| ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- that stoner kid from the neighborhood uptown a ways. Rosie and I hit it off immediately in freshman Spanish class. She was a cheerleader but the "weird" cheerleader who came from a poor family and dressed in thrift store clothes. Her dad was an alcoholic and abusive. Her mother, extremely and devoutly Catholic. She had two, much younger brothers. All this seemed to mesh perfectly with my life: Absentee father, single working mother and two much younger brothers. We lived a few blocks from each other and spent hours in each other's rooms, talking and dancing to Madonna and Prince. In school, we spent our classtimes trading origami notes filled with doodled pink hearts and smiley faces and declarations of love for the boy of the week. One of those boys was Steven S, a stoner kid from the neighborhood uptown a ways. He had long silky blonde hair and always wore the same faded jeans and matching jean jacket, the top pocket to which was always stuffed with a pack of Marlboros. He listened to metal and talked in monosyllables and had half-lidded eyes and we were both madly in love with him. Sometimes we skipped out at lunch or ditched sixth period and rode around town with him, Judas Priest or Dokken blaring from the shitty car speakers of his shitty muscle car with paint stripped down to just the gray primer. Dull and lifeless. Eventually, he dropped out of school. At some point, Rosie and I drifted apart. I started hanging out with the drama and journalism kids. She dropped out of school and got pregnant. Married some guy when she was 20. Had four kids by the time she was 32. Every now then we ran into each other, but not much. Then she found me on Facebook. We exchanged messages, met up for lunch at a midtown cafe. She and her family lived in a house next door to the one she grew up in. Her parents had divorced; her father had Alzheimer's, her mother now lived in a mobile home park. Rosie told me she hated her home life. She missed her high school days and wished she'd gone to college. Moreover, she didn't love her husband anymore but she said she'd never leave him. After all, he was the father of her children and he provided well for them. She could be a stay-at-home mother and take care of the two kids who were still at home. Eventually, however, she did leave him. (I only learned this through Facebook--we still don't talk much anymore.) Then they got back together again. And broke up again. She got a job, from what I could tell at least. Now, it seems, she has a new boyfriend. I didn't recognize him in the pictures at first--the hair is shorter, the eyes more alert, the denim darker. But yes, it's Steven S., that stoner kid from the neighborhood uptown a ways. They look very happy. Still, and I can't tell you why exactly, but this makes me very, very sad. 10:57 am - 24.05.13
sounds: ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- previously on ... - next time on ...
Hold on, hold on - 03.06.15 - 11:40 am rejection isn't death, right? - 17.02.15 - 12:10 pm What's your favorite song? Do you remember how it pierced your ears? - 29.10.14 - 12:54 pm It's self-defense, really - 06.09.14 - 2:23 pm Another day, another trip down the rabbit hole - 02.04.14 - 10:58 am |
||||||