1:09 a.m. - 02.24.2004
Burning Vinyl
I had to do this writing exercise for class where you have to sit down for an hour and crank out 250 words every 15 minutes, emphasis on crank. You're not supposed to go back and edit, it's all about getting the words out. It supposed to help you when you're blocked. Here's what I came up with, for better or for worse:
By the time I woke up Tuesday morning I had already decided that heartbreak was boring and it was time to get over it. I must have been dreaming about it, those long black dreams that go on and on and make you feel like you never slept at all. The first thought on my mind was literally, “Heartbreak is boring.” I didn’t want to become one of those girls you at first feel sorry for because she’s so sad but then quickly begin to hate for that same reason. I needed to move on.
In the shower I exfoliated like a motherfucker, scrubbing away the dead skin like it was him, the cause of the boring heartbreak, on me. First thing I had to do was shed him if I was going to come out from under his weight.
I wiped the fog off the mirror with my palm and it made a little squeak. I pulled my lips back to look at my teeth; they were a sickly pale yellow with that gap in the middle. I ran the tip of my tongue over them a few times, feeling the spaces between and the little crevices my tongue fit into. When I was twelve the dentist told my mother he could cut the skin between my two front teeth so they would grow together and make the gap disappear. The thought of him cutting my gums made both my mother and I sick, so we left that dentist and I never saw another one until I was 19. I had to get 6 cavities filled.
I walked down the white hallway to my room wrapped in a pale pink towel to get dressed, even though I didn’t have anywhere to go, really, seeing as I was fired last week for “chronic tardiness.” But I still needed to get out of the house, it still smelled like him all over the apartment, his mandarin orange body lotion and sport deodorant. The combination of those smells made me sick, the way it lingered in the mornings after he left and I was in bed, counting the dots on the ceiling.
Everywhere I looked his shit was still around, stupid hardcore band posters and all those records in the green cardboard boxes with the black lids, covered with stickers. All of his black band T-shirts were still in the third and fourth drawers of my dresser and I wanted to burn them. In fact I wanted to take all of his things outside and build a nice bonfire in the dumpster, watching the vinyl melt and the posters turn a glowing orange. But I’m no pyro so I settled for ripping the posters off the wall, the ones just outside the bedroom door, the push-pins holding them went flying as I jerked them down. My towel fell off and I left it there on the hardwood floor, gathering cat hairballs to it. Then I bent some of his records in half, shredding the inserts with the lyrics and the long thank you lists. I was extremely satisfied knowing he could have sold them on Ebay for a lot of money to some dumb fourteen-year-old in Ohio. He would have spent hours agonizing over the descriptions and come up with one sentence, “EXTREMELY rare first pressing of Crisis Boy’s first 7-inch, blue marble vinyl, limited to 100 copies, including original inserts and poster, everything mint condition.” Everything was always “EXTREMELY rare”, “limited!” and “mint condition.” His seven years managing the record store meant he’d gotten first dibs on everything that came through there and he had several copies of everything he wanted, both on CD and vinyl.
I was glad to have my apartment back, and I proved it to myself by walking around naked, playing The Cramps really loud, as I planned my escape to the coffee shop and did the dishes. I figured I could read the paper and maybe look for a new job. I didn’t want to be around if he called.
I wrapped my long, red hair up in a bun and tied it with a black elastic, threw on a pair of dirty jeans and a wrinkled red shirt from the floor of the bedroom and left the house. Outside it was cold and it felt good against my skin. The coffee shop was four blocks away and I thought of how many times I’d made the walk before, so many times with him on Sunday mornings, hung-over but grinning anyway, holding hands…
Fuck! I stopped myself and stood still on the sidewalk for a few seconds, then shook my head to clear out the cobwebbed thoughts of him. “No more heartbreak, heartbreak is boring, no more heartbreak, heartbreak is boring,” I kinda sang, out loud. I decided I would have a fabulous new career in songwriting. I could be one of those fragile-looking girl singers, the kind with the short elf-y looking black hair. People would see me up on stage with my guitar and think I was going to sing something granola-ish, something twee and pretty. But then I’d start yelling and I’d be all sexy and everyone would stare, stunned at such a big, angry voice coming out of such a small girl.
I pulled the door to the shop open and a woman on a cell phone with big blonde hair rushed out, practically stepping on me with her high-heeled feet, her skin orange with self-tanning lotion.
“I don’t care what the fuck you want, Harris! I promised the client we were closing tomorrow and we’re closing tomorrow! Get it done!” she fumbled with her car keys, swinging her heavy-looking black bag onto the hood of her car.
Inside I wrapped my coat onto the back of a chair at my favorite table by the window and walked up to the counter to order my chai and doughnut.
“Hey Katie, how’s it going?” Rob lived downstairs from us, I mean me.
“Fine, how’s it going with you?” I said without thinking.
“Oh, good. My band just got our first show at Mabel's, so that’s cool…” his voice trailed off, he looked over my head, staring off outside with his mouth hanging open. “Oh, hey,” he said, his attention back on me, like he just realized I was there, “Do you think you could ask Joe if I could borrow his 4-track? Mine is all fucked up ever since that party we had, someone spilled something all over it.”
“Sure,” I lied, not wanting to tell him that Joe moved out last week. What a fucking banner week that was, getting fired and dumped all within 12 hours. I stepped over the end of the counter and the girl with the black dreads handed me my chai, shoving it at me so I dribbled a little bit of it onto my shoes.
