Art School

It’s hard to ignore that there’s garbage, surrounding me, enveloping me, as I walk deeper into her apartment. She tells me that it’s clean, the garbage, but it’s been cold this week, and with the heat on high, all of her clean garbage has been cooking all day. I can’t quite identify the odor that is everywhere, but it kinda reminds me of her, the faint odor in her hair. A kind of illusive aroma, which is oddly pleasant when properly diluted, but at full concentration I can feel it on my skin; all of my pores are engaged in battle. I want to go home and shower so badly. I can see the clean warm water, in my mind, washing a layer of slime from my body like a Miyazaki swamp demon.

This is the first time I’ve been to her place, and I want it to be the last, except, I know this is the where she calls home, where she feels most comfortable. I hate myself for thinking, maybe I should stop taking out my trash and she’ll come to my place more often. I hate myself for thinking, if we stay here, maybe I can finally get her to…

She offers me some tea, some weird herbal blend I’ve never heard of. I tell her no thanks, but she pushes; I acquiesce, not that I’ll drink it. I hope I’m not even here long enough for the water to boil, but she takes off her shoes and puts on the TV. Some religious show comes on, and I make a note to keep an eye on that. She asks me questions as she flips channels. I know she’s hoping that I’ll ask her the same questions in return, so she can open up some dark corner of her mind to me. I know I’m supposed to interpret this as spontaneous intimacy, but it just seems so calculated, so safe.

I try to delve deeper instead of redirecting her formulaic questions, but she squirms and tells me she needs to check on the tea. With her gone, my attention returns to the stacks of boxes topped with dirty dishes, and the pile of laundry in the corner. There’s no visible underwear so I assume that she hidden them inside the pile. I wonder if that’s her idea of cleaning up for me, or if maybe she didn’t have dirty underwear(?)

She returns with the tea in two distinctly different glasses. I ask for the smaller of the two and plan to dump a small amount of my tea into her glass when she’s not looking. Looking around, there are dozens of places I could dump some unwanted liquid, but it seems, somehow, disrespectful.

She avoids steering the conversation back in the previous, safe deep zone, and I assume that the verbal intimacy portion of the evening has passed. I try to direct the topic towards sex, but she keeps going on about some TV show she’s into. I listen politely, but I have no idea what she’s talking about. When neither of us can think of anything else to say, we lay down. Her pillow is comfortable and smells like her perfume, to my pleasant surprise. She pushes into me in a non sexual, gay friend sort of way. I start kissing her neck but she’s unresponsive. Her eyes are shut and her breathing has slowed: I know that she’ll be asleep soon. I can’t decide if I should stay ’till she falls asleep, or leave immediately. I dim the lights, help her out of her clothes, and pull the blanket over her. I put on my shoes and look for my coat. After a minute of dark, quiet, scanning, I give up and head for the door.

“I can see ghosts,” I hear as I undue the lock.

With my hand on the knob I pause, wondering what etiquette dictated at the moment. Is she dreaming, can I pretend I didn’t hear her, I wonder. Out of curiosity, not propriety, I say, “Oh?”

“Yeah, all the time,” she says, without moving. I try to remember if I ever said such a thing when I was her age.

“Well that’s, yeah(?)” I say/ask, still trying to figure how awake she is.

“They’re so sad.”

“…yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“…I uh, yeah, I heard that somewhere. Something about unresolved issues.”

“…” Her bangs fall on her face, the same few strands of amber that she brushes behind her ears a few dozen times a day.

The bangs were unchallenged. “Well uh, I’m gonna go…”

“…”

I think of adding, we can talk about this more tomorrow, if you want, but I don’t say it.

She rolls over, gracefully, and the blanket slides a little out of place, exposing half of her Violin D’Ingress tattoo. I smile and let myself out.

This Week in Politics

AHS Student Council Room/Cafetorium – This week, council member John B. stunned everyone by refusing to participate in any votes or other activities, until it was agreed that his cat, Mrs. Flaubert, was adorable.  In an effort to move things along Barry, the student body president, agreed that the cat was “Pretty darn cute.”  Unappeased, John B. continued to “fill-o-buster” [sic] until funds could be allocated toward the health and well-being of Mrs. Flaubert.

Mrs. Flaubert

Teddy, John B’s cousin, verified that Mrs. Flaubert could really use the candy sale money, and that it would be fiscally irresponsibly not to do so.

The funds in question, approximately $700, were originally allocated to address the growing population of starving dogs, which have been a growing concern since emaciated strays started wandering onto campus.

 

hungry puppy

Tim, an AHS student, had this to say.  “This is total BS.  I had to sell, like, five boxes of chocolate bars to make that money for those dogs.  I mean, it was called the stray dog candy sale for *** sake.  Besides, John’s cat is fat.  It doesn’t need more food, it’s a fat cat.”

When asked for comment, John B’s sister Michele passed me a piece of paper with a prepared statement.  It said, “Bernie S and most of the student council hate cats.”  By lunchtime, everyone was debating whether or not the remarks were true.

That afternoon, Bernie S. responded to the vicious attack.  At the start of the meeting, just after the previous meeting’s minutes had been read, he took the floor and went on an unheard of 8 and a half-minute tirade, where he accused John B. of “slanter” [sic] and being a dog hating, wanna-be-ironic hipster.  At that point, the meeting erupted into childish name calling on both sides, until Barry called for a simple up and down vote.

Bernie S. rebuttal speech

At the end of the day, it was agreed that $200 dollars would go to the Flaubert Fund, and the rest would be given to the ASPCA.  The Flaubert Fund would be given out in two installments; the second installment taking place just after next year’s student council election.  Barry’s ex-girlfriend, who was sitting next to me during the meeting, told me that this was not a coincidence.

After the vote, Bernie S. had this to say.  “I just don’t get this place anymore.  I’m thinking of changing schools.”