved with Tim, a pleasant nonentity with a strong handshake. One night he met Tim’s sister and the two of them hit it off to an unbelievable extent, then had nothing to say to each other at lunch the next week.
He left the magazine; Charlotte, too, went on to another job some months later. They kept in touch for quite a while. Eventually the phone conversations, dinners, the odd movie, gradually decreased. The magazine moved uptown, merged, then ceased operations entirely. The old office building was eventually sold, tenants dispersed. There was a huge Caleb Enoch Estensen retrospective at a leading gallery. The Downtown Diner closed, reopening as a somewhat upscale bistro. He wondered, from time to time, what had become of the Croatians.
FOUR
It is, of course, impossible to chronicle Charlotte’s specific last thoughts, final facial expressions, last random gestures. Rubashov, the protagonist of Arthur Koestler’s Darkness at Noon—the author, incidentally, a real-life suicide—is advised, moments before his impending execution, to empty his bladder. Yet these sort of details are rarely mentioned. It is telling that Feigenbaum and Bouchard’s seminal research on suicide completely glosses over the gritty quotidian—such as bathroom habits—perhaps fearing the appearance of irreverence or frivolity.
Clearly, the mass media have long displayed a prurient fascination with the topic. In 1923, Flora Geiss, a then famous, now forgotten ingénue of the silent screen, failed to procure the necessary drugs for her hopelessly addicted husband and promptly overdosed on sleeping tablets, an event plastered on front pages nationwide. More recently are the famous suicides of Marilyn Monroe and Kurt Cobain. Interestingly, both have engendered a fair amount of enduring controversy: the former thought by some to have fallen victim to Kennedy machinations, the latter somehow running afoul of the devious Courtney Love.
Emma Bovary serves as one of the most famous literary suicides; Hemingway the most famous writer’s suicide. Interestingly enough, the topic also weaves its way—albeit as a minor motif—through the Isaac Bashevis Singer canon. A Star Is Born and The Big Chill serve as era-spanning examples of Hollywood’s treatment of the topic.
Self-termination of corporeal existence is—in the hands of mass media—bread and circuses. The sensationalism obfuscates the terrifying enormity of the amount of emotional pain preceding suicide.
How many of us “just can’t take it any more”? How many feel they cannot go on? How many have suicidal fantasies, crippling depression, worst moments? Yet actually committing suicide must entail horrors infinitely worse then these aforementioned traumas. How can one comprehend feelings that are truly unendurable? Or pain so extreme, so wretched, that one really can’t continue, when “not being able to take it” is not hyperbole. What was it that Charlotte experienced? What kind of trauma is so infinitely vast that recovery is deemed impossible, that continuing to exist for another month, another week, another day, and—ultimately—another minute is not an option?
Perhaps we don’t wish to know. And perhaps we can’t.
FIVE
You know, I think the strangest thing that’s been running through my head through all this is that I’ve been wondering…now am I an only child? It’s sort of…wacky, I guess. Right? But you grow up with a sister and then the sister’s gone…gone—I guess I mean dead, don’t I?—and now you don’t have any living siblings. So are you an only child? What’s the status now? It’s sort of like, at what age do you become an orphan? I mean, if Mom and Dad had both died when I was, like, seven, I’d be an orphan. No question. At nine, you’re an orphan; 13, still an orphan. But what about seventeen? But not…23, I guess. I mean, at some point it must get ridiculous, right? Like, I was orphaned at 60. When do you cross the line? Is there an age you hit and suddenly you’re ineligible for orphan status? I mean, am I still a sister, even with Charlotte gone—dead.
I remember someone asking me how I was doing, and I said I didn’t know, I’d never lost a sister before. And I wasn’t kidding, or trying to shrug it off or anything…it was, like, my head…my emotions…didn’t have—didn’t have…the vocabulary for it.
So am I dealing with it? I know you’re supposed to deal with it. That’s why I’m here, right? You go see a therapist and you deal with it.
Dad used to call her “Hush, hush, sweet Charlotte.” God, it used to drive her crazy. One reason, I guess, was that it was sort of a creepy movie. And it was also like he was mocking her name, like Charlotte was this name you could sort of play around with, and like she just happened to have this funny name, Charlotte, and he had nothing to do with it. Like naming her was something that hadn’t involved him at all. So he would call her that, thrilled with his joke, laughing out loud for the hundredth time, oblivious to how uncomfortable it made her.
Mom and Dad hated Les. Hated him. Nobody said anything, but it was so, so obvious. I mean, even I had to admit he and Charlotte were sort of a…curiosity. They made a strange couple. Once I called him “Les Isn’t More” to Mom and Dad. They just thought it was the funniest thing, way too funny, really. It wasn’t that great of a joke. And then right away I felt horrible, just…awful. So…guilty. Charlotte wasn’t even in the house and it wasn’t like Mom and Dad were going to run and tell her what I’d said, but…but…I felt like…I’d betrayed her. Like I’d really betrayed her.
I’m not sure what to say next.
After her appointment was over, she slowly walked over to the water, precise definition of only child still unresolved.
The bay was slightly obscured by a thin overlay of fog, a heavy hint of rain in the air. The sky had grown ashy gray, clouds as far as the eye could see.
It grew suddenly much colder and she instinctively buttoned up her coat, shivering slightly. Tourist season was unequivocally, unambiguously over. A few fishing boats chugged past.
The end of the week. Nothing much would be happening back at the office; a good afternoon to amble a little, grab some lunch, slowly make her way back.
Half the street, it seemed, was obstructed by the huge, looming refrigerated truck from Uncle’s Clamhouse. The driver and assorted workers were loudly going back and forth, loading up the afternoon deliveries. At some point the driver bellowed out a hello to some unseen party, then started up the truck, letting it idle.
The Colonial Inn was still—incredibly—closed for renovations. How much renovating could possibly be needed? She thought wistfully of the inn’s warm, dimly lit interior, each table illuminated by a single candle, the basket of hot rolls.
A mental checklist began formulating in her mind: her winter inventory; where she stored the heavy coat, mittens. What had happened to the umbrella?
She began, taking her time, to walk away from the pier as the heavy odor of fries wafted over and spread to the street. A group of noisy seagulls swooped down onto the pavement. Within seconds a loud, cawing tussle broke out over a discarded chocolate doughnut.
When she rounded the corner the bay disappeared from sight. A meal at the luncheonette, she decided on the spur of the moment, suddenly craving the homey fare, enjoying the fact that there was still something actually referred to as a luncheonette. It was a wonderful ritual to take a counter seat, eyeing the pastries, which looked like colored wax. Today seemed like a good day for a tuna melt, coleslaw, chips on the side, Lipton tea with a wedge of lemon.
To her astonishment it was closed—for good. Gone. Out of business. Shock washed over her. She’d been steadily lunching there for a good two years. Only a week before she’d sat at the counter: grilled cheese, pickle, side of mediocre potato salad, Coke. From this vantage point, she’d been in close enough proximity to hear the owner’s entire conversation.
Garbed in his usual white apron, he was chatting with what seemed to be a husband and wife. From what she could glean, it appeared that a new diner was set to open.
“I’m not afraid of competition,” the owner told them. “I’m not afraid of competition,” he repeated smoothly, the epitome of understated confidence. “That’s the one thing that’s never bothered me: competition. Let him open! Why not?” The husband and wife both nodded their agreement, the wife then adding an imperceptible comment that made both men laugh. He wasn’t afraid of competition and now he was closed for good. Just like that.
This story won honorable mention in our annual Short Story Contest last fall.
This article appears in August 2009.
