Crash

He drives past my house so my father won’t see and pulls up in the cul-de-sac circle, in the woods, and shrugs because he isn’t sure how to kiss me, he isn’t sure how to navigate the center console, or how to keep the windows of his Chevy from steaming up, or even the best way to wrap his arms around me to express what he wants to express, without scaring me back down to the city, without letting me think he just wants to be friends, so he smiles, and I smile, and together we sit together, just for a few moments, in un-silent silence in his Chevy in the woods, enveloped in the crickets and cold condensation and a decade-long crush and a soon-to-be crash.

They look up, not out.

“Remember when we peed on Kaufman’s car?” asks Steve.

“Of course I do. It never gets old. Except Kaufman did, and now he’s married.”

“Shut up,” Kaufman tells us. He’s smiling.

Graham is quiet but laughs silently. He looks taller, if that’s possible. All three—Kaufman, Steve and Graham—are over six two. Mike, who is five eleven at best, sighs contently.

We sit in the circle and look at the stars. They look out, not up, as Mike said once. We all remember.

We inhale in and exhale out and watch our breath evaporate into the hair.

“Remember how pissed Kaufman got?” asks Steve.

“Shut up,” says Kaufman.

“What about when L threw up in the woods over there?” asks Mike.

“Oh god,” I say.

“When did L throw up?” asks Steve.

“She threw up on Brian Leher’s dick.”

“Oh yeah…” says Steve.

Graham laughs silently.

“That night was terrible,” continues Mike. “And I think Brian filmed it all.”

“Oh god,” I repeat.

“What about that time with Kassi and Dana?”

“Old school.” We dismiss things easily.

“What about that time with Ghostbusters?”

“Ancient history.”

“Well I think it was awesome.”

“Were the stars this bright?” I ask, suddenly.

“When,” asks Graham, “in high school?”

“No, that night we peed on Kaufman’s car.”

We all snicker, even Kaufman. It was a long time ago, and anyway, no one was around to film it.

Thanksgiving Eve

The night before Thanksgiving runs not unlike a sitcom episode where the cast remembers past incidences, and they lean back into the couch and utter a few lines to set up old scenes, and the shot dissolves into something else from a different season with older hairstyles and dated plotlines.

The night before Thanksgiving should also be called National Eat Your Heart Out Formerly Popular Kids In High School Night. Gina’s had two babies and Tom’s gotten two DUIs. Everyone knows Russell’s girlfriend won’t sleep with him. We think she’s a lesbian, not like we care, but we feel for the guy.

The night before Thanksgiving, after ten years of shy smiles, is a good time to man up and finally kiss someone. It’s better than New Years Eve because it’s not scripted, is it? It’s not in that flashback scene, or anything the popular kids would notice. It is surprising, heavily anticipated and better-than-expectedly perfect.

Cabin Fever

In college, we would leave campus and drive a few hours north of Boston into the backwoods of Maine and spend the weekend at my friend’s cabin that, while equipped with electricity and running water and most of the creature comforts that had become necessary to our winter of 2005 survival, lacked two major components: television and internet. So, in the backseat of my used Saturn, we wrapped a towel around an oversized plastic container with a matching bottom, a little metal bowl and a big sack of grass. We sat around the kitchen table drinking glasses of aggressive red wine and took hits off the gravity bong, allowing the plumes of smoke to overtake the lofted cabin and lull us all into a quiet, post-adolescent thoughtfulness, the herbal smell dissipating only days later when we packed up our possessions—the plastic-cut jugs, the empty bags of grass, the wine bottles and corkscrews and university sweatshirts, the video camera with philosophical-leaning footage of questionable taste—, loaded them back into the Saturn and drove off with the headlights on bright, our eyes twinkling and our lungs darkening in the dusk.

But not Forgot-Ten

“Remember Graham’s party?” I ask.

“Yes,” he says, and sips his beer.

“Was that the one after prom?”

“No. It wasn’t after prom because my parents wouldn’t let me sleep over.”

“Oh,” I say.

“It must have been that spring. I think you had on a tank top.”

I laugh.

“And you kept asking if I was gay.”

“I don’t remember that,” I say, “but it sounds like something I would have done when I was that age.” I’m not proud, but I’m honest.

“It worked.”

“We were on the stairs.”

“Yes,” I remember. “Graham’s stairs.”

He wipes some of the condensation off the pint glass.

I look at his hands on his beer. “Was it nice? Do you remember?”

“I think so,” he says. “It was ten years ago.”

“As Time Goes By”

It wasn’t that we had planned on traipsing around all evening. That wasn’t the case at all. But the weather was nice and somehow hours had gone by since we left Hells Kitchen, walked down the High Line, and ate burgers in the West Village.

So we had walked east to Union Square.

“The architect dumped me here,” I told Peter. “Remember him?”

“Yes.”

“Well not in the spot, I mean, but on the other side, outside of the Barnes and Noble.” We we were walking that direction. I don’t know why.

Peter looked amused. “I got dumped here once, too. Not by this girlfriend, obviously, but the last.”

“No kidding!”

“She was an idiot.”

I laughed. People are always their worst during a breakup. “Well,” I continued, “I met the architect here and he said we needed to talk. But I already knew—I mean, how stupid do I look—what was happening. It wasn’t working out. I get it. So anyway, he said we needed to talk, and I interupted him and asked if he had brought me my glasses. Because, you know, we were dating, and I left a pair at his apartment. On his shelf”

“Oh wow. It’s good you cut him off. “

“Not really. It was a classic it’s not you it’s me. I saw it coming a mile away. And he forgot my glasses anyway. Took him months to mail them back.” I expected to feel a flash of that insecure bitterness creeping back, but I didn’t. I couldn’t. The architect had been right, after all. It wasn’t working out.

Peter nodded. “That’s lame.”

“It’s funny, but I never think about him. Of all the guys I’ve dated or even just slept with… I don’t know.” My voice drifted off as a homeless man danced by with a pile of jeans of his shoulders and a plastic bag in his hand. “I forget we ever dated. He was so negligable.”

“Guess he didn’t bring enough to your table.”

“Well, either way, it happened right there. Where did yours dump you?”

He pointed toward Fifth Ave. “Right over there. And she dumped me the worst way ever.”

“Worse than it’s not you it’s me? Worse that making sure this park and that Barnes and Noble always leave a bad taste in my mouth?” I challenged.

“Yes. Worse! She quoted a movie. She said: Where I’m going, you can’t follow.“

“Ah, Casablanca…”

“And she was a dancer,” said Peter. “Not an academic. Not particularly smart. But come on! Who quotes a movie for a break up?”

“God, that’s bad.”

“Beats yours.”

“Hey, I’m no a dancer,” I smiled the way I smile when I hatch a plan, “but maybe we should reenact our breakups. Like, to gain control over them and reclaim Union Square.”

The homeless man walked back toward us, dancing along with dirty jeans and dirty words, swerving and stumbling and smelling ripe with alcoholic sweat.

I shifted uncomfortably. “On second thought…”

“On second thought,” laughed Peter, “Here’s looking at us.”

Everyday is Like Sunday

“Is he still in love with you?” he asked.

“Yes,” I sighed. “Which is stupid.”

“At this point, yeah, still being in love with you is stupid.”

“Or, at any point, it’s stupid to be in love with me.” I wasn’t sure what I meant, but I liked that I said it.

He grinned. “All the time?”

“It’s stupid to love me except on Sundays at three o’clock.”

Changeling

It’s a terrible day and we all know it. And its not just the obvious, the bout that local news channels remember for us, but the call from my brother to talk about my dog who died on September 11th a few years ago, just ten days after I moved out, after I signed my Manhattan lease, packed bags, scratched the dog behind the ears and touched my nose to his soft, polished head and walked away.  After that, 9/11 always felt weird. I mean, I didn’t lose anyone. I, and all of us that day, just sank and sank. And now as I walk against the city pedestrians fighting or embracing the somberness, the smoke and images and memories and everything just barks and barks.