The other day, two cars crashed outside my house. One of them flew up into the light pole, and knocked out the lights. I couldn’t finish reading my book (because, being totally undomestic, I had no candles or flashlight), so I did what all the neighbors (ahem, crackheads) did, and sat back and watched.
I am alone. I don’t know anyone, and no one knows me. Over the years I have come to see myself as camouflage, blending in to the background. No one even sees me anymore. I’m just another nameless, faceless person filling up space, creating a shadow.
I’m always shocked when I go into a convenience store near my house and the clerk has my cigarettes ready for me before I even get to the counter. My theory is that they remember me because I’m the only person in the city who smokes these particular cigarettes, rather than it being something specific about me.
Because there is nothing specific about me.
Rather than feeling warm and fuzzy inside at having been elevated to the status of a “regular” customer, I feel embarrassed. If they remember me, then they remember everything I’ve bought, like the case after case after case of beer I bought and drank alone during that blurry month that I tried that route.
So instead of enjoying the familiarity, I remind myself never to go there again.
I was at this very fancy store last month that I have never been to before, and the girl checking me out commented that I looked very familiar to her. I smiled politely and assured her that I didn’t know her. She asked what street I lived on, and I told her, and she confirmed that we are not neighbors. I used a card, so she asked to see my ID.
She scrunched up her face as she read my name out loud. “Even your name sounds familiar. It is like I know you.”
“No,” I responded. “Impossible. I don’t know anyone here.”
She continued, “Oh, you’re new here. Where are you from then?”
I said, “I’ve been here 12 years.”
Some days, the only conversations I have are with the crackheads outside my house. Yesterday, I was outside with my dog, letting her do her business, when a crackhead yelled at me, “How much is a room there?”
He was across the street, and it is a busy street. I yelled back, politely, “This isn’t a rooming house.”
“Oh, what is it then?” he yelled back.
“An apartment building.”
“Oh, so how much is a room?”
“Uhh…$1400 a month.”
“$14 a night?!? How do I get one?” he yelled back. At this point, my girl and I just turned around, and went inside.
While outside a moment ago, sneaking a cigarette on the stoop, I noticed a used condom baking in the sun. That crack whore is a lot smarter than I thought she was.
