In Nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti
I had a dream that Lizzie and I met at a diner every day to wear wool berets and smoke fake cigarettes. We ordered black coffee for the vanity of it, then spooned secret sugar from our pockets into our mugs, because beneath the berets, we were just girls and not literary bon viveurs. During the main scene of the dream, I abandoned the charade and started swallowing mouthfuls of sugar from my pocket.
I was twelve minutes late for work on the day I had the sugar dream. I was timidly licking at a mug of black coffee to see if the dream held up when Tony called to tell me that my shift was actually from 7-1:30, not 7:30-1. When I apologized for being late, bracing for the gushing inevitability of getting fired, Tony kissed my head and said, “in nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti, you’re forgiven, Gonzo.”
The Gonzo-Daddabbo ecosystem is strong in July. At Cafe 108, Angela is the boss of Miguel, and across the street, Tony, Angela’s little brother, is the boss of Nina, Miguel’s little sister. The interwovenness makes me feel like I matter in a Rachel Berry kind of way. Being a part of something special makes you special. On the day of the sugar dream, I could see Miguel in his red Cafe shirt through the sets of windows and two lanes of traffic that split the distance between us.
For senior year, Lizzie and I wanted to design an independent study creative writing thesis class. We convinced Mr. Zencka to mentor us, and named our class something appropriately enigmatic yet self-descriptive— “studio.” In Studio, as the plan goes, I will write three screenplays and Lizzie will write a novel. Every few days Lizzie seems to remember the commitment and I’ll receive a text that says something like, “what actually am I going to do when I have to write my novel?”
If you were to pull the shelved search history from Lizzie’s phone and stretch it out like a ribbon, it would loop the Earth. You would be able to wind and tie it into an eternal braid, because she is curious and always Googling things. I am also curious, I tell myself, but I prefer to bask in confused gray-spaces while she gorges on answers and knowing.
My mom recommends books to me and Lizzie, as if to read side by side, in unison: the Secret History, Middlesex, the Member of the Wedding. We both listen to the New York Times Daily, we share our experiences of anti-capitalist reckonings, we analyze, we culturally critique… we Studio. While not literally wearing wool berets and smoking fake cigarettes, the effect is still the same. I tell my mom about the sugar dream and she says, “aren’t intellectually enriching friendships the best?”
In high school, I oscillate between being known while wanting to be a stranger, and being a stranger while wanting to be known. On a day in June, Lizzie and I sought out Mr. Zencka’s room as a place to sit and complain. We asked if we could come in, and he said, “Duh. Think of this room as your Studio away from Studio.”
When I was nine, I would sit, iPad in lap, and watch Button Poetry slams, hoping that I would make it onto Button Poetry one day. It is July and I think the seventeen-year-old parallel to that is floating through Substack to revitalize myself, or talking to Lizzie, or working for Tony, across the street from Miguel.
After my apology on the day of the sugar dream, Tony and I were watching two babies with floral headbands and a dad.
“Why are people always wrapping shit around babies’ heads? If I was a baby and I could talk, I would say, ‘could you please stop wrapping shit around my head?’”
During the rest of July, I hope for the babies and I to claim more autonomy. Maybe that’s where the mouthfuls of pocket sugar are relevant.
