I was sitting at a lop-sided table on the stage, staving off boredom with chain-smoked cigarettes, stale coffee, and vacant stares into nothingness when frantic, hushed tones from behind me caught my interest.
"What do you mean, you don't know! How could you not know!?"
"It's a blur...I don't know...I mean, it just happened, okay?"
"No, not okay. Listen. You need to press charges!"
"But...I...I'm not sure, it just happened, I don't think I ever said no."
"Bullshit, Miriam! We're going back to that house and we're gonna find that pig!"
"No...don't...I don't want to make it any worse, it wasn't a big deal, it's fine, I'm fine.:
"Fine? Whatever, do what you want. I just hope you're not pregnant."
I heard some quiet sobs. I lit another cigarette off of the still smoldering end of my last one. I didn't particularly want to, but my zippo went out after the first one of the night and I was lucky enough to still have an ember burning in the ashtray when I went for the second one. A toxic salve to jittery nerves. I didn't want to take any chances. This way was a sure thing.
Jesus, I feel like I have problems, Miriam over there has a friend hell-bent on litigation when all she wants is a shoulder to cry on, but I've smoked seven cigarettes in a row out of the fear of asking someone for a light. People are so afraid of exposing themselves. People go through such lengths to appear normal. Miriam over there wants to convince herself that she wasn't raped by forgetting that it happened as soon as it was over. I'm trying to seem like I'm fine by sitting around coffee shops surrounded by people laughing and talking and just generally enjoying themselves to convince myself that I am not slipping off into some unknown dimension...
I hear a thought, "Hmm, your cigarette is almost out, there's more in the back, yeah, one more won't hurt." I instinctively reach for another one. I knew there were other things I should have been doing, but I just wasn't. I had been avoiding my classes—avoiding the daytime really. Everything was better at night. The day was severe; the night put a calming haze on everything. An obfuscation of reality paired wonderfully with pretending everything was fine.
Three weeks ago, the mental health services help-desk person (can't remember if it was a guy or a girl, think it was a girl) told me there wasn't an appointment available for five weeks. She? was a student, she had to have been. I looked like shit when I went to schedule the appointment, but it was mid-terms, everyone looked like shit. Everyone is hiding from their realities. It was fine.
I jostled my leg up and down in the absence of Miriam and her problems. A waiter came by to empty the now overflowing ashtray. Ash had settled in all around me, speckled down my shirt and onto my pants. Before he left I remembered that they sold cigarettes here. I hesitated for a moment after I looked up, he asked, "Want anything else?" and I responded "Camel filters and another coffee." The waiter asked if I wanted decaf "since it's getting late?" I laughed and told him "regular, no room."
Spider-House had a restless energy to it. Tables were made from old wooden doors and refrigerators that had the large silver handles. Nothing ever sat still on a table: drinks wobbled and splashed as soon as they were sat down and people writhed in decomposing bucket seats, but that was the point. The whole place was cast in a hazy glow of string lights of various shapes and sizes overhead, but they never really illuminated anything. Old leaden windows were hung from the patio and cast odd refractions of light across the yard. One could always count on strange observances there. This stage was a crow's nest when some struggling DJ was not spinning records and annoying neighbors with frenetic loops of unexplained noise masquerading as music elevated.
I was staring off into the ephemeral glow of blue and green and white and red smoke when a woman, a few years older than me breathed, "could I bum a smoke." I jumped, she appeared out of nowhere. I was lost in a daydream and was snapped back to the world. I looked up at her flashing a toothy grin--endearing. "Sure", I muttered and pushed the pack towards her. She pulled a cigarette out with delicate fingers and placed in in the corner of her mouth.
After she left, I put the pack into my pocket to discourage others from doing the same when she reappeared as soon as she had left. "Sorry to bother you again, do you have a light?" she asked with a shrug and pouting expression, she actually seemed sorry to bother me again. I turned up and told her "no" through the cigarette in my mouth. "Oh well" she said and leaned down to my face, she tilted my cigarette up to meet hers and lit hers without ever taking mine out of my mouth. My eye twitched. "Thanks!" She pulled out a chair and said, "mind if I sit down" without waiting for a response.
"No point in asking if you aren't going to wait for a response", I muttered... She looked me square in the eyes and asked, "Why don't you like other people?" They were hazel.
I appreciated the directness of her question, she did not flit about wasting time.
"Everyone just wants to talk about their problems, it's selfish."
"Okay then, what are yours?"
I didn't know how to answer. She could be trying to trap me in some way—get me to talk about my issues and then call me a damn hypocrite.
She started again, "We all have issues, that's being human. We need other people to make us feel normal. We're all fucked up, let it go, engage."
I stared at her. She had cropped dirty blonde hair, threadbare black jeans and a sun-bleached tank-top (once the color of blood I imagine). I had never met someone who speaks so openly, no small talk, straight to the point.
She slid the chair back and walked off. She left a cigarette in the ashtray with the imprint of red lips around the filter as its last curls of smoke vanished in the air. I picked it up and took the last drag off of it, inhaling what she had just inhaled, the communion of smokers. I stubbed it out and went to find where she went. I stood on the threshold of here and there, a reluctant pause, then I went forward.
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