Leaving Poughkeepsie

Leaving Poughkeepsie

It’s the summer of 1985, between my first and second year of college, and I’m heading to Newark to catch a flight back to San Diego. It's morning, and I'm on the Hudson Line with all the other upstate commuters heading into the city for work. I’m writing an essay about The Odyssey where I argue one’s core identity is defined by one’s travels.

The sky swirls around the sun like the Andromeda galaxy. I stare at the clouds and feel like a speck of dust.

On my lap, I peel back the parchment wrap of my sourdough, egg, and cheddar cheese sandwich. The nice thing about sourdough is it doesn't mold as easily as whole wheat. In a folded napkin, I have two pieces of microwaved bacon. They're crispy and overly chewy. Bacon chunks get caught between my molars.

My mind is stuck on an old Steely Dan song about California falling into the sea. "That'll be the day I go back to Annandale," is the next line. I'm finally leaving Poughkeepsie -- another New York college town -- and I may never return.

Charissa and I had a fight, a fight of many fights, a fight in the ongoing back-and-forth that outlines our deteriorating, long-distance, high school carryover romance. A fight about our future, a fight about what I'm doing with my life, and, of course, a fight about sex. It’s a fight so familiar to me that it’s cliché.

I'm leaving Poughkeepsie because I can finally afford to.

Charissa is enrolled at Vassar College, and that became my destination mid-summer when I blew my part-time job washing dishes at Tivoli Gardens in stifling Solvang, California. Then, I squandered my sorry savings on a one-way flight to La Guardia. From there, I took an Airporter Bus to Grand Central Station and bought a ticket on the Hudson Line for Poughkeepsie.

Charissa was entering her sophomore year. Her classes began in August, and mine didn’t start until late September, so I had a month’s time to travel. Charissa was staying in an all- women's dormitory called "Strong." I believe it was named after a family of Strongs. Charissa asked me to visit her, but after I appeared at her doorstep unannounced, it took the equivalent of a Camp David Accord for her to agree to let me stay with her.

Charissa had a single room. There were no roommates to placate. Her neighbors were understanding of me, and they kept my presence on the down-low so the building staff wouldn’t find out. This went on for 3 weeks.

I was still a virgin. With Charissa's father being a baby doctor, I understood her reluctance to risk getting pregnant. Yet, it was on this trip that after 4 years of dating, Charissa assented to going all the way with me, provided I had protection. It was just before midnight when she told me.

My heart was racing, because I knew I didn’t have protection. Why would I? I put on warm clothing, a jacket, socks and shoes and ran out into the cold night. I spent an hour walking through downtown Poughkeepsie looking for an open store, but they were closed for the night. Charissa was more than disappointed, she was disgusted.

The next morning, I filled her in on my financial situation. "What do you mean you don't have enough money to fly back?" she asked me, aghast. I figured she would be able to help me out with the return flight to San Diego. She claimed poverty.

"You need to get a temporary job and earn enough money to pay your way home," she said. I couldn’t believe it. She asked me to visit her.

Cue fight scene.

I say "fight," but it was never physical. More like an ongoing argument. They say that when couples fight, it's about what’s unsaid — unresolved issues with oneself or one’s parents. Think of them as “home movies,” which we retrieve from our imaginary duffel bags and replay for others to see. Put simply, Charissa’s home movie was about control, mine was about freedom.

What came of it all? I found a temporary job delivering school lunches for the Poughkeepsie School District in a step-van under the watchful tutelage of a forty-something, balding man with a comb-over and paunch who went by "Louie."

Louie drove the step-van into the back parking lot of school cafeterias and had me wheel in crates of prepared lunches for the kids. Louie introduced me in his upstate New York accent, "This is my friend. He's from California.” Then, he said to me, “Say something in Californian." Apparently, I was the one with an accent.

After two weeks working for Louie, I had enough cash to buy a one-way ticket back to San Diego on People’s Express.

That, in a nutshell, is how I ended up on the Hudson Line back to New York City. That was the last time I saw Charissa.