Memory 1, Week 1

I used to wait for my mother to pick me up from school. I went to a magnet school in downtown Chattanooga, an expansive two stories of mottled gray and white stone, ancient with old gum and scuffmarks. The balcony hung from the library, between two blocks of building, and you had to earn the privilege, a scrawled signature from Ms. Phillips gaining you entrance to the sacred wall of untouched young adult lit. One afternoon, when I knew my mother’s white Rav4 wouldn’t be racing along the curve of road beneath the hill the school topped until at least nine or ten, I adventured with a couple friends in search of the lost tennis courts of Chattanooga High School Center for the Creative Arts. A heavy iron chain lay broken on the green fuzz where weeds broke through, flowering in the Spring heat. A couple days ago, my first week in Italy, I went with Lucas in pursuit of strange graffiti. Lost, backs wet, the stink of dark, sweet earth and uprooted red poppies rising from us, we peeked through an open door into an apartment’s courtyard. Our heads turned to each other, shaking, then nodding. Bamboo stalked one side of the courtyard, a gray stone wall separated us from a sprawling city of terra cotta on terra cotta, rooftop gardens, broken toilets, and sweet water from Roman aquaducts. A fountain rusted in the corner. A black cat paced the wall, sidling, pushing its head to our palms.