by Megan Boyle
Positioned mattress pad on bed, said ‘here it goes, it goes right on top.’ It smelled like the Philadelphia apartment, Zachary’s and my bed. Thought ‘I didn’t bring sheets or pillows.’ Dad paused and said ‘maybe you should just get a new everything, a new bed, new mattress.’ I said ‘oh, well, this one is fine I think. I don’t know, maybe, I’ll see. Thank you.’ The thing I was feeling in the car of ‘what am I doing’ seemed amplified, thinking about how alone I would be when dad left, that this was my last moment of ‘at least I’m not completely alone.’ Hugged dad hard. His face was wet from sweating or the rain and he was wearing a blue windbreaker with a ‘Holland America Line’ emblem embroidered on it, from one of the cruises we went on when I was little. I hugged him and said ‘thank you for helping me with this, it means a lot’ and my voice broke. I was hugging him tight. He said ‘oh, I’m happy to help’ and it was quiet. He said ‘I think this time it’s really going to work out, it really is, just you wait and see.’
5:53pm: impulsively texted Zachary to see if he knew where to buy cat food, am now picking him up from Adam’s.
6:10pm: need to get electric switched over to my name, change address, feel hollow and scared and alone, driving, picking up Zachary, what will we do, what’re we doing here, what the shit hell…young family song came on shuffle…the fuck am I doing…
6:14pm: mint green nail polish has almost chipped off, I painted nails the morning I had been up all night and went to whole foods and Zachary went to nj before our apartment was all packed up, March
6:17pm: mom called said I’ll talk later parked on Zachary’s street ate 1mg Xanax shit fuck me.
6:18–11:59PM: zachary came out of adam’s apartment wearing nice clothes and with his hair tied back, holding a hand-rolled cigarette.
here is what i remember:
• drive seemed tense, something felt different, sad, like more time had passed than i had known. asked about the jamie video and about why he seemed upset at the fishkind show. felt like i was talking to someone i had only met a few times. think this made it easier to transition into making jokes/reading signs/pointing out stuff on the street. talked more about the show and felt my stomach pulling, re-enacting the ‘sting of obviousness’ i felt that night watching him interact with jamie in a way that reminded me ‘these people are neither friends nor strangers,’ remembering how when the show was over he passed me and said ‘oh hey’ without looking up, leaving with a man i’d never seen, then not showing up at the bar due to rumored arguing with jamie, all the moments of him ‘not at the bar’ stacking up, helping me form a familiar-feeling epiphany that someone’s life was better without me in it and there was nothing i could do, except try to replace that feeling with excitement about the cocaine that would help me ignore two phone calls from him a few hours later. in the car he said the man i saw him walk away with had confronted him immediately after the show to give him a hard time about how he says ‘faggot,’ and zachary had been crying from other things about the show and talked with the offended man for a long time, explaining how he doesn’t want to hurt anyone. vestigial shame about my reaction to him that night, he was having a shitty time, and what did i want anyway.
• started kissing when we walked in my apartment. don’t want to type details. felt aware of the thing that happens if i’m doing anything sexual, where there’s a part of me watching me or afraid or saying ‘react’ or something but that wasn’t there at all. seems notable to me, actually…we didn’t…because i’m not on birth control, but i feel like this…i can’t remember ever feeling as ‘emotionally integrated’ (not the right words, maybe ‘not anticipating anything’ or ‘uninhibited’ or ‘not thinking there was a chance the other person could hurt me, so i could feel things spontaneously, didn’t know i could feel so many things while doing something like this’—know all of that is big time female cliché bullshit but guess that’s what i am) during anything sexual with anyone to the degree i felt it yesterday. not like now, now i’m thinking ‘he’s going to read this and think i’m icky or that i ‘cheapened’ it and oh no it’s even worse now because i wanted to put quotes around ‘cheapened’ great. he would like it if i hadn’t said any of this but now that i’ve said it he would like it if i didn’t think i was stupid for saying it too, he would rather i didn’t express uncertainty about saying the things i think he thinks and i’m not sure i think are stupid. so here i am, great.’
• zachary assembled a shelf he had dissembled and set up the TV/antenna. a nets/bulls game was on, i think. froze the beers before sexy stuff so now they were cold and we drank them. i unpacked things in a ‘bee pollenating’ manner, not spending much time on any one box/bag, getting distracted. felt like it was okay to be quiet. sometimes one of us would repeat something on the radio or TV and the other would respond minimally, but kindly, more like exhaustedly. sometimes i’d say something about what could’ve happened to the cats.
• colin ‘popped in’ to collect checks for rent/broker’s fee and give me a copy of the local newspaper. zachary’s shirt was off. beer. sitting on curtains serving as sheets on a mattress pad on a mattress on a floor. my unwashed wet hair and leggings. saying my cats were missing. seemed…funny. ‘look what you got yourself into, big shot.’
• no pizza places seemed open. we walked to the ‘where stuff is kind of’ area, about two blocks from me. passed a basketball hoop and a black plastic bag had been wrapped around the net. zachary said ‘yeah, because no one wants to play with net that hasn’t been wrapped.’
• the 24-hour deli by me is called ‘pickles & pies’ and there was a sign with an old-looking corona bottle (like just old enough for you to be like ‘huh,’ like ‘1999-2002 old’) and a product called ‘pepsi twist’ that was almost covered up. also a man working on a grill, could see him from the outside.
• saw a grocery store in the not-far distance. sign said ‘wa[something] mbd’s.’ tried to sound it out. zachary said ‘do you want to just make food instead?’ and i said ‘yeah.’ we had to walk over some kind of generator-run ATM area/parking lot/police station. figured out the sign said ‘waldbaum’s fresh.’ approached store. repeated ‘waldbaum’s fresh’ a few times, chuckling and using a variety of curious-sounding inflections/pitches, like beavis and butthead. when they do that thing.
• a few minutes after we walked in there was a storewide ‘ten minutes to close’ loudspeaker announcement. zachary seemed joyless and businesslike, looking at food. i felt the thing of ‘how long have i known this person’ again. remembered being in ‘fresh grocer’ with him the night we gave up and threw the rotten watermelon into the water at penn treaty park, but i didn’t remember the watermelon part until now. in waldbaum’s i just remembered walking around the grocery store and commiserating in our indecisiveness about food and agitation at each other/the situation, and how even though that was bad, something seemed better than now.
• bought kale, cucumber, yellow pepper, two strip steaks, avocado, banana, spinach. zachary said ‘beer…’ and i said ‘oh beer.’ he said ‘sometimes in grocery stores in new york they’ll sell beer,’ which i knew. i said ‘o-hhh.’ we saw beer. i said ‘look at schaeffer’s, i want schaeffer’s.’ zachary chuckled and said ‘okay’ like how ferris bueller would say ‘okay’ to a leprechaun at his door with surprise room service. compared with other things this felt extra good. still felt the ‘something has changed, am i just meeting this person’ thing but not as much.
APRIL 30, 2013
12–1:30AM: (things i remember, continued:)
• talked about warheads/candy on the walk back to apartment. i said something bad. it was…i asked if zachary ever ate very gross things, at lunch, as a child. he said ‘no.’ the bad thing i said sounded probably like this: ‘because like, i like, we would like, for all of lunch in fourth or fifth grade, like it would be things like tuna mixed with jell-o, like that, we would like, just dare each other to see who could eat the worst thing, for the whole time.’ the point of the story
, i thought zachary was thinking, was so he could see how i did unexpected interesting stuff as a little girl (the kind of ‘usual tricks’ i do in the beginnings of relationships, which he seems tired of hearing and i wasn’t sure i was saying/doing intentionally), which resulted in me saying ‘like’ a lot, because i knew if i said ‘nevermind’ and stopped talking that would mean things were unsalvageable, not worth trying for. my ‘likes’ were an attempt at stalling i think, like (haha), to see if i could think of something better instead of the bad story i was unstoppably telling.
• stove gas did not turn on. i said ‘i guess we’ll just eat salad.’ zachary asked to see my phone and looked up how to cook a steak in a toaster oven. he read something excitedly, a person talking about the benefits of cooking steak in a toaster oven. the person really had it figured out. it was funny.
• felt cluttered in the kitchen, thinking about what i would do to help cook. i said ‘do you want me to help around here? i’ve got plenty of other stuff to do.’ zachary said he didn’t need help and i felt good not helping, continuing to unpack. we listened to an urban outfitters sampler, i think, from the early 2000’s. sometimes i’d say ‘what is this, i remember this’ and zachary would sometimes say what it was and if he remembered it.
• at some point the thing i had hung all my dresses on became unattached from closet and it made a loud noise and i made a noise just as loud at the same time. zachary came over and we were shrugging/grinning. asked him what to do, sort of thinking he would know because of his carpentry stuff, and he said ‘i don’t know, probably call the super,’ looking at the fallen clothes.
• zachary said he figured out what happened to the cats. i walked to the kitchen. he leaned the stove/oven forward. the cats were huddled together behind the stove/oven in an impossibly tight space. alvie jumped out immediately and shirley tried to squeeze under the oven and her hind legs flattened, then she either got stuck or gave up halfway. zachary said ‘you thought i was going to say a bad thing, like i found out they were dead?’ i couldn’t remember. i said ‘y-eah. that they had died.’
• watched ‘the office.’ toaster steak was fine. zachary had expressed concern about its wetness and color as it was cooking. he said ‘not bad, right?’ i said it was good. felt happy.
• they played in a band on ‘the office’…they’re in a band…andy isn’t good, but he thinks he is, but he knows the band isn’t working…then at the end he’s okay because darryl thinks of the words…andy says ‘how are you thinking of that, you just thought of that?!’…they keep going…andy says something about how they’re no longer ‘on the clock’ but they keep going. i like how much everyone appreciates each other on ‘the office.’ i like how much they want friends. michael scott and andy the most. they seem so sweet and alone and full of this desire to love and be loved, like the best people on earth, but they’re not even real. just think of how happy michael scott would be to hear how much people laugh at his jokes. sending a soundbite of everyone who has ever laughed at a michael scott joke to ‘parallel universe michael scott’ who is a real person not played by steve carrell. hearing that would solve ‘the problem’ of michael scott. like he would…lose his personality…or no, he would just talk about how much he loved how much everyone loved him.
• ‘king of the hill’ came on. then there was going to be another one. the TV was situated in the room a way that…you know sometimes something is only in a certain way because it makes sense in the moment, but it’s just a temporary thing? like covering your head with a newspaper in the rain? doing your best to manage a temporary thing? using the curtains as sheets also contributed to the feeling. it felt really good. i said something like ‘it’s so good, i’m getting more!’ about salad i didn’t end up finishing. zachary ate the rest of my steak. then we laid down. it felt good to be near his armpit and to smell him and to feel him breathing and moving in smaller ways and getting to know he was that close.
• peggy wrote a paper for bobby in ‘king of the hill.’ there was some kind of rivalry with the english teacher. did sexy things with the volume off for most of it. i think at the end…at some point in the night i started putting dishes in the sink and beer cans/bottles in the trash. started to fall asleep. zachary said ‘no peg you gotta brush your teeth.’ remember feeling interested in if/how his glasses were changing something about his eyes. thought ‘shit, now i won’t be able to sleep, especially if water touches my face right now.’ something about this seemed nice. he let me go first. i washed my face. when it was his turn i ate 2mg xanax. think he suspected something.
10:36am: woke to zachary dressing. asked if he was leaving and he said he was. he leaned down to kiss me, i think. i said something about how i was glad he stayed over, it would’ve been bad if he hadn’t have been there. if i didn’t say this in the morning i said it before going to bed. remember him reacting to me saying it like i didn’t mean it. tried going back to sleep but knew it wouldn’t work. thought about zachary walking to the bus. thought ‘if i was better i would offer to drive him back to adam’s.’
10:40AM–7:46PM: had planned to go to ikea/thrift store/pet store/library but got obsessed with unpacking.
7:48pm: have eaten maybe 30mg adderall since waking. Unpacked everything and hung pictures. Looks good. Called mom. Smoking cigarette on window ledge. Have gyno appointment tomorrow 3:40pm, going back to md now to garner internet all night, write & send overdue story. Feeling good to be here. Haven’t thought about being alone since Zachary left, if I had done the other not-unpacking stuff like I had planned and came back to see still-packed boxes I would feel shitty I think.
8:35pm: showered without shower curtain. Wetness. Alvie has been hiding under the sink. Think gas hasn’t been turned on yet, water was cold. Don’t want to leave apartment, feel like this is my safe ass hobby hole. Feel at least a little better being here than at mom’s or dad’s. Thought ‘And Now: A Life (To Be Continued).’
8:40pm: looming sense of dread re potential car towing. The sign by where I parked said it would be safe until Friday. ‘Just in case’ I’m taking the paranoid measure of not bringing the box dad mistakenly packed. The box is full of slides. Because details like ‘the box was full of slides?’ That’s what matters! Oof.
9:26pm: car was there. Mom called and said ‘did you get gas?’ I said ‘no, maybe I will on the way home.’ she said ‘oh no I meant in your apartment.’ she was looking for motels for when she visits, had called to see if I knew my zip code.
9:36pm: drove back to building. Saw Colin standing at his window, I think, while I loaded boxes in car. First time I’ve been lost here. Want to be on a lot of drugs. Drug dealer texted there were ‘specials’ tonight and dad gave me $200 cash yesterday. Considering…seems too hard to pick a place in manhattan to meet…he is the one with heroin and Molly and coke…not worth it, considering it would delay me being in md and writing the story/updating this, also guilt at spending money in that way. Passed accident on side of road. Details. Not just thoughts, details also. Wheeeeee.
When I get to Maryland I ‘have to’ do story first, will post shitty update of liveblog then eat 60mg vyvanse and do story. If I stay up all night I can get a new computer tomorrow before gyno at 3:40pm. I’m saying this as like…it’s a warning to myself, if I don’t do these things I’ll feel bad. Always forget ‘in the future you’ll feel bad if you don’t ____ .’
9:49pm: something feels more manageable, looking inside of apartment, even though I don’t know what I want to do. Wonder if vice ‘will still have me.’ Passed animated highway sign that said ‘slow down’ then ‘give us a break.’
MAY 1, 2013
12:05am: bought gas, neuro sonic drink, four-pack 8oz sf red bull from rest stop. Mom called as I was pulling out. Nose has been progressively stuffier on drive, have headache. Mom said ‘oh you’ve got a stuffy nose too, the pollen is everywhere, it’s these fucking flowering trees, someone needs to cut them down.’ I said ‘on a species thing, it’s like they’re doin
g harm to us, they want to overcome us and take our place.’ mom said ‘they’re actually an alien species, this is an alien plot’ and chuckled. My nose has recovered from cocaine the other night, had felt worried about it getting hard to breathe again, allergies thing makes sense though. I’m in delaware. Mom said something about a funnyordie.com thing she wants to show me when it seemed clear that I wanted to drive and she wanted to sleep. I said ‘you’ll have to show it to me tomorrow.’ she said she would, heard a smile in her voice and ‘awareness of earlier silent agreement we had that conversation was over.’ she said ‘well you drive safe.’ I said ‘I will. You sleep good.’ she said ‘oh there are just these things we have to say to each other.’ I could picture her face and I liked it. I said ‘yeah, now we’re saying these things we say at the end of the phone call.’ She said ‘I know it’s all whatever, you know, but I really love you and I’m happy you’re coming home.’ I said ‘me too, I love you too, big.’