Friday November 20, 2009

Track #1: “The Guest” and the Perils of Expectations

In the early fall of 2000, right before I moved to New York, I took a trip to San Francisco. I didn’t know I was moving when I made the arrangements, and I was happy the job I’d lucked into in New York didn’t start until October so I could keep my plans. I took the train the whole way—the City of New Orleans from Memphis to Chicago, then the California Zephyr from there to San Francisco. The trip took two days—48 hours spent loitering in the smoking car, watching plains and mountains roll by, and listening to my fellow passengers talk about life and death and cancer. It was wonderful.

I spent two weeks in San Francisco with my friends Dylan and Jennifer, and this was even better. We laughed and listened to records. We ate at El Farolito almost daily. Dylan and I went to a Giants game and drove down the PCH to L.A. It was probably the best vacation I ever had (although since I was unemployed, it was more of a vacation within a vacation), and I couldn’t wait to do it again.

A few years later, I did. I didn’t take the train, but I went to visit Dylan and Jennifer for a week. Anyone with experience being human can guess how a trip loaded with such expectations turned out. It was not the same. Not because of my hosts (I can’t stress this enough), but because of me. I was depressed. I slept all day while my friends were at work, and the damp Northern California chill sunk into my bones and my mood. In short, I am the guest in “The Guest”—the first story in Cassingle—who arrives and then never again emerges from the spare room. The apartment in the story is Dylan and Jennifer’s apartment, overlooking the Mission (they have since moved to Portland)—although the rest of the details are altered.

The story is depressing, I suppose, although I also think it’s funny. Since it appeared, I’ve come to appreciate how it’s really about a couple re-connecting, the angle my editor at Fence, Jamie Schwartz, helped me find and hone. All the couples I have ever hung out with figured into this story, and there have been many. I was single for a long time before Alexandra and I met, and for most of those years I relied on the kindness of couples to keep me occupied. (Alexandra did too. We joke about the couples we used to “date” before we met.) This story, in my mind, has become a tribute to them. They know who they are, but thanks, in order of appearance, to Pat and Chris, Chris and Charlotte, Dylan and Jennifer, and Deke and Susan. I’m glad your spare rooms were alway open.

Next week: How the greatest perk ever became “The Arab Bank,” Cassingle’s final track. Download Cassingle, which includes “The Guest” and four other stories, as a free e-book or pdf.