I’m writing this without looking at the photo. I feel guilty looking at it because of my wallpaper. It’s a picture of my new girlfriend, my current girlfriend, and hopefully, my last girlfriend. Where are you? “I’m in Fayetteville.” Why are you in Fayetteville? You’re supposed to be out of town. “Plans changed. I had to come back and take care of some things here.” Where is my car? “I have your car. Your car is with me.” My car is supposed to be sitting in front of my house. “Don’t worry, I don’t want your. . . I have to go.” Why, what are you doing? “Working. I’m tired, I’m doing 14 hour shifts, I don’t have time to get into all of this.” Why are you working? ”What do you mean why am I working? I saw an opportunity to make double back my money, and so I took it. I have to bust my ass for a couple weeks, but it should be worth it.”
She never wanted to work before. There’s nothing I can do about it from here. I’m on vacation, like my Aunt said: enjoy it, worry about whatever is going on whenever you get home. My aunt said someone broke into the house. She sent me photos of the broken window. The glass looked thin, but dangerously sharp. She probably had someone else break in for her. I can’t see her braving the broken glass on the climb through. She probably had A.J. do it. A.J. - the kid who is probably driving around town in my car now. I never really liked that kid. Anyway, Ive got a plane to catch. I love Vegas. Sin is so beautiful. I mean, where else can you go, in 2007, and be handed pornography while walking down the street, and for free?
What the-hell is this? There’s a bright orange and white biohazard box on the wall for syringes. Wow. There are so many people here using needles, they had to say eff it, let’s just make a safe way to get rid of these. Too many Otto the trashmans have poked themselves in the arm, or imagine, in between the fingers while taking the trash out. “I might have AIDS! Oh my God, what if I’ve got AIDS now!!!...” I wonder if these are in all the public bathrooms? Of course not, that would be impossible. Let me check my email again. Nope, still no ticket information. Amazing. I’m the guy that walks on the flat riding escalators. People act like it hurts them physically to move over when I say “excuse me.”
I get to the ticket counter. I love these uniforms that airlines use- the most unreasonable blues. She asks for my license. I hand it to her. I tell her I don’t have my itinerary. She looks mildly disappointed. She is used to this, she doesn’t want to hear my reason why I sense. I ask her to lookup my ticket information. She asks for my phone number. My phone number is catchy, but it has three 4’s in a row, I always have to repeat it. She doesn’t find anything. I give it a second. I work a similar job back home, so I know sometimes these things don’t pop up right away. She tries another search- she finds something, but I can tell it’s not what I want. I give her a flight number-she sees it on her screen, but tells me that flight belongs to a plane going to Phoenix. I verify the name the flight is under, and her birthdate: 6/25/58, and she tells me the ticket was purchased last month. Last month? Why would she give me the flight number to another flight? I remember one of Yolanda’s trips being to Phoenix, something about meeting someone there. In and out in a day, ridiculous heat, the normal things people say about Phoenix. There are no other flights under that name? I can search by the card, do you have the card number? Oh you don’t have the card #?” She has given all that she is going to, and probably has already given me too much according to policy. She knows I could flip out and press this more, or I could walk away. She’s hoping that I just walk away and say something that she can nod her head and smile to. I was going to walk away, but then I remember the line, how fast it can go from empty to full. I ask about the next flight, then the next two. The next flight is at 3AM. That gives me less than four hours. The flight after next is at 6. And how much is that one, I ask? “$1600.” $1600? It went from $316 to $1600 something dollars. She nods knowingly. I want to ask who would pay this kind of money for a plane ticket, but I don’t ask. The next morning I see who would; a white man in a suit with a headset on. He doesn’t take the plugs out of his ears while he checks in. He looks mildly irritated with the vacationers in front of him. Across from them I sit, close enough to hear them complain about waiting in line, but not so close that they would notice me staring. I’m jealous that they were able to enjoy the rest of the weekend before heading home for work on Monday. I spent the night there. I made phone calls. I had a list of people I knew would help me that I didn’t want to have to explain my stranded situation to. I was still thinking if Yolanda and I stay together, they would surely remember this. This would be an unforgettable piece of evidence that marrying this woman was probably not a good idea, and for some reason, I hadnt ruled that out as a possible future yet. There are some people you just get used to them being around.
It was 9AM back home. My people would be getting up soon. Jason or someone else would call me back.
I took the picture with a Nokia 6102. I took a lot of photos of her with this camera, but this was always my favorite. It’s so simple and elegant, almost professional. The low resolution compresses the pixels to make her skin look golden, more flawless than it really was. You can’t tell her age in this, or see her face. There were others, almost as ambiguous, not as attractive. They were my old wallpapers - in the same place where my current girlfriend exists now.
Fall semester 2012 MediaWriting for Naomi McCormack
She never wanted to work before. There’s nothing I can do about it from here. I’m on vacation, like my Aunt said: enjoy it, worry about whatever is going on whenever you get home. My aunt said someone broke into the house. She sent me photos of the broken window. The glass looked thin, but dangerously sharp. She probably had someone else break in for her. I can’t see her braving the broken glass on the climb through. She probably had A.J. do it. A.J. - the kid who is probably driving around town in my car now. I never really liked that kid. Anyway, Ive got a plane to catch. I love Vegas. Sin is so beautiful. I mean, where else can you go, in 2007, and be handed pornography while walking down the street, and for free?
What the-hell is this? There’s a bright orange and white biohazard box on the wall for syringes. Wow. There are so many people here using needles, they had to say eff it, let’s just make a safe way to get rid of these. Too many Otto the trashmans have poked themselves in the arm, or imagine, in between the fingers while taking the trash out. “I might have AIDS! Oh my God, what if I’ve got AIDS now!!!...” I wonder if these are in all the public bathrooms? Of course not, that would be impossible. Let me check my email again. Nope, still no ticket information. Amazing. I’m the guy that walks on the flat riding escalators. People act like it hurts them physically to move over when I say “excuse me.”
I get to the ticket counter. I love these uniforms that airlines use- the most unreasonable blues. She asks for my license. I hand it to her. I tell her I don’t have my itinerary. She looks mildly disappointed. She is used to this, she doesn’t want to hear my reason why I sense. I ask her to lookup my ticket information. She asks for my phone number. My phone number is catchy, but it has three 4’s in a row, I always have to repeat it. She doesn’t find anything. I give it a second. I work a similar job back home, so I know sometimes these things don’t pop up right away. She tries another search- she finds something, but I can tell it’s not what I want. I give her a flight number-she sees it on her screen, but tells me that flight belongs to a plane going to Phoenix. I verify the name the flight is under, and her birthdate: 6/25/58, and she tells me the ticket was purchased last month. Last month? Why would she give me the flight number to another flight? I remember one of Yolanda’s trips being to Phoenix, something about meeting someone there. In and out in a day, ridiculous heat, the normal things people say about Phoenix. There are no other flights under that name? I can search by the card, do you have the card number? Oh you don’t have the card #?” She has given all that she is going to, and probably has already given me too much according to policy. She knows I could flip out and press this more, or I could walk away. She’s hoping that I just walk away and say something that she can nod her head and smile to. I was going to walk away, but then I remember the line, how fast it can go from empty to full. I ask about the next flight, then the next two. The next flight is at 3AM. That gives me less than four hours. The flight after next is at 6. And how much is that one, I ask? “$1600.” $1600? It went from $316 to $1600 something dollars. She nods knowingly. I want to ask who would pay this kind of money for a plane ticket, but I don’t ask. The next morning I see who would; a white man in a suit with a headset on. He doesn’t take the plugs out of his ears while he checks in. He looks mildly irritated with the vacationers in front of him. Across from them I sit, close enough to hear them complain about waiting in line, but not so close that they would notice me staring. I’m jealous that they were able to enjoy the rest of the weekend before heading home for work on Monday. I spent the night there. I made phone calls. I had a list of people I knew would help me that I didn’t want to have to explain my stranded situation to. I was still thinking if Yolanda and I stay together, they would surely remember this. This would be an unforgettable piece of evidence that marrying this woman was probably not a good idea, and for some reason, I hadnt ruled that out as a possible future yet. There are some people you just get used to them being around.
It was 9AM back home. My people would be getting up soon. Jason or someone else would call me back.
I took the picture with a Nokia 6102. I took a lot of photos of her with this camera, but this was always my favorite. It’s so simple and elegant, almost professional. The low resolution compresses the pixels to make her skin look golden, more flawless than it really was. You can’t tell her age in this, or see her face. There were others, almost as ambiguous, not as attractive. They were my old wallpapers - in the same place where my current girlfriend exists now.
Fall semester 2012 MediaWriting for Naomi McCormack
