God Awful Things

When I was 19, I was kicked out of college for a year.  My grades weren’t up to snuff and a required year off was mandatory before retaking any of the courses,  along with attending some meetings that had a retarded name like S.T.A.R. or something like that.

During that year off I went to the old reliable job of high school years… telemarketing.  I was terrible, but my tolerance for self inflicted pain is legendary in the work force as well as on the dinner plate.  APAC was a bit like the mafia, there was no out.. They would lure you with decent pay and bonuses, all for selling your soul and having people tell you that you are a pathetic piece of shit in 8 hour shifts.

I worked with a colorful cast of characters.. One had been the University of Iowa hacker of 1997, Joe something.. At any rate, the nights we’re pretty routine, work until 11, go to whatever bar had the best drink special that wouldn’t card me. Once the bar closed, go to someone’s house and drink more until I eventually would roll into my apartment at 7 in the morning or so.  To this day, when I hear Pulp’s “Little Girl (With Blue Eyes)” it makes me thinking of crashing on Seth’s futon of dreams exhausted and hearing my brother singing along to it in the shower as his day began.

There was one girl who worked there though, Kristen (I might be spelling her name wrong, it happens).  She was the hot girl at work, the one that each of us telemarketers thought “If i hit my sales goal, she’s totally going to want me!”, I kid, but everyone did want here, Michael Bory.. I can’t remember how to spell his last name.. Anyway, he tried, oh did he try, but she was engaged, to some guy who lived up in Minnesota,  he would come down on the weekends.  She would say how at the ripe age of 24 it didn’t matter that she wasn’t sure if she wanted to be with him (this is Iowa after all, where you should be married and making babies by 18).

So we would head over to her place after the bars close sometimes, she had a roommate named Jill I think, or maybe it was Jyl (again, Iowa).. Ween was on the radio, and everyone had either left or passed out.

Years later, probably not all that many years later, probably when I was 23 or 24, I started writing down the details of all of my first kisses with people… Below is what I wrote of the magical moment that took place… I warn you, it gets flowery..

I can’t stop thinking about our first kiss, I’d never had one like it. I was laying halfway on your coach (Ed. Note – It was her vocal coach) and halfway onto an ottoman while the sun started to rise.  The nervousness in your eyes, you kissed me… upside down.  If I could live that over, if I could go back.. I wouldn’t have let you marry him.  I wonder where you are now.  I lay on the couch we used to cram on together just so we could sleep side by side.  It was innocent, you were older and engaged.  I was young and dumb.  I remember when we locked the keys in your car and the last night I saw you.  My heart aches missing you and that innocence 3 years later.

Oh, 3 years later, thats not too terrible.  Okay, it is.  My brother used to call her the Pretty/Dumb Girl.. so kind.  Only one person knew of the secret affair, and I’m not sure she even knew that much.  Eventually I got drunk on whiskey one night and told her it was over.. why? I don’t know, I suppose because I knew it was a bad idea to be sleeping with someone who was engaged… Or maybe the conversation was too empty.. She moved away the same night my brother and I moved from Bartertown to the apartment by the train tracks..

There was a going away party for her at a mutual friends place, I remember djing a lot of underworld.  somehow she and I talked and she told me she would still call off the wedding if I told her there was a chance.. even though this was 8 months later.

We ended up back and bartertown making out to Red House Painter’s “Down Colorful Hill”

Then we went to my room, to Seth’s futon of sin until she eventually realized the huge mistake she was making and left.  Never saw her again.