Ride the White Pony

I sat on the washing machine and looked over at a slovenly Chasity, her hair cut too short and in a frazzle, her stained and oversized AT&T shirt covering her barely there cotton shorts.  Her face was dotted with red splotches from popped pimples.  She looked unwashed and uncaring.  That’s my Chasity.  Perpetually dirty and always loud.  Despite her disgusting appearance, there’s a warmth in her brown eyes that can’t be denied.  I smiled as she caught me up on her latest struggles.  The thing about Chasity is she always seems to get into trouble, yet she doesn’t ask for it.  That’s what separates her from all those drama queens that live for anarchy.  Chasity is just trying to make it through the day, all the while hurdling bad roommates, money trouble, and her own brain.  I hadn’t seen her since halfway through last quarter and I agreed to meet up with her while she did her laundry in one of the dorm’s laundry rooms.   

“So, I’m tryin’ to get outta my apartment,” she told me as she folded her boyfriend’s underpants.  “My roommates are total crack heads.  They pop ecstasy like every day.  And they’re making drugs, too.  One morning I found some mushrooms in the kitchen growing next to my peanut butter!”

She told me she had a few people interested in her room and was hoping they’d move in by the beginning of April so she and her thirty-eight year old boyfriend she met off of Match.com can get out.  The problem is she has nowhere else to go.  She said she’d stay with people until she can find a place but that bothered me.  It might not be that easy to find a place and I don’t know who’s gonna let her move in with them, especially with her creepy Columbian boyfriend in tow.  She never should have moved out of the dorms, especially considering the fact that her parents have cut her off completely.  Now she’s struggling to pay her rent and trying to find a new job.  She’s bounced from crappy job to crappy job and currently she works at a children’s shoe store where she gets to present Dora the Explorer shoes to snot-nosed kids who spit up on her and the merchandise.  She’s only been at it a month and wants out.  I don’t blame her.  I had PTSD flashbacks of my time at the JCPenney shoe department.  If she wouldn’t have moved out of the dorms, she never would have worried about paying rent and that would be a huge stress lifted from her unshowered shoulders. 

The company she keeps doesn’t exactly help her out.  First of all, the crack head couple.  It’s good that she realizes her current roommates are toxic and she needs to get out of that situation but I feel she shouldn’t have moved in with them in the first place.  They were all strangers when they moved in and that’s never a good idea.  You never know who these people actually are.  They could turn out to be, you know, druggies!  When she first moved in, she invited me to check out her place and talked about how nice her roommates were and said it was good because they were always gone to work and now she’s saying they are locked away in their rooms smoking weed all the time.  Her first roommate was a hard partying girl who, while incredibly nice, wasn’t the best influence on Chasity.  Her next roommate was Maliha, who I think we all know is a mega B-word.  And now she’s living with dope smokers.  She sure knows how to pick’em.

I really don’t like the fifteen-year difference between her and her boyfriend, either.  I honestly can’t say anything bad about him because I don’t know him so I shouldn’t talk smack but he really gives me the creeps.  I just wish she’d find someone way closer to her own age.  They’ve been going out around eight months, I think, and they’ve already mentioned marriage.  Sometimes I think Chasity stays with him because he’s just there.  He’s a guy and he’s a convenience.  She doesn’t have to try to be cute and funny anymore.  She’s already snagged him so now she can be her gross self.  And maybe she doesn’t feel like she can do any better so why bother?  I’ve mentioned several times that she and I are so much alike and if I were in her position, I’d probably feel like he was the best I could do.  But the thing is, she can do better and she deserves better. 

I’ll paraphrase a line from the Showtime series Dexter and say if I had any feelings, I’d have them for Chasity.  She’s been the only consistent presence in my years here at school.  I’ve tried to cut her out of my life before but it never took.  We’ve had our rough times but we’ve also had so many good times.  An additional difference, besides the one mentioned above, between her and the other a-holes I’ve encountered is that she’s a genuinely good person.  She doesn’t have an agenda.  She’s not trying to hurt anyone.  She’s incredibly flawed but she knows it and embraces it and tries to make the best of it.  This usually leads to conflict but it’s really hard to stay mad at her for some reason.  I think it’s ‘cause she’s so goofy.

Not all of her stories were tragedies.  It hasn’t been all bad recollections of being broke and having her roommates’ dog eating all of her shoes.  She told me about how she still talks to her former boss, a very petite and very southern lady whose voice resembles a long stretch of dry road.  Her name is Debbie and I had the privilege of meeting her one day while I was visiting Chasity at her old job.  I was bored and trying on sunglasses in the shop and Debbie came up to me after I tried on a particular pair of Elton-esque glasses and said, “Oooh yes, Ceewl Daaddy!”  She was awesome in my book after that.

So, Chasity was relaying a conversation they both had about Debbie’s sex life.  Chasity does a great impression of her, by the way!  Now imagine this tiny conservative looking white lady with an incredibly slow southern drawl saying this!  It went a little something like, “Oh yeah, my boyfriend had a case of the whiskey dick so we had to wait until the morning to ride the white pony.”  Haha!  What?  I had never heard of “whiskey dick” before but apparently it’s when a guy has had too much to drink and it inhibits his ability to have an erection.  And I thought “riding the white pony” was some type of drug reference, such as cocaine or something.  Apparently it just means good ol’ sex.  But upon further inspection, dictionary.com says it is in fact about drugs.  Perhaps the expression is interchangeable or maybe she just misused it. 

In the middle of the laundry, Chasity decided to leave all her clothes in the laundry room so we could go out to eat.  I asked her if she was concerned someone might come along and take her panties but she shot me a look and it dawned on me that no one wants her beat up, stained and soiled old clothes (and that’s even after they’ve been washed).  Even pervs would be scared of her skivvies.  We went to a sushi place and I had the sweet potato rolls which were amazing!  The veggie options were pretty slim but fortunately the waitress was a vegetarian as well so she recommended those for me and I’m glad she did.  Now I have a go to food next time I go there.

We talked more and basically caught up.  It was just a nice time to hang out with her.  She always puts me at ease and I feel like I can be more of myself when I’m with her than any of the other people here.  It was a nice change of pace to just relax and have a fun, light-hearted conversation with someone.  With all that being said, I don’t know if we’ll keep in contact after graduation.  She’s going to graduate school in Italy and she’ll probably still be involved with her boyfriend so she might be a little busy and if that’s the case, I don’t really mind.  I’ve come to terms with the fact that no friendship ever lasts.  So, I just enjoy our times together while they last.