I've been developing film at Rite Aid, my little oasis here. There's a nice girl at the counter named Kaitlyn, who has a tongue piercing and perfect plucked eyebrows. She's ringing up a guy who's wrapped in bandages. He tells me he got real drunk and instead of jumping over a fire, he fell in it. He lifts the bandages and shows me a sick white blister that covers his entire wrist, running up his thumb. He's buying more bandages, of course and some of that Neosporin stuff.
I'm beginning to think that these kids, these poor rebels are the real citizens of New Hampshire. The old people who are stuck in 1950-esque rituals and beliefs are not gonna be here much longer. Twenty years and 90% will be dead. They don't matter. The ones that count are the girls with pink hair and tattoos that are running the registers and answering phones. The guys with lip piercings like fish hooks in their mouths. One day they'll inherit this place, and maybe change it for better. Maybe for worse.
So I went to a party today and yeah, it sucked. I mean, it was a bunch of teenage girls. I was with the fat girl who thought everyone hated her because she was fat. She kept making negative comments about herself and I wanted to smack her and tell her to grow a pair. People will like anyone who likes themselves, unless they like themselves too much.
I was really bored, so I unconsciously decided to liven things up. Matthew and I looked up the rules for fencing and had a tournament with Mark in the front yard. It was worth the bruises. I took pictures with a 35mm camera I found at the church. The thing cranked like an old airplane, the sound of retro. I developed some pictures I found inside the camera and they came out nice. Well, by my standards anyway, which are low.
Then a lot older people show up. I meet a guy named Maxwell, and the first thing he asks me is if I'm gay. "Uh, no." He starts to walk off and I ask him if he wanted to know anything about me besides my sexual orientation. He frowns. "Nah."
Most of the night, I was talking music. It turns out, Jerry likes Natalie Portman's Shaved Head. I didn't think anyone but me and a couple friends ever heard of them! What a nice surprise. Two girls, Kelsey and Christie are arguing over the Strokes while playing a game of Pokémon cards. "They sound like blah," Kelsey says. "No, they sound like amazing."
We go to the lake to swim. It's a nice, perfect little beach, and it looks beautiful. Because they forgot to bring bathing suits, some of the girls are sitting out. But not Kelsey. She strips to just her underwear and dives in. She says, "Has there ever been a party where I haven't taken off my pants?"
I find a boat sitting on the rocks and I take it into the water. Sarah tells me to stop stealing. I say, I'm not stealing, I'm borrowing without permission. Maxwell shouts, "I like him! He ain't no Godfearing type." I corrected him, but well, what could I say? I felt kind of sad to hear that.
I floated out on the lake, but without paddles I didn't get far. I leapt off and swam as far as I could, until I felt I was gonna drown from exhaustion. Skipped mussels as far as I could. Stupid little things.
On the way back from the lake, I met a girl named Sadie Paradise. No lie, that's her name. She's wearing a shirt that says, "Single & Fabulous". I tell her, with a name like that, one day she's gonna be famous. She says, "I know, huh. I already know what my bootlegged sex tape is gonna be. 'A Night in Paradise'. Kind of like Paris Hilton's."
I change the stereo to Rage Against the Machine. Sadie says, "This music makes me want to dropkick babies."
"Really?" I say. "Cuz I kinda enjoy that kind of thing."
She says, "I'm guessing no one here like Lil Wayne."
I grimace and try to justify my reaction. "Um, he doesn't write his own songs and . . . "
"Yeah, I know, but he's so hot I'd have 30 of his babies. In one month. That's thirty babies a day."
I nod.
"And you know what? All that child support would make me fuckin' rich."
Sadie says I look like someone named Kgell, pronounced Shell, some kid they know. "But you're not a man-whore. . . Are you?" I just smile. Then she says I also look like "That, that Shaggy dude!" I laugh and write this down. I tell Sadie and all the girls that I've been compiling a list of famous people I've been compared to. Like Connor O'Berst of Bright Eyes. Edward Norton. Eddie Vedder.
As I leave, I give each of the girls a hug, even the fat one without any self-confidence. All the girls call out goodbye to me, each a different celebrity I'm supposed to be. "Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye!"
I think there's a lesson to be learned here, but you'd be bored with it.
No comments:
Post a Comment