anti:freeze

illustration by Alan Murdock

I. Starbucks and the Corner Diner

When my husband and I first moved to Portland, we lived in a funky, 1950's high-rise on the South Park Blocks. The rent was cheap, the managers were friendly, and almost all of our neighbors were feisty senior citizens who had lived there since the tower was hip. Probably the best-kept secret of this building was the greasy spoon diner on the first floor, with a back-room bar that mixed the cheapest drinks in town. That diner served the best Gardenburgers in Portland, so crisp on the outside and gooey on the inside that I wondered if the cooks secretly deep-fat-fried every patty. Oh, and the salads featured actual greens - no iceburg lettuce.

Recently, we went back for a visit. We heard the apartments had been remodeled, and we wanted to take a peek. We chose the diner entrance, hoping to stop in for some coffee, but the windows that once revealed tattered booths and a rotating dessert carousel were empty. Then we realized: our greasy spoon had been gutted, the space divided into thirds. One third was still vaguely recognizable as the remains of the cafe, even with its booths ripped out and counter stools yanked from the floor. It had not yet been leased to a new business. The next third had been transformed into a Starbucks, packed with college students from nearby Portland State. Last (and perhaps most offensive), was a Subway, complete with that peculiar doughy aroma.

I was shocked, but not surprised.

The last time we visited our little diner, it had already suffered serious blows. The door leading directly into the high-rise lobby had been sealed, leaving only the front entrance available. This space that had always been the glue of the apartment community - the place where residents met for lunch or Sunday breakfast - was officially severed. Separate.

We peeked into the Starbucks and immediately understood that our old, funky building was lost forever. Students sat alone or in small groups, at separate tables, barely acknowledging one another. Lattes and iced coffees were served up in seconds flat, and while the baristas seemed friendly, they did not ask customers about their day (and even when they did ask, it was clear they had no time to hear the answer). At the diner, people used to shout hello across the restaurant, carrying on loud, personal conversations over the clinks of heavy china and silverware. The waitresses knew everyone's name and life story, and the price of a whole meal was equivalent to one froo-froo drink at Starbucks. It was a rambunctious sort of place, where you could sometimes wait fifteen minutes for your menus and water, as the waitress made her chatty rounds. I made more interesting acquaintances there than I could ever imagine making at Starbucks.

We walked into the lobby of the high rise, and we were stunned to find the front desk had been ripped out, replaced with a folding card table and stack of leaflets. Where once an entire staff had greeted visitors, there was now just one lonely rental agent, yawning as she stared into space. Most of the feisty seniors were gone. The apartments were a bland impersonation of fancy lofts in the Pearl.

On the way out, we joked, "Which came first, the Starbucks or the remodel?"

II. The Table Makes the Mood

This weekend, I noticed a strange table inside the nearby Starbucks. It was wider and longer than most of the other tables, with a four-inch-wide gap in the center. Tiny blue lamps were planted at either end, at approximately eye level. This being the longest table in the cafe, you might expect large groups to sit there. But no, this table was clearly designed for loners - people who need to be alone but for whom no private tables are available. Either that, or large groups of students who arrive together and study in silence. You could talk over the lamps, but who wants to gaze into a burning bulb?

I watched as a group of four women walked up to the table, scooted the chairs to one end, sat down, and huddled around a corner. Hot coffee steam wetted their faces as they leaned in close. I loved how they made this space their own, but I could not help but notice their anxious glances, as they waited for a chance to score a better table. As soon as one opened, they grabbed their mugs and rushed over, planting their lattes like flags. Almost immediately, their laughter grew freer and louder, and they now had space to slide stacks of photographs across the polished surface.

"Is this Jake?" one of them asked, holding up a photograph.

"As in office party Jake?" the other two chimed in, sitting up on their knees and leaning forward to gaze at his image.

Later, I watched as four men in gabardine suits walked up to the table, stood for a brief moment behind the chairs, and walked away. Without speaking, they had all decided against it. They opted instead for the nearby handicapped-accessible table, dragging their chairs across the floor. There, they discussed the remodel of a downtown apartment building.

My essay, "Radio Frequency," has been accepted for publication in the 2005 Los Angeles Review, published by Red Hen Press. The magazine is due out in January 2005. This essay is all about RFID, surveillance, intimacy, and the sense that we all are all somehow missing people when we can so easily be found. It is actually an excerpt from a much longer work, first in a series to explore this subject matter.

to the dead boy:

1.

I slide across the surface of the frozen lake, spinning on tip-toe, figure skating in tennis shoes and a patchwork skirt. You watch from the safety of a snow bank, laughing when I threaten to stomp on the ice, crack my way through to the water.

2.

You pour honey into the water, mixing it with a branch. "Did you know honey with water makes good antifreeze?"

I wish you would drink it instead.

I spent most of yesterday curled like a comma on the living room floor. My body was the punctuation of how it felt: a pause between busy phrases, stillness, breath. The fever was so high my quadriceps quivered when I tried to stand up. I melted back to the floor, unable to fetch water or chicken soup. Tears streamed, not from sadness, but from the fever (the kind of tears that leak without effort, no strain of muscles around the eye). The last time my forehead was this hot, my brother heaved me into a bathtub filled with cold water and fresh ice. Doctor's orders, in a tinny voice over the telephone.

I slipped in and out of heavy sleep all day and night.

Images I remember:

My mother, cradling a glass bowl filled with Jell-O salad, the kind with marshmallows and squishy fruit candies. I made a down payment on my coffin, she says. I wake up, briefly, and remember the day she actually said this. Ten years ago, when I was nineteen.

A ten-year-old version of me, with pigtails and red corduroys, running around a parking lot after dark. I was with someone - a friend or a cousin, maybe. We stayed out all night and slept behind a car. When our parents found us, they took us to a pile of dead bodies behind the house, teenage boys with bulletholes in their foreheads and chests, missing limbs, twisted expressions. They shoot you if you stay out past curfew. See?

Sewing a stack of velvet keys, stuffed with cotton balls. Each one was an exact copy, and each one could open a steel box hidden behind the wall. I had urgent reason to copy the keys.

This morning, I am strong enough to sit up again, but I already sense pressure inside my ears, the hot flush in my cheeks, a distinct chill in my shoulders. I am writing while I still can, in those in-between-hours, the ones where you wake up and feel okay again, only to find yourself collapsed on the floor an hour later, fever rising.

fountains in downtown Portland

I.

The fountains are not from here. They wrap themselves in plastic to protect their sensitive skin from the rain.

II.

There is something rotten in the city of Portland. Who would murder these cute little creatures? Who will drape shrouds over their faces? When will the stretchers carry them away?

III.

My grandmother wrapped her hair in plastic headscarves when it rained. I swore I would never do the same. My mother and sister swore it as well. And my friends, and their mothers.

And yet, every winter, new batches of old ladies emerge with plastic headscarves tied tight under wrinkled chins. Somehow, this tradition trickles through the generations, passing itself down in spite of us.

more pictures of the fountains, shot with my cell phone camera

When I first moved here, I did not like these fountains. They stole so much space on the crowded sidewalks, forcing clots in pedestrian traffic, slowing everyone down.

But as the years passed, I noticed toddlers stopping to pet the bears, tourists posing as if feeding the ducks a slice of bread, and homeless kids leaning against the sides of the water pools. These fountains invite interaction and play, seducing us into a stroll. They are the perfect public art.

But I have never seen them wrapped up in plastic sheets. Perhaps the city is protecting them from construction debris? Or the fountains are being scrubbed with harsh chemicals?

Is it possible Christo has visited Portland in the dark of night?

instructions for a pellet gun

You have to love the bad technical writing here. Never look at the muzzle with your eyes.

(But - naughty me - I assume my other body parts are just peachy-keen. I can look down the barrel with my teeth, fire a plastic pellet into my epiglottis.)

Judging from the macabre illustration, what the instructions actually mean is never point the gun at your eyes.

Or, please do not attempt suicide with this toy.