last section. chapter 3. chapter 2. chapter 1.
Subscribe to read Unclosed Mouths, my first novella about dearths of emotion on the Hudson. Or about the other time I made an enemy. Or read something I wrote about somebody I don’t like very much. Or a coveted and powerful dating tip that will get you on some frameless mattresses and in some fig-covered rooms this summer. But hopefully not into the rooms of these people. Blegh
A group of male musicians in the class of 2016 had donned the 8-bed duplex "Buck House." After several years and several incidents of sexual misconduct, the 8 rooms slowly became the domain of non-men, mostly white women. Its new moniker, "FuckHaus," came about after Eve Greenberg returned from her semesters abroad in Tel-Aviv and Berlin. She spent that academic year having sex and remarking at how fucked all the settlements were and listening to 4x4 dance music in dark clubs. A typically traveled New Yorker, she's insanely pretentious but rather nice. Bart actually kissed her, around New Year's freshman year, in front of an Italian restaurant in Gramercy. He says he still thinks about her sometimes.
The part of the FuckHaus party I can stomach without intoxication or the allure of random sex is in the backyard, where one can sit by a fire and gawk across a property line at the two-bedroom converted shack the soccer boys live in. One time early last year--actually, maybe it was move-in day--Tracy and I sorta broke our code and made out at a FuckHaus thing. I was taken by her steely looks and calming smirk. Anyway, we fooled around a bit and I got carried away and made her orgasm and she pulled me out to scavenge through a concurrent soccer party for beers. All of the kids there were dressed very formally and yelled into each other's ears around a ping pong table. There was no noise music or house music or techno or hyperpop or anything; instead, they listened to Playboi Carti and occasionally danced. I wondered what a computer science major would have made me look like, before Tracy walked me home, through the forest, and begged me to cum inside her. She got back with her ex-boyfriend a few weeks later; I wasn't jealous but he was a better skateboarder than I was. Tracy and I don't talk about that night much.
My problem with FuckHaus isn't how lame I think it is, or its whiteness, or class quality or whatever the hell. I just don't think straight at these things.
Olivia Hirsch was a FuckHaus girl. Clothes stitched with mismatched wool, skinny-dipping, pink Nintendo DS, boyfriend from Europe or the mythical Philadelphia, member of the textile department. Scent of lavender, old swimsuits and Nat Sherman. One night before I met Olivia, I saw her playing drums in the basement, back before the Dealership noise ordinance. Clad in big jeans and a sports bra and slicked with sweat, she sang into a mic that was twisted around a lamp, dangling over the toms. It was freshman year. Bart made me go, saying I needed to see some stuff off-campus.
"Squash, right?" Eve pumps the keg, her dainty, freckled sun-burnt arms crossed over the plunger. She's somewhat tall, her brown hair still only shoulder length from the buzzcut girls here do freshman year, finally away from their neurotic nitpicking parents. She has an oddly small mouth, set in a quiet scowl. Eve's got a nose my mother would call Egyptian before I’d admonish her for it, though I have no clue why that'd be offensive. She is wearing a stiff denim pant, green, with a wash like they'd been forgotten in the ocean for a bit. Underneath them--somehow-- are Supreme Nike Dunks from last season, betraying both a large foot and maybe a StockX account. Needless to say, I am terribly attracted to Eve, and I do not mind that she's the first person I run into tonight.
I remember the "Springer Spiders Squash" crewneck I'm wearing--Independent, not Gildan, thank god--and say, "I managed freshman year. Played at practice."
"Yeah, I'd see you at tournaments." And I saw Eve often as a volleyball striker, as Bart and I decided to see as many girls’ games as we could that year.
Eve hands me a cup of local lager and froth. "You still with that girl you fucked in my room last year?"
My eyes widen. Her intonation is only vaguely New York, bits and pieces left from probably speech therapy. Do other ethnic private school parents, desperate to shed any evidence their child ventured about in their outer-borough neighborhood before college interviews, send their kids to speech therapy? I went to speech therapy as a kid, but for a lisp.
Eve laughs. "I'm not mad. Saw you guys moving in today."
"We're real good friends." I watch her pump the keg again, the tip of her tongue out of the corner of her mouth. I can count bones in her back through her t-shirt. I wonder what she's like in the sack. I wonder if she laughs at guys.
"You talk to Dana yet?"
"No," I mumble.
"Says she's dating a lawyer. I just hope she's staying sane, y'know?"
"Me too, sane, lawyer, yeah."
"Well," she says, sipping beer. "I've got to go host my party, and I hate these people." Her face forms a gummy grin. She's leaning over close enough that I can smell the lavender and Nat Sherman. "See ya."
"Nice to see you, Eve." Lawyer?
"Same," she says, walking off.
Is that what Dana's telling people? Lawyer? Lawyer. Maybe I do have that brain tumor.
I walk the party for a few hours, drinking more as I catch up with people. In the kitchen, I watch this Bay Area Montessori girl take her shirt off, swapping her cropped band t-shirt for Carter's 2XL thing. They're kissing by the time I move on. Yura asks how I'm doing, and if I've seen Carla anywhere. Bart shows up with Beth, and no one really recognizes her. He’s carrying around one of those 4k Canon camcorders and popping into doorways. I hope he gets Carter and that Marnie girl. Bart and Jimmy and I crowd Paul as he describes his affection for Claire from his film class. We’ve seen them around together. I begin a “Move-in day” chant and Bart’s camera is in my face again. The night is slowly turning to what I call evil and though I don’t mind causing problems, I need to get up at a reasonable hour to finish unpacking. I do not get laid at this party, but Eve gets bored and lets me walk her to the bar. She's gripping my hand tightly when she asks if I think Bart's gonna go to her party later.
"He’s already- Bart's with Beth Winkler," I say flatly. "From Disney Channel."
"Oh my gosh, you're right." She grips tighter. "Y'know, I don't even need to go to the bar anymore."
"No?"
"The air is nice enough."
"Right." That awful, humid Hudson Valley air hangs between us as I wait for her response. For a moment, I wonder if I’ll get one; it seems Eve is content to dreamily stare into my eyes.
"Wanna invite me up for a drink," she finally asks.
I stare up at my apartment, across the street, second floor, the lit window probably Tracy fingerpicking and humming to herself.
"Eve, uh, maybe another night."
"Oh, you're a good boy, huh."
"Sure."
She pulls me close and we kiss; I don't know what it is. I don't know. I need a thesis advisor. I need a cigarette. I need to skate. I don't need another kid to bother. But I lean in anyway. I watch her greet the bouncer. I wonder what she’s like.
Freshman year was a crash course in being the client of an institution. All the community stuff they sling is sorta true, sure, but dorm living is built to force you into groups and pit you against the kids who study on Thursday night. The people who play non-racquetball sports are also the enemy. And the hippies. Obviously, this gamification of social whatever is the product of fear and the shared giddiness of being elevated from the grade school loser Dischord Records T-shirt kid to a sexually active taste-maker who shares cigarettes with kids descended from WGA members. None of that is real, or cool, or has any utility in real life, and a much cheaper move to a neighborhood new to white people in a major American city will bring about the same false feeling.
Anyway, this girl, Eve Greenberg, was the dorm snitch in Roger. Actually, she wasn’t. She shared a triple with two Poly Prep kooks who hated her and wanted her out. That rumor was a step in that process. (And it didn’t matter, they ended up transferring to Bard anyway.) Eve moved to Dana’s floor in Romano, so I’d see her around. In the mornings when I unromantically trudged back to my dorm, I’d see her returning from her morning run. We’d share a nod, maybe a word about getting breakfast ‘before the rush.’
"Check this out," Bart says, giggling. On his phone, he's pulled up a picture of this girl we know, in full clown makeup.
"Why is SAIC like that?" I say. It's a hot and muddy Wednesday afternoon, and we're sitting on a bench by the campus center watching the new freshman walk around. There's not much to report. Their pants are bigger than ours were.
"Have you ever been to Chicago? Is that your girl?" Bart nods across the quad.
Jane is walking out of the parking lot across the field in an unseasonable black trench coat and navy track pants.
“That’s Jane, you met them.”
“You still talking?”
I sigh. “Yes, we’re still talking.”
“When are you gonna settle down, man?”
“I don’t--Geez, man. It’s not like, real.”
“I’m kidding.” Bart squints. “What are you talking about?”
“I’m 21 years old. All this dating shit is practice. Or not even... It’s just nice, nothing else.”
“But you get so fucked up about it. I just think you could slow down a bit.”
I sigh again. “Isn’t that what college is?”
“College is a four-year effort in learning skills for the workplace.”
I wish I had the money or the sense to think like that. “Whatever. How’s your girl?”
“Beth and I are good right now. I think-”
I stand up, gripping the shoulder straps of my Jansport. “Well, don’t come to me for advice,” I say, forcing a laugh.
“Alright, man.”
I walk towards the parking lot, waiting to get Jane’s attention. I remember I have an evening art history seminar on Western dress and owe Tracy a pasta dinner. I remember to keep my interaction with Jane short, as to not get carried away into some hang-out situation. I can not forget my own interests, nor can I forfeit them for a strong mutual one, like sex. I am a student first.
I haven’t thought much about Jane lately, anyway. Their mother’s apartment, maybe, or the thing they said about the Clintons, but not them and not us. I am not a lonely person, and I do not think I am in need of anything romantic right now. That is an unnerving observation when I consider my longing for certain individuals and the unrelenting base level of lust in my life--noticeable in my strict recording and reference to my sexual encounters and relationships. Romance is a simple thing to pursue, especially in school, surrounded by hormonal people who often feel the same about it. Love is a more sensible construction than work; its future is not threatened by global economies or disrupted industries. I don’t write this shit to say that I am in love, or ever have been. I think I like to dangle it over the heads of people, girls, not like mistletoe, but like bait. I enjoy, more than most things, playing a role in someone’s fantasies. Often, things go poorly. More recently, I have found myself convinced that I can change, that so-and-so could strike in me something true, a real affection. In those same thoughts, I realize that if I cared so much for someone, I would want to spare them my presence entirely. And yet, I promise dinner to Tracy (nothing there), fend off Eve (a left-field arrival), and walk confidently towards Jane (who wouldn’t?).
It’s all bullshit. If Miranda were here, I’d forget all of it.
Jane smiles as I approach and asks how I’ve been. I say something about my classes and something about the bar. They talk about their books for a French Literature course, and about how Springer’s DIY club should book better bands and then we go on a bit about how cheap beer is in the Hudson Valley. “Is the ground going to be wet most days,” they say, to which I nod and say, “Yeah.” There is a lull in our conversation where Jane looks down at my shoes and I find myself wondering what’s so different about them. I am thinking as if the angsty Jane of our sunny and quick summer has been spirited away for some cool and collected Angeleno.
“You liking it here?” I stammer.
Jane’s gaze drifts off for a second. “Yes. There’s a lot more going on up here--well, academically. It’s different. I finally have shit to do.”
“Sure.”
“I do see how someone could find it depressing, though.”
We part with a short kiss, and I watch them head towards the music building, their beat-up messenger bag swinging behind them. I walk back to the library.
By October, Professor Friend and I have established an advisory relationship for my senior thesis, and in turn, the library granted me a carrell. I have begun to leave books necessary for my research there, and occasionally, stop by to read a few chapters of something. I have few classes this semester, as I frontloaded my undergraduate career with 8-credit coding workshops and graphic design boot camps. I found nothing interesting in them and turned back to art history.
This morning, I decide to spend a few hours reviewing notes on the crewneck T-shirt, as I gather material for a chapter. When I emerge from the staircase onto the third floor of the library, I notice a figure in sweat clothes sitting behind a laptop, at my carrell. It’s Eve; as a dance major, she must not have a carrell.
“You never hit me up,” she says.
“I never got your number,” I say, already worrying that I won’t get enough done before lunch and will throw the day away instead.
“I figured you’d DM me--Oh, shit, do you need to sit here?”
“No,” I say, “it’s no biggie, just need to grab some books.”
“It’s not a problem, I can move. I’m nearly done with this.”
“Take your time,” I say.
Eve lifts her laptop and moves to the carrell directly beside mine. “There,” she says, “no more problems.” She’s maybe a little irked.
I settle in, flicking through a small notebook I’ve labeled “Americana.” I open a 450-page chronicle of Western globalism, where I have bookmarked a section on the garment industry. I have a specific brand of pen I use and a specific kind of paper; without either I fall asleep writing. I identify a stream of ideas in my notes and label what needs to be typed up at home later. I tilt my Nicorette canister out onto my desk. Out spill two lozenges, and I pop both in my mouth, letting them sit beside my right bottom molars. I pull the book on economic consumption down from the carrell’s shelf and open it beside the chronicle. I flip through my notebook a bit, scanning my last few pages. I then notice Eve’s immersed gaze.
“Sorry,” she says, one of her legs hitched up on her chair so she spoke directly over her knee. “You have an interesting system.”
“Oh, yeah? It’s uh, just a notebook.”
“No, your whole research method seems pretty in-depth.”
“Thanks,” I say. “I took Beatriz’s Intro to History freshman year.”
“She’s great… Is that a Snackman?” Eve points to a sticker on the corner of my MacBook, below my arrow keys.
I return from a dining hall lunch with Paul and Yura, spent gossiping about members of our sexual network and the girl from class of 2018 who’s marrying a music professor, to find Eve leaving the carrell beside mine for a class. She holds my hand a little long as she says goodbye and I remember our kiss. I sit down and settle in, my last coffee from lunch already cold in its 8-ounce paper cup. Looking at my notes, I realize I barely made it through the section in that economics book. I close the globalism book and return it to my shelf, where I notice, printed on a round-edged Avery label on the next carrell’s shelf, Eve Greenberg - Global Politics M.S. “Ok, fine,” I murmur.
After my Cinema of Iran class, I sit and smoke outside the film building with Carter and Claire. She’s wearing a Springer hoodie over a boilersuit; I catch Carter gazing at her naked hip through the slit in its side when she reaches to pass me her lighter. “Miserable movie last night,” she says, referring to the class’s screening of The Rat’s Nest.
“Miserable,” I repeat, my voice a bark through my cig filter. “But sweet.”
“I thought it was funny,” Carter says.
“You were at the screening?” Claire asks.
“Came in late,” he says.