And all this reminiscing has made me long for a cab to speed down Sixth Avenue blaring:
It’s a miracle! (Miracle!)
A true-blue spectacle, a miracle come true!
Barry Manilow would give this all-out extravaganza of nostalgia an added layer of depth and meaning. His overwrought ballads have served as the cheesy leitmotif to our relationship, going all the way back to when I was sixteen and you were seventeen, and you put his Greatest Hits into your ancient Cadillac’s eight-track for our first drive to Helga’s Diner. That same night, after we bonded over French fries and our mutual disappreciation for fake Xmas trees spray-painted with aerosol snow, you suddenly pulled over on a deserted side street and taunted, tempted, teased me with your teeth, gently biting my bottom lip instead of giving in to the predictability of a first kiss…. I know Barry Manilow’s synchronistic impact has not been lost on you, Marcus, otherwise you would not have chosen to show up last Christmas Eve with a toilet-seat cover decoupaged with his polyester jumpsuited likeness—an apologetic peace offering for your two-year absence.
No taxi has obliged me with Barry; there’s only the omnipresent hip-hop, competing beats that bump and fade with the stop and go of the traffic light. And, alas, the Barry Manilow toilet-seat cover was not among the memorabilia recovered safe and sound in the MOM AND DAD box today. Herewith is a catalog of artifacts stored inside:
JESSIE’S JUNK
(Cataloged in the order in which the items were removed.)
• One (ruined) mosaic by Hope Weaver
• Rubber-banded bundle of forty-four handwritten letters sent by Hope Weaver between January 2000 and August 2002, postmarked Wellgoode, TN, to Pineville, NJ
• Rubber-banded bundle of twenty-six handwritten letters sent by Hope Weaver between August 2002 and June 2006, postmarked RISD, Providence, RI, to Columbia University, New York, NY
• Purple Post-it from Professor Samuel MacDougal originally attached to the envelope containing his letter recommending me for Columbia University: “Be great in act, as you have been in thought.”—William Shakespeare
• Copy of 2004 National Book Award nominee, Acting Out, autographed by Professor Mac; inscription reads: “To my best student, I’ve quoted this before, but it bears repeating: ‘We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful what we pretend to be.’—Kurt Vonnegut”
• Nine-by-twelve envelope containing sixty-seven photos all dating between 1996 and 1998; includes one snapshot taken at Pineville Middle School’s Halloween Dance 1996, in which four out of five seventh-grade girls are posing as four out of five Spice Girls in PVC platform boots and totally age-inappropriate Girl Power! gear: Hope Weaver as Ginger Spice, gamely rocking the iconic Union Jack minidress; Manda Powers as Posh Spice, spilling provocatively out of a black pleather bustier; Sara D’Abruzzi as Scary Spice, pre-rexy and still chubby, bursting obscenely from a chartreuse spandex tube top; Bridget Milhokovich as Baby Spice, relatively demure in a pink thigh-skimming baby-doll dress; and yours truly, caught on camera sulking stubbornly in the background, wearing all black, having refused to dress up as Sporty Spice because I thought the group costume concept was “lame”
• Clipping of New York Times article from September 3, 2000, “Will Cinthia Wallace Be Gen-Y’s Literary ‘It’ Girl?” annotated by Bridget Milhokovich in pink Magic Marker; commentary includes: “OMG! A billionaire’s daughter? Part of the Park Avenue Posse? HOW COME I’VE NEVER HEARD OF HER?” And: “SHE LIED TO US TO SPY ON US!! TO WRITE A BOOK ABOUT US AND GET INTO HARVARD!!” And: “BUBBLEGUM BIMBOS AND ASSEMBLY LINE MEATBALLERS IS A SUCKY TITLE!!!” And, finally: “OMG!!!! WHAT A SUPER BITCH!!!!! I HATE HER!!!!!!!!!!”
• Wally D’s Sweet Treat Shoppe employee T-shirt, wrinkled, torn around the collar, stained with chocolate syrup, smelling of rancid sweat and skunky Budweiser, worn during a one-night stand in the basement of Wally D’s Sweet Treat Shoppe on July 31, 2005
• Handwritten note dated August 1, 2005, on linen card stock personalized in Engravers MT font (LEN LEVY) thanking me kindly for the one-night stand that had unburdened the author of his virginity
• Printout of first e-mail ever sent by
[email protected] to
[email protected], dated March 1, 2002: an invitation from Paul Parlipiano—my high school crush-to-end-all-crushes, obsessive object of horniness, and gay man of my dreams—to a Snake March, a nonviolent demonstration protesting all forms of tyranny thrown by Columbia University’s People Against Conformity and Oppression
• Pink gingham print birth announcement for Marin Sonoma Doczyl-kowski; born May 30, 2002; six pounds, four ounces, nineteen and a half inches long; handwritten note from my sister: “Congratulations on becoming an aunt!”
• Rainbow-colored silk ribbons that decorated my grandmother Gladdie’s walker when she lived at Silver Meadows Assisted Living Facility; removed after her death in May 2002
• Pair of malodorous low-top Converse worn almost exclusively throughout high school
• A handwritten poem titled “Fall,” inspired by the Adam and Eve Creation myth, dating back to Spring 2000, written by Marcus Flutie on a torn-out piece of notebook paper that was and still is origami-folded into a mouth that opens and closes; sample lines: “But if I am exiled/alone/I know we will be/together again someday/naked/without shame/in Paradise”
• Handwritten lyrics to the song “Crocodile Lies,” written and performed by Marcus Flutie on June 8, 2002, also known as the date of Pineville High School’s Senior Prom, and the night I was blissfully unburdened of my virginity; sample lines: “You, yes, you linger inside my heart/The same you who stopped us before we could start…”
• Red T-shirt, neatly folded and washed, though not in recent memory, with iron-on letters spelling ME, YES, ME across the chest; handmade by Marcus Flutie and given to me to wear under my high school graduation gown as I delivered my salutatorian speech on June 30, 2002; inside the front breast pocket, a folded-up handwritten draft of that graduation speech, titled “Real-World Revelation: A Malcontent Makes Peace with Pineville” final sentence reads: “For better or for worse, you have helped me become the person I was always meant to be: Me, Yes, Me.”
• Thirty-three printouts of Poetry Spam, in which junk e-mail was rewritten into haikus, e-mailed between September 2002 and December 2003 from
[email protected] to
[email protected], including the very first one that arrived during my own college orientation program precisely four years ago today (see attached)
* * *
To:
[email protected] From:
[email protected] Date: September 3, 2002
Subject: Poetry Spam #1
* * *
jumbled nonsense in
quixotic combinations
becomes meaningful
* * *
Original message:
To:
[email protected] From:
[email protected] Date: September 3, 2002
Subject: in price gambit
* * *
looking momentous histamines very combinations good suave regarding money kahn rich upside anode multifarious jumbled flavor cursor look becomes what calypso giving christmas spectacular incredible summit caleb perfect abscissa allegheny segregation local nonsense russian girls reunion waiting right email quixotic they’re exclusive meaningful bleary residual income biz low journey introduction peacetime
twenty-three
I’m reminded of the story that occurred fresh off your last stint in rehab, in tenth grade, when you were doing your mandatory community-service hours at Silver Meadows Assisted Living Facility. The Turtle Lady Story.
A never-married woman (Hester?) died in her sleep at the age of eighty-seven. She (Esther?) was not a beloved figure around Silver Meadows. If she (Martha?) and my grandmother had been around at the same time, I’m sure Gladdie would have called her “one of those cranks just waiting to die.” She (I give up—it was some old-lady name) griped loudly and often a
bout everything. A bowl of chicken noodle soup could be too hot, too cold, too bland, too spicy, too chickeny, too noodle-y, too goddamn soupy. And as that vaudeville chestnut goes, those no-talent bastards who call themselves cooks never gave her enough of it.
Her tiny apartment was filled with nearly nine decades’ worth of possessions, most notably her spectacularly useless collection of turtles. Ceramic turtles. Stuffed turtles. Turtles on mugs, sweatshirts, salt and pepper shakers, throw pillows, calendars, and latch-hook decorative wall hangings. Turtles in every conceivable form but the original, breathing kind, as pets are not allowed in Silver Meadows. Everyone referred to her as the Turtle Lady, even to her face, which is why I can’t remember her real name. She held this title with great pride, as if it were an honor bestowed by the Queen of England in a scepter-tapping ceremony in Buckingham Palace.
One afternoon, you asked the obvious: “Why turtles?”
“Why turtles?” The Turtle Lady had replied to your query with genuine surprise, as if no one had bothered to ask this question before. This surely could not have been the case. But perhaps you were the first to ask in a very long time, the only person in recent memory to take any interest in her obsession. Her extended family was scattered around the country, you had told me, so she rarely received visitors. Only the occasional do-gooder Girl Scout trying to earn her merit badge in Geezer Appreciation. Or reformed ne’er-do-wells like yourself.
“Yes,” you pressed. “Why turtles over a more cuddly animal?”
“I’m not cuddly,” she said. “What, you think old spinsters like me have to love cats? Is that it? Are you disappointed that I’m not the crazy cat lady?”
“Okaaaaaay,” you said. “Snakes aren’t cuddly. Porcupines aren’t cuddly. Why turtles?”
“A turtle is never far from home.”
You didn’t understand. “Because it moves so slowly?”
“It carries its home on its back, ya big dope!”
You had recounted this story for me about a year later, your response when I questioned your sanity for voluntarily spending time with little old ladies like my grandmother when you had already completed your court-mandated community service. And when you delivered that line to me, you boxed your left ear with your palm, as she had when she said it herself. Despite your repeated attempts to get to know the Turtle Lady better, that conversation did not usher in a whole new era of cross-generational friendship between the misunderstood teen and the geriatric, the kind of heartwarming tale that has kept the Chicken Soup for the Soul series in print. No, it turned out to be the longest exchange you ever had.
After the Turtle Lady died, there were no local family members or Scouts to be found. This left you—a seventeen-year-old substance abuser repaying his debt to society—in charge of throwing away this woman’s entire life. A woman whom you had only met a half-dozen times.
You were told to divide her possessions into two piles: DONATE and DISCARD. Most of her belongings clearly qualified for the latter category. But you pled your case for the turtles.
“Maybe they could be donated….”
“To where?” replied the head of building management by phone because he couldn’t be bothered to show up in person. “The Museum of Useless Crap?” He chuckled at his own unfunny joke. “Look, kid, people die around here every day. And they leave a lot of junk behind. It’s my job to get rid of it.” In my imagined version of these events, I cast this character as thin and weaselly and in his late forties. He blinks too much and stinks of stale cigars.
“She didn’t leave a will?”
“Not for this stuff she didn’t,” he said. “All the valuable stuff was divvied up when she left her last place.”
Over the next few shifts, you counted, and threw away, 412 turtles or turtle-themed knickknacks. But you also found evidence that she hadn’t always been the Turtle Lady. You discovered her old yearbooks, in which you found out that this somber, pursed-lipped old woman had once been voted Class Clown. Loose photos captured her as a stylish dame with a fur around her neck, kissing a man with a champagne glass in his hand. There were faded 4-H ribbons. A NURSES DO IT WITH PATIENCE! bumper sticker. Decades of birthday cards, Christmas cards, “just because” cards from friends in far-off places.
And so much more. All thrown away.
You discovered then disposed of all this evidence of a full life lived well. How did that vibrant young woman turn into the bitter Turtle Lady? Who were the classmates who had laughed at her jokes? Where was the man with the champagne glass? What had she done to win the ribbons? Why did she keep that bumper sticker? Where were all the writers of those cards? Had they all gone before her? Had she outlasted everyone she loved? Wouldn’t that make anyone bitter?
Many questions, with no one to answer them.
In the end, you threw almost everything away. You couldn’t help but swipe a momento from that woman’s room, because you didn’t want her forgotten by the world. To this day, that tiny I TURTLES pin is still stuck to the underside lapel of your peacoat, where only you can see it, when you want to see it, when you want to honor this woman you never really knew when she was alive.
And as I sit on the floor right now, surrounded by Jessie’s Junk, I’m not seeing myself as an eighty-seven-year-old spinster, the cliché of the never-married aunt, the shriveled-up presence at Marin’s holiday gatherings whom no one wants to sit next to because I spit and mumble and smell like urine-soaked mothballs. (Though that would have been a good guess as to how I might have taken that story to heart.)
No, I’m wondering if the contents of the MOM AND DAD box will be preserved and protected by whoever is put in charge of throwing my life away. Or will it all be considered as worthless as 412 turtles?
Correction: 411.
twenty-four
Ack. I needed to get out of my room and take a break from all that reminiscing. It seemed like a good opportunity to check in with what was going on, so I got up off the floor, headed to the kitchen table, and randomly picked up one of the Sunday Times sections scattered across the table. And the Sunday Times pissed me off.
This is not at all unusual, because being pissed off by the New York Times is an important part of my whole NYT- reading experience. As you know, my rage is usually directed at the Sunday Styles section. (No! You will not try to make me feel bad because I don’t own a belted funnel-neck sweater dress! No! You will not make me feel unworthy because I have never heard of Club Kashmir, where the eponymous cocktail is one part Cristal and two parts pashmina goat piss. No! You will not make me feel inadequate because I can’t afford to buy a Slavic orphan baby, implant a tissue expander in her tender flesh, and harvest her pale, flawless skin to rejuvenate my tired complexion. Noooooooooo!”) But today it was the Travel section that got my ire up.
On the front page was a travelogue written by a woman who had visited thirty-six cities around the world. It took three months and cost less than four thousand dollars. Now, I never had any real desire to visit many of these places, some of which, like Kyrgyzstan, are countries I thought only existed within Sasha Baron Cohen’s imagination. And if I had a few thousand dollars, I would immediately use it to get that student loan bitch Sallie Mae off my back. But I hated this chick nonetheless, for having traveled so far, so safely. She treks though countries that endorse public beheadings. I spend an hour in Virginville, Pennsylvania. Which traveler loses all her possessions? Me.
Last December, I gamely accepted the offer to accompany Hope on her road trip/RISD senior thesis, “Mental States: A Cross Country Tour of My Emotions,” for which she planned to take pictures of herself next to the WELCOME TO signposts of our nation’s most expressively named cities. We left on New Year’s Eve—a symbolic nod to the date, six years earlier, that Hope’s family had U-Hauled ass out of New Jersey for Tennessee—and planned to return one month later. I allowed myself these thirty-one days of freewheeling liberation on the open road as a reward for saving myself another fifteen thousand dollars in student loans b
y busting my ass to graduate from Columbia a semester early. I didn’t have a job lined up after graduation, nor any clue where to find one that would utilize my psychology degree. But I’d worked so hard for so long that I deserved this break before having to find one or the other.
I assumed that there would be potholes and detours and wrong turns along the way to Yeehaw Junction, Florida, or Satan’s Kingdom, Rhode Island. I had always imagined that those near-disasters were what made road trips so exciting, and I kind of looked forward to them. I wanted to run out of gas on the interstate, get a flat tire in the middle of nowhere, or have my credit card rejected by the sketchy motor lodge and spend the night in the rental car, just so I could return to Pineville safe and sound and regale you with the tales of all these crises averted.
I did not want to get carjacked fewer than twelve hours into our trip.
It’s only by chance that this notebook was spared. It was safe inside my messenger bag, right beside me in the booth at the Bandit (yes, har-dee-har-har on me) Diner as I tucked into a cheeseburger and fries and listened to Hope try to talk me into jumping out of a plane at a nearby skydiving center.
“It will be fun!”
My first instinct was to say, “Cheating death is not fun.” But then I remembered, I’m on a road trip! That’s what you’re supposed to do on road trips! Cheat death! Court disaster! Of course, Hope and I had no idea that our own mini-disaster had already played itself out, by peeling out of the parking lot with all our possessions.