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by Megan Boyle

  after dinner i drove us to la quinta inn so i could check out. a new person was at the desk. she said my room was good until tomorrow morning, and said i could keep my key, in case i decided to come back. alec said ‘we should give the key to a homeless person’ and i said ‘yeah, yeah’ and felt interested in doing that. idea dissolved quickly, i think, but i forget how. we decided to put the beer at alec’s apartment and go to a bar called ‘the grad [something].’ looked at the receipt the check-in person gave me, in a manner that reminded me of how my dad looks at checks at dinner. he will like, stop everything to make a display of how he’s examining the check. he has a story about why he does this. his dad was poor but was somehow friends with a rich man who was involved in building the new york city subway system. when they’d go out to dinner with the rich man, he would examine the receipt—like, really give it a good up-and-down, really consider how much money everything cost. then my dad’s dad started doing that. then my dad started doing that. i usually feel annoyed when my dad does it, like he‘s ‘performing an examinination of the receipt’ rather than examining it, and felt myself being annoyed with myself as i did it in front of alec, wanting to ‘prove’ to him that i in fact, checked in last night, i wasn’t lying. alec and i looked at the receipt. i don’t think the receipt said what time i checked in, so it was possible alec still thought…um…in my mind, it seemed possible for alec to think ‘megan probably didn’t leave new york until very late last night, which is why the check-in person said no one under ‘megan boyle’ had checked in, megan probably just checked in a few hours ago, so she could have an ‘alibi.” alec pointed out the top of the receipt, where it said ‘margaret matlock.’ we said things about how that was probably why they didn’t connect him to my room. felt relieved but also like alec probably still didn’t believe me/thought i checked in right before i came to the coffee shop or something. the only thing i lied about was not reading his facebook message he sent at 4:30AM. i saw it after the interview with juliet but felt committed to staying at la quinta for the night and didn’t feel like hanging out or calling him at 7something in the morning, was a little suspicious about him being asleep when i knocked and then waking at 4:30AM, knowing the previous night he had been up late and it was possible that he had just…ignored my knock…out of spite/intolerance of me being flaky the past few days and inconveniencing him by not having a phone (i understood and didn’t resent him for any of these possibilities or variations on these possibilities).

  walked into alec’s apartment. noticed a light was on inside a room with a closed door. used the bathroom and put down my stuff. think we were talking about alec’s roommates, who he met from craigslist. alec said something about not liking nintendo 64. there was a n64 game console on the ground. he emerged from a room and noticed the light on in the room with the closed door and said ‘oh shit, do you think he heard’ and we started whispering as we left the house. i said ‘you didn’t say anything bad, you just don’t like nintendo 64.’

  walked around the ‘young/college’ part of town. joked about how people say ‘urban’ but mean ‘black.’ passed an urban outfitters. made jokes. talked about johnny rockets. the part of town…seemed depressing, something about its smallness and affluence and ‘who it seemed to be built for/who would enjoy it,’ and the people i was seeing mostly through my peripheral vision. a girl with wig-like red hair and a union jack shirt and maybe a boyfriend passed alec and me. alec said ‘did you see the union jack shirt’ and i said ‘yeah, it’s bad here.’

  the bar was on the brown university campus, in the basement of a campus building. it was cool. you had to go down stairs that reminded me of stairs at my high school. it looked like the bar in ‘twin peaks.’ there were maybe five rooms, and an oddly-placed glass display showcasing a large skeletal or tooth-like sculpture made of what looked like balsam wood, ‘eating’ a can or plastic bottle of soda. the bar was empty except for a table of loudish people who left shortly after we arrived. we sat on a couch, side-by-side, but something seemed bad…even though the view from the couch was where the bar most looked like the ‘twin peaks’ bar and i thought i’d like it. the couch was silver and plastic and sparkly. i said we should move and we did.

  before midnight i think we’d had two or three drinks, each. i drank vodka club sodas and alec drank beers i hadn’t seen before.

  AUGUST 13, 2013

  12–2:00AM: sat at the bar. drank four vodka tonics and two negronis. alec ordered a new kind of beer every time, i think. he suggested a beer. can’t remember everything we talked about and am unsure if alec would feel okay about me saying everything i do remember. we caught up on a lot of things. life incidentals. i vented about [omitted]. alec had read ‘the remainder’ and liked it. we were talking intensely about a philosophical aspect of ‘the remainder.’ remember thinking ‘when alec first met me i was studying philosophy and had things to say about philosophy but now i forget everything, i wish i knew more.’ alec said his friend anto, who i’d met last summer and liked, reads my liveblog. anto recently told alec, ‘it doesn’t seem like megan does drugs for fun.’ he responded, ‘sounds like you ‘get’ megan.’

  exited bar and walked on street. asked alec if he wanted to split 10mg oxycodone and he said he did. i yelled something like ‘I’M ON DRUGS, I HAVE DRUGS’ at a cop car. then we said things like, ‘who lives in that house, someone must live there.’ we passed a pizza place. alec said he’d like it if i wanted pizza but he didn’t want any. i wanted something. didn’t want to be the only person eating pizza. we stood outside the pizza place. alec said there were chips and hummus at his house and…haha…the tone of this part of the conversation was funny, like ‘wartime decisions.’ a lot of me asking short questions about the specifics of the chips and hummus, alec giving one or two word answers, me nodding with a concerned face and looking at the sidewalk, maybe pensively touching my mouth or chin, receiving enough information to declare the ‘big decision:’ ‘let’s just eat chips and hummus,’ resuming walking, alec saying ‘are you sure,’ me saying ‘yes, it’ll feel better.’ by the time we got to his house i decided ‘i want to turn around to get pizza’ but then realized where we were and walked inside.

  wanted one aspect of the food to be hot. thought it’d be better if the hummus was hot. ‘fried’ hummus in olive oil in a frying pan. the frying made it really mushy. we were laughing a lot during this. laughing in the kitchen, eating the hummus. i mostly ate it with salsa, i think. there was a soggy chip in the salsa. drank the beers we had saved from earlier. ate several mini-hershey bars that had been sort of vulnerably arranged in a strange graph-like pattern on the otherwise empty kitchen table.

  brought a handful of mini-hershey bars to alec’s room. alec said ‘i want to see you eat that when we listen to limp bizkit.’ listened and sang along to limp bizkit and other numetal things, then the goo goo dolls. got in a maybe 30-minute fake argument about how we couldn’t be friends because i was in a relationship with alec’s dad. we were being really serious, like, acting. improv. yelling. alec was hiding in a box and i hid in the closet. wish i had video. it felt actually kind of cathartic, via…i think i was only able to fake-argue like that due to real-arguing like that…it felt good to make fun of it.

  laid in bed and read parts of ‘the remainder’ to each other. can’t remember how this happened, but at some point we kissed briefly and i said ‘no, i can’t.’ think we spooned. felt similar to the time we spooned in baltimore, like ‘i wish i was romantically attracted but i’m not.’ usually if i feel…er…i don’t know. usually i don’t stop myself from something sexual when it starts, even if i know i’ll feel bad after it, but i was glad i could stop because it seemed like it would negatively effect the friendship. or. i’d feel guilty if we had sex and he had feelings for me, and wouldn’t be able to ignore the guilt because i like him too much. ate two or maybe three ambiens and gave alec one and a half.

  2[something]PM–11:27PM: alec woke me once but i was too sleepy. we had plan
s to walk around the RISD museum with alexandra at 3PM. alec woke me again, saying something like ‘do you want to shower?’ i said ‘no, i’m fine.’ the shower thing was repeated…walking around…groggily…alec said ‘sometimes some people like to shower in the morning, i don’t know, i didn’t know if you wanted to do that.’ there wasn’t enough time for me to shower, i thought, even if i wanted to. i felt inhibited. alec had been up for a while. i wasn’t sure how to act. felt like the thing i wanted to avoid by not doing sexual things had already…it was just there, i wasn’t able to avoid it. some kind of tension. i didn’t want the tension. gave alec choline and aniracetam. he requested ‘less than [i] usually take,’ in a way that stuck out to me. i think because normally people i’m giving drugs to don’t specify the amount of drugs they want. if an amount is requested, i think it’s usually for more than less drugs. i ate the amount i usually eat. alec said ‘it’s making me feel groggier i think.’ i said ‘shit…’

  i drove us to a coffee place, where alec went inside to buy coffee for alexandra and me and i stayed in the car, before picking her up at her house. when alec returned to the car with coffee we said things about directions, then something i forget, then it was quiet. i said ‘i wish we had been filming the argument last night, it was so funny.’ alec said ‘it was,’ and something about how it was better or more special, that there wasn’t a video.

  parked on the hill outside alexandra’s house. noticed a ‘butter colored’ lion sculpture on the porch. i pointed and said ‘look, butter lion.’ alec looked in the direction i pointed. i said ‘it’s the same color as the staircase last night, butter color. lots of butter here. rhode island.’

  i paid to get into the museum and students got in free. alec said something funny about…like as soon as we got our ‘clippy shirt visitor tags’ he said something about a nearby pole, like ‘so what aspects of this, uh, er…what aspects should we be taking note of, here?’ we walked around a log cabin-like area with desks, pretending it was art.

  the museum felt like that part in ‘ferris bueller’s day off’ where they walk around the museum. the first painting i saw was a giant bright red neon opitical illusion-type painting. stood close to it and went ‘whoa.’ read the plaque about it. i forget what the plaque said. alec approached me, still looking at the red thing, and said ‘look at this.’ it was a painting of impressionistic grayish brown splotches. think the plaque said something about the holocaust. i pointed to a splotch and said ‘so what’s this part, is this part anne frank?’ alec said the red painting was anne frank, actually.

  alec and alexandra joked around but also had informed/interesting things to say about art. i mostly had ‘potty humor’ or ‘durr…i like it’ things to say about art. we walked around an exhibit about ‘the dandy.’ it was cool. it was mostly outfits, standing headless and mannequin-like, donated or purchased or reconstructed from some ‘dandies.’ i liked seeing how big the people were, like truman capote and john waters. i didn’t know there was an official thing called ‘dandy,’ or that so many people fell under the category of ‘dandy,’ but it made sense. there was a drag ‘dandy’ woman from the 1920’s i felt interested in…small picture of her with a bald head…head cocked to the side, not smiling, arm on her hip…a big white space before the frame…wrote ‘claude cahun’ in iphone. couldn’t tell if i was sexually attracted to her or liked something else about her. the plaque said she wrote things. think it said ‘surreal.’ alec and alexandra came up to me and i said ‘she’s cool.’ they looked. we talked about how people in the olden days probably stood for pictures expressionless, slouched with hands on hips, because it took so long to take one picture and they wanted to be comfortable.

  broke away from alec and alexandra for an amount of time. read a lot of the plaques. a woman was showing alec and alexandra a picture on her phone from the opening of the dandy exhibit. the picture was of a ‘real life socialite,’ dressed like scarlett o’hara. the woman was really excited. alec was asking her a lot of questions. i liked the woman so much. she had an accent but i couldn’t tell what it was. she was smiling and so excited about the exhibit and other paintings. she liked andy warhol. when we were at the exit to the exhibit, the lady said ‘you know the wicked witch of the west? andy hunted her down for eight years, tried to get her picture for eight years. and she finally let him.’ i said ‘from ‘the wizard of oz?’ she said ‘yes!’ i said ‘the actual person?’ she said ‘yes, the wicked witch! that’s his picture of the wicked witch,’ smiling really big. she said they had a warhol painting that wasn’t included in the dandy exhibit. alec said ‘it should’ve been.’ the way she said it, how he said that, and her reaction felt like if alec had said ‘your son was a brave fighter. he should’ve come home to you. i will always remember him.’

  after the museum we walked around providence. walked downhill on a sidewalk made of asphalt, with a lot of potholes. felt a little preoccupied about food…or just like, wanting something…i kept saying things about ‘the sandwich place’ near where we parked, but didn’t really want to eat there and dreaded feeling ‘sandwich stomach,’ and sitting in the place (it had a trendy name, like ‘[something] fat sandwiches,’ a black storefront, and what i imagined…i don’t know…felt like i could ‘smell’ the atmosphere of crumbs on tables and ‘artisan soda’).

  walked by a plaque that said ‘built by john updike.’ someone said ‘it must be a different john updike.’ someone said ‘no, he could’ve built it, the famous john updike.’ things were said about the building (the first floor was some kind of restaurant or furniture store, i think). i took a picture. alec said something like ‘do you want a picture? i want a picture of you guys, you guys, come on, picture time, john updike.’ alexandra and i stood by the plaque. wasn’t sure what to do at first, then one of us suggested we make the ‘dandy posture.’

  decided to take spontaneous road trip to newport, RI. alec said he wanted a sugary ‘nasty’ gas station-type iced coffee before the car ride. pulled into a dunkin donuts. got coffee coolattas. alec and alexandra got small coffee flavored ones and i got a medium mocha. alexandra said something about pep boys and alec told a story about his friend prank-calling pep boys. could tell it had been funny in the moment, but probably funnier to see than hear, and that alec probably knew this. got some kind of second-hand enjoyment from this…like…relating to the situation of telling a ‘you had to be there’ story. it was just as good for me, i think, because of the feeling of relating.

  driving in newport, on the main drag of town, i saw a dress on display and said ‘i want that, can we go buy it?’ parked in a lot one block up from the store. alec said something funny about dads. he said ‘should i bring my jacket? it might get cold.’ i said ‘you can wear my cardigan, it’s for guys and girls.’ looked at alexandra, who said i could call her ‘allie,’ and she was smiling. there was a ‘newport conceit’ going on. seemed like we were regarding newport as a bizzare and slightly offensive spectacle in this faux-entitled, travel channel ‘tourist show about tourists watching tourists’ way.

  the three of us entered the store with the dress. i found a medium on a rack and bought it without trying it on. alec was being really funny with the cashier. sometimes alec goes into ‘tim and eric show presents: woody allen’ mode. he was asking the cashier questions about the appropriateness of certain things. she was responding minimally. i was trying not to laugh. he said ‘thank you for letting me stand in your store and look at your things’ earnestly and she kind of rolled her eyes and smiled. so funny.

  alec said ‘i want to buy sunglasses’ and we walked around a sunglasses store. i couldn’t tell if alec really wanted them or not. he said ‘guys, should i buy oakleys? should we all buy oakleys?’ i said ‘yeah.’ i tried on sunglasses with frames that looked like martini glasses. allie and i were mostly talking/joking about who would buy those sunglasses. kept picturing a guy on his yacht, going ‘party time.’ alec seemed maybe seriously interested in buying sunglasses, and was walking around
the store in a way i felt i walked around the RISD museum earlier when alec and allie had things to say about paintings that i didn’t.

  walked to ben & jerrys to use the bathroom. employee gave directions to the public bathroom, inside some kind of mall with an antique store we’d just passed. there was a gathering of middle-aged women standing outside the bathroom. one of us asked if they were in line. one lady said ‘i don’t know, it’s for both men and women, but there’s a guy in there right now.’ the door was open. a man’s voice from inside the bathroom said ‘you can come in, it’s unisex.’ allie and i walked in. the man was peeing in a urinal. i peeked over the top of a stall and watched allie walk away as the man said something like ‘there’s a spot if you know how to use a urinal.’ exited bathroom and allie entered. heard atonal, single-note piano noises coming from the hall. alec was standing at the piano. the lid was mostly closed. he said ‘i’m playing my song.’ i started playing ‘heart and soul’ and he said ‘oh that’s an actual song.’ i couldn’t see the keys. alec must’ve walked into the bathroom and allie came out. we talked about the urinal thing and looked at a mounted black-and-white photo of about 60 people sitting and standing in lines. the picture was from the 1940’s but i forget when. it was captioned ‘[something] clam bake, [date].’ i pointed at a group of three darker-skinned people and said ‘they probably had to cook.’ allie and i looked mostly quietly at the picture, sometimes pointing at the funny expressions of people not-yet accustomed to the idea of photographs. alec came out of the bathroom. he said ‘you’re still here!’ we said things about the antique store/mall containing the bathroom, how strange it seemed that it was in business. there was a telephone booth for sale. i said ‘the first iphone.’