Proximity to the Stars

In Chicago, I was poor.

I lived in a basement apartment and played so much solitaire I had sheets of paper tracking my wins and losses using different strategies. I had magazine cut-outs decorating the walls. It was the early nineties, so there were a lot of Winona and Johnny, John Malkovich, Wendy and Lisa, Gary Oldman, Chuck D, Sandra Bernhard, and Colin Firth. There was a larger still of Christian Bale from Empire of the Sun. He was on his knees, screaming, with a large explosion behind him. I had sharpied the word ‘potato’ at the photos edge.

Sometimes I’d hang out with this girl named Mary. We’d meet near Wrigley Field to play pool after class, then we’d go to the place where she cocktailed and get some free food. The owner would sometimes ask her to pitch in and help if they were busy. If she was too tired to work, he would ply her with coke.

So one afternoon turned into one long night and I was sitting at her bar and began talking to her friend, who was a magician from New Orleans. He was a nice enough guy, and we were watching them get the food ready for Lenny Kravitz, who was getting ready to perform next door. His balding drummer came in to pick up the food, and I remember thinking it odd that he was bald and that the drummer had to pick up the food.

Late into the night, Mary, the magician and I ended up back at my basement apartment.

‘All of these pictures on your walls,’ the magician said, ‘and yet, none of anyone you actually know. No one that you actually care about.’

Part five of Nashville:

middle school frown