There was a time when her face made me panic. And when it did that was highly unlike me; for back then, I was yet at the height of what I’d thought was my lasting good fortune with women. In short, I was a very big fish in a tiny pond that was polluted by drugs and whiskey.
Now, though, things have drastically altered. It’s eight years later, and Cormac McCarthy has already used the title I’d like to use for my biography. Because let me assure you, reader: No Country for Old Men best describes being thirty when you live in a college town.
And the college town in question? Well greetings from sultry Ann Arbor; and as it’s about to storm, I can acutely recall some words from my teacher as I was groaning through high school history. “Make sure you remember these dates,” he said. “Because for some of you guys they’re the only ones you’re ever going to get.”
But please don’t think I’m resentful. It makes sense, and I can hardly expect that twenty-year-old girls will look twice at an aging broke-ass. And more often than not I don’t want that: as lovely as they are, I’m usually appalled by their “new-fangled” clothes and their obsession with All-Mighty Facebook.
But if you’re willing, let’s visit my past now. Because there’s a face there that’s worthy of noting; and as we go back, I’m blissfully restored with a full head of hair and a stomach that’s flatter than Kansas. At twenty-two, I’m further an utter narcissist and a truly pretentious dick-bag.
For that was when I was about to be famous. It was in the bag, and I was fully convinced that in the next two years I would “make it” as a poet and rock star. And I couldn’t have been more of a snob then: an idolater of Art, I had secretly sneered at other humans who had never read Finnegan’s Wake.
And it’s funny who you turn into. Because I couldn’t be farther from famous; and presently, when I think of all my favorite people, few are what you’d call “readers.” Moreover, I’ll take a good read like The Hunger Games over Joyce any day of the week now.
But to repeat, I was a tremendous asshole. I was really was, and when this story begins, it was an August night and I was scribbling poems on my bedroom. And I actually mean “on” my bedroom: about to be a senior, I went to Michigan and lived in a co-op where you could mar the walls with impunity.
And indulge some words on this co-op. Because I’m decidedly anti-tangent; but nonetheless, a brief description of its culture and structure are key to what I’ll unfold here. Deservedly defunct, it’s been shut down for about six years, and I suppose that I’ll call it “Roach House.”
Because the roaches outnumbered us humans. It was a pit, and at any hour almost any drug was available to those who came seeking. And Jesus, did people come seeking: twenty-four-seven, there was a non-stop party going full-blast, and more than one life was wrecked there.
And did I also mention the drinking? Because it was like Animal House but with junkies; and to this day, people who’d been there are invariably floored that it was my home for half of a decade. From their faces, you would think I’d said I did five tours in ‘Nam, and they were all a barrel of monkeys.
But it was a barrel of monkeys. It was the greatest, and it was during that time that I first saw the face that initially made me so panicked. But a silhouette preceded the visage: on that August night, I had put down my pencil to open a forty, and then nothing was ever the same.
Because Roach House had three different sections. In the middle was a two-floor connector; and on either side, it was flanked by a pair of older houses that both reached up to three stories. In the southward house, I had glimpsed out my window as I reached for the forty and seen a most curious shadow.
And feel free to scoff at what follows. I’m quite the fool, and my impassioned rants have earned the scorn of countless respectable persons. But the shadow had left me enchanted: in the other house, there was a silhouette behind a down-drawn shade that was female and oddly bewitching.
About James Curtiss
