My first piece

It was early fall in New England. Not quite cold enough for a heavy jacket, but just chilly enough to bite the tops of your ears. This was my first fall season. My friends in California told me that it’s not the fall in New England; but the winter that really chafes the skin. I quickly realized that I should never listen to weather advice from Californians. They know absolutely nothing about cold weather.

I just left the fitness club and made it up in my mind that I was going to stay in the dorm and out of trouble tonight. I had done something nearly every night since I arrived at Harvard. Tonight I was tired, my muscles were sore, my clothes needed to be washed and I needed to get some reading done. I was going to walk back to the dorm, get my reading materials, separate the white clothes from the dark, throw on some sweats, and enjoy a quiet evening. Whatever happened to ‘quiet’ evenings?, I thought.

Its like there is some sort of rule with people my age—that you need to live a life full of noise. Music, dances, parties, clubbing, television, ipods, sheesh! Enough with the noise I say. What about a nice quiet walk in the morning or diving into a good book? Whatever happened to that? Can’t I walk from Harvard Square to Porter Square without pounding my eardrums with Justin Timberlake and Jay-z?

I was excited about my tentative plans for the evening. I love making plans. But something we learn very early in our lives is that plans fail—miserably. One day you make a plan to spend the day reading your favorite novel: but your mother forgot the eggs for the cornbread she’s making and needs you to go to the store right now. You go to the store around the corner from your house and the cashier says that they’re out of eggs. So then you drive to the supermarket fifteen minutes away. When you get there you can’t even find the eggs because the supermarket is as big as Costco in the suburbs. After walking for about a mile in the grocery turned—hardware/bakery/bank/Mc Donald’s/video store, you finally find the eggs but you realize that they’re special free-range-super-organic-brown-eggs from a local farm. They cost ten dollars and you only brought the cash that you jammed in your pocket when you begrudgingly left the house. Now you have to go back home and get your debit card. Your mother remembers two more things that she needs at this very minute that you can only get from the Trader Joes across town. She also wants you to drop off some mail. By the time you buy the eggs, the pesto sauce, and the chicken stock it’s five o’ clock and you haven’t read your favorite novel. So you collapse on the couch and watch cartoons in disgust. This is what happens when you make a plan.

Even though I knew that the odds were against me, I was persuaded to put my plan into action. This time will be different, I thought. I was going to read, wash, and relax. I even began to recite those very words to myself as I walked toward the dorm. Read, wash, relax, read, wash, relax.

I was almost at the dorm. The sky looked like a fuchsia-colored canvas. I saw the sun setting. Beautiful. I relished in how disciplined I felt. What a good student I am thought I my mother would be so proud of her son. There I was, making a conscious decision to do work before it was due. I’m really becoming an adult I thought as I filled my lungs with the crisp, cool, New England air. But before I could exhale, I felt something in my pocket vibrating.
Buzz-buzzzz
Buzz-buzzzz

It sounded like a little chainsaw. Heck, it felt like a little chainsaw as far as I was concerned. Perhaps my phone wasn’t ringing. Perhaps one of the veins in my leg had burst and busted leg veins vibrate—don’t they? Sure they do, that sounded scientific enough. I put my right hand on my gray sweatpants to check these vibrations on my thigh. It was my cell. My impatient little cell phone was ringing. I reached into my deep pockets and saw the name on the caller id. It was Russell
Buzz-buzzzz
Buzz-buzzzz

I saw my beautiful plan flash before my eyes. Should I answer it? Should I throw it into traffic? Should I call him back when I get out of the shower? Come on man think! What would Martin Luther King do? Ah nuts! He would answer the phone!
I flipped the vibrating phone open with my slightly chilled hands.
“What’s good?” He said
“Nothing man, just walking back to the dorm.”
“What are you about to do?”
“I’m gonna take a shower and…”

I froze. All I had to do was tell him my plans. I had to tell him that I was going to read, wash, and relax—alone. I stood at a crossroads. If I took the road to the left (my plan), I knew that all in all, it would be a good, safe decision. On the other hand, I had no idea what the road to the right held for me—I wasn’t sure that I wanted to know.

“I—I’m gonna take a shower and that’s it, I’m not up to anything tonight. Why what’s up?”
You’re idiot, you had plans and you’ve got to stick to them, that’s what good people do! I yelled in my mind.
“You wanna go to Boston?”
“I don’t know man, I’m pretty tired. We’ve done a lot this week and I’m low on cash.’
I kicked myself for being passive-aggressive.
“Don’t worry I planned it all out.” He said smugly “If you need money I got you. Don’t worry”
“Alright, I’ll call you when I’m done with my shower”
“Alright”

My plan wasn’t lost yet. I felt that if I could just send him subtle messages that I didn’t want to hang out that night, I could still get some work done. When I called him I would sound indifferent. When he came to the dorm, I would have my sweats on and my laundry bag out.

I made my way back to the dorm—defeated. I took my shower and got my clothes separated. Maybe if I didn’t call him at all he would forget about tonight. Why do we always have to do something? I thought. So I sat there, looking out the window of my room with a pile of white clothes on my bed and a pile of colored clothes on the floor. All I needed to do was put them in the purple laundry bag that I stole from my mother and wash them—but I remembered to check my email. Then I remembered that I had to see the latest webcast of ‘Meet the Press’, then I remembered that I needed to call my mom back. After about three hours of ‘remembering’. My phone buzzed at me again.
Buzz-buzzzz
Buzz-buzzzz

This time the phone seemed to crawl toward me on the desk with each vibration. That phone is so needy! It was Russell.
‘Yeah’ I said
‘I’m on my way over’ he shot back, ‘I’ll call you when I’m outside so you can let me in’.
‘Alright’.
He didn’t seem to care that I was obviously avoiding him. I promised myself, that I wouldn’t be passive aggressive anymore after that. I would just say what I feel. Who cares about peoples’ feelings?

He was over at my dorm in about twelve minutes. He came into the room and saw me in my sweat pants, but didn’t say anything. I sat at my desk and he sat near the bed and we just talked. We talked about life, relationships, religion, family, sports, we talked about almost everything under the sun. I knew my plan was failing—failing miserably.

What is it about race and culture that brings people together? Russell was a Puerto Rican from Stanton Island. He and I were two of about fifteen non-white students in our degree program at Harvard. We talked about things that we knew, like why white women loved us so much or how we had to attend every lecture because everyone knows that there is one Puerto Rican and one Black man in each class that they have. We laughed all night. Harvard is a hard place, we concluded.

We were in my room for a few minutes and then a few hours. We listened to some music, watched funny television episodes on the internet, and just talked about life. Time continued to slip away and my plan was failing miserably. But Russell and I talked, and talked, and talked.
It was nine-thirty and Russell looked at me and said:
“So are we doing anything tonight?”
“You mean going to Boston?”
“Yeah, I wanna see that bartender again”
“Oh, Amiya?” I paused, “Let’s go, I can’t let you go out alone.”

So my plan had officially failed. I can do the safe thing another time I thought. So we walked to the square and got on the subway toward Boston.
Russell appreciated Amiya when she remembered his name two weeks ago. He’d been longing to find her since that one night when she just said “You’re Russell right?” when he met her the first time.

Just because of that brief exchange, Russell and I were on a train toward Boston on a brisk October night in New England. When we got into downtown Boston, Russell basked in the glitter of the city.
“This reminds me of New York,” he said in his very New York accent.

We walked in circles for about fifteen minutes until we finally found the bar. As we walked toward it, I couldn’t help but think about the amount of effort Russell put into meeting up with Amiya. He wore some black dress shoes with jeans, a black sweater, and a black corduroy sport coat. He paid a dollar-and twenty-five-cents to get on the subway for twenty minutes, and walked around a dark city for what? Her number? A good conversation? A marriage proposal? Just to be around somebody? There was so much uncertainty in it all. That was one successfully failed Friday night.


Word Count:1741

In the Beginning

Hello all,

I am a graduate student living in Boston and I'd like to get my writing career off the ground. I'm interested in short fiction, creative nonfiction, plays, and almost anything that is good writing. I want to use this blog so that I may become a better writer. Needless to say, this blog will be about writing and writing only. No movie reviews, book reviews, or political commentary, this is about becoming a better writer. I welcome your feedback and your critique.

I want this to be about you as well. If you are looking to get your writing career off the ground, send me links to some of your work. Let's workshop together.