10/30
Claire and I are meeting at the Bryn Mawr Film Institute, but not to see a movie. It is the kind of early-fall day that is so common here, where the leaves have yet to really change, with the temperature still hovering in the 70s, the humidity still often overwhelming. We walked the Main Line to get there, as though it was nothing at all, and now that we are standing outside under the overhang, we decide to go in—but we are not seeing a movie.
Inside, where the atrium should be, there is just lots of dark wood and a relatively low ceiling. We stumble blindly for a staircase, and head upstairs. On the second floor, the Film Institute looks like a library—all old wood built-ins lined with musty books, and heavy tables covered in books to peruse. We sit at a table for two and begin to flick through a turquoise book about memories. The pages are each a few centimeters thick, and almost made of gel. The pages all look like collages, and it is easy to get lost in them. One of the pages shows the bottom of the ocean floor, which is made out of various words like “broken” and “disintegrate” and “evolution.” Staring at it longer, starting to get sucked in, suddenly underwater, staring out through my glasses at fish swimming by, and Claire is next to me, and under the water, her hair is fanning out in the sea, and we are both smiling—this book is amazing, I say, my mouth full of water, but still breathing. My voice makes no sound, but Claire hears it all the same, and grins.
A tap on my shoulder and we are back in Bryn Mawr. Claire’s mother has arrived with Stuart, to talk about colleges with an important higher-up at BMFI. “Enjoying the afternoon?” Claire’s mother asks. We nod, but for now the book’s spell is broken and we put it aside, albeit reluctantly. We are sitting on this meeting, for reasons I don’t really understand. After all, I am not in college. What do I know?
The meeting is painful. Stuart is tapping his foot and looking upset, and I keep getting chills as Claire, her mother, and the Bryn Mawr woman all explain the importance of education and going to the right school and why isn’t Stuart applying to Cornell, and I think, Why was I invited to this? Eventually, the meeting winds down, and the adults leave.
(Even in my dreams, I thought of it as the adults leaving. Even in this dream I was considering myself a child.)
Stuart and I are left at the table. He is sitting, I am standing with one knee propped up on my chair. We are quiet, and unhappy. I go to stand at the window, looking out on Route 30 and the people going about their lovely afternoons. The silence grows, but it isn’t uncomfortable—just sad, or lonely, maybe. It a silence about understanding, and how terrible it is that we understand each other. Finally, I wrap my arms around myself and say to the window, “This whole thing really isn’t that big of a deal.” I turn back, and our eyes meet and we make shaky half-smiles, before we both stand at the window some more.
After the silence dissipates, we are the only things left, and there is no longer any real connection beyond being Alex and Stuart, two people who are not even recognizable as that name, two people who share a friend and a sister. I grab my bag, sling it over my shoulder, and leave.
Out on the street, I open my phone and call my own brother. Are you taking the bus home? I ask him. He is supposed to be at school, but I somehow know that he isn’t. Take the bus home, Robby, I say. Don’t be dumb. We quibble and hang up. Digging through my purse, I take out the book I have been reading, to skim as I walk the sidewalks home. I crack open the spine, and start down past Greene Street and Showcase Comics towards Paoli.
In the book, I am a ten-year-old boy. My name is Sam.
My friends and I are walking around the playground at school. One of these boys is a real-life version of Eric Cartman and, while kinder, no more understanding. Together, there are five of us: me, Eric, Joe, Dave, and Mike. Mike and Dave are mostly absent but important figures—Dave is my older brother, and Mike isn’t hanging out as much because he has a girlfriend, which we all are making fun of when I start the book again in Bryn Mawr.
“Girls are so gross,” Eric says, and Joe and I echo with disgusted sounds. We are drawing in the dirt with sticks. We are watching Mike with his girlfriend off in the distance. They are looking at each other, bashful, and stepping on ants. That his girlfriend is doing this does not make her any more cool. She’s still a girl.
“I don’t know why he’d like a glrl,” I say, making more designs in the dirt. “He could just like boys.”
Eric laughs. “But boys don’t like boys,” he says.
“Well, I do,” I say while sticking out my tongue.
This makes Joe look up, and both he and Eric look at me funny. “You like boys?” Joe asks, a little hesitant.
I shrug. “Boys are cooler than girls. Boys have more fun than girls. Boys smell better than girls.” I have more reasons, and I list them all. My friend are just staring at me.
“But boys don’t like boys,” Eric repeats.
“I like boys. One day I’ll grow up and marry a boy. We could get married, Eric. Would you rather marry Linda?” I throw a look back at Mike, disgusted.
“No!” he panics. “But I don’t like boys. I don’t like girls but I don’t like boys.”
“Me neither,” Joe says. He’s still staring at me, and Eric is looking at the ground, looking sick.
I am going to argue more when Dave walks up. Dave is twelve, and he is smarter, and he will explain things right, so I explain to him that it makes more sense to like boys than girls, and he just stares at me for a minute as though he knows more than I do, but I am ten, not stupid, and I tell him so. And he smiles and ruffles my hair a bit in a way that I hate, and he says to Eric, who is still looking horrified, that some boys like boys. I cross my arms at this and give my friends a look of smug triumph, but still, no one is saying anything.
Joe looks at me. “You’re gay.”
I nod.
He sighs and walks away. Eric follows. Dave and I watch them leave.
The chapter ends and I am back, walking from Bryn Mawr, now walking down my hill, the sun still shining, and at the foot of my driveway my brother is getting out of a lavender taxi holding a trombone in a case.
“I told you to take the bus!” I shout from far away.
He ignores me, goes in the house, and I start to walk up, inside.
PAST DREAM: 4/23/08
I am dating Gabe. There is a strong narrative to this dream that disappeared during the course of my day. It involved tracking down an item, and Pittsburgh was suddenly like home in that it was really train-oriented. Up the street, where Forbes curves near Schenley Park, was a version of my street, and I remember being angry and yelling, and running into the street and almost being hit by a car. There was such an awesome story to this dream and I hate forgetting it. There was such a large search in it, and so much traveling.
PAST DREAM: 4/16/08
I am dating this chick named Leslie, and we are making out, and she tells me we should break up. “I don’t understand,” I say. “You’re bisexual,” she explains. “It’s not like you’re really a lesbian.” I don’t know what to say to that. “I didn’t think it would matter,” I finally blurt out. “Well, it does,” she says as she puts on her bra and leaves. I sit alone.
10/22
I’m standing on a concrete patio overlooking a lovely garden party in England, and I am so sad knowing I have to leave. The sky is clear and everyone is dressed in stereotypical Sunday best. I hug the host good-bye and then go down the steps to the yard, careful to not catch the eyelet of my white dress on brambles lining the short dirt path. In the garden I grab Kathy and my friend Michael to head back to the airport, and we all turn back to the house, white and elegant and windowed, to wave at other guests. We wrap towards the front of the house and climb up steps and then pull outselves onto an overpass
and now it is a smoggy city, or so it appears, and I look back at the garden home in shock. Is it only fifty yards away? And I can see it from the strip mall we are walking towards, the strip mall with the combination Borders / cafe / airport. Our flight has been delayed and Kathy and I read Wolverine comic books while drinking cappuccinos, and when we finally board I look out over the garden and wave down to the party as though they can see us.
10/20
My mother and I are driving and suddenly the car in front of us slams into the car in front of them, and I am screaming and the brakes are not slowing us down fast enough, and everything is moving too fast, and we slam into the car in front of us, and the car behind us slams into us, and this is how wrecks happen, I am thinking as I black out. But almost immediately the darkness is gone and I am on a stretcher and I can’t feel my neck, can’t feel much of anything but I know I should be in a lot of pain, I know I should be dying from the pain, but everything is just hazy, and people are shouting and I can hear them but the voices are all indistinct, and it’s black again.
This time the blackness fades and I am drowsily awoken in a hospital, looking at an old man dressed in scrubs and looking appropriately upset. Your mother didn’t make it, he says. You’re bleeding internally and we’re not sure if we can stop it. We’re trying to stop it.
But my mother is dead and I can’t handle that kind of pain, and I can’t handle knowing that I am alive and she is not, and I am suddenly wracked with pain and then—
Kill me, I ask the doctor. He shakes his head. I don’t have insurance, I beg him. This is going to bankrupt us. I can’t get better like this. Just let me die. Please just let me die. Please just let me die. I am sobbing now, please, please, my mother is dead and I don’t have insurance and please please please, please, just let me die.
And then he nods and I am still sobbing because I don’t want to die, too afraid to die, but I can’t live like this, and he turns off the breathing machine and leaves the room as I feel myself going to the black.
PAST DREAM: 4/14/08
Initially, I am watching two young brothers navigate Pittsburgh. They are orphans, and rummaging around trying to get food. The elder boy is 12, the younger is no more than 6. An older man strolls up with a shopping cart full of food, and tells them to follow him. They follow, and eventually come to a giant school. I forget after this, but somehow I came in at one point. I think I became the younger brother.
10/16
I walk into a bank to move some money around, and inside I run into a girl I knew in high school, KF. “How’s college?” she asks and I freeze a little, tell the whole story. “You?” I say, finally. “Oh, I transferred”—she left behind her dream school in California (she does not go there in real life, didn’t get in) to go to Juniata. I am stunned, and then we both leave and promise to get coffee sometimes.
Soon, I have returned, after a long break to Carnegie Mellon. I am once again living in an apartment, but where my old one was bright and clean, this one is grimy and old. The whole place looks like it’s falling apart. My volleyball roommates are back, and our whole apartment shares a bathroom with the apartment next to us, and they are also volleyball players, people I also can’t stand. The bathroom doors don’t lock, and the walls are semi-transparent, and I think “I never want to take a shower here.” We are supposed to bond and watch television together, and I want to stab out my eyes.
It is while traversing the campus I run into Chloe, and another old friend with a hook for a hand (when I wake, I wonder if this was supposed to be Meghan, who in real life used a wheelchair). I keep trying to explain that I want to be friends, but neither of them believes me.
After some time, I finally manage to convince them to hang out in my aunt’s garage. As we are talking, something goes wrong, and there is a massive fight that ends with both of them walking out. My aunt comes to see what is wrong. “I have no friends!” I scream at her. “No friends! There is no one in the world who wants to be my friend!” And then I burst into tears on her shoulder and wake up.
