Falls Street (20) *** Chapter 10 – Blue-hazel Renee was the only person I ever told about Sarah Highroad. At the end of that summer, Renee landed a job at Ithaca College on the maintenance staff. She gets classes for free now. I don’t know what she’s doing. We never kept in touch. Since then, I’ve felt like I needed somebody else around who knew about it. I’m not sure why. After that party nothing much eventful happened for the rest of the summer. Things kind of fizzled out all over. Stories get old. The characters get spent. People have to change. For long periods of time, it’s just a rearrangement. I sometimes get afraid that a person can be idle for years just waiting to react again. I sometimes feel like I’ve lived a lot of big moments already, and I’m not going to react to anything for a while, not until the board is reset, the cards are shuffled again, and a new hand is dealt for everybody. A wave really did pass through us, and I wondered if it was going on to hit somebody else. Maybe, somebody else took the story one step further, but I was pretty well spent. I wanted to look up at the ceiling of my room and just take it easy. Ray would call sometimes. I’d talk, but not too long. He asked if I wanted to go to the baseball games, and I’d say I felt like staying home. After a while, he stopped asking and didn’t call so much. Once in a while, I thought about going to see Jeff over by the school, but I really didn’t want to see and hear the girls playing field hockey at all. It just didn’t interest me much. Nothing did for a while. Then, I sort of got into reflecting on the past, trying to make some sense of it all, casually, not really straining anything. I figured the best way to do that would be to tell the whole thing to somebody and ask them what they thought about it. I had to find someone who could be honest and impartial, but might actually sit and listen to the whole story. No one came to mind. There were a few things that happened late that night that didn’t even feel like part of the story. They kind of felt like a sliver of somebody else’s, and those are parts I don’t really think about too often. Later at night, when the lights were low and Crash on I were on Sarah Highroad’s front porch, we pretty much decided to go home. Ray’s car was gone. And no one was out back goofing off. I don’t know how we decided it, but I ended up knocking on the door, and the door came open real slow. Connie Stults was there, smiling away at us. “They’re asleep,” she said. “Everyone’s sort of passed out.” “Okay,” I said. “You’re welcome to come in,” she said. “But, she’s asleep now, Jason. They went to bed.” We didn’t hear anything from inside the house. Connie brushed her fingers through her hair waiting in the doorway for a response. “That’s all right,” I said. “We don’t need to come in.” “I’m sorry that the party’s died down,” she said. “I hope we see you out again sometime. It was fun.” And we said goodbye, shook our heads a bit, and started down the driveway. Then, she leaned her head out the door, and called down to us, “I’m sorry about Tommy, guys. I never liked him.” And then, she closed the door. We passed Randy’s car on the way out of the driveway. The windows were rolled down, and we could see fast food wrappers jammed between the seats. I don’t know what kind of car it was. It was just black and low to the ground. We joked about popping his tires or something, and then we started back towards Crash’s place. He said it’d be fine, and he went inside without me. By that time we were both overtired and laughing about stupid shit. It took me a long time to walk all the way back through to my house, and I had to cut through the back of the school to do it. It was getting so late it was early the next day. The sun was coming up bit by bit, clunking its way up the trees that lined the far edge of the fields. I cut across by the soccer field when I realized I could see my shoes real easy. I checked out Renee’s shirt, and I was glad that I didn’t mess it up too bad. I was afraid it got stretched out when Tommy grabbed it. I stood for a little while looking at the goals, thinking about soccer and all its feverous intensity. I thought of kicking some grass, but the light was starting to beam off the dew making it glitter beneath a rising mist. It felt like I was trespassing, and I really didn’t want to do anything more than take a good look around. And I saw her coming up the side of the field with her drink bottle in hand. She was already jogging in those brilliant stable strides. I had to laugh, again. It felt good to just stand and watch her running up to the field. She straightened her ponytail, set her bottle aside, and took one hop before falling into her rhythm. I watched her glide through about a half-mile before I decided to go back home. I had to get in before anyone woke up and realized I had been out so late. It had taken all that night just to get to her, and somehow, the hell and the wonder that it was, kind of felt right. It was already a great coincidence to see her at that time. I didn’t want to push it any further. Otherwise, I would have thanked her, and told her I was sorry about hitting her with the soccer ball. When I got home, I found my father asleep on the living room couch. The channel changer was on top of the set. In the center of the room, he had set up a record player on top of the coffee table. Inside, he had let a Roger McGwin album run all the way through. I shut the power off on the amplifier and let him sleep. Then, I went upstairs and curled up in a ball on my mattress on the floor. Right before I slept, and I’m not ashamed to admit it, I held onto my pillow, and I thought about a girl. I thought about what I had noticed, what I felt, and I didn’t strain for the rest. And I invented no scenario other than to be holding on, to be ready to fall asleep and stop thinking so hard about anything. I wondered what it would be like to be a comfort to someone. I wondered what it would be like to be a real hero. I thought about her running away before I began dreaming again. I thought about that hop into a stride, how effortlessly it happens. For some people it takes a single motion, and for others it might take a night. She never turned around. That’s what makes her a hero. I’m Mr. Breakdown, and I noticed this much. *** When school started again, I was wearing a red T-shirt and a blue pair of pants. Repetition is beauty, remember? And it was good to see everyone again. Colombo had come through with his amateur porno magazine. I didn’t much care. I was busy working after school at the supermarket where I saw all sorts of people all the time. No one particularly fascinating, except Renee’s stupid brothers who somehow possessed all their fingers, still. People bought mainly essentials at the grocery store. They weren’t really shopping. This made them very tolerable. Every one of them seemed taxed and irritable. That made me respect them, and I’d try to work faster on the register and keep them going as quickly as possible. Sure, a lot had funny teeth, could have used a bath, and probably didn’t need to buy that extra gallon of ice cream, but they were just people. They bought stuff that tasted good or else had to be bought. I made this little list of things that people bought that weren’t necessary. And it turned out to be a real short list. That always made me feel pretty good. I tried everything on that list, too, from the mint chocolate chip ice cream to the caramel covered rice cakes. It was interesting. I didn’t dislike it either. It was something to pass the time. People in the break room like to pass the time by smoking. It worked real well for them. They always had something physical to do. I envied that. I had a book, usually. It was kind of awkward, because I like large print, and the books get to be pretty big sometimes. It’s not easy to just whip one open in your spare time. I tried, though, and they started calling me “the librarian” and all. It was fun to have a nickname, sort of. I didn’t know anyone I worked with. They were just ‘the fat dude’, ‘the skinny dude’, ‘the shaved head dude’. I really didn’t pay much attention to them. My parents said they were glad I was saving money, and I was, too, not that I had any idea what it was for. They said college a lot, and that inevitable was on its way. I had to start making decisions, but I really didn’t want to let it bother me. I was pretty cool in the beginning. No one bothered me. By the time September rolled in, no one was talking about Starky, Crash, or even Tommy’s busted jaw. Things were pretty normal for all of them. Connie Stultz had that spectacular tan. Sarah Highroad was distant and peculiar. The Ruths were still assholes, but they didn’t mind when I came in to the gym after school. They were all just part of the background to me, anyway. I had a lot of agendas, all the sudden. Being what you want to be is a full time job, really. Once you realize that you’re bored, you realize that you’re not being yourself, too. Sometimes, I could sit and think about everything and that wouldn’t be boring, but if you’re not careful, you let this awful gap form between who you are and what you always expect to become. I know I’ve talked about that too much already, but I just wanted to make mention of it again, because I think I came to understand it better. You see, movement can be paralyzing. Once you get up to do anything, you realize all at once the distance between where you are and where you ought to be. It’s enough to make you want to stay put and just settle for thinking about the future. Lately, it’s been feeling like I’m trying to catch up. It’s weird because I don’t know what gives me this sense that I’m running behind. Maybe I just feel my life actually going by, and I’m getting a real sense that I’m only young for so long. Maybe, I’m just worried that I’m not going to make it out there in what my parents call “the real world.” I’m working hard, though, every chance I get, whenever I find anything that seems worth the energy. I think I’ve been putting myself together well, and I’ve actually found that simple changes of routine are probably the best way to get out of slumps. Of course, I also feel like I’ve been cutting down my reflection time, cutting back on all the hours of thinking I used to do, just because I’m afraid to. It’s like I’ve decided that thinking about anything for too long is a bad thing, and now, I’m just trying to occupy myself. It’s like I’m running to catch up, but something’s also back there that I’m running away from. That’s why I try not to think. That’s why I try to take things easy. I still can’t shake it, though. There’s always something awful about the world that’s trying to creep in, trying to get me to focus on it, so I can have an excuse to sit alone in my room again. I felt it every time I was flipping through channels late at night and caught a glimpse of one of the soft-core porno films. I felt it every time I saw Tommy Compagna’s car running while he waited for Donna to finish up cheerleading practice. I got a chill sometimes when Sarah Highroad would talk in class, always volunteering to read whether it be instructions for a test or a part as Ophelia in Hamlet. She was the first one to jump at the opportunity to be heard. It didn’t bother me to hear her, but to know that she was good, practically perfect through every word, that shook me up. It was like reading a secret book, feeling the impact of the words on so many levels, and not being able to share the experience. Everything she did felt like an ending, and ironically, I always feel like she’s the one, out of all the losers and wannabes that I’ve ever met, that will become something. Then, there’s me. What am I going to become? I asked myself this question a lot, while I bagged groceries. I looked for job opportunities in the faces of my costumers. I didn’t see a single face that looked like it belonged to a person devoted to his job. I don’t know how you can tell. I don’t know if I’ve ever really seen a happy person before anyway. My parents talk about the real world like it’s an inevitable dumping ground for unhappy people. And maybe that’s why I feel like I’ve got to catch up. They have me scared with all this talk of a hard life coming. It’s got me feeling like everyone gets only so many years to try to be happy, and the rest is just trying to survive. And to be so close to the real world, and to be just now starting to find out what I really want, it’s almost like I’ve been cheated. It feels like I’ve only been given a few months to try to be happy. And no matter what I do, behind it all, I feel like it’s not enough, and it’s not fucking fair at all. I don’t know whom to blame, and I haven’t got time to waste on blaming myself. So, I do blame my parents and the world they built. I do blame my parents and their generation and the generation before that for being too cowardly, and too damn bitter with their own wasted life, to go in and find the problem and try to fix it for their children. Sometimes, I think every generation has one main wish… that their ancestors are at least as unhappy as they were. They can’t accept ease. They can’t accept hope. They’re quick to point out the impractical. They’re quick to notice anything that’s applicable to real life, their lives, of stability and pain. Year after year, the rules are stricter, the confines are tighter, Mom and Dad damn those kids in the papers who vandalize and run crazy just like they did. Only now, kids are getting arrested. Only now, there is no tolerance for youth. They don’t understand that it’s not just our rooms they’ve left us to turn into. They’ve left us commercials. They’ve left us our own heads. They’ve turned ambition into plain old dreams that just let us get away with saying, “someday, I will.” They fail to realize that we can waste the best years of our lives by doing what we’re told, by being practical, by never having the guts to try something crazy. When Crash slammed into Mrs. Henderson’s fence. It wasn’t a crime. It was just a couple of kids, being kids. Can you blame anyone for throwing a rock? Can you blame anyone for breaking down and trying one last time to be young? They don’t understand that sometimes that little push we need is just plain old randomness. Sometimes, the only way to get moving again, to start interacting with the world again, is to stop caring about the consequences and just move forward. That wild spark can’t happen when people are always around to strangle out the air. I blamed my parents, but I know I did it, too. Every time I heard about a kid doing something stupid, I was always right there in my bedroom, quiet and good, because I hadn’t done it. The truth was, I never had the guts. And I was the best son a parent could ask for, and I think I’ve been damn near the unhappiest person I’ve ever known. When I think about that, I can get pretty pissed off. I even get to thinking about a revolution or something. That’s all pretty stupid, though. The world’s not going to change so long as it’s passed on from one generation to the next. The only way that you can have anything better is to reach up at take something new. That means every middle class loser stuck in a small room has got to fire at a target, be damn relentless, and never listen to a mother fucking soul the minute they start telling you how hard it’s going to be to reach your dream. Of course, it’s going to be hard. How fucking stupid do they think we are? Hearing about how hard it’s going to be… that’s how you get discouraged. They call it education, though, because they don’t want us to learn. They want us to accept a justification for what they have become, for their failed dreams. So many people in my class say they’ll probably be teachers, because it’s practical. And they’re falling for something, I can tell. It’s something that gets me as sick as hearing that beauty is repetition. If it is, are they supposed to be happy settling for a routine that somebody else set or did they have other ideas, less practical ones, about what kind of life would be beautiful. I want a beautiful life. I want it enough to care about the decisions I make. I want it badly enough to take chances. I want it badly enough to tell anyone, my mother, my father, my teachers, and my friends to go fuck themselves if they discourage me. I don’t want to hear about how hard thing are. I don’t want to hear all the reason I should settle for less. I want to hear about how it can be done. I want to find out how it will be done. And who is there left to look to? Not these faces in line. Not these poor saps buying groceries. Seeing so many of them is actually the most discouraging part of my life, knowing there’s so many people out there who just gave up. They can’t screw up anything now. They can’t afford to miss a payment or toss everything to the wind. Most act like the world is going to end if they don’t get through the line with their bread and milk in less than five minutes. Sometimes, I wish that everyone could have one day where nothing matters, so they could try really hard, escape the fear of consequence, and maybe, be the person they always wanted to be. I look back on that day at the party and think that it was probably my day. It was my first taste of life. It was my first beautiful day, and I could never repeat it, nor would I want to. Plans can sweep you up, though. People really piss you off when you start caring about what goes on around you. I wanted a book from the library ordered, and they kept fucking it up. I never really noticed incompetence until I started making demands. The whole world acts like everyday is Monday, and they’ve just been ripped out of bed. I had to chase so many college officials down over the telephone to ask them questions about their schools, and try to get a straight answer. It’s as if they haven’t even seen the place they work at. And I was just about to take a baseball bat and start knocking my guidance councilor’s head out of the ballpark. “Don’t worry about it,” she says, but there are fucking deadlines I need to meet. What’s the matter with that fat bitch? Sorry. I just get mad whenever I have to depend on stupid people. I don’t mind being in control. It’s the only way you can be sure you’re not depending on a stupid person. Of course, being responsible means you’ve got to be the one who decides what you want. For all the discouraging that others do, almost no one has the balls to force you to do anything. They always suggest, strongly, give a poor representation of the facts, and then expect you to make a decision. Going to college is supposed to be my decision, but from the way that my parents have grinded in from day one that only college educated people get good jobs, I can pretty much tell it’s expected of me. Fuck that. They don’t have the guts to demand it. They still quote the six o’clock news when they talk to me. They don’t even know they’re doing it, because to them, it’s all about doing what’s right and doing what any good parent would do. And they wonder why you’re not happy. And sometimes, this all helps them to forget that they’re not happy either. I don’t take advise from people who aren’t happy. All they can tell me is how to be practical about it. People interested in surviving aren’t interesting in living. People interesting in preservation aren’t interested in life. But, I made this decision that I would be a radio DJ. I kind of got into listening to some of those old records. So much great stuff never gets airtime. It never even gets a chance. People love their repetition. I don’t know if I expect to change that, but it would be an adventure to get out there and fight it on some front. It’s funny that I should get into music, too, because a lot of what makes up a song is just repetition of chords and beats. But come on, if that’s all it really was, would anyone ever think about hearing a beautiful song? There’s not enough time in a life to hear all the great music in world. There’s barely time to sift through and find a few things that you like. There’s definitely not enough time to listen to the same thing over and over, though. It’s just a waste. People don’t know what they’re missing. I know most people probably don’t care either. I’m sure a lot of people would leave good things to lie around and get dusty and die. But, there are some people out there who need a reason. Some people out there wake up in the morning and need to hear something new, to give them back their faith in the creative spirit. Maybe, they’ll listen to a CD and start to write something down. Maybe, they’ll just feel like changing their mind about one thing or another. I don’t know how it works. I just hope that it does. And it’s real hope. It’s a hope I’m willing to risk, and I’m willing to lend my voice to it. All the things I’ve ever had to say belong somehow with the music. And I’m looking forward to being heard. I got my college stuff all set after a while. I got all the papers signed, pestered all the incompetent people to get my transcripts ready, and I got my money together in a nice savings account at the bank downtown. It was a national chain, and I needed that, because I was going to New York City, no matter what anyone said about it. They can all go to Hell. I kept my focus, tried not hear too much talk, and shrugged off the warnings my relatives gave me. They called me reckless, even stupid, and my mother had a ton of things to talk about with her PTA friends this past year. I stayed out of it, didn’t even take the time to imagine what New York City must be like. I worked straight up until the last day, where it slowly began hitting me that I was seeing the final parade of Moonville residents in midst of their daily routines. I tried to smile when I rang up their groceries. The boss was always trying to get me to act more friendly. I was fast, though. I figured that was the most important thing. They just seemed to blur behind what I was doing anyway. They were all just part of the moving background. Just by dumb chance, though, right at the end of my last day of work, I caught a glimpse of the top of Carrie Ann’s head as she turned to go. I had bagged her groceries, taken her money, and given her the change without even noticing she was there. I didn’t even notice what she bought. And she turned down the aisle with her paper bag tucked under one arm headed for the door. I had already begun with the next customer when I could feel her leaving, when I could feel the ending behind it, and it felt so damn big and choking. I must have been shaking, because I lost track of what I was doing. I set a wad of money down on the counter. I heard the door open, and I heard it close. It felt like something jabbed me in the stomach and branded me. I felt the eyes upon me, demanding that I get back to work, that I be competent. I met her outside a few seconds later just before she got to her car. I shouted her name across the parking lot, and she turned around looking. She didn’t know I had been the one, until I waved my arm to her. I walked half way across the lot, and we met in the center where traffic would have gone, accept it didn’t just then. “Hey,” I said. “Hey,” she said. “I need you to call me,” I said. “Tonight.” “Tonight?” she asked. “After work, around 11:30,” I said. “Won’t that be too late?” she asked. “No,” I said. “It’s never too late.” “All right,” she said. “I guess, but what’s this about? Are you all right? Why’d you run out of there like that?” “Yeah,” I said. “I just had to check on something.” “What?” she asked. “Your eyes are bluish hazel,” I said, and I never forgot that. *** Acknowledgements: I wrote this story in a week and a half. My thesis work was getting a bit dull. I don’t really want to thank anybody specifically or anything like that. It was fun to be Jason Holmes for a while. It was fun to play the role of someone with a little more courage than I had at that age. I’ve been sick of adults writing about youth, using a coming of age story to provide justification for the fact that they became never everything they thought they could. It’s pathetic. It’s exploitation. It’s the kind of story kids are spoon fed all over the country. I wanted to write a story about a young person who is honest about sex and commercialism. I wanted to invent someone who would have the courage to blame without evidence, but the stability not to curse without cause. I needed this person because I am bitter about the way people over thirty are starting to look at youth. I feel that if something doesn’t happen soon, no one intelligent will ever grow up happy again. I’m not a philosopher. I don’t know what’s to be done. All I know is that the only people trying to understand the youth of America are the people who’re trying to sell something to them. At some point, maybe, I’ll be selling this book. I can only hope that it supplies a specific need, instead of filling a nameless void.
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