Miss Misery (7 page)

Hey, it's Jack. You there? You're not picking up your cell, either, so I thought I'd try you at home. Look, man, we don't expect you to come into Manhattan—though that Futureheads show was fucking kick-ass, you should be sorry you missed it—but you can't even walk a few blocks to grab a beer? That's cold, man. That's cold.

David, I'm beginning to think we should have signed your answering machine to a book contract—I bet it's got a lot of stories to tell. Ha, ha! Well, I'm sure you've guessed by now that it's your old editor friend Thom calling you. Again. We're just about at the deadline we agreed on. And still no word from you. I understand that you're a private sort of person, but this is my job too, you know! I'm sure it's going to be a good book, but you don't need to turn into a hermit crab like J.R. Salinger, right? Ha, ha!

Today was the first day of summer and Krystal and I celebrated by treating ourselves to lunch at the mall. I was planning on just getting a salad but the Panda Bear place was giving out free samples of sesame chicken ::yum:: so guess what I ended up eating? Afterwards we walked around and laughed at all the perfect blond prep lameos shopping for new boxer-briefs at Abercrombie or American Eagle or whatever until they started pointing back and called us freaks. Whatever. ::shrugs::

We went to Hot Topic so Krystal could get the first Taking Back Sunday album on CD (she wore out the copy I burned for her). She usually doesn't like the same music that I do–she mostly likes really metal stuff like Lamb of God and Atreyu ::gag::–but maybe all the messed-up stuff she's been going through makes her relate to emotional stuff more. Is that possible? Can your taste change with your feelings? Like, if I was feeling 100% happy all the time would I want to listen to like, Britney? Or would I no longer like sesame chicken???? ::laughs:: I doubt it!

So we drove around in her car for a while after that and sang along and I finally got her to admit that “You're So Last Summer” is the best song. I know it sounds stupid but for a second just driving around with the AC on full blast and the volume up loud and all the windows open, and with my best friend and it's SUMMER you know, and we were both singing super loud–it was the best feeling in the world. It felt like being in a movie, like it was something that wasn't just happening–it was something we were already REMEMBERING, you know? ::smiles::

But all movies end and instead of long boring credits I had to go home and find my dad sitting there waiting for me. He got some BYU crap in the mail and he wanted to go over it with me. I wanted to yell like YOU ALREADY WENT THERE YOU DON'T GET TO GO AGAIN! But it's like it's the most important thing in the world to him. He said that I'd better do extra studying this summer so I get my math boards up. If I don't he might take away my computer. It's like, doesn't he understand that's like saying he'd take away my ARMS!!

Well, gotta go. Dinner time. Can't wait to hear what he'll say to me NOW.

They had a going away party tonight for me at the restaurant which was sweet because up until then I hadn't realized that I cared. But I did care–I can't help myself. Shane made everyone blue drinks with that stuff that I love to say but have no idea how to write (curacao?). Tommy said he told all of his tables that the crab special was named after me (such a sweetheart) and after closing everyone stuck around to get drunk–or at least as close to drunk as blue drinks can get you. Hector and Amilcar took turns trying to teach me how to salsa dance but I don't think I'm a natural.

Then I took the bus home and it took two strange looks from two different old ladies to make me realize I was crying. I swear–that's the first and last time I'm going to be anything but giddy about this. In two days I'll be in New York and that's all I've ever wanted.

But right now I'm sitting here and my life is in boxes all around me (very nice boxes that were once filled with very nice wine–Dad picked them up for me at his favorite snooty vino store). Nothing is packed though because how can it be? What can I bring? What can I leave behind? Instead I'm sitting here surrounded by a life that is quickly becoming my old life. I've been reading yearbooks and the track listings of old mix tapes and then putting them back on the shelf. Just to prove that I don't need them anymore.

When I was in middle school everyone had to do a sport after school and you know how athletic I am (I get great big purple bruises just from kneeling to tie my shoes) so you can imagine how that went. In the spring I took track and field because that's what all the slackers did–I remember Will Webster (the hot older elf-man who did plays and made grade 5 girls swoon) used to take people (only if they were cool enough) out behind the highjump mat and share a joint with them. Track and field wasn't serious, it was mostly waiting and wearing shorts and teaching other girls how to make grass kazoos. So that's what I did. But everyone had to do at least one event and the one Coach (Big) Bird had me do was the 400. Why? Because it wasn't a sprint and it wasn't distance. It was in the middle just like I was (which was just another way of saying not quite good enough at anything). It was just a lot of running.

So why am I talking about this (other than the fact that I just read what Coach wrote in my grade 8 yearbook: “Hope to see you trying harder next year.” I mean: WTF?!? I was 14!)? Because the only thing I ever really liked about track and field was the moment just before the race started, when you'd have to dig into the red clay of the track and everyone else would just SHUT UP already. There was no more trashtalking or encouragement or people you barely knew shouting your name as if there's any real chance you're going to win. All that was just fucking OVER for a beautiful tangle of seconds. And the feeling, the anticipation of that gun going off, was so painful after a while it became delicious. It's actually kind of HOT, you know? The gun is going to go off. It's going to happen soon. You can't move anything in your body, no twitching, no itching, nothing. You just dance on the edge of your toes until you finally hear the gun saying MOVE GO NOW. But it wasn't the moment that you finally did get to fucking move that I got off on. It was the second just before that. Knowing it was going to happen, that there was nothing you could do to stop it. Knowing and not knowing. Being completely powerless, at the mercy of some random stranger(s). That was the best part.

And that's how I feel right now.

Good night, Toronto. Good-bye. Don't wait up for me.

Sometimes–on nights like tonight when I'm so drunk/stoned/high/gone that I feel like I'm looking at the city from above like a game board and I know all my moves in advance–I like to think about the way I was before this summer, before I started going out, before I started living like this. And really, what I like to think is that I was pathetic–sitting at home, always pining for something or other, always complaining. Living like an old person in these last few years of youth that I have left.

Living here and ignoring the nighttime is like going to a movie with a blindfold on–what's the point? There are so many women, so many bars, so many songs, so many mistakes. What's the point of worrying about things before you've done them? Go, go, go. Hangovers are for tomorrows, and if you never stop, you never reach tomorrow.

Tonight I DJed again at a bar on the LES–one of those secret ones that doesn't have a name or a sign. Free drinks and free phone numbers. Making out with girls in the bathroom whose names I never caught. Soundtracking my own descent.

I never could have had any of this before. It never could have happened. If I ran into the me I used to be on the subway–before any of this, before the drinking and the drugging and the DJing, before she left–I doubt I'd even recognize him. He'd be introverted, sad, pale, and disappearing. And if he stopped me to chat I know what I'd say to him: Everything is terrific. Everything is free. Everything is finally happening.

Is it possible to be having the time of your life and not remember any of it the next day?

The day after I wrote that I woke up late again, pushed aside the empty beer cans on my desk, and read what I had written. Ludicrous, as always. I hadn't DJed a party yesterday. I hadn't even left my apartment. There had been a part of yesterday when I was watching TV and another part when I had been shotgunning Rheingolds in front of my computer screen and that was about it. I sighed.

I was beginning to entertain the possibility that I was depressed, but the fact that the possibility entertained made me doubt it. It wasn't that I was screening calls; I was flat-out ignoring them. And it wasn't that I was sad or lonely. It went deeper than that—to a place where I could hear the little nags and groans and cries of sadness pinging against the roof of whatever emotional bunker I'd built for myself over the weeks since Amy had left, but I didn't feel particularly bothered to respond to them.