Word Number 11: Elsewise

adj. struck by the poignant strangeness of other people’s homes, which smell and feel so different than your own—seeing the details of their private living space, noticing their little daily rituals, the way they’ve arranged their things, the framed photos of people you’ll never know.

From else, other + wise, with reference to.

I can still smell him, taste the beer on my tongue during those long Phoenix nights on the porch. I catch it unexpectedly and like a burn, jerk my face from the unexpected source of heat, hissing. When realization dawns I’m not quick enough, whirling I catch the back of his head, his crisp white uniform shirt contrasting jet black hair, and the cigarette. Cigarette smoke and hairspray, cologne and sweat. But it's not him, it never is.

-----

There was a burning from the start, when I looked at him. I spent a lot of time watching, stealing glances, memorizing facial expressions, and the way he inhaled a cigarette like fresh mountain air. I'd watch the end of each cigarette caterpillar towards his fingers, wondering how he decided when to inhale. Sometimes the worm would make it halfway down before a gentle tap would send it tumbling to the ground where its segmented body would break into crisp sections. When alone, I'd sweep the broken bodies from the patio floor into a mason jar, wanting to preserve each unacknowledged death. I thought about suspending them in fluid and labelling each jar, like they do in a biology classroom. But I couldn't stand to look at the bodies all twisted up, parts mingling, and always ended up dumping them into one of the ugly olive green cigarette receptacles at work. 

I could see where he stood on the sidewalk just outside our building through my office window, white button up, black slacks, and a tie dragged down from its once tight knot. Otherwise, the view was less than appealing, being an office park on the backside of Sky Harbor airport. The window of my office didn't even face the ramp, instead overlooking a parking lot covered in solar panels, a literal oven. The heat was physically visible as it radiated in waves off the top of the shiny black solar panels. I loved the job but hated this city, hated Phoenix and its endless heat. Who would willingly choose to live here? I seemed to gravitate towards the desert even though I claimed to hate it, replacing the arid dirt of the Mojave desert with the same stale, now Sonoran desert air. Pencil straight cacti littered the landscape beyond the glaring solar panels.

Standing in front of him I forgot about the view, cupping my hand just above my eyebrows to block the harsh sun. I tried to forget about the heat but it was easy to see the places he had sweat through the once crisp white shirt. His forehead glistened and I watched a bead of sweat slide down the side of his face. "I'll take you home" I said, resting my eyes on his left earlobe when I spoke. It was easier this way. He smiled his big smile, white teeth flashing.

"Could you?" he said. "I was going to call an Uber, but you know how expensive they are at the airport."

20 minutes later he was in the passenger seat of my 2003, grey, Buick LaCrosse. As he looked down at his phone I stole glances across the space, it felt like inches, it was inches. The cigarette hung on him, smoke and sweat mixed with hairspray and a musty cologne. Apparently, his girlfriend was out of town and his fancy sports car was in the shop, hence the need for a ride. 

This was the beginning, the first time I drove him home. When he got out of my car I remained parked for several minutes, pretending to fiddle with directions on my phone. How long could I wait until texting him? Surely until I got home, my heart was pounding, I didn't want to BE home right now. At the suffocating furnace of an apartment I lived in with my fiancé who was most definitely home, and, likely sweating on the cushioned back of a computer chair in our bedroom/office. 

The place was simple but I didn't hate it, a one bedroom, one bath I shared with my fiancé in Tempe Arizona, where essentially every ASU college student lived (my fiancé was attending ASU). But there was charm to the size and 70's style brick walls separating the four units. There was a bathroom with a tiny shower and a sink with absolutely no counter space, then a small living room/kitchen. All this for $800 a month that I would split with my fiance. A killer deal. BUT, there was no air conditioning. The only source of cooling was a swamp cooler in the living room that we ran 24/7. That and the painted brick walls that were cool to the touch after the sun went down. We pushed our bed in the corner of the room against two of the brick walls that I insisted on sleeping againstl since the bed was only a full and he was 6' 4''. In the summer, it often wouldn't drop below 100, regardless of the time of day.  On the most miserable nights I would bring a wet towel to bed that allowed me to cool off enough just enough to fall asleep.

The day my fiancé left, or on the day I left him, he left for San Diego. I remember standing outside in the gravel parking spot where his car had just been, sweating and staring at the fine reddish dirt now coating my mismatched socks. Behind me was an apartment full of a life that no longer existed. 

-----

He asked me to come over; this was what I wanted right? My engagement had ended and now there was only this, this and him. It was late, after midnight by the time I arrived. "Here." I texted when I reached the rows of apartments I had dropped him off at (not) so long ago. 

"Hang on, I'll just be a minute." I read the text and then he was in my car, sitting next to me. He again smelled like cigarette smoke and cologne and sweat. He wasn't in his uniform this time and he looked softer than I had ever seen him. My head was buzzing–buzzing with adrenaline and grief and confusion. With excitement, and disbelief. That this person wanted me. He was smiling, but it was a soft smile. Not the hard one he flashed most people, the cocky one. It was a smile not a grin.

 "What do you want?" he said joking.  I know now what he wanted me to say. But the me of then? The me at 22 didn't know what to say. 

"I like you" tumbled out of my mouth. 

"You like me?"  he repeated back with a laugh, incredulous.

When had his face come so close to mine? I could feel his breath on my lower lip. 

"I like you too." He said and kissed me for the first time. 

His lips were foreign but welcoming, soft. He tasted like grey, like smoke but also like fire. Like energy, and lightning. I didn't even kiss back, hadn't kissed someone new in years. 4 years to be exact. I was floating, above my head, above the car, in a dream in the darkness, in this unfamiliar place.

We got out of the car but didn't go inside, he led me to a meandering path around the apartment complex. We bumped into each other, not holding hands but continually making excuses to touch. We flickered between streetlights, every 10 feet was another pool, a sphere of soft yellow light stretching out across the rows and rows of apartments. At the middle of the path was a deserted jungle gym, I sat on the swings and he kissed me again. I tried to kiss back this time. Drinking in every second, willing them to drag on. We walked and whispered, pausing every so often between light pools to kiss until finally, finally arriving at his apartment door. He put a finger to my lips.

"Shh. I have a housemate, he sleeps on the bottom floor" he whispered.

I nodded my head once, grabbing the hand in front of my face and keeping hold.

It was a townhouse style apartment, nothing but a closed door and stairs on the first level. I maintained my grip on his hand while he led me upstairs to the main living area while my heartbeat thumped louder in my ears with each step up. 

I wonder now if I stilled, if he felt the hesitation in my hand as we reached the top of the stairs. It was empty. There was no bed, no frame or mattress. No pictures, nobody in frames. The kitchen was clean, but for a collection of glass corona bottles in a neat row on the granite countertop . A small coffee table sat between a long black couch and the TV, and that was it.  "Where do you sleep?" I said, keeping a smile on my face while also trying not to sound judgmental.

"The couch," he said. "My ex took all the stuff," he said.  "It's more comfortable than it looks," he said. Then, "Do you want a drink?" 

I think a lot about what I could have said, the myriad of options available to me at that moment. But my own apartment was empty, that life was gone.

I said, "That's insane." I said, "She must be crazy." I said, "What a bitch." I said, "A drink sounds great." 

And we drank, toasting to our lack of a love life. "To freedom, to next chapters."

---

Looking back, the empty apartment doesn't freak me out the way it did back then. Maybe because now I knew it wouldn’t be long before my own apartment resembled those bare walls. But at the time, my place was still a melting pot of my old life, entangled vines that left untrimmed, twisted and clung to every surface capable of being an anchor point. 

I didn't fall out of love with my fiance all at once, it was a slow resentment that built over a long period of time. I can't point to one specific thing or habit that made me snap. There was no "deal breaker" per se. My future was going to be spent with him, and then, it wasn't. 

But, I loved him, or have the memory of having loved him. While I believe he was/is a good person, probably doing good things with his life, I'm glad his life isn't my life.

Sometimes the me of now looks back and questions the so called "love" I had for him. Did I really "love" him? This person I almost committed my life to at 22. And is "love" something I can even claim to "take back" 10 years after the fact? I can't change the fact that I shared part of my life with him, nor do I want to deny past me the love they believed to understand at the time. But what if it's not denying, but freeing the parts of me I kept hidden during that time. Does surfacing the "bad" thoughts of past me invalidate past "love" ? Such as, did I love him, or did I love the idea of him? I certainly loved the way he made me feel, superior in a way. He could write circles around me but I was better looking, "out of his league". At the time I relished the comments made to me that I was, "too good for him" or "could do way better." Of course I denied it, but that's what you do when you think you're better than someone and don't want to come across as knowing that you think you're better than them. Who would want to be with someone like that? I liked the attention, I liked the illusion of myself that was created with this relationship. On the surface I seemed like a good person, a good partner. 

I thought my lover saw through the tissue paper skin. Not peeking, but tearing his way through layer after layer of my carefully crafted personalities. I couldn’t tell what he wanted me to say or predict the next thing out of his mouth and it scared me. I felt like a doll surrounded by scattered tiny clothes, remaining naked. 

I said, “Help me pick my outfit.” I said, “Do you think this looks good on me?” I said, “Isn’t dress up fun?”

I understand now what was wanted when he asked me to "come over". And that  "what do you want," wasn’t meant to be an invitation to confess my feelings. 

When his hands slid from my waist to my hips my body stiffened. When they went lower I had to tell him I was on my period. I thought that would be the end but it wasn't. He continued to touch me over the top of my underwear, rubbing the thick, damp pad against my already sticky vulva. I told myself If he wasn't grossed out how could I be? And that “maybe this was better than the alternative" I didn’t bring any condoms and my Catholic, now ex fiancé had not “allowed” birth control. After all, I hadn't come to this place, to this empty apartment to have sex. 

---

I took pictures before I left that last time. He was long gone by then, slipped from the sheets to the door before the Phoenix heat even began its steady march upwards. So I was alone during my last moments in Arizona, in Phoenix. I started in the bedroom, where we spent the most amount of time. It was a nice place. The nicest apartment I had been in by far, his rent exponentially higher than mine. I was with him when he bought the bed frame and matching dresser. "I want it to be nice" he’d said. "When you have nice stuff, home becomes a place you want to return to, a place you want to share with your friends." And though we were fucking, I wasn’t with him as a girlfriend about to move in, more like a tag along, a sidekick without a superpower. But I was plenty happy, thrilled even, to be invited to these unexciting events. It made me feel like he wanted me around, that I was someone interesting enough to want around. 

We still operated like this a month later when the bed was delivered and we went to Walmart to choose the comforter set, and then the curtains. My eyes widened at the bright red he chose for both, in stark contrast to the black or grey he claimed to prefer. But he was red. He was always red to me. Bright, passionate, bold. Red is heat, it is intensity and fierceness, confidence. Blood when it comes into contact with oxygen, a wound before it heals, the sharp copper tang. A racing heartbeat, the hot flush in my cheeks, pulsing, blushing. He was all consuming flame and smouldering embers. When he was angry it would pour off him, the heat in waves instead of licking flames; waves radiating from some hidden internal source. When he was angry there would be silence. Sometimes, he wouldn't speak to me for hours. We would sit in silence on the patio and simmer, two frogs being boiled alive. 

I thought it would be easier to photograph the kitchen, less intimate. I documented the speckled granite countertop and chic updated appliances; the dark wood cabinets far nicer than the light brown ones in my cheap apartment on the other side of town. Here, I would sit at one of the two barstools, knees pressed into the countertop and watch him cook. A game would be on if there was a game to be watched, always some sport, football first, then basketball or baseball depending on the season, golf if nothing else.  

From the stove he could see the TV and would often freeze, knife in hand, immersed in the play for a second before resuming his chopping, his stirring. He was a great cook and took pride in it, never wanting me to help. 

We always started the evening the same way.

“Do you want a drink?” He’d say.

 “A drink sounds great,” I’d reply.

Then, smiling, he’d put down the knife and pull out a glass bottle of beer from the fridge, popping the top like he'd done it a million times. On the counter was a cutting board with a quartered fresh lime, there was always a cutting board with a quartered fresh lime on the counter. One of the green wedges would go into the top of my bottle and he’d hand it to me, flashing the smile that was now so familiar. 

-----

I couldn't remember any of the good for the longest time. When my brain conjured images of his face, it was the look he gave me the last time we were together. The disgusting twisted up face he’d made when I flinched away. Or it was his voice in my head telling me to “use my bottom lip when I talked." It was the time I came to visit and had to get an uber from the airport to his house because he was out playing golf. I said I understood, I was the "cool girlfriend/not-girlfriend" and the "cool girlfriend/not-girlfriend" definitely said “It’s no big deal” and “no worries, I booked my flight at a bad time.” There was the time he forgot my birthday or the time he forgot I was having surgery on my cervix, just a little one. We had sex when he came to visit and the internal wound would reopen. It bled and bled and I was on antibiotics for an extra month but we weren't “together” so I failed to mention it. 

So adamant was I to be a person I thought he would like that I reduced myself to a collage of hastily assembled magazine clippings, content to reduce, reuse, recycle, any scraps thrown my way.

----

The last place I took a photo of was the porch, what it looked like from outside the apartment from the ground level. A small nook of orange-brown stucco enclosed on 3 of the 4 sides with a railing that overlooked not much, the rest of the complex and unbroken desert beyond. From the ground it seemed smaller and unassuming, not a place I would have imagined myself spending hundreds of hours.  

There was the desk chair he always sat in, and between the railing poles I could see my choice bench seat. From the ground you couldn't see the tens of cans littered on the table, the floor. Ash cans on their sides, the grey coating a little bit of everything. From the street it looked like nothing, it looked like someone else's life. I said goodbye to the porch and the tree next to the stairs. In the spring it would bloom a brilliant red and thousands of petals would paint the asphalt crimson for the week I was there.

I wonder if the tree knew how beautiful it was, how comforting in spite of the unfortunate circumstances that landed it there, engulfed in concrete and the beating heat. I wonder how many people walked by without a second glance. I wonder how it would thrive if freed from the 5x5 compact Earth square it was forced to take root in. I wonder how it worked so hard for just a single week of expression. I wonder if the tree knew when I left.

When I look at the pictures again I see blank walls. I see furniture and alcohol and dishes; beer bottles and a pack of Marlboro Edge cigarettes, a black box with orange accents, the cellophane wrapper still around the bottom half.

A place, not a home. 

Yours,

Max

---

References

Koenig, John. The Dictonary of Obscure Sorrows. Simon & Schucter. Kindle Edition