Dear John: In The Eyes of the Beholder

3/20/08

By Riche Pinchingpenny
Critic Collumnist

When I first moved out of my ex’s apartment, and into the St. Johnsbury shoebox that I call my home, the tiny space echoed in its emptiness. There was nothing attractive about it. Inside, I had barely enough room to turn around, never mind cook a decent meal; a desk, and an overstuffed chair were the only pieces of furniture that I brought with me; and the walls were peeling reminders of someone else’s life. Outside isn’t any better. I get to stare at the backside of a gas station, an overflowing dumpster, and a 12-hour-a-day curb-side drunk with the name, Chance (go figure).

“You need to surround yourself with red,” my friend Leah insists. “Red is seductive.” She should know. She’s had five “serious” relationships in the last three months, and that’s not including the guy she picked up on the 9pm bus to Boston. He was her soul mate; she’s sure of that. But his ticket was only one way, and well, you know how tight money is. She had to love him while she could, and then make the best of his memory. Which I’m sure is what she’s doing every time I hear her scream, “Oh g-d ….yessssss!” from my shower (she says the water pressure is better than the shower at her place.) She always appears nearly an hour later, flushed, and ready to paint the town red.

But red makes my skin look sallow, like a dying hooker on Guiding Light. I never wear it, or decorate with it. But Leah insisted on spicing up the house with thick red curtains in the belief that they’d also improve the view. The curtains were more than enough red for my taste. I ignored her suggestion to add red pillows, rugs, and a comforter. I tried to cheer the place up with yellow paint, a screaming in-your-face yellow that dared me to be anything but hopeful. It wasn’t working.

“You need to join something. Why don’t you try belly dancing?” Leah cooed, shaking her hips in patterns that would make even Shakira blush. I tried to picture myself swaying my hips and rolling my arms seductively, but I have the co-ordination of a blindfolded monkey. It was a fact: luck’s a bitch.

After spending two months watching Chance pile his empty bottles behind the cedar bush, and listening to Leah “prep” for her dates, I decided I was tired of my mental monologue. Looking around, I noticed that the room had taken on the same hues as the two-day old pepperoni pizza, still in the open box on the counter, bought at Leah’s insistence that the pizza delivery guy might show me a good time. But the delivery guy was a 6 ft. tall, 17 year-old that dressed Goth, but talked like he was Mormon. This is neither damning, nor at this moment, encouraging. What I wanted wasn’t a man, but a life.

At Leah’s insistence to do anything but mope, I went out. But I didn’t go grab a beer at the sports bar, or bury my face in popcorn at the theatre. I just walked. That’s it. I crossed the Portland Street Bridge and headed uptown. I walked past the churches and the neat and orderly houses on Main Street. I watched a white-haired man hurry towards a red car. An irritated woman was honking the horn. He climbed in and she drove away. I imagined her seething through her red lips, “I gave up Broadway to spend my life waiting on you?” He’d say nothing.

I walked on. There wasn’t much to do in this desolate town on a Friday night. I browsed the magazines in the mom-and-pop store, The Convenient One, but they were full of love, sex, and relationships. I bought a newspaper and a Coke instead. The lady at the counter handed me a daffodil with my change. “I’ve been selling them all day, but this one’s going by. If you want it, take it. Enjoy it while it still has some color left to it.” I thanked her and walked home.

The neighborhood was quiet when I got back. Even Chance wasn’t slumped on his curb. I put the daffodil on the nightstand, and then I took the red curtains down. I could almost hear Leah moaning, “Fuck, hun. Why’d ya go and do that?” But it looks brighter this way.