I am hopelessly in love with you, no point giving me advice.
I have drunk love’s poison, no point taking any remedy.
They want to chain my feet but what’s the point when it is my heart that’s gone mad.
- Rumi
“Hi Leila, Liz and I need to pick up some furniture from Ikea for our apartment. Can I borrow your car?”
I closed my eyes at the sound of Fred’s voice on the phone. The voice that could still cause a little thrill in my belly despite the fact that we’d been broken up for three years— even though he now had a fiance. But that had always been his talent, from the first day we had met at the Eugene O’Neill Theatre center’s puppetry conference, he had slipped into my heart with his goofy grin and Ringling Brothers clown school antics. A professional puppet builder, puppeteer, and one third owner of a company called the Puppet Kitchen, Fred effused talent and a quirky charm that was catnip to my artistic soul. So much so that when I was cast as the lead puppet performer for a production of the Little Prince in New Jersey, a show that he was building the puppets for, I packed my car and drove from Los Angeles to Cape May with an effervescent enthusiasm because I felt that love and not just a job was on the horizon.
“Sure Fred. When do you need it?”
“Can I grab it tomorrow?”
“That’ll be fine.” I said ignoring the tiny squeaks in the back of my brain that tried to raise the red flag of intuition. Liz, his roommate, was a good friend of mine as well, so I told the little voice to shush. That I wasn’t bending boundaries with an ex-boyfriend, I was helping a friend— two friends actually, because we were friends now. We had successful navigated the rapids from lovers to friends, right? Besides, Fred and Liz lived in Sunset Park in Brooklyn and the Ikea was in Red Hook in Brooklyn so they’d only be going for a few miles back and forth. What could go wrong?
I met him on the sidewalk the next morning, 8 AM sharp had turned into 8:30 as per Fred’s reputation of always being late. As he came bustling down the sidewalk towards me, I noticed he was sporting what he fondly called his ‘winter pelt’ that extra 10-15 pounds he put on in the winter when he wasn’t commuting on his bike to and from work.
“Thanks Leila! I really appreciate it. I’ll get the car back to you before the end of the week.”
“Okay. Tell Liz I say Hi.”
“Will do!”
A quick exchange of hugs and a passing of keys saw him off with my 2015 red Subaru Outback. As he drove off, my mind drifted back to that winter in New Jersey. Memories of us driving up I-95 from Cape May to New York City on break from the show for the day, flirting and eager to escape the small confines of a snowed in beach town for the bigger luxuries of the city. That trip would turn into a disaster as a blizzard would blow in on our way back to Cape May that afternoon, and what was a two hour trip became four hours, and that evening’s performance had to be canceled because we couldn’t make it back in time due to the near white out conditions. Fred had driven up to New York City when the sun was shining bright but I had driven back to Cape May in the snow, my fingers clenched white on the steering wheel as I tried to find the balance between speed and safety, all the while terror clawing my belly as we both came to the awareness that we wouldn’t make it back in time… for a performer to miss a show because of an impulse day trip was a fireable offense. This was my first professional job out of grad school, I had never missed a performance in my life for any reason. 102 degree fever with a double ear infection and I still performed, but now for love of a puppet boy I wasn’t going to be late to call, I was going to be a no show entirely. Shaking my head abruptly, I cleared away the memory, wondering idly what had brought that to mind before heading off to work at Carnegie Hall for the day.
Around 3 PM my cellphone rang, looking at the caller ID showed that Fred was ringing me. Curiously I answered the phone expecting to hear him tell me that he had finished early instead he said:
“Uhhh Leila…. I can’t get the key in the transmission to turn.”
“Oh! It gets stuck some times, you just have to jiggle it a little and then it’ll turn.”
“Yeah. I’ve tried that and no luck.”
“Huh, weird.”
“I hate to ask this, but can you come down here? The car is full of stuff and it’s parked on the street in Manhattan and I can’t get it started.”
Startled to hear that my car was in Manhattan when his request had been for a Brooklyn only errand run, “uhh. I guess.”
“Oh my god. Thanks so much. I so totally owe you.”
The Puppet Kitchen, his business, was in the lower east side of Manhattan so I guessed that he may have driven the car to work. “Alright, I’ll meet you at the Puppet Kitchen, it’ll take me about twenty minutes—“
“— I’m not at the Kitchen.”
“You’re not?”
“No, I’m on 8th avenue between 46th and 47th street.”
“Oh, okay.”
“Can you come now?”
“Uhh. Sure. Let me tell my boss.”
“Thank you thank you!” He profusely exclaimed before hanging up.
With a confused and befuddled air I walked into my bosses office. “So I let my friend borrow my car and he just called that it’s broken down on 8th avenue. I think it’s just the ignition being finicky so if it’s alright, I’m going to pop down and see if I can fix it.”
She gave her assent and I walked down from 57th street to 48th, confused all the while about what he would have been doing so far north in Manhattan. I arrived to find an anxious Fred standing outside my car filled to the brim with boxes. I gave him a questioning look as he stared back at me with an unexpectedly pleading look in his eyes.
Those eyes that had defended me after that disastrous road trip as I stood in the living room crying after the phone call with the show’s director where he demanded to know if my relationship with Fred was making me ruin my career. Those eyes had been steely as he asserted to our cast mates, “It wasn’t her fault. It was mine. I wanted to go. He didn’t yell at me. Just her. He just wanted to kick the puppy.”
Those blue eyes that had stared at me with lust over a fresh baked apple pie that I had made for the cast in New Jersey. I had been wearing a brown lace shirt, with a plunging décolletage with a small blue bow in the center at the time. The bow that would become his excuse when I demanded 9 months later, “Why didn’t you tell me you were seeing someone else?”
“I didn’t plan on sleeping with you. That bow… that god damn bow…. I couldn’t resist the bow.”
Those eyes that had pleaded with me forgiveness when he asked me to take him back after the explosion that was the revelation he was dating two women in the puppet community simultaneously, “I was hurting from the break up with my fiancé. I felt entitled because I was in pain. I am so sorry. That wasn’t me. That’s not the kind of guy I am. I don’t want to be that guy. Can you take me back?”
Those eyes that had gone liquid with love when he had asked me to go with him and his family to Hawaii for vacation after we were back together again, “Leila this is the best that it’s ever been, this thing with us, I don’t want to mess this up. Please come with me. I don’t want to go without you.”
Now those eyes, on this cold fall day in October, were pleading with me to be silent as his new fiancé, Kelly, stepped out of the doorway to the apartment building and rushed over to give me a hug. Kelly who I had only met twice before, who I only found out about through friends, who Fred had never told me about despite the ample movie nights that we had had over the past year and a half, and who most importantly did not know that Fred and I had ever dated or that I had unwittingly slept with him while they were in the early stages of dating after I had been fired from my job before Carnegie Hall when I had called Fred in the cab on my way home from my ex-job sobbing.
As she stood there hugging me with her six foot body that dwarfed both Fred’s 5’4” and my 5’2” frame, I glared at him furiously around her arm. He gave me an apologetic smile of contrition that was all teeth as he swayed anxiously from foot to foot waiting to see what I would do.
“Leila! I am so sorry that you had to come down here. Thank you so much for letting us use your car. I feel so embarrassed that we can’t get the ignition to work.”
“Uhhh, I’m sure it just needs a wiggle and it’ll be fine.” I manage to mumble out as my brain tried to process the situation. But my thoughts moved like a marathon runner drowning in molasses, full of flaying attempts that couldn’t seem to penetrate to a conclusion.
“Oh thank goodness! We just loaded up the car from my fourth floor walk up. I couldn’t bear the thought of carrying this stuff all the way back up. Not after we spent all day making space in Fred’s apartment for everything. I’m exhausted.”
“That’s right Leila, remember I told you, we’re moving in together. It’s why I asked to borrow the car.” He jumped in quickly.
“Right.. Sorry… silly me… forgot…” I gritted out slowly.
“Can I get you anything, tea, coffee?” she asked tucked safely away in her innocence.
“Sure. Tea would be great.” I responded.
With another chirpy hug she departed up to her apartment leaving me and Fred alone on the street.
“So, you’re moving in together.” I said in slow motion.
“Yeah, she’s having trouble financially and things are tight at the Kitchen so it makes sense for both of us.”
My brain still utterly unable to process this situation fixated on the one thing that would get me off this street and away from this hornets nest as fast as possible, Get. The. Car. To. Start.
I dove into the driver’s seat and stuck the key in the ignition. Fred who had climbed into the passenger side of the car watched on anxiously as I tried to turn the key and —nothing. I gave it the wiggle, no luck. I pulled the key out every so slightly and tried it again, seeking the sweet spot that the increasingly fussy ignition demanded and still nothing. I tried every combination possible of turning a key in a lock with increasing desperation until with a frustrated growl I was forced to admit that the ignition was well and truly stuck, and so was I.
When I would relate this story in the future, people always ask me, why I didn’t scream and yell at him, why didn’t I throw her things out on the street, why didn’t I slap him across him face, why didn’t I march up to Kelly and tell her what was going on: that her fiancé had lied to his ex-girlfriend, who he had cheated on her with, to borrow a car to move her into his apartment. And I still don’t have a coherent answer for why I did none of those things. Except that I had been responsible for outing Fred to the other woman he had been dating during the show in Cape May and the resulting blow out and the gossip that had lasted for months had left me feeling anything but honorable. And now, with that choice presented me to all over again, I wanted nothing to do with it. That experienced combined with defense mechanisms learned from my parent’s divorce that enabled me robotically disassociate from my emotions left me with the laser beam focus of fixing the car and sorting out how I felt about everything later. So I resorted to my strongest childhood camouflage against trauma, present that everything is fine.
“Leila I am so sorry—”
“—It’s fine. Let’s just get this sorted.” I said inserted cutting off his apology.
“What should we do?”
“I have no idea. This has never happened before. There’s a garage that I’ve used in Brooklyn, I call and ask.”
A ten minute call with the garage sorted that I probably need a automobile locksmith, which I hadn’t know was even a thing, but getting one in the middle of what was now rush hour traffic in New York City would take hours. Desperate to NOT spend hours in this soap opera worthy drama, I confirmed with the garage that if I got the car towed to them, they could fix it in the morning. Thinking that towing the car would be the fastest route, after allow trucks were practically ubiquitous with New York City itself, I called Triple A which said it would be 30-40 minutes before the truck arrived.
As we sat there waiting, him in the passenger seat, me in the driver’s seat, the gulf between us seemed wider than ever. We sat there both of us saying little, just occasionally attempts at small chat that quickly fluttered and died. My mind placed us backstage at the Little Prince again, our cast of five waiting to go on at the top of show. There was a projector beam that would split the backstage area that we couldn’t cross, it’s light projecting an image of the moon against the stage’s back wall. Each night Marc Petrosino, a towering Italian man of six feet and broad frame would stand on one side of that divide with me. And Fred with our remaining two cast mates would stand on the other side. We always joked that it was like a playground show down backstage. Petite little me with my big tough Petrosino who would stand behind me, arms folded, as I punched my fist into my hand. Petrosino would call me “Midge” and encourage me on with faux nasal voice “Yeah. Yeah. We’ll get ‘em Midge!” as I stood there and toss school yard taunts across the divide at Fred, who’d turn his page boy cap backwards and huff and puff back at the two of us. This game would continue on until the opening sound cue and then we’d scramble to places and I would assume my role, that of the Little Prince who traveled the universe in search of his love for the next hour. Now here in this car that separation between us was still insubstantial but instead of light it was composed of pain, betrayal, lust, love, lies, and hunger for human warmth to chase away loneliness.
Any attempts he made to apologize for the situation I would brush away with a laugh or an eye roll or some other dismissive action. Desperate to not acknowledge what was truly going on for fear that I would crack open and a fire ball of fury would come roiling out of my chest. Kelly returned with the tea and retreated back inside as there was no room in the car for three, packed full of her belongings as it was. So Fred and I continued our awkward vigil until the tow truck arrived.
I quickly explained the situation to Pete the tow truck driver who waved dismissively at me, “Oh nah. I’m sure I kind fix this. This happens all the time.” He replaced me in the driver’s seat and proceeded to go through everything I had done. Muttering in frustration when his easy fix failed to materialize, he tried turning the wheel hard to the right incase wheel placement was locking the ignition but all that did was turn the car wheels into the curb and suddenly not only was the ignition frozen but the steering wheel and the car wheels as well.
“Ahh nope, gonna have tow it after all.” He finally admitted and started rummaging around in his truck. Under orders from Pete to get the tow hook from the trunk of the car Fred and I opened the trunk and surveyed the situation. The car’s trunk was packed to the ceiling and the tow hook was under the floor bed of the trunk with the spare tire.
I sighed heavily through my teeth before reaching in and grabbing Kelly’s things and unloading them to the side walk. Fred quickly stepped in to help and as we pulled box after box out of the trunk, I growled to him fiercely so that Kelly, who had returned with the tow truck wouldn’t hear, “I am the -BEST- ex-girlfriend ever.”
“Yes. Yes you are.” Fred fervently agreed as he worked alongside me.
Once we cleared enough space, I quickly retrieved the tow hook and presented it to Pete before reloading the car with her stuff.
“Can’t we take this stuff back up?” I asked grumpily.
“It’s four floors.” He reminded me.
If there was one thing that I wasn’t doing today it was carrying his fiancé’s things up four flights of stairs so I let that solution drop.
However after Pete made a survey of the situation, he realized that he couldn’t tow the car because the wheels were no locked to the right towards the curb and not straight ahead so he couldn’t pull the car forward without a special winch. Which he didn’t have. Under my incredulous gaze, Pete placed a call for another tow truck and another 45 minutes until Dave the tow drive arrived. Dave, put the ignition through its paces as well with the now arbitrary statement of, “Ah no man. I can fix this.” Before admitting defeat and setting about helping Pete load the car onto on truck.
However, the two men pulled my poor car into the middle of the next lane of traffic before suddenly declaring that since the wheels wouldn’t turn, they couldn’t get the emergency brake to unlock since the ignition was locked, and that they could no longer tow the car without damaging so they were leaving. As I stood there sputtering, with a car that instead of being parked on the side of the road, was now in the middle of a lane in RUSH HOUR TRAFFIC, both Peter and Dave hopped in their respective trucks. I rushed after them, demanding to know what I should do now. Dave rolled down his window, his truck revving up, as he called out, “CALL A LOCK SMITH!” before the two men took off for greener tow pastures. And I was left, worse off than before.
I stood there on the curb, watching my car, half in - half out of traffic, as angry New York City drivers honked their horns and swerved around the abandoned vehicle. Each driver giving me a disgusted look for inconveniencing their commute that had me wanting to throw bricks after their vehicles. Fred came up to me and began tentatively, “I’m sorry—“ but I held up a hand, silencing him, as I dialed Triple A again and with gritted teeth but a sugary tone updated the agent that I knew this wasn’t their fault but I was extremely frustrated so I am going to apologize in advance for my spleen but their tow truck driver had just left my car in TRAFFIC and I needed A LOCKSMITH NOW.
They assured me that they would send one right away, in just twenty minutes. But when twenty minutes came and went I called again and was reassured that he was on his way. Another hour and another phone call finally sussed that because the car was a Subaru I had to get a special locksmith, a Subaru specialist, and the only one was in New Jersey and he was on his way but it would take another 1-2 hours because of rush hour traffic. Despondent I let my head thunk against the side of the car with this latest update as Fred and Kelly stood anxiously beside me. After I had informed them of the situation, two of them left to get some of food since it was now dinner time and help was not arriving soon. They inquired if I wanted to go with them but I declined as my car was in the middle of the road, I thought I should remain with the vehicle. I growled angrily to myself as they left that I bet if a tow truck driver wanted to impound my car they would have had it on a truck bed in two minutes flat, having seen for myself how resourceful NYC tow truck drivers can be when properly motivated.
Now left alone with my stranded vehicle, I spied the police van that had been sitting on the corner for this whole time. Curious if there were actually police in side the car, I walked up and tapped on the glass. A kind woman rolled down the passenger side window of the 12 seat van and I quickly brought her up to speed that I had been towed into traffic and abandoned, “and I’m sorry officer but I feel like I’m a traffic hazard right now. Is there anything you can do?” I finished.
“Ahh I saw that. I wondered what happened. Yeah that’s awful. We’ll be right there.”
Curious I watched the van drive off around the block only to reappear from the south. The van door slide open and all 12 cops piled out of the vehicle. They quickly established a parameter of cones around my car, with one man directing traffic, while another set up orange cones and two saw horses with a police barrier board, while the rest of the copy formed a phalanx and swarmed my vehicle. I filled them in on the issue with the stuck ignition, to which they responded almost in unison, “ahh man, I can fix that!” What followed was a clown car routine as one by one each cop took their turn getting in the car, twisting the ignition key, cranking the steering wheel etc., fiddle with the gear shift, etc. until each one had to admit defeat. It was like watching the New York City version of the sword in the stone from King Author except with a trapped vehicle instead of a sword and police officers as knights. Delirium must have started to set in because I found myself giggling inanely at the image which caused Betty, the police woman, to cast me an odd look. I idly wonder if one of them succeeded would I have to give them the car? If so, they could have it with all of Kelly’s things to boot.
An older officer who looked to be in his mid-50s with a rounded belly asked if I was moving in order to make chit chat while we waited for the lock smith.
“Nope. Not me. My ex-boyfriend’s fiancé.”
“Wait is this your car?”
“Yup.”
“And was that guy the ex-boyfriend?”
“Yup.”
“And you’re helping them move? Jeez that’s nice of you.”
“I didn’t know I was.”
“What’d you mean?”
I quickly told him the tale of the call to borrow the car for furniture, the broken ignition etc.
“Ahh man! That’s unbelievable! Tony! Tony! You gotta come hear this”
Soon I was swarmed by the posse of officers and I regaled them with the tale again, taking some comfort in the chorus of clucks and coos and sympathetic shoulder pats.
“Man you seem pretty cheery about this.” Tony observed, “If it was me. I’d be PISSED.”
“Well, it could be worse.”
“How so?”
“It could be snowing.” I responded.
The officers all nodded, impressed by my sage wisdom in this time of crisis.
To be continued…
©2020 by Leila Ghaznavi. All rights reserved.