You think that will hold me? Trelle asked. I’d used a tie I had for weddings and bound her wrists, trying to follow from memory a confusing step-by-step guide I’d found online. She still wore her neon stockings and had added electrical tape pasties. But already she was looking away from me, out the window. I went to work on the knot. Oww!

Hold on, I said. I know how to do this. Her eyes glazed over. Her body was still here but that was it. Finally I had the thing loosened and was about to retie it when my phone buzzed. It’s my father, I have to answer it, I said. Trelle shook the tie off and went to get her bag.

So how’s your progress? my father asked.

Progress?

This movie you’re in town to make. The movie about my life.

I’d come out to the city to engage in depravity with Trelle. But my father was remembering a conversation he’d had with my senior brother, now deceased, who had been a movie director. I was the other brother with some knowledge of the movie process so his lapsing memory had combined us. I’d spent my life in my brother’s shadow and didn’t want to correct him.

It occurred to me now that Trelle may have also thought that I was one of my older brothers when she first got my call. When we met for coffee, her face did not immediately register recognition or excitement. There was some confusion there.

Let’s talk in person, I told my father. In the morning.

I may not still be here in the morning.

You’ll be there.

Why don’t you want to make the movie?

I do want to make the movie.

Then where is the actor who is going to play me? Where is the woman who will play my ailing mother in Warsaw? You really haven’t thought these things through.

From across the room Trelle asked, What movie? You’re making a movie? Does he know you’re only a PA?

I was a Second Second, I told Trelle, sotto voce. That’s not a PA, Trelle. Not in Hollywood. Maybe out here they have different rules.

So who is going to play me? my father wanted to know. Answer me that.

We’ll find someone good.

Well, start finding. I don’t have much time. The doctors won’t tell me but I’d say it’s days. A matter of days. Or months. One year at the most. Is that enough for you? I want to be able to go to the theater and see this thing.

I’d like some more input from you first, actually, I said.

I’m right here. I’m not going anywhere. Why didn’t you already ask me these questions? Are you just making the story up on your own? You were never in the Warsaw ghetto.

Listen, I just want one thing from you. A title.

Title for what?

Title for the movie, Dad. That’s always the first step in Hollywood. Tell me the title and I’ll make the movie around that. That’s how everyone does it.

I’ll tell you the title.

Okay. What is it?

Here’s the title: Old Man Asks His Son, His Son Who He’s Never Asked Of Anything In The Past, He Asks Him For A Very Simple Thing, A Thing Within That Son’s Wheelhouse, And The Son Doesn’t Call Or Visit And When He Finally Comes Back To New York It’s Because He’s Here To See Some Girl, Some Floozy, Because That’s All He Cares About: Sex!

I think we need a shorter title.

You think this is funny. It’s my life! My life was not a comedy! My life was a tragedy! It’s a tragedy still!

Did he just call me a floozy? He used the word “floozy”. That is so awesome. Trelle had gotten closer and was listening in. I sensed I might even get a chance to attempt the knot again.

Well, no, I told my Dad. I don’t think this is funny. It’s really important. But in reality I should call you back in the morning. I want my full, uninterrupted attention on this thing.

You don’t really care. I can tell.

I do care. I do care. I don’t know why I’m laughing right now. I’m laughing because I’m nervous. The Holocaust makes me nervous. A lot of things make me nervous and I laugh. I honestly mean no disrespect to anyone.

You’re with her right now, aren’t you?

No.

I’m hanging up now.

Wait!

No waiting. My life was never about waiting. It was a series of tragic events that happened sequentially, with no waiting.

No, Dad, I’m serious, we will make this movie, your movie, but I honestly need to go.

Goodbye, Ephraim.

This is not Ephraim. This is Jack, Dad.

Of course, of course.

I’m Jack, your other son.

When I hung up the phone, Trelle lay on her back and laughed. She laughed and laughed until I got up from the bed. Listen, I gotta go, I said, surprising myself.

Oh, really? Cause I’m a floozy?

No, no, that’s not why.

She watched me get my pants on. When I got to the door she said, You really are a jerk, Jack. Unlike your brothers.

Listen, I need to get some air. I actually want to try to help my Dad out.

When are you going to tell him you’re not a Hollywood director?

He doesn’t want to hear that. I’ll call you after I figure this out.

Don’t.

 

Out in the street I took in the warm light of the setting sun. Throngs of people spewed up from the subway, each appearing to have a purpose and a predetermined trajectory. I felt like I’d been floating around in an eddy just outside the current my whole life.

I pushed through the crowd to go down the steps into the station. I caught an uptown train to go see my Dad with the goal of telling him honestly my whole situation. Just to be there for him, even if he insisted on thinking I was someone else. As the train shuddered through the tunnel I smiled, imagining him opening the door: Ephraim! So glad you’re back!

 

 

 

The clouds felt rough under his feet and itchy, almost like Mags was walking on fiberglass insulation. He’d had a nosebleed since the day he came up here. People gathered on nearby clouds but he couldn’t hear what they were saying. He still had a ringing in his ears as though he’d just left a loud rock concert. So far he’d kept to himself, occasionally sitting on a cloud and looking through an opening to the Earth below. Now and then the clouds would float low enough and he’d see a girl run from a school bus to her front door, or a barking dog straining at its chain. Other times it would be workers leaving a building site carrying lunch boxes.

You’re not supposed to sit down. Mags looked up to see an older man in a robe. You stand up on your cloud. You spent enough time sitting down on Earth. Now is a time to stand. Mags started to get up then stopped himself. He readjusted his reclined position. I didn’t come up here to be told what to do, he said quietly.

The old man shook his white head and floated away. Mags rolled over onto his stomach and propped his head on his elbows. He stared down at Earth. Moments later he was lifted to his feet by two identical young women in white gowns. You mustn’t lie on the clouds, they said in unison. You are allowed to stand.

Mags shook himself loose from their grasp. The twins stared at him. He went to lie down again but felt a terrific shock. YYYIIIEEEOOOOWW!! One of the women held a kind of ornate cattle prod device. Please take heed, she said. The women floated away. Mags stood on his cloud and glared after them.

He stood there for a long time, still hearing the faint murmur of distant conversations. He imagined everyone to be talking about him. Eventually he moved one foot. Then the other. He frowned. He moved his foot back and then forward again and spun around. He’d been a dance instructor at a middle school down on Earth and this kind of thing came naturally to him. But gravity was different up here and all his moves and jumps were enhanced. He felt like he’d never danced this well before. As he danced he could sense others floating toward him.

No dancing! the twins shouted to him from some distance away. But he couldn’t stop. People in white robes floated toward him from every direction now. He was dancing better than ever- doing splits, popping back up and flying around like a figure skater. The crowd made a wide circle around him. Meanwhile, the twins were on their way back over.

 

Then out of the corner of his eye he noticed motion in the crowd. He noticed a rhythm to their movements that matched his rhythm. Like a Hollywood musical the crowd fell into a trance, mirroring his every move and twirl.

Stop! Stop at once! The twins screeched in unison. There is no dancing! No dancing! You may stand!

Nobody listened. The twins now had their ornate prods out and the prods glowed crimson. They zapped the group, one by one, and each person they zapped fell straight down through the clouds, disappearing below. The crowd thinned but those that remained did not stop dancing. The moves become more and more amazing- acrobatic displays that would have caused a sensation on Earth.

Finally there were four people left, then three, then two, then Mags alone was dancing. When the twins moved in Mags kicked their prods out of their hands with a spectacular acrobatic twirl. They gasped, staring after their lost weapons. Then Mags took the hand of each girl and led them into his dance, pulling them this way and that until they couldn’t help but be overcome by the rhythm. The three danced together until one by one the others rose from the Earth, emerging up through the clouds to join back into the synchronized performance.

The dance continued and didn’t stop, ever.

 

 

 

In 1996 I worked in a freezer all summer long, wearing a hat and winter coat even when it was a hundred degrees outside. Every day I waited at the bus stop in the heat, flies making their rounds, my winter clothes tucked in a duffel bag. The bus dropped me off on the edge of the giant parking lot that never had more than three cars in it. Across the lot was a huge, white freezer building. Larry the security guard called it “The North Pole”.

Inside two hundred frozen human corpses hung from overhead tracks, eyes staring and iced over. Snow on the lashes. Hey, he likes you, Larry would say, nodding at one of the bodies. I’d never look up, instead I’d head to the side tables and go about my business. For hours I’d unbox firearms and lay them out in rows. When we thaw these guys out we’ll have one hell of an army, Larry once said.

I’d work for about twelve or fourteen hours, the fluorescents backlighting the two hundred hanging silhouettes. Then I’d head across the parking lot to the bus stop as the sun was going down.

 

One morning I came in and there were clear tubes hanging from all the bodies, creating a spidery network that stretched all the way to the galvanized tanks in the back. My job had shifted from unpacking weapons to unpacking and ironing uniforms. When I finished I rolled them on a cart down to an office in the back. A woman there operated a sewing machine. Her job was to sew a fox insignia patch over every right front pocket.

Where do I put these? I asked. She didn’t look up so I unloaded the cart onto some tables. I stood there as she sewed around the outer borders of the patches to attach them to the uniforms. She had on a winter hat and the hood of her jacket had a fake fur trim. She wore half-gloves. Eventually the lunch bell rang and I left her sewing, rolling my cart back across the concrete floor.

During the lunch break I sat outside with my sandwich on the loading dock, in t-shirt and jeans, body thawing in the afternoon heat. Some plastic bags blew across the parking lot.

You know what’s going to happen to us? The seamstress had come outside with a cigarette, her coat and gloves still on. What? I asked.

We’ll be hanging from those rails. I looked at her. Her skin was pasty and her eyes rimmed in red. But the shape of her mouth was interesting.

 

She led me to the back of the warehouse and there was Larry, frozen solid, hanging with tubes coming out of his stomach and neck. That’s what happens if you leave early, she said. I stared at the body. As I stared I sensed I was being stared at. What? I said to the seamstress.

We don’t have much time, she said, looking straight at me. I backed away. She moved closer and took one of my hands in both of hers. Don’t you want to? she asked. Before it’s too late? Just then an alarm went off and red and white lights flashed across the warehouse. The cameras can’t see back here, she said as her fingers now unbuttoned my coat.

With the alarm going off and red lights flashing she pulled me slowly down to the cement floor. I stared at her mouth, her breath visible in the cold.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw a shadow move between the hanging bodies. Over there… she whispered. We moved away from the threat, through rows and rows of frozen corpses. Suddenly the seamstress took off running. I tried to keep up but after she rounded a corner I couldn’t see which way she’d gone. I made it across the lot to to the bus stop without her.

 

Instead of heading home I took a different bus for the first time. I took it to the end of the line and found a motel in an unfamiliar town. As I lay alone with the curtains drawn I couldn’t help but imagine the seamstress hanging like the other bodies, eyes glazed with frost.

 

All night long I kept thinking I heard knocking on the motel room door. I knew I’d be hearing ghost knocking the rest of my life. I closed my eyes and the knocking turned into the beat of a song in a dream. I was at a concert watching a band of frozen corpses. The girl seamstress was the lead singer. As snowflakes fell I stared at her mouth and got lost in her constant rhythm.