Oregon. When she lost her dog, I couldn’t stop crying. I’ve always felt a lot for animals, but I also related to the woman who lived out of her car. I thought I might be like her.
One day I drove to the middle of nowhere with my friend whose room I was living in. He was home on a visit from Dubai. Once we had been very close, but those days were gone. Still, we attempted to spend time together.
The sun was unimaginably harsh; I drove while my friend slept in the car. When he woke up we stopped and got out to climb some rock formations that looked like they were crumbling, even though they were stuck to each other. Together the rocks formed a microclimate for plants that grew in the shade they made, and for animals who could also survive there, because of the shade. Short trees had sprouted up, and delicate plants. Little squirrel-mouse animals scurried around, though they weren’t quite squirrels, or mice. We sat under the shade of one of the trees to watch them. We didn’t let our arms or our legs touch.
At night the air turned from hot to warm and then it got chilly.
“We don’t know each other,” I said.
“Yes, we do.”
“We’re more like brother and sister now.”
When we went down in elevation on the ride home it got warm again. There was no water around, but I felt it, like we were descending into a large, shallow sea.
At home, I crawled into bed and read a story I had read many times before, that I had taught in some of my classes. There was something in that story I wanted to sink into: the rich darkness of a barn, the putting the hand out into that darkness to see what it touched. I was no longer close to one friend, but I was becoming close to another. I thought about this second friend while pulling the covers over me. I lay all the way down, covering my head and face. You are a writer, I thought. “Dante!” someone yelled somewhere outside the building. Four flights up in the middle of a desolate downtown, that is where you are. I closed my eyes, but I didn’t sleep. Instead I saw the darkness, and then rock formations running into that darkness.
What I didn’t understand was how my friend and I could have become distant when we were probably more interesting people than we had been when we were close; though I was weaker than I had been when we were close, and he was stronger. This probably had something to do with it. When I thought of the second friend I felt comforted. The first time I felt this was when I had stopped by to visit him and he was asleep. I knocked on his screen door and he woke up to let me in. He wore a churidar and a pink shirt that was starting to tear on one of the shoulders. He got back into bed and I sat in his desk chair next to him and we talked about a book he was reading.
I continued to wander around the city, absorbing something from it. I had very little money, but I’ve always identified with not having much, so it didn’t bother me, except when I couldn’t afford to make credit card payments. One evening I rode my bike through a neighborhood where cheap clothes were sold. I bought myself a dress for $9.99. It was pretty—turquoise with small black polka dots all over it, and sleeves that rose stiffly from my shoulders. I wore it to a museum, where in one of the galleries I saw four ornate wooden chairs facing a whipping post. Lights shone on the chairs and on the post where the wood had splintered and turned old. On a gleaming table sat a pair of slave shackles surrounded by intricately carved silver vases. An artist had found these things in a historical society in Maryland and exhibited them there together. Now they were here. I touched my dress, its cheap material.
“What do you want from this city?” my friend had asked me in the car on our way home.
“Nothing. Just to live in it.”
“That’s not true.”
“It is true.” With no traffic on the freeway my friend drove fast, much more so than I would have. “What do you want from
One day I drove to the middle of nowhere with my friend whose room I was living in. He was home on a visit from Dubai. Once we had been very close, but those days were gone. Still, we attempted to spend time together.
The sun was unimaginably harsh; I drove while my friend slept in the car. When he woke up we stopped and got out to climb some rock formations that looked like they were crumbling, even though they were stuck to each other. Together the rocks formed a microclimate for plants that grew in the shade they made, and for animals who could also survive there, because of the shade. Short trees had sprouted up, and delicate plants. Little squirrel-mouse animals scurried around, though they weren’t quite squirrels, or mice. We sat under the shade of one of the trees to watch them. We didn’t let our arms or our legs touch.
At night the air turned from hot to warm and then it got chilly.
“We don’t know each other,” I said.
“Yes, we do.”
“We’re more like brother and sister now.”
When we went down in elevation on the ride home it got warm again. There was no water around, but I felt it, like we were descending into a large, shallow sea.
At home, I crawled into bed and read a story I had read many times before, that I had taught in some of my classes. There was something in that story I wanted to sink into: the rich darkness of a barn, the putting the hand out into that darkness to see what it touched. I was no longer close to one friend, but I was becoming close to another. I thought about this second friend while pulling the covers over me. I lay all the way down, covering my head and face. You are a writer, I thought. “Dante!” someone yelled somewhere outside the building. Four flights up in the middle of a desolate downtown, that is where you are. I closed my eyes, but I didn’t sleep. Instead I saw the darkness, and then rock formations running into that darkness.
What I didn’t understand was how my friend and I could have become distant when we were probably more interesting people than we had been when we were close; though I was weaker than I had been when we were close, and he was stronger. This probably had something to do with it. When I thought of the second friend I felt comforted. The first time I felt this was when I had stopped by to visit him and he was asleep. I knocked on his screen door and he woke up to let me in. He wore a churidar and a pink shirt that was starting to tear on one of the shoulders. He got back into bed and I sat in his desk chair next to him and we talked about a book he was reading.
I continued to wander around the city, absorbing something from it. I had very little money, but I’ve always identified with not having much, so it didn’t bother me, except when I couldn’t afford to make credit card payments. One evening I rode my bike through a neighborhood where cheap clothes were sold. I bought myself a dress for $9.99. It was pretty—turquoise with small black polka dots all over it, and sleeves that rose stiffly from my shoulders. I wore it to a museum, where in one of the galleries I saw four ornate wooden chairs facing a whipping post. Lights shone on the chairs and on the post where the wood had splintered and turned old. On a gleaming table sat a pair of slave shackles surrounded by intricately carved silver vases. An artist had found these things in a historical society in Maryland and exhibited them there together. Now they were here. I touched my dress, its cheap material.
“What do you want from this city?” my friend had asked me in the car on our way home.
“Nothing. Just to live in it.”
“That’s not true.”
“It is true.” With no traffic on the freeway my friend drove fast, much more so than I would have. “What do you want from
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