City lights

The rooftop of my apartment building at 1 a.m. was my favorite place to be and my favorite time to be there. The bright lights of the city shine like yellow diamonds against dark buildings that caught reflective shadows and shared them eerily with the world around them. Although I loved living in the city, I hated city life. The noise, the people, the hurriedness of humans who always seemed to shove their way through every crowded street.  

No one made eye contact, or if they did, it was to look at you like you were despicable or contagious. Maybe both. I couldn’t help that I was different.   

Well, maybe I could, but I chose not to. 

Why should I? I was ok with how I was. If these small-minded, always in a hurry-to-get-nowhere people weren’t ok with how I was, then that was there problem. Right?  

These were just some of the thoughts that plagued my mind as I sat on the ledge of my 14-story high rise surveying to my best ability the drunken ant creatures that staggered out of the tavern directly across from my apartment building.  

Things I have seen from my perch would scare the shit out of some people while bringing others to tears. I must admit I have almost fallen from my ledge more than once, laughing at vagabonds who scamper around at night believing they are going unnoticed. 

Seeing drunk lovers trying to hold the side of a dumpster. One bent over puking her head off while the other grunts behind her, probably missing the mark in his quest for a quickie. All while being kind enough to hold her hair out of the way as she heaves her fifty-dollar meal unto the ground that will later be consumed by some stray animal.  

I have also been privy to barroom brawls that have made it into the streets. Shouting and pushing, turned into fist thrown in the air, usually one grappling to pin the other down, while on-lookers scream and try to break up the battle. Normally a few fists in and it’s done. I have seen an ambulance called in once though. 

My favorite has to be the teens who have snuck out past curfew and smoked a little green and think they know everything, while trying to tempt the adult entering the liquor store down the road to purchase an extra bottle of cheap whiskey that they will later regret drinking.  

Oh, to be that teen again. The days of getting high or drunk, usually both, then navigating my way home to sneak in and pass out before the parents rose to start their perpetual nagging. Why couldn’t I be like my siblings? Why where my clothes always black? Why didn’t I have any normal friends? (I wondered what friends they were speaking of in general.) 

Although there were a couple of people I would get high with, I wouldn’t call them my friends. They would come by and pick me up just because I was the oldest and knew where to find weed and how to get alcohol. See, once upon a time, I was those little ant teens scurrying around at the base of the apartment buildings. Weaving in and out of the shadows trying to look older than I was. I remember the challenges of my youth trying to fit into a world where I didn’t belong. 

A shadow figure exposed by the sun, trying to scamper into the dark abyss like a roach in the night when assaulted with light by a midnight snacker. I craved dark. Dark clothes, dark shadows, dark moods. It is who I am and who I will always be.  

Actually, life now is not so different minus the nagging parents and the fact that I have to pay my own bills. But paying bills vs the living hell I existed in, I will take the bills anyday. 

Even now sitting on my roof enjoying the peaceful solitude of the night skies I look up and thank God for the smog that envelopes the city and stops the stars from shining through. I have heard people speak of stars. I even think I saw them once on a family camping trip to the country. One of the worst weeks of my life. There was nowhere to hide. People where everywhere, swimming, cooking, hanging out. Of course everyone glared at me in my dark hoodie sitting under a tree trying to observe everyone around me while hoping not to be observed in the midst of the chaos. Behold, that was not to be my fate. At least once, usually several times a day, someone felt the need to come and check on me. Why was I wearing a hoodie in the middle of summer? Why wasn’t I playing with the rest of the children? Why wasn’t I swimming. 

What I wanted to know was why in the hell they cared! Whose business was it what I did or why? Why couldn’t people just leave me alone? Oh yea, that right was saved for my father. He was great at leaving me alone. He left me alone with my mother and her SOB boyfriend who decided I was just his type at 7 years old. I guess after my married the sick bastard I became even more his type. My mother didn’t mind leaving me alone to tend to the new baby and then the other one that came just three years later.  

Yea, I had been left alone, but for all the wrong reasons and definitely with the wrong person. It wasn’t until the smiles where replaced with growls and the innocent laughter with menace that my mother started noticing me again. By then it was too late. Even when I tried to talk to her she refused to listen and told me I was just jealous of the new children. 

Trouble maker, that’s what my step-father called me as he convinced my mother that I shouldn’t be allowed to participate in any more school activities. So now I was ostracized not only by my family but the only escapes from the living hell I had. Now I was there any time HE wanted me to be.  

Soon x-large hoodies and baggy sweatpants became my best friend. I thought if I hid my body he would stop noticing. At some point he did. I don’t think it was the clothes that turned him off though. I think at this point I had become too old for his viewing pleasure. I started noticing how my little sister grimaced each time he walked by. On to smaller and younger things I snarled to myself. Not my problem. Maybe someone would believe her.  

As for me, I finally escaped at the ripe young age of 17. Finding various jobs and working non-stop allowed me the finances to rent a small studio apartment in the middle of the poor part of the city. We are all roaches here, living in the shadows of the moon, sleeping off the misery during the daylight hours and praying we don’t get smashed in between time.