Strategy Session: June 1995
The center never holds for long. There is rent to pay and bills—cable and gas and electric and phone, along with my enormous debt payment left from my 18 months with David. But both JP and I are working, and so there is enough for bills and food and rent, with enough left over for CDs and books and heroin.
All year our paydays are staggered and so there is always money, there is always something to eat until suddenly it is summer and there are no more paydays and suddenly we have an empty refrigerator and full syringes. Hunger is inconsequential; it is only when there is no fix money that we become galvanized, and the negotiations begin.
“The stereo.”
“Are you crazy?” he says. “Absolutely not. What about the TV?”
“We won’t get anything for that piece of crap.”
“We could take the CDs to Reckless and see if they’ll buy them…”
“We took all of them already. The ones we still have are the ones they wouldn’t take. But they’re super-picky about scratches. Maybe Disc-Go-Round will take them.”
“Yeah, but how much will we get? Maybe $20 or so…:”
“There’s a place on Belmont that buys cassettes…”
“Yeah? We could try that,” he says. “What about books—have we got any books we could sell?”
“I’ll go look.” Our library has dwindled. Not that we don’t still have a lot of books, but a lot of the books from the summer before are gone now. I don’t think about it—not because it hurts to think about it, but because it doesn’t matter. Last summer is long ago. Last summer was chaos and fear and trying to prove my worth to him—that I could be the golden hipster girl, a worthy partner on his grand adventure. I would be the Courtney to his Kurt, the Nancy to his Sid, but unlike them we are going to triumph. JP and I are going to live happily ever after.
All year our paydays are staggered and so there is always money, there is always something to eat until suddenly it is summer and there are no more paydays and suddenly we have an empty refrigerator and full syringes. Hunger is inconsequential; it is only when there is no fix money that we become galvanized, and the negotiations begin.
“The stereo.”
“Are you crazy?” he says. “Absolutely not. What about the TV?”
“We won’t get anything for that piece of crap.”
“We could take the CDs to Reckless and see if they’ll buy them…”
“We took all of them already. The ones we still have are the ones they wouldn’t take. But they’re super-picky about scratches. Maybe Disc-Go-Round will take them.”
“Yeah, but how much will we get? Maybe $20 or so…:”
“There’s a place on Belmont that buys cassettes…”
“Yeah? We could try that,” he says. “What about books—have we got any books we could sell?”
“I’ll go look.” Our library has dwindled. Not that we don’t still have a lot of books, but a lot of the books from the summer before are gone now. I don’t think about it—not because it hurts to think about it, but because it doesn’t matter. Last summer is long ago. Last summer was chaos and fear and trying to prove my worth to him—that I could be the golden hipster girl, a worthy partner on his grand adventure. I would be the Courtney to his Kurt, the Nancy to his Sid, but unlike them we are going to triumph. JP and I are going to live happily ever after.
posted by GJC at 10:54 PM
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