When I first moved to New York, years ago, I crashed at the home of an ex who was, at the time, dating a woman with my name. He was out of the country so his room was empty, and his roommates, like him, were peaceful and kind. In exchange for his lofted twin bed — built so close to the ceiling my breath bounced back — I was instructed to feed his pet snake. There were dead mice in a plastic baggy in the freezer, which I was told to drop into the snake’s heated cage, every few days. I didn’t ask any questions because fundamentally I did not want to think about this task — even though it was, undeniably, a pretty good labor-performed to benefit-gained ratio. The thing is the snake never showed itself. I’d drop in the frozen mouse and it would land in the tank but the snake never emerged to eat it. I mean, it did, at some point, because the frozen mouse always disappeared by the time of the next feed. And really there wasn’t much room for the snake to hide: there was a big fake rock and a weird little log, and everything else was just thin woodchip curlicues or some other environmentally-unfriendly filler. Anyway it freaked me out: sleeping in that bed, feeding that snake, not knowing where it was. I became convinced it had escaped and called my ex to tell him as much, insisting it was lost in the apartment, could slither up the rails. Bind me in my sleep. But it keeps eating the mouse, he said. Yes, I conceded, but I think it just returns to do that. And then it escapes again. He laughed, told me he’d ask one of his roommates to start doing the feeds. No big deal, he said. No worries. I thought that would be the end of my stay — after all, my means of payment had been taken from me! — but he didn’t ask me to go, said he didn’t mind. I began making hot meals for his roomates, out of thanks: pots of organic macaroni, fistfuls of spinach swirled in with the cheese. Even when my ex returned, he let me stay on the couch, until one day — it was snowing — I packed up, got a job, moved out.
Recommendations
Anthony’s book. ‘Beneath the placid surface presented by the well-behaved is a panicked hunger to be tracked into a life of someone else’s devising. Put me, I beg you, in a rut.’ ‘how beautiful (and noble!) it is when people throw themselves earnestly and unselfconsciously into something.’ ‘you smoked / while the old man told you / about his basement full of wine.’ ‘How does someone in Boston or Salt Lake City or Los Angeles end up buying a home in Peoria that they’ve never even seen?’
P.S. This is something you can do, via Aria Aber.