I Kan't Spell

 
Observations from a Roof Deck on July 4th

I was watching a movie. Yeah that's how it started. No wait it was before that. I was watching poker on TV feeling sorry for myself. That's when my day was wasted. All balled up and thrown away like some piece of foil after the hot dog has been digested. A waste of a day. What a pity for a 24 year old male in the swing of all things wonderful to have feelings of lament and sorrow.

I waddled around for the afternoon. Made some country ham given to me by my grandfather. It was good. Salty and exactly what I needed. It was almost as if my grandfather were standing there in the kitchen making it with me. His stern and honest person watching me cook what he had nourished me on for so many years.

The day rolled on.

It came to dusk. I put in a movie I had purchased the day before and watched it in my roommate's room as my room is hot and the DVD player is often not working. I lay in there watching this trying to laugh. Attempting to be merry on a day when everyone was away. On a day when once again I wanted a family. I wanted a reason.

It grew to late evening and I perched myself up to light a cigarette and consider whether to go out onto the rented house's roof deck to watch the fire works from the Inner Harbor. After slight deliberation I decided to do that.

I grabbed the bottle of scotch that Craig had bought me for my birthday. Weeks earlier he had come into my room and remarked on it and I said that I myself had purchased it not long ago. He corrected me and yet again I had one more barometer fixture for which to align my failures with.

I climbed the stairs swinging the bottle. I grabbed the few cigarettes I had left that the bartender the night before had given me. I don't feel remorse about my nights anymore. I feel the same way about these evening as a moth would about becoming a butterfly. It's all a part of the metamorphosis. One cannot change without first experiencing what he hates, loving that source of hatred, and then casting it out into nothing.

I could see all the little neighborhoods that surrounded the city. Catonsville and Brooklyn were shooting off their town fair fireworks from what I could only assume was the local highschool multipurpose athletic fields. I let the bottle swing over the side and took a strong pull. I put it back down and decided that it wasn't what I wanted.

I looked over and saw a family of three with their little boy climbing on top of the roof next to me. They were without roof deck. It rained today. They seemed unprepared to sit and watch the fireworks. They looked at me with a stare that said, "Can we please come over there?" I pondered the imaginary question and broke eye contact with the mother with a slight sarcastic chuckle and a sneer.

I looked down on the street and saw families, college kids, drunken rogues, imaginary hookers, and local thugs walking. They were all loud and wild. I looked at the cars. I saw how they were all the same. I looked at the gated off garden that belonged to the house next door. It was beautiful to see one shining piece of self-respect in this recycled part of town.

I saw other people on roof decks having parties. They were lighting fire works and standing in groups trying to explain their lives and rekindle whatever they may have had once to gain them a ticket to this event. They were once intrigued with each other enough to allow the invite and now they were simply trying to fold back into that feeling. It failed most of the time. Cosmically, most people are not aligned to be friends. They are quite apt to be civil.

I heard the little boy from the adjacent roof ask his father, "When Daddy? When? I want to see fireworks." I though about my father. I looked at the bottle that was 4/5 full and poured it out into the gutter. I laughed at myself. I laughed at thoughts of my father. I took a huge breath in and tried to spit onto one of the cars across the street.

I thought about people in my life and wondered where they were right now. I thought about Craig in Hoboken possibly watching the NYC fireworks from outside the PATH tube. Maybe he was with his girlfriend at the beach. I thought about Blake. He moved to New York this weekend. I wondered if anything bad had happened in the world. I hoped Blake was with my other friends, Theresa and Lauren. I thought about Jennings and how much he had come back to sensibility and what a wonderful person he had become since isolating himself for so long. I wondered if I would ever go back to New York for anything other than business or to see friends. I considered leaving tonight to move there. I didn't call my own bluff.

I though about Tim in Canada. I thought about how funny it would be to see Tim dance. I thought about how he had a rather steep learning curve thrown into his education in the last 3 years and how it has benefited him. It is wonderful to really start life at 21. He did that. He has a much purer concentration of things to enjoy and experience then most. Unjaded eyes see things clearer. I wondered if Doug was working or with his new girlfriend. I became disappointed that they never went cross country. I felt warm thinking about their futures. I became proud to think that they were the last friends that I ever made. It showed promise.

I thought about Michael at some kids in Harford county. Sitting there being Mike. Not yet drinking enough to be out of line. Instead playing his usual role amongst his child hood friends. He was most likely sitting around a table eating or standing in an open lot of land having a solo conversation with someone kindly nodding his head and giving advice in an honest self-fulfilling stream. I thought about Watts and his new girlfriend. It was nice knowing Watts. For some reason I thought about my other roommate at a deck less than 300 yards away. I had no feelings when I thought about the numerous deck tragedies that happen every year from too many people being on top of a house stomping around.

I knew my Mother was happy. I smiled.

I wondered if Mirel was downtown. I wondered why she never returned my phone call from a few days ago. I can only assume she has started over again and is afraid to confront me, maybe analyzing too much. She's probably thinking that I would be angry or jealous. I just wanted to talk to the person that, at one time, I was closest to in my life. I remember that she knew my address. I went downstairs to lock the door and turn off the lights. I wished for no visitors.

I thought about a mistake known as Yana. I thought about other mistakes. I squirmed a little and lit another cigarette. I thought about Su Yeon and how it was her birthday and I was going to send nothing. I didn't feel ashamed but I was not far from it.

I envisioned the people at my office gathered at the southern window that overlooked the harbor. I thought about going to work tomorrow and being good at my job.

I was going to read another white paper or configuration document before I went to bed.

I thought about other people just as an exercise. Noting rang clear.

The fireworks started from Locust Point. Under Armour must have bent the city's ear to allow the fireworks from their corporate center. I remember reading that Advertising.com just got bought for half a billion dollars. I adjusted my thesis to include them.

The fireworks slowly started to become louder and brighter. I heard the little boy scream in joy. I saw his parents put their arms around each other and push the sides of their heads together.

I thought about writing everything down and I started to speak aloud to myself. It was clearer and more concise than this. It was poetic to me. My monologue reminded me of a movie I had seen weeks before about a kid in Europe taking lots of drugs, and fucking. Mine seemed better.

I theorized about older people. Holidays aren't special when you are really living. They only become extensions of your missed opportunities as you get older. People dress up and dress things up 5 or 6 times a year because they don't live anymore. This is their human dump. This is the way to allow for the missed nights of euphoria that they once had. This is now their outlet. They organize parties and invite dwindling friends over to get moderately unsober. They walk around trying not to offend or be odd. They simply watch fireworks, talk about their kids and jobs, and try not to appear closer to falling apart. They have nothing anymore. They only have what they created and that is not what they had intended. The days of wanting to eat ice cream for breakfast and pizza every night is childhood foolishness. The days of whimsical drives to Atlantic city on a is now teenage foolishness and the idea of having sex on top of a laundry machine in somebody's house while spilling their shots of Jack Daniels is all but a distant memory.

The fireworks speed up.

There was a good bit of pink for a while. It was annoying. The there was a lot of blues and some fizzled gold after that. I half smiled thinking about my father making fun of people who watched fireworks.

"OK. ready? Ooooh Ahhhhh. There you go. You just watched fireworks."
"But I didn't see any fireworks Dad."
"Fireworks are for lazy people who couldn't think of anything better to do."

I looked over at the roof deck to my left and saw my neighbors, about 12 of them, fresh college kids, standing around drinking out of plastic cups. There was a young man making gestures as though he were trying to explain fireworks. His hand motions were a combination of a conductor conducting an orchestra and a grand mother motioning for her grand children to return in doors. He looked ridiculous. They looked at me. "Hey. Bret right? Where's your friends? Why don't you come over here?" I gave them a fake salute and pretended to take a large pull off my now empty bottle. I said nothing and looked back to the horizon.

The finale was just starting. It was rather entertaining. It was loud and colorful. The people at the harbor must have been upset that the attraction was not set off from Federal Hill. They had to look around the turkey neck bend in the Harbor to see them. How many boyfriends were embarrassed that they shuffled all this way to merely get a slanted view? A few guffed girlfriends from Long Island and Loyola college were meant to pout this evening.

The little boy made a sound that came out like "Weeeeeeeeee!".

I smiled again. I smiled again at how many times I had smiled.

The fireworks ended. Anti-climatic shouts of "Happy New Year" came from other roof decks. The locals less then a block away were lighting off bottle rockets. The parties went on. I picked up the bottle and thought about throwing it into the street. I had no audience. I lit another cigarette, gathered my trash and went back inside to finish the movie. I decided not to write anything because it wasn't stenographed and couldn't possible be recaptured.


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