Stevie

Last night, before I drove down to exit 8 to meet Marc and drop Maisie, he calls and asks if I'd mind dropping his old friend, Stevie, back in Manhattan; Stevie lives on the upper west side, and has been helping Marc for a few days editing a Vietnam project he's doing. The bitch in me immediately takes charge. "It's going to be rush hour," I start off, thinking out loud. "I can drop him on 181st street, since that's right on my way, but I can't take him into the city. He can catch the subway, OK?" This is a 5-hr drive on good days, and most trips are not good days; with traffic, it can take 8 hrs. "OK," Marc says.

So the kids and I show up at the Shell station--our meeting place--and there are Marc and Stevie. I know they're the same age, but Stevie looks to be at least ten years older, many miles slower, many pills more laid back. But mostly older. He has two enormous suitcases and a shoulder bag. I can tell the nice in me will never be able to dump him in Washington Heights at the subway entrance. And it pisses my bitch off.

He and Marc went to Stockbridge for high school back in the day: in '63, in fact: the year I was born. Both of them--white Jews from wealthy families--married poor black women: Marc immediately, because he's that kind of guy, and Stevie 20 years later. Stevie's marriage lasted, apparently. Stevie asks Marc if he has any bread. "Sure, man," Marc hands him a few bills. 55-yr-old men. Where's Stevie's cash? (Bitch is back.) Stevie climbs into my car and we leave. I can smell the pot, which doesn't bother me except that my daughter just climbed into the other car for a 3-hr highway drive with Marc, who I can only imagine also smells of pot. I like pot, but haven't smoked since the day I got pregnant; my moral issue is strictly child exposure.

Stevie begins to talk. This cat did this, that cat did that. So-and-so was a poet and a Sandanista--cool cat. I'm thinking so-and-so was no poet, and that she was a Sandanista much like Marc spearheaded the civil rights movement. Stevie doesn't work--this becomes clear; his wife supports him and their 5 nearly grown children. What is it with capable women, I wonder, not for the first time. He's very confessional, and you can tell it's because he has no shame. He doesn't ask me a single question.

An hour of this, and easy traffic, and we can see the lights of the Empire State Bldg across the river, and New York always feeds the nicer me. "I'll just pop on the West Side Hwy and drop you at 95th Street, OK? I say, and Stevie's grateful, and I feel OK with it.

But the West Side Hwy is a parking lot. So we get off it and into the city, and what was supposed to be a drop off adds an hour to the drive, and though he knows this he's not offering to hop out and grab a cab or the subway, and I can't suggest it. We say goodbye at the door to his building. "Hey, let's do this again next time I'm down there!" he calls out, pleased by how well it's all gone. I smile. Fuck.

I could have just said, "You know, Stevie, Liam's tired and I need to get home, so I'm going to let you out here." Why is it so fricking hard to just map the moment--to just say these things? I'm better than I used to be, but on the bitch-doormat scale, I'm still much closer to the doormat.

Tomorrow I'll holler at Marc about pot. Today, Liam and I are raking leaves.