realize that in fact, at the moment, I didnât have a car. I didnât think I wanted a car but I asked him, as a courtesy, what the price was. He evaded the question of money, and emphasized instead the motivation of the seller, that the car just needed a little attention, and that he and I hadnât seen each other in a million years. In the course of the conversation I went from uninterested in owning another car to curious about this particular car, and when he said heâd get me a good deal, for friendshipâs sake, I told him I might be interested. And so we agreed to meet.
The next day I rode my bicycle to the Red Hook section of Brooklyn, down near the water, to an address Iâd written on a piece of envelope. It was a moderately well maintained brick row house and in front of the house a faded red sports car, or quasi-sports car, a Honda or Nissan, was parked on the street. Mike appeared from under the stoop looking as he had years agoâa little heavier and a little slowerâjangling the keys. âLetâs go for a cruise,â he said, throwing me the keys. I got in, adjusted the seat and the mirror, and began driving around the warehouse streets, and all the time I was driving Mike was talking, not about the car, but about the girl who was selling the car. She was a nurse, he said, and very friendly. âIâve told her all about you,â he said. âShe wants to meet you,â he said. And I assumed she wanted to meet because she wanted to sell her car, but the way he said it, or the way he kept saying it, made me wonder. We drove around in the cold sunlight and it was pleasant to be driving, and the car itself seemed a fine enough car, nothing exceptional, until Mike mentioned the ownerâs breast augmentation.
The expression âbreast augmentationâ sounded artificial coming from Mike, but even with its note of false sophistication the idea piqued my interest. Iâd never knowingly met a person whoâd changed herself in such an obvious and prominent way, and who, because of that change, was probably feeling optimistic about the future. I thought at the very least I should talk with her, about the car, and I wanted to talk with her. But when we got back from our drive she wasnât home, and so it was in my imagination that I envisioned her in her nurseâs uniform. But because I had never seen this girl, the images in my mind were images of Anne. The breasts I imagined, naturally enough, were Anneâs breasts. And as I rode my bike up Union Street, thinking about Anne and the car, if it hadnât already, the idea of Anne and the idea of the car became conflated. A desire was created for the thing that was Anne-and-the-car. And not only was the idea of Anne conjoined to the idea of car, but they both were connected in my mind to the general idea of breast augmentation. Although I was only dimly aware of the intricate psychological machinations it took to make that connection, it didnât matter. Sheâd left me the map because she wanted me to find her. She wasnât kidnapped. She was safe and alive, and thereâd been some miscommunication or misunderstanding, something we could talk about. I needed to talk with her. If I could just talk with her, I thought, then maybe this whole thing didnât need to be happening.
From that point on I was a man on a mission, and like a man on a mission I put my life in order. I shaved and showered and brushed my teeth. Like a man on a possible suicide mission I went to the bank and took out all my money. Whatever the car costâMike guessed about seven hundred dollarsâI was prepared to pay, in cash, and the next day I took a bus to her house. When I arrived, Mike, waiting on her front step, informed me that his friend was in the shower, that she had to work at the hospital, and that I should give the money to him. âShe wants me to be her agent,â he said. And as I signed the