I have been trying to come up with how exactly to write this post for twenty-four hours. Well, just under twenty-four. I am looking at the time on my laptop, and I can't believe it hasn't been that long yet. The events of those twenty-something hours have a certain poetry to them and I want to make sure I capture that poetry, as macabre as it is. I should warn you it isn't a pretty, fun, or uplifting poem, but one the likes of Edger Allen Poe.
The poem starts with us listening to an episode of "This American Life," about Prom, but that segment was about a prom disrupted by a tornado. I was thinking it was pretty funny, because Proms are lame anyway, and the teens had a video camera at the time, so their audio of being jerky-drunk teens was hilarious. And we know ahead of time it is a tornado, so we know houses will be knocked down and that will suck, but somehow it doesn't strike me as sad. Toward the end, one of the kids they keep interviewing was talking, recapping all the bad things that had happened in the past year. His dad had died on his birthday, his mom couldn't afford their east-end home so they moved to the west side where the new house was destroyed by a tornado. He says he feels doomed. The narrator explains he is going to college in the fall, but wants to work on an oil rig instead and give the money to help his mom. By then, the story was sober enough, we weren't laughing at them any more. To drive home the fact we were jerks for laughing at all, the main narrator, Ira Glass, comes on at the end, and says this same kid died in a car accident a few weeks later. I guess some people are just doomed after all.
That is the moment we pulled off the freeway into Crawfordsville, fighting little tears at the futility of this poor kid's truncated life.
The town looked the same with the exception of the number of fireworks stands set up in the empty lots. The house was where we left it-- someone had moved the lawn by the sidewalk, but weeds were chocking the cracks of the walkway to our porch. A contractor had installed a new lock and replaced the kitchen ceiling while we were gone, so I didn't have a key. J dug for it in his bag while I made trips from the car, anxious because the next-door-neighbor-sex-offender was in his yard watching me (I know he only likes children, but I don't like making eye contact with him--I don't want him to see how disgusting I think he is). We finally get inside. In the house, I sigh in relief, but "it smells a little in here," then go to switch on the light. But the light doesn't go on. There is stuff all over, moved about by the contractor (and paint on the floor, and grease in the bathroom sink-- but that is a different story). On the table by the door is the pile of the last mail my friend took in before the vacation hold stopped the delivery. Right in the pile is the notice we owe $25 and if it isn't paid by the 20th, they will shut off the power. Fourteen days ago. There was a little of this "I thought you paid this," "No, you were supposed to" kind of nonsense, but it was futile and we both knew it.
Hesitantly, we approached the fridge to reveal the smell. We happen to be the kind of people who rarely have a stocked fridge. That should have worked in our favor. However, before I left, J had surgery and I had stocked the freezer with frozen food for him. He ended up going to California before eating any of it.
The fridge smelled bad, but nothing like the freezer. A vomit-inducing odor lay in wait there, the tiny fruit flies hovered over it eagerly (I think they were vivaciously celebrating their revenge against me for the genetic experiments we did on them in college-- I was tempted to check them for the classic mutations we were supposed to document in our lab books). J put on gloves to carry out the contents of the fridge, while I moved the rest of our belongings into the house. The lack of power, the fact our bathrooms were window-less, and my desire for a shower quenched any of my longings to join the 4th of July festivities we had planned to attend. The smell wasn't any better, and now had escaped the freezer and was at-large in the house. (I didn't discover until today, the panel at the bottom of the freezer, hiding the dripping ooze and maggoty remains of our food.)
So, we left to check into a hotel. The cats had food and water, so all was well. I said to J, "the only thing I want from a hotel is a pool. That can make this better. And beer. Lots of beer." Driving down the road to the grocery story, we passed this.
We pulled over to take this picture, and I was picturing this post, how to express how I was feeling about this town and being back and the chaos that is living in a rental, when a woman (townie) walked up to ask what I was doing. I was feeling so defensive, I was curt with her and wanted to take my pictures and run. She was persistent, and before I could stop it, was going on about the fire and the town. She kept saying, "this is an historic landmark, it was built in the 1950s!" In a town where everything was built before 1880, this didn't seem impressive to me. And she kept talking about all the animals in the pet shop that burned up, how they died in vain. I couldn't imagine how else they could have died, other than being eaten, but it was cruel and unusual. She wanted me to walk around the building with her to try to see the burned remains. I was suddenly worried about leaving the cats alone in our house. In a town like this, it could catch fire any moment.
By the time we got to the hotel, it was 9:50, and the pool closed at 10. Forget it, I said, I want to just go drink all this wine and sleep in the king-sized bed.
But the fireflies on the way their were amazing.
No comments:
Post a Comment