happened between us to sit down and start writing about it. Instead, I wander the one-room heat trap I call my apartment. I read CD titles. I pick through old mail and coupon flyers. I stare at the mess of magnetic words on the fridge: âSublime dawn.â âChocolate feather.â âHard anarchyâ (from Karl). I skim the scrawled lists Iâve hung beside themââMovies to Rent,â âCDs to Buy,â âPeople to Get Back in Touch Withââand inventory my cabinets: boxes of carbohydrates, jar of tartar-control cat treats.
For a moment, I see the apartment the way an outsider would: lonely, neurotic, vitamin deficient. A litany of beige foods. A cat substituting for a child. A kitchen that stays clean (but not too clean) in fear of becoming its mother.
My apartment is on the second floor of a gray three-story row house in the Manayunk neighborhood of Philadelphia. Most of Manayunk is made up of old skinny row houses squashed together on steep, winding, one-way, dead-end streets. Drink too much, then walk too fast, and the neighborhood can make you dizzy. The residents are a mix of big, thick-skinned families who havenât moved for ten generations sitting on their front stoops, chewing on cheesesteaks and cigarettes, and a new wave of twenty-somethings who rent group houses and flood the bars, coffee shops and art galleries on the newly revived Main Street.
My downstairs neighbor is your classic old-time Yunker: a sixtyish chain-smoker named Margaret with a raspy voice and a chihuahua who yaps at the sound of a light breeze. Her windows are crowded with garish suncatchers, angel statuettes, and this ominous pair of stickers: WELCOME JESUS and BEWARE OF DOG. By now, Iâve grown immune to the sounds and smells of Salem Ultras and Who Wants To Be a Millionaire seeping through my floorboards.
Until recently, my upstairs neighbors were a young couple: Chloe, a vegetarian sculptor, and Mark, an investment banker. Shockingly, they broke up. (âFundamental differences,â Chloe spat, when I ran into her outside by the trash cans throwing away pottery shards.) My new neighbor I havenât met or even seen yet. Iâve heard him, though: pianist. Typical, new-wave Manayunk. Probably a closet case with no phone or friends or overhead lights.
I open a cabinet, rip open a pouch of chicken-flavored ramen and wander to the east corner/living room, crunching it raw. Outside itâs drizzly and depressing, but that doesnât stop some neighborhood kids from playing stickball in the street. For bases, theyâve grabbed up some of the arrogant orange cones and frayed lawn chairs people line by the sidewalk to hold their parking spots.
I flick on the plastic fan in the window, pick up the phone, and dial Hannah. âIâm here,â I tell her machine. âKarl isnât. Call me.â To Andrewâs machine I say only, âHey, call me back,â trying to distill any desperation from my voice in case Kimberley happens to hear it. I wonder where my two best friends could possibly be on a rainy Sunday afternoon at 4:27. Everyone is home on Sunday afternoons at 4:27. Thatâs the time when people watch sports and eat roast beef. The streets are empty, except for kids and orange cones, on Sunday afternoons at 4:27.
I put down the phone and roam my bookshelves, open Ulysses for the hundredth time, read one line, close it. I consider paying a few bills, just so I havenât completely lied to Karl about my plans for the afternoon (since itâs pretty clear Iâm not unwinding) but in the end, I donât pay or do anything. In the end, I reach for Leroy, my mean gray ball of a cat who on the rare occasion will sense my distress and show me affection, and flop down on my bed. Ramen and Leroy. Loveâs last resort.
I hate this part. The part between the middle and the end, between the conversation where you need to âunwindâ (i.e.,
For a moment, I see the apartment the way an outsider would: lonely, neurotic, vitamin deficient. A litany of beige foods. A cat substituting for a child. A kitchen that stays clean (but not too clean) in fear of becoming its mother.
My apartment is on the second floor of a gray three-story row house in the Manayunk neighborhood of Philadelphia. Most of Manayunk is made up of old skinny row houses squashed together on steep, winding, one-way, dead-end streets. Drink too much, then walk too fast, and the neighborhood can make you dizzy. The residents are a mix of big, thick-skinned families who havenât moved for ten generations sitting on their front stoops, chewing on cheesesteaks and cigarettes, and a new wave of twenty-somethings who rent group houses and flood the bars, coffee shops and art galleries on the newly revived Main Street.
My downstairs neighbor is your classic old-time Yunker: a sixtyish chain-smoker named Margaret with a raspy voice and a chihuahua who yaps at the sound of a light breeze. Her windows are crowded with garish suncatchers, angel statuettes, and this ominous pair of stickers: WELCOME JESUS and BEWARE OF DOG. By now, Iâve grown immune to the sounds and smells of Salem Ultras and Who Wants To Be a Millionaire seeping through my floorboards.
Until recently, my upstairs neighbors were a young couple: Chloe, a vegetarian sculptor, and Mark, an investment banker. Shockingly, they broke up. (âFundamental differences,â Chloe spat, when I ran into her outside by the trash cans throwing away pottery shards.) My new neighbor I havenât met or even seen yet. Iâve heard him, though: pianist. Typical, new-wave Manayunk. Probably a closet case with no phone or friends or overhead lights.
I open a cabinet, rip open a pouch of chicken-flavored ramen and wander to the east corner/living room, crunching it raw. Outside itâs drizzly and depressing, but that doesnât stop some neighborhood kids from playing stickball in the street. For bases, theyâve grabbed up some of the arrogant orange cones and frayed lawn chairs people line by the sidewalk to hold their parking spots.
I flick on the plastic fan in the window, pick up the phone, and dial Hannah. âIâm here,â I tell her machine. âKarl isnât. Call me.â To Andrewâs machine I say only, âHey, call me back,â trying to distill any desperation from my voice in case Kimberley happens to hear it. I wonder where my two best friends could possibly be on a rainy Sunday afternoon at 4:27. Everyone is home on Sunday afternoons at 4:27. Thatâs the time when people watch sports and eat roast beef. The streets are empty, except for kids and orange cones, on Sunday afternoons at 4:27.
I put down the phone and roam my bookshelves, open Ulysses for the hundredth time, read one line, close it. I consider paying a few bills, just so I havenât completely lied to Karl about my plans for the afternoon (since itâs pretty clear Iâm not unwinding) but in the end, I donât pay or do anything. In the end, I reach for Leroy, my mean gray ball of a cat who on the rare occasion will sense my distress and show me affection, and flop down on my bed. Ramen and Leroy. Loveâs last resort.
I hate this part. The part between the middle and the end, between the conversation where you need to âunwindâ (i.e.,
Similar Books
