Under The Pink

It was always about naps on Peterborough st after lunch, me on my yellow couch, Beth on her blue one. My semester off, 2nd semester, sophomore year, the first half of 1995. Kurt Cobain had been dead less than a year, nobody knew who Monica Lewinsky or George W. Bush was, and the towers stood. I was living at 109 Peterborough with Nathan and Jaysin. Jaysin was the guitarist of a metal band called Poets and Madmen. They were pretty good for a metal band. Bowls were packed, spliffs rolled, beers drunk. Rare occasions would bring magic mushrooms, which I never did after February of that year. Tim Dog Afro lived upstairs, Tim Dog Dreadlocks would come over and visit. White Patrick was a liar and a scoundrel. He wouldn't let Sonia and Beth leave his apartment one day, talking some smack about how they were his hostages. He wasn't really serious, but that wasn't really the point. Nathan threw him down a flight of stairs. Jamaican Patrick and Traveling Ben were the candymen; they showed up with Pringle's cans that contained no Pringles. There was a guy named Derby who lived downstairs, and he told me one night out on the stoop that he had killed dozens of Iraqis during Gulf War 1, which was just called the Gulf War back then. Jim, Heather and Matt lived next door. Jim Birch was in a band called Sally Ride Rocketship, and he was a damn good guitarist. Jim worked with Jaysin at the Pizza Ring down the street delivering pies. You ring, Jim bring. Matt had hair that looked like Sideshow Bob's, and he saved my life one night in February when he knocked on my door and asked me if I wanted to watch cartoons with him. Heather was breathtakingly beautiful, but so chill and down-to-earth. She and her best friend Channin partied hard that year, a lot harder than I did, and I partied hard. Outside my window across the street was a red brick building; many were the days I would stare out the window and watch that brick melt away and drip on the sidewalk.
I had a job at the cafeteria at school, and I only worked lunch. I would meet Beth in the lunchroom or the dorm after work and we took the short walk back to the apartment. We would put on some music and lay down on our couches for a long nap. For a while, Under The Pink was our standard nap music, and we both loved it so much.
Now Under The Pink has taken on new significance. Something has happened.