The little apartment on the second floor of one of the many old Victorian homes on Chestnut Street is almost entirely empty. Billed as a two bedroom place by Joe, an acquaintance of an acquaintance whose last name will always be a mystery, it appears to have been designed by someone who never lived indoors. Up a narrow flight of stairs hostile to most furniture and many bodies, the front door creaks into a windowless, square room. Two doors are ahead, one locked with a padlock, the other leading
to the bathroom; the former soon incentivizes me to stop reading gruesome mysteries after 2 p.m., the latter’s crime is an overenthusiastic hot water knob. The kitchen slants to the far left, heavily inspired by naval submarine kitchens, with a cavernous repurposed dumbwaiter as sole cupboard space. A bag of oatmeal perches at its edge, a singular bowl rests in the sink. Two identical rooms jut out from the entry room, each with large windows, drafty floorboards and prominently positioned below the neighborhood squirrels’ Grand Prix track. In one of these side rooms is a full-size air mattress, heaped with blankets. Clothing peeks out of the closet, but otherwise the room is barren.
It’s January in upstate New York and I’m fighting tooth and nail to exist beyond my job. The once-magical snow is graying, half my paycheck has gone to snowtires, and I am alone in a way that makes me feel like I’m floating out of my body and into the ice cold ether. One Saturday morning, many, many days after moving in, I bodily shake off a layer of this fugue and drive out to a massive barn on the side of the road that overflows with antiques of inconsistent repute.
The table beckons me from under a pile of 90s Pyrex. It’s a rich dark mahogany (or maybe walnut? I’m not an arborist), with ornate corner swirls sliding down into gentle curved legs. Two leaves lean against it and, after removing many casserole dishes, I discover it is brilliantly engineered with a top that folds in two to be a perfect desk size and can also be pulled apart to comfortably seat eight. The price tag features many numbers and corresponding slash lines, and a sticker denoting an additional 50% off. I pay $45 and wrangle it into the car.
At home, I lug it carefully, painfully, up the stairs and position it in the main room. There may be nothing else, no chairs, nor bodies to fill them, but I have acquired an object upon which I can place other objects. It is beautiful, and I am trying.
In the cross country move a few years later, earthly possessions paired down to only what could fit in the rented Dodge Caravan, I cushioned it carefully with winter jackets and other bulky clothing. My family moved a lot when I was young. I’ve moved a lot as an adult. It is not in my nature to be attached to physical objects, but by this time the table has long since transcended its status as a mere inanimate object.
In Green Lake it became a dining table, facilitating a small handful of meals but serving admirably as a depository for junk mail, hats, spare change and other detritus of four 20-something lives. During a tough stretch, it was increasingly expensive storage unit decor. As I write this now, the table sits awkwardly, in its smallest iteration, abutting the record table. It is the fourth table in an 850 square foot home. There is no real purpose for it; all the other tables fit their respective spaces and uses far better, its carefully carved legs at odds with the interior design of the rest of the house. Someday, maybe, I’ll live somewhere where it will fit better, but for now, I love it, and that’s enough for it to remain.
This is a(n imperfect) metaphor. Rhylan Thomas is the table.
