“I snoop.”
“You don’t snoop. You just live in the same house. They thought I didn’t hear it either until I was fifteen and finally said something.”
“What’d you say?”
“I was mad because they wouldn’t let me try out for a play at that teen theater thing they run over at Arden,” he said. “I think I said something like ‘Just because you two are so busy calling each other asshole every night doesn’t mean I have to stay here and listen!’”
“You’d think Mom would say anus,” I said.
Bruce spat out his mouthful of beer and we both cracked up for about a minute. I think our day surviving the trip-not-trip to Tulum was getting to us because this was an obvious point. Mom would call an asshole an anus.
We used a bottle of water to clean the beer off the balcony tiles. We looked down at the tent set up on the beach where Mom and Dad were eating their pretend-romantic dinner. The resort made a big deal out of these romantic dinners—warm, dim lighting, rose petals strewn around the tent, romantic Mexican music. I wondered if Mom and Dad were trying to figure out what the lyrics to the songs were. Mom speaks a little Spanish because of her job. Dad thinks bandadigo means “fantastic” because some guy once told him it did, but he never checked so he says it thinking he’s speaking Spanish, but he’s not. He’s speaking a language one of his frat brothers made up in college.
I said, “What do you think the lyrics are to the song that’s playing down there?”
Bruce said, “I can’t really hear it.”
“No. I mean made-up lyrics. Like, You’re an asshole and I should have never had kids with you. Stuff like that.”
“Oh,” Bruce said. “How about, You’re just a bitch because you’re on your period and you don’t realize it’s a medical condition.”
“Oh, I have one. One day you’re going to realize that I’m a really great guy and you’ll stop nagging me all the time.”
“Great guy, my ass,” Bruce said. “How about, You’re a dumb prick and I hate you.”
“I’ve heard that song before,” I say.
By the time I was sixteen, I’d forget this moment. But then I’d remember it again. And everything would change.
Six Days (Tornado)
What happens for the next six days is nothing new. What happens for the next six days is unoriginal. I don’t want to see ten-year-old Sarah because she wants to talk about Mexico and I don’t want to talk about Mexico because Mexico wasn’t original. I stay away from Alleged Earl’s street because I don’t want to see Alleged Earl because he’s an original idea and I don’t want my dullness to rub off on him. That happens, you know. That happens to people.
One minute you have a guy and he’s full of energy and spark and he’s ready to take on life and then the next thing you know he meets another guy who likes to sit at home and watch football games and drink beer or something. Then his spark just gets smaller and smaller until he’s the same as the other guy. Happens all the time.
On Tuesday morning I leave the house before Dad even gets up. I see the sunrise. I see all the people rushing to work. I see a college girl walking along singing to the music in her ears that no one else can hear. She has a nice singing voice. I see people coming out of the subway stations and I see people running down into them. Subway stations are mysterious from street level. It’s as if thousands of people just disappear down there every day. I decide that subway stations are like portals. You leave at eight in the morning, you arrive back at five thirty in the evening in the same clothes, with the same briefcase. It would be a lot cooler if the subway portals took people somewhere original, though, instead of just to work.
I decide not to think about art for a week. I decide art is futile. I decide there are better things than art. I decide not to take any buses for a week. I decide that if I want to go somewhere, I will walk.
On Tuesday, I decide to walk to the Liberty Bell.
The Liberty Bell is at Independence Mall. It’s a state park, but it’s not a park. It’s just another part of the same city I live in. I stand in line and when I get to the room with the Liberty Bell in it, I learn all the things I learned the last time I was here. The crack. The repair. The second crack that ruined the bell for good. The inscription. What it’s made of, who made it, and when.
Did you know that no one living today has actually heard the Liberty Bell ring?
I think that’s a metaphor for something, but I’m not sure what.
I have to stop my brain from thinking about it because metaphor is art.
I notice the groups of schoolchildren. Some can’t stand still. Most aren’t listening. Some are trying to reach in and touch the bell and they know it’s not allowed but they do it anyway until a chaperone stops them. None of this is original, but I can’t figure out what’s so important about being original right now. Who cares?