Dirty Apartments and their Meaning

The bookkeeper greeted me with a wrinkled smile as he stamped a small copy of The Bell Jar. It looked like a first edition based on the wrinkles around the spine. It was a book I had heard about, not something that I necessarily wanted to read though. Too depressing. Who wants to read a book that was written by some insane woman that died at thirty? Not me. 

I responded as best I could with a forced smile and kept walking. 

The universe seemed it fitting to introduce me to my request with an endless tunnel, miles of books on both sides. My nose twitched at the dust in the air, and that constant smell of old leather and paper. My fingers ran alongside them slowly, it felt calming and almost nostalgic to know what they felt like. Imagine what the authors felt when they first felt their copy? Did feel old at the time? Or did it just feel satisfying? To feel a hard leather book with their own name embroidered in the front, under a title they spent so much time on. These were self-help books, what did they feel then?

I felt stupid. No one else was walking down the endless tunnel, nor the others. As far as I was concerned, no one else was in this place anyways. When I showed up, I just parked in the lot and stared at it for a while. My hands still felt bloody. They weren’t covered in it anymore. When I tensed up, my eyes saw streams of red all over my hands, moving out from my flannel sleeves and dripping like a gutter in a storm.

The store looked at me from inside my car. It almost taunted me. Then I saw the red and immediately felt like I was back to being trapped in that car. 

“Excuse me, ma'am!”

My hands turned red again as I turned around. It was the old bookkeeper, the Plath book still in his hand. “Need help ma’am?”

It took a minute for me to see he was real. “No. No I’m okay. Thank you though sir.”

He nodded and turned away. Halfway back down the infinite tunnel, he began reading again. There was a thought I had about tunnels that made me laugh.

For the rest of the two-hour search, he didn’t leave me alone. There would be moments when I was just browsing through the self-help pamphlets, looking at the bright colors and strong fonts, and he’d be right there. His blue-striped Polo shirt and beige khakis, under an old face that had probably watched with smooth eyes as the place he worked at, was being built. Nothing too much to bother, just the occasional, “how are you ma’am?” or “do you need help finding something? Even I get lost sometimes.” He was probably just bored, getting lonely. Based on the wrinkles in that book, it had probably been something he’d read several times or just a hand-me-down from his mother or other friends. Either way, it did make me feel better. I’d just give more smiles, each time less fake than the last, and continued searching.

At around 9:30PM, I found it on a higher shelf. Just looking up made my hands feel wet. Down each way of the tunnel, I saw a huge ladder up against the mahogany bookshelves. It was something out of Beauty and the Beast, a movie I had watched a lot more than any other. 

I grabbed it, feeling the strain and fatigue finally taking hold. The store had been my home for almost five hours at that point, and getting to my downtown apartment and crashing in bed just seemed like the best thing in the world. The ladder wobbled under my feet, and once I grabbed it, I was back in my car. The infinite tunnel was right in front of me again, wearing a mask that said ‘BENT CORNER BOOKS LLC.’

Everything in me was still in the car, with me. I looked at the book beside me, wrapped in plastic, and squeezed the steering wheel. My mother had been the one who sent me for the book, but why? Was it not for her? 

It didn’t matter, I just drove home.

—

My apartment was right on the corner of Swan and Elm, always reeking of stale hot dog water and street smoke. Like clockwork, I parked my small hatchback in the parking garage connected to the place. I had my own spot and everything. It was the best I could really do. 

Nothing in life was exactly extraordinary, just very basic. Sometimes I just wished something would go against the grain for me, and it never did.

Work at the radio station, static.

Getting groceries, stale.

I needed a self-help book, but who knows for what? The last time I had seen my mother, that was some of the best advice she could give me as I laid flat on the hospital bed. Tears were clouding her eyes, but not her judgment. In my life, for the years I had known her, everything came at the cost of ‘personal dedication’, according to her. At one point in her life she had been a philosophy spokesperson. A lot of the time, she would be on a plane to Greece or Zimbabwe to talk about the human mind, and why we are our own perfect beings. Some bullshit like that really. In her head, the only possible way to get help was through myself.

The car wasn’t moving, just like me, in that concrete tomb they called a parking garage. My hands were wet and clammy, completely useless for anything anymore. I kept thinking of that woman. She wasn’t bad, but she only had outsider knowledge on my problems.

Plastic smells filled my nostrils. The odorless bag made me gag.

There were two rings on my fingers at that time. One was a Green Lantern ring, the other a cracked sapphire. 

Air blew through the bag, rising it up before letting it drop back down. My fabric seats only seeming like an inconvenience, a place for the bag to rest. My mother would say, you’re future is right in front of you.

She knew how to be herself. Who doesn’t at times?

With no look, the bag was in my hand, and the car beeped locked. Twice.

—

“Hello ma’am, do you need help looking for something?”

My head whipped to the kitchen where I heard the voice and nothing. Just a dark shadowy room, looking at me and waiting for me to unsheathe the sword from the bag. After brushing my hair over my ear and shaking my leg, I felt calm again. There was nothing covering my hands anymore. They were back to being a tawny shade of color.

I looked all around for it. Something about the voice led me to something I had heard before, but there was nothing but a dirty apartment. Stacked pizza boxes, half-empty cups of tea, moldy bread loaves, and enough dirty laundry to keep the homeless of NYC warm for a few nights.

The table wasn’t any different. Teacups and pizza. But the bag was right in the middle.

We looked at each other for a while, dodging the eternal question of, when? Instead, I took off my pants and watched You until it almost seemed like a thing of the past. Only another suggestion from my ignorant mother for a problem she can only witness not participate with. Thank God she can’t.

My mother was something:

Beautiful on the inside and outside, both covered in bright hazel hair that looked like Irish cliffs. Her smile was something that I inherited but never got to really use. She was siren on land that liked to show herself to anyone she could. We would always be giggling away when watching reality TV shows, watching everybody in The Bachelor slowly become more and more upset over a fake wedding.

—

Three days later.

Something at work made my mind shift towards it. The radio station had been involved in a huge ticket giveaway, and I was the one responsible for getting the ticket and giving it to the person when they showed up. It was a back-stage pass for Delta Spirit in their Not Dead Yet tour. To be honest, I wanted it more than anything, but that wasn’t my job now was it. 

A woman showed up to claim it around 5PM. Through the two sets of glass doors she came. A purse was hanging from her shoulder, and her blond hair tied back into a ponytail. The ticket could’ve been for her, but I was betting it was for a boyfriend or son considering her age. I know that once I hit forty, I had never really been into anything rock related except for the classics. But Delta Spirit sure was different.

My butt was sat right behind a horseshoe desk in the lobby, sitting in dead quiet. The light shades hanging down didn’t do much to help with the too. No one ever came to the radio station anymore, it was just a fad for some kids.

Before she even completely walked over, I placed the ticket on the counter next to the bowl of candies.

“Miss Newton I presume?”

Her pace quickened, her hands reaching out like a hungry bird to grab it. “Yes yes, thank you so much ma’am.”

“Of course.”

Newton grabbed them, gently cradling it in her palm. Maybe it was hers. I just watched. She cared so much about an inanimate object, it felt weird to see that. “They’re a fantastic band.”

“You listen to Delta Spirit?” She asked.

My back straightened against the chair. “I like to stay up to date on rock, see where it’s going.”

“Delta Spirit is just such a beautifully sounding band.”

Her words were like nectar, flowing so nicely. My back leaned forward. “Oh definitely, one of the best of the decade for rock easy.”

We started to talk for awhile. There was no stress for what was going to happen to my job since no one ever came in, and if they did, I’d just tell them what they wanted to hear real quick and get back to the conversation. Apparently, the tickets were for her. She had been dating a philosopher, but he ended up moving to India for spiritual guidance a month previously and used that excuse to finally leave her. It was easy to see she had been hurt more than he intended. Even on that day, some of her mascara was smeared across her eyes. Red glossy eyes. She was a stranger, but it did hurt me to see her this hurt.

“Are you going to the concert with anyone?” I asked. The question took her by surprise, her eyebrows raising. “No, not really. None of my friends really like them too much. They’re part of that stupid ass Cardi B rat-pack of fans.” We both laughed and fell silent.

“Well, I mean, I’m not bust that night. We could get some coffee and go see them if you’re down. I’d love to see them with someone who thinks the same as me about them.”

She didn’t respond. She began digging through her little purse (it had a peacock on the side) and pulled out a small business card with her name on it. 

“I would absolutely love to,” she stopped, “sorry, what’s your name?”

“Oh, it’s Eden. And yours?”

“Eve.”

“Well it’s great to meet you,” I held up the card, “I’ll definitely make sure to hit this up anytime I get bored.”

Her feet were already halfway out the first set of doors, something I hadn’t noticed before she turned around and yelled, “You better sweetheart!”

—

Now I was back at home. Thinking about the book I got from the tunnel. It was right in front of me. The stench of the past filled my small apartment. Everything inside was getting old, except the book. That seemed as good as new.

And then it was over.

Thinking was always something I got good at. Keeping myself trapped in my own mind kept everything else at bay and numb to what I sensed. I didn’t want to see the hunky jocks looking at me in school when I knew they weren’t anything I wanted. Smelling the roses at a floral shop that my mom forced me to go to. All I wanted was some peace and quiet with myself. As I did that, thought about Eve and her gorgeous hair, the book was in my hand. Something to look forward to. A girl and music. Maybe mother was right? Who’s to say.

THE NOONDAY DEMON: AN ATLAS OF DEPRESSION BY ANDREW SOLOMON