Still Life with Tornado(32)

“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?

I can’t stop my brain from thinking about art. I watch the kids and think: Those kids are art.

I think: That bell is art. It’s on display like art and it’s viewed by millions like art and it’s a symbol of something artistic. Freedom. Freedom is artistic.

For lunch, I stand by a trash can and wait for someone to throw food away. It only takes a half hour for some tourist guy to buy a vendor hot dog and take a bite, then toss it away. I wait for him to round the corner and I lean in and pull the hot dog out. He put mustard on it and I hate mustard, but I wipe it away with the napkin and then I eat the hot dog by the side of the trash can.

The hot dog is art. The napkin with the mustard all over it is art. The trash can is art.

Outside Dunkin’ Donuts, a woman tosses in a bag with half a cruller still in it. It’s the nicest doughnut I ever ate even though it had her lipstick smeared on one side of it.

I don’t know why I’m doing this. I have money in my wallet. Five bucks. I have a SEPTA pass that could put me on any bus, subway, or trolley in the city. Instead, I hang around tourist areas and eat food out of trash cans.

I think I’m trying to become Alleged Earl.

Which is stupid. I am a boring middle-class girl who has a house and a bed and a favorite umbrella.

But on Tuesday, I learn that other people’s food tastes especially nice. That and the thing about the Liberty Bell never being heard by anyone living today. You can learn things by just walking around and listening. Mom asks about dinner with my friend and I tell her my friend is sick. She says, “Maybe next Tuesday, then.”

? ? ?

Wednesday I leave for school because Dad wakes me up and makes me pretend. He stands at the door and tells me to have a nice day and to keep our deal and Mom is still asleep even though she didn’t work last night, and before I leave, I pack my backpack full of every piece of sidewalk chalk we have.

And I go.

I stop at the food cart where they sell the best breakfast sandwiches. The woman’s smile is art. The way she pronounces oregano. The way her husband fries the egg so it fits the roll, the way he places the ham and cheese on top—the way he folds it once the cheese is melted, the way he scoops the whole thing up and lays it on the roll is art.

I walk to the corner of South and 4th and I watch the tourists try to figure out which cheesesteak place to go to. Pat’s or Jim’s? That’s the question. That’s always the question. Truth is, the difference between these two cheesesteaks is so large that you should try them both. Everyone has an opinion about which one is the most authentic but what does authentic have to do with anything anymore?