Tuesday, April 12, 2005
curse
Saturday afternoon I spent three hours making the fifteen minute drive from my parent's house in the Sprawl to Jon's house for your memorial service. I took the long and winding road.
I drove by the house where I used to live, where you became my parent's "Number 2 Son" and charmed many dinner invitations with your grace and wit.
I sat in the middle of the street and looked at it for as long as I thought would be prudent without making the neighborhood wonder why some guy was just parked in the middle of the street blasting old Rush songs out rolled down windows.
It's longer than you think.
I drove the mile or so from my old house to your old house. As I drove, I half remembered and half imagined dragging some crappy old vinyl LP record tied with twine to the bumper, watching with mischievously destructive teenage-boy glee as it shattered into tiny pieces bouncing along the concrete and asphalt.
I sat in front of your old house, looking at the window to the front bedroom that once was yours, and that you gave up for me that summer home from college when I was in need of a place to stay. I half remembered and half imagined being more than half drunk on the Beast, ripping through "Batguy" in that room full of smoke and teenage girls in whose interchangable arms we would inevitably fall.
Again, I sat in the middle of the street and looked at it for as long as I thought would be prudent without making the neighborhood wonder why some guy was just parked in the middle of the street blasting old Rush songs out rolled down windows.
I drove to the grocery store where we worked together and bemoaned missing many a great weekend party but somehow managed to have a pretty good time all the same.
I walked the aisles we once walked, stocked and mopped.
I wanderered up and down the beer aisle, wondering what happened to the Little Kings (big buzz, little bottle) that once was our favorite afterwork beer, whether it was three o'clock in the afternoon, eleven o'clock at night or seven o'clock in the morning. Four for you, four for me. Sometimes we'd share with Matt.
Eventually I wandered back up to the front of the store. I stood as best as I could recall in the exact spot where we met and our friendship began when one of us bummed a smoke from the other and you asked me if I liked Rush. It was the deli then, we were both bagboys on break. The store has been renovated and remodeled. As I stood there I hoped nobody was watching and wondering why some longhaired guy wearing a nice but kinda dirty and slightly wrinkled suit with a t-shirt was standing with his head down in the middle of the Floral Department weeping.
I drove by the high school and circled the student parking lot silently debating whether or not to get out and walk around while remembering times shared with you and with Curtis.
I decided against it. It was just too real, the emotions too raw.
I wound through neighborhoods across the Sprawl, past locations that felt familiar even if I could no longer remember exactly why, to the other side of the tracks. Eventually I found myself driving slowly past the legendary 1805. It did not appear to have changed. The people standing in the driveway did, so I didn't stop.
I drove past the park at the end of the block. Many weekends after midnight we could be found running around there, wide-eyed watching the tracers flow from lit cigarettes or chasing frisbees in the dark.
Mostly I just aimlessly drove around, without a real purpose or direction, listening to Rush and smoking cigarettes. Kinda like we used to do.
I drove with slow contemplation down the same streets and alleys we once flew down with the wild abandon of adolescence fueled with angst and sometimes alcohol.
As I drove, I thought about and remembered that place where. . . that time when. . . that girl who. . .
And in a rare moment of clarity I had an epiphany: I am cursed.
Despite my well-known sheer comtempt, utter disgust, and complete revulsion with the Sprawl, you have cursed me to somehow love it.
I am cursed to forever love it because it forever binds me to you.
You bastard.
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I drove by the house where I used to live, where you became my parent's "Number 2 Son" and charmed many dinner invitations with your grace and wit.
I sat in the middle of the street and looked at it for as long as I thought would be prudent without making the neighborhood wonder why some guy was just parked in the middle of the street blasting old Rush songs out rolled down windows.
It's longer than you think.
I drove the mile or so from my old house to your old house. As I drove, I half remembered and half imagined dragging some crappy old vinyl LP record tied with twine to the bumper, watching with mischievously destructive teenage-boy glee as it shattered into tiny pieces bouncing along the concrete and asphalt.
I sat in front of your old house, looking at the window to the front bedroom that once was yours, and that you gave up for me that summer home from college when I was in need of a place to stay. I half remembered and half imagined being more than half drunk on the Beast, ripping through "Batguy" in that room full of smoke and teenage girls in whose interchangable arms we would inevitably fall.
Again, I sat in the middle of the street and looked at it for as long as I thought would be prudent without making the neighborhood wonder why some guy was just parked in the middle of the street blasting old Rush songs out rolled down windows.
I drove to the grocery store where we worked together and bemoaned missing many a great weekend party but somehow managed to have a pretty good time all the same.
I walked the aisles we once walked, stocked and mopped.
I wanderered up and down the beer aisle, wondering what happened to the Little Kings (big buzz, little bottle) that once was our favorite afterwork beer, whether it was three o'clock in the afternoon, eleven o'clock at night or seven o'clock in the morning. Four for you, four for me. Sometimes we'd share with Matt.
Eventually I wandered back up to the front of the store. I stood as best as I could recall in the exact spot where we met and our friendship began when one of us bummed a smoke from the other and you asked me if I liked Rush. It was the deli then, we were both bagboys on break. The store has been renovated and remodeled. As I stood there I hoped nobody was watching and wondering why some longhaired guy wearing a nice but kinda dirty and slightly wrinkled suit with a t-shirt was standing with his head down in the middle of the Floral Department weeping.
I drove by the high school and circled the student parking lot silently debating whether or not to get out and walk around while remembering times shared with you and with Curtis.
I decided against it. It was just too real, the emotions too raw.
I wound through neighborhoods across the Sprawl, past locations that felt familiar even if I could no longer remember exactly why, to the other side of the tracks. Eventually I found myself driving slowly past the legendary 1805. It did not appear to have changed. The people standing in the driveway did, so I didn't stop.
I drove past the park at the end of the block. Many weekends after midnight we could be found running around there, wide-eyed watching the tracers flow from lit cigarettes or chasing frisbees in the dark.
Mostly I just aimlessly drove around, without a real purpose or direction, listening to Rush and smoking cigarettes. Kinda like we used to do.
I drove with slow contemplation down the same streets and alleys we once flew down with the wild abandon of adolescence fueled with angst and sometimes alcohol.
As I drove, I thought about and remembered that place where. . . that time when. . . that girl who. . .
And in a rare moment of clarity I had an epiphany: I am cursed.
Despite my well-known sheer comtempt, utter disgust, and complete revulsion with the Sprawl, you have cursed me to somehow love it.
I am cursed to forever love it because it forever binds me to you.
You bastard.
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