Three Pink Balloons
Chaos in the rental car agency. Phones ringing off the hook, computers down. In the corner, three pink balloons deflate slowly, indicating a celebration that took place several days ago. A birthday party, maybe?
Sitting cross legged near the window, I watch a torrential downpour roll through town. Eventually, I get the keys to the car and drive to the Berkshires where two friends and I drink a case of White Claw and I cry about something that happened earlier that year.
Along the Taconic Parkway the next day, three pink balloons reappear and dance over the northbound lane. Traveling seventy miles to teach me some sort of lesson, awfully bold, no? Jesus Christ, I’m exhausting myself.
I pull into Cumbies for a cup of coffee. The air smells cold, full of bleach. A customer tells the cashier that she called her son Michael Jackson for the first six months of his life because she couldn’t think of another name.
The cashier was laughing hysterically while my hot coffee cup burnt my hand and I thought maybe the balloons were for her son, celebrating the retirement of Michael Jackson for something more age appropriate like Kinsley or Kai or maybe even something a little more retro like Kyle or Kurt.
I spent the next couple of weeks watching the garbage trucks go by from my living room window. Maybe I could get used to this, I thought, the slow life. As I sit here watching spring give way to summer, I don’t see the balloons once until I’m at my Aunt’s beach house listening to her friend tell a story about getting into a ski accident with Sister Magdalene, a nun from her high school. Off into the distance towards the ocean I saw them again, three pink balloons making their way towards the setting sun, while I ask – wait Nuns know how to ski?
We talked about my Dad’s motorcycle accident, years before I was born. His teeth obliterated against the concrete. He has veneers because of it and, as my Mom recounted this story to me as a kid she told me he died in that crash. For a full thirty seconds, I thought I was a ghost. But really, I had just watched The Sixth Sense the night before.
Late August came eventually and a man in a wolf costume rode by me on a bike, blasting Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go by Wham, holding a set of three pink balloons off to a celebration in the park nearby. My friend screamed out of fear. As our laughter subsided and the wolf man went away, I got really serious and we started talking about how much we don’t know about.
Like what does it feel like to live on the West Coast, what with everything being on East Coast time? Like, the Oscars Red Carpet airing at 2 PM in Oregon? Or why can’t we stop deer from getting hit by cars? Can you imagine what it’s like to have to step over a dead deer’s body while on your way to school? One second you’re psyching yourself up for another day and the next second you’re staring at innards. I can’t believe we allow children to face that sort of thing.
The next night I walked hand and hand through Park Slope, a guy biked past playing a song I loved as a teenager. I relay this memory to my companion, who replies with a blank stare, heads into a deli and purchases a set of three pink balloons. He releases them into the sky, kisses me on the lips, and boards a bus, never to be seen again.
By the time August came to a close, Target was full of students preparing to go off to college. I wandered through the aisles aimlessly, looking at the merchandise for something I may have forgotten I needed. I watched the college students squirm at the questions their parents were asking them and I wanted to cry but I couldn’t because I take antidepressants. I missed crying but if I stopped taking my medication I might want to become a therapist again and I couldn’t have that happen.
Waiting for the train in early September, a man holds three pink balloons in his hand while he tells his daughter that she is his destiny. That kind of parent, I could be. But I don’t know if I want to bear witness to someone else dealing with the pain of growing up and to be that kind of parent, not only do I need to witness it, I need to feel it too.
One time, a decade prior, my friends left me at the train station after we got drunk at a Mexican restaurant in the City. It was the last day of summer vacation and even though I did not have a ride home, I told them I did. As I watched them pull away, I found a curb to sit, waiting for a taxi to appear. By the time I got home hours later I sobered up so I drove to White Castle and ate sliders in my car listening to local access radio. Just above the floodlights illuminating the White Castle parking lot, for the first time I saw them. Three pink balloons carried away in the nighttime breeze