This week, our friend Coward Huntington takes us back to youthful summers and finding your place in the world with this fantastically evocative piece.
DARE I EAT A PEACH?
They wanted to go dancing. I don't like dancing.
Before I lived in Europe, when my skin had a healthy glow and I didn't have to worry about rental caps lifting and my back aching, I was young, I was in New York, and it was summer. Back then, everything seemed vivid and unending. I was shopping, in a way, for a city to live in, for a life to inhabit, something. I hoped to step outside onto a street at the end of it, where I’d find my place.
My travel companion and I were staying in a loft in Brooklyn, where green vines rolled from stripped back walls. The air was alive with steam and through the great windows the red brick skyline was bright and expansive.
We spent the month with friends on shimmering streets, grazing the green grass and tumbling into corners of bars, playing with the city, the versatile chasm between the city's self-effacement and the dour locals that inhabit it. It's easy to feel light after first cutting the line connected to home, it's easier to float, to eat whatever you want and drink and party and never eat fruit again.
However, at a certain point, reality finds a way of emerging with nostrils flared and wild taunting eyes; the moment when you remember that the 'you' who you are running from is going to catch up and strangle you, no matter how far you get. For me, when I was younger at least, this usually occurred at dingy bars, where smiling eyes didn't point and the bodies in movement wouldn't skirt, the moment when gravity would lick my ankles again.
I don't like dancing, I have small hips, I have weak ankles, I have the flu, I have to go, I have to get up early tomorrow, I don't like it. I thank god for techno's lack of melody, and Berlin's lack of interest, I thank god for cigarette smoke and bunkers and the dark.
I come from Melbourne, where self expression is monitored and everyone knows your name, and your friend's names, and that I don't like dancing! My friends liked it, my friends liked it a lot, drunken NSYNC clapping and sing-a-longs on the train liked it, ironic 2000s So-Fresh hits of the summer in the AirBnB liked it. Thursday night last day of the trip Disco-Night in a converted church in Greenpoint “it's the last night you have to come” liked it.
So, I was young enough to still feel the dread, and old enough to see it coming. I decided it’d be quite grown-up of me to say casually: “Hey, yeah, no thanks guys, not my thing, but you enjoy yourselves!”
Which, of course, led me directly to the curbside step where my titillating friends were stretching and passing smokes outside the church doors. Inside, I could hear Britney, Madonna, S-Club 7, Justin, all my old friends, waiting for me. I took a deep breath, wiping the sweat from my cheek and digging my fingernails into my palm.
I’d do it, I had to, this is what happens when you're young, I decided. You go do the things you don't want to, then you learn to enjoy them, then they become the things you want to do, and so it goes.
When we entered the dark, I caught a whiff of caramel from the smoke machine, my neck was alive with sweat, my friends smacked my shoulders and went “Yeww” and poured onto the dancefloor. I could see it, through the cheap disco lights and the clapping silhouettes, I could see the blank space, the one left for me. Something pulled me back, an invisible hand dragging me away from the perfumed church, out to the crickets and the lamplight and the pavement. Suddenly, I was free! Free, but alone.
I wasn't sure what to do. So, I bought a peach. It was a really good peach. Not firm, with a little give, the right amount. Inside it was sweet and full of sweet juice and it sat evenly in my hand like a velvet egg as I wandered the park square. It was a hot night, fireflies licked the hedges and the sky was a brilliant purple. I could hear warm voices and footsteps, the smell of grass and the soft water dripping from the tangle of branches. For some time, I ate my peach and just walked in circles, letting the soft evening air carry me forward.
I don't live in New York (I got home and googled the rental prices). I live in Europe and my skin is pale and rent just increases and my back hurts.
I'm not sure where that Church was, or the square, or the fruit vendor, I said it was Greenpoint, but I'm lying, I don't really know at all. Even after all these years I still remember that peach, and how it felt to be alone, and how it felt to be light and what that meant. When I want to, I can close my eyes and see the hum of the green grass, and the yellow lamp lights and the chattering skyline, and taste the sweetness of that damn peach.
- But I dance now, not well. It's fine, I don't really think about it.