Song: Commencement Day: Chapter One
Viewed: 11 - Published at: 3 years ago
Artist: Ralph Surrender
Year: 2014Viewed: 11 - Published at: 3 years ago
Many mañanas ago, before the paradigm shifted and new contexts transpired, before I knew what I wanted and money was no object, before I went to Bedstuy and saved Two Names’ life and lost everything to the Wormhole and stopped listening to music entirely, I was a freshman at a college where academia went to die and beliefs came true...
At the end of my first year at Hampshire, I was discontent, disillusioned, disgruntled, dismayed and disenchanted, but I wasn’t about to let my emotions keep me from being happy. Classes had ended a week ago; I was dragging out my stay as long as possible, savoring the unprecedented absence of classes and social engagement. I had two real friends, an ongoing existential crisis, plenty of weed, and an empty summer ahead. Life was good, no matter what.
I woke up in my lounge-bedroom. My last day on campus. I breathed deeply and reached for the memory of what I had dreamed. Blurred sky and guilt. A hand appeared, presenting me with joint and lighter.
“Rise and shine buddy,” said Easton.
“Thanks dude how you doin man.”
My roommate flopped down on his bed. Scratched his face. Grabbed his guitar and picked out a melody the way you might pick at a scab. Squinted at me and grinned restlessly. “Let’s open the window.”
I rolled up the blinds and cranked open the window. A geometry of sunbeams got lost in the haze of smoke that Easton had generated while I was asleep. I was ‘surprised’ that I wasn’t already high.
Easton scraped his straggly bangs off of his eyes and squinted at the kids climbing trees in the quad. I said to him, “Dude we’ve lived together for like a year and now this is our last day as roommates and we won’t see each other for like three months kinda crazy right?”
“Yeah man.” Easton shrugged. “You’re uh doing what this summer.”
“Going back to Rochester. Gonna try to find a job or something.” I took a hit. I coughed. I always cough. Every single time.
“I thought you were gonna do something interesting. Like write that funny self-help book you keep talking about. Or like travel.”
“Yeah well it’s like I wanna do all that stuff but we’ll see. I kind of want to just go home and see how it goes and make up my mind after that you know.”
“I can dig that I guess,” said Easton, chuckling a blossom of smoke.
“What are you gonna do today.”
“Uh I have to return some library books.”
“Me too when are you going over?”
“Maybe after dinner,” said Easton. “Gotta work myself up to it.”
I checked the time on my phone. 11:30am.
“Well Briye and I are gonna go to the commencement speech at 1 there’s free food,” I said.
“Is she gonna come over.”
“Well since she lives on our hall I don’t think it counts as coming over but sure she’s gonna stop by for a second.”
Easton nodded ‘apathetically,’ and ‘casually’ began to make his bed in a transparent attempt at ensuring that Briye would sit down on it. I grabbed my laptop from under my pillow and looked through my iTunes for something that Briye would like. I chose “Lindesfarne II” by James Blake, took another hit and stretched out on my bed, feeling like ‘a million bucks,’ as the old saying may or may not go.
“I’m going to miss Hampshire,” I said fondly. “Sure, sometimes it’s depressing and lonely and you don’t really know what you’re getting out of it, but I feel like that’s how I’d feel at pretty much any college, you know?”
The smoke bloomed, the voices outside faded. James Blake: Beacon don’t fly, to000oo0o high…
“And there’s just something about it, that’s like… uh…” I lost track of what I was saying. Ran my fingers through my hair and sighed deeply. The world breathed with me. What was the point of talking?
“I get you dude,” said Easton.
“Yeah, man,” I said. “Hampshire’s, like, a place where you have to really work hard to find out who you are, man, but when you do, I mean, not that I have, but… like… when you do… it’s really chill.” I smiled and passed him the bowl. Everything was great. Why’d I been so down on school in the first place? All I needed was a change of perspective. If a garden is your only metaphor for life, then every problem is just going to look like a weed…
The door opened, uprooting me from my contemplations, and Briye’s clean girl smell entered the room.
“Hi, goofballs.”
I opened my eyes. A round upside-down face loomed over me. Two deep, clever brown eyes watched me from beneath the inverted nose.
“Did you get stoned?”
“Hell yeah!” said Easton, and laughed theatrically. Briye started laughing too, and I grudgingly rolled myself into an upright position.
“Do you want some?” I rubbed her back and looked at her.
“Hmmm, yeah, why not? The only reason I’ve never smoked weed is cause I never had the opportunity,” said Briye, pushing my face gently back into the pillow. “To get ripped, like Easton says.” She giggled, and Easton re-issued his theatrical cackle.
“You should try it, yo,” said Easton with a lopsided smile. He flung his hands at his disheveled bed in an indication of welcome, and Briye plopped down with no loss of energy.
“When have I heard that before?” she rolled her eyes. She turned to me. “Did I see you last night? I feel like we haven’t really talked for so long. And you’re about to leave!”
“Not til tomorrow. And you’re leaving at the same time, right?”
“Yeah… I’m gonna miss school so much! There’s nothing to do at home.”
“You live in New York City and you’re going to Turkey for three weeks, how can you have nothing to do?” said Easton. He didn’t have any trouble remembering her summer plans, I thought to myself.
“I mean– I want to do something without my family,” said Briye. “They don’t really get who I am now. You know. Hampshire’s so different.”
“It’s all the same to me,” said Easton, with the air of having not listened to a word Briye had said, but having somehow identified the correct response regardless. Then, something very surprising happened. Easton reached over and put his hand on Briye’s neck, underneath her wave of curly brown hair.
She sat up straighter, opened her shoulders, tilted her skull back onto the edge of his hand.
“That feels so good.”
Easton’s face went blank. The muscles in his forearm twitched as he gently dug his fingers into her trapezius, then up into the roots. She turned towards him and smiled.
I would have excused myself, but I hesitated for a little too long, and so did Easton. After a few seconds, he started awkwardly stroking the ends of her hair, picking them up and examining them as if he was trying to read something printed there.
Briye laughed once. She stood up abruptly and paced around the room. “Are you ready to go?” she said to me briskly.
“Yeah, for sure,” I said, quickly grabbing my backpack. “What did you do last night, anyway?”
“Well, we checked out the party in Prescott, and then we ordered Chinese food and watched stuff… I don’t know. What’d you do?”
“Nothing really,” I said. “Oh! I made another mash-up. Kanye West on this old Aaliyah beat. This one is really sick– you have MY word on it. Remember? That Joe Isuzu commercial I showed you?”
Briye laughed, although she had barely cracked a smile when we watched the Joe Isuzu video– I guess people’s tastes change over time. “That was so ridiculous! Can I hear your mash-up?”
“I told you,” I said, while Easton sullenly picked up his guitar, “it’s like… I don’t really like playing my stuff for other people. People usually don’t like get what I’m going for… I mean, no offense, but it’s like–”
“But they’re always so awesome!” said Briye. “Why’s it matter so much if I ‘understand’ what your intentions were, if I like how it sounds and, you know! I like your music!”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe I’ll show you it when it’s ready… I mean, I’ll email it to you or something.”
Briye looked at me with exasperation, and I smirked; I liked getting under her skin, and it gets harder the longer you know somebody, they just get used to your bullshit eventually.
“You know how cool you are?” Briye said.
I thought she was trying to make Easton jealous, but she was looking at me intently.
“No, I really mean it, Ralph,” she said. “You’re like, completely perfect the way you are. Don’t ever change.”
“I need to change,” I said. “I don’t fucking get people, I don’t get college, I don’t get anything except making pointless shit. I’ve never had a job that I could tolerate, or like, even do right. I don’t have any, like, employable skills–“
“Oh, come on. Stop fishing compliments,” she said.
“Fishing for compliments. And I’m not fishing for compliments, I’m fucking worried, like, what’s going to happen when I leave this place and go out into the real world? Like, none of this shit is real, you know? Art history classes, literature classes, that shit isn’t real. I’m not going to get a real job, and I don’t have any practical skills, so I guess I just have to go to grad school, cause school’s the only thing I know how to do, but like, I don’t like school. It’s just TV, it’s just entertainment for people who want to believe that they’re smart, either that or a place to hide. But what really sucks is that if there was something really important, something legit, something that wasn’t bullshit, I’d do it, no matter how hard it was, no matter how little I got back in return. I’d do it in a second. But I don’t see anything worth doing. It’s all just pointless, one way or another. I don’t–“ I shut up and stared at the ceiling.
“You’ll figure shit out dude,” said Easton, offering me the joint. “You have MY word on it.”
At the end of my first year at Hampshire, I was discontent, disillusioned, disgruntled, dismayed and disenchanted, but I wasn’t about to let my emotions keep me from being happy. Classes had ended a week ago; I was dragging out my stay as long as possible, savoring the unprecedented absence of classes and social engagement. I had two real friends, an ongoing existential crisis, plenty of weed, and an empty summer ahead. Life was good, no matter what.
I woke up in my lounge-bedroom. My last day on campus. I breathed deeply and reached for the memory of what I had dreamed. Blurred sky and guilt. A hand appeared, presenting me with joint and lighter.
“Rise and shine buddy,” said Easton.
“Thanks dude how you doin man.”
My roommate flopped down on his bed. Scratched his face. Grabbed his guitar and picked out a melody the way you might pick at a scab. Squinted at me and grinned restlessly. “Let’s open the window.”
I rolled up the blinds and cranked open the window. A geometry of sunbeams got lost in the haze of smoke that Easton had generated while I was asleep. I was ‘surprised’ that I wasn’t already high.
Easton scraped his straggly bangs off of his eyes and squinted at the kids climbing trees in the quad. I said to him, “Dude we’ve lived together for like a year and now this is our last day as roommates and we won’t see each other for like three months kinda crazy right?”
“Yeah man.” Easton shrugged. “You’re uh doing what this summer.”
“Going back to Rochester. Gonna try to find a job or something.” I took a hit. I coughed. I always cough. Every single time.
“I thought you were gonna do something interesting. Like write that funny self-help book you keep talking about. Or like travel.”
“Yeah well it’s like I wanna do all that stuff but we’ll see. I kind of want to just go home and see how it goes and make up my mind after that you know.”
“I can dig that I guess,” said Easton, chuckling a blossom of smoke.
“What are you gonna do today.”
“Uh I have to return some library books.”
“Me too when are you going over?”
“Maybe after dinner,” said Easton. “Gotta work myself up to it.”
I checked the time on my phone. 11:30am.
“Well Briye and I are gonna go to the commencement speech at 1 there’s free food,” I said.
“Is she gonna come over.”
“Well since she lives on our hall I don’t think it counts as coming over but sure she’s gonna stop by for a second.”
Easton nodded ‘apathetically,’ and ‘casually’ began to make his bed in a transparent attempt at ensuring that Briye would sit down on it. I grabbed my laptop from under my pillow and looked through my iTunes for something that Briye would like. I chose “Lindesfarne II” by James Blake, took another hit and stretched out on my bed, feeling like ‘a million bucks,’ as the old saying may or may not go.
“I’m going to miss Hampshire,” I said fondly. “Sure, sometimes it’s depressing and lonely and you don’t really know what you’re getting out of it, but I feel like that’s how I’d feel at pretty much any college, you know?”
The smoke bloomed, the voices outside faded. James Blake: Beacon don’t fly, to000oo0o high…
“And there’s just something about it, that’s like… uh…” I lost track of what I was saying. Ran my fingers through my hair and sighed deeply. The world breathed with me. What was the point of talking?
“I get you dude,” said Easton.
“Yeah, man,” I said. “Hampshire’s, like, a place where you have to really work hard to find out who you are, man, but when you do, I mean, not that I have, but… like… when you do… it’s really chill.” I smiled and passed him the bowl. Everything was great. Why’d I been so down on school in the first place? All I needed was a change of perspective. If a garden is your only metaphor for life, then every problem is just going to look like a weed…
The door opened, uprooting me from my contemplations, and Briye’s clean girl smell entered the room.
“Hi, goofballs.”
I opened my eyes. A round upside-down face loomed over me. Two deep, clever brown eyes watched me from beneath the inverted nose.
“Did you get stoned?”
“Hell yeah!” said Easton, and laughed theatrically. Briye started laughing too, and I grudgingly rolled myself into an upright position.
“Do you want some?” I rubbed her back and looked at her.
“Hmmm, yeah, why not? The only reason I’ve never smoked weed is cause I never had the opportunity,” said Briye, pushing my face gently back into the pillow. “To get ripped, like Easton says.” She giggled, and Easton re-issued his theatrical cackle.
“You should try it, yo,” said Easton with a lopsided smile. He flung his hands at his disheveled bed in an indication of welcome, and Briye plopped down with no loss of energy.
“When have I heard that before?” she rolled her eyes. She turned to me. “Did I see you last night? I feel like we haven’t really talked for so long. And you’re about to leave!”
“Not til tomorrow. And you’re leaving at the same time, right?”
“Yeah… I’m gonna miss school so much! There’s nothing to do at home.”
“You live in New York City and you’re going to Turkey for three weeks, how can you have nothing to do?” said Easton. He didn’t have any trouble remembering her summer plans, I thought to myself.
“I mean– I want to do something without my family,” said Briye. “They don’t really get who I am now. You know. Hampshire’s so different.”
“It’s all the same to me,” said Easton, with the air of having not listened to a word Briye had said, but having somehow identified the correct response regardless. Then, something very surprising happened. Easton reached over and put his hand on Briye’s neck, underneath her wave of curly brown hair.
She sat up straighter, opened her shoulders, tilted her skull back onto the edge of his hand.
“That feels so good.”
Easton’s face went blank. The muscles in his forearm twitched as he gently dug his fingers into her trapezius, then up into the roots. She turned towards him and smiled.
I would have excused myself, but I hesitated for a little too long, and so did Easton. After a few seconds, he started awkwardly stroking the ends of her hair, picking them up and examining them as if he was trying to read something printed there.
Briye laughed once. She stood up abruptly and paced around the room. “Are you ready to go?” she said to me briskly.
“Yeah, for sure,” I said, quickly grabbing my backpack. “What did you do last night, anyway?”
“Well, we checked out the party in Prescott, and then we ordered Chinese food and watched stuff… I don’t know. What’d you do?”
“Nothing really,” I said. “Oh! I made another mash-up. Kanye West on this old Aaliyah beat. This one is really sick– you have MY word on it. Remember? That Joe Isuzu commercial I showed you?”
Briye laughed, although she had barely cracked a smile when we watched the Joe Isuzu video– I guess people’s tastes change over time. “That was so ridiculous! Can I hear your mash-up?”
“I told you,” I said, while Easton sullenly picked up his guitar, “it’s like… I don’t really like playing my stuff for other people. People usually don’t like get what I’m going for… I mean, no offense, but it’s like–”
“But they’re always so awesome!” said Briye. “Why’s it matter so much if I ‘understand’ what your intentions were, if I like how it sounds and, you know! I like your music!”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe I’ll show you it when it’s ready… I mean, I’ll email it to you or something.”
Briye looked at me with exasperation, and I smirked; I liked getting under her skin, and it gets harder the longer you know somebody, they just get used to your bullshit eventually.
“You know how cool you are?” Briye said.
I thought she was trying to make Easton jealous, but she was looking at me intently.
“No, I really mean it, Ralph,” she said. “You’re like, completely perfect the way you are. Don’t ever change.”
“I need to change,” I said. “I don’t fucking get people, I don’t get college, I don’t get anything except making pointless shit. I’ve never had a job that I could tolerate, or like, even do right. I don’t have any, like, employable skills–“
“Oh, come on. Stop fishing compliments,” she said.
“Fishing for compliments. And I’m not fishing for compliments, I’m fucking worried, like, what’s going to happen when I leave this place and go out into the real world? Like, none of this shit is real, you know? Art history classes, literature classes, that shit isn’t real. I’m not going to get a real job, and I don’t have any practical skills, so I guess I just have to go to grad school, cause school’s the only thing I know how to do, but like, I don’t like school. It’s just TV, it’s just entertainment for people who want to believe that they’re smart, either that or a place to hide. But what really sucks is that if there was something really important, something legit, something that wasn’t bullshit, I’d do it, no matter how hard it was, no matter how little I got back in return. I’d do it in a second. But I don’t see anything worth doing. It’s all just pointless, one way or another. I don’t–“ I shut up and stared at the ceiling.
“You’ll figure shit out dude,” said Easton, offering me the joint. “You have MY word on it.”
( Ralph Surrender )
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