“Usdan Reinstein is still a Child”
So of course I’ll start with my name; it’s Usdan Reinstein, but people just call me Uzi. Not like the gun, I’m not violent or anything, I’m just Uzi.
And I guess my social conflict is my missituation. Fuck, I don’t feel in place here. I don’t feel in place anywhere really, except home. I’m in college, by the way, I’m up in Boston. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I like it and all, but… it’s not home. I can’t not identify that I live in a town called Barkhamsted, in grand old Connecticut. If you say it you can hear its quaintness. Barkhamsted… it’s a tiny town outside the old money, outside the noisy city life and all that, it’s not dull, it’s just nice. It’s my New England fix; but really, there is no place better than Barkhamsted, Connecticut. Argue it with me, sometime.
I started thinking and all as I walked down from the radio station, I’m interning on a jazz show from four to six on Sunday evenings for the college radio, I’m at least trying to fit in, you know? It’s nice, but I’m not exactly a huge fan of the jazz. Anyways, I’m walking back, and it’s a cold Sunday in September, the last Sunday in September, actually. And it starts pouring. Just fucking pouring rain out of nowhere. And for some reason, now I’m not a violent person, remember, but for some reason all I wanted was to just get hit by a car as I crossed Commonwealth Avenue. A modest proposal, right? A car or the T, either or, really; the T would’ve added a nice little sardonic touch, but anything really, I conceded to myself, would've done the job. If a car could just swerve a corner and bash my brains out, or slide on the wet road and crush me into the slick pavement, or even just stop short and smoosh my toes, anything to send me home, I think that’d be perfect.
But as I crossed and reached the other side, the side with Marsh Chapel and the Student Union, no car, or T, for that matter, had hit me, and I was at that moment both sad and frustrated; both distraught and worried for myself. I was sad that, of course, I hadn’t been hit, and frustrated that I actually wanted to get hit. Why would anyone want to get hit? Shit. It really bothered me that I thought that.
I stepped into the Student Union to get out of the pouring waters. It was closing up, so there wasn’t much for me to do, but there was one cashier on the far left still open, an old Asian woman with ‘Allison’ written on her nametag. I doubted very much her name was Allison, for some reason her accent and actions, completely foreign, gave me the impression she clearly wasn’t from the greater Boston area, much less the United States; not that there’s anything wrong with that, I just didn’t think her name was actually Allison; probably something more cultural. I had grabbed a strawberry milk and she scanned it.
“One dollar and seventy five cents!” she yelped in a too cheery disposition, punching the buttons with worn, but exercised fingers. I wanted to ask if she had been working here long, but my guess was that she had, so I kept quite, and handed her my credit card.
“Thanks,” I said, and then found a seat, sat, and sipped my strawberry milk.
Call me a child; because that’s what I still am, a nineteen-year-old child, but I love my strawberry milk. It’s comforting, a safety I suppose, to remind me of when I didn’t have to worry. I can still remember summer camp from years ago when they’d bring a big crate of milk cartons and cheap cookies to us on August afternoons. We’d sit and just eat our goddamn cookies, and it was so beautiful, you know? Now that I think of it, it was the greatest time of my life, and I was about eleven.
But you see, I suppose that’s also a contributing factor to my dissituation here. I still feel like a kid. I still feel like I should just pack my books up and get on a nice big yellow bus that’ll show up in front of my house. I still feel as if someone should bring me my cookies and milk as I sit on a nice wooden table with all my friends from home, who have probably left for their schools and, I hope, feel the same longing as I do, but probably don’t.
I finished the milk, and wiped the pink liquid from my trimmed beard. I can imagine how I looked, and it made me laugh a little. A nineteen year old giggling to himself with strawberry milk on his upper lip, now that image made me flat out laugh out loud. I stopped as Allison turned and gave me a questionable, quizzical glance. Simone had pointed Allison out when we first ate together. She loved Allison and her cheery disposition; the diligent cashier. I shrugged it off and went for the door, but of course, it was pouring rain out, fucking pouring, man.
I thought on my feet and grabbed a used tray on the counter. It was small and plastic, and reminded me of one I had stolen from a Taco Bell back home with some friends of mine. We did some pretty stupid things like that, but we were kids. And well, I didn’t steal it, I still have all the intention of giving it back whenever I’ve got the chance, it’s just a low priority. A lot of things are low priority, right now. But I grab that tray, and raise it over my head and backpack. It barely covers me at all, and I hold it at a shallow angle so as to deflect the rain behind me.
I felt pitiful as I walked down that street, Commonwealth Avenue. It’s a pretty busy street I guess, there are two rows of traffic, each about two or three lanes, and in between that there are two lanes for the T, the olive colored streetcar that runs into Boston on its grimy wheels, but as I said, I felt pretty pitiful. The rain just wouldn’t stop hammering me, I mean really hammering me under my poor little lunch tray.
My jeans, soaked, really drenched, started to vibrate. It was my cellular. What was once a cute little silver phone, yes I used cute to describe my phone, was now a bulky black thing. I had had my previous precious silver phone all through high school, and yet, the first thing I wanted to start my freshman semester off was a new phone. Maybe I felt some sort of separation anxiety from him, Cellular that is, because this new one simply wasn’t cutting it. I had plastered my former friend with Dole and other produce stickers: oranges from California, plums from Chile, even a pineapple sticker from Costa Rica had crowned the front, and yet this new phone, this intruder, didn’t take to kindly to stickers. No matter how many I put on, they all fell off. Instead of the simple safety I felt with my Cellular, I had access to the Internet, the ability to take pictures and send them anywhere, I could even play tetris on the damn thing. The greatness of the modern world can allow so many things, but they can’t duplicate the bond that was shared between Cellular and me. Call me a phony, but it’s the truth; pathetic I’ll admit, but what isn’t sometimes?
I looked at the caller identification; “Simone” was displayed on the screen, and I opened it up to talk to her. She was this chick that I had met a week or so ago, she was pretty chill, I suppose, but things were a little sour with us for some reason, I’m not sure why. Chick is actually a good word to describe her, maybe I’ll call her that next time I see her. She’s small, like a baby chicken or something, except cuter, of course. I liked talking to her, we had gotten along well the week we first met.
“Hey… what’s up?” I answered.
“Hey, Uzi? nothing really… you alright in this rain?”
“Yeah, I’m almost back to my side of campus, I’ve got this dingy little tray to keep me dry!” I tried to chuckle to myself.
“Hm.” There was a long pause after her ‘hm’ of amusement. I kept plodding on in the rain, puddles and all.
“Puddles.” I said all of a sudden.
“What?” She put in.
“Puddles… isn’t that the name of that song you like by that Icelandic band?” I tried humming the melody, because I didn’t know the lyrics, they were in Icelandic, but my humming rendition must not have cued any recognition, and she continued;
“I don’t know what you’re doing, now.”
“Neither do I.”
“Well I just thought I’d call to see what you were up to. My dorm is quiet.”
“Thanks, I’ll try to head up there next week.” I lied. Things were just awkward with us now. But I did enjoy her company. I stepped in an especially big puddle for her as I continued. “I had fun yesterday.” I admitted. There was a long pause, followed by a conscious “Yeah.” She conceded.
“But, uh, this rain just isn’t doing it for me, right now. I’ll call you later?” I tried to fish a ‘yes’ out of her.
“I guess.”
Rats.
“Bye, Usdan.”
“Later.”
We hung up the phone and I kicked at a shallow puddle, sprinkling the pavement in further wetness.
That was a dismal talk.
See, things were just dismal, here. Of course I wouldn’t feel comfortable in a place like this. How can any kid deal with the rain and a conversation like that? It kept raining as I walked towards what was called ‘West Campus,’ where my dormitory was. I still felt like a stranger, swiping my identification just to get into a building. It was still pouring as I opened the door to my room, really pouring, big surprise, right? Shit.
I undressed and went to sleep. Somewhere outside, I heard a car crash, or a T. Maybe it was a car crashing into a T, I don’t know, but I heard it, and it kept raining. Really pouring
