Naked Patriot
A stoner, a soldier, and everything he could see through my window.
“Naked Patriot” was originally published in New York Natives in the summer of 2013, my last months in Los Angeles. Back then, I paired it with my figure skating days. For this version, I paired it with an audition instead.
My window has become a portal to terror.
It wasn’t always that way. Growing up in Soho, my bedroom window overlooked an old factory building. From its rooftop, a lone potted tree watched over me. I would drag my chair close to the glass and lose myself in the dark, purple haze of the night. Manhattan isn’t conducive to stargazing, but the glow of airplanes and sparkling city lights ignited my search for something more. In that soft stillness, I would find my peace.
Until recently, my love affair with windows continued in my West Hollywood apartment. At night, stars salted the sky as I traced the silhouettes of two long-limbed trees. Birds rested in their nests singing songs of playful promise while squirrels scurried by holding prized pine nuts. And I found my peace.
I do not know my neighbor’s name, but he’s why my cherished window’s become my hell. He sits on his terrace, which is covered in camouflage bamboo for his privacy. He harasses me all day with pot smoke and a gurgling, hacking cough. Some are loose and borderline healthy, but most are dry and long-lasting, and it feels like death is around me.
I shut my window and open the refrigerator for fresh air, all the while cursing the man with the cough for depriving me of nature’s sweet breeze. I’m being fumigated out of my fucking mind.
When I finally reopen my window out of desperation, he is lurking there again. I hear the click of his lighter as he prepares to smoke yet another bowl. My fingers curl from tension into angry cat claws as yet another waft of skunk-smelling fumes blows into a bouquet of innocent pink roses on my windowsill.
As if the cough and toxins weren’t enough, the man with the cough has two yappy Chihuahuas and a newborn baby. I hate him, his dogs, and his crybaby of a child. The noise pollution is so invasive, I begin to wonder if I’m the one coughing.
I try to stay positive and get metaphysical. I’m told everyone in our lives is a reflection of ourselves. What does the man with the cough represent in me?
As he gasps for air, I grab my chest. His slime drips down my throat and into my stomach, suffocating me. I wish he would just drop dead already.
I break. “Excuse me, sir.”
I just make out his eyes through the bamboo.
“I’m so sorry to intrude, but I keep hearing you cough. It’s very disruptive. Not to mention, scary. I think you should go see a doctor.”
The man with the cough says nothing. I’ve caught him in a private moment.
Feeling self-righteous, I continue my crusade. I’m on fire.
“Maybe you should smoke your joints inside your apartment? I guess there’s the baby inside, so you can’t do that. Regardless, I really think you should see a doctor.”
An uncomfortable laugh. “Oh, I’m okay. I just smoke too much,” he says, annoying me with the obvious. “I’ve had this cough since art school.”
I’m not sure what to do with this information, but I continue, “I don’t know where you should smoke, but your noises are incredibly upsetting. Thank you.”
I shut the window.
Today, I have a producer’s session for the show Numbers — basically a callback. I literally have two lines. When I went to the pre-read, the casting director who cast me on Dirt said, “I thought of you for this since you’re tall and lanky.” I guess that was the impression I made on him.
The callback is all the way in downtown Los Angeles, an area that makes me feel so lonely, but then again, I’m always lonely here. I sit in a room full of beautiful women, everyone there with their own life stories, vying for a part. One girl comes in who’s voluptuous, and I can’t help but think she won’t get the role because she isn’t thin enough. It’s awful how quickly you start to think like them out here. Maybe I’ve already taken myself out of the running as well.
I go into the bathroom and stare at myself in the mirror. I’m looking a little thinner than usual. It’s been a stressful couple of days. So I look at myself. I’ve got my blonde highlighted, curled hair, my light red lipstick, and I’m gearing up and ready to go. I jump up and down in place in front of the empty bathroom stalls, small jumps, just enough to get the blood flowing but not enough to injure myself. Funny that there aren’t any other girls in here looking at themselves. I’m the only one. But I needed to get away from them. I needed to get away from their high heels, their tight jeans, their expressive fashion statements, their gossip, their mouths reciting their lines in a chorus, each one attempting to nail it. I suppose someone will, though. Nail it.
I force a smile in the mirror, then touch the handle with both hands on the way out. I’ve been obsessive compulsive lately, much more than usual, and I have to do everything in sets of twos.
I sit in the chair by “the room” where everyone goes in and comes out slightly changed. I wonder if I’ll mess up.
Be quiet.
We don’t need to tell you not to run, do we?
(I’ll be honest, those lines don’t inspire me in the least.) But I want the part. I want the part more than I want to say the two lines. I want the part. I want something to click. If I’m not going to win first or second place at my USFSA novice figure skating competition, at least give me a small part on Numbers. Can’t something go right for me?
Stop it, Jasmine. Don’t think that. You’re going to go in there and do your job. You’re a talented actress. You’re talented.
They call my name. I’m all in black. My tank top is scooped and has lace on it. I’m a kick-ass hot woman. I’m a scared girl. I’m unbalanced in my body as I stand up with a bounce.
I walk in and see the casting director with his ponytail and comb-over glued to the side of his head. There are two producers sitting to my right, behind a massive wooden conference table. One of them happens to be very attractive. This is it. This is my chance. The room reminds me of my fifth grade classroom with all of its chairs, and its yellow walls.
“Stand over there and you can use that chair to slam down the car door,” the casting director says.
“Sounds good.” I’m a pro. It’s just two lines. I got this. God, this is painful.
I look at the casting director who distantly roots me on with his eyes. I feel like I’m about to jump rope. I’m about to catch the rhythm of his words and attempt to slide in effortlessly, but the strain is already in my eyes.
“Be quiet.”
The casting director responds with his line about how the kidnapped girl needs to listen to what the Charles Manson inspired character says, but before he can finish, I jump in with, “And we don’t need to tell you not to run, do we?”
I overshot the line. I came in with a dive, missed the wave, and crashed in far too soon. Something that was so easy. I am a ball of nerves. I want to go home. I want to succeed. God damn it, get me this fucking job. I am rolled up barbed wire ready to snap.
The casting director signals me with his hand to wait while he continues to read his line. God forbid I cut him off. And then he says we need to do it over again. I tell him I’m sorry. I got excited. (Because I’m so enthusiastic.)
The handsome producer in his olive J.Crew sweater interjects. Maybe he’ll hire me because I’m cute. Maybe he wants to go on a date with me.
Focus, Jasmine. It’s amazing how many things I can think at once.
Once, when I had a callback for House, I stood in front of a row of writers and producers, and instead of thinking about the role I thought: what would they do if I jumped on one foot and quacked like a duck? Quack Quack Quack. What would they do? So instead of acting like a sick patient, I was acting like a duck.
Back to Numbers. I’m all tied up in myself. My spindly arms are trying to hold onto any possible solution.
The cute producer says we’re going to do it again. But this time: “You’re exhausted. You’re not really worried the girl is going to run away because she’s already tied up with rope. Don’t take the script so literally.”
I look at him and breathe, and let out a laugh. I release all the wind and the dead air in my lungs and in my stomach. I let it go and I am there with him. I look into his green eyes. There is an understanding of sorts. I can tell he wants me to do well. They all do, I think. But I’m the only one who dares myself to flop.
I gather my will and focus on shutting the pretend trunk door with a languid exhaustion, saying my lines from my core. Solid and strong. Like a child, I jump back, afraid of the grounded work I’d just done.
When am I going to step into my womanhood and actually be okay with it?
They all say great and thank me. I thank them, and as I gather my purse and jacket off the chair I’m off balance again in my gait. I try to get out of there quickly, since I know their eyes are on my body. Then I realize I’ve forgotten my sides. I turn back and smile as I pick them up, and I trip out of the room.
I go straight to the bathroom, look into the mirror, and recite the whole scene over and over. Be quiet. And we don’t need to tell you not to run, do we? I’m not sure if I was great or terrible. I think I did a good job. But now it’s time to leave it all behind me. Another day, another audition. I pray and fantasize that I’ve gotten the part. I visualize and pray so hard.
I pull out of my driveway to head to my new part-time gig, working as a personal assistant to a love coach who specializes in teaching women how to attract men. In exchange for ridiculous sums of money, she gives clients makeovers and advice. She has huge fake boobs and enough Botox injected in her face to paralyze a man in his tracks, though she’s single.
As I look left and right for oncoming cars, a man knocks on my window. I don’t have time for this shit.
He wears reading glasses and his baby hangs in a pouch from his chest. His two dogs sniff piss on a nearby tree.
“Hey, you’re my neighbor, right?”
“Yes,” I tell him, recognizing his voice.
“I just want to apologize for all the coughing and the marijuana.”
“Oh, don’t worry about it.” I don’t mean it.
“I hate pot myself. It’s just that, you see, I was in Iraq and I got stabbed in the chest.”
My eyes say what?!
“Yeah, well the story is that I was in Fallujah and this guy knifed me. They had to put a plastic tube in my lung until they could fly me to Baghdad.”
My mouth is frozen wide open. I shut it, then say, “I’m so sorry.”
“So I have all of this nerve damage and pot is the only thing that makes the pain bearable.”
“I totally understand.”
Everything I assumed about the man with the cough is wrong.
“Oh, and I don’t want to embarrass you or anything. But I can see right into your window. I see everything.”
“Everything? You mean you’ve seen me….naked?”
“I see you in your underwear and topless all the time. I mean, don’t get me wrong, you’re a very sexy woman. You have great breasts. But I just thought I should tell you.”
He looks at me like I have sinned.
“Oh, and my mother-in-law and I saw you and your girlfriend in the nude yesterday, trying on some really nice dresses. I was like, are we really seeing this?”
“I am so sorry,” I manage. “Thank you for letting me know. I’ll be more careful moving forward.”
“As I said, I don’t mind. I just thought you should know. Oh, and any time you want to come over for brunch just give a holler out your window.”
As I wave goodbye, I realize that I forgot to ask him his name.
That evening, I hear him on the terrace. He is a shadow, holding his baby up in the air.
In between coughs: “Who is the most beautiful boy in the whole wide world? Who is the love of my life? Who is my biggest joy?”
Through the bamboo, I see their blurred shapes. He holds his son tight to his wounded body.
I hope he lives a long, long life.
That night I wake up drenched in sweat in the dark. He’s climbed the tree. His legs straddle the thick branch, his body outstretched, his head cocked, peeping in. By the time I open my eyes, he’s gone.
In the morning, I step out of the shower and cover myself with a towel. I’m about to slink away from the window and hide in the corner, but pause instead. I throw up my arms and let my towel drop to the floor. I stand naked and free, totally exposed to my heroic neighbor who took a knife to the lung for America. I figure it’s the least I can do.
Call me a patriot.
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that was a great quick read. Heart warming in a different kind of way
Thank you for your service