Jocelyn Jeffery
The Crack-Up
Excerpt
It wasn’t a conscious decision to check out. I woke up one morning and was only partially there. As if my subconscious had decided that the world, as it was, was too painful to exist in, so it was going to create its own reality. The DC bedroom scene kept playing on a loop. I’d wake and swap my cold, sweat-drenched tank top and shorts for fresh versions and resume sleep on the dry side of the mattress. Worse were the nights I woke up to dreams of Victor and me gallivanting around Paris together, as lovers, or as the best of friends. I had very few memories of youth without him in it. I’d feel at peace for a moment, happy even, until I came to full waking consciousness and remembered what happened.
After yet another sweat-soaked sleep I woke and pressed snooze on my 8 a.m. alarm. I managed to pry myself out of bed at 8:50 a.m., with just ten minutes to get to work. I proceeded to pick out the most colorful items in my closet and put them all on at once. A Marc Jacobs slip dress under a sheer Marc Jacobs floral dress. A Louis Vuitton belt and a scarf, even though it was spring. The employee discount was a perk that I loved to exploit. I’d lost a ton of weight so the clothes hung on me. I looked incredible. Heroin chic without the heroin—dark under-eye circles included. I coordinated the production of the handbags at Marc Jacobs and often got them for free so had started carrying two at once. More was more. I couldn’t fit all of the junk I needed to have on me at all times into just one. Today it was a puffy cerulean-blue quilted number with a thick strap coupled with a navy canvas crossbody with a gold chain.
On my walk to the office the morning sun shot down between the buildings illuminating an electric world. A homeless man flashed a bright, gap-toothed grin and I ran up and gave him a hug. I hadn’t anticipated the smell, but he was so genuinely appreciative that it was worth it. I couldn’t get over how clear the sky was or the scintillating feeling of fresh air brushing up against my skin. I was young, successful, and alive with the galvanizing energy of having life figured out; a permanent smile plastered across my face. Everyone I passed smiled back.
I stopped at Balthazar on Spring Street for a croissant and a latte and breezed into work at 9:40 a.m., nearly an hour late. I frantically caught up on emails and phone calls with our production team in Milan, occasionally picking at my breakfast. I’d only finished half of it by the time lunch rolled around and decided it was too gorgeous a day to stay at my desk. I left to peruse the sale at the Marc by Marc Jacobs store and hopefully bump into the handsome sales associate, Kyle. I bought several straw hats and T-shirts and made out with Kyle on the sidewalk. I then proceeded to reach into my giant shopping bag and give away each of my newly procured items to excited and unexpecting strangers on the corner of West 4th and Bleecker. People loved me. I was voltaic.
The hunger hit. I flitted around the corner to Westville and ordered a burger, which I picked at but couldn’t finish. Life was too interesting to spend time eating. Plus, it was nearly 4:00 p.m., and I needed to get back to work. I paid the bill and left a $100 tip, not without entering the kitchen uninvited and profusely thanking the employees for their hard work. I took a cab back to the office and tipped my driver $20 for a $9 fare and returned to my desk. My intern Lily told me that a few people, including my boss, had inquired as to my whereabouts but not to worry, she had covered using our predetermined excuses: that I was in the bathroom, had stepped out to get coffee, or was in a meeting on another floor.
The day at the office couldn’t end fast enough. As soon as it did, I scurried over to another of my usual haunts, the Bowery Hotel, and perched on one of the tan wicker sofas on the terrace. I ordered a glass of Sancerre and spread my laptop, books, magazines, and multiple purses all over the faded red cushions. I’d determined these items were essential to have on me at all times: a flipbook of a jumping frog I’d made in first grade, an old journal from high school, and a tiny plastic polar bear figurine that a socialite I’d recently had a dalliance with had mailed to me after I told him how much I wanted to free the polar bear from his sad enclosure with a singular block of ice at the Central Park Zoo.
My friend Jen from work came to meet me briefly but left just as quickly. By then I had already befriended the group at the table next door, so I didn’t mind much. They were drunk and I was insane. Together we talked nonsense and broke out into an a cappella version of Billie Holiday’s “They Can’t Take That Away From Me.” Our song wrapped and a man sat down on the bench behind me so that his back brushed against mine. I proceeded to lift the cowboy hat off his head and held it close to my chest as collateral.
“Excuse you, Marlboro Man.”
He turned to face me with pool-blue eyes and upturned lips. He was the most beautiful man I’d ever seen.
“Come sit,” he said, gesturing to the adjacent table where he sat with a few other men. He introduced himself with his initials instead of his full name, said the men were his bandmates, and we got to talking. I probably did most of the talking. As the night wore on, strangers would occasionally stop by the table and I deduced he must be of some renown figure. But mostly it was as if the two of us were alone amid the evening bustle. I felt safe in his presence. Like I could open up to him somehow. The terrace continued to empty and the night ended with me supine, head in his lap, unloading everything about Victor, about the rape. He stroked my hair and mostly listened, but also told me what I needed to hear: “You’re going to be OK. You are safe. You are beautiful.”
Strangers continued to stop by our table as I lay in his lap and it became clear that this man was very, very famous. Had I not been in my manic state, I may have been able to deduce who he was. A last stranger stopped by and inquired about my new confidant’s wife and kids. The shock of this new information jolted my body upright, knocking my companion’s whisky glass out of his hand, now cut just below his thumb, rough skin increasingly covered by the crimson color of his blood. I took his other, unbloodied hand in mine, touched his wedding ring, then let go.
“If only we had met in another life, Jocelyn,” he said, pressing a napkin into his thumb. He proceeded to invite me up to his room.
“You’re a bad husband and a bad father,” I said, kicking the freshly shattered glass away from our feet before storming off.
As soon as I got home I changed my mind, called him, and came back.
Back at the office I continued to show up late and raced around checking items off my to-do list as fast as I started to forget to do the things on my to-do list. I mindlessly blew through my savings. I continued my string of short-lived love affairs. I picked up a famous actor. Then another. It became like a game. How many heartthrobs could I bring home?
It was as if, to cope, my mind had decided to dissociate from my body. I don’t know if it had been the holding it in, or the finally seeing Victor, or the finally letting it out. Britney Spears was plastered all over the media at the time for shaving her head in a public restroom and attacking a paparazzi’s car with an umbrella. As the American girl in my Parisian high school, I was called Britney by the French girls. I guess I’d inadvertently developed a kinship with her. Years later, during her crack-up, I was simultaneously having a meltdown of my own.
“Do you really need to go to the hardware store now? Don’t you think you should eat something? Are you really going to wear that?” My friends’ palpable skepticism was secondary to the fact that I was the one who had it all figured out. They didn’t get it. Every interaction felt like an altercation so I avoided them. They became increasingly dubious and distant. Since the people I knew didn’t know what to do with me I liked strangers best. The hardware store cashier and I had bonded for the better part of an hour, exchanged phone numbers, and were actively planning a trip to Argentina. To me this felt like the most natural thing in the world. To others my behavior was erratic and everyone I encountered back then would assure you I was crazy. But my energy was also alluring. I was a magnetic force pulling people in. I felt on top of the world. I felt like hell.
About the Author
As a native New Yorker who also lived in London and Paris, Jocelyn Jeffery formerly ran the internationally-distributed art magazine Materialist. She will receive her MFA in Nonfiction and is currently working on a memoir about a betrayal that spiraled into bipolar disorder, addiction, and illness.