There are moments when things go dark. My friend Nolan and I had just spent a week in New York. It was the summer of 2007 and we are on the verge of being high school seniors. We desired freedom. This trip was taken without chaperone. Just two 17 year olds looking for cheap Broadway musical tickets.
We hoped for fun, and fun we had. The cheapest way to travel was by greyhound. A plane would have been ideal, but that money would be better spent on pizza or cheesecake, or anything “New York.” So we took the bus.
The trip up was easy. There may have been moments of worry or annoyance, but those were so overshadowed by our excitement for the big city that they melted into the ever-present hum of ground transportation. We rode that excitement all the way through our days in New York, and on the way back…we started to crash. We were doing more reading than talking, and we both felt that yearning for the familiar. This was the wrong time to get stuck in the Richmond, Virginia greyhound station for five hours. And these were not any five hours this was from 5:00am to 10:00am. Had it been 10:00am to 3:00pm, things may have felt a little better. (Apparently those trusty greyhound authorities had forgotten to book a bus driver. Must have been a case of the Mondays.)
The key thing to remember is that bus terminals don’t get paid like airports. If airports were a college graduate, bus terminals would be the failing younger brother with sociopathic tendencies. Nothing was working for us. The food was slop, every arcade game was broken, and, worst of all, the televisions were reporting the same five news stories on repeat. Never anything new. Just the same stories reported in the same way by the same people for five hours. The perfect place to snap.
We eventually made it onto a bus, and back to Atlanta in one piece. We both graduated high school without scars, but we weren’t in college long before Nolan got into drugs. He dropped out of college and worked his way through a number of rehab programs before he really desired to be clean. I have only seen Nolan twice in the past two years, and sometimes it feels like our meeting this past summer was our last. Things start to feel as dark as they did in that greyhound station. But it is precisely that experience that brings the light back in. I know that if I am ever asked what the worst place in the world is, I’m not the only one who would answer: Richmond, Virginia.
That first line makes sense in the whole, but since you don't address it until the end it just hangs there cryptically and teases. I'd suggest mentioning the 'darkness' a little earlier, if only once before you explain it in the conclusion.
ReplyDeleteThe first paragraph changes tense: "It is the summer...", "We desired..."
Your dying friendship is tied well to the travel shtick, but I was waiting for the 'snap,' since the layover in Richmond felt like it should have a specific moment that strained your relationship with Nolan. It just seems like a shitty place, as you wanted it to, but I want to connect the last line with your friendship and I can't without something certain and concrete to connect it to the bus terminal. Placing yourself and Nolan in the terminal would help just as the line about the two of you reading more than talking gives a good idea of the direction ya'll are going in.
I don't understand the play on light and darkness because I don't know what 'light' is being brought back in.
You find out how compatible you are with someone by traveling, so this is a good choice of context to examine your friendship.
This left me wanting so much more.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed the way you tied one of the last memories you had with your friend (however shitty it was) and relating it to your drifting apart and his drug use. However, I feel you have a lot more you can draw out from this piece to really make it's impact powerful.
I'm sure you were just trying to fit the word count, but I'm just hinty-hinting that this could be expanded if a lot more depth was added. You have a good jumping off point.
Is this #1 because you intend to extend it?
ReplyDeleteThematically, I don't really follow the ending. Nolan on drugs seems like a non-sequitur, and there is not a whole lot of the friendship aspect anywhere but that last paragraph. You could easily begin to trace his unraveling throughout the trip.
Also, the entire piece is summary/"telling", and it is in need of some scene/"showing." What are the news stories playing? What are the moments of worry/annoyance? Including tactile moments would really improve this.
I saw a connection between the line, " If airports were a college graduate, bus terminals would be the failing younger brother with sociopathic tendencies." and the fact that you took a greyhound with your druggie college drop out friend. Was that intended? It would be really interesting to see you write more about yourself in college versus your dropout friend who you had this dark experience with. It doesn't seem coincidental that the whole greyhound situation happened with this particular friend.
ReplyDeleteI really like your description of the greyhound bus system here. As a naive freshmen, I took it alone at night to Pensacola, twice. Needless to say it is definitely an experience. I love your line "If airports were a college graduate, bus terminals would be the failing younger brother with sociopathic tendencies." I would like to see more description like that throughout the piece.
ReplyDeleteI also think that you have a bunch of different ideas spliced together in this piece. Your greyhound experience, your New York experience, the decline of a friendship, etc. I think you should choose one and expand on it. Or expand on all of the different ideas, just make them separate pieces.
If your going to focus on the friendship, I would like to see a deeper description of the friend. Set a scene of when you were with him etc.
If focusing on greyhound, more sensory details about the bus experience, what did it smell like? What did it feel like/look like? What sounds did you hear? Who did you interact with(there are alot of interesting people that ride greyhound buses.)
If focusing on the New York trip I want way more explaination of what you actually did while there and again sensory details. As well as how you felt about the city when you first got there and then when you left?
A good first line. Then things get foggy with verb tense shifting and abstractions (fun, worry, annoyance, excitement). Your subject here is the bus station in Richmond, and Nolan. All we need to know about NY and how you came to be in the bus station you can give us in one sentence. Tell us more about the bus station and Nolan, specific details (what exactly is the brand of slop?). A good start. Keep writing this out.
ReplyDelete