(this b an earlier version of another story i later published of similar title, c. 2016.)
after the afterparty, I’m outside waiting for an Uber when I take a break from my phone to glance at the sky. Oh moon, you big rock, just floating there. I forget how close we are until I notice you alone. Last week, I get a couple hours of sleep before work where I polish glasses and reevaluate my life.
Ugh, I think to myself, I don't care! It's amazing how little I care! I don't want to be doing any of this right now. If I could, I would write anything, it doesn't matter what, as long as it’s not this.
Back in the present moment, I’m nearing my destination when the Uber driver days, “I look around and everyone seems happy.”
“They look like something,” I say, grinning mischievously at the purposeful meaningless of my response.
Tomorrow is my birthday and we’re traveling back from South Beach when our van breaks down in the highway. I just turned 21, I think to myself, I can’t die now. Feeling misgendered when the group asks me to check underneath the car, Jackie starts laughing when I take selfies on top of the traffic barrier.
We push the van into the parking lot of a Taco Bell.
It starts to rain and makes me think.
Taking in the helplessness of our situation, perhaps applying it to existence in general, Jackie and I sit side by side against the fast food chain’s exterior.
“Brothers, sisters?” I ask. “Two,” Jackie says, “you?” “One.” “Older?” “He’s,” I pause, “24 I think.” “Do you like your parents?” I ask. “No,” they say, “you?” I shrug. “Did you have friends growing up,” I ask. “No,” they say, “you?” “No.” “I can do this,” they say, squatting with one leg extended. “Holy shit,” I say. “Do you ever feel like a boy?” They ask. “I’ve never felt like anything I think,” I say, “except sad when someone told me I wasn’t something else, maybe.” “I think,” Jackie says, the subject becoming irrelevant, “I hate feeling like I have to describe my feelings.” I don’t know if this is temporary,” I say, “or if it’s forever.” “Everything is flat,” Jackie says, “just flat, people look flat and everything, it’s like,” they place their hands in front of their face, “everything feels like I’m trying to stop something from happening.” We actively hold back tears, in part because we can’t find a reason to cry. “It’s not real,” I say, “I know it’s not real but this is all there is anyway.”
On 4/20 I wait in line at the weed dispensary before meeting up with Victoria for coffee.
Hungover albeit purchasing a latte, I sit at an outdoor table and take my first sip of the morning.
“Mmmmm,” I speak, “coffee, I love you, your beans, give me all your hope and anxiety.”
Victoria finds this humorous.
After Thai, She wraps her leftovers in the hopes of finding a panhandler on our walk home while I begin openly rolling a spliff and ask about her significant other.
She tells me that she can’t be with someone who makes her feel useless and stupid all the time, and we drive to the other end of town and drink boxed wine in a field.
Basking drunkenly in warm sun, we observe a dog and their guardian a number of meters away.
“That stupid man,” Victoria says, “he’s setting up cones when all his dog wants is to play.”
“I hate him,” I say.
“The cones don’t even mean anything,” she says, “they’re just plastic, it’s not like, they’re not anything, it’s just…”
Victoria’s eye widen, her curious smile becoming more perverse.
After the poetry reading, we note a reader with his entire right arm tattooed black, something Victoria is quick to remark of its parallels with blackface.
The reader then makes a generalization about the country of Jordan which Victoria asks him to elaborate on as me and Kiki watch with tense excitement.
In contrast, after karaoke that night, I roll around the grass with Kiki to the enjoyment of the locals.
We get in the car where Victoria audibly calms herself as she prepares to drunk drive.
“I know you think this is stupid,” she says.
“It’s stupid but I don’t care,” I say.
I fight nausea as Victoria tells me how she appreciates our friendship, and how much I mean to her.
I throw up thrice on our way home.
In bed, Katie counts sheep while I think about Kiki.
I wonder if she’s thinking about me, she probably is.
After sleeping in, I roll out of bed and let Victoria’s pets wake me with their company.
I take a lukewarm shower and roll my first spliff of the morning.
Walking down the sidewalk, I let the foliage around mingle with my fingers.
I think of how each interaction with the plants go.
I could do this forever, I think to myself.
I could live in Portland for the rest of my life if I never wanted to accomplish anything.
That evening, Victoria and I go to the cinema and watch a film about an old couple.
In the end, the husband dies.
I tell Victoria how I feel the story was poorly written, until she informs me that the film was in fact, a documentary.
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