yorktown

terrified of this opening when it comes on the screen. my parents sitting on the bed, my mom knitting and my dad sipping from a st. pauli girl bottle. me sitting in the chair we bought out on 270 at ethan allen and so quickly became stained and withered. i always wondered why we even bothered to buy it; it was meant for a wood-floored sitting room in some suburban house, not the 2nd floor carpeted, cramped bedroom in a townhouse in the middle of the city. me slumped playing my game boy and not really paying attention and the light in that room is very yellow from the bulbs lined up above the mirror, what they call a "vanity mirror" but aren't all mirrors related to vanity?

night time then was pretty unexplained to me. i don't think i was fascinated with it per se; i understood it was a time that i wasn't allowed to see too much of. i also knew it was the time when the opposite element of life was roaming about. day was the environment of my friends, running between the buildings, the neighbors hanging out on the stoops and chatting, the cars driving by in a hurry. the night was empty streets and alleys and sidewalks chilled in ghostly white streetlight. cars drove by slowly and menacing, bass blaring or just gliding by silently. figures darted between buildings and claps of gunfire erupted from distant blocks every once in a while. you get used to them and sleep through it. occasionally, though, an errant shout or slammed door will rouse you from sleep. it wasn't until later that you have to sleep on the floor because once a bullet goes through one of the second-floor windows, your parents will never cease to worry from that point on.

people tell you stories, they float around the neighborhood. the cop in 2270 that walks around the buildings late at night with his gun drawn, don't even run into him coming around a corner at 2am. the crawfords had their shit broken into while they slept, the cops are standing around in the alley between 17 and 18 pouring plaster into a boot-print. bruce blew his brains out now the entire park circle is full of cop cars, cops are hugging each other and brenda (she went to high school with him) is standing by the mailboxes crying and staring at them going in and out of his house. two weeks later chris and that kid from baltimore and his sister who lived here for like two weeks while his mom was readjusting to single life were walking through the alley by bruce's in the middle of the night. it was fall and there were leaves everywhere and we knew we shouldn't have snuck out. we didn't even have anywhere to go or anything to do. certainly wouldn't brave it to the boulevard to hit the store for a soda. just walking around in the dark between streetlights and talking. came upon the alley and there in a pile of dead leaves was the yellow police tape they'd strung around the poles in front of bruce's. it terrified us and we split, running off in four directions. i couldn't sleep well for quite a while.

finding a bunch of 9mm shells in the curb on bedford and bringing them to school the next day to show my friends. that's when the hippie teacher molly realized that i wasn't really faking the whole "i don't live around this part of town" act. what a stupid bitch, this was before dre, who would have bragged about that kind of thing? she made a point to never speak to me after that unless she had to. whatevs.

wow i grew up in a shithole. not gonna take the machine back there.

abusing the machine

telling myself i'm not going to use it for a while now that S is gone. sitting in the living room by the window that doesn't look out on anything but a brick wall, for hours, knowing it's getting dark when the brick wall dims and i can't make out the spaces between stones.

slamming my foot in a doorway by accident. hobbling from couch to bed to fridge and various points between. more time staring at the brick wall. smoking cigarettes at a pace i know deep down is beyond unhealthy. the machine sits in the closet all this time but i'm not touching it, i am strong and i will see myself through this.

one evening hobbling to the train station, it takes thirty minutes to walk the five short blocks. boy, you're in a bad state, i say, but i board the train for new york anyways. as we rumble past apartment buildings i think of the machine sitting in the closet, in the dark, the crystal pepsi bubbling inside reactor six's chamber. it's cool, though, i say as i shift from one foot to the other, wounded to sturdy. it's cool because i'm strong.

in manhattan i'm waiting, sipping tea, reading over the paper but i can't focus on any of the stories. just scanning the fields of type is enough to keep me from really losing it. there's a giant clock behind me ticking towards eight but of course i can't see it so i keep checking my phone. 7:53. 7:54. 7:57. 8:02. i start to think this was a bad idea and even sitting gets tense. then there she is standing on the corner as my phone screen lights up. a few minutes later and would you believe it i'm as calm as the water in the reservoir over in the park, just slight ripples breezing through as i sit and think about how strange it all is.

it was raining so we took the crosstown bus and i thought to myself, well this is nice again. this is what S and i never had and i guess--well--i don't know if it's all nice because of a rainy night in september or a dim coffeeshop or what. maybe it's just that i've been sitting by that window so much that i just needed anything to get me away from it. from those fading bricks and that worn out old sofa.

six days later and i can walk again but boy am i still smarting. sitting by the phone as day turns to late afternoon turns to evening turns to bedtime. saying the same thing every morning before hopping that train to the city. tuesday night rolls around and i pull the machine out of the closet. sneak into the kitchen and fill up chamber six with a fresh 16 oz i kept hidden under the sink. from 1:42am to 1:43am i'm wavy but of course there's no one in the kitchen at that hour to see me.

wasted a whole bottle of fuel going back to that rainy night, opening my umbrella and then having to close it just as soon when the bus pulls up to columbus. sitting in the coffeeshop talking about maps, running my thumb along the edge of the mug over and over. sitting on the bus as it darts between the trees and leaps back out onto the banks of the east side like a big metal fish fighting the current.

went to bed bleary-eyed and stowed the machine back in the closet. woke up the next day and still nothing from the phone. was it worth it?