Rooftop Ephemeron

July, 1993. Kansas. I'm living on the top floor of a shambly, student-filled house with two friends. We have no kitchen, just a hot plate and a fridge which must have grown up out of the floor boards because it seems impossible that it should have been carted up the narrow, angled staircase. We wash our dishes in the claw-foot bathtub.

The fire escape is a rope tied to a steel loop bolted into the floor beside our front window. It's great for party entertainment--rappelling down the front of the house and over the porch roof into the bushes below. I mention this only because it should not be forgotten.

J- and I eat so much garlic in an attempt to repel mosquitoes naturally that when we lay down to sleep, we can smell the hot scent of garlic breathing up through the skin on our arms. We take afternoon naps in order to have more dreams.

D- shaves his head so he can save money on shampoo and stays up until 7 in the morning playing Sim City. He disappears for stretches of time to work on mysterious projects and do laundry at his parents' house. He has hung a Russian flag from our front window with antagonistic hopes of fetching a hostile response from town residents.

I'm working odd hours at the college cafeteria, cutting apples in half and spooning corn into little white bowls. Once, the manager walks by as I'm working and snaps, exasperatedly but not unkindly, "Use both hands!"

I spend hours in the library, half-heartedly attempting to make headway on my poorly defined senior thesis. I have one more semester of college, and no idea what to do next. (That fall, my advisor--a woman I admire so deeply I'm not even aware of it--will tell me, "You don't seem to be suited for the sort of research required in graduate school. You should get an MFA and teach poetry at a ju-co." This is "junior college" in Midwestish.) As my summer wears on, I collect an assortment of disorganized notes on the backs of pages from the recycling bin, but no clearer sense of what original thing I can propose.

One day, I am alone in the apartment, trying to write thoughts or poems in a notebook. The air is thick and the sky glares grey with thin clouds. Suddenly I realize that I don't want to be alone, writing in a notebook.

I find some red poster paint and a brush and climb out the window, past the Russian flag and around the gable to the roof. The pitch is quite steep and there is another dormer window at right angles directly around the corner, but we've all done this before. Sitting on the ridge and forming capital letters upsidedown, I paint, "I don't want to write. I want to talk, and I want people to listen to me."

I'm a little choked up and weepy at first, but the effort of painting and balancing sobers me up. When I finish, I straddle the ridgepole and look at red letters and the mottled black roof and the close sky. I wonder if anyone can see the words from the street; I'm not sure if I want them to be seen or not, but it doesn't matter, since raindrops begin to fall. I slide back into the house as fast as I dare and get my camera.

Somehow, leaning out the window and hanging onto the frame, I get two shots. By now, I feel good, as if I had settled something.

When the pictures are developed, I put them in the notebook.

The next spring, I lose the whole book on the DC Metro. I call and leave a message at a Metro office. Nothing comes of it.