Privacy

When I pass a brownstone with a turret I die. The thought of a reading nook of my own- with windows to look down at people. Mamma mia.

I built cells for my legos when I was little. Rooms without doors.

For their privacy.

You’re welcome, Robin Hood.

I lived in the smallest room at my school. There wasn’t enough space for the bunkbeds to separate. The window looked out on gables and roof and sky. We were disconnected from the earth. We had a mouse. He perched on my laundry and watched. One day the surveillance pissed me off and I laid a bag of Funyuns on the floor and he ran in. Kane wanted to see his guts. No way I said, so I took him outside. I saw him trembling through the thin plastic bag window.

I worried about him. My teacher assured me that mice have excellent memories and I would see him again. He was right. I fed my mouse Krispy Kreme. We liked Krispy Kreme in our very small room.

I used two communal showers. One was safe and good. The other was not. The good one had three showerheads, a sound system and a wicker chair we hauled in. We unscrewed the heads so the water became laserbeams. We triangulated the lasers onto the wicker chair for ritual sacrifice. My roommate and I sat in the shower on quiet days. We exclusively listened to Eric Clapton. Not by choice. Kane insisted. Kane systematically destroyed other CDs. Kane was 250 pounds. Kane could benchpress a house. We listened to Eric Clapton’s Greatest Hits and Eric Clapton Unplugged for an entire year. Over and over.

I like the instrumental part of Layla to this day.

The other shower was in the gym. Innumerable showerheads. Scoured tile. Filled to the brim with boys. When you got clean and exited the threshold a shadow might unfurl a wad of liquid soap up your butt crack. So you returned to the water to rinse. Then it might happen to someone else. A firing squad of soap and hilarity. That wasn’t the creepy part.

It was a teacher. He walked into the shower with his towel around his neck and took up space like he deserved it.

Creep.

We were teenagers. We fostered togetherness in that strange place far from our families. We allowed each other idiosyncrasies. We understood Kane and his Eric Clapton obsession. We understood why Charlie held your ear when he talked to you. He craved intimacy of course. We understood why Stu chucked things off the top floor fire escape. What release when the chair or pumpkin or alarm clock burst into a thousand pieces! We understood the tics, fidgets, and outbursts. We understood the ways we hid and exposed ourselves. This was our language.

The creep tried to harvest those intimacies. The creep was lonely but he was not our responsibility. Together we generated energy. Our friends. Our closeness.

Find your own, creep.

One time I threw soap up his ass. He strolled out of the shower and I heaved a handful up there. Pink dial soap. I spun back to my showerhead before he could turn. And turn he did. He moved his eyes over us. Then he left without speaking.

We laughed our asses off.