“I do recall that, now that you mention it. What’s your point?”
“No point, really. I just think it’s ironic that I should get a C- on a paper legitimately expressing my opinions about a work of literature, when I took the time to read that book and think about it, and that guy tries to ban great works of art, and he’s made one of the most powerful members of Congress.”
Jim laughs again. Who knew I was so funny? “A valid point. But to be fair, Bex’s dad has mellowed over the years. He may appear to lean far right, but I consider him one of the good guys left in the House. A true gentleman, more center right than perhaps he’d like his constituency—or his party—to believe.”
“He votes antichoice and against gay marriage. He’s the enemy of D.C. home rule. How can you say that?”
“It’s not so black-and-white as that. He may spout one opinion publicly, only to sway it otherwise behind closed doors. Progress takes times—and patience. He chooses his battles. Did you know it was a phone call from him that got the building permit I needed to get the old property on Q Street rezoned so it could be converted into the LGBT high school space? Did you know he’s his party’s primary supporter of foreign aid to Third World nations, helping to combat AIDS, famine, poverty? He makes sure those funds are secure when others would like it allocated to defense. Not all conservatives are the bogeyman, Miles. And look at the daughter he’s produced. There’s hope for the man yet.”
Glass half full people. Hate ’em. WAKE UP!
“I don’t agree.” I don’t know why I suddenly have so much to say. It must be the night’s lack of pharmaceutical enhancement in my bloodstream that’s turned my inner mute button to Off. Or it’s that just thinking about Congressman SOWM has my blood boiling. He is everything wrong with America. He’s that GO TEAM RAH RAH RAH, American-flag-pin-on-his suit-lapel, same old white man who orates about liberty and freedom and then authorizes the Pentagon to plunder other nations in the name of “democracy.” He’s the guy that had to go and make that stupid Bex girl who took away Jamal today.
Or it’s that Jim and I are talking around what—and who—is really on our minds.
Jim’s on to cigarette number two. He’s got a ways to go to catch up to me. “Why don’t you agree? Do you really think there’s that much difference between liberals and conservatives? In the end, don’t you think we all want the same thing: peace and prosperity?”
“Here’s the difference. I’m not trying to change them. I’m just saying stay off my body and don’t tell me who I can and can’t marry.”
Apparently I am not only amusing, I am bloody hilarious. Jim guffaws what are probably his first real laughs since Laura left us. “Miles! Of course you’re a writer!”
I don’t get the joke. “I’m not. I have nothing to write about.”
“Of course you don’t,” he says, dropping the laughter, his voice turning solemn. “You have no opinions you want to express, no feelings you want to share, not a care in the world about anything.”
He must have been talking to my mother.
“That’s right,” I say.
“Okay,” he says.
We go on smoking in silence, the cicada filling the void in our conversation. Jim stubs out cigarette number two and reaches for number three. Before lighting it, he turns to me, as if he has something to say, then he thinks better of it. He lights, takes a drag, exhales. He’s halfway down the cigarette before he finally speaks up, in a quiet but firm voice. “You understand that she was sick? That she had every possible source of help available to her but her mental state was such that she was just determined to do it no matter what any of us did to try to help her?”
“Yes.” I choke a little on the drag I am inhaling. Only I don’t really understand. I get that he’s telling me that Laura was receiving treatment; I don’t understand how she never told me the pain was as bad as it was. The crickets whisper their encouragement to me. “I’m so sorry,” I murmur. I’m sorry for your loss, for my loss, I’m sorry I didn’t know, I didn’t reach out, I didn’t help her in time. I’m sorry I don’t understand how to go on now other than just sitting here like this, smoking and hurting. I’m sorry I’m not even sure I want to go on.
My spoken words are barely audible over the crickets. But they’re said.
I turn a few centimeters away from him on the bench. No need for hugs or reassuring glances to close the moment. Let’s just take the sentiment at face value, here in the dark where we can’t see it.
Project Disenfranchisement
JAMAL’S SPECIAL NOT FOR HIS SURFACE QUALITIES—HIS nice looks and gifts as a performer. He’s special for his open heart. He doesn’t discriminate on the basis of color, size, sexuality, or weirdness; he’s anybody’s friend who wants to be his. I guess this explains why he can tolerate a Friday night out at the movies with a skinny white girl whose father strives to enslave D.C. rather than share a late night walk around the Lincoln Memorial with me, questioning whether Mr. Lincoln really did make the right decision keeping the United States intact. Since they’re not so United anymore and maybe separate was the better way to go.
At least I know where to find Jim. Two lost souls with nothing to do other than grieve and smoke, who share nothing besides a dead person, are getting to be codependent regular players in Midnight in the Garden of Talking and Smoking.
Insomniacs Unite! And Discuss! A carton’s worth of smoking conversations with Jim the last few nights have resulted in the following revelation: By any reasonable measures, I’m a lucky girl. I was born with the skin color of privilege, grew up without being physically or emotionally abused (he sidesteps the issue of Mel’s absence). I live in a free society, and I have a future if I should choose to take it. But according to Jim, I see myself as disenfranchised.
I ask, “What’s so wrong with that?” I’ll never be one of those people posturing to think or act “outside of the box.” I love the box.
Jim says, “Nothing. But understand that’s a choice you make. And if you see yourself as so disenfranchised, imagine how others perceive the way in which you reflect yourself?”
I’m not sure what he means but I know it’s not good. I determine to prove him wrong. I’ll be sure to stay inside the box while I do it, if only to be spiteful.
I’m not sure if we’re ready to talk about her but I can’t help myself. She never stops being with me. If anything, she’s getting to be more so. “Do you think Laura felt disenfranchised?”
He waits a few drags before answering. “I wish I knew what she felt. She didn’t share a lot, not even with her doctors, and especially not with me.” He speaks in a matter-of-fact tone that must cover deeper hurt; it’s got to be down in there, but I would never dare ask a gentleman so polite about the rage underneath the refined veneer he must feel about what his daughter did. “But my understanding from those who treated her is that mostly what Laura felt was pain. It overwhelmed her, isolated her, and she was in constant struggle trying to cover that up. Laura wanted those who loved her to believe she could handle anything. She agreed to take meds for clinical depression mostly to appease me. At least, she claimed to me to be taking the medication. But she never wanted to talk about it.”
How come Laura never talked to me about it—the person who would “relate” the most? Laura and I were blood. Jim was not. Her crazy was my crazy.
“How long had she been on medication?” It hurts to acknowledge to Jim that I didn’t know she was taking antidepressants. Like I failed Laura in not seeing past her beautiful face and kind disposition, to look deeper, inside, to the gnarly, hateful webs that ravaged her mind, body, and soul, to the parts of her I would have understood best, if she’d let me in.
“Since puberty,” Jim says, and I want to laugh. Who else but an old fogey would use the word “puberty” in a sentence, completely straight-faced? “But it was as if she felt shame in needing treatment at all, like it was a weakness, despite my constant reassurances to her to the contrary, despite the many
times I told her that the brave choice was to accept help rather than deny the pain.” He stubs out his cigarette and lights a fresh cigarette. “Miles, will you promise me you’ll do something?”
I exhale from my cigarette drag before replying. “No, I will not.”
He’s bumming smokes off me tonight, so I can afford the impudence. I know where he’s going. But just because Jim and I are getting to be garden-smoking cell mates doesn’t mean I’m obligated to accept the extraction of self-improvement promises.
Jim shakes his head, lets out that special laugh I seem to bring out of him, the one I would probably think was patronizing coming from anybody else. “Well, please know that if you feel you need help, need to talk to a professional about Laura . . .”
I get it, Laura. I do. Sadness—it’s your business, not a stranger’s.
I am spared from telling Jim “No, thank you” by a thundering bassline coming through the speakers of someone’s mama’s Saab driving down the back alley behind the garden. Bob Marley wails from the stereo. Rastaman, live up!
Jamal. Saving me once again.
The Saab stops at the curb and the stereo sound is lowered long enough for the emission of a signature series of “C’mon already, Miles” honks before the car stereo returns to reggae blast.
Jim sighs. “Go. Tell Jamal he can answer to my neighbors’ noise complaints in the morning.”
I don’t want to go. That Bex girl is probably in the car with Jamal. I remain on the bench, finishing my cigarette.
“Miles, if we don’t cut short at least one night smoking back here, we’ll both have emphysema before the summer is over.” I turn to face him. Emphysema. What a cool word to dangle, and so contradictory—all those pretty letters put together to produce one nasty ailment. Well done, Jim.
Challenge accepted. Project Disenfranchisement—start your engines.
Crash Landing
WHEN I APPROACH HIS CAR, JAMAL SMILES AT ME THROUGH the window from his driver’s seat. He’s the only person in my life I can count on to have this reaction to me. I know not to read too much into his smile. A fat girl should never dare believe an inviting welcome from a guy is exclusive to her, that it indicates any feeling that’s not purely platonic. Jamal shares that warmth with everyone.
“What took you so long, Sistah Miles? Can’t get a late Friday night truly started without you by my side.”
I glare instead of smile back. Bex is indeed sharing the car with Jamal, sitting in the passenger side. My side. Jamal’s driver seat is pushed far back to accommodate his long legs, but I step into the car behind him anyway, smushed, rather than get into the backseat behind her.
That’s what I’d like to be. Stuffed inside the box.
Bex leans over from the front and offers me a Twizzler from her jumbo-size bag of candy. She’s chewing on a single red strand, probably the same strand she’s been on since she opened the bag at the theater. I wonder if Jamal notices the licorice bag is still full but their movie must have ended a while ago. “Want one?” she asks me.
I want the whole bag. And a giant box of Milk Duds, too.
“No.” I turn my head away from her to look out the window.
Some people just don’t know when they’re being ignored. Bex adds, “Alrighty, but let me know if you change your mind. We’re onto our second Twizzlers bag tonight, so there’s plenty to spare if you want some.”
I want to be skinny, like you. I want to be in the passenger side seat, next to Jamal.
I bet Jamal ate the first bag himself with no help from her.
“Thanks,” I say. I hope she hears my insincerity. I return to my meaningful, silent stare out the window as Bex and Jamal engage in stereo-control flirtation in the front. Through the window glare, I can see them batting each other’s hands at the radio dial. They laugh and argue over which song sucks more, the one on the Lite FM station, or the one on the Christian rock station.
Barf.
Boys just turn into unrecognizable creatures around skinny girls.
Here’s what I figure (so to speak): If I were truly dedicated to transforming myself into a thin person like Bex, I would go the easy route and starve my way down. I’m just no good with commitment, that’s my problem. I would give anything to be anorexic or bulimic. But I am a failure at that too, C+ effort at best. How do those girls pull it off? Because I can’t help myself. I’m always hungry. I like to digest. Sorry.
On the scale of fantasy eating disorders, I’d weigh in with anorexia over bulimia. True, with bulimia you get to binge and taste something—anything, as much as you want. But puking? No way, so not worth the gluttony. With the starvation option, it’s ahhhh . . . niiiiiiiice, like a wholly-swallowed Percoset gulped down after hearing the news of an unexpected snow day, school cancelled, on the very day you had a Biology midterm you didn’t study for. Strictly first class enjoyable. Anorexia has got to feel the same way, first class high off the energy extracted by your mind’s ability to deny your body’s fundamental cravings. I’m awed. Even the word looks exotic —anorexia—like, all Latin-derivative, mysterious and complicated. What looks glamorous about three hateful letters linked together to spell F-A-T? Right. Nothing.
It’s possible I could be diagnosed with anorexia envy like some people have penis envy. A bona fide shrink would probably advise: Miles, you suffer from anorexile envy—one who covets the ability to exile one’s body into foodless bliss. Patient, I see that jealousy through all those blubb-o-layers of yours. You look at the gaunt girls and think, “Well done! You made a goal and you stuck with it! Your hair is falling out and your face is gray, but you’re in double digits on the scale. Girl, treat yourself—go out and get yourself a man!”
While Jamal and Bex engage in their stereo-control power struggle, I open the M&M bag stored in my pocket—carefully, quietly, so they won’t hear the paper crinkle. I pop some M&Ms into my mouth, letting the candy dissolve in my mouth instead of crunching it with my teeth.
We’re driving through Glover Park, a posh area just above Georgetown, which with its sprawling lawns and fancy houses feels more like a Virginia or Maryland suburb than a District neighborhood. The streets are sleepy. I am not. It occurs to me ask, “Where are we going?” Usually with Jamal, I let myself be driven, no questions.
Jamal has no need to answer. The Saab stops in front of a sprawling corner-lot house, and I see we’ve arrived at the exact place I didn’t know I wanted to be, but here Jamal has taken us. It’s the place that can undo my current, highly unpleasant state of stone-cold sobriety. Not even Bex’s presence is going to deny me the pleasure I know awaits inside.
The tourists who regularly show up at this street corner are right to be confused. Their D.C. spy maps list the location as being a famous “dead-drop” site during the Cold War, where U.S. government turncoats who worked for the CIA or FBI would leave confidential information inside the mailbox on the street, to be picked up in the middle of the night by KGB spies wearing U.S. Postal Service uniforms. But the infamous mailbox no longer stands at this corner, nor does the gothic old Tudor house pictured in the spy history books. The old house was razed several years ago and replaced by a ginormous McMansion that swallows the entire lot, leaving almost no yard space.
The local kids who know the true tourist attraction to be found at this site refer to it as “Crash Landing”—as if a UFO (perhaps missile-guided by some combination of the KGB, CIA, and E.T. at the controls) mistakenly fumbled onto this spot and destroyed it, then quickly constructed a Disney house on the lot to cover up the alien error. Fortunately, because so many tourists use outdated spy maps and books, their regular presence on this block helps distract the police and neighborhood residents from the other stream of regulars—local teenagers who crash-land here to get high.
The concierge of the house is known as Floyd. His real name is long forgotten. The nickname was given to him by stoner kids, in tribute to Floyd’s primary musical influence. Floyd simultaneously deals out of his house, and le
ts the stoner kids crash here. It’s like one-stop shopping. In Upper Northwest, Floyd is brand-name famous, like Target.
The Crash Landing house belongs to his parents, but they’re high-finance people who travel more than they stay in their own home. Floyd prefers “the simple life” of D.C. His parents reportedly prefer long-term absence rather than be regularly reminded that their twenty-year-old son is the antithesis of the proper preppy sons of their Glover Park neighbors, a Big Disappointment. I guess it’s a situation that works out on both sides, kind of like me and Mel and the Georgetown carriage house versus London. You take your corner of the universe and I’ll take mine. Cue that elevator song about the mother and child reunion only being a motion away, and try not to laugh.
When we enter the house, we see the usual suspects, the local private school kids, mostly white, but some brown and yellow diplomatic faces too, the underage rich and privileged who pass their weekends here. They’re well on their way to a happy daze of confused. Metal plays in one room, hip-hop in another. TVs show sports channels or soft-core porn, but the constant to each room is the drug paraphernalia—bongs, mirrors and razors, lighters and needles—spread out across the various tables. Beer and vodka bottles sit on every available windowsill (though all the shades are drawn, naturally), and ashtrays are strewn across the carpeting. The house smells of cigarette and pot smoke, of beer and hard alcohol and, wafting down from the upstairs floors, the whiff of sex—or at least what I imagine sex would smell like, kind of sweet and salty and scary.
Good God, I wonder who Floyd pays to clean the place before his parents return to town.