what happens in teaneck. . .

I was dancing and squirming around in the bus shelter. It was freezing. And I had to pee. And I couldn’t feel my butt cheeks because I had tried sitting on the bench.

We’d waited in Blockbuster for a while, eating five different kinds of snacks that we bought for $8, making us consider going to Jersey to grocery shop. But now Blockbuster was closed, and we were stuck outside eating chocolate-covered pretzels, Milk Duds, Peanut M&Ms, Pringle-like chips, and Starburst.

We’d missed the second bus because it turned out that you needed to consult both a chart and a graphic to know how the 12:45 bus back to the city works. When I’d jumped around pointing “A bus! A bus!”? it didn’t turn the corner because it wasn’t our bus so much as because this wasn’t its stop.

We’d missed the first bus not so much because we’d taken a wrong turn so much as because we’d failed to take a right one. And it took us a while to figure out that the street we were on was curvy and dark and residential and not leading to the bus stop intersection.

We were in New Jersey in the first place for a party, which turned out to be full of old hippies. I’d done shots with men old enough to be my father, thrown things off the second floor balcony, and danced with a guy named Bob.

We both kept saying, “I don’t really feel drunk, but I know I must be.” And we must have been, because sober people do not get stuck in Teaneck, New Jersey at 1 o’clock in the morning.

I should have been worried and annoyed and anxious, but I wasn’t. I don’t think it’s because I was drunk either.

Alix is funny, and she thinks I’m funny. We have compatible tastes in junk food. She’s slutty enough to confide in, but not too slutty to trust.

Guys, I think I’ve made a girl friend.


~beatrix