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03/14
The avoidance of an entire town is difficult, especially a very small town, a small town that I happened to grow up in. There is only one supermarket, one crusty movie rental shop, a few damned churches and banks, a handful of breakfast restaurants inhabited by retired people—the bare minimum number of places to successfully allow for a secluded existence. The "downtown" area is a joke, though the signs on the one main drag seem hell-bent on asserting its importance, calling the area "historic." Options are limited, and the people are, too. This is the kind of town that breeds the kind of people who can't think of a good reason to leave the town, and never do, save for maybe a short vacation to a neighboring coastal attraction, like the Lalport Aquarium, to feed the spotted seals.

Today is turning out to be an unfortunate one. Not lucky. It takes luck to live in this town and to be sane, and today I don't have it. I already had to slip down the ORGANIZATION aisle at Office Surplus to avoid the guy who taught me calculus and french kissing six years ago. Now I need cake mix, beer, and an egg salad sandwich because I'm hungry again. Did I have breakfast? I remember cereal, but it could've been any other morning.

There's always the Have-Fast Mart, but that place just reminds me of desperate lunchtime drives for juicy taquitos or overflowing chili dogs, like we did in high school nearly every day, telling everyone, "we're going to the Half-Assed Mart, adios putos!" Besides, the sandwiches there look very dead, and you just can't trust mini-marts with egg salad.

So I really have no choice but to go to Superfood Central. And my diverse shopping list requires visiting several areas of the supermarket; I must cover more ground than I want to. This always seems to happen.

I move quickly, hyperaware of all the shoppers around me. I pick up my sandwich at the deli and grab a case of Wandering Spirit Ale. On the baking row, I crouch down to decide on a type of cake for my boyfriend's birthday. Suddenly, Mindy Tulling is beside me, bending down to grab some boxed lemon pudding.

"Heeeey!" Mindy exclaims spastically, with the same voice I unfortunately remember. She sat next to me in 10th grade choir. She was not a very good singer; her use of vibrato was ridiculous, and so I'd never respected her. Still, she now assumes I do, and that I care about her post-high-school festivities, which included getting a facelift and a dog.

After a lot of nodding, I say, "OK, but I have to…" I look at the box of tangerine Jell-O in my hand. I'm not going to buy it. I don't even recall picking it up. "Make this… now."

Mindy's cheery voice does not falter. "Oh, alright! Sure! Maybe I'll see you later, you know?"
They always end it like that. Like there's so much hope. Like we really need to "catch up" about something. Why do we shit ourselves? It's exactly what we said after we graduated, in that jumble of people on the football field, taking pictures of ourselves with half-friends, wishing ourselves luck in the future, which ended up being menial jobs in our home town, for the majority of us.

So I mumble a semi-affirmative "yeah," just like I did to everyone else on the football field, and probably to Mindy as well, but maybe not. I can only remember watching her manically fluff her graduation gown during the ceremony, trying to rid it of dust and dirt, being quiet for once in her life.

Her lemon pudding bounces along in her little red shopping basket as she walks away, toward the jewelry section. I choose Devil's Food cake.


05/24
I've finally chosen a movie. Some shock-twist-ending supernatural thriller. I may have rented it before, since the description on the back of the case sounds so appealing to me, and I've rented many supernatural thrillers before. They are mostly all I rent. Horror flicks are not enough, and thrillers alone are not enough, and supernatural events are almost enough, but adding a thrill into that—then I can't resist. Anything that involves ghosts of any sort, stairs groaning, things moving without visible human contact, or items falling from high shelves, especially if they're made of a breakable material or can spill something out, like holy water or the ashes of a dead person. That's what I'm into. With a thrill, and an ending I can't predict.

Unfortunately, Jeremy Leilmon is working. As usual. In high school, he was the unspoken leader of the video game club, which began and ended our senior year. He brought all the consoles to school with him every other Wednesday and the library transformed into a nerd convention. I only saw it once, when I was getting a book after school, but the sounds of fake gunfire were enough to drive me away forever.

"Hello there," Jeremy says to me, scanning my movie for me. "How have you been?" He still talks like a nerd. Sentences completely void of contractions.

"I'm fine," I reply.

It's not like we have a history. I guess we had some classes together. Common courtesy really bothers me at times like these, when talk is so limited and forced. Sometimes it seems like he is looking up my account too slowly, almost calculatedly, as if urging me to think of something to say to him. Meanwhile, I'm shuffling away from the counter and toward the door, until finally the transaction has been completed and he has to hand me the damned movie.

"I will see you later, Joelle." His last stab at reminding me that he knows me. My name is all he knows.


06/17
One lone pancake drenched with apricot syrup. Black coffee with a couple drops of cream. The tastes are permanent in my mouth now. I come here because the service is prompt, the food stays hot, and the prices are reasonable, but more so because of the clientele. All 45+ in age.
But today my sense of safety here at the Ashstone Café is being tainted by a girl named Yolanda Barber. She has just chosen a seat in the booth in front of me, facing me directly, no questions about it. She was the girl who always sat at front of the classroom by choice, interjecting her own facts about whatever subject we were discussing. Her mouth was very large with clunky braces, now just very large. She often set the curve on tests, so nobody liked her. Of course, she was on the honor roll her whole life, and she was supposed to wear a special ribbon for it at graduation, but she had lost it beforehand. So Yolanda made up for it by smiling, smiling, smiling, as she took her time strolling across the stage, like royalty.

She notices me within a matter of minutes and re-plants herself in my booth. "Joelle! It's been a while, hasn't it? How are you?"

I have to laugh a little to myself with the irony. Even this girl, who promised to go to college and beyond, into an abyss of high-paying jobs and big cities, has returned, like a damned boomerang. Like this town is magnetic. And now she's in this little family restaurant full of old people eating in slow motion. There's no class in that.

"Fine," I tell her, pressing the side of my fork down into my pancake, to cut it up.

The waitress quickly becomes confused. She observes my booth and Yolanda's abandoned one, assessing the situation. "Are you two together?"

"Mm-hm." And now she's ordering. A small milk and an English muffin.

I'm about halfway through my pancake, but I'm gaining speed. I stare at it as I cut it so as not to reward Yolanda with eye contact. This is no different than usual. I am always staring down at my plate, having no one to look at or listen to.

"So, where did you go to college? Did you go? I went to Hemlin College. I studied environmental issues. It was very enlightening. There's so much to know about the world we live in. I think people would want to care for the environment more, if they knew about the challenges we face." I glimpse a toothy, but straight-toothy, smile.

I smile back with everything I have. It's not much. "Um, I didn't go to college. I got a job." To be fair, after school, I made a trip to New Orleans with my graduation money, to investigate the graveyards and other haunted attractions. This fact, however, would elicit even more questions from Yolanda. I can't risk that.

Even without looking at her, I can feel the intensity of her smile, it's so damned huge. "Well, that's alright, too. Oh, I also got married. You remember Jason Malone, don't you?"

Oh God. The spokesman for the science-obsessed clique, if you could call it that. What a disgustingly perfect match.

My pancake is gone, at long last. Still chewing, I take some coffee into my mouth and stand up. A couple steps away, I swallow and say, "I need to go. Enjoy your muffin."


10/31
A rush of chlorine and the smell of trilliums as I enter the world, the pool area, ready to clean. Holding tight, I swipe the billowy net through the water, along the concrete edges of the pool's interior walls. The same collection of leaves, tree debris and unfortunate flying bugs, always. I raise the long neck of the net over the fence and shake its contents out. The lucky insects, not yet drowned, may now attempt to fly again. The debris will simply grow into the ground, alongside all the other debris from other days just like this day.

There is nothing, no distinguishing factor, to differentiate this day from any other. I'm cleaning the pool, using the same technique I have taught myself, in the same amount of time as usual. I already ate breakfast: cereal. Later I will go to Superfood, my list trimmed short to the bare essentials. I will settle in later with a movie, perhaps. I'll go to work during the week, occupying myself with paperwork that has no meaning. I'll make just enough money to continue living here, in a house with a pool if nothing else.

I walk around to the front of the house, to get the Sunday paper from the mailbox. But there's a body coming down the sidewalk. The name comes rushing at me. It's Andy fucking Warrington, possibly six years older, possibly unchanged, just walking along. Andy Warrington. One of the few good things about high school. That swipe of hair, those near-gold eyes, and that jacket… the same gas station jacket he was wearing the day of graduation, during the rehearsal, before he had to change into his black gown, like everyone else, for the real graduation. He was the only one who made the cynical gown appear sexy; everyone else looked like the attendants of an enormous funeral, in our gym beforehand, and on the football field afterward. Mourning.

"Andy? Warrington?" I hear myself asking, approaching him. "You… how have you been?"

Andy is pale, unmoving, half-smiling. He might be looking at me. "Joelle. How was graduation?"


Six years prior, more or less
An hour before the ceremony, we were supposed to mill around in the gym. Most of us were already dressed in our gowns, holding our caps by our sides or setting them askew on our heads for pictures. My few friends seemed preoccupied with other friends and half-friends. They were writing down cell phone numbers and e-mail addresses on any writable surface for each other. I knew for a fact that my friends would never call or e-mail these people; they just wouldn't. They were only killing time.

So I skipped the silliness altogether. I removed myself from the room, walking nonchalantly down the main hallway, though I didn't need to because there were absolutely no teachers on duty in the halls. I turned down the music hallway with its enlarged, wooden musical notes hanging on the walls, and framed pieces of music that held some importance.

I was hoping that The Hole was unlocked. Whether or not it was locked was a matter of chance. I walked into the boys' bathroom, thought about peeing but didn't have to, and walked over to the door to The Hole, placed at the back of the tiny bathroom. The knob let me in.

But I was not the first to think of escaping to The Hole. Andy Warrington had, as well. He had stripped his gown off, and it was lying across one of the make-up stations, reflected in the long mirror on the wall above. Hands in his pockets, he was just standing around, listening. There were three other people in the room, mostly draped on couches and sitting at discarded desks. I knew their names: Jeremy Leilmon, Mindy Tulling, Yolanda Barber. All people I went to elementary, middle, and high school with, the same damned people, and now I'd finally be rid of them. I'd been in classes with all of them over the years, from Spanish in 3rd grade to Trig in 10th. But all the classes, all the faces became a mess in my memories. It could've been any person, any class, any year, any school.

The Hole existed because our school was too small, too cheap, and too weird to have traditional dressing rooms behind the stage in the auditorium. Instead we were stuck with two dressing rooms attached to the bathrooms: The Hole, which was sometimes unlocked, and the girls' bathroom room, which was always locked. And, as unlocked places go, The Hole had become a usual spot for ditching class, smoking weed, making out, and causing trouble. I hadn't actually taken advantage of The Hole as much as I could've; I was kind-of a good student. I found the room a little boring. During the theater off-season, the costumes disappeared from the wardrobe cabinet, and the shower embedded in the wall became a storage closet.

"Um, hi."

"Oh, hey Joelle." "What's up?" "This is so funny! People keep coming in!"

We all laughed a bit at our cleverness. I pulled out a chair from the other make-up station and sat down, listening to them talk about the only thing they had in common.

"Black graduation gowns!" Mindy was still wearing hers, but her mouth was sneering at it. "It's just rude."

"Yeah," said Yolanda, though I think she was only agreeing for effect, "they completely ignored the fact that our other school color is green."

Mindy smiled at the thought, twisting her hair up into a more secure bundle with a magenta alligator clip. "Green would've been nice. It's like emeralds."

"And money," Jeremy added, smirking and touching his palm to his short hair, which was spiked permanently with long-lasting gel.

Andy wasn't in the conversation. He was standing near his own make-up station, aimlessly going through its long drawer. I opened the drawer of my station. It was mostly empty, but filled with all kinds of "fuck"s and "blow me"s, surely written by some stoned kids, to heighten their rebellion.

"Hm, weird," Andy was saying to himself. He was holding a key.

I stood up. "Oh, hey, oh man. I think that's for the catwalk. Yeah, I think so. It could be."

Being in drama, I knew some of the secrets of the department. I knew that the catwalk existed, which was sadly more than the average student knew, but more, I knew that it could be unlocked. I'd never been up there, only heard about it.

Mindy wanted to know, of course, "what's a catwalk?"

Andy examined the key.

"Let's go try it," Yolanda said decisively, springing up off her seat on the couch.

All five of us crossed the hallway, entering the backstage area through a side door. The auditorium's lights were off, all of them, even the stage lights. I expected them to flicker, though, or turn on without notice. Maybe the red curtain would sway, or odd noises would emerge from the darkness. These things happened sometimes during play rehearsals. The drama kids had this general consensus that the auditorium was haunted. There was a rumor that a kid fell from the catwalk once, and that he haunted the place, playing childish tricks on the current students. I could've told the story to Mindy, to freak her out, or Yolanda, though she'd try to disprove me with "facts," or Jeremy, who would've agreed with Yolanda. Andy might've believed it. Instead I flipped the stage lights on.

I steered the group in the right direction, and we came to the ladder, built into the wall, made of black steel. It didn't run all the way to the floor, so I had to jump a little to mount it. Andy handed me the key, then waited as Yolanda, then Jeremy, then Mindy, timidly, lined up under the ladder. A true gentleman, Andy was last.

"Is this dangerous?" Mindy asked. Nobody answered her.

I climbed up to the trap door above me and turned the key in the padlock. It slid open. One by one, we pushed ourselves upward, into a room the size of a small bathroom, tall enough for standing. There was some mumbling, and Jeremy mentioned that we could not be suspended if we were caught, though I didn't think we were going to be caught. Our next move was to crouch down through a door half the size of a normal door, walk about a yard, and turn right. Then the catwalk officially began. Some of us continued to crouch—Mindy did, trying to keep her gown pristine—while others crawled, shuffling their knees across the sanded, unfinished wood floor. The stage lights offered enough illumination for us to see our surroundings, but we all looked two-dimensional and pale.

"I'm afraid of heights," Yolanda said, peering out of an opening at the stage far below.

We all looked down. The catwalk felt sturdy and dependable, and the openings didn't look hazardous, but I was still thinking of the rumor of the ghost, and the fall, and the death, on stage I suppose, like a horrible, unplanned theatrical event.

I turned away from the view of the stage and led the group further down. After a pause to investigate a bag of pretzels on the floor, we reached the end of the catwalk, where we turned around and made our way back to the bathroom-sized room. It was not a very long trip, as our auditorium was not particularly wide, but it was long enough. In the room with the trap door, I heard Jeremy say, "it looks like the graduation ceremony is starting in four minutes."

"Oh my God!" Mindy cried.

We scrambled back down the ladder and out the stage door, leaving the stage lights on and the trap door hanging open, just running. We had to run the length of the school, all the way down the main hallway, over down another hallway in front of the cafeteria, and down some cement stairs leading to the parking lot and eventually the football field. Per our last names, we dispersed, trying to find our places in the long line arranged on the track. The names were just beginning to be called, and I was breathing heavily and fixing my cap on top of my hair.

Barber, Leilmon, Tulling… with the last name of Turan, I was only one person behind Mindy. My name echoed across the field as I walked across the stage, shaking hands that were extended to me, and finally coming to the principal. Right hand shake, left hand diploma, and SMILE! Just like they told me to do, at practice. I was off the stage and in my seat very quickly.

A minute or so later, Andy's name came over the loudspeaker.

"Annnnndy Warrrrrington!"

But the stage remained the same, with the row of people holding out their hands, and the principal waiting with Andy's "diploma," which I knew from looking at my own was actually just a piece of paper, smiles spread on their faces permanently for hours.

Not long after: "Merrrrredith Woohulm!"


10/31
There is nothing, no distinguishing factor, to differentiate this day from any other. Did I have breakfast? I remember cereal, but it could've been any other morning. The tastes are permanent in my mouth now. Have I cleaned the pool yet today? Have I gone to the mailbox?

It's Andy fucking Warrington, possibly six years older, possibly unchanged. He is pale, unmoving, half-smiling. But all the faces become a mess in my memories. It could be any person, any class, any year, any school. This always seems to happen.

"Fine," I say almost inaudibly. "It was fine."

I step over to check the mail, pulling down the front lid. No Sunday paper. Nothing in the mailbox.
i was trying to get back into the hang of writing. this was my first story in a long time. it stems from my hometown, where i always seem to run into people i "knew" from high school. people i never knew.

i'm not going to stand behind this story. i don't think it's very good. as usual, it sounded much more amazing in my head. i don't think i have the capacity to stand behind it enough to even edit it. so i'm leaving it as is. nonetheless, i think it's an interesting enough story, and i believe in what it's trying to say.



© alyssa perkins
august 2006
word count: 3,533
© 2006 - 2024 thatpartydress
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mister-mental's avatar
i think you've survived through enough soul shrinking social folly to tell some of these people to fuck off. you remind me of Hariett the spy :P