{"id":1062,"date":"2014-07-24T16:54:44","date_gmt":"2014-07-24T20:54:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stephaniesilberwordsworks.com\/?p=1062"},"modified":"2014-07-26T13:11:47","modified_gmt":"2014-07-26T17:11:47","slug":"other-peoples-houses-an-excerpt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hometeamproductions.tv\/wordsworks\/other-peoples-houses-an-excerpt\/","title":{"rendered":"OTHER PEOPLE’S HOUSES: An Excerpt"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Lindenhurst-Temp<\/a>I go to an Allman Brothers concert with Rocky.\u00a0 It is at the Fillmore.\u00a0 We take the train in.\u00a0 I stare out the window at the rows of identical houses rushing by, thinking in terror that I must take myself with myself, no matter where I go.\u00a0 I am a statistic now, a statistic and a cliche.\u00a0 It feels like watching a car wreck happen slowly in a dream.<\/p>\n

It’s a Saturday, and St. Mark’s Place is teeming.\u00a0 The\u00a0 head shops that line the street emit a pungent funk of patchouli and strawberry incense every time someone goes in or out.\u00a0 A black guy with a tall ‘fro mumbles at us as he passes, threadbare dashiki fluttering about his skinny frame.<\/p>\n

“Acid, acid, rainbow acid.”<\/p>\n

He opens his hand and I get a second’s glimpse of what appears to be several baby aspirins before he closes it again.\u00a0 He wears no coat, and I turn to watch him go.\u00a0 Isn’t he cold?<\/p>\n

The sun is bright and high but it is so cold out it hurts my teeth when I breathe.\u00a0 Rocky\"pretzel<\/a> buys me a hot pretzel from a vendor.\u00a0 The smoke from his cart wafts skyward lazily.<\/p>\n

“So, you know I’m pregnant,” I tell Rocky casually.<\/p>\n

Rocky does a broad double take.\u00a0 I laugh.<\/p>\n

“Jim?” he says.\u00a0 But it isn’t really a question.<\/p>\n

I hug myself with both arms, jigging from foot to foot on the street corner, my silence answer enough.\u00a0 We have hours to kill before the show.<\/p>\n

Rocky puts his arm around me.\u00a0 A bearded guy in army fatigues is yelling at a woman on the street.\u00a0 A little boy watches them from the stoop of a brownstone.\u00a0 He is crying in hicketing sniffles.\u00a0 His nose runs like a faucet.\u00a0 He is wearing too-short bellbottoms and sandals with no socks.<\/p>\n

Rocky asks, “What are you gonna do?”<\/p>\n

I shrug, shaking my head.\u00a0 There’s nothing to say.\u00a0 The bearded guy spits at the woman and swings off down the street, bumping into people as he goes.<\/p>\n

“Peace,” the woman calls after him.\u00a0 And in a conversational tone, “Asshole.”<\/p>\n

Her hair is long and frayed at the edges.\u00a0 After a minute she picks up the little boy and disappears into the building.\u00a0 I wonder what their life is like.<\/p>\n

We walk under the arch into Washington Square Park.\u00a0 A thin, gruel-colored crust of snow still covers the lawns, but the walking paths are icy slush.\u00a0 A couple of cops pass us.\u00a0 They are both young.\u00a0 The good-looking one catches my eye, winks.<\/p>\n

“Hey, you wanna share that pretzel with me?”<\/p>\n

I smile at him, and quickly look away.\u00a0 The policeman is your friend, we learned in kindergarten.\u00a0 Now they call cops pigs.\u00a0 They are the sworn enemy, not to be trusted, like people over thirty, like your parents.\u00a0 My father is a cop.\u00a0 It is everything he never wanted to be.<\/p>\n

\"nyc<\/a>A small crowd has gathered up ahead.\u00a0 People are holding signs aloft.\u00a0 Some guy is making a speech, in a high voice that cracks when he emphasizes a point.\u00a0 His untidy frizzy hair bobs with every exclamation.\u00a0 Something about a collective lie.<\/p>\n

“What’d he say?”\u00a0 I ask Rocky, puzzled.\u00a0 “The path at twenty-one?”<\/p>\n

Rocky says, “The Panther<\/em> 21.\u00a0 It’s a demonstration.”<\/p>\n

The crowd shuffles, forms itself into a ragged line, and begins to move.\u00a0 They are mostly kids, not much older than we are, but they have an alluring city-ness about them.\u00a0 The front marchers link arms.<\/p>\n

“Join us,” a girl shouts in a ringing voice.\u00a0 “Join us, join us!”<\/p>\n

It is not immediately clear what the specific beef is about.\u00a0 More troops to Southeast Asia, guardsmen shooting students,\u00a0 it’s always something.\u00a0 The signs say simply, “Stop the War,” or “WAR IS OVER (if you want it)”.\u00a0 Stuff like that.<\/p>\n

Rocky says, “Want to march?”<\/p>\n

I don’t even need to think about it.\u00a0 “Uh-uh,” I tell him.\u00a0 “No way.”\u00a0 A few months ago, forget about it, I’m there.\u00a0 A march would have been a goof, an afternoon’s good time.\u00a0 Nothing much like that happens where we live.\u00a0 In fact, nothing much at all happens where we live, come to think about it.<\/p>\n

Standing in the cold, clear-headed, needing to pee, slightly queasy, the marcher’s fervor seems suspect to me all at once.\u00a0 They’re just spoiling for a fight themselves, I think suddenly.\u00a0 I watch them go, ninety or a hundred strong.\u00a0 I feel contemptuous.\u00a0 I can’t help but notice that many of them sport fashionable combat boots, Doc Martens in fine repair.<\/p>\n

“Well-shod,” I tell Rocky, not expecting him to understand.<\/p>\n

He looks at me in mild surprise.\u00a0 “What?”\u00a0 he asks.<\/p>\n

“Forget it,” I say.\u00a0\u00a0 My stomach settles gently, thanks to the pretzel.\u00a0 Now I’m famished.\u00a0 “Let’s eat.”<\/p>\n

The Fillmore is packed for the eleven-o’clock show.\u00a0 We have pretty good seats in the \"Fillmore<\/a>upper mezzanine.\u00a0 Our coats bunch uncomfortably behind us in our seats.\u00a0 The theatre is close and smoky.\u00a0 I feel terribly sleepy and full.\u00a0 Rocky is pumped, getting up at intervals to whistle shrilly and clap some, by way of encouragement for the headliners.\u00a0 A fat guy behind him keeps yelling, “Siddown!”\u00a0 I personally wish he would stop clapping in my ear, but because I love him and he is happy, I keep it to myself.<\/p>\n

\"Allman<\/a>The Allman Brothers take the stage at last.\u00a0 The crowded house goes nuts.\u00a0 Now everybody is up.\u00a0 Duane Allman’s famous licks curl through the air, as high and sweet as birdsong.\u00a0 Rocky screams, exultant.<\/p>\n

I can’t stand up.\u00a0 My body feels too heavy.\u00a0 All I can see are moving backs.\u00a0 I am hunched in a forest of swaying, grooving bodies, lost and still.\u00a0 My eyes are scratchy, and the lids are heavy.\u00a0 My head drops to my chest.\u00a0 I sleep deeply.<\/p>\n

Rocky is shaking me and laughing.\u00a0 “You slept through the entire thing!” he is saying, incredulous.\u00a0 He turns to the fat guy behind us, who is shrugging into his pea jacket.\u00a0 “She slept through the whole fuckin’ thing, man!”<\/p>\n

The fat guy looks at me without interest and shakes his head sadly back and forth.\u00a0 “Her loss, my man,” he says.<\/p>\n

The Allman Brothers are gone.\u00a0 The roadies work the lit stage.\u00a0 The smoke in the auditorium is heavy enough to chew.\u00a0 My mouth tastes like a sandbox.\u00a0 It’s time to go.<\/p>\n

In the lobby I kick a Marlboro box out from underfoot, and Rocky quicksteps in to pick it \"fillmore<\/a>up.\u00a0 He’s out of smokes and hopes for a freebie, and — windfall! — a fat joint is nestled in the otherwise empty box.\u00a0 The streets are quiet.\u00a0 It is very late.\u00a0 Rocky lights up, inhales deep.<\/p>\n

“Hit?”<\/p>\n

He offers me the joint and I take it, inhale, realize that oh-shit-I’m-pregnant, spit out my hit, and then deliberately, fuck it, take another, and I am high and calm in the winter night.<\/p>\n

*\u00a0 *\u00a0 *<\/p>\n

DISCLAIMER:\u00a0 Stephanie Silber owns the copyright to the foregoing and gives permission only for the sample herein to be distributed free of charge, and without alteration.<\/p>\n

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I go to an Allman Brothers concert with Rocky.\u00a0 It is at the Fillmore.\u00a0 We take the train in.\u00a0 I stare out the window at the rows of identical houses rushing by, thinking in terror that I must take myself … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n