On Friday you take the day off from work; you haven’t had a day to yourself in a while. It’s the second to last day for the David Bowie exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum and you’ve only heard good things. Like most events you go to, you consider inviting the girl you have feelings for except you haven’t talked to her in a while and you don’t want to seem weird hitting her up out of nowhere and overstep your bounds and ruin your friendship with her and she’s probably busy anyways and you’re pretty sure she doesn’t haven’t the same feelings you do and the whole situation just gives you anxiety. But this is your day, it’s about YOU, and you still feel good knowing you took the day off to be alone.
You take a few pre-rolls with you and head to the L, transfer to the 1. You wait in line to buy a ticket and as soon as you get to the front you read the screen for prices.
“DAVID BOWIE: SOLD OUT”.
Maybe you can get tickets in advance for the next day, but shit you already told your friends you’d go to the beach with them. If you don’t see the exhibit today and you go to the beach tomorrow, then you’ll never see the exhibit. You should cut your losses and go take a walk in the park. But it won’t hurt to ask the cashier about advance tickets anyways.
“That’s the person you need to talk to”, she points to an older woman standing off to the side.
“Are you trying to see Bowie? I have an extra ticket. My daughter is pregnant and had to go to the hospital. You don’t have to pay me I just don’t want the ticket to go to waste.” Thank God for moms. Grateful, you walk with her to the exhibit entrance.
As it turns out, she’s seen Bowie many times and is a lifelong fan. You take her photo in front of a massive wall with his face on it. The two of you part ways as soon as you enter the exhibit. You remind yourself to never forget her. Inside, you learn about David Bowie’s “Oblique Strategies of Chance”, days later you will learn they’re actually Brian Eno’s.
After the exhibit, you head home just as it’s getting dark. On the train Danny texts you, “little party at Elena’s if you wanna come.”
Off the train you run into Jon, your neighbor and friend. “I’ve been having this intense craving for froyo.” You join him without question. The two of you talk about how fun the beach is going to be the next day. You invite him to the party but he has to go home to finish some school work. You part ways and meet Danny at Elena’s.
Ecstatic about your good luck and the day’s events, you recount the Bowie experience to your friends and finish off with “I got some joints if you guys wanna smoke”. Now they’re ecstatic. You reach into your tote bag but they’re gone. Determined not to take a loss today, you retrace your steps.
You walk all the way back to the froyo spot, searching the ground like an ant eater for a small plastic tube with drugs in it. Nothing. Gone. The marijuana has ceased to exist. You, defeated, look into the closed frozen yogurt establishment, remembering how great the yogurt and Jon’s company was just an hour ago.
Accepting reality, you turn around and begin the sad walk back to the party. You kick something on the first step. The tube manifests itself. Somehow no one else had stumbled on to it.
You go back to your friends and in a joyous moment of celebration. You get high.
After the party and feeling like this is the luckiest day of your life, you pass by the bodega and buy a lottery ticket. “Check back in two days to see if you’ve won”.
On Saturday you finally go to the beach for the first time this summer. Coney Island has been flirting with you from the other side of Brooklyn. You meet your friends at Nathan’s with no plan. A good portion of time on the beach is spent lying on the sand staring at the clouds and seagulls, sound tracked by waves and the voices of mothers yelling at their children. Time doesn’t move on Saturdays in the summer sun. The day is filled with firsts — the first time this summer at the beach, first time at the New York Aquarium, first time riding the Cyclone and the Wonder Wheel, the first time this week you don’t think about her. You all pitch in on a carnival game. Jon wins a stuffed minion. Nick’s girlfriend joins you after the aquarium and just before hopping on the roller coasters.
In line at the Wonder Wheel you learn that it’s 98 years old. You wonder if you’ll ever make it that long. Everyone climbs into the carriage that rocks back and forth. Sitting behind Nick and his girlfriend you contemplate how romantic this must be for them as the sun is setting. The wheel starts. At the very top, the silhouette of the two lovers in the orange and pink light remind you of someone.
Wow that must be nice, you say to yourself. Suddenly she pops into your head. Suddenly your phone vibrates. It’s a text from her. Now it feels like she’s right next to you, no longer on top of the Wonder Wheel but on top of the world.
Hold on to this feeling because what are the odds you’ll ever feel something like this again. Maybe someday she’ll actually be next to you, maybe it’s serendipity, maybe it’s foreshadowing, maybe it’s fate, maybe it’s meant to be. On the long train ride home you fall asleep smiling, knowing that the perfect weekend exists. Perhaps things are only going to be better from here and considering everything that happened the day beforehand, tomorrow looks just as promising. Like any trip to Coney Island, you get home and head straight to bed.
On Sunday at 2am in the morning you wake up to a call from your younger brother. “They’re fighting again, I think they’re going to get a divorce”. You hear shouting in the background. He gives the phone to your crying mother. “The love isn’t there anymore.”
You’re on the Cyclone, trapped at the apex and unable to get off the ride. The rush of the downward drop begins to hit you, throwing you side to side. If you don’t hold on tight enough you just might fly off.
You imagine yourself back on top of the Wonder Wheel trying to distance yourself from the Earth as much as possible. You wonder if that girl you’re hopelessly in love with should even be next to you, because if the two people who are supposed to give you an example of love can’t figure it out then what does that mean for your whole perception of what love even is. And what’s the phobia called that’s the opposite from a fear of heights? The one where you’re too afraid to come back down and face what’s waiting for you.
You’re scared because Ferris wheels are man-made and so is the space between you and the ground. You’re shaking because Ferris wheels aren’t supposed to stay idle forever and you’ll approach the bottom just as quickly as you rose to the top. Wheels roll in cycles and life will come full circle. Someday you will also think about getting a divorce.
Rather than dwell on this news all night you force yourself to fall back asleep. Maybe it won’t be there in the morning. Maybe not you today, but a confident you tomorrow will deal with it. Maybe everything was just a dream.
You wake up to another day. The same way you wake up every other day. And it sucks but you know you have to wake up at some point, even on days when you wish you would never wake up. These days have no limit. You fear the days where you wish you could just die. You fear the days that give you excuses to. But some days are different. Some days have some people, and some places, and some signs. Some days make you want to wake up. Like Friday. Like Saturday. These days feel so much better than those other kinds of days and the only way you’ll find out what kind of day you’ll have is if you wake up.
After an hour of staring at the ceiling and thinking, you get up and take a shower, get dressed, sit in your room and continue to think. You think about what this could all mean. You think about what this should all mean.
Finally, you head to the corner deli to grab a sandwich and check on your lottery ticket.
“Not a Winner”, the screen reads.
