Nine officially recognised languages.
Sunday, November 25th, 2007Fall was in ridiculously full effect over Thanksgiving week. I don’t remember Southeast Pennsylvanian leaves ever being that out of the tube yellow–I certainly don’t remember Morris Road invoking the feeling of an SUV commercial–but my friends and family insist it’s no fluke. Even my neighborhood, which usually resembles the scrolling set of a 1930’s cartoon, this year looks way quainter than it has a right to, as the powers that be took it upon themselves to plant corn in the field behind my house that usually just accommodates two rows of 110,000 volt transmission lines.
Foliage or not, autumnal is way that describes the way the way home feels now. My household has matured into Plowshare Road‘s equivalent of the grand old estate, with a new tiled patio and, thanks to my sister and Andy living in the area, a legitimate family quorum. Better to shelter everyone from the entire region, which is under a ravenous development that somehow feels like a collective burying of heads in the sand. New soulless shopping plazas. New nostalgia radio stations that anonymously program soulless nineties rock. More traffic. A CVS for every square mile. Blue Bell Country Club is practically a legitimate city-state. What the fuck is going on?
Beth’s shoes stand out in my mind. The Saturday after our ten year high school reunion, Joe, Nowell, and I ran into her and a few friends who you couldn’t have hand picked for more awkwardness–in the period spanning ninth grade to a year ago, we’ve been involved with all of their private parts in some way or another. All with bad results. For my part, I haven’t spoken with Beth in over a decade for no reason that carries any legitimacy, and I was vaguely regretting missing my chance at the reunion. But for whatever obstacles that existed the night before (like, um, the inexplicable rock band rendering communication next to impossible) they were outdone by extreme awkwardness during breakfast the morning after. Even the timing seem intelligently designed for maximum weirdness. We arrived, ate, left in unison, and as we all shuffled back to our SUVs I noticed her shoes: brown and simple, outmoded.
Suddenly, it occurred to me that that in the center of a rapidly metastasizing cancer of bullshit threatening to destroy what little here I like, Beth was standing before me, passing on a quiet fuck you to the mall with her ugly loafers. Beth is not my enemy. She never has been. In fact, she’s one of the only girls that ever found a way overlook a whole lot of uncoolness and give me a chance in high school. I admire Beth. No: for what she has shown me today, I love Beth!
At that moment, the point of my entire life became Beth quickly walking away from my Mom’s black Rav4 in the parking lot of Rich’s Other Place. If she makes it it to her car, I lose. Everything in myself that I am too afraid to face wins, the easy suburban targets that I pretend made me an angry fucked up little kid become real, and five years of self reflective walks through the misty California chaparral become pointless. I ran up to her from behind. “Hey,” I said, and hugged her.
