7.
Trina was about to knock, but then she noticed that the great wooden door was slightly ajar. Knocking was for squares, anyway. She pushed the door open and walked into the massive atrium of Instructions, which was like a mansion with all its walls and doors taken away. The vast room was filled with about forty or so people of all ages, races, gender expressions, doing all manner of things. There were people fucking, of course, on beds and against walls and standing in various positions, and these larger gestures caught Trina’s eye first. But then she watched for the more subtle activities. There was a general kitchen area with a small table and a freestanding stove, where a thin man was stirring an enormous pot of what smelled like tomato sauce. There was a woman frowning and clacking away at a typewriter and another playing a sort of long metal flute, while another painted her toes and sipped from a short clear glass. By a grand open window sat a man smoking as another argued with him about it, and several children ran to and fro, to and fro, around and around the room, snaking through the larger bodies and their various preoccupations. Whoever was nearby would pause what they were doing, be it meditation or armpit waxing or drawing or divination with runes, to guide the children away from an open flame or a sharp corner on a table. On the floor were the outlines of doors and walls traced in light yellow paint, a reminder of what had once been separate.
Trina didn’t see the boy anywhere, or anyone she knew from the old days. In her tipsy state, she felt herself growing maudlin. Everyone moves on. Goddamn Deeba. Leaving Trina alone in this world they had decided to walk through together.
Trina spotted a thick pamphlet on a low, sunken couch. She walked over and picked it up. It was the Seep literature the boy had been using outside of Philz Coffee. She flipped through its pages. so, why did that strange-smelling man growl at me? so, why did my parents and entire community lie to me about the outside world being uninhabitable?
Oy vey, thought Trina. This kid was having a rough time of it.
A sallow-faced red-haired woman sat on the floor, shuffling a deck of tarot cards. She gestured toward the pamphlet. “If you’re looking for that boy, he left.”
“Any idea of where he was headed?”
The woman turned over a tarot card. It was The Fool. “Are you thinking of going on a quest?”
“Uh, not really. I’d like to return his pamphlet, though.” She flipped it over. The back cover read sometimes, people who love us very much show it in complicated ways. from your parents’ perspective, you weren’t a prisoner, but their beloved child for whom they wanted to provide the safest life possible, in the best way they understood how . . .
A sharp voice rose up from the back of the large room. “If he left it here, why would you think he wants you to bring it to him?”
Trina turned toward the voice. She was happy to recognize Lydia, sitting alone at a far desk, as beautiful and as mean as ever. Not everything changed!
“Lydia!” she cried. “Why, you’re as beautiful as ever.” She left out the mean part.
Lydia sat composing her unplayable music, dark fingers moving swiftly across thick sheets of white paper. Her newest symphony was called Tree Murderer (I Am Murdering Trees). Word on the street was that everyone hated it, which seemed to be the point.
“We may have seen your friend,” said Lydia, eyes flashing. “But we don’t have to tell you anything, do we?” She smiled, revealing teeth that narrowed into sharp little points.
Trina felt oddly moved by Lydia’s whole deal—her rudeness, her general fuck-you to this cheery, wearying world. “Lydia,” she said. “I love you. Should we get married?”
Lydia snorted. “Nice try. I’m not about to let you oppress me with your systems of heteronormativity, stud.” She slashed a long, dark line through the paper, bisecting the carefully notated music. “This piece is ruined!” Then she tossed her thick braids. “Now it’s perfect.”
“Ooh, I’ve missed you!” Trina laughed. “Please never change.”
Lydia gazed at Trina with flinty, unblinking eyes. “That’s a very cruel thing to ask of anyone.”
Trina felt exposed suddenly, as if she were naked in the middle of Instructions (which wouldn’t have been a problem: a few people were. Trina noticed a man sitting on the toilet and another woman in the giant bathtub, scrubbing her back with a long wooden brush).
Lydia looked at her, her eyes steady. “And I won’t be your rebound, Trina.” Her voice was almost gentle. “Get thee to a therapist, babe.”
“Damn, Lydia,” said the redhead. “Even for you, that’s cold.” She turned over another tarot card, and then another. It was the Nine of Cups, followed by the Queen of Cups reversed. “Go check your favorite bar. You’ll find him there.” She looked up at Trina with watery pale eyes. “And interrogate the depth of your sadness or you’ll drown.”
Trina left Instructions without another word to anyone. I don’t need a therapist, she thought. I need a goddamn drink.
She squeezed both pamphlets in her pocket. She liked holding them together. She would find this boy. This lost boy who was in terrible need, in terrible pain. They had so much in common, he and she. The boy from the bubble and the woman who refused to move on. He had been betrayed by the people who claimed to love him, and so had she. She thought back to the tarot card of The Fool. She smiled. Nothing wrong with being a little foolish. It kept you young.
On a bench outside The Shtetl, a young woman of Japanese descent sat holding a bucket of tiny fish. She took one in her hand, placed the whole wriggling fish into her mouth, and started to chew. Then she started crying, sobbing, as if her beloved had died. She kept crying and eating, eating and crying over the tiny fish one by one. Trina felt moved by the depth of her sadness, which seemed to mirror her own. She sat down next to the woman on the bench.
“Hey,” said Trina.
The woman kept on eating and crying. “Hello,” she said, still actively sobbing. “How are you today?”
“I’m okay,” Trina said. “How are you?”
“I’m very, very sad,” the woman said while chewing and swallowing, chewing and swallowing.
“Oh?” Trina turned toward her. She felt her own sadness pile up in her throat, squeezing her like a tight collar, then more like a noose. “Would you like to talk about it?”
“Sure,” she said, wiping her nose. “I’m just so sad about the death of all these fishes.” She took another murderous bite. “They just don’t stand a chance.”
Trina shuddered and stood up. Behind her, the woman sobbed louder and louder.
8.
Trina walked inside the nondescript off-white building just as it was starting to rain. The sign read: