of reaction to a woman in a long time, and as I looked across the table, I had this silly, adolescent vision of making a playlist of my favorite songs and playing it for October on a long drive up the coast.
After about a minute October lifted her hand, opened her eyes, and sat back in her chair. Then she took out her phone and showed me a short video of her second Living Exhibit, Solitary, in which she had aimed to exist without art. She’d spent two weeks locked in a tiny, gray studio apartment in an art gallery, where a two-way-mirrored wall allowed museum visitors to see what was going on inside the room and gave the viewer the impression of watching a human diorama come to life.
October lived alone and in silence inside that box for fourteen days. She had no music, no television, no books, no pencils, no paint, no color, no scents, and saw no other humans. She didn’t even cook her own food, because she believes cooking is an art too. By the end of the video her big eyes were dull and her usually vibrant face was pallid and drawn. She looked like half a person.
“I felt like a ghost,” she said, “like I didn’t exist.”
I got nauseous thinking about it. That was how I felt almost every day.
I looked away, drank the rest of the wine in my glass, and poured myself some more.
“Joe . . .” October said.
I shook my head. Shut down. Reverted to the lamest possible version of myself as I stabbed a piece of squash with my fork and wished I were somewhere else.
I could feel October staring at me, and after a while she said, “You know what hit me the hardest once I left that room? The smells. As soon as I walked outside, all these odors struck me—trash, gasoline, food, the Bay, the perfumes and scents of people walking by. I swore I could even smell the eucalyptus trees in the park, and they were over a mile away. It was like I’d developed some kind of superhuman sense of smell. When I got back to Mill Valley, it was even more intense. I’d only lived here for a couple of months at that point, and you know, this town smells like heaven anyway, but it really smells like heaven if you’ve been in limbo for two weeks. I remember getting out of the car and walking to the biggest redwood in the yard. You know the one between the house and the garage?”
I nodded. I could see that tree from my bed.
“I threw my arms around it and just inhaled.” Her eyes filled with tears, and she used her napkin to dab at the corners. “Sorry. I haven’t thought about that in a long time.”
She took a sip of wine as Brad/Al dropped a mini loaf of bread off at our table, along with a ramekin filled with olive oil.
“I didn’t mean to upset you,” October finally said. “I was only trying to tell you that I understand.”
I looked at her but didn’t say anything. I felt all tied up inside, certain I was blowing it, certain this would be the first and last dinner we’d have together. But October held my look with soft eyes. Then she ripped off a piece of bread from the loaf, dipped it in the oil, and said, “It’s OK. You’ll tell me when you’re ready.”
She didn’t seem at all annoyed with my emotional ineptitude, and that surprised me, mainly because it didn’t jibe with the reaction I was used to getting from women, which was typically disappointment and frustration, not understanding.
Nevertheless, from my point of view, October might have been able to perceive emotions, but she couldn’t perceive facts, and I believed it was the facts that counted. I believed that the more facts October learned, the easier it would be for her to see what a broken toy I was and discard me.
There were so many things trapped inside of me then. But they were things I didn’t know how to express—not just to her, but to anyone.
I wanted to tell her the truth. I wanted to tell her that I’d grown up two miles from where we were sitting. I wanted to tell her about Bob and Ingrid, and Cal. I wanted to tell her how when I was in high school, Phil Lesh saw me play at the Sweetwater and told me I was