Tag: history

Autobiography

Somewhere Easy

Ruby Pipes3 Comments

"left alone" © Marco Monetti, 2014. CC BY-ND 2.0.
“left alone” © Marco Monetti, 2014. CC BY-ND 2.0.
Two men slide into the office as the day is winding down. One approaches the desk slow, head down. The other skips up and slides to the right, pointing to his friend with both arms and a leg, “HE’D like to take a look around PLEASE!”

Our office is silent and my laugh bounces off the corners of the ceiling.

“You like that?” His giggle joins mine as we nod our heads at each other. Placing a hand to the corner of his mouth, he leans toward me and whispers loud, “He’s shy.” He draws out the end of the word to insure his friend hears him.

The other man blushes and toes the ground, tilts his head down more, and hides his eyes behind the bill of his baseball cap. I wait until he looks up again, lock eyes, and smile.

Some people are just easy to be around.

During the great breakdown of November 2008 I stood on my parent’s back porch and smoked with my dad. He reached in his wallet—exhaling a cloud of cigar smoke and warm breath into the chilled air—and pulled out a credit card. He pressed it into the palm of my hand and I curled my fingers around it, tilting my head to one side and raising my eyebrows. “What’s this for?”

“Take your time, but get home safe. Always make sure you can get home.”

I pointed the hood of my Toyota Corolla down Interstate 5, headed south. This was back when I could do the drive from southwest Washington to Tucson, Arizona with only a quick nap around Sacramento. In less than twenty-four hours I’d crossed fifteen-hundred miles. I stood on a doorstep, everything I owned in a black duffle bag at my feet, and knocked.

Bryan opened the door and pulled me inside quick. “RUBY!” He held out his hand in a fist, palm down. I mirrored his gesture, extending mine open and palm up. Pills. He picked a bottle of André brut champagne up off the coffee table and handed it to me. After I’d taken the X and pounded enough of bubbly he gave me a hug.

Colton stayed seated, but gave me a toothy grin, eyes crinkling, and kicked his head back in greeting. “Good to see you, kiddo.”

They didn’t beg me to fill them in on what was going on. Didn’t hammer me with questions about the unfaithful boyfriend I’d left with a half-empty house and a broken lease. Didn’t ask me what I planned to do now that I’d dropped out of college for the second time. Didn’t demand I tell them about all these doctor appointments and consultations with surgeons.

Instead they asked if I would be moving in. Told me how they could rearrange the apartment to accommodate all three of us once I had decided.

Some people are just easy to be with.

My co-worker gives the two men a tour of our space and I stay seated at the front desk. The mid-February sunset streams in through the big open windows. I catch myself squinting in the once-again silent office. There is always somewhere safe, but you never know where it will be.

Autobiography

On the Line

Ruby Pipes4 Comments
"on a spring afternoon" © Hideki Okuno, 2009. CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.
“on a spring afternoon” © Hideki Okuno, 2009. CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

The sun slices through our apartment. Spotlights stacks of books, boxes of pastels, notebooks full of data. It climbs over the back of the couch and dances across the TV while we watch The Sopranos. Fourth season. I get up and draw the blinds.

Summer of 2010 I was sitting at the bar of a strip club in Portland. The only way I knew it was mid-afternoon was because I kept checking my phone, hoping someone would call, text. Ask to get me out of here. I was talking to a dancer before she went up on stage. A military wife looking to make some extra money to get by while her husband served in Iraq. “Plus, it’s nice to have people look at me. It makes it so much less lonely.”

The guys I was with bought us each a shot of bourbon, she rubbed my buzzed head, and kissed me on the cheek. Winked over my shoulder at my companions, talked a moment to the DJ, and disappeared behind the curtain.

Someone mumbled an introduction over the speakers. A name like Crystal or Kandi. There were two guys sitting at the rack. They both pulled out another stack of ones and slapped their hands together in a half-hearted fashion. The bartender and the three people in my crew clapped a few times before we all reached back for our drinks in unison. I don’t think there was anyone else in the whole place.

Neil Young’s “Heart of Gold” started playing and Crystal-Kandi walked out. Eight inch platform heels traced the stage in a slow and deliberate saunter. Shoulders back, hip sway exaggerated. She grabbed on to the pole and started swinging. We all only half paid attention. Focused on our drinking and discussion of our favorite Neil Young albums. Argued over the track lists of “Harvest” and “Harvest Moon“.

When we moved our eyes back toward the stage CK’s top was on the ground and she was hanging from the crook of one knee. Arms stretched out over her head, reaching. A delivery man opened the side door and drenched the entire stage in sunlight. You could see CK’s breath catch in her chest, eyes widening like a terrified wild animal.

The safety of the dark red strip club light had evaporated. A girl who had been only naked was now completely exposed. Her skin no longer like velvet, lacking any imperfection. Freckles, wrinkles, humanity all visible. She froze. The men at the rack squinted and leaned back in their chairs. The DJ yelled, one part anger and two parts nervous laughter, “Shut that goddamn door, dude!”

It’s February and the sun has been coming out the last few days. I keep expecting to feel basked in warmth and light. The promises of spring tickling my skin with hope as I loosen the scarf around my neck. But there is something bitter in its sweetness. An old friend returning to find me sitting in the same place. Hiding behind the same piles of to-dos, the same bad habits, still struggling with the same routines.

“I’m glad to see you, dear. I just thought I would be different the next time you came around.”

I pull the blinds and sink back into the soft red fabric of the couch. Hoping I can put off the exposure just a little longer. Maybe there’s still time to figure this one out.

Autobiography

Pink Floyd, bourbon, and identity

Ruby Pipes1 Comment
"vinyls" © Lubomir Panak, 2009. CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.
“vinyls” © Lubomir Panak, 2009. CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.

Cathartic. The word has been coming up a lot lately.

They say if you meet more than one asshole on any given day chances are the asshole is you. Staring at the mirror, trying to shake the feeling everything I’ve ever done is wrong and all of it is sitting on my chest.

On Saturday night we listened to The Wall. I stretched out on the couch with my hands wrapped around a glass of water. Remembered sitting next to my dad, his legs crossed toward me, mine curled up and leaning toward him. Both our armrest-hands swirling tumblers of bourbon.

The first note grabs onto my shirt collar and for the next hour-and-a-half I’m staring straight forward, breathing hard. Every once in awhile Mason and I lock eyes and shake our heads. “It just doesn’t make sense. Like… How the hell did they even..?”

My family listened to this album countless times while I was growing up. We had the vinyl version, the CD version, the tape my mom made so we could listen to it in the car. I know every line. Every note. But I hadn’t just sat down and listened to it in years.

Retraced my fingers along the spine of it, inspected the curves. Placed my head on the rise and fall of its chest, moving my lips in sync with its. The words I knew perfectly before I understood them. The words that explain myself to me with a confidence I’m afraid I’ll never learn.

Before I found words, I used these ones. Often they are still the only ones to make sense. When my whole body shakes and the corners of my vision dip in and out of focus. When my hands curl into shapes only good for dragging across bricks, breaking mirrors, or pounding dents into the roof above the driver’s seat. When the things I can’t sort through to explain knit themselves into a nest in the bottom of my throat. My brain just repeats:

There is no pain, you are receding
A distant ship, smoke on the horizon
You are only coming through in waves
Your lips move, but I cannot hear what you’re saying
When I was a child I had a fever
My hands felt just like two balloons
Now I’ve got that feeling once again
I can’t explain you would not understand
This is not how I am

I can give perfect directions back to the places I learned everything. I can tell you exactly why I associate love with terrible things. Repeat over and over, “I know it’s not right. I’m trying to do it differently. I’m learning. I swear I’m learning.” It is easy to distill out the parts of myself I consider separate. Tag-alongs. Experiences, thoughts, and feelings that complicate the experience, but do not contribute to who I actually am.

Cue existential crisis.

At what point do we admit we are on both the inside and the outside of our wall?

Let me out.

Let me in.