Archives:
January 20-January 26, 2008
January 20, 2008
It's just past noon . I sit in a spotted gray t-shirt I used to wear in gym class in high school, and my flannel pajama pants. I'm sweating a little, from the way they overheat the dorm in the winter.
I get up and crack my window. The cold air feels nice for a second. I'm sure I'll be chilly in fifteen minutes.
I stare at the screen of my laptop, stretching my arms in front of me. I'm nearing the close of my first hour, trying to write my first piece for my non-fiction class. I started off writing about Teri and I watching for that ghost in the dorm. I tried to brainstorm some notes, but looking back at it, there wasn't a lot that happened. We had fun at the time, but it was mostly the two of us sitting around, talking, doing homework. That is, until that Halloween night.
By the time I started writing down what happened that night, I realized that I didn't want to write about the girl who was going to kill herself. I think about how people might have read about it all in The Window, or heard stories from friends. I think of how it's not my story to tell there.
And then, who would believe what Teri and I saw—the photo of the ghost?
I try to think of stories from home—of my family, of Matt, of Chang. I think the hardest part about this whole non-fiction thing, and writing about yourself, may be finding something that's actually going to interest anybody else.
An instant messenger window pops open on my screen.
Emmatellsall: preston, you awake?
I scratch my head. I think about freshman year, and how many of my Sundays would start that way—reading an IM, or a text message from Emma. Sure enough, the line I'm expecting follows.
Emmatellsall: want to get breakfast?
I catch myself smiling. Scooting the mouse over, I minimize Emma's messages. I peer at my notebook from class, where I have that first assignment written—to write about a significant decision in my life.
Emma's IM window flashes orange, signaling that she's sent me another message.
I think about how things used to be between me and Emma. I think of the first time we went to get breakfast together.
I remember why we stopped.
Setting my fingers on the keyboard, I begin to write.January 21, 2008
I rub my eyes, still tired from the night before. I spent most of the afternoon writing, then took a break to grab dinner with Chang and Brad. From there, it was back to my room where I finished writing, then read the piece over a couple times, tweaking it, making every word right. I didn't get to bed until about 3.
Teri bites off an end of her carrot her stick, leaving a little smear of her blue cheese dressing on her lower lip, before she wipes it off with her napkin. “Anyway, I ended up going to the office to do my homework, because I just couldn't get anything done at home,” Teri says, seeming to finish her story about Phoebe's loud and distracting Sunday sex marathon.
“Sounds like Phoebe,” I say, tearing off a piece of my bagel. I've noticed that the lunch options here at the Student Center Café have grown progressively more limited over the course of this year. Not many people come here for lunch, I suppose, most favoring The Lighthouse. Only reason I'm here is because Teri didn't want to stray too far from the office.
“So how did that thing you were writing turn out.”
“It was good,” I say. “Took forever to finish, but I got it done.”
“What did you end up writing about?”
I plug a huge chunk of bagel in my mouth, then point to it, as if it was a coincidence I took that mouthful then. I wash the bagel down with a long sip of water, as Teri sits and waits, only taking her eyes off of me occasionally, having another bite of her carrot.
“I wrote about a lot of stuff. Just life stuff, you know?”
Teri raises her eyebrows. “No, I don't know. Come on, what did you write about?”
I shrug, looking down at the table. “Just my freshman year,” I say. I'm not really lying. “Ups and downs, all that.”
“I'd be interested to read it,” Teri says. I meet her eyes. “I barely knew you then.” She tosses her hair over her shoulder. “I'd be interested to see if there are any references to some pretty blond girl you wished you could get to know better.”
I look down again, holding back a smile. “Yeah, there's a little something like that.”January 22, 2008
Emma lies down on her bed, stretching her legs out, then crossing one ankle over the other, as she folds her hands beneath her head. “So now I know Claire's secret boyfriend is older, not in school, and has dark hair.”
“How do you know he has dark hair?” I ask, scrolling through the NBA scores from last night.
“Found one in one of her books, and when I asked she said it may or may not have belonged to him,” she says, looking up at the ceiling. “Which, of course, means that it belonged to him.”
“Of course.”
“I would have thought you'd be more into figuring this out,” Emma says.
“Why do you say that?”
Emma shrugs. “I just remember when there was that guy on your floor freshman year who would never flush, and you kept watching to figure out who it was. Or how you were trying to match together Claire and Nick last semester.” She shifts a little, switching the position of her ankles. “It just doesn't seem like you to sit by and not to try to work it out.”
“Maybe there's not much to work out,” I say, staring at the computer. “Probably some townie we've never met.”
“But she wouldn't keep it a secret if it was just some townie,” Emma says. “This is somebody she feels like she needs to keep hidden.”
“Well, if that's the case, maybe we should leave it alone.”
Emma sits up. “You know who it is.”
I swallow. “Why would you—”
“You totally know. That's why you aren't guessing,” She looks down, then back up at me. “Is it Chang again? Is he not really gay?”
“Not an older man, still in school, and bright red hair,” I count off on my fingers.
“All right, but you still know,” she says, watching me a little more closely. “I can't believe that you know.”
“How would I know?” I ask, not able to look at her and keep a straight face.
“I'm going to get this out of you, Preston . Just you wait.”January 23, 2008
“The problem is that I didn't care about Elizabeth ,” a girl sitting across the room from me, with a long dark pony tail and glasses, says. “We start with the scene where the protagonist is sleeping with Vera, and all of this description of how hot she is. And that part actually works. But I can't wrap my head around why he cares so much about losing Elizabeth in the end.”
I scribble down notes in the margin of my copy of the piece I spent all Sunday writing. It's weird to sit here in my creative non-fiction class, listening to a room full of people talking about something that I not only wrote, but lived. When I was handing out copies on Monday, I couldn't help second guessing the subject matter I'd picked—the affair that broke up my relationship with Emma, and a little bit of the aftermath.
“But I think that was true to what the author was trying to get across,” Chang says. “Because when he was hooking up with the other woman, he was all hung up on her, and he wasn't thinking about Elizabeth . And it wasn't until he lost her that he realized how much he loved her.”
I cast a sideward glance Chang's way.
“Where do you see how much the protagonist loved Elizabeth ?” Benjamin, the professor asks.
“Mostly at the end,” Chang says, flipping through pages. “In that part where he goes for a walk and thinks about everything.”
“But that's when he decides that they were right to break up,” the pony tailed girl says. “That's when he decides that Vera's a better fit for him.”
“He decides that for the time being,” Chang says, “but he regrets the way things happened, and that when he realizes how much he's giving up—and remembers there was a part of him that thought he and Elizabeth would always be together.
“Memories play an important part in the piece,” Benjamin says. “There's a lot of looking backward. How did that device work for people?”
I had hardly thought of it as a device—just a telling of what was going on in my mind. I scratch the back of my head, and put my pen back to paper as the next round of comments start up.January 24, 2008
“This ain't half bad,” Dave says, looking around my room. “I always kind of wondered what it would be like to live in the dorm without having a roommate or anything.” He turns to me, “Not like I didn't like living with you, or the guys or anything. But you know—sometimes you want your privacy.”
“Na, I hear you,” I say. “And, yeah, that's part of why I wanted to job. Free single and all.”
“Definitely,” Dave says, nodding as he moves toward my computer, looking at the photos there. I'm a little self-conscious of the ones I have framed. There are a couple of me and Teri, then different combinations of me and the guys—at least a couple of Dave. It's strange with Dave not really being a part of my life now. Most days, it's like the photo is just a reminder of something out of my past. It feels a little awkward to have Dave really here in the same place. We just happened to run into each other outside, and I invited him in to see the new room, not thinking about the pictures until now.
He smirks, nodding again as he eyes a shot of the two of us. He casts a thumb toward it. “I remember that night.” He chuckles, looking away. “So this place is cool, man. We should hang out here more.”
“Yeah,” I say, while visions of the band hanging out here flash through my mind, and I imagine what Kermit would say as the smell of pot began to waft down the hallway.
Dave's nodding again. “Well listen, man, I gotta run, but I should actually run this by you. Me and the guys are playing at a few schools this weekend—Mysttown, Sheffield , Laggar.”
“Laggar?” I ask. “That's gotta be like four or five hours from here.”
“And the school's putting us up in a hotel—you believe that?” he asks with a laugh. “Anyway, we're making a road trip out of it. You should come, man.”
“Ah, I don't know, Dave.”
“Come on, Presto, it'll be fun. What, you on duty or something for the RA thing?”
“Well, no. But I think Teri and I were going to hang out, and she usually likes, like, notice or something if I'm going to be away.”
“So you've gotta ask permission?” Dave cracks a smile. “Sorry, I didn't mean it like that. I know how girls can be. Just think about it, all right?”
“Yeah,” I say, my eyes shifting between Dave here, and the picture of the two of us. “Yeah, I'll think about it.”January 25, 2008
I spin around, nearly spilling out of my chair, as the door to my room pops open.
“Thank God this week is over,” Emma says coming in, casting her book bag on the ground.
“Well hello to you too,” I say, adjusting my plastic chair, to be sure I won't fall over.
“It was just the longest week ever,” Emma says, sitting at a corner of my bed. “Three gigs for the Off Beats, two listening exams, and then I just got a new paper in my last class.”
“Well, I'm glad you decided to come knock on my door, then,” I say with half of a grin.
“What? You're the RA. I'm supposed to be able to come to you when I need to talk.”
“You're supposed to be able to knock on my door when you need to talk,” I correct her. “You know, like a civilized person.”
“Right, because you're so civilized.”
I look around me. “I don't see any evidence to the contrary.”
Emma rolls her eyes. “So do I have to leave right this second, because I'm not civilized enough to hang out in your room?”
I turn back to the computer, making a futile attempt to regain my train of thought, and finish the sentence I had been writing for my paper. “Na,” I say, reading my last few lines, “you'll just have to be extra careful not to offend my sensibilities any more.”
“I should kick you in the junk.”
I set my hands down, and turn back around. “That would most certainly offend my sensibilities.”
“Would it offend your sensibilities to have your ass kicked by a girl?”
“By a girl in general, no. By one of the least coordinated girls I know? A little bit.”
Emma opens her mouth, in mock horror. I remember having this argument with her time and again back in freshman year, en route to wrestling a bit, before I'd inevitably pin her down, and kiss her, and so on. “Well, I don't see what that has to do with it, given I'm the very model of coordination.”
I chuckle. “Right.”
With that, she's up and the game is on. She lunges her hands at me, and I catch her by the wrists. We stumble a little, before I shift her body weight pushing her onto my bed, as she giggles.
The door opens. I turn my head, and see Teri standing there. In my mind, I wonder if anyone knocks anymore.
Emma lets out one residual giggle, as I let go of her wrists, standing up straight. Emma sits up, straightening her shirt.
Teri crosses her arms.
*
I sit alone in my room, quarter after eight . Teri and I were supposed to have gone out to grab dinner an hour ago, then hung out, and caught a movie later on. Emma left quickly, and I apologized. Teri questioned what we were doing. Five minutes later, she was gone, and I was left sitting here.
I toss my little foam basketball up at the hoop on the back of the door. My stomach lets out a sound. I should get something to eat.
I can't believe this is how I'm spending my Friday night.
I pick up the ball again, hauling it toward the basket. It bounces hard off the backboard, and hits a corner of my desk, bumping my cell phone ever so slightly.
I remember Dave's invitation from the day before, to travel with the band. I pick up the phone, and give him a call.January 26, 2008
It's chilly now, in the late afternoon. I sit beside Dave on a picnic table, looking out at the highway. We're about 45 minutes from our destination, where we'll grab a bite to eat, before The Axis takes the stage at the Laggar College Student Union. For now, we sit at this rest stop, a couple guys in the bathroom, a couple hanging out in the van.
Dave holds out his pack of cigarettes, but I wave him off. He cracks a smile, setting the pack in his coat pocket. “So you really thought the show was all right last night?”
“Yeah, man, it was great,” I say. “I'm glad I got to make it.”
“I'm glad you made it too,” Dave says flicking his Bic lighter until the flame catches the end of his cigarette. “Feels right when you're there for our shows, you know? Just kind of reminds me that you were there from the beginning.”
“Those were some good times, huh?”
Dave chuckles. “Yeah, they were. Couple kids, just starting out in college.” He exhales a long stream of smoke. “Seems like things were simpler back then. Just you and me in a room, sharing notes and shit. You with Emma, me with a different girl every night.”
We both laugh. I run a hand through my hair. “But come on, looked like things were good with you and Cameron. There's gotta be something to be said for stability, right?”
“Maybe for a guy like you,” Dave says, cracking a smile. “Na, you're right. She's a cool chick—I like her a lot. It's just that—every now and then, I start thinking like, maybe she's the one. You know, like, the one for me.”
I nod. “That's cool, bro.”
“It is and it isn't.” He takes another drag. “I mean, it's like, what do you do when you wake up one day with a girl, and you know the days going to end with that very same girl, and so on and so on?” He shakes his head. “I don't know. How did you deal with that?”
I shrug. “I guess I'm used to it now. I mean, I was with Emma most of freshman year—”
“But that was a freshman thing, man. It's like a fucking high school sweetheart thing. You date a girl, get all invested—but you know it's not a big thing in the end. But you and Teri—that's one of those long haul relationships.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Would you say differently?”
I sigh, and reach out my hand. “Why don't you let me have one of those.”
Dave smirks, taking the cigarettes back out, handing me the whole pack. I pull one, looking at it for a second. I've never smoked a cigarette in my life.
I put it between my lips, and Dave hands me his lighter. I struggle to get the thing lit, until Dave puts up a hand, sheltering the flame from the wind.
I exhale my first stream of smoke, slow, surprisingly smooth. “I don't know, Dave.” I take another drag. “I guess that's a part of why I came with you guys this weekend. I just wanted to get away from her—from everything for a couple days.”
“I get that.” Dave nods. “I guess everybody has something to get away from.” He turns his head, then pats my back. “Anyway, looks like it's time we get back on the road.”
I turn, seeing Lenny and Bud coming out of the rest area, walking back toward the van. I take one more drag, then toss the filter out into a patch of half-melted snow and mud.