Silent Spring

Fernando always kept me company.

I’d wake, my feet would slap against the unfinished hard wood floors as I made my way into the kitchen, ready to start my day with addiction number one. They say that people who drink black coffee aren’t bullshitting themselves anymore, that they have fully accepted their caffeine addiction. It applies correctly to me, only because I think I’ve finally to come to terms with all of my ‘vices’.

Fernando would come in usually after the second cup, brushing himself against my leg as I leaned against the counter, alerting me of his presence. He was a gift from Eli two Christmases ago when we moved to Boston, explaining that he thought I’d need a friend to keep me company when he was working. Unfortunately, Fernando was much more interested in lounging on the windowsill and sleeping in his cat condo than actually being my friend, but I still loved him all the same. My long, skinny, orange haired cat was my only friend for a while there, when things really got rough.

My second vice of the day is another common one: Marlboro Lights on the fire escape. After I had taken in my caffeine, put the headaches at bay for another day, I would butter up two slices of wheat toast and begin the trek to the fire escape, Fernando sitting atop his cat condo, watching me intently. Getting to the rickety wrought iron fire escape meant standing on the couch, popping open the lock on the floor length window’s rusted frame, and somehow balancing my toast, lighter, and pack of cigarettes in my hands as I maneuvered my body out into the morning air. Even though he silently mocked me, Fernando would always come and join me once I had sat down, my legs hanging over the edge as the butter on my toast melted and sank into the porous surface of the bread. He always sat upwind of me, his tail slightly flicking back and forth, careful to not have any of my cigarette smoke blow into his face. The sun was always at its best when Fernando and I would sit on the fire escape. It was cut in half, shining over some distant office building as the morning rays brushed vibrant red and gold paint strokes across the wispy clouds.

Eli and I came to Boston thanks to Eli’s old friend Micah, who opened up Redemption Tattoo 3 months before we moved here. Eli and Micah met when they were apprenticing at the same shop, and have been ‘best mates’ ever since. When Micah offered Eli a job, we had to take it. We were both working paycheck to paycheck at shit jobs, and Eli was itching to do some more ink again. Sketching can only hold someone over for so long, he said. I didn’t mind, Boston was turning out to be a good place for us for a while there.

Sitting on this fire escape, I realized how much I changed since I had met him. It had only taken one season, one spring, but I had gone full circle, in the throes of my addictions and my destruction, only to be right back where I started, in this shitty loft apartment containing the 800 square feet to my name in this city. This time though, I had Fernando in replace of Eli, or of Oliver. I was well on my way to becoming a crazy cat lady at only 22.

All of the conflicts that had materialized that spring were my fault, and my fault completely. This story, my story, is the retelling of these events that put me here on this creaking, rusting fire escape with only my cat, my coffee, and my memories.

Ironically enough, it all started on this same fire escape, all those months ago.