How I Spent My Thanksgiving Break... by Gail
Crazy good times. I was excited for Thanksgiving break, for the relaxation, for the old friends, for the opportunity to just have fun and not worry about anything else. I was not disappointed. There were creamer shots and stories, snow, rain, Rochester gray skies. Things I've done a million times, and things I've never done before. Enough memories to fill one of those FedEx airplanes with no windows.
I turn onto 250 to go to the bar. There's that cafe that used to be a donut shop. We all used to walk behind it down to the canal and dare each other to put pennies on the train tracks. After the night's been worn out, I'm driving him home and I haven't been that way in almost a year. His parents' house is still exactly the same. The same as it was when we did all those silly things and laughed because we were young, when underneath the laughter was the assurance that we would always be there for eachother. Just like now.
I volunteer to pick her up because I secretly want an excuse to drive through the neighborhood where I grew up. I drive down the hill where that old dog used to live. The one that wandered without a leash and no one complained about it, and chased kids on their way home from school. It's quiet now, and that dog has probably been dead for years. I never thought i'd miss him. I used to walk up this crappy little side street to get to her house, imagining rabid raccoons hiding in the treetops waiting to jump down on my head. Damn that elementary school teacher for reading us Old Yeller. There's the middle school we all went to, the one whose name shall forever be succeeded by "we get there on our bus." The foyer is lit up, and I remember us having cheerleading practice in there. When the high school girl who coached us was nothing more than a high school girl. Before everyone knew her as the one in a coma. When I was naive enough to believe that everything would be okay.
Less than a block over is the ninth grade school, right beside the house I lived in during those years. Where everyone was always welcome, because I had damn cool parents. Just like now. And here the memories are bittersweet, because here some of the innocence had to melt away. I fell in love for the first time, and for the first time watched the person I loved be destroyed by depression and medication. When it was all over and I disappeared because I had to see that person right then, she was there with a flashlight looking for me in the woods. Because my mother thought I was dead. And there were mistakes and betrayals and more laughter. And there were new friends and terrible rumors & I learned that getting fucked by the system is not just something people say. Because I watched it happen to him. And now I can almost believe it doesn't matter anymore, if I didn't think that these things made us who we are. I usually only come to a rolling stop at this intersection, but I find that the car is no longer moving. I press the gas.
Getting on the thruway, we have to choose Albany or Buffalo. It's like the Erie Canal song & days before we had EZpass, when my mom would yell at us for singing Chocolate Salty Balls on the way to Darien Lake. Blow on 'em, blow on 'em. But we're going the other way and it's snowing and it's midnight. It's possible the toll booth guy thinks we're crazy, but I'm sure he's seen weirder things. A week goes by, you know it takes my breath away.
There's shopping to do and it's 5am, so there are still parking spots. Did you know they're going to be building a giant LL Bean store over there? By the movie theatre that used to have an arcade? Where she and I had a birthday party with just ourselves and one other friend? A friend who hardly knew us then, but knows us better than anyone now. We would rock out to Mmmbop, just because it was fun. Later on, we used to see movies there just to get out of our houses. Stupid terrible movies that I don't even remember. But bumpercar rides were free with a ticket stub, and we needed some way to make the world spin. Just like now.
I have a dvd to return that was out of stock at the Blockbuster in Perinton Square. I'm wearing pajama pants and slippers and I only plan to get out of the car for two seconds. I have heated seats now and it feels good to drive. There's the movie theatre parking lot where some part of me will always be ashamed that I didnt just go for it and kiss him. Where, instead, I just answered my phone and walked away. The bookstore with the obnoxious chain coffee shop in it, where my first coffee was a cafe mocha and I felt badass for drinking it. There used to be a record store here where we would go to buy concert tickets... when the internet was more of a novelty than a way of life. I toss my dvd in the slot and turn around. I don't want to go home, but I hesitate to travel further on, where the memories are only tears... and harsh realizations.
Denny's looks different now than it did, because they remodeled when they got rid of the smoking section. But I still can smell cigarettes, because I still keep the same company. The jet fuel smell is missing. We still drink the coffee black and the creamer neat. And I get to enjoy that rare chance to listen more than talk. The rain turns to snow and it sticks because I wanted it to. There's something intoxicating about people achieving their dreams.
The moon rises again and it's a new day. We're all driving our parents' cars and then we're drinking my parents' Corona. It tastes like piss and we try to pretend that we aren't growing up. And we do a decent job of it.
And then we go back to our lives.