It was the Fourth of July, and the reason for getting on the roof was to see the fireworks. Well, whoever lived there must have forgotten about the taller buildings that surrounded this four story place on two sides, which turned out to be the two directions where the fireworks were being shot off. So the show itself was actually pretty anti-climatic. But there were enough sparks flying in other directions to make up for it.
I knew there was going to be trouble once we got up there. I could feel things weren't going well already that night. We all had to climb up a long ladder from the fourth floor, and as we were standing around in the hallway, Amy told me not to try carrying the pizza box up the ladder. We'd stopped on the way to get pizza, and I had brought the box with us three blocks and up four flights of stairs. The pizza man was really nice, he was working in his store with one other guy, and it was twenty minutes before the fireworks were about to start. I told him if he didn't have customers, he should take a break and go outside to watch.
He said he would go up on the roof of his store, but maybe not, he had a lot of work to do. Then he told us about how much he liked the Fourth of July, said he'd gotten up early that morning with his kids to go watch a parade. All the while he was taking our pizza out of the oven, slicing it up, and making sure we had enough napkins and plastic forks. The friends we came with had gone across the street to buy beer, so it was just me and Amy getting the pizza. She wasn't saying much, and didn't seem mad, but I guessed she might be a little annoyed. She doesn't like it when I talk to strangers. I'm only trying to be friendly, but she gets embarrassed, or thinks it's obnoxious, or something.
Like a couple of days before that, we were on the subway, and having a silent argument about something silly, when I noticed the woman sitting right next to me was reading a book I've been wanting to read. In fact, it's a book really similar to another book I was reading the day before. I'm not even going to mention which books they were exactly, it doesn't matter. Just as long as you know both of them were similar. So when she started putting her book away to get up for her stop, I said, real fast, "Hey, if you like that book, you should read this other book, it's really good, too." That's all I said. And she looked at me, smiled, and got off the train.
Now, I admit I said that partially because I knew it would piss Amy off. But part of me was only trying to be helpful. I like that saying about how there are no strangers, just friends we haven't met. Amy thinks I'm obnoxious and no better than a crazy person when I pull this type of stunt. She says if someone said something like that to her in public, she'd be appalled. I think she's making a big deal out of nothing.
She didn't even admit right then that it had pissed her off, but got this vaguely upset attitude that lasted for a while. Finally she came clean, but it wasn't until later on that night, when we were fighting about the whole day's worth of arguments. That's when she threw the talking to strangers thing back in my face. I got really upset. I think I yelled at her, and said I was getting tired of her shit. Then later I apologized and told her I didn't mean to yell, and she apologized for being so annoyed, and we both agreed we weren't going to fight any more. That lasted the whole night, and part of the next day.
Amy gets annoyed a lot. Before we left the apartment where were staying to go to the party, she got annoyed with me about my pants. They were red, white and blue, for chrissakes! How could I not wear those pants on the Fourth of July? As best as I could tell, her problem with them was that they were too tight. And I was like, yeah they're tight, but have you noticed yet that they're very patriotic? Besides, why can't I wear whatever pants I want? You don't see me telling you to change your clothes just because we're going out in public. It's little things like that.
Or when we were walking around the city earlier that same day, trying to go some place and have a good time, she got annoyed with me being thirsty. I mean, the sun was blazing down on us, the sidewalks we were walking on, the buildings around us, and the cars and the pavement surrounding us on all sides. It felt like a hundred and five degrees. Every little kid in sight was lined up at the ice cream truck, chimes playing loud as hell. Old people we passed leaning out of their windows didn't even have the energy to fan themselves, it was all they could do to grab on tight to the windowsills and try to keep from falling out right there. Of course I was hot! What's so wrong about carrying around a water bottle? Same thing with getting hungry. And maybe I am hungry a lot. I've got a high metabolism. Sometimes I think it might be a tapeworm. I'm not saying the problem's all with her, none with me. I admit to being high maintenance. But people get hungry, people gotta eat. How can you get annoyed by basic human needs?
So we're on the stairwell, and now I'm the one being told not to carry up the pizza box, embarrassed in front of our friends, plus people we've never met before. And I don't really care, not like she does. I swear, you'd think she was running for class president the way she cares what people think about her. And what they think about me, which leads to more headaches. I wasn't planning to haul the pizza box up there to begin with, because that would be dumb, I might slip and drop it and have to watch helplessly as the slices flew down the stairwell, my stomach rumbling extra hard with every flight they fell. I just shrugged, and passed the pizza box up to the guy who was at the top of the ladder by now, the guy who lived on the fourth floor and was throwing this party, and he passed the box up onto the roof.
Look, I haven't even gotten to what happened at the party yet. And I could go on and tell the whole thing. It was dramatic enough, I mean, obnoxious and silly and crazy enough so that me and Amy broke up the next day, July 5th. But I think you'd agree, after all the other stuff so far, you probably don't really want to know. Who cares. It was like any other holiday party. Everybody was happy and having fun, except for the two of us, who were squabbling like cats and dogs over petty, trivial issues. But even before the fighting stopped, me and Amy were celebrating, too, in our own way. We were declaring our independence from each other.
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