Good People

Welcome to Someplace Like Piscataway

I DON’T KNOW WHERE my sister lives, but I think it’s here in Piscataway. I can’t think of another town or city that she might live in and I can’t think of another reason we’d be in Piscataway. I’m almost sure that’s where we are. I remember seeing a sign that said WELCOME TO PISCATAWAY and have no memory of another sign saying NOW LEAVING PISCATAWAY or WELCOME TO SOME OTHER PLACE. We are driving around trying to see if anything looks familiar, but so far nothing does. I have trouble recognizing things, streets, buildings, people. I once ran into my sister on the boardwalk in Atlantic City and it took me five minutes to figure out who she was. I believe this was before I visited my sister here in Piscataway, but I might be mistaken. Perhaps I visited when she lived somewhere else and it was there that she told me she was moving to Piscataway. I remember she served tea and played the cello. I asked when she learned to play the cello and she said she’d been playing since girlhood. This I disputed. I told her I didn’t remember her ever playing an instrument, said she was mistaken. She said she only played in her bedroom with the door shut. My sister is one of those who has answers for everything. This might be one reason I have a hard time recognizing her. I can hardly understand questions myself, let alone the answers, which is probably why we don’t talk to each other much. I think my sister is a social worker and I seem to remember her saying she worked in a hospital. I don’t think she is a doctor or a nurse, though. I’ve never seen her in one of those coats and I’d like to think if she were a doctor or nurse, I’d know this about her. There’s only so much you can keep from anyone, let alone family. I do know that she’s never been married and I’m pretty sure she’s a virgin. You walk around her house and you know no one ever has sex here. Her house is like a museum is why, every piece of furniture from some bygone era, everything shiny and gleaming and too clean for anyone’s good. She can talk about her house for an hour straight without taking a breath, going on about where she found that love seat, what she paid for the sconces, what book gave her the inspiration for the new chandeliers. I try to nod and ask questions during these lectures, but I feel like an idiot. I’m not sure why she turned out this way. Our parents didn’t keep house like this, never paid attention to how anything looked. Maybe that’s why, maybe it’s the apple falling forty-eight miles from the tree. She’s a recluse, my sister, but the rest of us are people persons, or at least I am. I always need to be around people, the noise they make. There’s a lot I don’t know or understand about my sister, but I do know that she loves animals and is concerned with their welfare. She feeds feral cats and saves puppies and protests companies that torture chimpanzees and chickens. She knows I’m allergic, so she kept her own cats in the basement the day I visited. I think she has four of them. This probably says everything anyone might need to know about my sister. I wasn’t allowed in her bedroom growing up, so it makes sense I never heard her play the cello. I don’t know why I wasn’t allowed in her bedroom and I’m not sure who disallowed it. If I had to guess, I’d say it was my sister, but it could’ve been my parents, too. No one in the family ever trusted me. Also, I had my own problems trying to keep healthy and out of the army. Our father wanted me to enlist, said it would make a man out of me. I told him I had other plans. He said I should at least take the civil servant’s exam, that it was good to have something to fall back on. You can’t reason with someone who thinks like this. My sister never talks about our father, even though she takes after him, but only sometimes, in some ways. I can’t remember ever seeing them in the same place at the same time. Maybe she was inside her room with the cello while the rest of us were outside trying to keep healthy and live our lives. She said she was best at Bach concertos but didn’t feel like playing them anymore. She said that part of her life was over. This is how she talks, as if everything has some other meaning. I started stirring the tea right after she said this about her life. I wanted to go home, play some poker. I’ve been making a living at it for five years now and there was a tournament starting that night. I don’t think my sister knows that I’m a professional poker player. We don’t talk, like I said, and she probably wouldn’t care regardless. She kept on about the cello, said she played her own compositions now, pieces she called “Death March for Summertime Five and Ten.” I told her she played very well. I told her it made me think of aquatic animals, which it did, like whales drowning in shallow water. This is when she threw the bow at me and told me to fuck off. I didn’t mind because that’s the way she is sometimes and I was expecting it. She learned this from our father. Whenever he was home, you had to walk around the house with your head down unless you wanted some color in your life. He didn’t like people looking at him was the issue. He wouldn’t get physical, but he’d dress anyone down for looking him in the eye. I’m not sure what explains such a thing, but I am sure my sister is the same way. She’ll say, Can I help you? if she catches you looking at her. Once I asked for a tuna sandwich. She told me to fuck off. I almost caught the bow on a short hop and asked if I could give it a try. She said no, said I had no business playing the cello. She was probably right. Other than poker, I have no talent for anything. She said that’s why she made tea, so I could have something to do. She said it was important for people to have something to do, especially men. She said men have to be occupied at all times, tricked into thinking they’re useful in some way. I told her I didn’t like tea, that I had no use for it. She told me to drink it, otherwise, I could go fuck off. I looked around the room, tried to find something to compliment. My sister likes to hear how great everything looks. She likes to hear about the antique furniture and such, something she calls a settee and other names I forget. We were sitting in what she refers to as the parlor, but it’s a living room to everyone else in the world. There was patterned wallpaper and an Oriental rug and ornate drapery hanging over the bay windows. I couldn’t think of anything to say, so I looked at her instead and tried smiling. I’m not sure what this looked like. I’m not one to smile in front of people. It comes from the poker, one of the reasons I’m good at it. She asked if she could help me and I told her to be reasonable. She got up and left the room. This is why you never know with people and why poker is easier. Across a table, someone either has a hand or doesn’t. They could have the nuts, they could be bluffing. You fold or raise. It’s one or the other. The world is easier when you can boil it down to either/or. Of course, poker doesn’t actually work this way, there are other variables, but the general point is the same. So when your sister runs off, you can chase after her, consider what she might want, if anything, you can consider doing something to the cello even, maybe cutting all the strings with a pocketknife or even casing the fucker up and carrying it home to hock at the nearest pawnshop. Maybe leave a note saying Thanks for the tea and cello. Keep up the marching. The cello was probably worth at least a grand, and I could’ve used the money, especially back then with the frozen river of cards I was continuously dealt. I think I went three months without looking down at a playable hand. I used to do things like this, steal cellos, and sometimes I revert to form in my head. But I didn’t take my sister’s cello and I sat there and waited for her to come back, which she did after about five minutes. She didn’t say anything, instead she took the bow from my hands and started playing something called “Don’t Talk to Me on Fridays Because by Then I’m Too Tired.” This one sounded like a car that had something wrong with the engine, brakes grinding against each other, metal on metal. After one or two more numbers, we took a walk around the neighborhood, which I remember as Piscataway. But now I’m not sure it was Piscataway. For some reason, I associate my sister with Piscataway, though I could be mistaken. My sister is a fast walker and I had to struggle to keep up. She had a path she always took and so this is where we walked. I remember it led to a park and there were trees and a brook and a playground. It was when we passed the playground that I mentioned something about our father, how he used to take us to the playground when we were kids and the time my sister fell off the monkey bars and we all had to go to the hospital. My sister said she didn’t know what I was talking about. I tried to remind her of the little boy who tripped her while she was climbing up the bars and how she had to get five stitches on her chin. She said I was mistaken, that I must be thinking of something else. To this, I said, The hell I am. This is when she stopped and stood in front me. It felt like she wanted to fight. I was getting ready to defend myself, when she stuck her chin out. She said, Show me the scar. I looked hard for it but couldn’t find one. I didn’t think so, she said. I decided to drop it, but I did consider asking if she’d had plastic surgery. I wouldn’t put it past my sister to have plastic surgery. She’s always been vain, my sister, which is strange for a pious virgin. I remember being told that she was in her room, brushing her hair, whenever I’d ask after her. I think our mother was the one who said this about her whenever I asked where my sister was because it never seemed like she was around. I can’t remember ever seeing my sister and mother and father all in the same place at the same time, not even at dinner. I’m not sure if my sister remembers all of this the same way. You can’t tell with her and also she might be crazy. She looks like someone who has spent time in a sanitarium. I think our father spent a lot of time at the park and on his way home he’d stop at the ROTC. I’d find flyers under my bedroom door almost every day. Our mother was either in the kitchen or the living room, sitting on a chair or sofa, reading or knitting. I can’t remember ever seeing her somewhere else. What I said instead was, Who the hell was it that fell off the monkey bars? My sister said she had no idea, said it was my problem. She accused me of being pathological, but I’m not sure what she meant by this and I didn’t ask. Instead, I asked a question about our family, about what she remembered, but she said she didn’t want to talk about it anymore. I asked if we’d ever talked about it and she pointed to some blue jays. She said, Look at the blue jays, how beautiful. Then she made up a story about the blue jays, how they were endangered due to pesticides and poachers. She could tell that these two had a hard life and that it’d taken a toll. She said she could tell by their energies. She said there was discord for a long time but that they were reconciled now. She said even still everything was tenuous between them. There’s no way you can have an actual conversation with someone who talks like this. All you can do is nod and pretend to care and find a place where you can say I should be getting back. I did look at the two blue jays flitting from branch to branch. They seemed fine to me, maybe a little high-strung, but fine. After the blue jays, we walked back to her house and then she drove me to the train station, which I believe was here in Piscataway. This is why we drove here in the first place, starting out early today, before breakfast. When I say we are driving around, I mean my new wife is doing the driving and I am in the passenger seat, doing the looking. My new wife has never been to Piscataway, has never met my sister, so this is her first time. Nothing looks familiar to her, I’m sure. This is something I’m smart enough not to ask, though I did have to catch myself once. A lot of people think I’m quiet or shy, but it’s just that I’m smart enough not to lend voice to thought if I can help it. It was the same way with my sister and the blue jays. I wanted to ask her if she was taking any medication or seeing a therapist or getting enough sleep. I wanted to say she should get herself laid one time, maybe get blind drunk some night, but I kept it all to myself. People have a hard time recognizing this kind of genius, but I’m happy to say that my new wife can. She said as much the night we met. She said, I can tell how smart you are by how you sit and say nothing. I married her three days later. This was back in Atlantic City, which seems another lifetime ago, maybe two lifetimes, even though it’s only been three days. This is how the world works sometimes. Time and math don’t always apply.

My new wife has never been anywhere other than Atlantic City for the past five years. I’m not sure where she was before that. I did ask once. I said, Where are you from? And she said, I’m not proud of this. Sometimes Eastern Europeans talk this way, so I think that’s what she is, where she’s from. It can mean almost anything, so I decided to drop it. Another thing people don’t know about me is my intuition and how sharp it is. I told her it wasn’t important. I told her the only important thing was our everlasting devotion. She agreed by getting behind the wheel and driving north to Piscataway. This is yet another reason she is doing the driving, and it works out, so I can do the looking. She wouldn’t know what to look for and also she doesn’t like responsibility, I don’t think. I can’t claim this as fact, but I’ve picked up on such. There’s only so much you can learn about a person in four days, so at this point it’s all suspicion and extrapolation, which is as close to intuition as you can get sometimes. I do, however, know plenty about myself, but only when it comes to poker. I know I don’t like to play suited connectors out of position and that I’m best at the three-bet. I can play back at anyone who tries to bully me. This is how I met my new wife, at the table. I raised preflop with an ace-ten of spades and she played back at me. So I reraised and put her all in. I was surprised when she called with a pair of nines, but sometimes Eastern Europeans play fast and loose like that. I caught an ace on the turn and that was that until an hour or so later when I saw her crying at the bar.

Another reason she is doing the driving is I don’t have a valid driver’s license. It was revoked last year, I’m pretty sure. I think it was for my third DUI, which is a night I’d like to remember. I know that’s a reason they revoke licenses, the third strike, so to speak. Otherwise, I let the license lapse and never renewed it. I’m not sure which is true in this instance. It could be that I’ve lost my license both ways over the years. It is like me to ignore things I have to do, like renew driver’s licenses, pay the heating bill, rent, insurance. Sometimes I forget to call my sister. It’s not that I forget to return her calls because she’s never called me on the telephone or dropped by in person. I’ve learned not to take this personally, though I’m sure it’s personal. I’m sure she holds me responsible for something and there’s no getting over it. Maybe it’s the monkey bars. Maybe she thinks I’m the one who tripped her. Even still, I have it in my head to call her every so often, check in. I like to know she’s okay, that she’s still living some kind of life. This is one reason we’re driving around Piscataway, trying to find her. I also want to introduce her to my new wife, show her that people can be happy with other people. I’ve never liked driving myself and my new wife can drive just fine, which is probably strange for an Eastern European. I didn’t ask if she had a valid license, but I’m sure she does. And when I say I’m sure I mean I hope she has a valid license. If we get pulled over here in Piscataway and she gets busted for driving without a license I can foresee a chain of events that conclude with her deportation back to Poland or Slovakia and my ending up on my sister’s couch for a couple of months, dodging bows and drinking tea and slipping brochures under her bedroom door.

My new wife is a marvel of Eastern European design. She has the hair and the eyes and the cheekbones that protrude three paces ahead of her and that way of walking around the world like it’s an absolute pleasure or at least better than the gulag. I saw her crying at the bar and it was maybe two or three drinks before we were engaged to be married. Then it was up and down the boardwalk, sharing ice-cream cones and cotton candy. There have been a few hiccups, to be sure, a few misunderstandings, given the cultural divide. There was the time we were out walking and I’d assumed the inside position, so that she was on my left. She said to me, out of nowhere, she said, Do you think I am a whore? Of course, I had no idea what was happening. We were out walking, neither of us had said anything for about a mile or so. I was probably thinking about the rest of the tournament, if I was thinking about anything at all. I’d been knocked out shortly after I’d eliminated my new wife. I went all in with kings and ran up against aces. This happens, there’s nothing you can do. I said, What, to my new wife, and she said, You heard me. I said, I don’t think I heard correctly, and she said, This is my fault. At this point we’d stopped walking and I had my hands on her shoulders. It felt like maybe she wanted to kick me in the groin. I asked, Do I think you are a whore? Is that what you said? She said, This is the question. After asking what the hell she was talking about, she finally explained what it means if you walk and the woman is on your left.

As if life wasn’t hard enough.

My new wife holds her own at the poker table, though. Maybe she’s too much of a gambler, but she’s talented, dangerous. She and I haven’t talked about poker too much since the wedding. I do know she is concerned about money. I’ve heard her talking about not having any money at all, about being broke as Polish jokes, about being hungry as a child and how this can never happen again. She asks me how much money I have saved, if I own a house somewhere. I tell her I have a house in Vermont and that I might take her there sometime. She says she cannot wait for this, that she loves the mountains, so I tell her that we can go up to Vermont after we visit with my sister. She talks about rich American doctors and lawyers and how they think they can play poker. I think she thinks I’m one of these. She says that she can’t believe how lucky she is that she met me. I feel like a million dollars when she says this. I haven’t said anything about being a doctor or lawyer, but I’ve decided that it doesn’t matter. So far she hasn’t paid for anything and I’ve decided this doesn’t matter, either. I’m not sure exactly how our lives will work once we get back to it. I imagine we’ll find a place together. I’ve been living in a hotel and I’m not sure what her situation is, where she lives, what exactly her hustle is. I know she has a hustle, they all do. I think I remember her mentioning a roommate, maybe she’s in on it, too. They could be working girls, high-end. You can’t tell. The very first thing I asked her was if I could take her home, on account of her being upset. This was before buying that first drink at the bar and falling in love. She said, I don’t like this idea. I asked what idea she might like, and she said, A drink with fruit inside it and then another one after that.

So now we are in Piscataway or someplace that looks like Piscataway or how I imagine Piscataway should look. My new wife isn’t impressed. She says things like, Why you bring me to this pit? Why you bring me someplace like Piscataway? I tell her about the park with the trees and brook and the blue jays. I tell her it’s pretty here. I tell her that she should meet my sister, that I think they have a lot in common. I tell her about the tea and cello. I say that family is important. I tell her if things get bad we can always steal the cello and pawn it for good money. I tell her that my sister is an easy mark. My new wife doesn’t react when I say this. She could be holding anything at this point, a high pair or rags.

I decide to tell her some stories about my sister, how she used to be a concert cellist but was injured in a playground mishap. I tell her a little boy tripped her and we don’t know if it was an accident or not. I tell her that my sister had two children but they were taken by the state on account of her being an unfit mother. I tell her about the drug use and the prostitution. Still, I say, she is a good person with a good heart and we shouldn’t judge her. I tell my new wife that she will love my sister and they will grow to be great friends. I tell my new wife that my sister needs this as much as she does. This is when I suggest we pull over, get something to eat, stretch our legs. My new wife wants to check into a hotel so we can watch TV. So far we’ve watched hours of TV every night before going to sleep sometime around 4:00 a.m. The truth is, we haven’t even consummated our marriage yet. Every time I try, she says she is trying to watch something or that she doesn’t like this idea. I explain to her that this is what married people do in this country, and she says, Everything about this is a problem. I want to ask what this means, but I don’t. Instead I go out and get her chips. She likes chips, calls them cheeps, eats them straight from the bag, one at a time.

What no one knows is that it doesn’t take much for me to fall in love and get married. With my new wife, it’s how she pronounces cheeps and the rest of her broken English and how she peeks down past those cheekbones at her hole cards, like she doesn’t want them to know she’s looking. How she looks devastated when I tell her something she doesn’t like and how after I say something nice a smile comes exploding from the bottom of her face and she kisses me hard on the cheek. She can go from inconsolable to affectionate in seconds and I don’t care if she’s just biding her time as long as she does this every so often. The others all had their own private wonders unique to them, too. I can’t help myself when it comes to women sometimes. This probably speaks to something fundamental about who I am as a person, but I try not to think about it. Or if I do, I only try to see how it might connect to poker.

I tell her we should keep driving around, that it’ll be dark soon. I ask if we can give it another hour, that if we can’t find my sister’s house in another hour, we’ll find a hotel and watch TV and eat chips. Then tomorrow we’ll go up to Vermont and live happily ever after. She tells me this is her dream. She says I should call my sister to see if she’s home, but I don’t have her new phone number. The last time I tried to call there was an automated voice saying the number I had dialed had been disconnected. I’m not sure when this was, if it was before or after I’d visited her last, the time she played the cello and we went for a walk. My sister hasn’t met any of my wives. I have a dim memory of calling her after I got married the first time with the intention of telling her the news, but all she could talk about were the drapes and how they were giving her all kinds of trouble.