Straight No Chaser

Eventually, Erskine

i left a little bit early. i really had to, because my boss and the entirety of his team were missing (minus the one woman who always wears flannel and never looks directly at me), and after i finished making updates to the last presentation i was literally just staring out the window for hours. and chain-scarfing lorna doones. the woman who played only sade came back, but instead of being pleasant and spreading joy to the world via her overzealous speakers, she spent all afternoon fighting with her insurance company on the phone, and then had some kind of nervous breakdown. i got my check, a week late but sweetened with the honey of last week's overtime. after that it seemed dumb to stick around. i left.

last year a technician had a violent seizure while on his shift, and was gone before the paramedics made it upstairs. i was nineteen and shellshocked; i held the door for them as they carried out the gurney, trying to look like it was the kind of thing i was used to doing. discounting funerals, it was, in fact, my first encounter with human death, the first time i'd ever been within three feet of a body that had so recently been alive. pretty amazing, then, that i didn't think about it again till now, and probably won't ever again, barring some explicit reminder.

makes me wonder why some firsts that seem important lose their meaning after a day or two, while others stick around forever. i remember the first time i ever gave anyone the finger. third grade, in an uncharacteristic show of defiance against the baby-sitter. my brother, then six, watched in shocked awe, and ratted me out the second my parents got home.

i remember the first time i ever told a calculated lie. summer of the same year; i got sick of being laughed at by all the white girls at camp who didn’t understand why i had to wear a swim cap to get in the pool. either that, or i just got tired of the cap itself, which was tight and blue and heinously uncomfortable, and which still sits in my top dresser drawer, a hated relic of my racial enlightenment. anyway, i quit wearing it sometime in the second week and came home every evening with a head of hopelessly tangled curls. when my mom asked, i told her the cap was sliding off in the pool. i’m still unsure of exactly how she figured out i was lying, but i got in pretty serious trouble for it. i also got a series of lectures on the biological injustices that i’d just have to get used to, as they would plague me for the rest of my life. said her. i think she also called the camp lifeguard, who extended my punishment further by making me collect foam paddles while i should have been swimming.

i remember my ever-so-graceful transition into anatomical womanhood. two words: white skirt.

i remember the first time i ever finished a piece of writing that made me proud. seventh grade, and it was called “parstonia.” it’s under my bed somewhere, along with all the notebooks full of the unfinished crap that came before it. it was about a girl with divorced parents, and how she invented an imaginary kingdom to serve as a getaway when she felt overlooked. it was formulaic and crudely put together; i can’t really read any of it without dying a little inside. i didn’t know what the hell i was doing. i really thought i was capable of great literature. then i went through a period where i wouldn’t write anything, because it all seemed so shitty, and then found my confidence again toward the end of tenth grade.

i remember a lot of physical firsts. i remember my first embarrassing report card and the first time i sat down at a baby grand piano. i remember my first (and only) violin recital and the first song i ever learned on the guitar. i remember my first encounter with my dad’s most glaring imperfection. i remember the first time i didn’t get excited walking into a toy store.

i’m sure i could think of more, if i really concentrated. the point is, i can’t believe i never thought about the deceased man (to whom i’m trying to refer as respectfully as possible, without letting on that i don’t remember his name) after that first day, when i was so jarred and upset. applestein the psych teacher taught me that storing memory is an oft-subconscious but always active process, meaning forgetting the important stuff is my fault. this isn’t comforting, as i’ve got bad judgment. chances are i’m going to play the tool when it comes time to store the really momentous things, like losing my virginity and finding my niche in the career world, and when i’m an old woman all i’m going to remember in detail will be the expendable bullshit, like what i wore on the first day of eighth grade. i’m hoping not.

on an unrelated note, i wrote three of you into the nine-way story. seven siblings requiring seven different personalities and life stories: hard to do. i had to borrow.

i am in the mood to roar. if i had my own personal pride rock, i’d climb it and pay my noisy homage to the god-forsaken circle of life.