LH#32: Apt 28 (Brighton)
Estimated visits: N/A
Abandoned on: 08.26.11
Last thing I did before I left: Put the keys in the freezer.
Hypothetical interview:
Q: Hi there — I’m sorry to disturb you at home, but by any chance did you meet the guy who used to live here?
A: No, why? Was he a real asshole or something?
Q: Well, no; that’s not what I’m getting at.
A: How about you get to the point then…
Q: Is there anything about how he left the place that might give us a clue about him?
A: Who the fuck are you, anyway?
Q: I’m, uh, just documenting the condition of the building. For the landlord.
A: Oh, why didn’t you say so? Yeah, the floors were pretty clean when I moved in. But the blinds were dirty, and this kitchen just sucks. He forgot some stuff in the refrigerator, too.
Q: Really? What, exactly — if you don’t mind me asking?
A: It was a couple things. One, a bottle of Sweet Leaf Tea. And two, a Hershey’s Special Dark. It’s still in there. I thought about maybe eating it, but I’m afraid to.
Q: Why? Was it opened?
A: No, it’s unopened. So’s the drink. I just don’t like to eat food that I didn’t buy myself — don’t fucking judge, okay? Anyway, I think he just forgot about it. Maybe he was hoping to eat the candy bar after he cleaned out the place. But then he forgot.
Q: Why do you think he forgot?
A: I don’t know. Probably he just wanted to get the hell outta there, don’t you think?
The goodbye:
There are a bunch of streets named Memory Lane in the United States. You can look it up — California, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Wisconsin all have at least one.
I used to live on Memory Lane when I was a kid. Mine was a dead end street; at the end of it, the pavement stopped but the lane continued as a dirt road into the woods. Occasionally you would see a dump truck head down the street and onto the dirt road. The subdivision was supposed to expand through there, all the way to Limestone Creek, but it never happened. I saw a lot of dump trucks during the eleven years I lived on Memory Lane — but no new houses.
A lot of “firsts” happened to me as I grew up over those eleven years. I made my first friend — a kid from Kentucky who showed me how to ride a bike. I had my first temper tantrum when the bus driver tried to drag me onto the school bus on the first day of kindergarten. I also endured my first and only visit to the emergency room after an airborne 450-degree chicken pot pie landed on my left calf. (I still have the scar.)
The neighborhood kids taught me football and baseball and basketball, and I quickly figured out the best yards to cut through whenever my mother called me home for dinner. (The more gardens there were to hurdle on the sprint home, the better I could imitate Edwin Moses.) This was an era during which I developed an intense suspicion of broccoli. It was also when I learned the hard way that if I didn’t get good grades, I would spend the summer with Mrs. Benedict, the reading tutor.
I suffered failure (piano lessons), humiliation (from a bully), and defeat (my sisters were better at any game that did not involve a baseball). But I also figured out how to outsmart the other kids when I needed to, and sometimes my parents. I earned some dubious honors (perfect attendance at middle school — yes, for all four years) as well as legitimate ones (third place at the science fair; a “note of excellence in social studies” from Mrs. Detotto).
I remember a lot of questions back then that came with inadequate answers. For example, what happened to the McCachran’s dog, the Pekingese that liked to hide under the shrub in their front yard? Why did they cut down the three willow trees in our side yard? Why did the Spencers put up a fence? Why was the girl next door trying so hard to get a suntan? Why did the Heiseys move away? Why was I not allowed to ride my bike along the highway to get ice cream with the other kids? Why are we moving?
It’s easy for me to revisit those eleven years on Memory Lane because there was so much to care about, both along the street and within our house.
I can’t say the same about Apt 28 on Comm Ave. The eleven years I spent living there feel empty in comparison. Do I have any good memories of the place? Some, I guess — but they’re buried under a pile of stagnation.
What did I learn? How did I grow? How did I change? Eleven years passed, but little changed for me in Apt 28.
And thus my goodbye to it.
