Twelfth Day After

by Lloyd B. Abrams

From my seat at the tiny table near the door, a couple of steps above the main floor, I watched Greta performing on stage at the Iridium, working the crowd, doing her set with her accompanying pianist, bassist and drummer. The softly-filtered spotlights airbrushed her features but accentuated her curves just so, in that clingy mauve dress that I could never get out of my mind.

I couldn’t tear my eyes away from her. And I was mesmerized by her flinty, bluesy voice that made my heart yearn for her. As I scanned the sold-out crowd, I wondered if everyone else were as enraptured as I.

I knew she had her groupies. And, by definition, I also had become one of them. I followed her around the east coast jazz club circuit when I could afford it or I could justify the cost on my meager expense account. And I still couldn’t believe I had the balls to walk up to her that night in December as she stood at the bar with her manager, and asked her if she’d like to go out and grab a cup of coffee. And that she said, “Yes, honey. I’d sure love to.”

Two months or so later, on the twelfth day after Greta moved in, I came home and found, scrawled on the back of a birthday card taped to the door, this: “you suck / i’m sick of you / i’m off”

And when I walked into my apartment, I noticed that my new flat screen was missing, that my Bose CD player was missing, that the silver menorah and candlesticks were missing, and that almost everything else of value that could be easily carried out was gone. But why my mother’s one-of-a-kind menorah? Greta wasn’t even Jewish. I never thought she could be so vindictive … let alone criminal.

After three quick mercifully mind-dulling shots of Johnnie Walker Blue I kept around for such occasions – what occasions? toasts? brises? breakups? funerals? robberies? – I again read what Greta had written on the back of that birthday card. Eight monosyllabic words on three lines. A hateful haiku, maybe? No caps and no word longer than four letters. No a’s and no e’s. She was always one for concision, a woman of few words. Laconic. Sleek. No nonsense. I know … very much unlike me.

“Poor, poor Kenny. You do go on and on … and on,” she once said in the kitchen, while nursing a hangover by slurping sugared black coffee and munching on a toasted and ineptly-buttered everything bagel.

“Words are my life’s work,” I said. “What do you think a newspaper editor who’s also an up-and-coming author actually does all day?”

“On Kenny … sometimes you talk too much – and you say too little – when you should be doing other things.”

Other things? Like what, exactly? Constantly complimenting her? Telling her how ravishing she looked, that her dress was so breathtaking? How mellifluous her voice was? How fucking wonderful and fabulous she was? No, that wasn’t in me. That wasn’t my style.

And now, a couple of months and twelve days later, her yes, honey turned into a no you suck – a no-minus if I factored in what she had probably made off with.

I realize I was stupid, that I should’ve known better. I guess that that was a given. Anyone who really knew Greta and me knew that I was way out of her league. But I needed her. I craved her. And, as pitiful as it sounds, I was in love with her. So go ahead … call me stupid. But the heart wants what the heart wants.

After a couple of rounds in Pop’s Bar & Grill, Freddy and Hirsch urged me to go to the cops and file a complaint. I told them I didn’t have proof that she actually did it – only that card and the scrawled writing and the timing and the opportunity. And man, it was humiliating reading those eight words to them. Freddy pointed out it could’ve actually been a break-in, while Hirsch said that maybe she left the apartment door open when she split. Did I know for sure that she had done the stealing? Of course she did … who the hell else could it have been? At the very least, she had to be part of it, an accomplice. But, then again, maybe not. Because of how I felt about her, I guess, I needed to bend over and give her the benefit of the doubt.

Then Joey Zee took me aside and offered to talk to someone who knew someone to help me get my stuff back and all it’d cost me – “because I like you, Kenny” – would be a small finder’s fee. But I didn’t want to get her hurt, and I certainly didn’t want to get involved with something like that. In the heavenly scheme of things, everything was chump change and could eventually be replaced, except that old menorah. But on the other hand, maybe it was an omen. And good riddance! That ugly, ornate, tarnished thing with its constant reminder of how much I’d strayed was gathering dust and taking up valuable space on its perch on the bookshelf.

And all I ever really wanted was to get Greta back. But referring back to that abhorrent haiku, I was pretty sure that that was probably never going to happen. But it wasn’t impossible, which meant it definitely was in the realm of possibility.

I still followed Greta on Facebook. I know it was pathetic but I couldn’t help it. And then on her website, to which I all-too-frequently “visited,” I saw that Greta and her trio were going to be appearing at the Iridium again during the summer.

I bought a ticket online for every one of her weekend shows. But as soon as I pressed confirm, it hit me – what the hell was I thinking? What was I supposed to do? Start eating my heart out again? And keep acting like a schmuck?

And then, do I go up to her after a late show while she stood at the bar with her crowd of admirers? And try to get a word in? And ask her out for coffee? And if she said yes, what was I supposed to say to her then? Cajole her? Accuse her? Say nothing? And what would it accomplish? On the back of that old birthday card, she had made it quite clear how she felt about me. Meanwhile, I was back to guzzling Maximum Strength Mylanta. And things weren’t going good at all.

So when August finally oozed out of a torrid July and it was the weekend of her Iridium show, I decided enough was enough. Things were way out of hand – way more than I could possibly have managed. I was so messed up I could hardly breathe. The obsessive thinking and behavior had to stop.

So I decided to return or give away the tickets, and to try to put the past eight months behind me, and to write it off and chalk it up to experience.

And to come down to earth and learn how to again navigate in the real world.

And to stop my life – and my writing – from sounding like a collection of stale, worn-out clichés.

– This story, originally written in 2008, was resurrected from my “Works in Progress” folder

Sess 1 / April 25, 2008 .. Rev 12 / May 13, 2020

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May 13, 2020 … Copyright © 2020, Lloyd B. Abrams