When Nights Were Young

Joseph and I sat on the couch thinking about what we could do with my new found toy. The shipment from Dell had come in, and now a new computer was sprawled across our dining room table. While ordering it, I noticed I had some extra wiggle room with credit line so I tossed in a digital camera to boot.

We were both pretty un-photogenic guys: both of us slopped across the couch, playing FIFA. Joseph was wearing the same jeans and tshirt compilation that he had sported for the last 3 days, minus his waiting shifts. His 5 year old Celtics shirt was chewed by animals, holed by any number of objects in the apartment, and in need of a dumpster burial. To complete the look Joseph had chosen ill-fitting and stained jeans, not washed since last Saturday, but worn each and every day up to, and including, this Friday.

I was Joseph’s Tweedledee. My green button up dress shirt was stained in three places, missing a button and hung on to my overstuffed body like a tomato’s freshly boiled skin. My weight had ballooned to its highest point and the difficulty was not in finding clothes, but rather finding clothes that fit…in a flattering way. My pants’ crotch was nearer my knees than my actual crotch and the belt had been lost in a morning’s straining to stretch the last hole one last time.

Nothing about us warranted a picture. Nothing at all.

England won, three-nil, and we both stretched and turned off the ps2. There is a tiredness that comes with being lazy. A feeling of emptiness that extends from the base of your throat to the bottom of your knees: that “I have done nothing at all today” thought that embodies itself in aching muscles, atrophying from the lack of movement. I yawned loudly, fell back on the couch and asked Joseph what he wanted to do.

I knew his answer before he even spoke.

“Let’s go to Hastings.”

Over the last three months, Joseph and I had spent every other night in that music/movies/book store, wandering the aisles, mostly hunting for porn magazines some other brave non-customer had opened before we arrived. Joseph had decided it was the only place he wanted to go, and no matter what the stated destination was for the evening’s drive, we would always find ourselves outside Hastings.

I stood up slowly, and reached for my keys. As my hand closed around them, my mind finally wrapped itself around what to use the camera for.

“You know what we should do with this camera? Make a blog. Take pictures of our trips each night, then post them up! I bet people would read that!”

Joseph was enthusiastic, at first. He was always that way: complicit during the planning of every plan, predictably absent during the application phase. He pointed out that our friends alone would make it fun, as crazy as they were “everyone would want to see pictures of what we do!”

We left the house in a blur, energized from our stupor by this new plan. Several quick calls were made to friends, urging them to join us at Hastings. “It will be fun” was the phrase of the night. Anything requiring that much encouragement at its inception should have been spotted for a quick-dying thought.

Undaunted, we flew down 10^th street, catching green lights at every intersection. I thought how strange it was at the time, almost as if some higher power was pushing us on in our quest for this picture blog. This was it. It must be. This was the idea that would add some meaning to the nights spent wishing for something to do. This was it.

Parked down the side of the store, we stormed in, armed with my camera and a thousand “funny” ideas for pictures. It seemed our phone calls were ineffective encouragement and our invitation had only been rsvped by one guest. Manny had made the trip from Mission to see what fire needed to be put out, while also checking the used cd bins for some good music.

At first, the pictures were impromptu. The shots read like the stills of a madman’s camera. Each shot was blurring and in motion, without real focus or thought. Even posed pictures lacked expertise and within minutes, the pictures went from being the passion of the moment to the annoying chore someone had to do. “You take the picture!” Wandering around the store, dolls were posed in suggestive positions, Joseph found a porno magazine to hold up for inspection, and several thumbs up shots from Manny were added to our jumbled camera’s worth of a night.

The photo blog died three minutes before exiting the store. Joseph turned and looked at me and, without saying a word, I began deleting the pictures that held so much promise moments before. Each picture that vanished from the camera was a burden removed from our backs. The spontaneity of our excursion began to return where a scripted, stilted, unnatural program had dominated our thoughts.

Driving home that night, we laughed at the stupidity of planning something like that in one evening. The camera was tossed in the back seat, unused for the rest of the evening and most of the following months. Joseph and I stared out across the road, leaving one town behind with our plans, heading towards another with nothing to do. Geniuses several hours earlier, now fools with music blaring out the windows to the South Texas night.