The coffee table was littered with
the refuse of youth:
a small bowl of finger nail polish,
mostly shades of purple and fuchsia;
twists of tissue displaying the old remains
of color once daintily laid in thick layers to
brighten the tips of toes—a bottle of
remover, lying on its side, on the
green and brown rug.
A tall can of beer, something suddenly
popular with the young. (Michelob, or Pabst Blue Ribbon,
which is like swilling urine.)
They were excited. (Was I ever that young and
ridiculous? Yes, I recall. It’s true,
but they are also incredibly
unaware of everything beyond the sphere of
their exuberance.) And worse, they are leading me,
by hand, into their lair; I sit demurely on the
only chair not covered with cast-off t-shirts,
cramped space, waiting as they unveil the
great wonder that is Rock Band 2—
they have all the gadgets, extra accoutrements,
the drum pads (with foot pedal), the guitar, with its colored
bars, the microphone, the flat panel television—
they offer me each instrument, but I demure.
I would rather observe.
She begins, belting out a song, and her voice is good, but unpracticed.
It has potential, but most likely, it will never be developed beyond
its current application. She tries to get me involved, but I merely
shake my head, laughing. I’m still hesitant. Even now,
after they have brought me into their home,
I don’t like them.
Back to my perusal of the coffee table, which is glass, something
modern—gray legs. I would never have one. It made the room look cold,
like a dorm. The egg white walls are splashed with abstract paintings and
each room has its own brand of schoolgirl clutter.
A fat orange tabby she calls “Mr. Stupid”
lounges at one corner. He casts a
baleful eye in my direction.
To him, I mouth the words, “I’m sorry.” To her, I inquire after the name.
“What makes him dumb?”
She says,
“He just eats and shits, that’s all.”
And I can’t help thinking,
Well…that’s pretty much all of us in a nutshell.
Or should we throw in the tendency to sing “Eye of the Tiger” at the tops
of our lungs? Is that what elevates us above Mr. Stupid? Who is at least
dignified enough to know when to keep his mouth shut?
At several points, she loses the beat. The lyrics are way ahead of her and
she makes up for it by screaming. Now,
I have a perfect picture of what
goes on when I am next door, across the thin wall, my couch vibrating
with each downbeat of the steel pedal, gritting my teeth…feeling
myself growing warm with anger, wanting to take some object, like a bat, and
go smashing their guitar, and drums, and TV, and that stupid glass table.
(I mean, it’s two am. Are they fucking serious?)
“How is it you can live there without a roommate?” she asks, eyeing
her own as if the thought of living alone were the golden goose,
and I had somehow managed to snatch it down from the beanstalk—
I recall: your first place, by yourself,
it’s like the Hidden Kingdom—Shangri-La, absolute heaven.
This girl has never lived alone. I wonder, is this her first house,
free of parents, outside of a dorm?
In a real neighborhood, where people—other than her—
have to get up in the morning and earn a living?
I explain: I am an adult. (Not in those words. I tell her what I do
for work.) But this startles her. “How old are you?”
In my thirties. “I’m the old one in the building.” I eye her
squarely, hoping that this will somehow explain, without me having
to go into detail, that this is why I find them so irritating.
“You look sixteen!” she says, but this can’t be true.
Every day, when I look in the mirror, I see evidence of my aging.
Still, I play along. I nod my head. I bite my tongue. “Don’t let my youthful
appearance fool you,” I want to say.
“Beware: I’m as grumpy as any self-respecting hater of twenty-somethings.”
Finally, we wind our way outside, where they question me further. They marvel
over my hair, and my ethnicity. They insist they can see the Native American
in the shape of my eyes, which is strange,
since my eyes just look like normal eyes and are basic and
brown and filled with all sorts of humor over the moment, which the darkness must hide.
“I like your style” one of them says. And I wonder what style is that?
I’m dressed in a thin skirt and a t-shirt.
The humidity feels like 100 percent. I’m sweating, lightly.
My make-up has already been cleaned off for the night.
It’s bed time. What style is this? Adult going to bed?
Mean and bitchy neighbor on a half-shell.
You could paint me in the nude and call it “impressionist” or
maybe I’m pointillism. Certainly, I’m comprised of a lot of fine dots.
Then, she wonders, “Are you a hippy?”
What gives it away? I wonder. When the answer is “no.” I’ve never been a hippy, but
I believe that a certain generation (even my own) believed that this answer was yes
if you wore long skirts and tie-dyed shirts, or you danced with your arms floating out
to music like The Grateful Dead and Crosby Stills Nash and Young (even though for us
we didn’t have any wars at the time, since nobody counts The Gulf—and for them,
Jerry Garcia is long dead, and they must make do with bands like Dark Star,
which only approximate what it might have been like to “turn on.”
Also, “Do you smoke?” seems to be an implied question. “Are you a hippy?”
(You know, how do you feel about 4-20?)
My answers is No. I quit long ago. It only made me paranoid, and horny,
quiet, or super talkative,
It filled me with longings I couldn’t afford to indulge.
It reminded me of late nights, staring at Superman. He slept (the sleep
of the passed out drunk)
and I sighed, inaudible, over my desire to touch him.
No ladies, the immediacy of my youth has flown. I could,
as they were encouraging, try to recapture it for a moment.
I could hang with them, singing Cheap Trick and Joan Jett
or Duran Duran’s “Hungry Like a Wolf”
karaoke-style with an avatar, meant to approximate the me
approximating myself, bobbing her head on the flat panel.
I could laugh with the boys next door who try to look old and wise
but really, I know that I’m still older, and wiser, and far more polite
and put together and also
probably bitter and jaded.
I could sit out on the stoop, past midnight, listening to their
high-pitched giggles over absolutely nothing…the kind of laughter
that is induced by too much beer, and marijuana, and the
fumes of finger-nail polish remover.
The kind that is infused with the simple belief that you are invincible, and
there is more life before you than behind you. Where there is no time,
and less inclination, to ponder the greater mysteries of life—
such as the way sound carries—let alone
those of the universe, or where the most interesting
thing to discuss is what happened to that girl you knew the night she got
so drunk she passed out and everyone drew cartoon penises on her forehead.
Ah! To go back? To that time.
No. It would be better, I decide, to learn how to live
in this moment. And so I bid them goodnight. I hoped that
they might, putting a face with the bitter ramblings I’d been previously
lobbing to them through my open window (like “Shut the hell up”)
keep it down a bit. Perhaps to a dull roar. They invited me to stop
by at any time, for a beer, or a joint, or to butcher “You Can Go Your Own Way”
by Fleetwood Mac, or “Tangled up in Blue” by Bob Dylan. I could have
a go at the drums. I could pet any one of their three cats
and, presumably, “get my giggle on.” (It would not simply
be a matter of unpacking it and dusting it off, or giving a press or two on
the appropriate buttons. I never, to my knowledge, had a giggle function.)
We exchanged numbers, plugging them into our LG touch phones.
(Heaven knows for what reason.
So that I could say, “Shut the hell up” in text form?)
Regardless, I stood to go, brushing the bottom of my skirt free
of the debris of their front porch. One girl proffered her hand for a
high-five in departure. I returned the gesture.
(What else was I going to do?) But then walked,
with bare feet, along the small strip of grass separating my front entry
from hers. There, my calm sanctuary awaited, free of the debris of youth.
My coffee table, Zen in comparison, with only a Haruki Murakami book,
a bottle of water, a bowl filled with rocks and a candle
(the useless decorations that are meant to
imply maturity, dressing our tables in Sunday best to impress the
occasional guest who will never notice that the bowl is made of
eco-friendly bamboo and the mat beneath it was on sale at Target).
But still, a pile of laundry sat waiting, unfolded, in a chair in the corner.
The dining room held drums, guitars, a computer, a USB DVD burner,
waiting, unopened, in a Fed-Ex box.
Was I really so different? My cat, “Mr. Needy,”
sat on the corner of the coffee table, peering
at me, with interest.
What makes him any different from me?
Through the thin walls, the sounds of laughter seep through. My
couch shakes; I have no idea what they are doing—dancing perhaps,
with stilts on? Kicking the walls in emphasis while they sing along to
“American Woman”? Most likely, they are bringing out the bong they
had hidden. They are firing it up—
they are cracking open another beer. They are preparing to
be flagrantly, deliciously,
oblivious.
I settle in.
I turn down the lights. I curl up, alone.
I try not to hear them.
It was never that my age required only silence,
it is merely that,
perhaps,
I am jealous of
ignorance—of the freedom, it brings
to giggle like that,
at 2am
on a Wednesday
to have a reason
for your dreaming, still before you,
unfulfilled, or your hopes,
undirected, to things more within the realm
of reason.
06.20.09
It just keeps getting better and better!!!You are so very inspirational, not necessarily in a religous way, but in a life sort of way. I am really enjoying seeing it through your eyes and words and even more importantly realizing that its okay to be even me!!!
Thanks again, Steph.
September 14th, 2009 at 10:50 am
Thank you! It’s always great to receive feedback.
August 22nd, 2009 at 1:00 pm
I recently came across your blog and have been reading along. I thought I would leave my first comment. I don’t know what to say except that I have enjoyed reading. Nice blog. I will keep visiting this blog very often.
Susan
August 22nd, 2009 at 6:25 am