previousempathies

In high school I’d long after boys from a distance. Since I couldn’t have many conversations with them outside of ‘guy talk’ I’d latch onto objects that surrounded them and defined their personality (clothing, books, music, videos, video games, etc) and if I became close friends with them I would study the spaces that they inhabited. I think most teens under the spell of lust do this.  Bathrooms became of particular interest since as a semi public space I could spend somewhat lengthy amounts of time in them without being questioned.  I’d study what products they used to clean themselves and often times copy them.  I’d observe how tidy or untidy their parents were.  I’d think about how that made them who they are.  I often felt like I came from more money than the boys I crushed on and I felt that my mom was often more uptight about appearance in our house, so I’d pay attention to how relaxed this person and their parents were in their spaces.  Maybe clothes would be left out on the floor, or dishes went unclean in the sink.  I take bits and pieces of these habits and bring them back home with me.  I wander through their father’s shed or pay close attention to the interior of their trucks or SUVs and observe how much more traditionally masculine their things were than my father’s.  

When I became particularly focused on one boy, Branden, I began projecting his personality into other spaces he occupied.  We played basketball together so an easy one was the locker room.  Soon all locker rooms had him in them.  As a team we rode a bus up to Troy, Alabama to a basketball camp once.  On the way we picked up Branden’s older brother to join us for the camp at a BP Station at the Monroeville exit on I-65.  Branden accompanied his brother to the gas station but not to camp.  So, for a few minutes I got to look out the bus window and see him but that was all.  Every time I pass that gas station I think of this now.  It got to where I would project my longing into places he had been but we hadn’t been together.  I come across a store or a restaurant or a point at the creek that I knew he had been at or in recently and I would pretend to feel his presence.  Like simply occupying the space he had once been in would get me closer to him.

And now, 10 years later, I’m doing it with you.  You mentioned you want to move up to Hudson, New York and I find myself walking through streetview, imagining your life without me.  I don’t ever want to go there.  It would certainly be my purgatory.  My feelings swell up enough when I pass through the 28th street stop on the N/R train.  Or see Madison Square Park in general.  Or wander around Williamsburg.  I can’t imagine associating an entire town with you, and those feelings combining with the loneliness and isolation of growing up in a small place.

I left you tonight with the hopes of not seeing you again, for my own health.

I remembered I had come across some money today, I decided to take a cab home from your place near Madison Square Park to mine in Crown Heights. I don't do this anymore.

The cab driver played classical music past Madison Square Park, down to Union Square, then NYU. Passed that building on Broadway with the blue I-beams sticking out of its side, through Chinatown. Across the Manhattan Bridge. The financial district is in plan view but I'd rather look back at the Empire State Building. It is only a few blocks away from where you live. It shines bright blue and orange, I think for a Jewish holiday. It's surrounded by colorful skyscrapers, I think they're gaudy. The New York Life Building shines its distinctive gold.

We ride through traffic on Flatbush, we pass Barclays, around Grand Army Plaza, pass the library and the museum.