The Apartment Story

The Apartment Story

The new house had come together marvelously, with each piece of furniture fitting perfectly, like pieces of a puzzle. The apartment had been nice but I never felt like it had come together like my new place. In my old apartment I had one couch that could hardly sit two people comfortably, especially some of my bigger, homophobic friends that associated any type of accidental knee bumping or thigh grazing as “homo” as they would like to put it. Like any normal person living in a one bedroom place, I owned a television but my television was tiny and I was more embarrassed by it then I was entertained. I remember watching a movie on my little TV and then watching the same movie on a larger screened TV and saying to myself “I don’t remember seeing that part,” or “so that’s how it’s supposed to look,” numerous times but I couldn’t afford a new television, I couldn’t afford anything, not clothes, not groceries, especially when I was going out drinking four nights a week, I found out quickly what was important to me and it wasn’t necessarily drinking as much as it was trying to water down the pain from an unsuccessful relationship that had ended as abruptly as it had started, and had left me wondering, “What the hell happened?”
A record player sat nestled on the floor in the corner next to the TV stand. I took great pride in that record player, which was owned by my mom’s dad while he was still alive and which was never used after he stopped holding church services upstairs, which had been about 30 years ago. The record player was cutting edge technology when it first came out, I’m sure. It had a tape player, a radio with AM and FM choices, and of course a record player, which I must add, was completely automated. The only function that it did not do automatically was flip the record after it had completed playing on one side. My friend Alex had given me a box of records that he never listened to anymore. It was a generous gift. In the box I found two Tom Petty albums, Fleetwood Mac, The Cars, Bob Dylan, even an R.E.M. record which was probably one of their first and other musical gems. There is something unique about listening to music on a record player. It emanates audio warmth, crackling and popping like a fire as the needle slides across the surface of the black vinyl. I think listening to a record is the closest and purest way to the artist that one can get, excluding of course having front row tickets to a show. In a world that seems to be spinning faster every year, I take comfort in the steady pace of a spinning record and the timeless stories and feelings that are illuminated with the sounds of the music flowing out of the speakers like the clearest, purest water there ever was.
Songs became like friends to me. I had some songs that I loved right off the bat, there were some that I did not like initially but after some time and a few new experiences, began to grow on me. These songs knew me better than anyone and I understood them better than the woman I had tried to love and that’s what I appreciated the most.
Books, I also had books. But before I lie and paint a dishonest picture of myself sitting in my living room with the lights turned low, drinking scotch and smoking a pipe with a my ornate smoking jacket on, let me tell you that is not how it was. In fact I hadn’t read regularly or voluntarily sense fifth grade, which is something I still don’t understand.  I didn’t have cable, or any type of gaming system, so I began reading again. I read Jack London, T.S. Eliot, Mark Twain, Stephen Crane and other big names to occupy my time and to also make up for my lack of digital and electronic entertainment. My apartment was simple and even though it lacked many of the amenities of a modern apartment it made up for with valuable life lessons. Simple living is a great teacher and there is freedom in learning that luxuries, beyond a certain point, lead to a path of weakness, and to a path of complacency, which are two things that I will never be. Solitude is not loneliness; in fact it’s some of the best company I ever had.