tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-61738855068703322292024-02-06T18:37:50.997-08:00jena brownwhatever I feel like writing or reading.Jena bughttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03811410391660026357noreply@blogger.comBlogger70125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6173885506870332229.post-68526636367652041282015-04-15T20:59:00.001-07:002015-04-15T21:17:16.226-07:00I Do This I Do That: Chapter 30XXX. I Do This I Do That<br />
<br />
Tuan's car crept along the empty city streets as the sun rose above eastward apartment complexes and quiet boxy businesses in rows. We were all quiet now, and I listened to the hum of the old engine starting and stopping between the street lights. Tuan tapped his finger on the steering wheel and Wheeler made puffs of fog with his breath on the passenger window glass. We were heading to a bus station. Life was quietly stirring and waking on the sidewalks and streets around us, and the promise of a new day felt familiar.<br />
"Where are we going?" Wheeler asked.<br />
"Chicago, I guess." I muttered.<br />
<br />
The station was closed, so Tuan said goodbye and we planned to waste time with a walk or a nap on a bench. Tuan's goodbye was warmer than we deserved, and this strangeness stuck with me. He meant all of his words as he patted Wheeler on the back and wished us the best. I gave him a hug and looked deep into his eyes. I saw love and craziness and a bit of confusion. He waved amicably out the window as he sped away.<br />
<br />
I wanted orange juice so we walked to the convenient store on the corner from the bus station and devised ways to steal the juice, and maybe some bread or cookies, too. The bell of the door welcomed us as we walked in, eliciting the tired looking attendee to make a quiet note of our presence from behind the register. He was slobbish and dull looking. He gave us a nod then looked down towards his blue vest and whatever opening duties he was obligated to attend.<br />
<br />
Wheeler motioned me coolly to divide into another aisle. He took an orange juice from the cooler and walked with a jazzy trot down the snack aisle, eyeing the attendant nonchalantly from over the edge. He put the juice in his pocket and quickly grabbed a box of cheese crackers and pressed them into his shirt. I watched awkwardly and suspiciously near the magazine rack. He shuffled towards the bathroom hallway and grabbed my arm as he pushed me into the bathroom and locked the door behind us.<br />
<br />
"Breakfast is served." He whispered, covertly.<br />
<br />
He took out the juice and drank exactly half in a few quick and desperate gulps. I drank the rest in a similar way as he opened the crackers and ate two at a time. I felt out of words, out of ideas, out of my mind. The day and time and place of my life mangled together into one disastrous scene. I could have been anywhere in any bathroom by any bus station in the country. I felt desperate for connection or feeling, and suddenly, before I registered this burst of desire, I was taking it out on Wheeler. I grabbed his gaunt cheeks and kissed him ravenously. He pulled me close to him and suddenly we were animalistic. His mouth was dry and he tasted like hot ash. He was bony and biting my lips and squeezing my hips with an intensity that catapulted us up against the wall. I wanted anything in that moment, and nothing at all.<br />
<br />
The sex lasted only a few minutes, and when it was over we both took deep breaths and cleared our throats. Wheeler ate another cracker and zipped up his pants. We said nothing as I unlocked the door and walked outside. The attendee looked befuddled, but seemed to lack the gall to investigate into our behavior.<br />
<br />
Outside more life stirred on the morning street, and something odd happened.<br />
<br />
Wheeler walked out of the convenient store behind me, looking a bit mad and bug-eyed. His hands were in his pockets and he looked at me hysterically for just a moment, and then suddenly he began running down the sidewalk. I watched him run away into the distance, turning a corner at the next block without slowing his pace or looking back.<br />
<br />
I stood dumbfounded, watching the street for a moment.<br />
<br />
I walked to the bus station and bought a ticket for Chicago. I was almost completely out of money now, but I wasn't worried. I had nothing behind me and nothing before me as the heavy bus turned the corner out of the Minnesota bus station. The seats were filled with quiet strangers, sleeping or peeking out into the passing countryside.<br />
<br />
The small trees and scattered houses looked bright under the ever rising sun. Fields of wheat and grass and rows of swaying trees dashed quickly passed the warm window. I thought of everything and nothing all at once. Time dragged on peacefully with the forward motion of the big ugly bus. Maybe I should move, I thought. Maybe I should visit home. Maybe I should get off at the next stop. Maybe I should sleep. I closed my eyes and soon heard the bus bellow and clamor as it tilted and hampered into a rest stop. I heard the strangers rise and shuffle off the bus. Click clack click clack click clack, the heavy steps descended and ascended the bus. I do this, I do that, I do this, I do that, their shoes echoed beyond me, out the open windows, into the risen sun.<br />
<br />
<br />
THE ENDJena bughttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03811410391660026357noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6173885506870332229.post-49690477276697198322012-12-12T13:28:00.001-08:002012-12-12T13:30:37.121-08:00I Do This I Do That- Chapter 29: Blue and Green and Purple and PinkXXIX.<br />
<br />
I opened my eyes and saw Cait's face above me. She was holding the back of my head over a faucet and pouring warm water on my forehead. She was wearing a clean white t-shirt and her uncombed dull brown hair fell in pieces onto my face. She had that same tricky grin on her face that she did in the picture of her as a young girl.<br />
<br />
"Hey," I said.<br />
"Shhhhh," she answered. "Just keep your head back." She smiled calmly.<br />
"Okay," I said.<br />
"Tell me about your favorite colors." She pet my hair and I cooed back like a baby.<br />
"Blue..."<br />
"And?"<br />
"Green..."<br />
"Yes?"<br />
"Purple.."<br />
"Okay?"<br />
"Pink.."<br />
"Like a sunset?"<br />
"Yes."<br />
"And?" She tilt my head back further and water splashed into my eyes. Her voice was cool and pacifying, in a way I'd never heard her speak.<br />
"Black." I closed my eyes tightly as the water became hotter and the pressure increased. I tried to move my head up from her hand but couldn't. She was pulling my hair back down into the tub. I opened my eyes and saw her bright smile and faded eyes watching me struggle from her grasp. I pulled up my head again against her resistance.<br />
"Shhhh," she said again.<br />
<br />
Now she moved my head directly under the faucet. The water crashed into my eyes and nose and mouth. I spit it out in struggled breaths. I dug my nails into her warm arms and peddled my head left and right, attempting to escape the water.<br />
"Shhhh," I heard her say again. "Think about the colors," she said. "Blue...and green..and purple...and pink.." She pulled my hair down further into the tub.<br />
<br />
Suddenly she let go of my hair, letting my head drop to the bottom of the tub. She pushed my legs in after me and I dropped in like a dummy. The water pressure lightened and I heard the distinct sound of creaking and diminishing footsteps. I felt the steps with an intensity as they faded away, like each foot on the ground was lodged directly onto my spine.<br />
<br />
I opened my eyes and there was Tuan sitting on the edge of the tub, with a detachable shower head in one hand and a beer can in the other. He took a long drink from the can and kept the shower head steady in my direction. He glanced at me with a look of happy inertia. It was clear from a certain weirdness and wisdom and ease in his eyes that anything odd we'd experience tonight would be merely average in the great scope of his life.<br />
<br />
"Cait," I said.<br />
"Hey!" He said brightly.<br />
Wheeler walked in looking high and holding a large blanket.<br />
"We did it," he said. "We found it."<br />
"Where is she?" I asked.<br />
"Who knows," said Wheeler. "Not here."<br />
"I saw her," I said.<br />
"Me too. That was definitely her in the picture. You hit your head hard there in the kitchen. You woke up the dogs, man!"<br />
"She was here," I argued.<br />
"Hacket hasn't seen her in 5 years, yo. And since you passed out things have been gettin' a little weird here. The old man's back in bed but we need to go. She's not here and he doesn't want anything to do with it."<br />
Tuan turned off the faucet and finished his beer.<br />
<br />
The two insisted on carrying me out of the Hacket house wrapped inside the blanket like an adult baby. I felt too dizzy to disagree, and we piled into Tuan's car once more, rounded the bend passed Cait's family home, and headed back into the city.Jena bughttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03811410391660026357noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6173885506870332229.post-18202377267243920342012-12-11T13:27:00.001-08:002012-12-12T13:29:19.149-08:00I Do This I Do That- Chapter 28: Mouse GutsXXVIII.<br />
<br />
The naked man was holding a flashlight, and as he neared us he stumbled twice into the narrow hallway walls. His footsteps creaked on the wooden floor and he swore manically under his breath. "What the..fuck. What time is it. Goddamn it. Fuck." He focused the light through the screen door and peered into our lit faces, squinting.<br />
<br />
"Jesus Christ. What is it?" He said. His voice was both gentle and raspy. His face was dark and tight as though he'd spent days in the sun. He had a head of grey hair and smoker's eyes and lips.<br />
"Do you have a daughter named Cait Hacket?" Wheeler asked, unapologetically.<br />
"Yeah? Why? Who are you?"<br />
"Our friend, Cait Hacket, disappeared from us in Chicago a few days ago. We're trying to track her down. Is there anyway we can see a picture of your daughter?"<br />
"Christ. It's the middle of the goddamn night!"<br />
"We're sorry to wake you, but we came a long way and we really need to find our friend." Wheeler seemed more coherent than I expected.<br />
<br />
It suddenly occurred to me how odd the three of us looked standing on this small slanted porch in the middle of the night. Tuan's perm was wild and disheveled from the windy drive, and I was filthy and skinny and pale from the trip. Wheeler seemed coherent for the circumstances, but his stark features and bug-eyed adrenaline must have appeared a bit psychotic to this tired naked man on the other side of the screen. We were, after all, three strangers to him and each other, hungry for answers, on a journey of nonsense and disillusion. <br />
<br />
"Goddamn it. Hold on a second," he said, closing the door and dipping into a room on the right side of the hallway. He turned on a light and re-approached the door wearing a long navy bathrobe.<br />
<br />
He opened the screen door and led us inside. The house was cramped and smokey. There were 4 dark rooms off the hallway and a bright stairwell leading down. He led us down the creaky stairwell, lighting a cigarette and leaving smoke in our path.<br />
<br />
The downstairs was the kitchen and living area of the house. Mr. Hacket sat down on a stool at the kitchen island. He didn't turn on any lights as he smoked, and the room was filled with shadows from the lit stairwell. The ceiling was low, which sort of created a sense of pressure and heaviness upon the house. The room was seemingly tidy, and there seemed to be animals everywhere. Two dogs slept on the kitchen tiles, and there were 3 cats eating on the island by Mr. Hacket. Another cat jumped through a broken sliding screen and waited to be fed. The cat jumped on the counter and dropped a dead mouse from it's mouth onto the counter. Mr. Hacket looked at the mouse and looked away, blowing smoke into the room.<br />
<br />
"We haven't heard from Cait in years," he said, breaking the silence. "She left home about.. 5 years ago, hasn't been back since."<br />
"Why is that?" I asked.<br />
"Christ. Who knows? She always seemed to be pissed off about something. We weren't surprised when she left. She's always been.. a bit strange."<br />
"Where did she go?" said Wheeler.<br />
"How the hell would I know? She left one day...didn't say goodbye." This sentence sent him into a coughing fit for approximately 2 minutes. He struggled out of the cough then opened the door and spit onto the back porch. He took a relieved breath and sat back down.<br />
"You've never tried to find her?"<br />
"No, no. Not really. She always wanted to do her own thing and I stayed out of her way. She's an adult. What she's doing is her business," he said.<br />
"Is she your only child?"<br />
"Yeah."<br />
"And it doesn't bother you that you don't know where she is?" Wheeler asked, with a dash of intensity and judgement.<br />
"Why the hell should it?" He was becoming agitated.<br />
<br />
Tuan was sitting on a couch in the shadows with his head tilted back. He seemed to be asleep or falling asleep. The cats were now eating the mouse on the counter and Mr. Hacket pet the back of one as it competed for pieces of the tiny dead animal.<br />
<br />
He got up to find a picture of Cait. There weren't any visible family photos hanging on the walls. There was a rifle and a model sailboat above a fireplace mantle in the center of the room, and the brick walls were empty in the dim of the moonlight. As Mr. Hacket left down a dark hallway, Wheeler grabbed my hand and watched the cats finish pulling apart the limbs and innards of the mouse. The feverish look in his eye was ascending as Mr. Hacket walked lazily towards us with a picture in his hand.<br />
<br />
"Here," he said, handing us the picture as if it was nothing. As if she were nothing. It seemed clear that no matter who this girl was, our Cait or just his, he had no intention of finding her.<br />
<br />
Wheeler held the picture and I flicked on the kitchen light switch. It was a picture of a young girl leaning against the trunk of a tree. She was slightly chubby and tired looking with a goofy grin on her face. It was suddenly clear to both of us. This was our Cait.<br />
<br />
Suddenly the sight of her young eyes and devious smile made me dizzy. My heart beat sped up and I felt weak and nauseous from the stirs of smoke and cat fur, mouse guts and dirty dogs. I felt the weight of the low ceiling and the weight of the picture in my hand. I looked up at Wheeler. His mouth was moving but I couldn't hear any sounds. The room became dark and I felt myself slipping out of reality. I saw a motion of black and suddenly I felt the cold of the kitchen tile on my head. Silence.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Jena bughttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03811410391660026357noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6173885506870332229.post-5846751574467572332012-12-04T12:27:00.001-08:002012-12-04T14:39:53.298-08:00I Do This I Do That- Chapter 27: He was NakedXXVII.<br />
<br />
It appeared we had exited the city part of this city district and Tuan seemed small gripping the wheel. He looked dimly into the beaming headlights, careful to move right when the road winded such, and left when the road winded such, too. Wheeler looked at Tuan but watched me in his peripheral view. I hung my head against the seat by the open window. I breathed in the wind and watched trees and low buildings zoom past into a moving scene of black and dark green.<br />
<br />
No one spoke now but it sort of felt as though Tuan was really with us. I didn't feel as if we were merely hitching a ride. I closed my eyes and imagined Tuan being with us back at Lake Michigan with Cait. I could see him standing in the distance of the shore, smoking a cigarette and waving towards me as I watched him look at ease beneath the moon light. He would have laughed a bit at Cait and Wheeler kissing in the waves, I thought.<br />
<br />
After an unidentifiable amount of time I could hear the sullen voices of Tuan and Wheeler. Suddenly the car stopped and I jolted from my half-dream. We were on a dark dirt road that winded left and descended to a hill. In the curve of the road was a beaten red picket fence that seemed weathered and old. A mailbox by the fence read "Hacket" in the bright of the headlights. "We're here," said Wheeler.<br />
<br />
Outside the stars welted and boomed above us, then diminished in the bright of the busy distance. I hadn't seen stars this bright in a very long time, and suddenly the scene of it all made me feel like I took a drink from the hose. The red fence lined a large yard that slanted down. A blue house that seemed to be falling backwards a bit sat in the middle of the hill. The lights were off from inside the small vertical windows by a screen door, and rows and rows of trees lined the right side of a home-made paved driveway.<br />
<br />
None of us noted the time or pondered over the appropriateness of our arrival. The endurance of our mission was unspoken and understood, and if this wasn't the right Hacket house we would move on to the next one. I had no hankering for sleep or stopping. I was going to the last two Hacket houses without pause. At the time I hadn't wondered or cared about what would happen after this night. I didn't assume we wouldn't find our Cait. I just began to descend the dark driveway in silence.<br />
<br />
I felt a bit of a chill in those steps from the enormity and depth of the woods on our right. I could feel, or at least imagine the feel, of dozens of pairs of eyes peeking between the brush and thick branches at us as we walked. I could sense, or at least fantasize a sense, that critters or ghosts or wild barefoot children in dirty nightgowns were licking their lips and concocting schemes of torture for the fresh flesh in their territory.<br />
<br />
There was no electric doorbell on this house, but an old brassy looking bell hung just eye-level of the screen. Wheeler pulled the bell back and forth three times and the chimes seemed louder than we'd all expected. Tuan stood a little straighter at the sound.<br />
<br />
15 seconds passed.<br />
<br />
Nothing.<br />
<br />
Wheeler rang the bell 4 more times with a bit more muscle, and I took a deep breath waiting for life to emerge.<br />
<br />
Then, from inside the house a small light turned on, followed by the sound of a deep and sleepy cough.<br />
<br />
A man walked into the hallway from a room on the left, and as he moved closer to the front door it became clear; he was naked.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Jena bughttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03811410391660026357noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6173885506870332229.post-27453365052556269342012-08-13T10:20:00.000-07:002012-12-04T12:05:56.926-08:00I Do This I Do That- Chapter 26: What the Fuck Am I Doing HereXXVI.<br />
<br />
<br />
Soon the light faded beneath the square brown fence behind the house. I peeked out the window in the midst of conversation and watched the sun rays whisper slowly into the earth. As the sun fell deeper and deeper into the wooden cracks of the fence, Tuan and Wheeler sank further into the artful chaos of conversation. Tuan was becoming more difficult to understand as the PBR amplified his Vietnamese accent, yet Wheeler deciphered the anecdotes with stupefying ease. Moments of laughter and emotional silence bounced between the mustard colored walls, and I sank into the linoleum kitchen, deflated.<br />
<br />
My mind stumbled around the day and days that had passed. I could hear Vietnamese Cait Hacket sifting through drawers and picking up heavy objects and heaving them onto different parts of the floor upstairs. What the hell was she doing up there? I couldn't help but think of her as an imposter, as though she was at fault for sharing the name of our missing Cait. I imagined the <i>real </i>Cait unzipping from the inside of this Vietnamese costume. She'd probably just have a secret smile on her face as she would step out of the plump suit and regain her image as the Cait I knew. She would wonder why I worried. She would strike up a joke or commit herself to a new scheme.<br />
<br />
I excused myself from the kitchen and walked down the narrow dark hallway to the bathroom. A dangling chain triggered a single bulb light on the ceiling, which was accompanied by a fan that sounded like an alarm that lacked urgency. I could see my reflection in the high rectangular mirror. My skin looked like paper against the deep green walls, and my hair hung in tired strings loosely around my face. It had been a few days since I'd seen myself, and I almost didn't recognize my own face. I wondered if things truly changed that fast, or if it was just the way I saw things that did. <br />
<br />
Next to the bathroom door was a small staircase leading up towards the loud thumps and heaves of Vietnamese Cait. I walked lightly on the wooden stairs and my feet squeaked into the old boards, "rick rack, rick rack, rick rack." Cait must have heard me coming towards her. She peeked her head out into the dark hallway from inside a lit room and screamed something in Vietnamese. She turned and saw me.<br />
<br />
"Oh. It's you," she said.<br />
<br />
Her voice was a bit kinder now in a way that seemed to surprise both of us as it escaped her lips.<br />
<br />
"I'm moving my furniture around." She leaned against the doorway and took a tired breath. "Want to see?"<br />
<br />
"Sure," I said. I followed her into the room.<br />
<br />
There was a large bed with a heavy black frame on an angle in the middle of the room, mid-move. A dresser was nearly blocking the entrance way, and piles of clothes and knickknacks lined the walls in chaotic graves.<br />
<br />
"Wow, this is a lot of stuff," I said.<br />
"Yeah it is. It's really heavy, too, you know. Well the bed is. And the dresser. My dad bought this bed for me a few years ago, and the dresser was my mom's."<br />
<br />
I didn't know what to say. She seemed suddenly too comfortable. <br />
<br />
"All of this stuff over here was my mom's, too. She was going to throw it away." She put her hands on her hips and looked down onto the piles. I nodded my head. I could see some black and white framed pictures, piles of books, and a delicate jewelry box amongst the things she signaled to be her mother's.<br />
<br />
"Want to give me a hand quickly?" She walked towards the bed.<br />
"If you could just pick that side up and move it over here, like this," she said, motioning towards a position on the opposite side of the room.<br />
<br />
We moved the bed to where she wanted it, and then we moved the dresser, too. I was beginning to fear that she'd ask me to help organize <i>all </i>of her things on the floor, too, so I tried to slyly slip back downstairs. <br />
<br />
"I think I'll get another beer," I said. "Do you want one too?"<br />
"Oh no thanks I don't drink. I'm drunk after just a sip of a cocktail," she said, smiling as though she'd expected a response. <br />
<br />
I said nothing and quickly set for the door. Before exiting I turned once more towards her, waiting, rather fantastically, for my Cait to jump out from inside this impostor. No costume was shed though, and the Vietnamese Cait stood next to her newly arranged furniture, sweating and purveying the new surroundings.<br />
<br />
Downstairs the conversation had become intimate. Tuan was clearly weeping, despite a large smile on his face, and Wheeler was slapping the table vigorously with his open palm shouting, "That's FUCKING right! FUCKING right!"<br />
<br />
"I think we should go..." I announced with a tone of suggestion. Suddenly I felt an anxiety, a pressure, a claustrophobia. I felt as though we were running out of time in this place. I felt like the time and the mission were slipping away and I couldn't bear to be in this linoleum kitchen. I could no longer handle the mustard walls. Nothing about this place gave dignity or purpose to why we were in Minnesota to begin with. My heart began to speed up and I slipped out the sliding door and into the fenced in back yard. The trees beyond the fence soared above it and shifted in soft chills, shaking the leaves into a frenzy that made me truly want to fly. I knelt down and touched the palms of my hands to the tips of the soft grass. "God. What the fuck am I doing here," I said to myself.<br />
<br />
I heard the slider open and there was Wheeler smiling psychotically. "Tuan's gonna drive us to Hacket house number 2. I filled im' in. I told him about the whole goddamn issue. He's gonna drive us there and it's cool," he said. I felt the breath escape my chest in bursts without control. "Okay," I said. We got into a small white car with Tuan and sped down the dark ugly street.<br />
<br />Jena bughttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03811410391660026357noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6173885506870332229.post-24853996104357370242012-08-06T11:43:00.000-07:002012-08-06T22:46:08.058-07:00I Do This I Do That- Chapter 25- But That's OkayXXV.
<br />
<br />
The first Hacket house was off-white and square, with a shallow roof and tall mangy grass in the yard. The block was stuffed and squeezed with cardboard looking shacks that each faded like tired dogs into the dirt. None of the buildings seemed like homes from the looks of things, and I imagined the properties were giant burdens to the owners, and shelters of strange moments and fleeting chaos. We smoked and smoked and smoked before working up the courage to approach the porch. <br />
<br />
Wheeler knocked vigorously and someone ran to the door and it sprung open. A small Asian man in high-waisted light jeans and a loose button up shirt squinted into the sun, measuring us carefully. <br />
<br />
"Yes? You here for facial? It ten o'clock. Facial at eleven thirty. You come back." <br />
<br />
He began to close the door. <br />
<br />
Wheeler interjected. "Wait, wait. Sir, we're actually here looking for our friend. You have a daughter named Caitlin? Caitlin Hacket?" <br />
<br />
"Yes. Cait? She here. She watch TV. You come in?" He held the door open and we walked into a narrow foyer behind him. He was a short man with a mop of curly black hair that sat just below his ears. He had it slicked towards the back of his head and it bounced lightly while he moved. <br />
<br />
"Leave shoes here," he said. <br />
<br />
We took off our shoes and followed him around a corner into a living area. The carpet was soft and brown, and yellow patterned wall paper sprung from the level of our toes and up into the low ceiling. A coiling red interlock of waves twisted together, and the paper vines moved against the yellow walls. The oriental furniture looked rich and delicate, and a hodgepodge of couches and dining room chairs formed a semi-circle around a small boxy television. A robust Asian girl sat low in a plush orange chair. <br />
<br />
"These your friends, Cait?" her father said.<br />
<br />
"Um.. no?" Her voice was full and American, a generation apart from the choppy English of her father. <br />
<br />
He stood erect and talked loudly. "You not Cait's friends? You no here for facial! Why you here?" <br />
<br />
"Ah Sir, we're actually looking for a different 'Caitlin Hacket.' We came all the way from Chicago to find her. I'm sorry to bother you guys man, but were just looking for our friend." Wheeler's voice was harsh and smoky, and he looked British in the light of the room. <br />
<br />
"From Chicago? I live in Chicago once. Ya, I live there ...TEN years ago man!" He held up both hands and all fingers and smiled widely. "Where your friend? She live up here?"<br />
<br />
"She used to. She left and we're just trying to find her," I said. <br />
<br />
"Okay okay." A loud cell phone rang and he walked away, trailing into a foreign conversation.<br />
<br />
"You think that's Japanese?" Wheeler whispered.<br />
<br />
"It's Vietnamese, actually," the girl interjected.<br />
<br />
"Oh nice," said Wheeler, enthusiastically. "So, Hacket. That's not Vietnamese, right?"<br />
<br />
"It's my step mom's last name. She's white." She didn't look at us while she talked, but kept her eyes focused on the TV as she flicked through channels rapidly. <br />
<br />
"Ahhh, okay okay. So do you know any other Cait Hackets around here?" <br />
<br />
"Nope." She reached down and ate some chips from a bag in the nook of her arm. <br />
<br />
Her dad re-entered the room and the two exchanged words in Vietnamese. The conversation became angry and the girl walked away. <br />
<br />
"You two want beer? I have Pabst Blue Ribbon? I have Sam Adam?" <br />
<br />
We accepted the offer, graciously, and followed the man into the kitchen. "Come, come!" he said. <br />
<br />
There was a barber chair in the center of the kitchen floor, and mirrors were placed sporadically on the walls. He opened a can of beer for each of us and we sat down at a metal table in the corner. We introduced ourselves, and the man smiled largely. "I am Tuan," he said. <br />
<br />
--<br />
<br />
Tuan told us about his life. He told us about the two-week journey he took from Vietnam to America in 1971. We asked idiotic questions, ignorant and oblivious to this thread of tribulation, to a history we had no concept of. <br />
<br />
Wheeler sat erect in his chair. Beads of condensation fell from his PBR and trickled into a cylinder pool on the kitchen table. "That's fucking crazy, man," he said. "That's really fucking crazy. Like, two whole weeks? From fucking Vietnam? It's crazy." His leg tapped lightly on the tile floor, and his eyes scanned Tuan with an edge of fever.<br />
<br />
Tuan had a goodness about him that I'd never quite experienced. So many of the people I'd met in my life had fallen flat to me. So many encounters with strangers and acquaintances had never resounded past the moment of formality. Tuan had this heaviness to him that wasn't accompanied by grumbling or tired complaints. He just seemed to be. He told us story after story, some a little lost in translation, some a bit sad, some without having any known point at all. <br />
<br />
He told us he had permed his hair since the 80's. He told us his ex-wife was a model in the early 90's and his new wife was a poor cosmetologist. "She's ugly," he said. "But a nice lady." His children were "too American," he said. They didn't understand him and he didn't understand them. He was happy he came here, he said. He'd lived in California and Texas, and Idaho for a short time. He'd divorced his Vietnamese wife in Chicago and moved to Minnesota with Mrs. Hacket and their children.<br />
<br />
His youngest daughter was bullied in school and he said that he babied her. "I tell Ginny to do homework? She say- Daddy I love you- and doesn't have to do her homework!" He laughed uproariously in between his stories. "But that's okay," he said. He said that Cait was too fat. She hadn't been that fat before but she's so American, he said. "But that's okay," he repeated.<br />
<br />
Tuan was sitting in front of a small square window leading into a fenced in backyard. The sun cast shadows on his face and beamed in to capture dust swimming slowly in the dry air. There was a bird feeder in the yard filled with plants and rain water. The fence around the square plot was high and old looking, and I watched a squirrel balance on the wood grid and bounce playfully in the bright of the sun, disappearing fast into a neighboring lawn. The wholeness of Tuan's voice made each word hold validity that permeated the moment. Even the simplest of his details propelled me into a contemplation of much bigger proportions. <br />
<br />
He said that he had a lot of money in Chicago. He'd lost it all in his divorce, which he accepted. "I'm rich, I was rich, I'm poor, I'm rich, I was rich, I'm poor," he said. "The moon changes, but that's okay," he said.<br />
<br />
Wheeler asked him more questions about his trip to America. <br />
<br />
"We had 1 bowl rice a day on the boat," he told us. "And when you had to take a shit, you leaned over the edge of the boat!" He had a gleaming smile on his face, but it wasn't slightly moronic or arrogant, it was just unburdened, and perhaps innocent. <br />
<br />
"People fell in that way! I saw TWO people die," he said. He held up two bold fingers.<br />
<br />
"Shit," said Wheeler.<br />
<br />
Tuan opened more beers and lined them up on the kitchen table.<br />
<br />
"I think about that, man. Dying," said Wheeler. He took a long drink of his PBR and slouched deeper into his chair. "Well, not dying I guess. I just have this fantasy, like, sort of just sneaking out of my skin. Just kind of tip-toeing away from my skin and my bones and my body and stuff. You know? And just floating off as a-- well a blob, or a puff of smoke or whatever. You know what I mean? God that sounds crazy, man. But do you know what I mean? Just sort of escaping. Not into nothingness though- just as me, without... this." He made a circular motion around his body.<br />
<br />
Tuan looked thoughtfully at Wheeler for a moment and then burst into a real laugh. I thought about the idea, and I could see a certain appeal in the fantasy. I too, felt somewhat trapped inside my skin sometimes. I hated to agree, but I understood. <br />
<br />
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<br />Jena bughttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03811410391660026357noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6173885506870332229.post-90615144236625953082010-09-30T08:11:00.000-07:002011-08-15T10:33:00.498-07:00I Do This I Do That- Chapter 24XXIV. Get Your Bruised Butt Up
<br />
<br />Something that should terrify me more than any mystery in the world, any stranger on the <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_0" class="blsp-spelling-error">MegaBus</span> and all of the pending atrocities on full moon nights- is the lapse of time I am faced with the morning after a blackout drunk. On this particular morning, I woke beneath a canopy of scarce branches on a bed of dewy grass. Without possessing anything of remote commercial value, the only assets I really have to keep intact are my legs, my face, and my lungs. My legs were cold and wet, but fine. My face felt blemished, but I could still see and smell and smile. My lungs were working, however they did feel slightly beaten up from an overdose of smoking.
<br />
<br />We were in a barren park. The sun was struggling to peak towards the world from behind a few relentless clouds. They were white and sweet looking, but malevolent things. The rays squeaked between the billowed edges, but were constantly rebuffed. I wanted some warmth but there was none to be found. I leaned against the trunk of the tall maple tree and looked out into the empty park. There was a swing set a few hundred yards away. Trees were sporadically planted on beds of wood chips and sod.
<br />
<br />The grass had crisp linear patterns in it from careful mowing. I could smell the remnants of the last mow and it made me think of childhood. That creeping feeling of being tiny and dirty, playing outside and taking full breaths of spring air dawned on me, as memories do. I could almost see the mirage of my father in the distance, stooped over and driving our dinky lawnmower forward, sweat dripping down his face and a cigarette hanging from his lips.
<br />
<br />I could have died last night, and I really wouldn't have noticed, I thought. Dying seems to be the part of life when every cognitive realization, every part of the brain, every corner of the soul is elevated to a conceptual understanding. Of all the moments and of all the epiphanies, the sensory overloads, dying, I imagine, is the apex. I would have missed the whole hoopla. I would have surpassed the grandiose production and just keeled over, drunk. "I suppose I should thank you, for keeping me around to find out what it all feels like," I said. I was looking up, towards God, or those malevolent clouds, or that poor sun on the offense.
<br />
<br />The last thing I <em>do</em> remember is being kicked out of Hobo Sam's. After we concocted the most organic reception of love that I have ever been apart of, we sabotaged it just as fast. The engagement had made Wheeler, that bumbling idiot, palpably irresistible to all of the local ladies. It's disgusting really, the way our humanity pushes us to desire the things we cannot, or should not attain. Moments after our eloquent loop and over dramatic kiss, Wheeler was getting eye fucked from every corner of the bar. It was happening to me too, but the guys weren't as openly disrespectful to each other as the girls happened to be.
<br />
<br />The sequence of sabotage began like this...
<br />
<br />Tan man walked back over to us and struck up a conversation with me. It was all garbage. More reiterations about how amazing Wheeler and I were. More talk about promotion. More bullshit bullshit recollections of our love. Meanwhile, Wheeler had begun talking to the brunette who had asked us "Why Hobo Sam's?" earlier. At least a half an hour went on like this. I continued to sip drink after drink. As tan man talked, I studied the skin on his face. The dark organ was stretched out in astounding proportions, defying my imagination. I started to look at him like a talking briefcase. I'd laugh where no laugh was due.
<br />
<br />After many moments of crap, I left for the bathroom to maybe puke or poop. There were blood stains on the tile, and a great crack down the center of the mirror divided my face into two jagged halves.
<br />
<br />I puked a little in the toilet, and assured myself afterwards by saying, "It had to be done." The strange girl who I directed the comment towards offered me a mint from her purse. It was peppermint.
<br />
<br />I left the bathroom and walked back towards the bar stools we'd claimed. Tan man was gone, but standing next to my empty stool was Wheeler, making out with the brunette. It was all spit and tongues were everywhere. The only way it could have been more graphic, would have been if he'd ripped off his shirt or lifted her up on top of the bar. The people around them, those who were still remotely coherent, were struck with awe. Some stared intently. Others appeared to have been scanning the room for me, his supposed fiance.
<br />
<br />Soon he noticed me standing there, and he gently removed the brunette from his mouth. We had successfully condensed all the melodrama of a long term commitment into the span of two gloriously public hours.
<br />"How could you!" I announced, with calculated gusto that sent a wave of silence through the bar. The words churned in my stomach and I wanted deeply to laugh and laugh and laugh.
<br />
<br />"It's okay! It's okay everyone. It's okay. We're <em>not</em> really engaged. We've only known each other a week. It was just a joke! That ring? I bought that ring for a quarter in that machine over there. It's all good everybody! No need to get upset," Wheeler reached for the brunette's arm. She slapped him and the party resumed.
<br />
<br />Everything after that is somewhat of a blur. It was definitely <em>not</em> okay, by the standards of everyone who'd spent a buck or shed a tear on our behalf. We were usurped from Hobo Sam royalty, and literally <em>kicked</em> out of the bar. I couldn't tell that morning, but I had a giant bruise on my butt from the kick. After that, we'd evidently wandered intoa park to sleep.
<br />
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<br />--------
<br />Wheeler appeared from behind the maple. His hair looked electrocuted, and his face had strands of creases in it from a bed of grass. He looked genuinely homeless, and I was not entirely convinced that he wasn't.
<br />"How's your ass?"
<br />"Sore."
<br />"See what happens when the moon is full?" He sat down next to me.
<br />"Or when you are just a giant fucking idiot, rather."
<br />"Come on...That was incredible! We single handily created love and then <em>crushed</em> it! I feel like my parents."
<br />
<br />He pulled out the map from his backpack.
<br />"Honestly I don't have a fucking clue where we are now. We walked for at least an hour after the bar last night, so we're definitely going to have to take a cab or get a ride to <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_1" class="blsp-spelling-error">Hackett</span> house number one," he said.
<br />"I hope it's our <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_2" class="blsp-spelling-error">Cait</span> <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_3" class="blsp-spelling-error">Hackett</span>," I said.
<br />"I kind of hope it's not. I'm not ready to be done with this. I've got <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_4" class="blsp-spelling-error">nothin</span>' to go home to."
<br />"I just want to find her."
<br />"Well, get your bruised butt up and let's go then." He dusted dirt off his pants and helped me to my feet.
<br />Jena bughttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03811410391660026357noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6173885506870332229.post-73238044746410107352010-09-12T15:36:00.000-07:002010-09-30T10:11:43.485-07:00I Do This I Do That- Chapter 23XXIII. Mi Mufasa es Su Mufasa<br /><br />I transcended between dream and reality as the bus jolted and rumbled and dimmed. Wheeler's bony butt was practically on my lap for a moment or two, and I plastered my side to the window, perpetually shoving him over with my knee. I kept dreaming nonsense, about some dragon bathing in what looked like canned ravioli. I'd wake and then find myself mentally searching for the exact spot in the orange and red valley that I left off. I was just sort of perusing around a warm valley, and this dragon was dipping it's mouth in the goo and then spitting the marinara looking sauce all over itself. It never saw me. I was completely alone, I thought to myself in the dream that it might have been hell. If Cait had been with me when I woke up, I'm sure she'd relay some highly inaccurate interpretation of what it all meant. I personally found no significance from any of it, but the vividness was undeniably haunting, as usual.<br /><br /><br /><br />The outside world began to brighten and it seemed we'd arrived in something urban. It was just after 11 p.m. I'd slept for much longer than I'd thought, which I realized with utter relief. The trip was ending, and we'd arrived in Minneapolis, just a tad behind schedule. After the various stops, less than half the passengers remained on the bus. Hot Cheetos was gone, and the Amish trifecta had also departed. The skinny tough guy and his babe still sat ahead of us, and they yawned and then giggled then kissed in the dark. "I think we're here, babe," he said.<br /><br /><br /><br />We turned down South 3rd Street and stopped on the corner of 3rd and Chicago. The lights came on and the bus beeped and lowered. "Well folks, almost 8 hours later and it looks like we're back to Chicago," joked the driver over the intercom. Silence ensued, and it seemed that the fat nut in the back had exited the bus while we slept. We retrieved our backpack and left into a sea of parking lots. There were parking lots on every side of us, and low yellow street lights made continuous shadows down the cement blocks.<br /><br /><br /><br />Few cars passed, and the other riders faded into cabs or cars or shadows. Wheeler and I made no plans for lodging, and we sat on a brick ledge in one of the many parking lots to contemplate our next move. The air was idyllic, and faints of summer warmth moved in a steady breeze calmly moving west. It smelled like flowers and dirt in the lot, and I took notice to the likelihood of the moon actually being full. It appeared to be, but truly full or not, it was certainly brilliant above us regardless.<br /><br /><br /><br />"Hey, you know where the term 'lunatic' comes from?" said Wheeler, leaning back against his wrists and turning his wide eyes towards the sky.<br /><br />"No I don't."<br /><br />"The prefix 'luna' means moon. People are supposedly more crazy when there's a full moon. More murderers, more accidents. Even Aristotle thought so."<br /><br />"You know the most useless shit."<br /><br />"Depends on what you consider useless I guess!"<br /><br />"So what are we supposed to do now?"<br /><br />"Find a watering hole and stumble around until morning. Then we'll go to this Hackett house first in the morning," he pulled out a scribbley map with a triangle drawn over outspread Minneapolis streets. He pointed to one of the corners.<br /><br />"Alright," I said.<br /><br />There was a star on the map about 8 blocks southeast of where the first Hackett house was. "We're here," said Wheeler.<br /><br />"I feel sort of like a pirate with this map, looking for treasure."<br /><br />Wheeler concluded that we should head towards the first house, and stop at whatever bars we collided with on the journey.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><p>After 5 blocks towards the first Hackett house, we came to a slightly busy slew of low buildings with cheap looking fluorescent signs and stirs of amplified music inside. The gutters surrounding reeked of sewage and mud, and there wasn't anything or anyone remotely pretty in sight. There was life though, and booze, and we settled with that. </p><p>The first bar on the left was called "Hobo Sam's". The crowd was surprisingly young. I knew nothing about the demographics of the area, but I <em>did</em> know how confoundedly ugly it was outside. Usually young people congregate in pretty little places, but there must have been a college nearby, I thought. </p><p>Wheeler hung around me like a belt, and it was only by extremely aggressive shoves that I got him to remove his arm or arms from my waist. He went to the bar and squeezed between a very dull looking group. I sat at a tall wooden table on the left side of the room and surveyed the variance, feeling quite tired and greasy. He looked back towards me periodically, with a happy drunk grin on his face, as though we repeatedly shared a discreet moment that words could not necessarily convey. There was no moment though. No connection, and I actually quivered in disgust at the sight of his elongated gazes. </p><p>He was wearing a snug navy t-shirt with a picture of Mufasa on it from <em>The Lion King</em>. It read, "Mi Mufasa es Su Mufasa," in white cursive font. Mufasa was the father in the movie. Did the shirt mean, my father is your father? Crazy fucking Wheeler, I thought, as I watched him stand there, all lanky and British looking. Those big buck teeth and high cheek bones were nothing short of laughable. The expression on his face was one that indicated he desired and deserved attention, attention from me no less. However, I could never reciprocate that look he was giving me. No matter what we'd done together or what we were going to do, I would never even remotely care about him on any romantic level. Any sexual encounters we had were merely consequences of apathy, not attraction. What was most palpable to me in that moment, was that I lacked even the smallest amount of remorse for the entire debacle. His feelings were his own problem. </p><p>He came back to the table with a pitcher of beer and two quality plastic cups. The beer tasted like apricots, and the plastic was thick, nothing that I could bite through. </p><p>"Nice," I said. </p><p>"The bartender only had fucking quarters for change. You mind if I go blow them on those machines over there?" he pointed to a little area by the foyer where there was an abundance of kiddie looking machine games. "I think there's a jukebox too." </p><p>"Yeah, go." </p><p>He reached over and squeezed my hand before he got up, just before I had a sufficient chance to remove it from his range. </p><p>The other tables around me were quickly occupied, and I was suddenly filled with an overwhelming feeling of familiarity. I could be in any college bar in any city in the country and find nothing remotely different, aside perhaps from a variation in the nightly specials. The three guys behind me were wearing blue and black and tan, and their names were probably Chad, Chris, and Tom. There were four girls behind them. They were probably talking about relationships or the trivial details of their daily affairs. All of the noise around me struck me in such an exasperatingly daunting way, that I could do nothing more than chug the pitcher to suppress my anxiety. I drank and drank until the apricot beer deflected in burps from my full stomach, back into the noisy air. </p>Wheeler popped back over to me just as I finished the last drink of the apricot beer.<br />"I won this in a machine," he said, pulling out a small black box from his pocket. Inside was a fake gaudy diamond ring with a thin faux-silver band.<br />"I also won an alligator stuffed animal, but some dude bought it from me for $1.25."<br />"Weird."<br />"I'm gonna do something now, and you <em>have</em> to go with it. No matter what, just go with it. Okay? Trust me."<br />"What are you gonna do?"<br />"Just trust me."<br /><br />He walked over towards the bar and disappeared in the accumulating crowd.<br /><br />Some big girl in a table perpendicular from me was leaning too far forward and her shirt was far too short. The blatant sight of the crack of her ass made me almost want to throw up the apricot beer. Also, I'd been extremely malnourished in the past few days, and the impetuous pitcher chug left me feeling unsteady in my chair. Thanks to the beer, time was sort of easier to endure though, which was a feeling I could not deny liking. I wished for a minute I had a napkin to crumble, or a paper straw wrapper to toss over into her crack. I had nothing though, and just cringed flagrantly in her general ass crack direction.<br /><br />The lights became a tad brighter, and the music stopped playing mid song. It was hours before closing time. Several fat and thirsty college beasts looked towards the bar, bewildered. Others were too drunk or distracted to notice. However, all mouths and eyes halted when suddenly the bartender hopped on the bar. He sharply whistled with two fingers in his mouth, a skill that awed me and commanded the room nearly silent.<br /><br />"Hey! Everybody. Listen up for a minute!"<br /><br />A congregated group by the bar parted for an emerging person. It was Wheeler. Goddamn Wheeler. He walked out from the group and moved towards me. He had a look on his face like a man who'd just born a child. He seemed completely meek and utterly amazed. 'What the fuck is he about to do?' I thought. Thankfully I was feeling a bit loaded, and the bright lights in the room were fuzzy enough to keep me calm. I remembered what he said, "No matter what, just go with it." Go with it I <em>would</em>, for the sake of sparring a likely brawl, but I was nervous as hell as he approached me.<br /><br />The people in the room formed sort of a half-moon crescent around us as he cleared his throat.<br /><br />"Paigebrook," he said, so loudly that I could almost feel the vibrations of his voice.<br />"I have loved you since the first time I saw you." Pause. Oh God. Oh God. What the fuck is he doing? I put my hand over my heart, and the other over my mouth, worried I may puke or laugh, and the hand could stop both.<br /><br />"Every day that I've heard your voice and seen you smile, has made me happier than the day before... You've stood by me through these past 8 years. Through my drug problems, through the cancer... You've given me strength that I never knew I had in me. Sometimes, I just look at you and my whole <em>life</em> just makes sense. You are my best friend, and the most beautiful girl I have ever. ever. seen." The long lustrous pauses were filled with perceptible intensity, and I could see that around the room girls and boys alike were beaming with receptive happiness. A blond girl sitting on a stool wiped a tear from her cheek.<br /><br />Wheeler took a deep heartfelt breath and got down on one knee. 'Oh God,' I thought. The crowd around us jeered with more enthusiasm than I remember seeing at any baseball game, any track meet or 5k road race... Tough boys with deep voices cheered from the depths of their lungs. Tiny girls 'wooed' with high pitched yelps, and the fire in the room pulsed with genuine intensity and support. Even <em>I</em> felt like crying.<br /><br />"Paigebrook, Esmerelda.. McGillicuddy. Make me the happiest fucking guy in the world," He pulled out the black box with the ring that he'd won from the quarter machine. "Will you, marry me?" He opened the box. The room sort of held it's breath for just a moment, and I found myself nodding uncontrollably, 'yes', I moved my hand away from my nearly laughing mouth and said, "Yes, Yes, Yes!" Every one went bizerk; clapping and jumping and cheering wildly. I got up from my chair and Wheeler picked me up in one brisk motion, spinning me around in an eloquent loop.<br /><br />I heard joyful crying from the table of boring broads I'd noted earlier. There was the sound of champagne popping, and before I knew it, I kissed him, in the heat of the brilliantly contrived moment. We had parted The Red Sea. We had turned water into wine, and everyone in the room wanted a piece of our miraculous asses. True love had been witnessed, at least in the perception of these dopey Minnesotans.<br /><br />I couldn't believe how badly every one wanted to be apart of it, to believe it, and to support it with every type of alcoholic salutation I'd ever consumed. It was like my goddamn twenty-first birthday, on steroids. Never had I been treated better in my life. Before we knew it, we were Hobo Sam royalty. Bottles of champagne were opened in our honor. We took shot after shot after shot. We were holding hands and Eskimo kissing our way into being given the bar itself.<br /><br />We were becoming quite good at being engaged. Our story became bigger and more concrete as the night went on.<br /><br />"So, why'd you pick Hobo Sam's?" asked a relatively cute brunette, who didn't buy us a drink but came over to our celebrity stools at the bar. It was a reasonable question.<br />"This has been our place for the past five years," said Wheeler.<br />"Yeah that's right, we come here <em>all</em> the time," I said.<br />The bar was a dark dusty square with old looking pool tables and bathrooms that reeked of shit and murder.<br />A tall gump in a backwards grey hat, with borderline cross-eyes overheard our response and chimed in. "You know, I've seen you guys in here <em>so</em> many times. You always look so happy and so in love. Makes me want to get a girlfriend, man," he patted Wheeler on the back.<br />"Nothing beats love," said Wheeler.<br />"Wow. That's just great. I'm so happy for you guys!" said the brunette. She then ordered us two shots.<br />"Five years? How fucking old do I <em>look</em>?" I whispered in Wheeler's ear. He laughed and kissed me on the cheek. "Love you too, honey!" he said.<br /><br />A short guy with dark hair walked over to us. He looked and smelled like he'd just popped out of the tanning bed, and he held out his hand towards me with enthusiasm. "Congrats guys. Really. That was incredible. I work for Minneapolisbars.com, and I actually caught the entire thing on my iPhone. I'm gonna put it up on the website tomorrow if it's cool with you both."<br />"Oh yeah, absolutely. I can't wait to see it!"<br />"I've never seen anything like that. It was seriously, really amazing. I've seen you guys in here before, and I gotta tell you, I've noticed how happy you are together."<br />"Hear that dear? How nice," I said. I smiled drunkenly at Wheeler. I felt like an aspiring actress with my first big break.<br />"Hey and if you guys need anything, like a promo for your wedding, promo for your bachelor parties, seriously let me know. I also video tape, too," he said. He handed us his card. It had his face on the front of it.<br />"Also I'm gonna give you guys this V.I.P promo book. There are drink tickets in there, coupons for restaurants and hotels, party discounts, limo discounts.. lots of good stuff," he handed it to Wheeler.<br />"Excellent man. We really appreciate it," said Wheeler. He kissed my forehead.<br /><br />The plastic ring was entirely too big for my ring finger, and it slid around in circles and dropped down onto the ground from time to time. A boy glanced skeptically while Wheeler retrieved it. Wheeler picked up the ring and leaned into the boy, "It's my mom's engagement ring man. I love the woman, but she's bigger than a house," he said. The boy smiled and moved in towards the bar.<br /><br />"Bartender! Two shots!" he said.Jena bughttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03811410391660026357noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6173885506870332229.post-32038867824791353582010-09-12T11:03:00.000-07:002010-09-21T13:39:52.140-07:00I Do This I Do That- Chapter 22XXII. Utopia<br /><br />I rested my head on the thick warm glass as the bus wielded through traffic intermittently. As we accelerated and switched lanes, there seemed to be a slight delay of movement from the bottom half to the top half of the bus, and the sensation made me somewhat woozy. It was such a heavy thing, with all of the people and bags and wheels, and I thought about how common it would be for us to just topple over into the medium, or drift into collision with some unassuming truck or tree. For as statistically dangerous driving is, becoming a bus driver should be a difficult process, and obtaining an operator's licence should really be regarded as a prestigious achievement.<br /><br />I could hear Pancho Villa telling a man sitting behind him about the various public places in Chicago that used to permit inconspicuous drug use.<br /><br />"It was before all the goddamn socialists took over. Remember that? I remember when the frats in Lincoln Park used to sell speed at the door instead of plastic cups. Me? No I never went. I ran around with a group that went to the frat houses though," he said. "All the goddamn democrats got up and took over though. Now we can't even smoke a goddamn cigarette fifty feet from a building. You don't think <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_0" class="blsp-spelling-error">ther'll</span> be another prohibition? There sure as hell will be, if Obama has anything to do with it. Goddamn socialist. They're taxing soda that isn't diet, you know that? Vice laws. I used to be able to smoke weed right out in the open. Right in the middle of the goddamn park. Now I can't even smoke a cigarette outside." He coughed from the depth of his lungs and glanced periodically in the rear view mirror at the babe sitting behind the man he spoke with. The man wore a khaki brimmed hat and leaned towards the driver with his right arm perched up against the back of his seat. "I hear ya," he said, "Tell me about it. No shit. I hear ya."<br /><br />In my ideal Utopian society, becoming a bus driver or a <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_1" class="blsp-spelling-error">cabbie</span> would be one of the most prestigious endeavors. I'm sure if Sir Thomas More was alive and created a modern revision of his book, <em>Utopia</em>, he'd likely agree with this priority. The bus driver would be the economical equivalent of the doctor or the politician. Even private citizens would undergo grueling tests to obtain a driver's license, which would have to be renewed every five years or so. Car accidents would then be as socially shocking as plane crashes.<br /><br />More's Utopia valued agriculture and simplicity, which mine would also uphold, but I would add that the public transporter is one of the most socially undermined positions. Also, More's world implemented slavery, which is pretty fucked up. My Utopia would not have slavery, or name tags, or romantic comedies starring Matthew <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_2" class="blsp-spelling-error">McConaughey</span>, or the "Twilight" series, or acrylic nails, or Twitter, or <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_3" class="blsp-spelling-error">Miley</span> Cyrus, or Nicholas Sparks, or Oprah. Most importantly, my Utopia would not allow small talk of any kind.<br /><br />Art would be valued, college would be free, there would be no vice laws, and dogs would be strictly prohibited from wearing clothing. There would be tax incentives for those who didn't obstruct justice, who promoted goodness, who befriended their neighbors, and for those who displayed general perspective and humility. Of course the reality of the world is not close to my ideal, and if the babe's chicken leg was remotely visible to the boisterous driver, the <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_4" class="blsp-spelling-error">MegaBus</span> and all of the ugly people inside would probably crash into opposing traffic.<br /><br />Wheeler was listening to the driver and laughed under his breath after certain comments. He turned towards me.<br /><br />"You know," he said, "every time I've ridden on a coach bus in the last couple of years I think about that Canadian <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_5" class="blsp-spelling-error">wack</span> who decapitated the dude sitting next to him."<br />"I didn't hear about that."<br />"Oh yeah. It was on a Greyhound. This normal looking guy just started stabbing the passenger next to him in the middle of the trip. Like 50 or 60 times or something. Then he decapitated him, and ran up and down the aisle eating the dude's flesh. It was one of the most fucked up things I'd ever heard about."<br />"That's horrible."<br />"Isn't it? How can people be that fucked up? And people are supposedly made in God's image. What about that guy, huh?"<br />He looked up and down the aisle. "It makes you wonder, right? Like everybody looks so normal, but you never know what's really going on inside. Hot Cheetos over there might be a real psycho and we'd never know by looking at her. Or the Amish dude. Maybe he's leaving the city because he was just on some serial killing spree!"<br />"I doubt that," I said.<br />"There are so many mysteries in the world, in the universe. You know? Aliens, the Bermuda Triangle, God... I think <em>we're</em> the biggest mystery of all though. Fucking people. Who knows why people do what they do.We'll never know either."<br />"I don't think it's that mysterious. I think people are just selfish. That guy on the Greyhound just wanted to do that."<br />"Yeah you also said you pride yourself with not knowing things." He smiled and the western sun hit his face, making his teeth look bigger and more bucked than usual.<br />"I still have an opinion. It's probably wrong, but I still have one."<br /><br />We stopped at a McDonald's about 40 minutes north of <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_6" class="blsp-spelling-error">Janesville</span>, Wisconsin.<br />The driver got on the intercom, "Okay folks, we'll be here for 20 minutes. 20 minutes. If you're not on here in 20 minutes, we're <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_7" class="blsp-spelling-error">leavin</span>' without you. And if anyone wants to buy me a big mac, no mustard please."<br /><br />The guy in the back with the deep laugh lost control, and every body's heads turned towards him.<br />"With that laugh and a few more stops at McDonald's, he's gonna have a heart attack," said Wheeler.<br /><br />I stayed on the bus while Wheeler went inside to get us food. I buried my head in my lap while the chicks walked past. After the bus refilled, Wheeler was the last to return. He didn't have a McDonald's bag, but instead he carried two cucumbers and a plastic knife.<br /><br />"I went across the street to the dairy store," he said, "This is better than nasty burgers and greasy fries."<br /><br />Everyone around us made loud noises with their red and white paper bags, and the smell of fried meat and pickles doused in mustard lingered between the royal blue rows. Wheeler struggled to peel the cucumbers with the bending knife. He took the peeled scraps and rubbed them all over his face.<br /><br />"It's good for you," he said, handing me a piece of green skin. I rubbed it on my face then held the used scrap in my hand.<br />"That does feel nice," I said.<br />When he was finished he ate the pieces he'd used on his greasy face.<br />"Are you gonna eat that?" he pointed to the one I'd rubbed on mine.<br />"That's really gross." He took it out of my hand and ate it.<br />"You're so much like <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_8" class="blsp-spelling-error">Cait</span>, and you don't even know it."<br />"<span id="SPELLING_ERROR_9" class="blsp-spelling-error">Cait</span> <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_10" class="blsp-spelling-error">Hackett</span>? Or <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_11" class="blsp-spelling-error">Cait</span> Finn? We don't even know <em>what</em> she's like," he said.<br /><br />It was getting dark outside and the babe was now sitting on the skinny tough guy's lap. The bus smelled like burger fart, and Wheeler revealed yet another pint of whiskey from his other sock. Pancho Villa watched the babe deviously in the rear view mirror, and I kept imagining the <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_12" class="blsp-spelling-error">MegaBus</span> veering off into a perilous catastrophe because of it.<br /><br />A vision of scarce trees blended into a green line as we moved forward, and I couldn't help but notice how plain it all was. Every mile looked the same as the last. I tried to percieve the dusty gravel road and the patchy green fields beside it as beautiful or interesting, but I could not lie to my own instincts. It was all ugly, every single mile. The sunset was brilliant though, as it arguably always is. No matter the place or weather, the setting sun is always beautiful. As long as there is a sun, there will always be two distinctly beautiful moments in every single day; the sunrise and the sunset. The light began to hide beneath the ugly green fields, and I closed the window shade to block the intensity.<br /><br />"Is it okay if I put my head on your lap?" said Wheeler.<br />"No, no, it's not at all okay actually."<br /><br />Instead, he curled himself into a ball with his back toward me. I tried to sleep but couldn't distract my brain from the monotony of M*A*S*H, and the reoccurring vision in my head of toppling over into a ditch. My Utopian bus driver wouldn't resemble Pancho Villa at all, I thought, but would be someone cool and distinguished looking, like Anderson Cooper or Gregory Peck. Yes. Gregory Peck, in fact. Gregory Peck would be the absolute ideal representation of my Utopian bus driver, I thought...Jena bughttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03811410391660026357noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6173885506870332229.post-2394107077670156102010-08-22T15:45:00.000-07:002010-09-12T11:03:56.976-07:00I Do This I Do That- Chapter 21XXI. "You're Ignorant! You're Ignorant!"<br /><br />The driver descended from the <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_0" class="blsp-spelling-error">MegaBus</span> door and stood in the gutter next to the accumulating line. He smoked a cigarette and periodically pulled his sagging gray slacks back on top of the slope of his protruding waist. His dark eyes looked like dirty pebbles, heavy and small. He had a thick Pancho Villa mustache that was almost comically primped, turning down at both sides. He watched the shallow ducks daintily heave their bags into the storage compartment below the bus. People in line looked at him like he ought to help. He spat in response.<br /><br />Wheeler and I held back while the bus filled, and I peeked between the bobbing heads and made a note of where precisely the chickadees had sat. They were third or fourth row up from the rear.<br /><br />The front half of the bus was still scarcely sat, and from behind the line I eyed an empty spot on the right side close to the front. I positioned Wheeler ahead of me to ensure I was adequately hidden.<br /><br /><br />"You don't want them to see you? Just come here," said Wheeler, putting his arm around my neck like I was about to be the victim of a <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_1" class="blsp-spelling-error">noogie</span>. He quickly pulled his t-shirt over my head. His abdomen was damp and salty against my face and I struggled to walk down the aisle without hitting what felt like chairs, or arms, or bags. Wheeler laughed gaily and popped me out into an empty seat.<br /><br />"You're ridiculous. And disgusting," I said.<br /><br />"That was just as obvious as what you were doing, hiding behind me like a little kid. Who the fuck cares if you know those girls?"<br /><br />"I can't explain it."<br /><br />He put his backpack up above the seat and sat down next to me. He scratched his nails on the chair by his lap, tracing the multicolored laser-like dashes seamed into the thick royal blue fabric. M*A*S*H was playing on the small TV in front of us, and the familiar theme song competed with the hushed sounds of slow classic rock coming from the driver's personal radio.<br /><br /><br />Three Amish people settled in a few seats behind us, and I wondered how fascinated they were or how shameful they felt over all the exposed knees everywhere on the bus. I imagine that to Amish people, the bluntness of all the exposed knees and shoulder blades would be the equivalent of me walking onto a bus with butts and boobs abounding, with no apologies or complaints.<br /><br />I heard a program on NPR about an Amish boy who took a spiritual sabbatical on his 18<span id="SPELLING_ERROR_2" class="blsp-spelling-error">th</span> birthday. He left his community for 6 months, and at the end of the sabbatical he could either choose to return to the Amish way of life, or dissent into mainstream culture forever. He ended up getting addicted to <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_3" class="blsp-spelling-error">meth</span>.<br /><br /><br />These three looked <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_4" class="blsp-spelling-error">meth</span> free, and they were only an arms reach away, which excited me. I could faintly hear the sound of their conversation. Their possible topics for discussion filled me with curiosity. I figured they may banter over homemade furniture, or jam, or cornfields, ears of corn, religious paraphernalia, sin, buttons, maybe... hats. If I was raised Amish, the lure of <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_5" class="blsp-spelling-error">meth</span> (or anything shiny or sharp really) would likely be my demise too.<br /><br /><br />Everyone else around was boring and ugly. Across from us, an overweight black girl was talking on the phone with one hand and eating flaming hot Cheetos with the other. She had long fake pink nails with detailed white designs etched on them. She had a backpack sitting on the seat next to her, even though the bus was nearly full.<br /><br />I remember one time when <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_6" class="blsp-spelling-error">Cait</span> and I went for a walk through Lincoln Park, we happened to be slightly drunk and we walked straight through a kid's soccer game. It was clearly a huge interruption, and an angry dad ran after us, screaming, "You're ignorant! You're ignorant!" That's all he said. I suppose he was right, but at the time the complaint lacked so much specificity to me. For some reason the vision of this big girl eating hot Cheetos and not giving a damn about taking up two seats made me think of that screaming dad.<br /><br />There was an old woman standing in front of the big girl who had a look on her face like she knew she was old and everyone else should care. She waited for someone to help her put her bag into the upper storage compartment. The big girl didn't get up. I nudged Wheeler and he noisily got up and made a big fuss over her. He called her sweetheart. I thought for a moment that he may slap her ass, but thankfully he just faked the motion when she wasn't looking.<br /><br />I looked back to see the Amish people's reactions but they were stone cold serious. I could imagine the Amish man thinking about corn or buttons to distract himself from the mainstream buffoonery.<br /><br />Wheeler sat back down and tried but failed to put his arm around my shoulder. I pushed him off of me like a reflex. The bus was already running 30 minutes behind schedule, but we remained outside of Union Station. The doors were still open and the driver still stood on the curb, smoking and grinning beneath that Pancho Villa.<br /><br />A couple walked on, a skinny looking tough guy, and a sort of pretty, short girl with blond hair and pale chicken legs. "Right here babe," said the skinny boy. His voice was out of context, full and deep, like someone important and strong. He was damn skinny though. They both were. She handed him her bag and went into the window seat. "You want this babe?" He pulled out a magazine from the bag pouch.<br /><br />"Hopefully this 'babe' shit doesn't go on for seven whole hours," I said to Wheeler. Again I imagined that soccer dad, screaming and running after us, "You're ignorant! You're ignorant!"<br /><br />The tough kid's chest was sort of puffed out, and he took a snarled glance around the bus before sitting down next to his babe.<br /><br />"You wanna get fucked up, 'babe'?" Wheeler pulled out a pint of Jack from his sock.<br />"Sure, why not."<br /><br />We turned towards each other and took turns drinking from the small bottle.<br />"Don't worry. I have reinforcements too," he said.<br /><br />The driver got on the bus and closed the door. He situated himself in the seat and got on the intercom, "Afternoon folks. Thanks for choosing <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_7" class="blsp-spelling-error">MegaBus</span>. We're a bit behind schedule today, but we'll still be making stops for breaks and dinner. We'll be getting to our final destination, Minneapolis, about an hour later than planned. But don't worry, we'll leave the light on for ya." He looked into the rear view mirror and winked, as though he anticipated some laughter. However it wasn't funny, not even a little bit. Some big nut in the back killed the silence and laughed like he may explode or die from hilarity.<br /><br />I hit my head lightly against the window.<br /><br />Wheeler nudged my arm with his elbow. "Hey, if I get drunk enough, will you give me 10 dollars to grope hot Cheetos over there?"<br /><br />"You're Ignorant."Jena bughttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03811410391660026357noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6173885506870332229.post-74804084033970508972010-08-18T16:40:00.000-07:002010-09-09T13:33:14.866-07:00I Do This I Do That- Chapter 20XX. Fucking Small Talk<br /><br />Downtown the late afternoon sun ricocheted from building to building and the rays felt most concentrated on the top of my head and the bottom of my feet. We stood in the middle of the line to board the bus, behind two girls I recognized as my former college peers. Both were average height, but taller than me. One had mousy blond hair that blew wildly in the southbound wind. The other was brunette and chunky. Her denim shorts pinched the back of her legs, making a fold.<br /><br />I'd met them, more or less, freshman year. I'd passed them on campus and in between classes. We'd waved to each other at bars. I began to sweat at the idea of engaging in small talk of any kind. I tried to hide behind Wheeler. Please don't look at me, please don't look at me, I thought to myself over and over and over again.<br /><br />"Wheeler," I whispered, crouched down behind him in the line. "I know them," I pointed. "Please don't say my name."<br /><br />"I wouldn't know what to call you even if I wanted to," he said, failing to adjust his tone for discretion.<br /><br />They laughed to each other like little birds, and I imagined their conversation was about some bullshit social scenarios, some crappy details about their vacuous activities, or the stupid phony entanglements they considered relationships. This was going to be a long ride of hiding behind my seat. Yuck, I thought. I couldn't fathom the thought of the simple banter I'd have to partake in if they recognized me to my face. The whole garrulous production, the dialogue, the smiling. It was more precarious to me than the likely trauma of several physical endeavors. I almost thought of retreating from the entire mission just to overt chatting with these shallow ducks.<br /><br />My elaborate distaste for common social interaction was intrinsically deeper than me just feeling dim for not having normal adult preoccupations to discuss. It was the idea of being identified that I hated. I could travel anywhere new, comfortably, as long as I didn't already own a formed persona. The moment someone recognized me, I became afraid of encountering them ever again. The more people who knew me or knew of me, the worse my fear became.<br /><br />When I met Cait, she became an armor. I could go anywhere if she was there. She protected me. Her fearlessness was captivating, and it radiated off of her like light from a lamp. With Cait, not only was I not afraid of discussing the weather or my plans for winter break as usual, but I just knew the small conversation that I detested could never take place. She was too outlandish. She was unapproachable and impervious to the phony pretences the dialogue required. Wheeler served no similar function, and I regarded his presence more as a gaudy anchor or an un-coverable blemish than something remotely empowering.<br /><br />I remember during the second semester of my freshman year in college, my immense hatred for small talk was severely affecting my grades. I'd lost points in my classes for truant attendance, a policy I always thought was complete bull shit, but could not successfully avoid. Some days I spent hours fighting with myself at the door to my building, debating on which route to class was least clustered. I wore headphones and hid the unattached cord in my pocket. What made matters worse was the size of my building. I lived in a twenty story dorm on the eighteenth floor, but could hardly force myself to take the elevator instead of the stairs.<br /><br />If I was remotely tardy, I wouldn't attend class at all, specifically to avoid being looked at. I could only imagine the peril of that interruption...bumbling through desk rows and loudly retrieving my books. The professor would roll his eyes. The students would watch me move across the room. How awful! How embarrassing. I could not bear it. When I told my academic advisor about my social condition (after two missed appointments), she suggested I see a counselor.<br /><br />The grad student counselor was a pretty Italian girl with olive skin and long, carefully groomed hair. She was polite, but a tad inarticulate and flushed. She spoke softly, and struggled a great deal with spouts of dry mouth between words. She had an ugly wound on her lip, caked in concealer and hid slightly by a few hanging curls of her hair. Was it a disease? Was it a blemish? Was it a cut from some domestic dispute? Perhaps it was herpes. I couldn't stop staring at it. I kept picturing her heading to the bar right after our session, or being the center of dozens of skanky poses on Facebook. She probably picked psychology as a major on a whim. She probably went to grad school because she wasn't quite sure what to do with her frivolous undergraduate degree. She probably had no fucking clue what she was going to do or who she was going to be, like everyone else I knew. She was only a few years older than I was, after all.<br /><br />She flipped through a white binder full of paper. The room was like a closet with two modern desk chairs facing each other and a small side table against the wall. The window faced towards the shoreline of Lake Michigan, where beauty was inescapable, where nothing too warm or too cold could ever be imperfect, and no shade of day looked remotely dull. I watched the waves beat against the rocks while she cleared her throat and neatly sorted out her things. The water moved like music; low and subtle towards the lake and crashing unpredictably towards the shore. While she was busy setting up a tape recorder, I kept thinking about the notes and the octave jumps the water would create if it moved on scales and not sand. She tested the recorder dumbly.<br /><br />"This is just a requirement from the department. Is it okay with you if I record this?"<br />"Sure," I said, too nervous and distracted to think it over.<br /><br />She too would likely become a contribution to this progressing condition of mine, I thought. Look at that <em>thing</em>. That <em>thing</em> on her lip. I pictured myself seeing her and her lip <em>thing</em> in public. I'd sweat, ignore her, run away...At the very least I'd walk past her at a very fast pace. Consequently we only had 3 sessions total, even though I was recommended to see her for the remainder of the semester. I was at least a good sport for the first one, which was something.<br /><br />She asked me simple questions. I nervously answered, explaining my hatred for small talk as logically as I could. I kept hearing my own voice and feeling completely crazy. The permeation of it all was reiterated with the circulating recorder. The tape moved around and around and around in the machine.<br /><br />"So. You just...don't like small talk? To...anyone? You... don't like people seeing you?"<br />"Um yeah, not exactly. But, yeah."<br />"Hmmm," she said.<br />"Have you heard of something like this before?"<br />"Well...I've read about something...similar."<br /><br />I hated that. This girl didn't know a goddamn thing. What was <em>wrong</em> with her? Not her necessarily, but with this institution? She has the professional standards to be my counselor? I could have looked up a better response on Wikipedia.<br /><br />The second session went worse. She came in, set up the recorder, sifted through the binder like she'd done before, but this time she pulled out a handful of literature for me to look over.<br />"I got these for you. I think they may be a big help," she said.<br /><br />In bold black font on a neatly folder pamphlet were the words: "12 Tips For Making Small Talk."<br />"Now before you say anything, I'd really just like you to read it. This may be a huge help to you. I really think so."<br /><br />As crazy as I believed I may have been in session one, there was nothing crazier to me than this pamphlet. The tips were not only irrelevant, but the fact that she was so completely off base was infuriating.<br /><br />'Be the first to say hello.<br />Think of three questions to ask before any conversation.<br />Listen.<br />Stay focused.<br />Use names frequently.<br />Have interesting contributions.<br />Use confident body language.<br />Maintain eye contact.<br />Offer a business card, a favor, or a cold beverage.<br />Draw from current events and popular culture to break the ice.<br />Have a compliment ready to go.<br />Be prepared to make a courteous exit.'<br /><br />I couldn't decide if I should scream furiously, or laugh hysterically. All I could do was muster the word, "Fuck."<br /><br />"I know. It seems like a challenge, but a lot of introverted people get over their social fears. I think you should take it all with you, read it, and practice it in the mirror. When you wake up in the morning, practice saying 'hello'. Smile at yourself. Compliment yourself. Work with your body language. Then try it on a roommate or a professor. It will take time, but I think you have it in you. I <em>believe</em> in you."<br /><br />I left, with little else exchanged between us.<br /><br />The third and final session was...almost unmentionable. I walked in. I sat down. She spoke to me.<br />"Nice to see you. Have you practiced your small talk in the mirror since last week?"<br />I said nothing.<br />"Laura?"<br />No response.<br />She cleared her throat a few more times. After a few minutes...<br />"Are you ready to talk?"<br />I remained completely silent for the duration of the session. I watched the waves crash against the rocks. I pondered over the blemish on her lip. I coughed, twice. I could hear the deft sound of the tape turning in the recorder.<br /><br />Thankfully my academic advisor never followed through with her about the sessions, and consequently my fear and hatred for small talk actually became worse. I couldn't imagine the type of person who would honestly appreciate the 12 tips I'd learned from the packet. Fucking weirdos. I continued to skip class, and spent probably the accumulation of one month's time over-walking my routes.<br /><br />In fact, in retrospect I could argue that any and all gaps in my education, aside from the consequently low standards of my reputable institution, could all be attributed to small talk...it's likelihood- balancing sickly on the lips of my recognizable peers...it's standards- typed up in neatly folded packets...the weather and celebrity gossip, the plans and routines, the majors and minors and part-time jobs, the bars and the drunks and the Saturday parties, the articles and elections, the wind, the fucking wind, the traffic and the train, the traffic lights and cross walks and lack of cross walks, the pieces of paper and pens and sweaters and shirts and ties and busses and carpets and tiles and windows and doors and feet, the beer brands and wine tastes and the landscapes and the tests and tests and tests, the garrulous, the deplorable, the pending, fucking small talk.Jena bughttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03811410391660026357noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6173885506870332229.post-57218747759263722462010-08-03T15:05:00.000-07:002010-09-09T12:47:40.744-07:00I Do This I Do That- Chapter 19XIX. Money In The Bank<br /><br />We resolved between the hours of 2 and 4 a.m that discovering the true identity of Cait Finn superseded our immediate need for sleep and the mesmerizing lure of late night infomercials. Like intoxicated explorers we staggered gallantly to the foot of her door. Her bedroom- the nucleus to all that was Cait. Wheeler dramatically kicked it open and streams of aroma crept out of the breathless room. Sweet candy and cigarettes, sweat, burnt embers and ash, sex and damp sheets; all footprints of Cait's perversity. We stepped into the world of madness.<br /><br />Every space from the drawers to the shelves inhabited random accumulations and grotesquely selected artifacts. In fear of encountering nudity and beyond, I'd rarely ventured into this world without the native herself. There we were, unrestrained by sobriety or integrity, sifting through her definitive junk.<br /><br />Post cards upon post cards, other peoples' mail, costume accessories, water balloons, batteries of every size, razor blades, containers of apple sauce, fliers for events gone and passed by 5 years, sex toys and calendars with meaty drag queens inside, silver spoons, neckties, and a jar of dead butterflies... Each item was likely obtained through some nihilistic predicament which she'd craftily exploit or deny.<br /><br />Photographs were scarce. I knew she didn't own a camera, as she told me once that "cameras were an economic luxury that made vanity portable and insecure people jealous." The photos we <em>did</em> find were of indiscernible value to our quest. One was of three young boys in overalls, sitting on a stoop. Another was a woman in high waisted jeans standing next to a litter of kittens. On the back it said "Hacketts: 1992." Wheeler put it in the 'possible evidence' pile on the floor.<br /><br />I fell over, physically depleted in the mess. Wheeler however kept digging with vigor, destroying the meticulous chaos of the room and violently trudging through Cait's world like snow.<br />Flinging himself from the inner corner of the closet, he screamed, "Alas!"<br />I twitched.<br />"Wake up," he said, "I found something." He shook my foot.<br />"I'm resting my eyes."<br />"Seriously, look."<br />I opened my left eye and Wheeler held a crayon drawing of what appeared to be a girl on a unicorn, stomping on several cats, a man, a woman, and 3 little stick figure boys. It said "My Family: The Hacketts," in young cursive writing.<br />"Money in the bank," I said, half asleep. Behind my closed eyes images were already intruding my subconscious and vying for my sole attention. There was a soft wind. There was my parents backyard before me. There were worms everywhere, making the ground a vision of motion. I leapt, and Wheeler became a pigment thousands of miles away.<br /><br />Hours later he crept back in. He spoke boisterously. The high pitched ring tone of his cell phone setting off in intervals like an alarm clock on snooze shattered the pattern of my dream state escape. Visions of my wormy backyard and the sensation of cool breeze on my watered eyes dissipated to black and left me once again aware of reality. I'd considered falling asleep in my bed a serious accomplishment, which usually tended to be far less likely than the odds of me sleeping on the floor. Wheeler had put a blanket over me, which was notably nice. I found him in the living room.<br /><br />"What exactly are you doing?" He was sitting in the middle of the floor with my laptop in front of him amidst piles of loose leaf scraps, doodled with what appeared to be nonsense.<br />"Researching! Discovering!" He'd put on a snug red t-shirt of mine and was fervently typing then writing then typing. He'd constructed "Hackett Graphs" on large sheets of paper that were taped to cookie sheets and rested on the couch. The graphs had listings of hundreds of cities in Minnesota, dozens were crossed out and several segmented to sub categorized lists of names and numbers. It was 3 p.m and he'd clearly vested hours into the operation and hours of research awaited.<br /><br />It was incredible to me that the accessibility of the Internet had trumped skill, privacy, and profession. Wheeler had made this project his occupation of the moment. He was determined to discover Cait, or at least the identity she'd abandoned. But then what?<br />"Suppose you find her parents, Wheeler. What then?"<br />"Aren't you curious? She's gone. Maybe if we know where she's been we can find out where she's at."<br />It wasn't quite logical, but it did make sense in my heart. She'd always been elusive, but a part of me had been so certain that I'd stepped into her world in some way. I alone had climbed over her wall and nestled myself into her madness. I'd become apart of her, I thought. I'd defended her. I'd loved her.<br /><br />I made Wheeler a pot of coffee and we searched on. We told every Hackett we called that their daughter, Cait, was the recipient of some impromptu prize money or the chosen candidate to be on an upcoming game show. Wheeler was extremely creative with it. He told Nan Hackett in Shakopee, Minnesota that her daughter, Caitlin Hackett, had recently recovered the missing dog of a prestigious Chicago entrepreneur and was entitled to a hefty reward. "Can you verify your daughter's permanent mailing address?" He'd ask at the conclusion of whatever concoction he spat. Sometimes the call recipients hung up immediately. A few times it was evident that they were manipulating the moment to receive our fake prize. Those instances were relatively clear to us though. The calls upon calls upon calls became more than just our 'project'. It was a game. It was a mission. It was an art.<br /><br />By dusk the Hackett Graphs had spread into the size of a living room rug. The idea that the family was unlisted, or simply unreal was reserved in a far corner of my brain, buried beneath the hundreds and hundreds of calls we'd made and voices we'd heard. This quest had taken on a life of it's own, and regardless of success or accuracy, we were going to narrow it down to three Hackett's, visit them, and hopefully answer the questions we devised.<br /><br />The three Hackett families we narrowed it all down to were within a 50 mile radius of Metropolitan Minneapolis. In 48 hours, we expended five boxes of cereal, four packs of cigarettes, three Sharpe markers, and several posters and sheets of paper for diagramming. The lack of sleep and sunlight had created somewhat of a traumatic effect on Wheeler and I, and the godforsaken circumstances of our confinement and mental states had fused us together. I'd read about it in Psychology...people who formed some sort of romantic union after experiencing a traumatic event together, like a plane crash or a car accident. There we were, a fucking case study of that deplorable psychological accident. My repulsion for Wheeler did not necessarily waver, but between temporary insanity and apathy, our relationship was so.<br /><br />We mapped out our final Hackett Graph and planned to leave the following night. Wheeler had volunteered to pay for our MegaBus tickets, which I did not contest. Not only did I oblige due to my definitive poverty, but also because I'd harbored a bit of blame towards Wheeler for this entire predicament. I couldn't necessarily afford to miss my nannying shifts, which were Thursday to Saturday that particular week, but the mission came first, I'd decided. I texted Mrs. Lesnik and told her I couldn't make it. They had others. She'd replace me. She texted me back. "That's fine. See you next week."<br /><br />I'd learned a few more details about my regrettable new partner, most of which was entirely unsought. He described himself as an entrepreneur, making three quarters of his modest income as a bike taxi driver, and the rest as a considerably unsuccessful drug dealer. Regardless of the source of Wheeler's menial economic status, the tickets were purchased and the mission ensued.<br />He'd become sort of like a stubborn zit or a noticeable skin discoloration. He was something unplanned and unattractive, but nonetheless apart of me.<br /><br />We fell asleep on my bed together after the planning subsided. I curled into the wall with my knees to my chest like an infant, and Wheeler shifted behind me, using my hip as an armrest. At one point in the night I woke from a dream sensation of falling. My knees buckled and I twisted over in a convulsive spasm. Wheeler fell off the bed and landed on the floor. "Fuck!" he screamed. He made a sullen whimpering sound before retiring back into his breathy sleep.<br /><br />In the morning he made coffee and toast that was so burnt it was almost unbutterable. The bathroom door was closed and I half expected Cait to emerge from the small room, groggy and naked or boisterously drunk. It was just Wheeler though, wearing a pair of my grey sweatpants and a t-shirt he'd likely retrieved from the fortress of Cait. I sat at the kitchen table and took the crust off of the burnt toast. It was now cold and crumbled like ash in a mess on the plate.<br /><br />"You're beautiful," he said. He kissed my forehead.<br />"Okay," I said. I ate the lousy crust and coughed out crumbs.Jena bughttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03811410391660026357noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6173885506870332229.post-58568776170017344172010-07-28T17:29:00.000-07:002010-08-03T02:33:43.872-07:00I Do This I Do That- Chapter 18XVIII. I Know Couch, I Miss Her Too.<br /><br />Wheeler took off his shirt and tied it tight around his head with the sleeves. He looked pale and gaunt in the nearly night light, and his body odor was unleashed like a radiating monster from his naked upper half. A palpable orb formed around his essence and penetrated me grossly. He sniffed and made a face like he knew it was bad. He walked loosely. His eyes seemed vexed and his mouth grinned tenaciously. It was clear by his apprehension of every horn honk, every shoe galloping by, and the train rattling all else stupid- that he had now applied his superb listening skills to the atonement of our day's mission.<br /><br />The <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_0" class="blsp-spelling-error">emos</span>' backyard was trashed with red cups and up heaved chairs. A pair of denim shorts sat discarded on the stoop, and the kiddie pool that Steve had filled for the Flag Day barbecue was now nearly drained, except for a shallow pool of dirty water where a small dead bird was floating. "Sad," said Wheeler, looking down at the bird.<br /><br />I knocked a few times on the screen door and no one answered. I peeked in the lifeless window and the unlit room looked empty. "Hey!" yelled Wheeler, banging on the door, "Anybody home?" There was a cough. A door slammed. Footsteps approached. Some unlocking of several locks, and the door flung open. Steve was in small white briefs and no shirt. He looked sleepy or drunk and I wanted him to say something classic like an actor in a 1930's gangster film. Like, "Say, what's the big idea!" Instead he gargled out a half yawn half yell, and fervently itched his balls for approximately 15 seconds.<br /><br />"Laura? Shit. What's up?" I could see Wheeler in my peripheral view; thoughtful and confused. He'd never heard my real name. I gave him a remorseful glance and we all walked inside. Everything was creaky and old and unpolished. I sat at the table, which was etched and carved like the inside of a dirty bathroom stall. There were dicks and boobs, the word 'POOP' in capital letters, some dialogue of nonsense, erratic numbers, a sorry scene of a house and some stick figures.. Next to the numbers, '12 24 4003 11' was the question, "Who threw up in the freezer?" It was a distracting display of art and disgust. Wheeler studied it excitedly. Steve propped himself onto the counter, legs open. He spanked his belly a few times and yawned one final tired belt.<br /><br />"Steve, this is Wheeler. Wheeler, Steve."<br />"My man," said Wheeler, saluting him.<br />He nodded back nicely.<br /><br />We ritualistically lit our cigarettes and chatted briefly about <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_1" class="blsp-spelling-error">Cait</span>, skipping right to the part of her being missing and passing over the details of Beatrice and Wiley, of Whim Day and the abandoned van.<br /><br />"You haven't seen her Steve, have you?" I asked.<br />"No. No I haven't. My roommate wants to kick her ass though. She shit in his bed, you know that?"<br />"I doubt that she did," I lied.<br />"Oh she did in fact. It was fucking disgusting. What kind of <em>girl</em> does that?"<br />Wheeler burst into a loud laugh.<br /><br />We'd planned on only stopping by, but Steve went on an accommodating rampage, rummaging through the cabinets and refrigerator drawers for spirits and snacks. He offered us baby dill pickles out of the jar and a bottle of <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_2" class="blsp-spelling-error">Spumante</span> to share. Wheeler ate the pickles with his bare hands and slurped the pickle juice afterwards, as though it was milk in an empty cereal bowl. Steve didn't have any glassware to speak of so we drank from the bottle and passed it between us. The conversation was dull and erratic, until Steve found a bottle of gin hiding in the back of the pantry. Wheeler took it in shots and the juniper berries coughed out from his loud breathy tangents about losing <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_3" class="blsp-spelling-error">Cait</span>. Eventually his tangent turned into a libidinous description of their sexual encounter in the lake. Steve interrupted.<br />"Dude. I banged her too," He said.<br /><br />I interjected the conversation for an exit. I was hankering to leave, in case <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_4" class="blsp-spelling-error">Cait</span> had gone home. I was now drunk and bored and vacuous feeling.<br />"Can I borrow five dollars?" I stood up towards the door.<br />Steve left and came back with dollars and quarters and nickels and dimes.<br />"I think it's about five," he said.<br />I thanked him and left, walking fast back into the crisp air and garbage smelling alley. The door slammed a few seconds later and Wheeler shuffled to catch me.<br />"I'm coming with you," he said.<br />"No, you're not!"<br />"I am. We're in this together." He put his hand on my back. I could smell the juniper and pickle concoction on his breath, and the b.o on his shirt-hat and chest. His fingers were sweaty and they felt small and sharp like hot needles. I leaned over and threw up on the pavement. The puke tasted bubbly on my throat from the <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_5" class="blsp-spelling-error">Spumante</span>. Wheeler withdrew his sickly touch, and I felt better, overall.<br /><br />Inside the apartment was dark and arid, like the entries of a strangled corpse. The faucet in the bathroom dripped and echoed towards us, emphatically noting how strange the <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_6" class="blsp-spelling-error">Cait</span>-less world was. I felt like holding myself, in the same way I felt like holding myself the day my grandmother died. My apartment carried the same morbid lifelessness that I remembered sensing inside her house.<br /><br />The day after they moved her soulless body from beneath the crocheted afghan on her bed, I went with my mom to collect important things. It was as though the whole house had reacted physically to her passing. We walked inside the foyer and the quiet floor creaked lowly under our feet. The window glass looked darker, the creme walls looked dirtier, the chairs and end tables looked uncharacteristically empty. In her bedroom the white and navy afghan was folded perfectly on top of her pillow. There was still a water glass on her bed stand with a red lipstick mark on the rim. I picked up the glass and held it close to my eyes. She'd breathed into it. She'd drank the water inside the kissed glass. The same smiling mouth that caught me as mesmerizing and wise was imprinted in front me like a relic from a tomb. I poured the rest of the water on my face, expecting to <em>feel</em> her in some way. I did, and I shook, and I sat on the floor and held my torso with my arms, pathetic and lame.<br /><br />My mother attended me with comfort, as she was opportunistically benevolent and kind. She patted my back and did not discourage me from blowing my nose into her clean ironed blouse. It was a politeness not practiced, that she genuinely obtained from the pureness of heart genes of <em>her</em> mother, my grandmother, whose unfinished glass of water dripped down my teary face. The empathy gene had lamentably skipped me, like baldness or big breasts, cancer or an <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_7" class="blsp-spelling-error">un-tamable</span> spirit. I'd created outward reactions for tragic or miraculous events that I'd suspected were normal or obvious, but typically felt very little. This one instance with the lipstick stained glass was possibly the only genuinely emotional moment in my whole span of <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_8" class="blsp-spelling-corrected">existence</span>. It was painful I remember, and it happened to be real.<br /><br />It was easy to fake most things, as my conjured tears or unapologetic frown usually resulted naturally from anger about lacking real human sadness, not from the event itself, whatever it may be. But I of course would miss <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_9" class="blsp-spelling-error">Cait</span> if she truly did not return. I could sense somewhere, if that realization was to occur, that another genuine emotional event could possibly take place. As much as my cognition persisted with positivity, saying, "Don't worry, she's unpredictable. She'll be back! She's <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_10" class="blsp-spelling-error">Cait</span>. She loves you. She's your best friend," my apartment <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_11" class="blsp-spelling-corrected">living room</span> brazenly disagreed. The walls seemed so sad lacking her presence, and just like my grandmother's house, my place reeked of genuine mourning, not merely of temporary absence. I looked at the couch, with it's face like button eyes, and flat stern mouth of detachable <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_12" class="blsp-spelling-corrected">cushions</span>, and it looked back at me sadly. "I know," I thought, "I know, couch. I miss her too."<br /><br />I didn't air any personal inadequacies in front of Wheeler however, in fear that he would persist in a long philosophical tangent about dualism, or worse, that he'd hug me. I turned on lights, I splashed cold water on my face, I opened a future contribution to empty corner and drank small pulls. The cheap vodka brand, which commonly elicits a gag, was sharp and hot and panged my already burning throat. It burned the inside of my nose. It widened my eyes.<br /><br />"Aren't you done yet?" asked Wheeler.<br />"No, because I still know what's going on."<br />He grabbed the bottle and took a medium size pull.Jena bughttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03811410391660026357noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6173885506870332229.post-67827127911540526222010-06-22T05:15:00.000-07:002011-07-24T17:11:20.098-07:00I Do This I Do That- Chapter 16XVI. A Gaping Hole<br /><br /><br />Every Monday morning is like a brand new year. On this day, the morning after Whim day, I woke up to a clean slate, the promise of sun rays, and the vile chirps of pigeons scouting for food on the rooftop.<br /><br />I'd slept on the roof accidentally.<br /><br />After the cab ride back, I opened the door to my descending stairway and the hall light was burnt out, perhaps from the day storm. After an impulsive shutter of fear, from predators, rapists, <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_0" class="blsp-spelling-error">whatever</span>, I climbed up the fire escape and maneuvered myself onto the bright roof. It was a move to merely pass the dark time.<br /><br /><br />That night, nothing was brilliant or beautiful about the view, except for the interesting chaos of the streets and the myriad of ethnicity spanning down the smokey block. I could see the varieties of cuisines, the differing markets per street. The sky was like a grey dome, sweeping over the urban span and binding these intricate particulars into tiny compartments of the same city world.<br /><br />Everything that remained awake crawled passed me, and I sat still, with the intention of going inside when my dress dried. I soon fell asleep, despite the cool air and the stiff roof, which held no semblance of a bed.<br /><br /><br />Now the pigeons shuffled around like desperate hunters, sickly purring and <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_1" class="blsp-spelling-error">spastically</span> teetering between the various telephone lines. One landed on my chest, "<span id="SPELLING_ERROR_2" class="blsp-spelling-error">vooo</span>, <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_3" class="blsp-spelling-error">vooo</span>!" It's claws were prickly through my cotton dress. I sat up startled. I had pigeon poop on my leg, adjacent from the van accident gauge. It was a blemish on an otherwise clean promise of Monday. I shooed the flying rat away.<br /><br />I'd had another vivid dream, and the premonitory nature of the thing lingered on my mind. I dreamt I was back in the <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_4" class="blsp-spelling-error">unbeautifed</span> neighborhood, presumably to attend another Catholic mass. The church was dark and empty. A woman in fantastically bright clothing sat in the front pew. There was one trickle of light coming in from the north side of the church, and it hit her directly on her hair. It was luminous, and I was quite arrested as I approached the lit woman.<br /><br />It was <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_5" class="blsp-spelling-error">Cait</span>. But not the uninhibited, diaper-wearing friend I knew, but a domesticated version of <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_6" class="blsp-spelling-error">Cait</span>, with pinned and combed hair and freshly done makeup. Her legs were crossed daintily, her hands sat delicately in her lap. Her demeanor indicated a lifetime of accumulated grace. She was radiating, not just externally but with tangible joy from the inside out. It was the type of palpable joy I'd imagined would capitulate from birth right, from good genes and money. Boat people probably had it. It reminded me of the priest's sermon about following God's plan to obtain happiness.<br /><br />She was a delicate version of herself. It was impossible. In my dream I kept reminding myself how impossible it was. The <em>real</em> <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_7" class="blsp-spelling-error">Cait</span> was probably waking up naked somewhere; drunk, or in her own urine, still at the beach or hankering from dehydration in empty corner.<br /><br /><br />The smell of tacos shuffled through the warm wind. I could hear Javier and his co-working family members opening and closing the back gate, and the smells of grease and tortilla shells elevated towards me from their revolving door. It made me remember that I hadn't eaten in several hours, and my stomach thundered at the thought. I carefully lowered myself down the brick wall to the fire escape stair. The wrought iron rattled while I climbed down. Javier was in the ally, tinkering under the hood of his car.<br /><br /><br /><br />"<span id="SPELLING_ERROR_8" class="blsp-spelling-error">Hola</span> <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_9" class="blsp-spelling-error">vesina</span>..." He said it like I'd done something wrong and he was aware of it.<br /><br />"<span id="SPELLING_ERROR_10" class="blsp-spelling-error">Hola</span> <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_11" class="blsp-spelling-error">vesino</span>." I was short with him, and shuffled fast towards the apartment.<br /><br />The front door was slightly open, and I could not recall if I'd remembered to close it securely in my impetuous move towards the roof. Downstairs, the apartment door was wide open too. A light was on, which I was sure we'd remembered to turn off when we'd left for Whim Day.<br /><br />"<span id="SPELLING_ERROR_12" class="blsp-spelling-error">Cait</span>? You here?" No one answered. I walked into the kitchen. A few cupboards were open, as though they'd been sifted through. Her bedroom was in shambles, but nothing was out of the ordinary about it. It was unusual for her to come home and then leave without writing a note or calling me. I had a few texts from Wheeler, but nothing from <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_13" class="blsp-spelling-error">Cait</span>. Had I left the door open, then any homeless wanderer could have possibly came in during the night, searching for food or money... We didn't have anything of value to be stolen.<br /><br />One of the texts from Wheeler said, "Emergency! Where are you?" It was at 4 a.m. Another text at 4:45 said, "What's your address?"<br />"Curious," I thought. I responded with my address, and nothing else.<br /><br /><br /><p>A few minutes later Wheeler <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_14" class="blsp-spelling-error">texted</span> me back and said, "be there in 10." </p><br /><p>I couldn't imagine what the emergency could have been, but the nature of both Wheeler and <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_15" class="blsp-spelling-error">Cait</span> left the possibilities endless. I went into her room to pull some of the things we'd put away back into the living room. The posters were stacked haphazardly on the floor. I pulled them back out and set them against the living room wall. Her room was hot and dark, and the air smelled like sweet candy and sweat. </p><br /><p>A gaping hole in her bookcase caught my attention. All of her organized Martha <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_16" class="blsp-spelling-error">dvds</span> were gone. Every last one of them. Only an outline of dust remained on the shelf. Perhaps other things were missing too, but it was impossible to tell in the chaos of her belongings. I couldn't imagine why she, or anyone else would take the collection out of the apartment. Who else would want them? I continued to search around for clues. A box of crackers were missing from the kitchen cupboard, and some crumbs were scattered on the counter and floor. Nothing else was missing, as far as I knew. </p><br /><p>After a half hour passed, Wheeler knocked angrily on the front door.</p><br /><p>"<span id="SPELLING_ERROR_17" class="blsp-spelling-error">Paigebrook</span>, you there? Let me in!" </p><br /><p>I opened the door and he brushed passed me inside. He looked like he hadn't slept, and he paced through the apartment nervously, almost panting. His eyes were wide and red, and he was slightly shaking. He was wearing the same dress pants and shirt, which were both now wrinkled and dirty looking. </p><br /><p>"Where is she? Is she here?" He riffled around through every part of our place; looking under her bed, behind the shower curtain, and in every closet in every room.</p><br /><p>"Slow down Wheeler! What is going on? She's not here," I said. </p><br /><p>"Fuck!" He screamed and hit his fist against the wall. "I lost her. I lost her in the water last night," He said. </p><br /><p>"What do you mean, you <em>lost</em> her." </p><br /><p>"We were on the sandbar, talking about Wiley and the accident. We floated on our backs for awhile. She started talking about professional swimmers. She was imitating all the different strokes; the breaststroke and the backstroke, the butterfly, even the fucking doggy paddle. She wanted to race me so we started swimming out further... She kept singing that Patsy Cline song, and I went underwater for a long breath and when I came back up I couldn't hear her singing anymore. She was just, gone. I couldn't find her! The water wasn't that deep, but the waves.. and it was dark, and I don't know, she was gone."</p><br /><p>"Oh my God." I put my hands over my mouth and sat down, like I couldn't breath and stand up at the same time.<br />"She had just, disappeared. I called her name over and over and over again. I swam everywhere. I ran up and down the beach. She wasn't anywhere." He lit a cigarette and handed me one too. "Fuck!" he repeated.</p><br /><p>"Well, we need to go look for her again!" </p><br /><p>"I don't know what to do Paige... I'm freaking out. Should we call someone? What the fuck!" He was talking nervously, uncontrollably. </p><br /><p>"I'm gonna get dressed, and we're going back to the beach. We'll look again, maybe she swam to shore and passed out."</p><br /><p>"Should we call the police?" </p><br /><p>"I don't even know her real last name.." </p><br /><p>"Why the fuck not? You live with her!" </p><br /><p>"We lease in my name.. I don't know. She'd gotten into trouble, she changed her name. I don't know the whole story. It never mattered to me!"</p><br /><p>"Great. You just move in with someone, and you don't even know the girl's real name?" </p><br /><p>It was ironic to me, because he didn't know my real name either, and he'd likely had sex with <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_18" class="blsp-spelling-error">Cait</span> in the water and he barely knew a thing about her. Living with her was arguably less intimate. </p><br /><p>"I'm getting changed, and we're going to look for her." I finished my cigarette and changed into jeans. We turned off the light and walked upstairs. </p><br /><p>"I won't lock the door, just in case she comes back." I said.</p><br /><p>"Good idea," said Wheeler. </p><br /><p>"You know it's funny, because when I came back to the apartment this morning, the light was on, and her Martha Stewart <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_19" class="blsp-spelling-error">dvds</span> were gone. It's the only thing she cares about."</p><br /><p>"Well that's a sick thing to do, if she did this. I've been out of my god damn mind thinking she drowned or passed out in the water!" he lit another cigarette. This one was a black and mild. </p><br /><p>"Let's just go look for her." </p><br /><p>We hailed a cab back towards the beach. Traffic was thick and the uncovered sun made <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_20" class="blsp-spelling-error">liquidy</span> mirages on the forward pavement. </p><br /><p>"I keep hearing her voice singing that damn song," said Wheeler.<br /></p>Jena bughttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03811410391660026357noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6173885506870332229.post-80919550105994949672010-05-24T08:43:00.001-07:002011-07-24T17:00:17.788-07:00I Do This I Do That- Chapter 15XV. A Puddle of Blood and Fresh Water<br /><br /><br />Wiley pulled into a dark ally and a million inhumane scenarios bombarded my mind. 'Here comes the rape and murder', I thought. Wheeler and <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_0" class="blsp-spelling-error"><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_0" class="blsp-spelling-error">Cait</span></span> seemed less apprehensive. <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_1" class="blsp-spelling-error"><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_1" class="blsp-spelling-error">Cait</span></span> smiled and hummed and could not have looked more care-free.<br />"What's here?" said Wheeler.<br />"<span id="SPELLING_ERROR_2" class="blsp-spelling-error"><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_2" class="blsp-spelling-error">Pickin</span></span>' up my friend. Sit tight." He smiled and the jazzy rhythm of his voice resonated in the van when he closed the door and ascended the narrow wooden stairwell beside us. <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_3" class="blsp-spelling-error"><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_3" class="blsp-spelling-error">Cait</span></span> picked up a pretzel from the ground and ate it, as though it was just a snack from a freshly opened bag.<br /><br />In less than a minute Wiley jumped back into the driver seat. He scooted his chair even closer to the steering wheel. The sliding door to the back opened and a small woman jumped in. She looked like a number of races, and she hunched down and crawled like a dog to a relatively empty spot on the van floor.<br />"This Beatrice," said Wiley, looking back toward her in the rear view mirror.<br />"How do you do," said <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_4" class="blsp-spelling-error"><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_4" class="blsp-spelling-error">Cait</span></span>.<br />She smiled up at us strangely.<br />"Hello," she said.<br /><br />She was wearing a dull calf length green skirt and a white shirt. Her hair looked like soot in the light and she had an indiscernible amount of cracks in her face, from age or what have you. The distracting panel of cracks around her lips and eyes made her real features seem vague. She wore sandals and her toe nails were long and unkempt. I looked down on her and she looked up at me like a beaten animal, completely nerved.<br /><br />She reeked of weed and I heard Wheeler inhale deeply in the front seat, like he smelt it and he wanted some. Wiley must have shared the craving. He bumbled into his jacket pocket and pulled out a joint and lit it. He must have been driving below the speed limit now, but the pretzels and the weed and the <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_5" class="blsp-spelling-error"><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_5" class="blsp-spelling-error">mut</span></span>-like woman on the ground were plenty distracting from the world around us. Whatever street we were on or whatever neighborhood we were in was completely nebulous to me. Plus <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_6" class="blsp-spelling-error"><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_6" class="blsp-spelling-error">Cait's</span></span> weight had put my legs to sleep and the buzzing blood pressure tingled and hurt slightly. The three of us smoked and we passed it to Beatrice, who retrieved it like a treat, then she sort of slumped down into the van mess.<br /><br />The van was full of smoke now and Wiley turned up the music dial. A rhythmic jazzy-rap song played, and he turned down the volume for a moment and said, "You hear this? It's me. This my mixed tape." He turned it back up. Wheeler moved in his seat as though he liked it. It wasn't good though, not at all. The song was more or less about getting drunk under a bridge, at least that was the message I'd gathered. His voice was just a slightly more rhythmic version than his speaking voice. Everyone seems to be under the impression that they have sharable talent.<br /><br />Wiley sang along to his own voice.<br /><br />"Little worlds," <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_7" class="blsp-spelling-error"><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_7" class="blsp-spelling-error">Cait</span></span> whispered to me.<br />"Yup."<br /><br />The van jolted and we all became momentarily startled. Wiley slowed down and turned down the music.<br />"What the fuck was that?!" said Wheeler.<br />"I hit a cat," he said.<br />"<span id="SPELLING_ERROR_8" class="blsp-spelling-error"><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_8" class="blsp-spelling-error">Nooooo</span></span>!" Beatrice yelled like it hurt.<br />"That's a shame," said Wheeler.<br />I looked behind me and the black cat was now just a dead thing, dwindling behind us as the van moved forward.<br /><br />After a few minutes of silent mourning, Beatrice lifted her sad head from her folded arms and made awkward eye contact with me. I darted away from her stare but glancing back to her moments later, she had not changed her fixation.<br /><br />"So. How do you two know each other?" I asked, like it really mattered, like I really cared at all how these two crazies began joy riding around the city together. I'm sure they'd met in some nihilistic <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_9" class="blsp-spelling-corrected">hiatus</span> of smoking and drinking. Probably under a bridge.<br /><br />She said nothing, but continued to stare up at me like I was an apparition she could not believe existed. 'Okay then,' I thought, rolling my eyes back towards the direction of the windshield.<br /><br />Wiley kept turning up the dial of his own song, which was now playing on repetition. We must<br />have been zigzagging through neighborhoods to not have reached the lake yet, and I began to get a bit paranoid that we'd been scooped up into this world for the remainder of the night. <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_10" class="blsp-spelling-error"><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_9" class="blsp-spelling-error">Cait</span></span> and Wheeler had assimilated. They both sang and hummed. "Under the bridge is the bottle and the kid and I passed out in something brown," they sang. Beatrice continued to stare.<br /><br />Wiley inhaled the last bit of the weed and the van hiccuped over a speed bump. "Fuck. <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_11" class="blsp-spelling-error"><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_10" class="blsp-spelling-error">Where'd</span></span> it go," said Wiley, as he reached down onto the floor with his upper body. The van veered right as Wiley's hands were now both on the ground searching for the joint. Beatrice screamed as we neared the lamp lit curb. The loud shrill left us all suspended in the few remaining seconds before hitting a fire hydrant. I saw the incident happening, as I think we all did. Wiley and Wheeler flew into the deploying air bags. <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_12" class="blsp-spelling-error"><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_11" class="blsp-spelling-error">Cait</span></span> repelled from my lap, hitting the back of Wiley's seat, then collided into me as we both propelled to the floor. Beatrice slid with the pretzels and the garbage like cargo. She continued to scream. The hydrant broke open and water exploded into the sky, then pelted down angrily on the van windows. Wheeler jumped into the back and helped <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_13" class="blsp-spelling-error"><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_12" class="blsp-spelling-error">Cait</span></span> up. His forehead was bleeding and the blood trailed down his face while he lifted her off of me.<br /><br />"We have to go, now," he said.<br /><br />He opened the sliding door and the three of us trickled out sorrily. Wiley looked immobile on the steering wheel, and we hopped over Beatrice who cowered on the floor in shock. My bones felt like they'd disassembled themselves inside my skin. My right leg especially. We were right outside of a tall pink apartment building. The sidewalk was well lit and bystanders, traffic, time itself seemed to be <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_14" class="blsp-spelling-corrected">halted</span> around the scene. Smokers outside of a dive bar across the street speculated the accident noisily. We ignored them and pushed east.<br /><br />Wheeler moved quickly ahead of us, and we limped behind him like shadows towards the lake. My right shoe was damp inside with blood, and our hydrated clothes made <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_15" class="blsp-spelling-error"><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_13" class="blsp-spelling-corrected">rhythmic</span></span> <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_16" class="blsp-spelling-error"><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_14" class="blsp-spelling-corrected">squeaky</span></span> noises.<br /><br />We emerged onto sand bordered grass from the North Avenue underpass where loud waves and ceaseless traffic collide. We said nothing to <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_17" class="blsp-spelling-corrected">each other</span>. We did not revel over the <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_18" class="blsp-spelling-error"><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_15" class="blsp-spelling-error">spectacularness</span></span> of the thing. We did not exchange any questions about our shock, about Wiley or Beatrice. There were no wows or whats... It was all already too palpable to be reiterated by words.<br /><br />Wheeler left his sweater vest and slacks on the sand and dove into Lake Michigan naked. <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_19" class="blsp-spelling-error"><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_16" class="blsp-spelling-error">Cait</span></span> followed in the same manner. Her skin glowed stark underneath the bright night sky. I waited behind them then slipped off my galoshes and flats, feeling the cool sand under my feet. I kept my dress on and walked into the water. I dove into a wave and the fabric of my dress felt weightless around me. The water pressure resisted me while I swam east.<br /><br />I could remember swimming clothed with Lindy when we were little. It seemed more freeing, more rebellious to us than swimming naked. Maybe because wearing the wet clothes afterward permeated the event. Putting on dry clothes after skinny dipping kills the experience. I remember Lindy and I walking through our little downtown drenched from a clothed swim. All of the strangers watched us, wondering. We laughed; feeling rebellious, spontaneous... I thought of it vividly now. Those feelings resurfaced as though I'd traveled back in time 10 years. Beatrice and Wiley dissipated. I was 13, swimming in my dress with my sister.<br /><br />I floated back towards the shore and laid on the sand, cold and refreshed. I felt like I'd drank the whole lake and it was working medicinally inside me to heal my sore body. <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_20" class="blsp-spelling-error"><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_17" class="blsp-spelling-error">Cait</span></span> and Wheeler were now bobbing heads on the distant sandbar. I could see now that they were kissing. It surprised me, but I didn't care. I grabbed my shoes and <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_21" class="blsp-spelling-error"><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_18" class="blsp-spelling-error">Cait's</span></span> purse and snuck towards the road to hail a cab, heavy with water and sand. My leg and head both throbbed in unified pain.<br /><br />Whim Day was over. Not just this one in particular, but I felt done with the whole idea of the thing. On other days <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_22" class="blsp-spelling-error"><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_19" class="blsp-spelling-error">Cait</span></span> and I had seen how <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_23" class="blsp-spelling-corrected">despicable</span> the world around us could be. On this Whim Day I could only feel <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_24" class="blsp-spelling-corrected">despicable</span> about my own contribution to the world. Waiting on the side of the busy road, I was anxious. I had an anxious need inside me. It was for goodness, for whole grains, for dry clothes, for order. I got in the cab and headed north, leaving a puddle of blood and fresh water on the sidewalk behind me.Jena bughttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03811410391660026357noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6173885506870332229.post-61829585031778319762010-05-13T16:33:00.001-07:002011-07-24T16:51:38.035-07:00I Do This I Do That- Chapter 14XIV. Jam Packed with Ado<br /><br />After the novelty of dancing subsided, <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_0" class="blsp-spelling-error">Cait</span> looked <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_1" class="blsp-spelling-error">blasé</span> and depleted from all the Don-dipping. The song ended and she <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_2" class="blsp-spelling-error">curtseyed</span> towards Don, like "I'm done now." She walked over to us with slow bouncy steps.<br /><br />"Who's this guy?" She said, looking at me.<br /><br />"His name's Wheeler. I met him at <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_3" class="blsp-spelling-error">Nihil</span> the other night when you were break dancing. Remember?"<br /><br /><br />"Nope. What up." She winked at him.<br /><br />"You've got some dance moves!" said Wheeler. He was a bit too loud and <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_4" class="blsp-spelling-error">Cait</span> and I exchanged a look, noting that it was so.<br /><br /><br />"What can I say? I'm an artist..." She raised her eyebrows and put her hands on her hips. She was now a true mess, after the gym and the jog and the twirling, but there was not an ounce of restrain in any part of her physical demeanor. Inhibitions were foreign to her, as exemplified now by her stomach hanging over the <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_5" class="blsp-spelling-error">panthette</span> shorts, sweaty and slightly heaving from post-dancing fatigue. Boasting over her own graceless form was the real art.<br /><br /><br />After explaining the concept of Whim Day to Wheeler, we decided to make a move to a new destination. While <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_6" class="blsp-spelling-error">Cait</span> gave an elaborate exposition of high school Whim Day and Gary Indiana, Panther Gym and the Polish woman we stalked, Wheeler listened intently. He had a way of listening that was so refined. Sure the content of her tangent was greater than ordinary small talk, but Wheeler had genuine listening skills that were more than admirable.<br /><br /><br />He looked at us both like he really meant it, like he really meant it that he was listening. His demeanor made everything she said seem more important. I've found that most people spend the majority of conversations seeking ways to turn the dialogue attention towards themselves. Wheeler didn't try to provide his own outlandish autobiographical bull to prove he was also unique or interesting, he just listened like he wanted to know. It was quite a remarkable thing, and while I watched him take it all in so nicely I questioned now, in comparison to the apex of his conversational attention, if any one else had ever really listened to me at all.<br /><br /><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_7" class="blsp-spelling-error">Cait</span> looked at me, "So what do you think?" She said.<br /><br />"What?"<br /><br />"I said, you wanna change back into our dresses and get the heck out of this splinter?"<br /><br />"Yeah, yeah."<br /><br />We left Wheeler at the bar and went to the bathroom to change. When we came back he was leaning towards Don, talking loudly about whiskey brands and the neighborhood and the shifting businesses near Moon Saloon. He had ordered three shots of Jameson for us, two for the older ladies anchored to the other end of the bar, and he'd likely drank one by himself before we walked back out. He allocated them up and held his glass in the air.<br /><br />"To all you fine people," he said.<br /><br />The ladies clanked the glasses and raced their gulps. I drank slowly and it was warm and smooth.<br /><br />"Thanks Wheels," said <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_8" class="blsp-spelling-error">Cait</span>, "Shall we?"<br /><br /><br />"Let's get the fuck outta here," he said. His right eye was getting lazy.<br /><br /><br /><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_9" class="blsp-spelling-error">Cait</span> blew Don a kiss.<br /><br />"I'll see you Don Juan," she said.<br /><br /><br />Outside the sky was dense with cool fog, and the dark streets and ugly trees made the block seem far removed from the beautified city. I squinted up and could see a dim light, the only visible star.<br /><br /><br />"Where to?" said Wheeler, lighting a <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_10" class="blsp-spelling-error">menthal</span> cigarette. He handed one to <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_11" class="blsp-spelling-error">Cait</span> after she jabbed at his arm like a bum.<br /><br />"Straight," She said. She started walking.<br /><br />"Should we get a cab?"<br /><br />"If one drives by."<br /><br />The street was strangled dead and the road and block were nearly motionless, aside from a westbound breeze. The scant tree limbs looked like acrobat legs mid-flip. They shifted west with the wind, making high pitched leaf-whipping trills. <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_12" class="blsp-spelling-error">Cait</span> walked fast ahead of Wheeler and I, and we bantered nonchalantly about this and that; random conversational garbage. He looked at me sporadically with the same attentive leer, like he was listening so hard he could barely stand it.<br /><br />He grabbed my hand. His palm was sweaty, and the contact between us felt blatantly platonic. I felt nothing, like I could have been holding Maddison's hand, or a bundle of leaves. A strong desire to remove my hand from his hand and wipe his sweat off of me bombarded my mind, and I could hardly follow his random enthused comments. My arm felt like a leash attached to an unpredictable dog. Wheeler bounced exaggeratedly, and our steps were out of sync. I kept thinking to myself, "Why the fuck are we holding hands," but I didn't have the energy to pull away and initiate some awkward impassivity between us. I hadn't exactly invited Wheeler, but it was clear that he'd be spending the evening with us.<br /><br />"I really want to get out of this city," he said, "and maybe move somewhere like, Tahiti, or Guam. Guam could be cool."<br />"I've never really considered Guam," I said.<br />"As a place to live?"<br />"Considered it for anything, really."<br />"Oh you should! The <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_13" class="blsp-spelling-error">Chamorro</span> culture is jam packed with ado."<br />"Is it?"<br />"I'm confident that it is."<br />"I feel like that's sort of Shakespearean way to say it's full of shit."<br />"No no. Sans shit."<br />"Why are you such a Guam buff?"<br />"It's not exclusive to Guam....I'd say I'm just a 'buff' in general." His tone of voice made it seem like he had a ceaseless smile. In contrast I sounded like I had a ceaseless frown.<br /><br />"I wouldn't consider myself a 'buff' in any category of knowledge really. In fact, I pride myself with not being sure of anything at all." I sounded <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_14" class="blsp-spelling-error">humdum</span>, but it wasn't a lie.<br />"You seem like a smart girl, I'm sure that's not true." He looked at me so often it was starting to make me uncomfortable. I wasn't sure of which part of our encounters had given him evidence that I was a 'smart girl', but oh well, I thought, I'd rather be given the benefit of the doubt than be considered an idiot right off the bat.<br /><br />"Well thanks," I said.<br />"You ever just get obsessed with things?"<br />"No not really," I said. I wanted to change the subject but felt obliged to say, "I'm guessing you do?" I could tell it was what he wanted me to ask.<br />"Absolutely."<br />"What sort of things?"<br />"Anything. Theories, hobbies....words...Once on a 5 hour plane ride I wrote the word 'dichotomy' over and over and over again in my notebook. I don't know why really. Couldn't stop. I almost filled the whole thing."<br />"Your hand must have been bleeding after that."<br />"Yeah...it cramped a bit. So, lately I've been borderline obsessed with dualism. You know about it? Like philosophy of the mind?"<br /><br />"What the fuck. Really guy?" I thought to myself, but didn't say it out loud because I couldn't disrespect his supreme listening skills by not reciprocating the favor.<br />"Semi familiar...Not a buff though," I said.<br />"Well I'll consider myself a dualism buff after more research, but I can't stop fucking thinking about it." He seemed frustrated over the fact.<br />"What sort of dualism?"<br />"Every sort. Mind and body, good and evil, motion and stillness, males and females, light and dark, fucking everything.. Literally everything has an opposite. I can't stop thinking about it. It makes me feel <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_15" class="blsp-spelling-error">fuckin</span>'...divided, you know? Like two people.." He was not remotely hum <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_16" class="blsp-spelling-error">dum</span>.<br />"Yeah I guess. I mean, I understand it, but why does it matter?" I felt like yawning but really didn't need to do so.<br />"You never feel like your mind and your body disagree?"<br /><br />I felt like that all the time, including at that exact moment. My body wanted to repel my hand from the grasp of his sweaty palm, but my mind could not muster the courage to begrudge him. It wasn't novel to me or anything though. If our minds and bodies were in perfect unison at all times, we would be somewhat unstoppable. My body's laziness being discorded with my mind's ambition, or vise-<span id="SPELLING_ERROR_17" class="blsp-spelling-error">versa</span>, could really be the sole contribution to all of my categorical failures, come to think of it.<br /><br />"Yeah..It matters. But what made you stuck on the topic?"<br />"You know when you get a song stuck in your head? Even if you don't like it? It's sort of like that, but with huge concepts, or just weird shit in general. Like... a few weeks back I couldn't stop thinking about pesticides."<br />"Why?"<br />"I don't know. Just because they're everywhere and they're good and they're bad."<br />"Which lead you to dualism?"<br />"Right."<br />"I bet you and <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_19" class="blsp-spelling-error">Cait</span> would get along really well." She was about a half a block ahead of us now.<br />"Nah. I hate dancing." He lit another cigarette, this time it was a Black and Mild.<br />"You always carry more than one type of cigarette with you?"<br />"I never buy packs. I usually try to bum a couple at a time off of random smokers. I save em' and keep em' in here." He pulled out a silver box. "I never know what kind I'm gonna smoke. I like the unpredictability."<br />"I love the way Black and <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_20" class="blsp-spelling-error">Mild's</span> smell.."<br />"Do you? Is it your favorite scent?"<br />"No. My favorite scent.... It's probably used books. I love that smell."<br />He laughed half-heartily.<br />"I like the smell of disinfectant. The odorless kind... My parents sent me to boot camp one summer and I spent a lot of time scrubbing toilets. It sounds like sort of a fucked up deal or whatever but it ended up being like, the greatest summer of my being."<br />I laughed half-heartily too.<br />"Why'd they send you to boot camp?"<br /><br />"I dunno, I was just sort of a weird kid. I used to like, run away all the time, literally. Like we'd be at the grocery store and I'd just take off running like a bird busting out of a cage or something. I never really planned it or anything, it was just instinctive. I'd get this weird impetuous feeling, and I'd just run. One day I was in Sears with my mom. We were just walking normal down some aisle and I just took off running in the other direction. She was calling my name or whatever but I just kept going like I didn't hear her. They didn't find me until the next morning. A couple days later they'd signed me up for some boot camp. My mom was all a wreck about keeping tabs on me and she picked up all these brochures about some <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_21" class="blsp-spelling-error">frickin</span>' disciplinary camp in the middle of nowhere."<br /><br />We started to walk a bit more in-sync but his hand was still sweaty and uncomfortable in my palm. Both my mind and my body were in unison on the contention.<br /><br />"<span id="SPELLING_ERROR_22" class="blsp-spelling-error">Where'd</span> you go when you ran away?"<br />"I dunno... I was just hanging out in some park. I slept in some jungle gym. I didn't run away to get drunk or anything like that. Fuck, I was like 12 years old."<br />"That's.. odd Wheeler. It really is."<br />"I know it."<br /><br />I kept walking through his Black and Mild exhales. It made the dense fog sweet and smoky. We immersed from the residential blocks and came to a better lit street. Traffic was light, but encouraging. <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_23" class="blsp-spelling-error">Cait</span> had stopped to wait for us.<br /><br />"I dunno about you guys but I'm dying. It's fucking hot outside. I say we head towards the water, figure out our plan there," she said. She was waning with sweat.<br />"Sounds good let's get a cab," I said.<br />"Nah nah. I do this all the time. We'll get a ride," said Wheeler. He walked off the curb towards the street. A few cars passed, and Wheeler moved closer to the moving traffic. A boxy grey van approached and Wheeler raised up his arms and made big waving gestures. The van pulled over next to us and the driver rolled down the window, manually.<br /><br />He was a skinny black man sitting uncomfortably close to the steering wheel. His gaunt face looked lighter than his neck and the inside of the van looked cluttered with hanging fixtures on the rear view mirror and hapless junk piled on the dash.<br /><br />"You alright?" He said.<br />Wheeler walked over to his window. "Hey man, You <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_24" class="blsp-spelling-error">headin</span>' towards the lake?"<br />"Yeah I am. You need a ride?" His voice was raspy.<br />"<span id="SPELLING_ERROR_25" class="blsp-spelling-error">That'd</span> be great." He looked over towards us, suggesting we get in the van.<br /><br />The man could have been all sorts of predator, but really none of us cared. We didn't even hesitate. It was still Whim Day and this man had offered us a ride. <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_26" class="blsp-spelling-error">Cait</span> and I both knew it was against our rules to turn down propositions from strangers, so we got in the van, naturally. A reclining chair was positioned in the middle of the back of the van.<br /><br />"She's bolted down," said the driver.<br /><br />The floor was cluttered with shoes and papers, garbage, a few thin bike tires, and pretzels, oddly, were in a mess all over the place. It smelled like ketchup and dust. Wheeler sat in the front seat and I sat in the reclining chair with <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_27" class="blsp-spelling-error">Cait</span> on my lap.<br /><br />"Wheeler?" said the driver, with his thin hand held out towards the passenger seat, "I'm Wiley."<br />"Nice to meet you Wiley," he said, shaking his hand. "That's <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_28" class="blsp-spelling-error">Paigebrook</span> and her roommate, <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_29" class="blsp-spelling-error">Cait</span>." He pointed to us.<br />"So you just want me to drop you at the lake?"<br />"Yeah or close to it. <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_30" class="blsp-spelling-error">Whatever's</span> easiest," said Wheeler.<br />"I'll have to make a few stops on the way." His voice had a cool rhythm.<br />"No problem man."<br />"What are you <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_31" class="blsp-spelling-error">gettin</span>' into tonight?" asked Wiley. He leaned towards the windshield like he couldn't see.<br />"Oh you know. This, that.. we're thinking of going for a swim."<br />"It's a good night for it."<br /><br />The chair rattled as the van sped up and slowed down at the traffic lights. Pretzels were sliding up and down on the floor with the movement, making quiet noises. <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_32" class="blsp-spelling-error">Cait</span> was heavy on my lap and her skin was sticky and warm.<br />"I think my bare butt is on your leg," she said.<br />"Brilliant."Jena bughttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03811410391660026357noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6173885506870332229.post-10895000394194127212010-04-26T20:09:00.000-07:002011-08-15T10:09:36.908-07:00I Do This I Do That- Chapter 13XIII. Little Worlds
<br />
<br />Thirty minutes later <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_0" class="blsp-spelling-error">Cait</span> and I were back in the front lobby wearing the <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_1" class="blsp-spelling-error">panthette</span> outfits and galoshes. We carried our dresses, and <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_2" class="blsp-spelling-error">Cait</span> dripped sweat all over the power bars on the counter. She had successfully exploited the situation. She sprinted briefly on the treadmill, screamed in anguish while bench pressing, and invaded the personal space of several emaciated men. I spent the half-hour on a stationary bike, flipping through a fitness magazine and observing <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_3" class="blsp-spelling-error">Cait's</span> antics.
<br />
<br />Claire was folding a pile of white hand towels when we walked out.
<br />
<br />"So ladies... did you find everything satisfactory? You built up quite a sweat out there!" He eyed the droplets on the glass in disgust, picked up a Windex bottle and gave the mess two squirts.
<br />"I hope you found everything you needed out there girls. Deodorant...Towels...I have the paperwork all ready for you to sign," he said. He was balancing weight on his right leg and pronouncing an attitude with his hip.
<br />
<br />"Actually," said <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_4" class="blsp-spelling-error">Cait</span>, catching her breath, "if Clark and I plan on being seriously competitive for this iron man, we're gonna need to find a gym that really... cares." She looked down, almost panting.
<br />"Cares? Panther Gym cares. How can you say we don't care?"
<br />"I didn't feel cared for, and neither did Clark.." I put my arm around her for drama.
<br />"Panther Gym <em>does</em> care. I've taken the time to show you around and give you the outfits and..."
<br />"The answer is no Claire!" said <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_5" class="blsp-spelling-error">Cait</span>. She put her head down on my shoulder.
<br />"We're going to need those outfits back then..." He folded his arms across his chest.
<br />"Is that necessary?" she said.
<br />"You can throw them in the hamper in the locker room after you've changed." He walked us back to the <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_6" class="blsp-spelling-error">Panthette</span> room.
<br />"I'll wait right here for you." The prospect of earning commission was now clearly gone, and the pep in his step, and that bizarrely charming demeanor he'd employed earlier had died. We closed the <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_7" class="blsp-spelling-error">Panthette</span> door, leaving an angry Claire in the wayside.
<br />
<br />I knew <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_8" class="blsp-spelling-error">Cait</span> would now be up to something. The girl hated a quiet exit.
<br />"We're climbing out the window," she said.
<br />
<br />It was a relatively low building so an escape wasn't out of the question. A simple boost from the changing bench and I was back out into the shockingly gray afternoon. <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_9" class="blsp-spelling-error">Cait</span> had a bit of trouble squeezing out of the glass, but eventually she popped out too.
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<br />"Let's go," she said. "Fit and fury is a bad combo. I don't want Claire to chase us down..." She started jogging down the block and I trailed behind.
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<br />The street was a silent juxtaposition to the gym. I had no idea where we were or what Whim Day had in store for us, and the <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_10" class="blsp-spelling-corrected">adrenaline</span> from it all was intoxicating and horrible.
<br />
<br />The sky had transpired into a heavy grey fog, and it alone could not encapsulate the all encompassing greyness of that neighborhood. Grey as an actual feeling, not just a color, or a post-storm pigment, but an ugly heaviness. I could almost feel it on my shoulders while we ran. The afternoon was palpably bogged by the colorless concrete and sky. This animal feeling of fading warmth pelted down on me from the awning of perpetual telephone wires, brick buildings, and smog. It felt as though God was a bit too far from town.
<br />
<br />We came to a cross street about three blocks west from Panther Gym. <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_11" class="blsp-spelling-error">Cait</span> put her hands on her knees and coughed into the ground. I could see a bar on the corner with imperfect royal blue stars painted on a dim window. A sign hanging in a tilt above the front entrance read, "Moon Saloon".
<br />
<br />We walked inside and the room was a mess of old wood. The floors and tables and walls and swinging doors to the kitchen, all wood. I felt if I tripped I'd die from a splinter. When the grey <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_12" class="blsp-spelling-error">creeped</span> inside to the dark old wood mess, the bartender looked towards us like the light was a sudden attack.
<br />
<br />Now we were both sweating from the short jog, and <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_13" class="blsp-spelling-error">Cait</span> lead us over to the bar. We sat down on the tattered leather stools and the ripped fabric scratched my naked thighs. A few seats over from us a few women, also grey, were drinking beer from large mugs. They looked like blurry midgets.
<br />
<br />The bartender walked over to us and stood in silence like, 'we don't have any fruity specials. Just order a damn beer.' He was, well.. grey, actually.
<br />"We'll have what they're having," said <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_14" class="blsp-spelling-error">Cait</span>, motioning to the irregular regulars near us.
<br />"We come in peace," she whispered to me so noone else heard. I was relieved.
<br />
<br />The beer was heavy and <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_15" class="blsp-spelling-error">hoppy</span> and I couldn't tell exactly what it was. It was cold though and it tasted like genuine relaxation. <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_16" class="blsp-spelling-error">Cait</span> belched and belched and yawned. She wiped the sweat from her face and onto her shirt. She sniffled and sniffled.
<br />
<br />There were a few people in the shadows at the back of the bar, and I shuttered at the realm of possibilities of who they were and what their lives consisted of. The urchin faces, dull and dark and fading behind the wooden decor, breathed and watched us, maybe hoping to add us onto a sordid list of vices and crimes. If evil could radiate from people like stench, the world would stink and I would too, sometimes.
<br />
<br />"Man this city is a million worlds, isn't it?" said <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_17" class="blsp-spelling-error">Cait</span>.
<br />"Yeah you're right, it is."
<br />"I haven't found one of them that I'd really like to be apart of though. It seems like every time we walk into a room everyone inside has literally sprung from the walls and will be buried in the back yard. You know? Like that anorexic mesh dude <em>belongs</em> in Panther. And you've gotta smoke a pack a day to be regulars here. And those stiffs waiting for donuts? You've gotta be two faced and pious. It blows my mind, all the little worlds.."
<br />"I mean, people are sort of inclined to glob onto things that make them feel normal."
<br />"I don't do that," she said. She was drinking the beer as if it were water.
<br />"I like to go places that accentuate my <em>abnormalities</em>." She smiled, which was nice, because for a moment I was sensing a bit of sadness in her tone. I'd rarely seen <span style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffff00">her </span>sad. <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_18" class="blsp-spelling-corrected">Sadness</span> is a truly ugly emotion. It is the natural disaster of human emotion, and the more it is felt and expressed, the more difficult it is to escape as a permanent state of being.
<br />
<br />I smiled back at her.
<br />"We have our own little world I guess."
<br />"Just us?"
<br />"And Bushy, and Mother...some stray cats too from time to time."
<br />"It makes me feel so small." She made a motion of holding something small between her fingers.
<br />"Well.. you're big in quality."
<br />"I always have thought of myself as more than 1 person. You know what I mean?"
<br />I did. I felt like a different person in each room I was in.
<br />
<br />I felt small too, admittedly so. Everyone is the center of their own world, I suppose. But the amount of worlds are infinitely growing in every direction. The circles of life and loves, the relationships and emotions and jokes, the purchases and mistakes and achievements, the plans and obtuse stresses, the regrets and the outfits, the self-deprecation and the narcissism, each treading sustaining circles in rooms and rooms and cities upon cities. Well, the idea makes me feel small. It really does, dammit. I was taught that everyone has purpose. Everyone has grand and outstanding purpose, and the world smiles when we arrive and cries when we die. But each year the world is a bigger place. I wonder if we matter less and less and less and less and less as legroom decreases.
<br />
<br />-------
<br />The bartender set a second round down on the bar. He didn't make eye contact.
<br />"What a happy little man," <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_19" class="blsp-spelling-error">Cait</span> whispered.
<br />We <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_20" class="blsp-spelling-error">cheersed</span>, "Cheers to..me. Every one of me," she said.
<br />
<br /><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_21" class="blsp-spelling-error">Cait</span> really <em>did</em> have a lot of unusual skills. She was sort of brilliant in a useless way. Even without direction, she held an outlandish ownership over a variance of interests and opinions. Some were frustratingly extreme. Some were outright crazy. All the absurdity was sort of hypnotic though, and she was honest in the most brutal capacity. Me being a fortified liar made her integrity even more alluring to me. She had none of the conventional charms, but she was actually good. She didn't sit with her legs crossed or watch the evening news, but she <em>was</em> good.
<br />
<br />The toast turned into a chug, and afterwards we were both ready for another round.
<br />
<br />"I'm hoping to not lose the rest of Whim Day in Moon Saloon," I said.
<br />"I thought you hated hope. You told me that once."
<br />"I hate a lot of things that I need..."
<br />"Like...whole grains?"
<br />"Maybe."
<br />
<br />My phone had been vibrating all throughout Whim Day. Wheeler had <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_22" class="blsp-spelling-error">texted</span> me a handful of times, and I had a few <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_23" class="blsp-spelling-error">unplayed</span> <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_24" class="blsp-spelling-error">voicemails</span>, which were both likely from him. He <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_25" class="blsp-spelling-error">texted</span> me Saturday too, but as I tried to delete the memory of my fight with Lindy, I'd cleared my inbox before returning any texts.
<br />
<br />One said, "<span id="SPELLING_ERROR_26" class="blsp-spelling-error">Paigebrook</span>, I still owe you for spilling a drink on your butt, and your butt owes me for wasting my drink. Call me back."
<br />
<br />I <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_27" class="blsp-spelling-error">texted</span> him. "Hey." I said.
<br />In just a few seconds he replied, "Where are you?"
<br />"I'm at Moon Saloon somewhere far west."
<br />He didn't answer.
<br />
<br />"This music sounds like something people die to. Only out west though, and only in the 1960's," said <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_28" class="blsp-spelling-error">Cait</span>. The song was a banjo and an indiscernible voice on a muzzled microphone. She waved over the bartender.
<br />
<br />"So how about changing this music, huh? Any way a few bucks could make that happen?"
<br />"We gotta jukebox but it ain't been used in a while," he said. His voice was dusty and I suspected moths were hanging beneath his larynx, waiting to break free.
<br />"I'll give it a go," said <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_29" class="blsp-spelling-error">Cait</span>.
<br />
<br />She walked over to the jukebox, which was covered in debris and particles of time. All of the animal eyes in the room followed her <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_30" class="blsp-spelling-error">panthette</span> outfit and galoshes.
<br />
<br /><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_31" class="blsp-spelling-error">Cait</span> bumbled with the chalky buttons and kicked the bottom of the machine. Patsy Cline's, <em>'<span id="SPELLING_ERROR_32" class="blsp-spelling-error">Walkin</span>' After Midnight'</em> came on, and she came back over to her seat.
<br />"Now this song should really be Moon Saloon's anthem," she said to the bartender.
<br />"We ain't got no an-thumb," he said.
<br />"Well I'm just saying you know, a few minor details, a bit of PR, and this place could be a hot spot..." She surveyed the room.
<br />"Don't start..." I whispered to her.
<br />She winked back.
<br />
<br /><em>"I stopped to see a <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_33" class="blsp-spelling-error">weepin</span>' willow...<span id="SPELLING_ERROR_34" class="blsp-spelling-error">cryin</span> on his pillow, and <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_35" class="blsp-spelling-error">maaaaybe</span> he's <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_36" class="blsp-spelling-error">cryin</span>' for <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_37" class="blsp-spelling-error">meee</span>... and as the skies turn gloomy, the night winds whisper to me, I'm lonesome as I, can be..!"</em>
<br />
<br />Caitlin sang boisterously. The song reminded me of my grandma. She'd loved Patsy Cline, and we used to listen to the tape when Lindy and I were kids and spent nights at her house. I rarely thought of these times anymore. Lindy and I were close with her though. She was actually a lot like Caitlin, not in practice, but in ideology. She was good inherently, but she didn't care about what anyone else thought of her. That was sort of the catalyst to all of her other admirable qualities.
<br />
<br />I was inherently the opposite, and had spent most of my life obsessing over the most minute facets of my persona. Nothing had to be perfected in actuality, but everything had to appear to be in tact. That mentality had begun to fade when I met <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_38" class="blsp-spelling-error">Cait</span> though.
<br />
<br /><em>'Crazy'</em> by Patsy Cline came on next.
<br />
<br />"Two <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_39" class="blsp-spelling-error">Clines</span> in a row?" I said.
<br />"There are others on the way too! It's a steal of a jukebox," she said, "A quarter a song! Gotta love old shit."
<br />She stood up now.
<br />"You've gotta dance with me.." She said to the bartender. She walked over towards him.
<br />"I don't dance!" he said.
<br />"Come on, Ralph."
<br />"Ralph? The name's Don."
<br />"Well ya look like a Ralph!"
<br />"You look like a nut," he said.
<br />"Fine, call me nut. Dance with me though!"
<br />He laughed and it was like hearing a language for the first time. He walked over to her.
<br />"I'm <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_40" class="blsp-spelling-error">callin</span>' you Don Juan!" she said. He laughed again, and particles of spit dashed quietly onto her face, and others coiled into the dark silence of the room to become apart of it forever.
<br />
<br />The song <em>'Crazy'</em> took me back in time. After my grandma died, I packed all of the details I had of her into a compartment of my brain that hid beneath new things. Sometimes when I'd smell different <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_41" class="blsp-spelling-error">florals</span> or eat a certain type of butter I remembered her. I'd remember her laugh, or the way she said my name. Memories are fickle little buggers. They can just dance in and out of view without warrant or want. Sometimes I get a <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_42" class="blsp-spelling-corrected">glimpse</span> of something from my life and I try to catch it and feel it forever. Other times different moments of the past will creep into my mind and I must always run from them, or else.
<br />
<br />I must take a moment to <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_43" class="blsp-spelling-corrected">acknowledge</span> the fact that my brain is my master and it walks me like a dog. I can only hope it will lead me to good things, to flourish and be wise, but if suddenly I were to become insane.. well, I must follow my master. And frankly I wouldn't be surprised.
<br />
<br />-----
<br /><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_44" class="blsp-spelling-error">Cait</span> and Don danced, and visually it was odder than many things I'd seen her do. She sang too,
<br /><em>"Oh crazy... for <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_45" class="blsp-spelling-error">thinkin</span>' that my love would hold <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_46" class="blsp-spelling-error">youuuuu</span>, I'm crazy for <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_47" class="blsp-spelling-error">tryin</span>', and crazy for <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_48" class="blsp-spelling-error">cryin</span>', and I'm crazy for <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_49" class="blsp-spelling-error">lovin</span>' you..."</em>
<br />She dipped him.
<br />
<br />"<span id="SPELLING_ERROR_50" class="blsp-spelling-error">Paigebrook</span>..." I turned to see Wheeler standing behind me.
<br />"What the hell are you doing here?"
<br />"I Googled Moon Saloon and walked over. I actually live a few blocks away. I've never been here though. What a random place for you to go." He looked around the room.
<br />"So you just show up? That's creepy," I said.
<br />"Yeah well, then I'm a creep! I owed you a drink," he said. He was wearing a green vest with a white collared shirt underneath and crisp looking black dress pants.
<br />"I was about to say I was overdressed, but look at you!" He laughed at my outfit.
<br />"It's a long story..."
<br />"Is that your break dancer friend over there? Twirling that old dude?"
<br />
<br />I looked over, and <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_51" class="blsp-spelling-error">Cait</span> was indeed twirling Don.
<br />
<br />"Yeah that's her.." I said.
<br />"Look at your life right now. And I'm a creep?" He smiled. I expected to feel awkward and annoyed, but I felt fine. There was something funny about him, something I didn't immediately hate.
<br />Jena bughttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03811410391660026357noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6173885506870332229.post-20332675816211532992010-04-26T13:21:00.000-07:002010-07-24T10:36:45.855-07:00I Do This I Do That- Chapter 12XII. Carnal Compliance<br /><br />The man shook his butt while he walked, and it seemed to be a maneuver he'd practiced and perfected over time. <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_0" class="blsp-spelling-error">Cait</span> exaggeratedly imitated him. He walked into an athletic club near the shopping district we'd walked passed earlier. It was called 'Panther Gym'. The windows were plastered with pictures of muscled men in tiny workout shorts. None of them were remotely smiling, and they all appeared to be wearing makeup.<br /><br />"This joker <em>would</em> go into a place like this," said <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_1" class="blsp-spelling-error">Cait</span>, "follow my lead." She walked inside. The meshed man was actually an employee. He was attaching one of the large jugs to a water cooler in the lobby. The room was loud with techno music and a display of power bars clustered the glass reception desk. Instead of price signs the boxes were labeled individually by caloric value.<br /><br />"Hello!" He said without looking at us.<br />"Hi!" said <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_2" class="blsp-spelling-error">Cait</span> as she leaned against the desk, "You ignored us earlier when I asked you where the bus stop was. It's okay though because we were actually just on our way to this gym. I didn't realize it was so close. How ironic is that?"<br />"Sounds like fate," he said dully.<br />"You're so right."<br />"Are you interested in joining Panther Gym? We have some great deals right now if you are." His voice was flamboyant, which also seemed to be an attribute he'd practiced and perfected over time.<br />"We certainly are. We're actually training to do a couples iron man," she put her arm around me.<br />"That is so cool. I've always wanted to do an iron man," he said, "Well right now we're running a buy one membership get the other membership half off, with a reduced monthly fee from $60.00 a month to 55. For both of you, with the membership fees and the first month, it would be $205 right now. That includes all of the classes, except for Turbo Ass which is $10 per session because it's like amazing, and access to all of our facilities 24 hours a day. We can take another $20 off if you live within a mile of Panther."<br /><br /><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_3" class="blsp-spelling-error">Cait</span> looked at me. "That sounds pretty close to what we've been looking for babe," she said.<br />"Do you have a sauna?" I said.<br />"Oh gosh yes. We <em>do</em> however have a strict policy about carnal activities in both the sauna and pool here at Panther. You'll have to sign some compliance paperwork if you do end up joining today," he said.<br />"Oh is that right?" said <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_4" class="blsp-spelling-error">Cait</span>.<br />"We've had some issues in the past, unfortunately." He laughed. I felt a little sick to my stomach at the idea of it all.<br />"Some people just have to ruin it for everyone don't they," said <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_5" class="blsp-spelling-error">Cait</span>.<br />"Oh it is a shame!" he said.<br /><br />"So is there a free trial period we can initiate? I'd like to try the machines to make sure they're adequate before I sign anything."<br />"I can assure you, they're more than adequate. Panther is ranked the number 1 gym in west side Chicago, and we have a very professional staff... and <em>very</em> expensive equipment."<br />"That's important. Very good very good. But is there anyway we can try it out today before we sign?"<br />"I can give you a potential membership pass. It's $5 per person though, and they're only valid for 30 minutes."<br />"Let's do that. Do you have apparel we could buy or borrow? We didn't really plan ahead obviously," said <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_6" class="blsp-spelling-error">Cait</span>, pointing out our attire.<br />"What I'm gonna do for you today is hook you up with some Panther tops and bottoms. I normally only give them for free if you buy a membership, but you two seem pretty serious," he said.<br /><br />He sifted through a pile of tank tops and handed us two small black shirts with matching shorts. The tank tops had Panther eyes which insinuated nipples, and the shorts had tails on the butt. On the back of the top it said, "Ready for my cat fight... Thanks Panther."<br />"Oh perfect! This is great!" said <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_7" class="blsp-spelling-error">Cait</span>, holding up the shirt.<br />"I know right? We just got those in. They are so fierce," he said, making a cat scratch motion with his hand.<br />"I'd only like them better if they were mesh," said <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_8" class="blsp-spelling-error">Cait</span>.<br />"Oh I know! I obviously agree," he said, pointing to his shirt.<br />"You know I meant to compliment you about that shirt when we first walked in. You just don't see enough mesh these days," she said.<br />"Couldn't agree more. I actually sell my own clothing line. I'll give you a business card before you leave today. I make mesh everything. And when I say everything, I mean <em>everything,"</em> he said. <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_9" class="blsp-spelling-error">Cait</span> laughed riotously and we signed the day pass paperwork, including the sheet labeled, "Carnal Compliance".<br />"I'm Claire by the way," said the mesh man, as he collected our paperwork.<br />"I'm Sloan and this is my girlfriend Clark," said <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_10" class="blsp-spelling-error">Cait</span>. I sucked my cheeks into my mouth to stop myself from laughing. Claire led us through the gym to the women's locker room towards the back of the building.<br />"So how long have you been together?"<br />"About a week," said <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_11" class="blsp-spelling-error">Cait</span>, "<span id="SPELLING_ERROR_12" class="blsp-spelling-error">Facebook</span> official that is. We've been involved for a few months though."<br />"Well congratulations! It's not true until it's public," said Claire.<br />"That's pretty much my credo," said <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_13" class="blsp-spelling-error">Cait</span>.<br /><br />The locker room door said "<span id="SPELLING_ERROR_14" class="blsp-spelling-error">Panthettes</span>", and before we walked in to change, Claire reminded us that the room would be under serious surveillance.<br />"Well isn't that a shame!" joked <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_15" class="blsp-spelling-error">Cait</span>.<br />"I'll meet you both in 30 minutes to sign the membership!" said Claire as he walked back to the lobby.<br /><br />No one was in the small locker room, thankfully, but I could hear water running from the showers.<br />"Honestly I don't want to be anywhere near rooms that have had to be under surveillance because of carnal activities, <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_16" class="blsp-spelling-error">Cait</span>." I said.<br />"Oh relax BABE! Just put on your <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_17" class="blsp-spelling-error">panthette</span> outfit and let's go get ripped."<br /><br />We changed our clothes and examined ourselves in front of the mirrored wall. <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_18" class="blsp-spelling-error">Cait's</span> outfit was absurdly small on her, and her boobs and stomach were spilling from the fabric.<br />"Look at the eyes on <em>those</em> girls," she said, attempting to stretch the cotton without ripping it.<br />"I'm actually very <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_19" class="blsp-spelling-error">creeped</span> out by this entire thing," I said.<br />"Blame Whim Day."<br />"I blame you."<br />"Honey stop.. We'll talk about it when we get home. I don't want it to turn into a... cat fight!" She made a cat scratch gesture like Claire had done.<br />"You're ridiculous."Jena bughttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03811410391660026357noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6173885506870332229.post-37864339609820873502010-04-26T11:00:00.000-07:002011-07-24T16:11:57.873-07:00I Do This I Do That- Chapter 11XI. God's Will<br /><br /><br />"I haven't seen anyone flip the bird since like 1998. It's a dying gesture... sort of like the peace sign" said <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_0" class="blsp-spelling-error">Cait</span>.<br />"I feel like the peace sign is back."<br />"No way. Hand gestures in general, they're done."<br />"What about sign language?"<br />"Obviously that's different.. It's not like the peace sign or the bird has ever been <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_1" class="blsp-spelling-error">anyone's</span> only means of communication."<br />"I think we should bring back the bird. It had a good run in the 90's. I was too young to fully engage in it though, you know? I feel left out," I said.<br />"You know it's actually proven that the word 'fuck' is the most satisfying word to say in English?"<br />"I can see that. It's transitive. It's intransitive. It's a noun, a verb... a conjunction. It's fucking versatile."<br /><br />"The bird lacks all the versatility. It's just '<span id="SPELLING_ERROR_2" class="blsp-spelling-error">bam</span>!' No room for interpretation. Plus, unless you do it emphatically it doesn't release any stress like the word 'fuck'. And if you <em>do</em> do it emphatically you wind up looking like a real creep."<br /><br />A woman a few seats away from us leaned over in our direction.<br />"Excuse me. Can you please watch your language? There are kids on this bus." She was all business.<br />"Yes mam! Sorry about that," said <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_3" class="blsp-spelling-error">Cait</span>. She whispered in my ear, "I called her mam...she's probably insulted." She gave me a thumbs up.<br /><br />"There you go, the 'thumbs up'? It's also on the outs," I said.<br />"I feel like the 'thumbs up' hasn't been cool since Happy Days was on..."<br />"Okay so it's just out."<br /><br /><br />The bus was moving west, making various stops near grocery stores and apartment buildings every other block on average. The rain perpetuated into a tumultuous downpour. Thunder rumbled outside the noisy bus, and lightning lit up the dim cloudy skies. All of the passengers were relatively quiet, watching the windows and noting through silence the sporadic flashes of storm.<br /><br />"I've been craving a good thunderstorm!" said <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_4" class="blsp-spelling-error">Cait</span>.<br />"Yeah?"<br />"Definitely. It's sort of like a good cry, you know? Like it's not the ideal mood or whatever, but it's strangely really great?"<br /><br /><br /><br /><p>"I know what you mean."<br /></p><br /><br /><br /><p>After a few blocks <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_5" class="blsp-spelling-error">Cait</span> leaned over and whispered again. "I say we get off where ever the mam gets off. Go where she goes?"<br />"Some would consider that stalking."<br />"There's no such thing as stalking on whim day."</p><br /><p>"Is that a new rule?"</p><br /><p>"No it's just logic."</p><br /><p>"I fail to see any logic in that idea."</p><br /><p>"We won't be stumbling towards any interesting festivals or events in the rain. And it's Sunday, people are home relaxing. We need to be resourceful if this is going to be an epic day," she said.</p><br /><p>"Maybe the city doesn't want us to have an epic day," I said, "Maybe we're supposed to be low key today." </p><br /><p>"That's crap. Whim Days have to be epic. If I wanted to be low key I would have stayed home with Mother and left you in empty corner. I used to do this thing when I was little and bored.. I would follow my dog around my yard. He was always up to interesting things, burying bread and chasing squirrels. Sometimes he would lay down and I'd lay next to him, then he'd suddenly start running. It was unpredictable. I loved it. I think we should do that..."</p><br /><p>"I'm not following any dogs."</p><br /><p>"I meant a person! It could be a learning experience.. or an adventure."</p><br /><p>"Or a crime!" </p><br /><p>"It's harmless. Let's see where mam's going," said <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_6" class="blsp-spelling-error">Cait</span>.</p><br /><p>"She told us to 'watch our language'.. I don't think she'll take stalking lightly."</p><br /><p>"Fine.. What about him?"</p><br /><p>There was a stiff faced Asian across from mam in a short sleeve blue collared shirt, thin framed wire glasses and high waisted jeans. He was a potential closet baby and he was reading a TV Guide. </p><br /><p><br />"Interesting magazine choice..." I said.</p><br /><p>"See, now I'm enthralled. I've got to know where that dude spends his rainy Sundays."</p><br /><p>"I'm guessing in front of his TV!"<br /></p><br /><p>"Let's just follow the next person who gets off the bus. That keeps things whimsical."</p><br /><p>"Sort of," I said. </p><br /><p>The route had taken us quite west, and the bus approached a stop near an <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_7" class="blsp-spelling-error">uncategorizable</span> shopping center. The strip was composed of a dollar store, a few middle eastern restaurants, a Gap Outlet, a video game rental, and a bright cheap store with clothes manufactured to articulate presumable trends. There were treeless neighborhoods behind both sides of the street. We seemed to have gone beyond the point in the city which is beautified with seasonal flowers and modern park art and fountains. <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_8" class="blsp-spelling-error">Cait</span> always talked about the city's beautification as being the epitome of urban ill. </p><br /><p>"You know how much money the city spends on these fucking flowers?" She said one day when we walked by a large display of yellow tulips in Lincoln Park.</p><br /><p>"Probably a lot. But they are pretty and they make people happy," I told her.</p><br /><p>"Right. All the rich couples and gay snobs are happy in Lincoln Park with their goddamn tulips, but there are 45 kids in every classroom on the south side. Chicago should spend that tulip fund on the schools instead, then people will <em>actually</em> be happier...Less truant shit heads shooting each other because no one cares if they miss class," She said. This was about a week after high school Whim Day, and the heat and disgust about education was fresh on our brains. </p><br /><p><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_9" class="blsp-spelling-error">Cait</span> destroyed the tulip display. She uprooted the flowers from the ground and ripped them up in her hands in a sweep of anger. The yellow tulips were left in a scene of mutilated peril, like destroyed causalities in a ruthless massacre. It was bizarrely sad, even though they were only flowers. She again denoted the act to protest, and not destruction. She said she didn't hate the flowers themselves but she hated what they represented. It was probably the closest thing to warfare I'd ever encountered. </p><br /><p>Now the bus stopped and a Polish woman on the brink of being elderly stood up to get off. She had a vine patterned scarf on her head and she wore a dull loose dress. Her stature was large, but the loose dress masked any hint of her shape or form. She may have worn it to dissolve any accentuation of herself. </p><br /><p>"Let's go," said <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_10" class="blsp-spelling-error">Cait</span>. We stood up and followed her off the bus. The rain was just a trickle in the west, and the heart of the storm seemed to be behind us towards the lake. The woman walked in haste with her head down towards the sidewalk. <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_11" class="blsp-spelling-error">Cait</span> and I didn't speak, as though we were each certain of our nebulous mission, whatever it was. </p><br /><p>She turned right and we walked down a street with identical apartment buildings, ugly and lean with light brick walls and windowless front doors. There were <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_12" class="blsp-spelling-error">junky</span> cars on the block, which were probably unreliable weights of frustration for all of the drivers who owned them. </p><br /><p>The woman walked up the stoop of a great church. It was majestically old looking, and cracks in the stone walls seemed to determine age in the architecture like rings on a great tree. We didn't question the decision to keep following the woman as she entered the cathedral. A mass had just started, and she sat close to the back. Only a dozen or so people were there, and the room echoed with emptiness at the sound of an organ on the balcony above us. <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_13" class="blsp-spelling-error">Cait</span> and I sunk into the back pew, a few rows behind the woman. She knelt reverently as the priest entered and ascended the altar. </p><br /><p><br />The mass proceeded. </p><br /><p>"Let us pray," The pries said. </p><br /><p>The small congregation answered with the Lord's prayer. "Our father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name..." Saying it was like a reflex for me. I hadn't been in a church in years, but I was raised Catholic and remembered the formality precisely. <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_14" class="blsp-spelling-error">Cait</span> looked towards me surprised, and I knew she was thinking, 'I didn't know you were Catholic.' </p><br /><p><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_15" class="blsp-spelling-error">Cait</span> didn't believe in organized religion, but I'd picked up on the fact from time to time that she was spiritual in her own way. I rarely disclosed any of my own beliefs about God or religion, mostly because I hadn't figured out entirely what they were. </p><br /><p>I felt I knew there <em>was</em> a God, but he seemed more like an omniscient Big Brother type than this merciful savior figure the priest was describing. The sermon was about Gods' will. The priest said that God had a <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_16" class="blsp-spelling-corrected">magnificent</span> plan for everyone, and "following Gods' plan will give you an abundance of joy," he said.</p><br /><p><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_17" class="blsp-spelling-error">Cait</span> nudged me and whispered, "<em>My</em> Gods' will is for me to do what I want." </p><br /><p>I didn't respond. Getting joy from doing Gods' will seemed too simple. 'If that's all I need to do to find happiness, show me the plan, and I'll do it,' I thought to myself. </p><br /><p>"Peace be with you," said the Priest as he concluded the mass.</p><br /><p>"And also with you," we answered. </p><br /><p>"Now go in peace to love and serve the Lord."</p><br /><p>"Thanks be to God," we said. </p><br /><p>The Polish Woman stood up and knelt towards the altar, making the sign of the cross. She walked to the back of the church by the exit where the priest was now standing. She kissed the back of his hand. It was peculiar. "I'm not kissing that dude's hand," said <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_18" class="blsp-spelling-error">Cait</span> as we walked towards the exit. </p><br /><p>We followed the woman down a flight of stairs where a church social was about to take place. The social consisted of two buffet style tables with coffee and donuts set up, and <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_19" class="blsp-spelling-error">foldable</span> chairs set around a few tables covered with white plastic. The dusty cement floor was imprinted with shoe patterns, stroller wheels, and the marks of cane ends. The Polish woman was waiting in a short line for coffee, and we sat at a table next to the organ player, who was being complimented by an old hunch-back man in suspenders. </p><br /><p><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_20" class="blsp-spelling-error">Cait</span> tried to mingle with a couple of elderly people waiting in line for a donut. Everyone seemed to be obviously distracted by her cleavage, and the mission to obtain a donut. A couple of women were standing next to the line discussing the points in the service where the organ player made mistakes.</p><br /><p>"Great service today, huh?" Said <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_21" class="blsp-spelling-error">Cait</span> to the Polish woman.</p><br /><p>The woman looked at her like she was a species she'd never seen before.</p><br /><p>"We're going to have to make <em>more</em> coffee," <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_22" class="blsp-spelling-error">said</span> the woman to a man behind the table, who seemed to be the event planner. </p><br /><p>"No no don't bother. We'll just take a donut to go and skip the coffee," said <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_23" class="blsp-spelling-error">Cait</span>. She grabbed three donuts. </p><br /><p>"It's one donut per person!" said the man. </p><br /><p>"I don't give a <em>fuck</em>" she said, ignoring him and heading towards the stairs. </p><br /><p>She turned towards me when we got upstairs. "It really did feel good to say that!" </p><br /><p>"It seemed like it did," I said. </p><br /><p>"God's will my ass. Those people are joyless! the sign of the cross is out, just like the bird" she said,"I'm gonna start my own church with my own church socials, and old stiffs and donuts are banned!"</p><br /><p>"This donut is damn good," I said, stuffing my face quickly.</p><br /><p>"You're right. Donuts are allowed, old stiffs are still banned though."</p><br /><p>Outside the rain had stopped, and there was a noticeable amount of trash blowing around in the wind by the road. Next to the church was a courtyard with a pitiful garden full of dirt and untamed weeds. It looked as though someone had attempted to plant flowers weeks ago and never returned.</p><br /><p>"See how ugly it is when the city doesn't beautify the neighborhood?" I said.</p><br /><p>"Wasting tax money isn't exactly a beautiful thing."</p><br /><p>"You don't even pay taxes," I said.</p><br /><p>"Whatever."</p><br /><p>We walked south on the street, unsure if it led back to the main road. At first it didn't seem to matter to us if we were right or wrong in our directional sense, but soon we became tired of circling the block without aim. A tall skinny man in a mesh belly shirt walked towards us. He was carrying two large jugs of water. </p><br /><p>"Excuse me, sir, do you know where the nearest bus stop is?" asked <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_24" class="blsp-spelling-error">Cait</span>. He ignored us. </p><br /><p>"That's it. We're following him," she said. We trailed behind him slowly, keeping a safe distance between us so that he was unaware of our stalk. </p><br /><p>"Expedition <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_25" class="blsp-spelling-error">numero</span> dos," she said eagerly. </p>Jena bughttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03811410391660026357noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6173885506870332229.post-75614037180579011082010-04-16T10:12:00.000-07:002011-07-24T15:59:32.361-07:00I Do This I Do That- Chapter 10X. Whim Day<br /><br /><span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">"Good morning, good morning, it's time to get up, good morning! Good morning, good morning, it's a good good good good day!" </span><br /><br />Caitlin's wake up song was like audible pain. My head throbbed and my face was in a wet puddle of my own drool on the sandy carpet. It was so dark in the basement, it could have been 6 a.m or 6 p.m and I wouldn't have known. She was standing above me in light denim jeans and and a white t shirt with a red fist on it. Under the fist it read, 'comunista'.<br /><br />"What time is it?" I sat up and my head felt like an anchor I couldn't carry.<br />"It's almost 10. You okay down there scapegrace?" she knelt down.<br />"Yeah. My head hurts..."<br />"Empty corner'll do that to you."<br />"Seriously."<br />"Must of been a bad night then... Eggo's are in the toaster, Tylenol is on the table. You'll feel better in no time," she helped me stand up.<br /><br />The kitchen was idyllic, and it shocked and impressed me that Cait had left things in spic order for my sister night.<br /><br />"No Lindy?"<br />"Gone... I'm a fucking horrible sister."<br />"No you're not."<br /><br />The Eggos popped and she put two on a plate for me. I opened the Tylenol and swallowed it without water.<br /><br />"Sweet t shirt," I said, groggily.<br />"Got it at Blue Elephant."<br />"That resale shop? I thought you were banned."<br />"No, that's White Elephant, its' uptown constituent. I'm just another shopper down at Blue. I wouldn't go to White even if I <span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">wasn't</span> banned.. those pirate bastards."<br /><br />Cait had gotten arrested for trying to steal a desk chair last fall. She claimed she was protesting, not pillaging. She'd gotten in a fight over the price mark with an elderly Russian cashier. The woman said the smudged price tag said $21, Cait believed it said $11. The chair wasn't even remotely nice, but the argument became personal. Cait said the woman was condescending. The dispute eventually resulted in Cait screaming at her, "Don't take your bad day out on me old bird!" She then grabbed the chair and started running. The Russian screamed after her, "You make me bad day! You make me bad day!" She was arrested 20 minutes later. The cop picked her up 5 blocks north of White Elephant. Her side had cramped and she was laying on the ground next to the chair.<br /><br />I slouched down at the kitchen table like a deflated balloon, scrolling through my phone to piece together the missing parts of the night. Lindy had texted me several times, and not only had she taken a cab to her car and drove back to Michigan at 3 am, but she clearly hated me too. What was worse than the myriad of angry messages, the multiple f bombs and name calling, was the fact that she didn't respond to my apology text. I doubted she would.<br /><br />"You look so glum," said Cait, who was cutting up my Eggos for me.<br />"I feel like shit."<br />"If you're hungover, such is life. But if you're feeling guilty, stop. Just stop it." She looked at me sternly. She put a bib in my shirt and poured me a glass of milk and a cup of coffee.<br />"Alright alright, are you gonna get me a sippy cup too?"<br />"You might need one. I know it takes a shit storm night to make you sleep in empty corner," she said.<br />I ate small slow bites. She was right too, I needed help with simple functions. That fork into my mouth might as well have been a scalpel in a complicated surgery.<br /><br />"What are you planning on doing today?" asked Cait.<br />"I'll probably just sleep." I put my head on the table. "Fuck."<br />"You can't feel guilty."<br />"You don't even know what happened."<br />"It's irrelevant. I don't believe in guilt. Everybody fucks up. Whatever you did, she'll get over it."<br />"How do you know?"<br />"Because were all capable of being despicable. She'll do something stupid and realize you're human. If she doesn't, then someone else will and she'll forgive you by comparison."<br />"She wouldn't do to me what I did to her."<br />"You don't know that."<br /><br />Her positivity was irritating to me. She was trying to be hopeful, but sometimes too much hope just makes me sort of cringe. Like she could have just said, "You're right, you're a dumb ass," and that would have been alright. What happened between my sister and I felt monumental. Her positivity made it seem less. I didn't want her to get all bogged down, but a little shock and awe would have been nice.<br /><br />"Since when do you care about your family anyways? Maybe she'll leave you alone now. I thought that's what you wanted," she said.<br /><br />I didn't know what I wanted. On days when my family lectured me about responsibility, or called me ten times to confirm details about my imaginary routine, I'd told Cait she was lucky to not have a family. But even though Lindy and I were nothing alike, we were essentially the same too. Being honest with her just made me remember all of the aspirations I'd made when we were young. Honesty would be like disappointing my former self. That was a concept too heavy for me to fully address. I preferred to have my world an arms length away from her than to admit to myself that I needed something and didn't know what it was.<br /><br />"Let's not talk about my family today," I said.<br />"Gotcha."<br />"What are you doing today?"<br />"I was going to go to some basement with Abebe and his friends to dance, but I tweaked my hip the other night. I'm thinkin we need a 'whim day'. You could use it," she said.<br /><br />'Whim Days' were days when we got on the first bus we saw and let the city decide where we went and what we did. Once we ended up sleeping at the airport in Gary, Indiana. Another time we spent the day in a south side high school. We went to a few rowdy classes, ate pizza and chocolate milk in the caf for $2.25, and took an actual school bus to some neighborhoods. It made us both feel temporarily weird, and we harnessed the short lived philosophy for weeks afterwards that primary education was the root of all scum.<br /><br />We categorized different parts of our day as the nuclei to some social ill. At lunch we wrote the word 'obesity' on a 3x5. On the bus we wrote the word 'violence' on another card. Cait eventually made a collage of the day and hung it up in the bathroom. Other cards say 'teen pregnancy', 'ignorance', and 'vanity'. In the middle of the collage is a picture of the two of us outside of the high school in large hooded sweatshirts with our thumbs up.<br /><br />We created 'whim day' because we were sick of deciding what our plans would be. Cait said that planning was an art, and the lack of planning would be chaos. We were both intrigued by the idea, and thus Whim Day was born.<br /><br />"I suppose I <span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">could </span>use one," I said, "we pull the plug if we get close to Gary though."<br />"Let's get it goin'. Leave in 20?"<br />"K."<br />"Actually... make that an hour and 20. Mother's about to be on. Gotta catch it. I saw the preview for the episode and she talks about acronyms.. She actually says 'omg' and 'lol'. It's gonna be a good one."<br />"You would. I guess I'll get ready then. What should we wear this time?" The only thing we planned on whim day was our outfits.<br />"I'm thinking... Fancy dresses?"<br />"That's too much," I said.<br />"It's raining. It's hot out though. Casual dresses and galoshes."<br />"Who owns galoshes?"<br />"Are you kidding? It's a staple accessory."<br /><br />She'd said the same thing about her sun hat. It was so large she could barely see from the drooping brim. It ended up catching on fire one day at the beach when she lit a cigarette. The straw burned fast and she ran through the crowded beach to the water to throw in the flaming hat. Some concerned mother nearby panicked and called the fire department.<br /><br />When the fire fighters showed up, the concerned mother held her son and exaggerated the details. She said Cait screamed, "I'm burning alive!" when she ran to the water. Cait called the mom 'a sicko' and asked her if she was aware that her son was developing an Oedipus complex. The next day there was a fire fighter in our apartment shower, and Cait kept his uniform suspenders as a trophy. I could always tell when he was over because he made Cait's room smell like bonfire.<br /><br />"You can borrow some of mine," she said, "Here, choose." She brought me 3 pair to pick from.<br />"These would be fitting, Scarlet." She pointed to the red pair.<br />"Yeah but they'd also match your communist t shirt."<br />"We're wearing dresses. Besides, I don't want to turn off all the capitalists if whim day takes us to Michigan Avenue."<br />"Good thinking. Why did you buy that thing anyways.. you're a nationalist!"<br />"I'm none of it. I'm just an American and I like t shirts. That, and it was cheap and I'm actually considered poor now."<br />"By who?"<br />"The government I guess."<br />"Pirate bastards?"<br />"Exactly."<br /><br />Cait put on a booby blue sun dress that made her look like the Halloween version of Dorthy. She put on the red rain boots and bright red lipstick to match. She clipped back her hair with a barrette and slicked it down so it flipped up at the ends.<br />"It's like I've moused myself, but really my hair's just filthy with grease," she said.<br />"I think I'll shower while you watch Martha."<br />"You would."<br />She sat on the sofa and turned on Martha, amplifying the volume in celebration of the coveted daily affair. She laughed while she listened.<br />"Oh Mother!" she said.<br /><br />I took a shower and put on a cotton red sun dress. Cait's galoshes were all too big on me, so I wore flats inside the black pair with white polka dots. My feet felt awfully heavy, but it was what it was. No complaining on whim day. That was one of our rules we'd established, along with no turning down propositions from strangers, and no leaving each other for any amount of time. This included short trips to the bathroom. Cait had created this rule during high school day.<br /><br />The bathroom reeked of feces and smoke, and there appeared to be peep holes in the stalls and on the wall side of the boy's rest room. I was waiting in the hall for her and she ran out immediately. "New rule," she said, "No leaving each other on whim day. Ever." I agreed with her fully after accompanying her into the bathroom. It was worse than any bar bathroom we'd seen. She took out a 3x5 and wrote the phrase, "defecation: both moral and literal," on it.<br /><br />I scanned my room before turning off the light. There was a picture of Lindy and I when we were little framed on my desk behind a stack of full notebooks and misplaced papers. In the picture I'm sitting on a stoop with my head on my fist like 'The Thinker'. Lindy's spinning around in circles with her arms in the air. I put the picture faced down.<br /><br />"You look so regal," said Cait.<br />"As do you!"<br />"Mother's just finishing her creme brulee. We can go."<br /><br />We walked up the stairs. It was raining and humid outside, and oneiric fog lingered like fire smoke just above our heads.<br /><br />"I suppose we can lock the door," she said, "since it's Whim Day we won't be separating. I have my keys actually."<br />"You never have them!"<br />"Well I'm carrying a purse today. It goes with the dress motif." She locked the door and we stood on the sidewalk. There was a bus stop on the corner which was a pickup for a multitude of routes. We walked to the shelter and stood in it with a grimacing group, all hiding from the rain. A bus sped to the stop and the doors opened. Only a few people got on.<br />"Here's our bus," said Cait.<br />"It appears so."<br /><br />We got on and proceeded to the back. No one was even remotely smiling, indicative of how much the weather determines the mood of the day. We were beyond caring about the rain though.<br />"It's a warm day, everyone should quit bitching," said Cait. No one was actual talking, but it was clear by the heavy tension of the riders that the weather was unfavorable. I agreed with Cait. So what if it was raining? Sometimes I actually preferred the rain. Not in any emo type of way, but everything seemed to be less dire on rainy days. There was less pressure to be prompt or attractive. We didn't even bring umbrellas. I didn't own one, but wouldn't have brought one even if I did.<br /><br />A man in the seat next to us had a frown on his face that could potentially make a child cry. His eye brows were gray and furry. They were probably more gray from stress than from age. He folded up his wet newspaper and discarded it on the ground, huffing over the smeared letters and his dripping cotton shirt.<br /><br />"Nice day, isn't it?" said Cait, smiling at him and purposely invading his personal space.<br />He said nothing.<br />She leaned down and picked up the paper.<br />"You mind if I read this?"<br />"It's garbage. It's ruined from the rain," he said.<br />She unfolded it and opened to the entertainment section. The paper really was ruined and was ripping as she jolted around the wet pages.<br /><br />"Looks like rain for the week," she said, scanning the back page of international weather.<br />"Ya think?" He rolled his eyes.<br />"Too bad were not in Athens. Gonna be 98 there today."<br />He pulled down the stop request and got up and stood by the door with his back to us.<br />"You know how many muscles you're using to frown?" she said.<br /><br />He turned around and put up his middle finger, his frown more intense than before. Neither of us said anything. She pulled up the paper in front of our faces and we slouched down in the seat and laughed.Jena bughttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03811410391660026357noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6173885506870332229.post-90430889809888849132010-04-14T20:18:00.000-07:002011-07-24T15:37:37.849-07:00I Do This I Do That- Chapter 9IX. Bombs<br /><br />As the sun set it was replaced by an <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_0" class="blsp-spelling-error">amaranthine</span> of city lights, brightest in the blocks surrounding us, and gradually dwindling in every direction. We'd finished the tapas and every last crumb of the warm bread. The sangria pitcher had been replenished and replenished again, making my skin warm and my limbs light. The patio was busy. Around us various other tables had been resat with new groups. My legs felt sticky with hours of immobility and were deeply ingrained with the winding brass patterns of the chair.<br /><br />We made an agreement to not discuss anything work related, which Lindy believed would dodge the pending stress I'd conjured. Faking stress was consequently the perfect device to avoid being trapped in my lie.<br /><br />"Let's not even talk about it," she said, "No work talk on sister night."<br />"Deal."<br /><br />Instead, we spent the momentous hours rekindling our parallel sense of humor. We laughed mostly about embarrassing childhood stories. Some were outlandish, and we lowered our voices less and less as the hours progressed. Our choice phrases bounced between the patio walls and Lindy, who was at first somewhat restrained by her civil nature, seemed quite uninhibited as the sangria settled. I had never really seen that side of her. It was like she was suddenly a real person, according to my definition at least.<br /><br />We made a joint decision to settle the bill and move on to bigger and louder establishments. We both hugged the waiter when we left, who laughed kindly at our antics.<br /><br />The streets were further intoxicating. A humid fog lingered around stories above us like hovering smoke, and we walked arm and arm down the block, embracing the city and whatever impromptu acts we'd commit. On a bright street, comparably uglier than most, red velvet ropes separated dark vibrating walls from early crowds trickling inside.<br /><br />"Here?" said Lindy, pointing to one of the quieter basement bars. The bouncer was smiling.<br />"Sure. He's friendly."<br /><br />We went downstairs and the horseshoe shaped bar was adorned with a few unattractive lesbian couples, some seething old grease balls, and a young boisterous group taking shots. Mirrors were everywhere, and the portly DJ seemed genuinely proud of his artistry.<br /><br />"I'm so glad I'm here," said Lindy, who was smiling as though she couldn't stop.<br />"In this bar?"<br />"No, just with you!" she said, "I never see you." She hugged me. I felt a little guilty because I hadn't really wanted her there in the first place.<br />"Well we should talk more," I said. And that I meant.<br />"We will...Let's take shots!" The words were <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_1" class="blsp-spelling-error">oxymoronic</span> out of her clean and smart face.<br /><br />The grease balls near us had been watching us over their glasses the whole time we'd been there. One of them, balding, and in dim light to a drunk mind still greasy, positioned himself in our direction on his stool.<br />"Ladies.... Interested in taking some shots?" he said. He had large facial features and lips that grossed me out. They were too big or too red, too something... They were on his face and he was using them to hit on my sister. They were sick.<br />"Yes!" said Lindy.<br />He ordered some. They were bomb something or others, and drinking it was an act which commenced a dizzying slope which would not subside until the following morning.<br /><br />The bar filled with groups like a sinking boat with water. Soon it was too crowded to move freely and the mass of <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_2" class="blsp-spelling-error">uncategorizable</span> sorts became faceless blobs as my binge persisted. Lindy had stopped drinking after the bomb from the grease balls. She climbed towards sobriety while in the meantime I plummeted into black. She sat still while I flitted around the bar witlessly.<br /><br />"You almost ready to go home <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_3" class="blsp-spelling-error">Laur</span>?" she said. I was talking to one of the grease balls. I wasn't ready to go, and was actually quite set on the idea that we weren't going home anytime soon.<br /><br />Another half hour of watching me oaf around with the seething brutes depleted Lindy's patience, and she led me up to the street, somewhat forcefully. I was stumbling around and bitter now, about nothing but nonsense, but in my muddled mind it was monumental. I didn't have to say anything. It was palpable how groundlessly pissed I was.<br /><br />"And why exactly are you mad at me?" asked Lindy, while we stood by the street waiting for a cab.<br />"Because this is just so like you."<br />"I knew this was going to happen."<br />"You knew you were going to be a bitch tonight?" I said. It catapulted a garrulous street fight, composed of verbal garbage. We forgot about wanting a cab and found ourselves lost in the upturned muck.<br /><br />"You know, I just realized.. you're <span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">not </span>a good person. you're ridiculous," she said. Her voice had remained relatively calm throughout.<br />"You don't know anything about me!"<br />"I know probably as much as you know about yourself."<br />"What do you want me to do?"<br />She said nothing.<br /><br />It began to sprinkle and the silence indicated that the heated moment between us had passed. With the same unpredictability that brought on a torrent of anger in me, brought on sudden guilt. I began apologizing for the things I'd said.<br /><br />"What can I do to make it up to you? I want this to be a good night still."<br />"Let's just go home and go to bed. We'll talk about it tomorrow." It was more reconciliation than I deserved, but my illogicality of the moment caused me to be even more difficult.<br /><br />Amongst the passing cars and cabs, an excursion limousine approached us. It was halted in traffic and I went into the street and jumped on the hood. The limo driver got out.<br /><br />"How much for a ride in the city and then back to my apartment uptown?"<br />"$100 for a half hour."<br />"Lindy get in." I opened the door for her.<br />She was reluctant. The traffic honked angrily at us while we debated, and eventually she got in.<br /><br />It looked bigger inside than I had anticipated, and we sat in the back on a creme leather seat. There was a display of multicolored lights on the mirrored ceiling and a touch screen stereo behind the drivers' tinted divider. A bar in the middle of the limo was fully stocked with beer, soda, and mini flasks of vodka and scotch. I turned up the radio and opened a flask.<br />"Let's have a drink."<br />"I'm done drinking." said Lindy. She sat in the seat with her arms crossed.<br />"Why can't you get over it? I just got us a limo..."<br /><br />It was evident that she wasn't over the street fight, but I was. Her demeanor was irritating, and again, just as fast as anger turned into guilt, guilt turned back into anger. We drove around the city for about ten silent minutes. She looked out the window at the passing sky scrapers and the nearly empty blocks beneath them. I watched her. I took gulps from the flask.<br /><br />'She should just get over it... She's just sitting there...We're in a limousine, why can't she just relax? She won't even look at me... This is fucking ridiculous. I don't even want her to be in here anymore. She <span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">can't</span> be in here anymore...'<br /><br />"If you're just going to ignore me I don't even want you to be here," I said.<br />"Fine. I'll leave."<br />"No seriously. Get the fuck out if you're going to act like this."<br />"Are you kidding me?"<br />I tapped on the divided to the driver.<br />"Hey, pull over. She's getting out."<br />He didn't stop.<br />"I'm the one paying you. Pull over!"<br /><br />The limo stopped. We were on <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_4" class="blsp-spelling-error">Lakeshore</span> Drive by Grant Park, miles south of my apartment. Miles south of <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_5" class="blsp-spelling-error">Sam's</span>. I got out and opened the door. Lindy was screaming indiscernible things at me. Indiscernible because I wasn't listening at all. I got back into the limo and locked the door. We drove away and I could see her standing on the side of the road. It didn't matter to me. I didn't care. I was so angry with her at that moment and nothing could convince me otherwise.<br /><br />I told the limo driver to go to a building about a quarter mile north of my apartment. He stopped in front of a neighborhood of homes, homes that seemed to have actual residents instead of renters. He stepped out of his door to open mine. Right as he stepped out, I ran out of the limo from the opposite side.<br /><br />I didn't have $100 with me. I hadn't thought of an actual plan to pay him. He screamed at me as I ran away, and I zigzagged down blocks to lose him. I could hear his tires screech as he jumped in the limo to chase me. I went in the ally of El <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_6" class="blsp-spelling-error">Ranchero</span> Taco, and climbed behind the fence and waited for silence.<br /><br />Finally I crept to the front of the building and went inside. The apartment was dark and empty, and I could tell from the state of things that <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_7" class="blsp-spelling-error">Cait</span> wasn't home. I laid down in empty corner.<br />The carpet was rough and my mind spun when I closed my eyes.<br /><br />I remembered a time when things were simple between Lindy and I. We were sitting in the back seat outside of a grocery store in our school uniforms. Our parents were shopping inside and the time alone in the car felt like eternal freedom. We had the windows down and we screamed riotously at people in the parking lot.<br />"You're ugly!" I'd scream. Lindy laughed.<br />"I just farted!" She yelled. The people in the parking lot would get angry. Some wouldn't respond at all. We feared and hoped for their reactions. It was the most outrageous thing we could imagine getting away with at the time. Nothing could have been funnier. Nothing could have felt more rebellious.Jena bughttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03811410391660026357noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6173885506870332229.post-77235714369192910172010-04-13T10:23:00.000-07:002011-07-24T15:15:38.194-07:00I Do This I Do That- Chapter 8VIII. Stray Cats<br /><br />I waited in the courtyard while Lindy finished getting ready. I told her the whole pee production was just deliriousness from working so much, and the fresh air would be medicinal. She was obviously skeptical but left in peace to primp.<br /><br />I laid in the grass facing the sun. The narrow spot between two sectors of garden wasn't exactly conducive to sunbathing, but I squeezed between the flower barriers regardless.<br /><br />I heard the sporadic sound of the fence opening then shaking closed, and shoes tapping on the gravel walkway. People entering and exiting the complex likely noted the oddity of my presence, but said nothing.<br /><br />In any small town this scenario would have caused some sort of raucous. Either the residents would chase me away with a broom, or scoop me from the garden and invite me in for meatloaf and beer. This was the city though. Wanderers fell asleep in courtyard gardens sometimes. No big deal.<br /><br />It was less than twenty minutes until Lindy walked out of the apartment.<br />"You ready to go <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_0" class="blsp-spelling-error">Laur</span>?" she said from the stoop. I sat up a bit startled from my garden bed, leaving a Laura-size imprint in the patchy grass. I walked over to her.<br /><br />She was wearing clean looking casual jeans and a gray v-neck t shirt. Her light brown hair sat on her shoulders, still slightly wet, but it air dried in a way that others may spend hours with products and electronics to achieve. She wore thick framed black glasses and her face looked subtly sunburned from the race.<br /><br />We took a cab to a tapas restaurant downtown, a few blocks northwest of the Magnificent Mile. Beyond us clusters of credit card traffic and congregating tourists were awing all day and everyday over the idyllic window displays.<br /><br />We sat outside underneath a big red umbrella, and the sounds of angry horns and cars accelerating with the stop and go traffic resonated on the patio. Lindy ordered a water with lemon, after debating for minutes about whether or not to get sangria.<br /><br />"It's really good here," I said.<br />"In a bit perhaps," she squeezed the lemon into her water.<br />We ordered the waiter's recommendations; marinated artichokes, Spanish potatoes, smoked salmon fillet and <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_1" class="blsp-spelling-error">Galician</span> grilled octopus sauteed with paprika.<br />"Lovely. Thank you," said Lindy, as the waiter set down a basket of warm bread.<br /><br />I felt out of it. I was sitting low in the chair craving some ice cold hose water. I looked at my glass disappointingly.<br /><br />"You look so tired," said Lindy.<br />"I am tired. It's more of a state of being than a state of mind though," I said.<br />"So you're always like this?"<br />"No. I was kidding. I just didn't sleep last night."<br />"What were you doing?"<br />"Nothing really...relaxing. I just can't sleep sometimes, that's all," I said.<br />"Did you go out?" she asked, not to be patronizing, but she seemed to be just curious in general.<br />"I mean, sort of. With <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_2" class="blsp-spelling-error">Cait</span>. Nothing exciting though."<br />"Oh, with <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_3" class="blsp-spelling-error">Cait</span>," she said, this time the statement was loaded.<br /><br />"What does that mean?"<br />"Nothing. Mom just told me about her that's all." She dipped her bread in olive oil and ate small bites.<br />"What did she say about her?" I was defensive a bit but couldn't help it.<br />"She just said it was a weird experience meeting her, and that it was random that you two lived together.. She just worries about you, you know."<br />"Okay well mom and dad just showed up at my door before graduation without telling me. <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_4" class="blsp-spelling-error">Cait</span> didn't know they were coming. They didn't even call me or knock!" I said.<br />"<span id="SPELLING_ERROR_5" class="blsp-spelling-error">Laur</span>, she was passed out naked in a corner of bottles, and there were stray cats all over your apartment. It wasn't the best of impressions." Her tone was light but I could tell she was actually quite serious.<br />"We were cat sitting!" I said.<br /><br />Actually, we weren't cat sitting, but we'd left the front door open all night. <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_6" class="blsp-spelling-error">Cait</span> had made homemade tuna <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_7" class="blsp-spelling-error">sushimi</span> and <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_8" class="blsp-spelling-error">saki</span> earlier that day, a recipe she saw on Martha. She was skeptical of the <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_9" class="blsp-spelling-error">sushimi</span>, but drank every last drop of the <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_10" class="blsp-spelling-error">saki</span>. Three stray cats had wandered into the apartment and were feasting on the food left on the counter. <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_11" class="blsp-spelling-error">Cait</span> passed out in 'empty corner' and woke to my parents, whom she'd never met, standing in the filthy living room.<br /><br />"Well why on earth was she naked in the corner?" said Lindy, just as the waiter set down the plate of artichokes. He laughed a little at our conversation.<br />"Oh I'm so sorry," said Lindy, "I think we'll be taking that sangria now!<br />"Good idea!" he said.<br /><br />I really didn't know <span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">why </span>she was naked. It was just another part of her ridiculousness that couldn't be explained.<br />"She has narcolepsy," I said.<br />"I notice you always say what you think I want to hear."<br />"That's not true."<br />"Again, <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_12" class="blsp-spelling-error">that'd</span> be the appropriate thing to say," she said.<br />"Well if it makes you feel better I do it to everyone."<br />"Scary."<br />I put an artichoke on her plate.<br />"Eat this, it's delicious."<br />The waiter came back and set down the white sangria with assorted fruit in the bottom of the large bowl glasses. It was imperceptibly strong.<br /><br />"But really <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_13" class="blsp-spelling-error">Laur</span>, about your friend <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_14" class="blsp-spelling-error">Cait</span>..." said Lindy.<br />"Can we just get off this topic already?"<br />"Okay just one last thing. They're only worried about you because they don't want you to be distracted by anything that would <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_15" class="blsp-spelling-corrected">jeopardize</span> your job."<br />"They have nothing to worry about, she's been a good friend to me."<br />"You met her at a bus stop, <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_16" class="blsp-spelling-error">Laur</span>."<br />"So? We graduated from the same school. Is there a list of approved meeting places that I'm not aware of? Why does that matter?"<br />"It matters."<br />"Fine. We met in class. Does that make you feel better? Either way she's my friend."<br />"You can't just make up stories. It doesn't change things." It was an ironic thing to say. She kept alluding to surface subjects, unaware of how much more complicated they were to me.<br /><br />"Well... pointing out my failures doesn't change the fact that they've happened," I said.<br />"<span id="SPELLING_ERROR_17" class="blsp-spelling-error">Woa</span>. Let's not over dramatize. The point is, you should get some more sleep."<br />"You could have just said that."<br />The waiter came over to us and set down the Spanish potatoes, salmon and octopus dishes.<br />"We're gonna need a pitcher of this," said Lindy, holding up her half finished glass.Jena bughttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03811410391660026357noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6173885506870332229.post-58385924861156870412010-04-10T13:47:00.000-07:002011-07-24T15:09:54.042-07:00I Do This I Do That- Chapter 7VII. Pee In the Courtyard<br /><br />Runner enthusiasts lined Marine Drive and I hurried through the anxious crowd towards the start. People in visors and bright colored shirts were shoulder to shoulder by the road, and I sweat from speed walking and the <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_0" class="blsp-spelling-error">ne</span> plus ultra <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_1" class="blsp-spelling-error">caffeinated</span> iced coffee I drank. I scanned the road for Lindy. Runners jogged around me in every direction, warming up, and several congregated in the shade of the branched awnings.<br /><br />"Runners! 5 minutes! 5 minutes till the start!" yelled the race official.<br /><br />I could see Lindy amongst the crowd, doing quick and graceful strides down and back from the line.<br /><br />"Lind!" I yelled.<br /><br />She heard me and smiled, big and genuinely. She jogged over.<br /><br />"HI!" she said, "Sorry I'm sweaty!" she hugged me and her arms left puddles on my shirt.<br />"It's okay I don't care! I'm sweating too," I said, "Is Sam running with you?"<br />"Yeah, she's doing strides."<br /><br />Sam was her friend who she ran with in college. She'd moved to Chicago after they graduated a few years ago. Lindy drove into the city from Michigan to run a road race with her at least once a year.<br /><br />"I'll see you at the finish?" she said.<br />"Yeah good luck!"<br />"Oh I'm out of shape. We're gonna do a nice little talking pace I think," she laughed.<br />"Whatever you'll probably win."<br />"We'll see."<br /><br />She ran back to the start. She didn't look a bit out of shape. Being out of shape in runners' translation meant performing anything less than personal optimum. 'Out of shape' for Lindy and Sam was infinitely more in shape than the average person, myself included. I'd accumulated side breaking cramps just ascending the EL stairs. I ran a mile in January, which only took place because of a New Year's resolution I'd made to workout. I reevaluated my resolution after the mile, and decided to change it to a commitment to think more positively. That too lasted just a few hours.<br /><br />The gun went off and Lindy and Sam got out towards the front of the pack. Lindy was elegant. She looked like a fawn amongst the various other runners. It was sort of laughable how fawn-like she really looked. In the beginning of a race everyone looks so determined. By the end most people have the most gruesome expressions on their faces, which aside from racing, could only be recapitulated by contortion. Some of the runners behind Sam and Lindy held their arms out far away from their sides. Some scooted low to the ground with short ugly strides. Some looked tired and stiff, even from the start. Lindy was relaxed and graceful though.<br /><br />I remember once after she had a bad race in high school, my mom told her, "Well at least you were the prettiest runner in the race!" It used to annoy me listening to her tell all of our relatives, "and Lindy has just the most beautiful stride..." After a few times of hearing her say it, I started some internal back talk. "We know mom! <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_2" class="blsp-spelling-corrected">Dammit</span>, she has a nice stride!" I'd think to myself. In real life though all I'd say was, "Yeah she does."<br /><br />The spectators clapped and cheered as they ran passed. Some cowbells clanked. I remember Lindy hated the cowbells. Personally they didn't bother me, although I couldn't understand how cowbells got all mixed up into sport spectating.<br /><br />A husky woman with bright <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_3" class="blsp-spelling-corrected">blond</span> hair cheered, "Go Tom! Go Tom Go!" Each time 'Tom' ran passed, whoever he was. This made me laugh. Of course Tom's going to 'go'. It's a race! Spectators always seem to tell the runners to go. As though they don't understand that that is the premise of the sport. Someone sometime in running history must have been dense to the idea that moving is the essence of racing. He must have needed the constant reminder to 'go'. I've never told Lindy to 'go'. I tell her to 'go faster'. I think that's a better piece of advice.<br /><br />I followed the bright herds from block to block. We walked fast across the city park, and each time the runners went by I was just a moment too late to cheer for Lindy. I could see her and Sam out in front though, behind a half dozen men, but leading the serious looking women.<br /><br />The race ended and Sam and Lindy were the top finishing women. They talked with other runners in the shoot, drinking small green cups of water and recollecting mile splits, and the accuracy of the K markers. I said good job, and stood near them, all too aware of how awkward my limbs were.<br /><br />Whenever I feel awkward I feel bizarrely aware of my arms. Should I put a hand on my waist? Should I cross them? No, that looks impatient. I settled with putting both hands in my pockets, nice and relaxed looking.<br /><br />"So I thought we could walk to <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_4" class="blsp-spelling-corrected">Sam's</span> apartment so I can shower, then we can do...whatever it is you want to do. Is that okay?" said Lindy. Her voice, even after running a race, was soft and calm, like I could be a baby or a puppy or elderly or dumb. She didn't speak that way to be patronizing, she was just meek.<br /><br />"That's fine with me," I said.<br /><br /><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_5" class="blsp-spelling-error">Sam's</span> apartment was a pretty place. It was distinguished with an expensive looking black gate and flowers planted in a shaded courtyard. It was a place that I would most definitely pretend to live in.<br /><br />"I won't be long," said Lindy, grabbing her backpack and walking into the bathroom.<br /><br />Sam opened the double doors to her courtyard facing balcony. They were French doors and I laughed to myself a bit, remembering the puzzled waitress, "That's all the French we got!"<br /><br />The old wooden floors were slightly molding, but I liked them like that. Below the coffee table was a pink rug with a green bamboo branch etched on it. There wasn't a TV in the room, but a record player sat in the corner with a stack of seemingly organized records. The walls were cool yellow and scattered photography was hung behind the couch. A black and white picture of a swing set was hung nonparallel to a picture of a crooked fence.<br /><br />Sam got me a glass of water and walked onto the balcony as she talked on the phone.<br /><br />"We ran about 6:15 pace. Yeah, it wasn't bad. I remember when it was easier though... I know. Yeah she's gonna stay with her sister I think... Um, I think she's interning downtown some place. I'm not sure where..."<br /><br />Oh no. She was referring to me, and the moment she ended her phone call I would be forced to regurgitate the details to my unsorted lie. I didn't even know what street <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_6" class="blsp-spelling-error">Edelman</span> was on. The location and details were of no importance to my parents, who didn't understand anyways, but Sam would know. She seemed privy to Chicago's professional world, and would surely see through any attempt I'd make to bullshit.<br /><br />After I graduated I needed to give my family some tangible evidence that my four years in undergrad had amounted to more than just debt and weight gain. I literally Googled "Chicago PR Firms", and <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_7" class="blsp-spelling-error">Edelman</span> Firm popped up first. My mom pronounced it '<span id="SPELLING_ERROR_8" class="blsp-spelling-error">Eatleman</span>' and believed I did marketing of some kind. That was all false, but the details were unimportant to her. She was assured believing that I had a degree required job, of any kind.<br /><br />Sam was the type of city newbie who had taken a personal interest in knowing the exact location of everything south of Lawrence. I could imagine her in random conversation, "Oh that's off of <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_9" class="blsp-spelling-error">Wacker</span> right? Yeah I know exactly where that is." Which I'm sure she did. I'd lived in the city for five years and still got lost on a weekly basis. Why wouldn't I? It's a big place.<br /><br />The spot in my brain which is capable of absorbing the frivolities of intersections and locations of boutiques was occupied by other things. Insubstantial things, I'll admit, but more entertaining at least. I knew which used bookstore left free paperbacks in a box on the street every Thursday. I knew where to get a good pancake past 2 a.m. I knew which uptown bar had a dog who retrieved tips from customers. My accumulated knowledge was of incalculable value to me, but Sam and my sister measured worth by numbers... 'How much money are you making? How long did it take to run that race? How many hours did you work? How many months have you been dating? <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_10" class="blsp-spelling-error">etc</span>.' Countable things.<br /><br />I doubted telling them that I'd accumulated more than 30 free paperbacks from the Thursday giveaways would fulfill an impression of numerical value. It wasn't exactly measurable, but those little things did matter to me. All of the novels, some brilliant, some crap, had shaped me in one way or another. 'Much Ado About Nothing', some trash Danielle Steel, a few cliche murder mysteries, they were all there racked up in my brain somewhere. I may have not produced a W2 or celebrated a 6 month anniversary, but I'd had good moments. Nothing in the past year was experienced to appease the expectations of someone else. I did what I felt like doing. I was virtually route-less. That feeling I used to get after doing something I was supposed to do, like volunteer work or completing midterms, it wasn't happiness. I don't know what it was.<br /><br />Overall it became palpably difficult to discuss anything professional or wholesome. My brain was a sponge full of fireworks I'd seen at the pier on Saturdays, and stiff blue drinks I'd gotten from strangers on Thursday nights. I couldn't exactly have clean banter about my living arrangement, or the quality time <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_11" class="blsp-spelling-error">Cait</span> and I spent together. Being aware of it all made me noticeably deflated.<br /><br />I had also acquired a heightened sense of paranoia since the lie began. Whenever someone asked me what I'd been up to or where I was working, I felt like a guilty criminal in one of the murder mysteries I'd read. I became tense. Sam walked off the balcony and organized some papers on the kitchen counter.<br /><br />"So how have you been?" she said.<br />"Who do you know! What have you heard?" I thought to myself. I knew she was asking because of courtesy small talk, not interrogation, but when you're guilty of something it seems that everyone else is aware of it.<br /><br />On an afternoon a few months earlier, I was relaxing in the park with <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_12" class="blsp-spelling-error">Cait</span>. My mom called and I walked across the grass and answered my phone.<br /><br />"Oh I'm just on my lunch break right now. Yeah, I packed a sandwich. I've been busy.. I know. Love you too," I'd told her. A squirrel had come quite close to me as I talked, and when I hung up the phone it was up on its' back legs a few feet away. "What are <span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">you </span>looking at," I said to it. I clapped my hands and it ran away.<br /><br />"I've been good. Really great," I finally said, after a bumbling moment of ponder.<br />"How about you?" It sounded fake. I was trying too hard, I thought. I should have stopped at 'good'.<br /><br />"Oh I've been really great too," she said, "just busy working. I feel like I don't have a life."<br /><br />I couldn't relate. All I had lately was life. People always say they don't have a life when they don't have time to be irresponsible. I had so much life I didn't quite know what to do with it all.<br /><br />"Yeah me too. So busy," I said. The nerves had crawled from my stomach and metastasized into a knot in my throat.<br /><br />"I really have to pee. I hope Lindy's done soon." I was trying to change the subject. Bad topic choice, but I was desperate for any diversion.<br /><br />"I think I just heard the shower stop. She'll be out soon. So where are you interning again?"<br /><br />The dreaded question. All of my mental scans about semantics and how to fold my arms had volcanically erupted and I needed to leave, immediately.<br /><br />"<span id="SPELLING_ERROR_13" class="blsp-spelling-error">Edelman</span>," I said. I jumped to my feet in an absurd spout of panic.<br />"I'm gonna have to just go outside. I can't hold it!" I said, heading towards the door.<br />"What? Laura you can't pee outside! She's almost done. Just wait a second!"<br />"It's either that or in my pants!" I ran out the door and slammed it behind me. I didn't have to go literally, but I did have to <span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">go</span>.<br /><br />I felt like she was about to be the questioning officer in a heated interrogation room. In an old film she'd be wearing a fedora hat and pull my arm mercilessly into a black car.<br />"We're taking you downtown," she'd say. The room would be dark, except for a blinding overhead light. She'd move it over me when she talked, after pacing back and forth intimidatingly.<br />"Why are you lying about your job!" She'd say.<br />"I'm innocent!" I would yell back.<br />"You went to college. You're supposed to get a job!"<br />"Why!" I'd probably cry.<br /><br />Lindy walked outside, her hair dripping wet. I was standing in the middle of the courtyard under the sun.<br />"Did you seriously just pee in the courtyard?" she said.<br />"No no. I didn't."<br />"Sam said you ran out here because you were about to pee!"<br />"Oh yeah. I did.. It went away." I said.Jena bughttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03811410391660026357noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6173885506870332229.post-15202037312078525072010-04-09T00:45:00.000-07:002011-07-24T14:57:54.628-07:00I Do This I Do That- Chapter 6VI. Closet Baby<br /><br />I awoke face first on top of a pile of clothes and miscellaneous garbage on my bed. I was still wearing my now filthy shorts and flip flops, and had sometime in the morning used a piece of paper as a facial mask to block the trickling sunlight from disturbing my sleep.<br /><br />I was somewhat panicked at the exact moment I transcended from dream to day, because in my vivid dream, I was trapped on a cruise ship of inmates and I could pull out individual teeth with little to no effort. By the end of my dream only one tooth remained. I felt my mouth. All teeth were intact, albeit vile tasting.<br /><br />It seemed sunny outside. It's hard to tell from my basement bedroom window, as half the glass is bordered by dirt and grass, and the upper half above pavement is just a six inch space for light to creep in. The previous tenant had painted my little room dark purple. I had planned on painting over it, but never got around to it. The dismal individual ray of sunlight is like a crack into an underground cave.<br /><br />In my bedroom at home I had a wall of windows, and outside alpine trees towered into the sky for miles. With half-closed morning eyes the image is just a scene of green and blue contrast; the beauty is emphasized by birds singing, rather than horns honking and crazies screaming obscenities at dusk. Sometimes before I open my eyes in my apartment bed, I forget that I'm not about to ingest that image of soaring green branches. Instead I find the view of the purple ceiling in my hot little bedroom box. It always makes me hunger, but for what I cannot entirely grasp.<br /><br />I went into the bathroom to brush my teeth. The apartment was dark and torrid and the open bulb track lighting blinded me when I flicked it on. I appreciated the strength of the connection between my teeth and my gums as I brushed. The amount of synthetic emotion that my sleeping brain conjures amazes me. Sometimes I dream so vividly that the lingering trauma takes days to resolve. Even if the dream is pleasant, I find myself sad grappling with it's artificiality.<br /><br />The cold water ran and I stuck my mouth beneath it and drank from the faucet. It truly was more refreshing than drinking from a glass. A hose seemed to be a good investment at that moment, and I made a mental note to get advice from Steve about the matter. It may have not been the most civilized way to hydrate, but I tend to care less and less about being civil. I can remember a time when I drank bottled water because I was afraid of the tap. These days I'd probably drink from a dirty river if I was thirsty enough.<br /><br />It was 9 a.m, and my sister was running a 5k in Lincoln Park at noon. We'd <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_1" class="blsp-spelling-error">Facebook messaged</span> about meeting afterward, and I'd promised to watch her race. Caitlin and Lanky were now standing in the kitchen. He was leaning against the counter in her red terrycloth robe, and she was digging through the freezer in white briefs, presumably his, and a cutoff t-shirt.<br /><br />"Look who's conscious." she said. Lanky laughed.<br />"Zing!" He said. His teeth looked so white to me.<br />"I fell asleep in the cab, didn't I."<br />"More like passed out. <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_2" class="blsp-spelling-error">Abebe</span> had to carry you in. You were like a limp noodle," said <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_3" class="blsp-spelling-error">Cait</span>. She was <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_4" class="blsp-spelling-error">opening </span>steaks and putting them on the stove skillet.<br />"Who the hell is <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_5" class="blsp-spelling-error">Abebe</span>?"<br />"<span id="SPELLING_ERROR_6" class="blsp-spelling-error">That'd</span> be me," said Lanky.<br />"Oh. Sorry." I liked my nickname better for him. Even in the thick terrycloth he looked as though he was raised in a closet and fed scraps occasionally. It's sad that those closet kids actually exist. Maybe he <span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">was </span>raised in a closet and just never fully developed. It would make his break dancing skills a real heroic triumph, rather than some after school hobby he'd picked up in the suburbs, which was far more likely.<br /><br />"Steaks for breakfast, huh?" I said.<br />"Well, I figure we had breakfast for dinner. Might as well have dinner for breakfast," she said, scrambling through the nearly empty cupboards for canned vegetables.<br />"<span id="SPELLING_ERROR_7" class="blsp-spelling-error">Abebe</span>, can you peel potatoes?" She handed him a bag of them.<br />"Anything for my lady," he said.<br />She had her back to him and she looked at me like, "<span id="SPELLING_ERROR_8" class="blsp-spelling-error">hmm</span>!", her lips down and eyebrows up. I swallowed a laugh.<br /><br />I kept subconsciously holding my jaw and chomping my teeth, still reveling over my dream.<br /><br />"What's the matter. You have a toothache or something?" said <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_9" class="blsp-spelling-error">Cait</span>.<br />"No. It's just this dream I had. All of my teeth fell out of my mouth. They just kept pulling out like flowers out of the ground. It really freaked me out," I said, still holding my jaw.<br />"You know what that means, don't you?" She stopped what she was doing and stared at me.<br />"Oh here we go..." I said, rolling my eyes.<br />"What?" Said Lanky.<br />"Don't listen to her. Caitlin took one psychology class and now she thinks she's a Freudian expert. She's always analyzing me."<br />"I took two classes first of all, and much independent research!" She said defensively.<br />"Yeah, on <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_10" class="blsp-spelling-error">Wikipedia</span>," I said.<br />"Regardless. If your teeth fall out during a dream it means that you feel you have no control over yourself or your life," she talked with her hands, scholastic in tone.<br />"Whatever."<br />"No seriously! Is that really how you feel?" She put her hand on my shoulder and stroked her chin with her thumb and pointer finger like a contemplative detective.<br />"You're fucking crazy. That's how I feel," I said.<br /><br />"Wanna hear my dream? I dreamt I was in an auditorium full of Styrofoam and I kept throwing up, but it wasn't puke, it was gummy worms. I really didn't like the way the Styrofoam felt on me. There were a few other people in there and they all had mustaches..." she looked at the ceiling in thought.<br />"Freudian me that!" she said.<br />"It means what I just told you. You're fucking crazy."<br />"No. You're just a predictable brain and my imagination is genius," she said, seasoning the steaks and adjusting the stove top heat.<br />"Want to hear my dream?" said Lanky.<br />"No! Don't tell her <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_11" class="blsp-spelling-error">Abebe</span>, she'll never stop analyzing you. Hopefully you're not a mommas boy because she'll accuse you of having an Oedipus complex!" I said.<br />Caitlin froze and looked at him.<br />"You're not, are you?" she said.<br />"My dad raised me," he said.<br />"Good. That <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_12" class="blsp-spelling-error">shit's</span> gross."<br /><br />I thought I may caution her later to steer clear of the childhood questions, just in case he was a closet baby.<br /><br />The steaks sizzled in the skillet and <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_13" class="blsp-spelling-error">Abebe's</span> peeled potatoes were sorry and nicked. Caitlin sliced them and placed them in boiling water.<br />"Who wants milk?" she said.<br />"I'm not eating. But this is important. My sister's in town tonight, and I need to make sure you know the rules of my family.<br />"I know, I know. No naked struts, especially bottomless. No conspicuous one night stands," she looked towards <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_14" class="blsp-spelling-error">Abebe</span>, "no offense to you," she said.<br />"It's cool," said <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_15" class="blsp-spelling-error">Abebe</span>.<br />"And no repeating any stories about you, good or bad, past, present, or future." she turned the steaks over.<br /><br />"And what have I been doing this past year?" I said.<br />"You've been interning downtown at <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_16" class="blsp-spelling-error">Edelman</span>. You're the most important of the coffee runners and you've started to like the 6 a.m commute and the view from your cubicle." Her voice was trite and mocking me.<br /><br />"I'll kill you if you say that."<br />"Maybe I'll say it then I'll just kill you first. I'll be doing you a favor. This charade is fucking nuts," she said.<br />"Yeah so, why exactly are you lying to your family?" said Lanky.<br />"It sounds so much worse when you say it like that." I said, scrambling to clean up Caitlin's mess as she made it.<br /><br />"Laura has to lie because she's out of control and her <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_17" class="blsp-spelling-error">fam</span> is judgmental," said <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_18" class="blsp-spelling-error">Cait</span>.<br />"Actually you're the out of control one. And you're in my life so I'm responsible for you." I said jokingly.<br /><br />"Fuck control. There's no such thing as control," said <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_19" class="blsp-spelling-error">Cait</span>, "All we can control is when not to press the snooze on the alarm clock, and how often we fold our fucking laundry. You want to have people in your life who never press snooze? I don't. You should let me get naked. You should tell your sis you work for a dog and a pervert. Let her judge you!" Her tone was heightened with intensity. She got like that sometimes when some idea inflated her with passion.<br />"I didn't say she's judgmental. I wouldn't know if my family is or isn't. I don't want to find out though," I said.<br />"You don't know <span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">your </span>family? I don't know <span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">my </span>family. You talk to yours weekly."<br />"I know what their voices sound like. That's about it," I said.<br />"My dad and I are really close," said Lanky, who was obviously getting uncomfortable from being shunned from the conversation.<br />"Now that's the second time you've mentioned your dad," said <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_20" class="blsp-spelling-error">Cait</span>, mashing the potatoes. "How close <span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">are </span>you two, cause I'm <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_21" class="blsp-spelling-error">gettin</span>' a weird vibe..." she said.<br />I looked at his skeletal legs, which were crossed quite ladylike in the terry robe. 'Closet baby!' I thought to myself.<br />"Ignore her <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_22" class="blsp-spelling-error">Abebe</span>," I said.<br /><br />Caitlin moved gracelessly around the kitchen, slamming cupboards and dropping things on the floor. She was like a human tornado and would surely cause any <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_23" class="blsp-spelling-error">OCD</span> person to have a mild stroke. She bent down savagely to reach a cupboard below the counter, spread eagle with her knees bent. She would have retrieved something from the floor in the same manner even if she were naked. There was something perceptibly foul about her mannerisms, but at the same time it was all excusable. That was just Caitlin.<br /><br />"It's almost ready <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_24" class="blsp-spelling-error">Abebe</span>," she said.<br /><br />I scrambled around the living room with two garbage bags, one for actual garbage and one for miscellaneous knickknacks that needed to be stowed away for sister night.<br /><br />There was a half eaten sandwich doused in mustard sitting on the coffee table. Empty bags of takeout and half full boxes of stale cereal were scattered around the room. The corner by the foyer closet was lined with discarded bottles, an area Caitlin had deemed, 'empty corner'. I threw them all away, and stowed her stacks of magazines and posters of <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_25" class="blsp-spelling-error">nearly naked</span> boys in the knickknack bag.<br /><br />We'd also retrieved several posters and street signs from Caitlin's city expeditions, all which I set in her room. She'd stolen a life size cut out of George Bush from a party store and we'd used it as hat rack. She dressed it up sometimes, and now he was wearing a cardigan sweater and a sun hat. I started moving it into her room.<br /><br />"Oh leave Bushy out!" said <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_26" class="blsp-spelling-error">Cait</span>, "It could earn you points if your sis is conservative."<br />"Fine. But these are going in your room," I said, holding up an assortment of banners. One said "Circus This Way!", with a large arrow pointing left. One said "Have You Been Saved?", with the image of Christ's face below bold black font.<br /><br />"Again. I can't see how those things won't make the two of you anything but closer," said <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_27" class="blsp-spelling-error">Cait</span>.<br /><br />I folded the blankets on the sofa and accepted the state of the room. It was clean enough, in every sense of the word. Caitlin and <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_28" class="blsp-spelling-error">Abebe</span> moved onto the couch with their steak plates, and she put in a Martha Stewart DVD. She recorded every episode, and the collection was the only thing she was meticulous about. She categorized them by date and kept them in her room away from 'randoms and street bums', according to her.<br /><br />"What the fuck is this?" said <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_29" class="blsp-spelling-error">Abebe</span>.<br />"Don't talk when Martha is speaking!" said <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_30" class="blsp-spelling-error">Cait</span>, turning up the volume.<br />"How can you watch this?"<br />"Listen 'Bebe. Did I not just cook you the breakfast of a lifetime? Don't <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_31" class="blsp-spelling-error">diss</span> Martha."<br />"What's so great about her?"<br />"The woman is an ex con who can turn a box of crayons into a birdhouse with a tasty, yet nutritious, snack on the side. What more can I say." she said.<br />"I mean, there's just better people to look up to. She's just.. boring."<br />"Who's better?" said <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_32" class="blsp-spelling-error">Cait</span>.<br /><br />I was now listening from the kitchen while I cleaned.<br /><br />"Don't do it <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_33" class="blsp-spelling-error">Cait</span>! Don't start on that tangent about Martha being God!" I yelled over the hot running water.<br />"<span id="SPELLING_ERROR_34" class="blsp-spelling-error">Whaaat</span> now?" said <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_35" class="blsp-spelling-error">Abebe</span>.<br />"I didn't say she's God. I said she's <span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">like </span>God," said <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_36" class="blsp-spelling-error">Cait</span> heatedly. "The woman can literally turn a pile of shit into a centerpiece. She's an artist. And she's gotten even more powerful since she got out of jail...You know who that reminds me of?" she said.<br />"Don't say God!" I yelled.<br />"Jesus." she sounded so convinced, and I'd guessed she was leaning forward in her seat as she talked.<br />"I'm just gonna eat my steak now," said <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_37" class="blsp-spelling-error">Abebe</span>.<br />"You do that. And remember it was made with Martha's cowboy skillet recipe!" she said.<br /><br />Martha being her heroine was so ironic to me. <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_38" class="blsp-spelling-error">Cait</span> lacked any intuition of a homemaker. She tried Martha's recipes and projects constantly, which usually amounted to bread dough on the ceiling, or piles of glued Popsicle sticks on the living room floor. Sometimes she referred to Martha as "Mother". I'd ask her about her day, and she'd say something like, "It was good. I watched Mother make crepes and then I got drunk and spent $20.00 on tacos." I was used to the references, and it was humorous to see other peoples' reaction to her Mother Martha obsession.<br /><br />The morning dwindled and I took a shower and dressed in a clean looking outfit. The khaki shorts and blue t-shirt said, "I'm responsible, but I can be casual too," which was what I was going for. I shoved anything unusual and out of place into my closet and straightened the hapless papers on my desk. I put the dead roses in <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_39" class="blsp-spelling-error">Caits</span>' room, in case she wanted to make potpourri like Martha.<br /><br />"I'm out of here. My sister's racing in an hour, then I have no clue what we'll do," I said, standing by the door ready to leave.<br />"Some good clean fun I take it?" said <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_40" class="blsp-spelling-error">Cait</span>.<br />"Fresh out of the shower clean," I said.<br />"Which you've done I see. Bravo. It'd been some days since you last bathed..." she said.<br />"Zing!" said Lanky, looking a bit disgusted.<br />"She's joking," I said, "But seriously. Can you keep everything clean? Like no additions to empty corner, and no condom wrappers on the floor?"<br />"Not to worry, no way in hell is that happening," she looked at Lanky, "Again, no offense to you," she said.<br />"It's cool," he said, but really he looked a bit disappointed.<br /><br />I walked up the stairs and it was like I was emerging from a red eye flight into a new world. Since moving into the basement, days had never been so bright. I waved inside "El <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_41" class="blsp-spelling-error">Rachero</span> Taco" to Javier and walked west, squinting into the day.Jena bughttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03811410391660026357noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6173885506870332229.post-56368329751299012622010-04-08T07:57:00.000-07:002014-07-10T13:36:02.108-07:00I Do This I Do That- Chapter 5V. <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">Paigebrook</span><br />
<br />
Caitlin lit a cigarette as we stood on the east side of the street at the furthest bar south on the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">Wrigleyville</span> stretch. Behind our backs, pizza and burger joints were dark inside, with freshly mopped floors and sleeping lamps. Outside them the sidewalks were nearly barren and still, and busboys and hosts congregated in the ally behind, tired and greasy, shifting weight in worn shoes and venting about management and stingy tippers.<br />
<br />
Before us the sidewalks were alive with movers, gallivanting from bar to bar. Girls in calculated outfits debuted summer scants and boys in white and light blue button-up shirts marveled at the mass of bare legs and side swept bangs.<br />
<br />
We walked north through streams of perfume and heavy cologne. Caitlin led us, and I felt like a midget in my flip flops amongst the swarms of tall gentlemen and girls in high wedges and booties. Most of the bars had open windows or street side drinking gardens. Those in baseball caps and t-shirts waited in a short line outside the bright bar with classic rock blaring. Those in shirt dresses and graphic black tees waited in a long line outside the bar with techno and house music inside.<br />
<br />
Some girls with ugly features perfected over by expensive makeup and quality hair extensions looked at Caitlin like she was a stain. She did look rather silly amongst them in her basketball shorts and belly showing tee, but she was unaffected by their judgments.<br />
<br />
"Nice to see ya, how's it <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">goin</span>'. Hi there," she said patronizingly, as we squeezed through the pretty drunks.<br />
<br />
"In here," she said, motioning to '<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">Nihil</span>', a bar where flip-flops and high heels collide. The bouncer was fat and bald, which must be a job requirement because every bouncer on this block seemed to be an identical twin of the next. There wasn't a line and <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">Cait</span> pulled her ID out from inside her t-shirt.<br />
<br />
"You can't bring those chips in here," said the bouncer, handing her back the ID. She handed me the two bags, one which wasn't opened yet.<br />
<br />
"Here finish these," she said.<br />
"There's no way I can eat two enormous bags of chips right now." I held them up to her, emphasizing what an impossible feat it would be.<br />
"Put some in your pockets then."<br />
"I don't want crumbs in my pockets!"<br />
"God you're difficult!" she said. She poured a mouthful down her throat from one bag and tossed it onto the walk. She held the unopened Doritos out, offering them to random movers.<br />
<br />
"Hey you want these chips? Hey take these chips." <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">Passerbys</span> walked off the sidewalk into the bike lane to avoid us standing there, likely assuming that <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">Cait</span> was crazy.<br />
"Here we go here we go," she said, noticing a homeless man sitting on the corner down the block. He had a long gray beard and wore an old blue sports jacket, likely a prized find in a dumpster dive some years ago. He had a bucket in front of him with loose change inside. We walked over to him.<br />
<br />
"Can you spare some change?" he said.<br />
"Here!" she said, tossing him the bag of Doritos.<br />
"I don't want your goddamn chips..." He threw them onto the walk. We both looked down at the chips, puzzled.<br />
"Sir. Foul move... Now I'm giving you a gift and I find it a little rude that you'd just throw it in the street like that," said Caitlin, picking up the chips and offering them back to him.<br />
"You wanna give me a gift? Go get me a goddamn pint!" he said. He smiled and crackled a laugh, exposing some grimy brown teeth that seemed they may shatter with a gust of the wind.<br />
"You'll starve with that attitude, you know!" screamed Cait.<br />
"Scram!" He stuck out his tongue at us.<br />
"Fine," she said. We walked back to <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7">Nihil</span> and left the bag of chips in the road.<br />
<br />
It was dark and loud inside, and a row of red booths and a long black bar was parted by a table-less walkway of loitering groups, drinking with few words in between, on account of the raucous of speakers nearby. We walked up to the higher level where dancing was happening, mostly by some sickly butt rubbing girls with tall men behind them, who held and glided the hips with their hands.<br />
<br />
"Get it girl," said Caitlin, to a serious faced lone dancer in a yellow mini dress. <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9">Cait</span> guided us to the bar behind the dancers and she coolly ordered two <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_10">Jamesons</span> on the rocks.<br />
"Bye bye," she said, tapping her plastic cup to mine. We snagged two stools at the bar and she talked fervently about the hipsters and their lame music and their unpatriotic attitudes and the ungrateful homeless man and how much she wished she had that bag of Doritos right then.<br />
"We can get food when we leave here," I said.<br />
"Yeah yeah stellar idea. I'm coincidentally craving a meat sandwich now," she looked passed me deeply and I could really see how hungry she was.<br />
<br />
Someone nudged me in my back with an elbow and a cold drink spilled down my shorts. My pink underwear would now glow against the cotton once again that day. I turned around and a fair skinned, short <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_11">blonde</span> boy was squeezing near me to reach the bar. His drink was empty.<br />
"Oh God, I'm so sorry. Did I spill that on you?" he said. His eyes were dark brown and recognizably drunk, because the left one looked lazy in the same way my fathers' did when he drank.<br />
"Yeah you did actually," I said, "My shorts are all wet."<br />
"Sorry I got pushed. Did I ruin them? I'll get you a drink. <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_12">What'll</span> you have?" he talked fast and his teeth were big and bucked, and if I hadn't heard his <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_13">midwestern</span> voice I would have thought he might be British.<br />
"Jameson, just on the rocks," I said.<br />
His face turned suddenly adoring.<br />
"Wow. Jameson huh? I think I love you," he said. He ordered two drinks and turned back to me.<br />
"What was your name again?" he said.<br />
I hesitated.<br />
"It's Scarlett," I said, smiling.<br />
"It can't be."<br />
"Why can't it be?"<br />
"You don't look like a Scarlett."<br />
"People don't look like anything," I said.<br />
"Sure they do," he scanned the room.<br />
"That guy over there? His name's Ted," he pointed to a burly fellow with a pug nose and a brown bowl cut.<br />
"And her? Her name's Ashley... or Sarah," he said, pointing to a girl in a purple tank top with a nose ring and dark jeans. She walked by us.<br />
"Excuse me. What's your name?" he said to her.<br />
She turned, "Kelsey," she said, "Why?"<br />
"Never mind. I thought you were someone else. Carry on," he made a 'cheers' notion towards her and she kept walking.<br />
"Close enough." He smiled and took a large gulp of his drink.<br />
"So what do you think my name is then?" I said.<br />
"<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_14">Hmm</span>... Something cute, like 'Paige' or 'Brooke'. Scarlett's too dramatic. You don't look dramatic."<br />
"I think you think too much."<br />
"No such thing," he said.<br />
"You look like a Chris.. or a Matt."<br />
"Oh yeah? <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_15">Why's</span> that."<br />
"Because that's what <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_16">everyones'</span> name is," I said.<br />
"Actually It's C.J, but my friends call me Wheeler. What about you? Do you have friends or are you just here by yourself?"<br />
"I'm here with her," I pointed to Caitlin, who was now in somewhat of a dance off with a lanky black break dancer, who was beating her shamelessly, and only I could see that she was joking.<br />
<br />
"That girl? Over there?"<br />
"Yeah, that's my roommate." I was numb to her antics. The first time I met her she was dancing, and I'd seen her moves a thousand times since. She took any opportunity to put on a show. We watched her for a few songs and Wheeler burst into laughter from time to time.<br />
"I'm meeting some friends but I'd love to take you to dim sum tomorrow. Have you gone? It's Chinese. We can go to dim sum and have yum <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_17">cha</span>. I'll pick you up," he said.<br />
"I suppose..."<br />
"Alright! Here, put your number in my phone." he handed it to me. I entered in the right digits, a rare act, and he drank the rest of his Jameson quickly before walking away.<br />
"I'll call you tomorrow <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_18">Paigebrook</span>," he said.<br />
<br />
I watched the crowd spilling past me towards drinks and more drinks, towards dancing and pursing one another. Songs carried on and Billy Idol wailed throughout the dense room. I started to feel drunk so I corralled Caitlin away from the dance off. She was resistant, like the crowd was expecting an encore performance and I was sabotaging it.<br />
<br />
"Alright alright. Let's go," she finally said. We walked out of <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_19">Nihil</span> and crowds of staggering loiterers stood in the street waiting for cabs. Girls with messy hair and drink splattered dresses looked as though they may have once been presentable, prior to sweaty dances and inordinate shots. The lanky break dancer and two other dancers, less lanky and more black, trailed behind us.<br />
<br />
"They're taking us for pancakes," said <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_21">Cait</span>.<br />
"Where?" I said, "I don't really feel like pancakes."<br />
"Then order French toast. It's right around the corner," she said. She walked forward fast as me and the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_22">lankys</span> followed behind.<br />
<br />
At the diner <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_23">Cait</span> ordered a stack of chocolate chip pancakes for her and the lighter lanky. The waitress looked at me, "<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_24">What'll</span> you have?" she said.<br />
"She'll have <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_25">whatever's</span> French. Anything French that you've got, she'll take it," said <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_26">Cait</span>.<br />
I confirmed with a shrug.<br />
<br />
We sat in a booth, me in between the darker two, who didn't speak. In fact I questioned if they actually could because I hadn't heard a word. Not a mutter. Not a peep. Not even a yawn. They both smelled too, like sweaty shirts from a musty closet.<br />
<br />
I got a text from a number, which turned out to be Wheeler. He said, "<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_27">Paigebrook</span>: dim sum in the a.m, yum <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_28">cha</span> in the p.m." It seemed subliminal. All I said back was, "meow."<br />
<br />
The waitress brought me French toast and French fries, and a bottle of Perrier to drink.<br />
"That's all the French we got," she said, setting down the plates.<br />
"Thank you thank you," said <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_29">Cait</span>, who was already putting syrup on the pancakes and sucking down the root beer she'd ordered. Her and the light lanky talked about beats and music, as she drummed with her fork on the retro table. I ate ravenously.<br />
<br />
Lanky settled the bill and we hailed a cab towards our place.<br />
<br />
"Let's hope <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_31">no one's</span> in our apartment," said <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_32">Cait</span>.<br />
"Why would someone be there?" asked Lanky.<br />
"Because we don't lock the door." she said.<br />
<br />
I rolled down the window in the front seat and rested my head on the door. The sun was rising and my eyes were heavy and exhausted. I could hear the waves of Lake Michigan, momentous and calm, nudging against the sand rhythmically. I made hills into the wind with my tired hand and my attention faded like the sunset. The conversation between <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_33">Cait</span> and Lanky in the backseat seemed serious.<br />
<br />
"Are you close with your family?" he said.<br />
"I left home when I was 18. I haven't spoken with them since." Her voice was vacuous.<br />
"I'm sorry to hear that. How sad."<br />
"No, it's <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_34">okay</span>. That's the best part of getting older, you get to choose which assholes you want to keep around," she said.<br />
<br />
It made me remember that my sister would be in town the next day. She'd be expecting to see me. I would need to clean up all of my messes before her arrival, if possible.<br />
<br />
The breeze was harsh on my face and I closed my eyes as they watered. I was falling asleep, and there was no way to stop me.Jena bughttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03811410391660026357noreply@blogger.com0