david lynch, you go metiocre-ly with white russians
May 31, 2005 / 5:00 p.m.
The first day of my 26th year started off with no plans to speak of and me
taking a shower in an bare bathroom that was about to be re-tiled, sitting in my room with my clean clothes almost slumped over in exhaustion or something nearing it, and then being told, once again, that i was being kicked out at the end of the month. It did phase me as i picked at a callous on my finger, a remnant from a burn i got from
touching a hot pot, somewhere between a scab and just dead skin glossed over.
Well, i can't do much about that, i thought. And toyed with my cellphone as the narrative went in one ear (my left) and out the other, where the person was not standing on the side of.
I was already depressed so i wouldn't say there was so much of a comedown as a stay down, a lack of that
focal point in the morning where things change around, where sun comes out, where caffeine is consumed, where
ideas (even if you know they won't be executed) are launched in some laudable order.
I got on the 10, with it BARELY not raining, and drove up to alberta, focused on going to either the star. e.
rose or fuel, because they both have internet connections. But being memorial day, i guess, the
star. e. rose was packed to the brim, far away from the days of riding my bike to vernon in the morning
and stopping by beforehand to get a coffee and some type of pastry.
I kept walking on alberta, and there was fuel past 15th on the south side of the street, and motherfuck it was even more crowded than the star e. rose.
I instantaneously turned left on 15th, and looked for a bus stop.
I was downtown at the portland coffee house after checking out a $20 bill from the bank, and having a
normal coffee which was to be followed by a decaf.
since they give half priced refills.
there were lots of pretty girls. there was a neil young marathon on the radio that i was listening to on my discman, the sun broke through repeatedly, only to be redefeated by the clouds, the dj on the radio said someone had just called in to say the sun had won in beaverton.
then all of a sudden, a pretty girl with a white knit sweater and pink and white skirt, and white shiny ballroom shoes was walking across the street. i made eye contact with her for about 5 seconds, until she disappeared behind a car on the other side of the street.
'i'm gonna see that girl again, or i'll write an i saw u' i told myself.
i went back in to get my refill, and there she was, standing behind me in line, and i pretended like i was
completely unaware, with my arm propped up on the glass pastry display case.
i got my order and walked right by her, and in my diverted eye line, meant to be coy, i could tell she had looked at me.
i went outside and sat on a table on the other side of the shop, where she didn't see me before, because i
figured she would be walking towards pioneer square and see me now.
well, she didn't. she got her drink and walked out to where i was sitting, and sat down directly where i had
been sitting.
i got back up and put a little more cream in my coffee and looked at her, and we traded awkward eye contact a
few times. then i went and stood by the front entrance for a moment, and then walked towards pioneer square.
i stood out in the bikelane, waiting for traffic to clear, thinking to myself 'forget it forget it forget
it' and then i decided to just walk up to the light, and i looked on the sidewalk and there she was walking
step by step with me, a little a head.
at this point the normal person says hello, or 'my name is lyle' or 'nice day for coffee and cigarettes, eh?'
i did none of those, and played my headphones louder,
and shook.
there were those charity fundraisers on the corner, in orange shirts, so we both kind of unacknowledgingly
follwed each other by walking as fast as we could across the street.
she stood in front of me, me from behind, and she bend down on a knee, opened her bag, and pulled out a
discman and some old fashioned headphones and put them on.
well, there goes that idea. but where will she go?
i got a head start on the walking across the street, so i began just to walk toward the square, where i was
going to sit if it was sunny, hoping it was.
well, i walked there, and she was behind me, and i stood on the top of the stairs, and she sat down right
there. i stood there, 'what do normal people do now?' i thought to myself.
i sat down about 10 feet from her, and began tapping my feet along to the music. she followed along, and
soon was tapping her white high heels, and i could hear them with the music all the way turned down but the headphones still on.
there was a jesus freak down there, yelling to the crowd.
there was an African man who looked like he handn’t been here very long sitting between us on the awning of the fountain about five feet away, facing backwards. In other words, facing us. We three created an awkward triangle of a sorts. And he, strangely, lazily, looking back and forth between us, smiling, looking off into the distance in the meantime, like he knew what had just occurred, what was happening in other words.
Eventually he left, and looked over at her cd player, not looking at her, and I could tell she looked back at me. Eventually I asked her for a cigarette, if I could buy one, and she said “No. I’ll just give it to you” Although the I’ll Just Give it To You was garbled and somewhat drowned out by the fountain. Or that I just wanted to hear her voice or say something to her.
I got my cigarette, then sat on the other side of my backpack, closer, and she handed me a book of matches and I lit the lucky strike. I can’t remember what I said after that, what was the exact progression of conversation. Definitely Nabokov was involved (Lolita being translated into a movie). Myspace was involved. A party we both went to. Friends we both know. Her boyfriend. Her band was involved. Some other stuff.
‘Are you hungry?’ I said.
‘No, but I’ll go along, I guess.’
‘I can’t think of anything,’ as we both had grabbed our belongings, our discmen, etc. and stood at the top of the rim looking around as if a nice, cheap restaurant was going to appear like an oasis and we were going to slip into it effortlessly.
It was sunny.
My black leather dress shoes were not made for walking distances, but at this point it wasn’t a big deal.
We walked to The Roxy, and it was closed for memorial day, for all the dead soldiers. We then walked up to northwest in no rush, as it was her day off, and I had nothing to do and was literally trying to kill a day that I wasn’t happy in. So I was happy to have someone along to accompany me. In between the Roxy and NW, we stopped at powell's to relieve ourselves of our coffees that we had earlier in their public bathrooms, and saw Gus Van Sant coming in, and held the door open for him to grab.
We ended up at this Mexican restaurant. I got the El Cheapo burrito and a beer to go since we decided to go sit in a park in the sun and have a picnic. Only they didn’t give beers to go. So I got a beer in a paper cup with a plastic top and a straw sticking out the top that was to be grabbed in one hand and sipped liberally as I grabbed the paper bag’s top in a crumple in the other hand and we both walked towards couch park.
After our picnic, we went to Coffee Time, and then as we were walking back down 23rd about 4 hours after meeting, she said ‘So, what are you doing for the rest of the night?’
‘Umm, nothing. Probably go home and watch a movie.’
‘You can come over to my place. And we can watch a movie. I’m not doing anything’
‘okay.’
‘As we were walking towards the bus mall downtown, from 23rd, taking our time, we decided that we both wanted to see Eraserhead, and so me made a pact to take the 15 to Hawthorne, get it at Movie Madness, and then catch the 75 to division where she lived with her boyfriend.
We arrived home, and there was a bar with Vodka and Kahlua. Obviously for white Russians. She made one for me, and had a vanilla martini. She apologized for the mess. We sat out on the patio and chain-smoked. I didn’t care. It was fine. I thought how nice it was, actually, to meet someone like this. To be sitting here in the sun on her patio having a white Russian smoking lucky strikes, in the sun, 5 hours after we met each other. And with nothing else to do in the day.
We turned on Eraserhead and being mildly drunk made it even weirder if that was even possible. Such a strange movie. We sat in her dark bedroom, me on a chair, her on her stomach on the bed, and laughed at how strange david lynch is. There would be an awkward ‘should we laugh at this?’ moment, and then one of us would laugh, and then the other would immediately start lightly laughing too. And the movie would go on.
John came home. I said, Hi, Nice to meet you. You went to grant, too?’ yeah. Blah blah blah blah.
They kissed in front of me, then went out in the living room, and she came back after he left for the red and black to do some research on the internet for finals for a few hours, and said ‘Well, he told me he was fine with it. But then he said, “I just want you to know that it’s really hypocritical of you. What if I brought a girl home and watched a movie with her when you weren’t here?”’
We finished watching the movie, made another round of drinks, sat out on the porch smoking and drinking as it was dark now, and talked about the movie. Someone brought their cat over to play with her cat, and they both wrestled playfully.
‘I guess he’s kind of right. I WOULD kind of be offended if he brought some girl over to watch a movie.’
Later I left, after getting yet another cigarette for the road, and walked all the way home in my fancy shoes, which were, at this point, rubbing the top of my right foot raw. But I didn’t want to wait for a bus, or pay for one, as it was a holiday, and late at night. And I like walking anyway, because it allows me to think like nothing else really does.
I put some Neosporin on my foot when I got home, pulled off the sock, and there was blood smeared slightly to the right and to the left of the scab, lack a zig zagging z.
I went to bed, with a headache. And I was still 26.