By Darren Kaminsky
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Darren Kaminsky's novel, Sugar Spun Sisters, appears in serialized form every Monday right here on Me Three. The story follows the lives of five twenty-somethings living in Washington D.C. As far as the editors are currently aware, none of these characters work in politics.
Chapter Forty-Five
Oct. 11
It gets harder to make these entries. I have less and less to say. More and more my life seems focussed almost entirely on my phone conversations with Dani in NYC.
Dani and I talked for 4 hours last night. I couldn’t have felt more separated from her. She was telling me that she doesn’t see me as being “other from her,” that she sees most males as a different species, as being “other” from her, but not me; then she was saying how much she loved me and then that she needs space and that she is resentful of the way I needed space last spring. She says she can’t understand why I miss her “all of a sudden” and seemed so indifferent last Spring. I told her that our relationship had grown since then. She just snorted.
The multiple directions threw me a bit. One minutes she loves me, the next I’m on the edge of being broken up with. Well, which is it? But, I don’t want to give her an ultimatum b/c I’m scared of which option she’d take. I’m hanging by a thread out here.
Isn’t there a continuum to relationships? Are they supposed to start out with the two people instantly knowing that they want to be in a closely committed relationship? Or is that something that comes with time? To me it seems right that it should come with time but she seems to think that I should have been instantly committed to her.
Oct. 13
Keeping up with people is impossible. It’s great when there’s some random gathering point, a bar or something where everyone can see each other. I call someone and they bring their friends who bring their friends and those friends are also my friends and we’re all friends and it’s a big thing. But, when I go to NYC, there will be none of that. I won’t know anyone but Dani.
Jake, a friend of ours, who lives down the street in a bigger, cooler house, has gotten a job with a bank...I’m sorry, “major financial services company.” He’s always been a vegan and an environmental activist and yesterday he took his signing bonus and made a down payment on a Lexus or an Acura or some other car like that.
We were all sitting on our front stoop when he brought the thing home. It glided onto the street like a big shiny salmon. I didn’t think he was the type to show off, but he did. We didn’t know who it was, but when he got out of the car, we waved and he beckoned us down to the car.
We all oohed appropriately at the leather interior and just how unbelievably shiny it was. His facial expression was all pride and big smiles, like a guy who’d scored the winning touchdown or won a war nearly singlehandedly. It was a smile that was trying to be both modest and proud, like he’d given birth to the car or something. It was still just a car, even if it was the shiniest golden silver salmon of a car in the universe.
Later, we were all in the TV Dinner Room and sitting watching some TV show -- ‘Friends,’ I think -- when there was a knock at the door. I looked around to see who was going to get up and nobody but me seemed to even acknowledge that the doorbell had rung. I know they knew that the doorbell had rung. I know they did. They just knew that, if they ignored it, I would get it. And I did.
It was John Slater Alcott looking scruffy. His shirt was untucked and he hadn’t shaven in a while. He mumbled a hello and walked into the Living Room. Brenna stood up, looked unsure of what to do and then walked toward him. I don’t know if they’d been talking or not or if she knew he was coming over. She went over to him and reached up to muss his hair and then sort of just looked at him, staring, head moving in a swaying motion back and forth in front of him so that she could look at every part of his face.
It was like one of those movies where the alien examines the human with delight because the alien is peaceful and enlightened and excited to see humankind. That’s, of course, before the humans vivisect the alien.
Not that Brenna is gentle. She’s not.
John Slater and Brenna disappeared upstairs.
Later, Brenna would tell me what happened. They went out to the roof to sit. He told her that he loved her, but that his career and family "wouldn’t, couldn’t" let him be with her, that she was a "free spirit" and would never be "appropriate" for his future. She says she slapped him. I hope she slapped him, but that sounds like one of those things that you wish you’d done. Even so, no matter what she did, she did say some pretty good stuff.
"You’re a coward," she told him. "This isn’t the fucking 19th century. You just want to marry someone and have them say, 'Brilliant choice, ahh...the 2nd coming of Jackie O.' You just can’t stand the idea of doing something that isn’t deemed perfect by everyone you ever fucking knew. You care more what strangers think than what you think. You’re such a fucking coward."
Apparently, there was silence after that and they both sat there and she didn’t cry and was proud of not crying and after he realized that she was going to say nothing else, the fucking coward left.
Oct. 14
One of Gaff’s friends came over tonight. He’s nicknamed Furball. He’s fat, with stringy, oily curly hair and tattoos across his arms and stomach. And he’s a drug dealer.
Nell wanted some pot, but he also brought her some cocaine and both she and Brenna got high. I got annoyed and went upstairs, but could hear Nell laughing.
Later, Kerran came home. He stopped into my room and said that Sam had thrown him out. Apparently, she’s tired of buying his groceries. I didn’t think that was even possible. “I would have chipped in if she’d ask,” Kerran said and shrugged his shoulders.
He also told me about Bleed Monkey’s new album. It’s going to be called The Blue Period and it’s a concept album about a couple of months when Wayne, Bleed Monkey’s lead singer, was dating a woman who wouldn’t have sex with him.
"Did she eventually start having sex with him?" I asked.
"No, he says he dumped her. He says that priority one is that any bitch of his needs to put out."
"Wow, he such a sensitive artist guy," I said.
"Nah, not Wayne...oh that was a joke wasn’t it?"
"Yup. Well, you know, no one needs to be a sensitive artist guy, just have the hair of a sensitive artist guy."
"Right on, buddy," Kerran said, putting his hand through his surfer hair a couple of times.
An hour or so after that I heard someone creaking their way up the stairs and enter Kerran’s room; then the unmistakable sound of Nell talking and talking and talking, a million miles per hour. I couldn’t hear what she was saying, but I could hear Kerran yell his reply:
“Go to bed, cokehead. Jesus, if you’re gonna do that shit don’t come up here.”
I heard a whoosh and a slam and someone -- Nell -- tromped down the stairs.
Around midnight, I wanted a snack and on my way down the stairs saw that Nell was sitting on the floor in Jean’s room, facing the bed, talking. I couldn’t quite hear her; I was too far away and it was too fast. As I passed the room, I saw that Jean was on her bed, fast asleep. I had to wonder what sort of dreams she was having. A big, golden, coked out lizard talking at a million miles per hour?
Darren Kaminsky is a writer living in Brooklyn. He can be contacted at sugarspun @ bigbagoftricks dot com.
© 2006 Me Three
