The setting is a small living room in a downtown two bedroom apartment. The focal point of the room is
a cluttered coffee table surrounded by a couch and three or four chairs. None of the furniture matches or
is even similar in design. On the coffee table an overflowing ashtray and incense holder fill the air with a
heavy smoke. In addition to these items are a chess board, four bottles of imported beer, a half empty bag
of high grade marijuana, a bong, and a court summons.
When I enter, the room is occupied by four people. Matt and Pete, who are not yet twenty-one, are sulky
because they have just been denied entrance to a local bar. Ben very calmly sits in his chair and Alex
packs the bong. Pete stands up and announces excitedly that "P--y boy here got another job! ", to which
Alex nods his head in acceptance of congratulations. "A waiter, at Cuvee Notre Dame", he says and takes
a massive pull at the bong, exhaling a wind tunnel of smoke. Everyone in the room works in a restaurant,
except Pete. For Alex, who has been a busboy for the past five years, this is a big career move. After a
while, the conversation dies and the only sound is that of a reggae band on the stereo.
Matt breaks this sedated silence by demanding Ben to get him another beer. Ben's notoriously slow
reaction time doesn't allow him to answer before Alex jumps up and moves toward the kitchen. Before he
can get there, however, impulse causes him to dance in a weird stiff fashion, contorting his skinny body
around the floor, naked except for a pair of dingy shorts. Ben, finally aroused from his stupor, voices his
opinion that Alex is a "demented psychopathic homosexual".
All throughout the night, insults are exchanged to show affection, superiority, and hostility. They are the
primary way of communication in the early evening, but towards the end of the night everyone becomes
more apt to share their true ideas and feelings. "Lemme see!" Alex makes a lunge for my notes. After
trying to decipher my handwriting he says he doesn't think it's going to be a very good paper. He tosses it
to Matt, who after reading it tells me very honestly that he took a shower with a girl for the first time
yesterday. This launches a boasting session on sexual prowess, with everyone giving a better story than
the last.
When this dies down Alex smokes more pot and Matt appears to be mumbling under his breath until he
looks up excitedly and says, "At least we have garlics on the way!", 'garlics' being the term Alex invented
for cat, or anything he considers cute. Earlier that week Alex and Matt had gone to the animal shelter and
picked out two cats, which would be ready to be taken home soon. "Yeah! We got an older one and a
younger one that way the older one will beat the younger one and we won't have to.", says Pete, who at
this point is beginning to look quite drunk. This comment brings about a somewhat disapproving silence
which I try to break by asking what everyone is doing tomorrow, but they're all working. Ben happily
notes that he doesn't have be at his restaurant until ten the next morning, as opposed to the usual five a.m.
shift. Everyone in the room works over forty hours a week, sleeping an average of five hours a night. I
ask what it is they are trying to get out of life, at first for this year. Ben said that he was working doubles
nearly everyday so that he could pay for art school, which he plans on attending next fall. Matt, although
he is a junior at Temple, is considering pursuing a career as a chef. Alex plans to work two jobs, as a
busboy and as waiter. Pete doesn't seem to have any specific short term goals, but in the long run he is
going to attempt to "understand what is worthy in life". When I asked him how he was going to go about
this, he shrugged that he "wasn't going to worry about it". Alex, who I asked next, said he planned to
"succeed", although he further amended that to say that he just generally wanted to "feel like" he was
successful. At this point Matt interrupted and, waving his fists around, proclaimed that he "wanted to be
paid". Ben considered the question carefully and declared that he wanted "to have a happy house" and that
he would go about this by "earning a decent living" to support "a happy family". He went on to further
say that "In the end, happiness is contentment." Ben is in a long term relationship while the others tend to
have very brief affairs with women.
Pete is starting to get on my nerves. He makes some disparaging comment about my Scottish beer and I
say, "How about this - I say something, and you agree with it." He laughs and insists I write it down.
Quame enters the room and falls on his face. He gets up all smiles, looks around and comments, "Hello,
Gentlemen, I see we've been getting our swerve on." "Business as usual" replies Ben as he gets up and
begins dancing to Tom Waits. Alex joins him and Matt looks on, eating strawberries. Alex opens another
beer as Ben gets naked and plays soccer. Pete says: "Oh my god, Ben... ". Later as the others go out into
the street for some midnight soccer Matt retreats off by himself He sits slumped over an ancient
typewriter typing poetry. "There's not much culture here", he says with a sigh. Around three in the
morning Alex sits on his stoop, smoking his 'good-night piece'. I ask him about his new job, and we begin
to talk about our plans for the summer. He tells me how he plans to work two jobs to pay for a car
accident he had while driving a friends car. "Until I pay off this thirty-eight hundred," he says, "I'm just
gonna have to work as much as possible." He sucks on the perfectly rolled spliff, letting the smoke trickle
slowly out of his nostrils before releasing a great stream into the air above. "So what about the weed?" It
seems such an integral part of his lifestyle. Looking at him now, towards the draw of a long night, I see
that he has a puffy, tired look about the eyes but that he is absolutely coherent. He tells me that he has
been smoking consistently for five years, since his grandmother died. He grants to some extent my
suggestion of escapism, but in counter asks if everyone does not have their own reliving device. He says
simply that he likes to be high, that he doesn't feel that he is deviating from himself by smoking
marijuana. "Besides", he smiles, "it's a great way to pass the time."
What I felt was most notable way the atmosphere around this group of people differed with accepted
American cultural norms is in the way the future is regarded. Alex seems to purposely limit his goals for
the future, and to see the present as something in need of being passed. I think that this outlook is a result
of his current situation. Working forty-plus hours in a physically strenuous, mentally unchallenging job
and making just enough to live would tend to make anyone feel defeated. It seems as if from Alex's view
point, the challenge of getting ahead, the American dream, is very far out of his grasp. It is probable that
this dissatisfaction with his current position in life and the lack of any foreseeable positive change in the
future leads Alex to use drugs, which in turn reinforce his stagnancy. Smoking marijuana might be a great
way to take his mind off of things that bother him, such as his job, but when you lose the capacity to feel
pain you lose desire to cure the wound, which still exists. In this way I feel that to some extent this group
of people to be trapped in a negative, self-defeating spin-off of American culture.....
Polish Haiku/investment banking/WD*40
Mauve leisure suit wrinkled on the floor
kids big enough to reach my medicine cabinet
calculating the loss in percent values
cats collar and leash lost on the floor
stairs slick with WD*40
tonight should be money at the downstairs bar
Passion fruit sorbet suffering freezer burn
my testicles stiff and purple in my lover's mouth
making no money sitting around the bar
Two girls I know dead from cocaine
my daughters hold me at the funeral
sobbing in the basement with a twelve gauge
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