“Jules.”
“Yeah.”
“Where are you?”
“I’m downstairs. Take the elevator all the way down. Or: I’ll meet you.”
“I’ll come down.” I push open the door to the lobby of Black Box 101. I had gone up to the theatre, then come down to the street to see if I missed her, outside.
When I get downstairs she’s seated on the red couch. There’s a woman next to her—I guess someone who came to see the play. Jules is facing her, looking at her straight on. The woman is turned kind of sideways. Jules has her hands on the woman’s arms, and she sees me come into the room. They’re talking. I sit over on the side, near a corner. The woman doesn’t notice me.
The woman’s murmuring. She’s in trouble. She’s pleading to Jules, pleading to be listened to. Pleading to have someone listen to her life.
Jules is calming her. She’s not even actually listening. That’s something you have to know about Jules. She’s not actually listening to the woman. When I ask her later, what that woman was talking about, Jules will crunch her eyes and say “I’on’know.” I guess I don’t know either; maybe Jules really does know, and she’s just fucking with me. It sure looks like she’s listening. It looks like she’s listening hard.
The woman is crying—she’s wiping her face with her sleeves.
And Jules is telling her that she deserves to feel sad, right now. What strange advice. If I really thought that, I’d be afraid to tell it to someone, because of how they might interpret. You deserve to feel sad?
But the woman responds. She nods. She knows Jules is right. It’s the first smile I’ve seen on the woman since I sat down.
I can hear some of what Jules says. I’m trying not to listen, zoning out, thinking about my own life, my own objectives. Like wanting to take real good care of Jules and needing to not sleep with Ashley again. But some of Jules’ words come through, and this is what I hear:
“..need to take that thought into you, need to make that thought part of your daily meal..right?..your mind is eating a daily meal, just like your stomach! is eating a daily meal..” When she says “stomach!” she says it with an Annie smile, or like she’s five, or eight, or a really happy twelve. She says it with this insane tonality that’s like how a children’s show host would talk to a child! But not like Mr. Rogers. Like she’s talking down to this lady—except she’s cheering her up! “..you need to take that idea into your mind and chew!” (Annie dimples) “Now tell me what it tastes! like!” And she has the woman tell her..
She has the woman tell her how the thought tastes.
And I’m just sitting here, staring at this, and Jules is taking the woman’s tears on her own sleeves—she pops her shoulder out and tells the woman to “Put your head right there.” She puts her arms around the woman’s head and neck and motions to me that it will only be two minutes—five tops. I say ok. And I sit there and watch Jules take this woman’s sadness. Because that’s what she’s doing. They can talk stomachs and tears and chewing and thoughts and meals all they want—and fucking Jules can lie and say she doesn’t remember what that woman told her all she wants—but she’s taking the woman’s sadness. Nothing less. I can’t, in my own mind, justify giving that a pretty name.