My friend Theo grew up in a small town on the west coast of Florida. When we would get drunk at bars in our early twenties and find an audience of beautiful strangers and the subject of Florida or orange juice came up, oh how quickly Theo would break into the story of Big Juice International – how they burnt their orange rinds every Tuesday – and the whole town took on a fragrance of orange zest – candied peels – he would grab her arm and smell her wrist – “just like you.” Five million gallons of juice passing through the town – they had even installed a sewer system just for pulp – “get your mind out of the gutter” he would wink deep and slow like an orange being squeezed.
At first it was a cool story and all – small town America in all of its small-box, mom-and-pop, landlined glory – but I slowly began to loathe the incessant conversations about orange juice weekend after weekend – “nothing like blood orange sunsets over a rail yard full of juice… talk about romance!” he would lead her gaze off towards drunk lovers necking in the alley.
This went on-and-on-and-on. Two years? Maybe three? It was not ideal – especially as we were both living in New York at the time and trying to branch out a bit from our collective Southern pasts. But I was young and had not the slightest intention of holding those around me to any particular social standards provided they were honest or transparent (one or the other would suffice). Not everything said had to be earth shattering – not even worthwhile – so long as the long arc of the weekends was good.
We were at a party in the Upper East side when it happened. It was the second week of August and – you guessed it – someone was drinking Big Juice International. Before I get to the story, I feel it important to note that people have always liked me. Half of them because I am less of an asshole than they are – and the other half because I am more of an asshole then they are. But regardless of how they felt – I knew deep down that I was a class act, a regular old Dale Carnegie. I spoke ill of nothing and noone, let my words breathe and, no matter the breadth or width of my substance intake, never hogged the spotlight. In fact, I gave one-uppers a wide berth and was always very intentional with my gift of storytelling.
On this particular evening – something was different. The city had been tense all summer – talk of war in Europe, dramatic inflation, and of course, the most nefarious word in the NYC vernacular – a “bubble” – each week felt like the toss of a coin. As junior analysts at Big Money, we were living on the edge of a razor. Everyday hacking our way to the edge of collapse or running away from contagion as fast as we could – we danced in all directions on the edge of the waterfall. The weekends became like tomato plants – unwatered in the weeks, they grew no fruit on the weekend – and the daylight waned. The city had been tense all summer and I had been tense too. I had not been laid since I received my promotion in the spring. I had come close but alas… orange juice.
It was a typical Saturday night in the city. She was drinking Big Juice International with Tito’s. He had smelt her hand – she had such elegant wrists and a collection of bangle bracelets that looked impossibly and effortlessly curated. He had taken her mind to the pulp gutter. Her laugh cackled like bitter lemons and limes. He had led her gaze to the alley – her eyes moving like an independent entity of their own – bold and confident pupils in contrast to her otherwise shy and quiet demeanor. I couldn’t take it anymore.
“Small towns are the weirdest. You know, in the north Texas town I grew up in, all the leaves fall in the second week of August… without fail.”
“You don’t say…” Theo eyed me suspiciously. Here I was – a conniving character from Macbeth interrupting his fiftieth recitation of King Lear.
“Every year,” I drowned him out, “the birds would come from supermarkets all over the southwest and congregate in our little food desert of a town. Thousands of grackles covering every limb and branch in the whole locality.” I was blowing it – locality – what a definitively unsexy word. I flapped imaginary wings to make up for it, but it was certainly no wrist smell.
“The birds would chirp and chirp and chirp and shake all the branches until one by one, all the leaves had fallen off the limbs.”
“It can’t be…” Theo lay there spellbound. He had never heard me say a word about my past. And why should I – New York only exists in the present.
“Until I was 15 years old I thought that fall was caused by birds shaking all the leaves,” I said, reviving a repressed southern drawl. “You can imagine my shock when I finally made it to Colorado one October and saw oranges and yellows and reds and greens beyond my wildest imagination. It was like seeing God – or perhaps more like – unseeing God. Yes, I was 15 when I learned that fall was a meet-eee-or–olo-gical phenomenon” it was working. “And not just some dance of the birds. Anywho, that’s why I ended up in New York.”
She leaned in and her body shrank back at the same time and her eyes said “Birdboy – you’re coming home with me” and that’s exactly what happened and now Theo and I spend our weekends talking about grackles instead of orange juice.
“Bckawwww!”