Free The History of Great Things by Elizabeth Crane Page B

mush, and the beer drops to the floor and spills all over the shaggy throw rug. You try to pick up the can to salvage some of it, but it falls right out of your mush hand as soon as you lift it, which is a bummer, because when you go to the fridge to get another, you discover that that was the last one, and you don’t have it in you to go get money from the bank, which isn’t open anyway. You go pee, come back with the crusty rinse cup from the sink, try to push the spilled beer out of the rug into the cup with the side of your hand; this results in nothing more than some slightly wet fuzz on the lip of the cup, and you wonder how one would wring out the rug while it’s still on the floor. You put the cup upside down on top of the rug, pinch at the rug fibers with your fingers in the hopes of flipping the cup quickly with the liquid still in it, this method also unsuccessful. Somehow you climb back up to the top bunk (tomorrow you won’t remember this part), look at what you wrote, scribble something on it, pass out, wake up with the notebook in front of you, not realizing you’d even passed out, scribble a few more words, pass out again, scribble some more.
    You want to matter in the world. It matters to you to matter. Yes. You’ll figure out how later, maybe. Sadly, though, in the morning, you won’t remember this; just as well since it’s not a suitable paper topic anyway.
    Climbing down from the bunk the next morning, you find that your left wrist has swollen to the size of your face, and you are certain you can see it throbbing like something’s in there trying to get out. At student health they ask a bunch of questions for which you don’t have answers. Nothing new. They X-ray your hand; there’s a small fracture. For about two seconds you think that this could be a consequence of having been drunk and stoned, before blaming it on getting the short straw on the top bunk.
    â€”That is really interesting, Mom.
    â€”I always thought I could have been a writer.
    â€” . . .
    â€”What?
    â€”That’s not exactly what I meant.
    â€”What did you mean, then?
    â€”It’s just . . . plausible.
    â€”You should give me more credit.
    â€”You should give me what I already have.
    â€”I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about.
    â€”Let’s just move on.
    â€”You move on.

Entry
    Y ou graduate from GW in December, a semester late, because of the drinking and not going to class sometimes. It’s almost remarkable that it’s only one semester, but you pulled it together when you were on the verge of flunking out—drank only on weekends after that, which helped improve your grades, anyway. Junior year you switched your major from English to broadcasting, when you realized it was the only major that would get you out of school before 1992. Not that you have any big ideas about what to do with this degree. You don’t even have any small ones. You might like to be a newscaster, if it didn’t require hair spray and a suit. The truth is, all you really want right now is a job where you don’t have to wear a suit. I try to tell you that you have to at least have one suit for interviews. Why should I spend money I don’t have on a suit I’m never going to wear? It’s an investment. That’s not what an investment is, Mom. An investment is when you expect or hope to get more money back than you put in. Don’t be smart with me. Everyone needs a suit sometime, Betsy. I don’t want to need a suit. I’ll take you to Jersey to the outlet malls, my treat. You always want to treat me to things you think I need, never what I really need. You’re twenty-two years old. You don’t know what you need.
    You move back into your old room at home with us even though this is not ideal for anyone. Our apartment hasn’t gotten any bigger in the last four years. After a few weeks you land an entry-level job at CBS