BREAKTHROUGH LESSONS by MAXFIELD FRANCIS GOLDMAN
March 7 2025The sunrise from my fire escape is alright. The bunsen burner sun wedged between two rows of buildings. A backlit murmuration of starlings mid-migration. The slow drip of yellow sedans creeping up 7th avenue. Tepid winds blow my hair. Clouds roll in from Jersey.
I light my joint and inhale. The smoke singes my throat. I blow it out over the street, watch it fly like a genie's magic carpet fourteen stories above the city. I reach into my pea coat pocket and pull out a torn-up piece of newspaper. I had seen the ad in the paper yesterday morning. Breakthrough Lessons Spring Sale $199. I called and made an appointment in one last attempt to feel happy.
Everyone is dead or missing, lost or found somewhere far away from me. Functionally, I have nothing. My mother died from vehicular manslaughter, my father from an alcohol induced gunshot. My brother has diabetes and is converting to Judaism, and I think talking to me is a reminder of his un-kosher past. I have a breadcrumb trail of ex-girlfriends. Some died but most have just moved on to men of lesser melanin and higher salaries.
Today the kids will suffer. They will fall behind on their lesson plan. They will never know The Battle of Austerlitz as I have, because at best the substitute teacher will show them a movie. And I think they will be happier than if I were there teaching them why war was once beautiful.
No one will ask: “Where is Mr. Patel?” because the answer would be “Nowhere.”
Because if my damn near two bills doesn't fix me tonight I will follow the steps of Mrs. Karenina, and my head will roll like a dusty marble at the 28th Street station.
My Breakthrough guide's name is Mariam. The name of a beautiful woman, but she told me she goes by Moon, the name of a new age prostitute. On the phone she had asked me to list my problems.
So I did: “Unable to cry, eat or sleep. Alcoholism. Cannabis dependence. Mood swings. Temper. Prone to punching walls. I am incapable of going grocery shopping or doing laundry. Erectile dysfunction.”
She said, “Erectile dysfunction?”
I responded, “Yes. Everytime I begin to erect I am reminded of having walked in on my last girlfriend fucking my diabetic brother.”
“Your girlfriend cheated on you with your brother?”
“He’s diabetic.”
“What? What does that have to do with it?”
“He’s converting to Judaism.”
“They were watching Titanic.”
“He’s a good man.”
Moon asked why I couldn’t go grocery shopping. I told her I was at Whole Foods when I found out my mother had been pulverized by a drunk driver. And months later, when I found out my dad had shot himself in response. She asked why can’t you do your laundry? And I said because I think it’s really boring.
I am wearing dirty clothes. I put them on in the dark, so I neglected to notice the mustard stain adoring the left thigh of my jeans. And I lack the initiative to change.
I am 32 years old, unmarried and gainfully employed as a public school history teacher in Brooklyn. Most of my old friends are married. Some have children, a handful moved upstate and a couple to Connecticut. None of them talk to me anymore. I would always get drunk and yell at them and I think they all agreed they were sick of me at one point.
My living conditions are adjacent to squalor. Distantly related, cousins at best. My apartment is like the guy from Taxi Driver’s. Small, hovel-ish, beige and lonesome. I don’t remember that character's name, I just remember that it was stupid and rhymes with fickle. In some ways we are a lot alike, except I don’t really plan on killing anyone. Maybe myself, if that counts. The fall from here would undoubtedly kill me. Likely in an instant. My main reservation with that is the prospect of falling onto a pedestrian and perhaps crushing their dog. Or maybe, surviving. Either/or is shit.
I suck in as hard as I can, cough like a consumptive. Flick the roach down to oblivion. I have cottonmouth. My jacket smells like weed. My body possesses a mild euphoria. I am pretty stoned. I take my lighter and burn the small corner of the newspaper ad that’s supposed to save my life. I watch embers creep inward. Fire and water spread the same on paper. Ever inward, mutually destructive. The little black letters burn up and come to ash on my fingertips. They sizzle but I don’t move them. The charcoaled paper stains my fingers black. Minor burns make my nail beds feel awake.
We had arranged to meet at the West 31st Street Whole Foods. In my apartment I bath myself in a tasteful Burberry Touch in an attempt to mask the weed smell. I don’t think you are supposed to be stoned for any borderline therapeutic service. I trade in my end-of-life musk for notes of red pepper, black currant, rose oil and orange. In my apartment I kiss the printer paper poster of Napoleon goodbye. Kick the trash out of the way and split the nest towards clearance-copped happiness.
On the street I bump shoulders with businessmen in navy suits and fashion students dressed like they hail from a low-budget remake of Blade Runner. I am nudged as if invisible. Each minor tap obliges me to death. The streets aren’t even that busy. I float by like a limp-dicked helium balloon slowly exhausting its gas. I stare at my shoes to avoid the glaces of other commuters. I consider a haircut, and promptly decide against it. If anything, my subtle Indian Jesus look goes a long way.
At the entrance of Whole Foods a woman is standing in a transparent pink raincoat. She is in front of the automatic glass doors. Her hair is curly and black. She is wearing Buddy Holly-style Glasses. Her features are Semitic. She is beautiful, but on closer inspection has an unusual amount of acne for a fully grown woman. I can see a sizable whitehead above her brow. I have amazing eyesight.
She waves me over, somehow recognizing me. I don’t move because I am feeling scared to go into the store. I don’t want to, it feels like something horrible will happen if I go inside. Horrible things happen here. The thought of going back to my apartment and going to bed sounds better than anything. Preferably forever. I am faced with a choice: go home, or go in, and maybe go home and masturbate later. I haven’t come in over four hundred days. And it would be nice to perform the basic human tasks I have been devoid of. But it seems like a bunch of work. And this lady could be annoying. And it’s kind of expensive.
She shouts my name with a smile, her voice cracks in a cute way. She says, “David” across the way. Like it means something to her.
I decide to go. I walk over to her and stick out my hand. She gives me a platonically distanced hug. And says, “David, right? It’s a pleasure to meet you. I am excited to get started with you today. I know this is your first Breakthrough session, but before we start, if you have any questions, now's the time to ask!”
I squint at her. “Why are you wearing a raincoat?
She laughs and says, “No, silly, about the Lesson.’
“Is it supposed to rain today?”
“I didn’t think it was supposed to rain today.”
“I checked the weather and it didn’t say it was supposed to rain today.”
Mariam takes me into the store. She says, “Since you only booked one lesson, I think grocery shopping should be the first thing we tackle, and I have a feeling it’s rooting some of your other traumas too.”
“Traumas? It’s not trauma.”
I begin to shiver. It’s cold in Whole Foods. Industrial and cruel. Like how Napoleon's regiment froze when the rain went solid on their march to Moscow. That’s like me right now. Conquering something huge.
“We are gonna shop. Get you through this, you look starved, can’t you imagine how nice it will be to go home and cook a meal for yourself.”
“McDonald’s is fine. Taco Bell is pretty good.”
“Eating that every day will make you depressed. You told me on the phone you eat out every day. Once a day. You need to buy your own food so you can cook for yourself whenever. I bet you’ll feel a lot better. You want to feel better, right? That’s why you’re here, David.”
“Okay yes. I want to feel better. ”
“Yes and I want you to feel better.”
She probably just wants her paycheck, I think to myself, as she pulls out her legal pad decorated in my cursive problems.
We get a shopping cart. She takes me to the produce aisle. We pick out sweet potatoes, or yams as she calls them, broccoli, carrots and bell peppers. I feel fear while looking at the red meat shelf. Mariam suggests beef. Particularly steak. I am horrifically reminded of Francis Bacon.
Her rain boots make her look like Astro Boy. Her rain jacket like a glitzy plastic bag. I feel alright walking around with her, a sense of okay fighting with the anxiety in my stomach. The creeping feeling that something terrible is going to happen.
I say, “I feel like I need to go, something terrible is going to happen.”
“That's your trauma talking. No it’s not.”
“It’s not trauma.”
“We’re getting through it, David. You have been here for nearly twenty minutes already, look at what we have in the cart. Look at how far you’ve already come.”
She reaches out and grabs my hand, looks me in the eyes and says, “What do you miss most? What can we get that's special?”
Blood rushes through my body. Particularly downwards. Likely working towards erection. I let her hold on for a moment as my flag ascends to half-mast. Feeling the anxiety in my chest move towards something else, I say, “Tomato soup. Campbell's Tomato Soup. I was loading up on soup when I got the call about my mom. And about Dad. I haven’t touched it since. I want it again. More than anything.”
But I do and I don’t. I want nothing less than to go there in that aisle where Hell seems to wait, where I would get a call from a doctor saying I have cancer, or from the police saying my apartment burned down, or from the school saying I was fired. I feel like if I took a can in my hand I'd be punished. My mind races with punishment.
My heart beats as she squeezes my hand harder and says, “let’s go.”
I am nearly fully erect. Walking through the fluorescent aisles past aging hipster couples, I consider my position beside Moon, as functionally she is my paid surrogate mother, girlfriend and therapist. I wonder how she came to be a Breakthrough guide.
I ask, “how’d you end up doing this anyway? Being a Breakthrough guide and all that.”
She clears her throat. “I had a Breakthrough guide help me through a really tough time. I thought I was trapped, and my guide, Ian, really showed me I was capable of change.”
“Can I ask how?”
“Yes. sure. That’s part of my job. Well— I was in a bad relationship. I got married young to an older guy. He was a painter and didn’t care for much. I wanted his attention more than anything, and so I let him knock me up. Wasn’t even old enough to buy a beer. I thought that’d catch his eye but take a wild guess as to how that turned out. Anyway I had his kid and he never wanted to care for it. I had dreams too. I wanted to go to school for physiology, but because of him and all that I never did. He just wanted to paint pictures of eighteen-wheelers and truck stop sex scenes. It was all this weird ironic Americana. Paintings weren’t half bad. But I was alone with a young kid, and a husband who spent all his time fucking other woman who he touted as smarter, sexier and happier. He would always call me depressing. He said I depressed him to be around. I wanted to leave but didn’t think I could raise the kid on my own. I didn't want him to be fatherless. He said it so many times that one night I ran away, got drunk as a bastard. Saw an ad for Breakthrough Lessons on the bathroom stall with a phone number beneath it. Used the bar's phone and scheduled an appointment for the next day. Ian came to my apartment and told me I was a joy to be around, he gave me the confidence to leave my dickhead husband. Ian told me I caught on quickly and was funny, and offered me the same job as a Breakthrough Guide. Since then I never really looked back. My kid is in middle school now. My life is good. I know the ads make these seem ridiculous, but really they work miracles.”
I feel tears well up behind my eyes. Hot little beads drip down my sinus cavities. Land on my lip. Taste like the ocean.
She smiles. I start to bawl. We are standing in front of the soup section. She hugs me tight. I cry into her shoulder. I feel my tears make puddles on her jacket that go from Jacuzzi temp to iced tea in seconds. Her hand is on the back of my neck and she says “alright” a bunch of times. I am rock hard and crying. My stomach hurts but in a completely different way.
She pulls away and says, “It’s alright, David, we’re here. You made it and nothing has gone terribly. Get whatever. Get as much soup as you want.”
I reach over and grab two cans of tomato soup. Thinking, one for me, one for her. Smile at her and say, “I’m ready.”
My cart is full of shit I will eat. Things that will make me feel good. My forty-five-minute lesson is almost up.
Moon says, “Are you ready to check out?”
I say, “Ready.”
The queue is long but moves fast. The cashier is a short young man with a shaved head and chubby cheeks. He manhandles each item and rings them up accordingly. He smells like body odor. I can smell him from here, a ruler's-width away. The total is around a hundred dollars.
I ask Moon, “Does this get covered by the $200 price tag?”
She chuckles and says, “The 199 sticker is just for my time. The groceries are yours and yours alone.’
I panic. Empty my wallet out and scrounge change from my jacket. I have about a dollar to spare. I consider robbing the old man over at the Coinstar machine. The grubby bag boy counts my change and gives me a quarter back. He bags my groceries and bids me good day. I do the same with a smile on my face.
Walking out, an old woman hands us a poster for Shen-Yun. It is beautifully designed despite the fact that it is essentially Chinese Propaganda. Outside it’s gray, beginning to rain. I consider Shen-Yun, and ask “do you want to go with me to this tomorrow?”
She laughs and says, “David don’t, I’m married.”
“Really?”
“Yes, silly, to Ian.”
“Well thank you anyways. This has been beautiful I think.”
I give her the money. Two hundred cash. She hands me a one dollar bill back. She wraps her arms around me and says, “I’m happy this helped David, really.”
I am rock hard, trying to make my erection unnoticeable despite the fact that it is likely prodding her rain jacket. I can feel the tears coming and I feel exhausted. Let my head rest on her for a second, really rest. It fits there perfect in this moment.
I speak through tears, “Thank you, really thank you, I thought today was going to be the worst day of my life.”
She says, “If it’s ever gonna get better it’s got to get worse for a day.”
She says, “It’s already been bad for you. Tomorrow’s in the clear.”
That's what I walk home saying with two arms full of groceries and tears in my eyes.
If it’s ever gonna get better it’s got to get worse for a day, tomorrow’s in the clear.
Maxfield Francis Goldman is a 22-year-old author.