I'll always think of it with fond memories. The dawn of the internet, with the dialing tones and tied up phone lines; Chuck pissing on the crowd at the American Legion Hall, effectively shutting down youthful live music at the venue; the blossoming of my first love. Aphex Twin, and the experience of trapping a time period--smells, words, clothes, eyes--within a song that's never long enough. Staying up later than my parents ever dreamed of at my age, with nothing but a friend to talk to, before I was interested in things like booze or drugs.
All the stuff of my adolescence was contained in the bubble of Denham Springs: a place whose only purpose seemed to be raising children. Our teenage birthrate let me in on that little secret--my graduating class had lots of young mothers, some with children three years old by the time they were 18. It never seemed odd until I got to college, where I met no mothers under the age of 28. I hate to discredit my intelligence, but I didn't put together the reason until several years later--silly me--high school mothers more often than not, don't go to college. They stay in Denham Springs to raise their children, in the same broken (or breaking) homes their parents raised them in.
I don't often go through the city of Denham Springs when I visit my family. I prefer the back roads, away from traffic and all my old stomping grounds. My current friends seem to be in similar ways about where they grew up, because, well I suppose we're growing up. Suddenly, whether we dropped out or got degrees, we shifted into adults almost imperceptibly. The few times I've realized the change have been when I'm encountered by someone who hasn't made the shift, and even though I thought like they do as few as two years ago, I find myself shaking my head and not going to 80s night.
The back roads are comforting in their recent familiarity, i.e. driving home drunk from LSU every other night three years ago. I didn't really live with my parents, I only slept there sometimes. I lived in my car, if you're counting by total time spent in a single place. That's where my clothes were, and my razors and my perfume. Most of my belongings.
And when I came home, it would be so dark that I couldn't see the floor-to-ceiling collage of pictures I'd put on my wall in high school. I wanted to forget about the people in them, and the things we'd done in our crappy little town. Why? I don't know why. We weren't lame. We were pretty well liked. We actually were rather close. Then we all went our separate ways, and no one really talked anymore. I'm not mad that they didn't keep in touch, because I didn't either.
The reason I wanted to forget, I think, is because at some point, I began to associate Denham Springs with being trapped.
And I just balled it all together--all the people I'd met there, all the things we'd done, all the signs we'd stolen, and every memory I'd ever made there--and threw it out the car window on my way to Baton Rouge. I did that every day, for years.
When I drove through Denham Springs today for Christmas, I took River Road, which runs through the main part of town. I passed the place where I crashed my first car, which was next to the house where I crawled through my first window, the first time I ever snuck out of my house. It was overwhelming, and warm, like apple cider.
After Christmas at my parents' house, I left around dusk. I decided to go through the city again--I wanted that warm, encompassing feeling that River Road had given me earlier, in the bright light of morning, but I found nothing of the sort.
The sunset would have been beautiful anywhere else, but in Denham Springs, the shadows enveloped every crevasse and alley I'd ever had fun in. Everything I saw had memories attached, but they were dying without the sun; lichens grew on the bricks I had climbed on, a slow slime that prevented any other adventurous teenager from retracing my steps. The streetlights seemed to burn out as I passed, and I had the distinct sensation that I was not welcome. I sped up to reach the interstate in the same car that had driven me to high school. The axles groaned; a car that's been driven by a child can only take the weight of so many memories.
Denham Springs spat me out tonight. And from now on, it probably always will. It is a place for children and parents. I guess I finally don't qualify.
I eased up when I got on I-12, my muscles loosened and I stopped death-gripping the steering wheel. I turned the radio up and lit up a cigarette, watching my single working headlight catch pieces of decaying trash littering the shoulder, all the way to Baton Rouge.
