a tribute

Six stories of cinderblock, stained polyester carpet, and recreational drugs were the framework for the dorms I called home for 4 years.  I used to be so embarrassed by the fact that I spent my entire college career in that place, as I watched friend after friend move out and into equally depressing, yet envy-inducing, apartments only blocks away.  Although there were no rules or restrictions, no meal plans to speak of (forcing us to make sad little dinners in our sad little kitchens), and there was really nothing that kept us from being classified as a proper apartment, those who lived in the dorms were cursed with the most homogenous living quarters.  No matter how creative I tried to get with my Rasta-approved decor and shelves of random sentimental knick-knacks, my room still looked just like my neighbors' and still smelled like the Steak-umms© they fried up the night before too.  We dorm dwellers were bonded by the fact that our parents were under the impression that "dormitory" was synonymous with "safety".  Little did our parents know that the closest thing to an official dorm Meet-n-Greet was the moment we found out that the guy/gal hosting the pot circle was also our R.A.  And what a bond it was.

When I met Terry he was living in what was at best considered a loft and at worst considered the enclosure above the place where homeless men went to the bathroom.  It was everything that art school dreams were made of.  It was a low-maintenance space where 6 boys with skateboards and guitars and gallons of oops paint came and went without question.  It had walls, but just barely, as if the person responsible for building them gave up 10 feet before reaching the ceiling.  If you were paying close enough attention, you could see the old hooks and stains from it's original use as a slaughterhouse 80 years prior to it's current use as squatterhouse.  I do believe someone received a rent check from them, I assured my concerned mother.  If I had to be forced to the confinement of the embarrassingly air conditioned bourgeois accommodations of the dorms, it pleased me to be able to take partial ownership of the cool digs of my almost-homeless boyfriend.  

"Where'd you get those awesome shoes?  Are they a little... big?"

"I found them in the trash downstairs.  Yeah, they're 2 sizes too big, but if I stuff an extra pair of socks in the toe they're perfect."

{ Pitter pat, pitter pat, went my 90's grunge heart. }

We split our time pretty evenly between school, his apartment, and my room, but not without Terry sufficiently reminding me how lame it was that he was being forced to relive the dorms.  I felt like I was asking a freed prisoner to come back for lunch dates in his old jail cell or something.  Fortunately, my room offered a few incentives that his place did not.

1. A girl.

2. Food, cooked by a girl.

3. A nice view of the city. 

4. Scented candles; towels large enough to cover both your front AND back; ambient side lamps that make you feel like you're in a home, not an insane asylum; and usually some good roommate entertainment.  If asked, he'd never admit to caring about these things, but I choose to believe that those little amenities mattered in the long run.

5.  Cable.

We both would agree that No. 5 was a biggie.  It wasn't just basic cable either, it was HBO cable.  It felt like we were eating the finest caviar in the backseat of a beat-up Chevette.  It was wrong, but delicious.

Sunday nights became our night.  When the Sopranos premiered in 1999, we made a routine of walking to our favorite diner, and bringing back dinner for two to my bed of one while watching what would become our favorite series of all time.  Before then, there was little to no tv at all in our lives, give or take the occasional movie.  I was an experimental video major, busy believing I had come up with the idea that television is opiate for the masses.  My elitist convictions were in direct opposition to my love for Sunday Sopranos.  On an aside, my experimental video professor and mentor was the mother to the director/producer of the show.  I think I may have once made the mistake of asking her about him, only to be left feeling like I'd pried my way into learning about a dirty family secret of pornographic filmmaking.  Actually, I think even that industry would've been more respectable to her than the industry that brought us everything she disliked.  Every Sunday, as credits would roll and my eyes were still unblinking, I would see their unusual shared last name and be reminded of the irony.

One night, after watching a particularly good episode (Russian in the Snowy Woods), we lay there staring out the window thinking about what we'd just watched.  We discussed how poetic and lovely it was.  We talked about the characters as if we really knew them, a little worried and yet so amused.  It was how we talked about many episodes in fact.  I even dreamt of these characters, because Tony and Carmella- they were so believable.  Even in the absurdity of their unrelatable lives, you couldn't help but get wrapped up in every single emotion.

Our eyes were looking out my big 5th floor window, down to the top of a street light, as we exchanged thoughts about Paulie and Christopher.  We were making predictions for the following week when we see a taxi pull up directly under the light.  If we hadn't been mindlessly talking the way we were, we would've missed what came next.  The passenger car door opened, a man walked around to the driver's window, pulled out a gun and shot him.  

We looked at each other and asked ourselves if what we saw was real.  Perhaps this "opiate for the masses" had a hallucinogenic effect as well?  Pretty sure that the man in a hoodie who was now running into the small wooded area behind the train station was confirmation of what we just witnessed, we did what any smart college kids would do.  We walked down the stairs and out of the building to make sure the cab driver was okay.  We probably yelled, "HELP!  WE JUST WITNESSED A CRIME!" too, as we were the dumbest humans that night.  I really believe the dorm angels to whom my mother prayed would protect me during moments just like this kept the shooter from coming back and putting a cap in our lily asses.  The man in the cab had been shot in the face, but was rushed to the hospital and I've since learned survived the incident.  I'm still too naive to even make an educated guess over what went down that night, but my worldly non-dorm-dwelling (now) husband tells me that it was probably drug related.

Drugs, Russians, Italians, Atlanta, New Jersey, Dormitory Witness Protection Program- that was the night it all became one big lumpy memory.  

Buonanotte, James Gandolfini.  You gave me caviar in a Chevette on Sundays.