Brooke Berman: Apartment Hunting as Art
I have lived more than 30 apartments in New York City—plus assorted others in L.A., Albuquerque, San Francisco and Providence. The first 20 of these are listed in the opening scene of Hunting and Gathering Charming anecdotes about each are on my blog at moregathering.blogspot.com.
This situation is everyday fare in New York City, a mecca for orphans, a place where people come to reinvent themselves. For me, and most of my friends, transience was never a goal. We all came to New York to make art. And so we did.
However, there were two separate years, during two entirely different life-phases, 10 years apart, in which I found myself "homeless"—without a stable place to live or enough money to pursue a stable place to live, depending on the kindness of friends and a few strangers, making the best of a bad thing. In early 2002, I lived at playwright Michael Garces' apartment while he was at the Humana Festival, then I took a sublet with a couple of NYU actors in Long Island City, stayed at my friend Jeffrey's in Astoria while he was in Nashville, did a stint at New Dramatists, a month at the O'Neill, a week at a Days Inn in Chicago workshopping a play at Steppenwolf, six weeks subletting from a vegan novelist with a great bed, another month in Chicago, and then, finally, moved into the home from which I started the play, 200 East 7th Street in Manhattan.
Hunting and Gathering is very literally about finding a place, something I have become well-versed in, and the following are true stories, from my life, which inspired my writing.
Who are you? You are a very tall blond man who kissed my high school best friend in 1986 at a speech competition in the Midwest, and she was in love with you while I was in love with the long-haired boy who dropped out of school and went to jail. There was an entire year of my adolescence spent driving around the North Shore of Chicago barefoot listening to The Smiths while comparing notes on you and him.
So when you contact me, as an adult, no idea who I am, no knowledge whatsoever of our transitive property history, I am delighted. I say, in that first phone call, "I know exactly who you are."
We meet for expensive coffee at the Belgian place and within months I am living in your apartment. And even though we have only spent a few actual days together, I feel we have a history. It might even be Fate.
Have I mentioned that I have kissed you? I may have left that part out. We have kissed. Okay, we've made out. And here I am.
In Someone's Bed Without Him
What is a part of our story? An apartment in Queens, the Plaza Hotel, a martini shaker and some nice late-night phone calls. And Eliot as in T.S. and Kundera as in Milan. None of this will ever be funny. But we are not there yet—and really, it's not so important.
Close to You
I read your books, eat your food, copy your music, take in your mail, and if you had plants, I'd water them. But you don't.
The Rescue of a Child
Kundera writes: "How many ancient myths begin with the rescue of an abandoned child?" And I am that, just like that…an ancient myth ready to begin. Just begging to be set into action. Will you be the one to do it?
The Writing of a Play
On the Eve of Hunting and Gathering…
The home is not my home. It belongs to You, and you are not here. You are out of town. You have asked me to stay while you are gone. Stay is both a verb and also a noun. It can be a command. I like this.
You call late at night. We speak. You read poetry to me over the phone—Eliot. Your bed has the softest sheets I have ever encountered. Later, much later, I will find out how much these sheets cost and I will be implicated in paying for a new set. I don't want to talk about why. In line at Bed Bath & Beyond, you will crack a joke. You'll say, "Someday this will be very funny," and I'll say, "Only if we're married." And of course, we will not be. Married. This is not a part of our story.
At home in your home. All of my things are spread across your piano bench. A makeshift fort.
I read The Unbearable Lightness of Being in your bed without you. I'm Theresa; all my belongings in storage or on your piano bench. Light and heavy all at once.
I teach creative writing in the New York City public school system. I ask my students to come with some skill at which they might claim expertise. I tell them, "People are very sexy when they're doing something they are good at." So too with characters. We all invent our expert skills. I claim "moving" and then, later, start to write a play about other people who may share this expertise. For the first year of its writing, none of the characters would be in the same room with the others. They all wanted monologues. Finally, I persuaded them talk to one another.
I am yet again homeless. Rent on Mott Street became unimaginably high, and I wasn't in a position to re-sign the lease. I gave up my place, my home, an apartment I loved, trusting something as basic as lodging to the movements of the Infinite Universe, which I keep insisting has order and intelligence. And so, we shall see. I'm writing this tonight from Caleb's home. Caleb produced a movie I wrote last year. A week from now, I'll be back at New Dramatists, and then, who knows? Trusting fate really means just that. Take a deep breath. Dive in. Trust…