{"id":7546,"date":"2017-05-03T14:56:45","date_gmt":"2017-05-03T20:56:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/?page_id=7546"},"modified":"2017-05-03T14:56:45","modified_gmt":"2017-05-03T20:56:45","slug":"the-silverware-club","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/?page_id=7546","title":{"rendered":"The Silverware Club"},"content":{"rendered":"

Carly Brown<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u2018Why aren\u2019t you a spoon?\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018Excuse me?\u2019 I asked.<\/p>\n

He gestured to my striped t-shirt, my jeans.<\/p>\n

\u2018You\u2019re not a spoon,\u2019 he said.<\/p>\n

There was a cardboard oval behind his head. The oval was spray-painted silver and held in place with an elastic band that stretched across his forehead. It made him look oddly like an angel or a saint. His entire outfit was silver too: silver button-up shirt, silver bowtie and shoes.<\/p>\n

\u2018No,\u2019 I said. \u2018I\u2019m not a spoon.\u2019<\/p>\n

Everybody else in the room was similarly dressed, with huge ovals behind their heads. One girl had an oval made of what looked like tin foil. A guy near me playing the piano wore a white plastic one.<\/p>\n

\u2018You made it!\u2019 Someone behind me called.<\/p>\n

I turned. There was Jay. The guy I had met yesterday at a bar and the only person I knew at the party. He was taller than I remembered, sporting a wooden oval. It looked heavy. I wondered if it was an old toilet lid.<\/p>\n

\u2018Welcome, welcome,\u2019 he said, gesturing to the leather couches, the shining hardwood floors. There was a single spindly plant in the corner. A glass table with clear bottles of vodka and gin. It looked more like the waiting room of an expensive office than somebody\u2019s actual house. Did Jay really live here?<\/p>\n

He hugged me and my head fell just below the wooden oval. When we pulled away, he smiled at me like we had known each other for years and this was the moment of our glorious reunion. It was one of the warmest smiles I\u2019d ever seen. I remembered it from the bar and felt a little better.<\/p>\n

But it was one of those smiles that was so <\/em>wide, so welcoming, it made you question for a moment if it was fake. Like when you run the bathwater really hot, then you place your hand under it and, for a second, it feels cold.<\/p>\n

\u2018Nice place,\u2019 I said, unsure of where to start with my questions.<\/p>\n

\u2018Is your costume in your bag?\u2019 he asked, gesturing to my beat-up brown backpack.<\/p>\n

\u2018I didn\u2019t know about … this,\u2019 I said.<\/p>\n

Jay stepped back, grimacing. He ran his fingers through his hair. He had a swoop of thick brown hair like a Kennedy. I liked it. It was one of the first things I noticed when we\u2019d met yesterday.<\/p>\n

\u2018It was on the Facebook event,\u2019 he said.<\/p>\n

\u2018We\u2019re not friends on Facebook.\u2019<\/p>\n

He paused. \u2018And I didn\u2019t mention it when I invited you?\u2019<\/p>\n

I shook my head.<\/p>\n

He was exuberantly drunk when I\u2019d met him and he\u2019d told me a lot of things. I wasn\u2019t sure if he had been flirting with me or if he was just a friendly, open book kind of guy. He had told me how he was about to start law school but he wanted to be an artist (he didn\u2019t say what kind), how he had a pet gecko called Franz Kafka, how he bulk ordered coffee from Sweden because the Swedes knew how to properly roast coffee.<\/p>\n

But he hadn\u2019t mentioned that this was a costume party.<\/p>\n

And everybody was meant to dress as a spoon.<\/p>\n

\u2018That\u2019s my bad,\u2019 he said, shaking his head. The wooden oval tilted in the air. \u2018It was pretty last minute anyway.\u2019<\/p>\n

When he had invited me to a party, I figured: Why not? What\u2019s the worst thing that could happen? If it\u2019s boring, I stay for one beer and then I leave.<\/p>\n

The chance to make some friends in Cambridge was too appealing to turn down. And he was nice. A little wacky, sure, but nice.<\/p>\n

I hadn\u2019t expected — whatever this was.<\/p>\n

\u2018I\u2019m sorry,\u2019 he said, slapping me on the back. \u2018I feel like an idiot.\u2019<\/p>\n

I looked at the wooden circle attached to his head and his pinstripe suit.<\/p>\n

\u2018Yeah,\u2019 I said, quietly.<\/p>\n

\u2018Well, as you can see, tonight we\u2019re all spoons. I\u2019m a wooden spoon,\u2019 he said.<\/p>\n

\u2018I figured.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018But we\u2019ve got silver spoons, plastic spoons. It was actually Peter\u2019s idea. Peter!\u2019 He gestured to the all-silver man who had accosted me earlier.<\/p>\n

\u2018Peter, I\u2019d like to introduce you to …\u2019 Jay paused, trying to remember my name. He knocked a fist against his forehead and the oval teetered a little. \u2018It\u2019s right on the tip of my tongue.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018Emily,\u2019 I said.<\/p>\n

\u2018Of course. Emily,\u2019 said Jay. \u2018And Emily is from …\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018Michigan,\u2019 I supplied.<\/p>\n

\u2018Michigan!\u2019 he snapped his fingers. \u2018Of course, of course. We met at the bar last week.\u2019<\/p>\n

Last night. <\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018Well, if you\u2019ll excuse me for a just a sec,\u2019 said Jay, flashing that same smile. \u2018Sam is mixing the cocktails and I have to make sure that she doesn\u2019t try to dump twice the amount of gin into them.\u2019<\/p>\n

He smiled at Peter and patted him on the shoulder. Peter grinned to himself. I looked down at my tennis shoes, which stood out bright white against the hardwood floor. When I looked back up, Peter was examining me, still evidently displeased that I wasn\u2019t dressed as a piece of cutlery. That I hadn\u2019t managed to transform myself into a spoon in the last minute or so.<\/p>\n

\u2018I didn\u2019t know about the theme,\u2019 I said, taking off my backpack and sticking it near a leather armchair.<\/p>\n

He sipped his martini. \u2018It\u2019s not a theme,\u2019 he said.<\/p>\n

\u2018Excuse me?\u2019<\/p>\n

An awkward silence followed. It seemed like he hadn\u2019t heard my question. Piano notes punctured the air between us. The music was slow, jazzy.<\/p>\n

\u2018Isn\u2019t that thing uncomfortable?\u2019 I asked, breaking the silence, gesturing to the headband that his silver oval was attached to.<\/p>\n

\u2018Yes,\u2019 said Peter.<\/p>\n

I looked around desperately for someone else, anyone else, to talk to.<\/p>\n

Ordinarily, if I showed up to a party dressed how I was, I would be the most unnoticeable person in the room. But here, I stood out. If we were actually utensils in a drawer, I would be the cheese grater. It was strange, but I almost wished for a stupid oval to stick behind my head, just so people would stop casting sidelong glances at me, pursing their lips in judgment that I didn\u2019t adhere to the party theme.<\/p>\n

It isn\u2019t my fault. I didn\u2019t know!<\/em> I wanted to shout. And if I had, I wouldn\u2019t have come to this damn party in the first place.<\/em><\/p>\n

Maybe it wasn\u2019t too late to bail. Jay could barely remember my name so it seemed unlikely he would miss me if I just walked right back out the door. Peter would probably be pleased.<\/p>\n

\u2018Well, I just remembered that I actually have to –\u2019 I started to say, but then I heard the clinking of silver on glass. I looked over at the drink area, where Jay was standing and holding aloft a martini with a fat olive floating in it.<\/p>\n

\u2018Can I have your attention, please. We\u2019re going to start the games shortly, but in the meantime, please grab a drink and form a circle.\u2019<\/p>\n

They all started tittering with excitement, grabbing more of the elegant martinis that were laid out on the edge of the table. One guy knocked the top his cardboard oval against the doorframe as he came in from another room. He had to duck to come in. I felt like laughing, but everyone else was taking it all so seriously, it didn\u2019t seem appropriate.<\/p>\n

Jay handed me a martini and indicated for me to sit down. I held its thin stem and looked down at the olive that had sunk to the bottom. It was too late to bail now. If anything, this would be a weird story to recount later to my friends back home. You wouldn\u2019t believe what kind of stuff they get up to on the East Coast . . .<\/p>\n

I sat down in the armchair. The leather was firm and didn\u2019t seem to bend at all under my weight. There were about eight of us in total. Everyone kept looking over at me, then whispering to one another and giggling.<\/p>\n

\u2018Welcome to the Annual General Meeting of the Silverware Club. Thank you for travelling here from your various destinations. I am Wooden Spoon. I will be in charge of this meeting for today. First on the agenda, introductions.\u2019<\/p>\n

He gestured to the girl next to him who was dressed in all silver like Peter. A silver strapless dress and silvery eye shadow. She was hot in the way that 1960\u2019s film stars are hot: languid, dewy-eyed and a little absent.<\/p>\n

\u2018What spoon are you?\u2019 Jay asked.<\/p>\n

She pulled up her silvery gloves that stood out against her tan skin. \u2018I\u2019m a silver tea spoon,\u2019 she said. \u2018I\u2019m used primarily to stir the coffee of a very wealthy woman who lives on the Upper West Side in Manhattan. I only get used once a day and then I\u2019m immediately washed, by somebody else.\u2019<\/p>\n

The others nodded and we began going around the circle, everyone inventing a story to go alongside their spoon outfits. No hesitation. No laughter. One girl dressed in green said that she was the plastic spoon that was part of a child\u2019s tea set and that she was used to stir imaginary tea. The guy who was playing the piano earlier was a plastic spoon that a family kept in a crowded bottom drawer, alongside the spare light bulbs and underused tablecloths, and only brought out for picnics in the summer. He was used to spoon egg salad onto bread.<\/p>\n

I guzzled my cocktail like it was water until, eventually, it was my turn.<\/p>\n

\u2018Hi there,\u2019 I said, waving awkwardly. \u2018Sorry I\u2019m not a …\u2019 I trailed off. The whole room stared at me. Some looked a little sad for me, others amused. Some seemed too preoccupied with their own costumes to care. Peter grinned at Jay.<\/p>\n

\u2018I can tell you a little bit about myself though. My, actual self,\u2019 I said. \u2018I\u2019m 22. I graduated from college last year. Computer programming. I just moved here from Michigan to start a job –\u2019<\/p>\n

Jay held up a hand and gave me that smile again. \u2018It\u2019s okay. You don\u2019t need to tell us about that. Just tell us, what kind of spoon would you be?\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018What kind of spoon?\u2019 I repeated.<\/p>\n

He nodded, smiling encouragingly.<\/p>\n

I tried to think of all the spoons that I\u2019d seen in my life. The thing is: spoons are not the type of thing I\u2019d ever really noticed. My mom had spoons in her kitchen drawer with dark blue, plastic handles, I remembered those. I once went to an antique store with my ex-boyfriend back in Michigan and we saw spoons lined up on a silver tray with pictures of a forest carved into them. Woods and creeks, all in miniature, scraped into the silver. They were dusty and we got dust on the pads of our fingers when we touched them.<\/p>\n

A few days ago, as I sat alone in a caf\u00e9, I had stirred my iced tea with a long, thin spoon. I watched some people outside playing a pick up game of soccer in a park, calling out to one another and kicking up dirt as they ran. I\u2019d played soccer for years back home and as the ball rolled towards the caf\u00e9, I had the urge to rush outside and kick it hard. To feel that knock of pressure as the ball hits your foot and the burn in your lungs as you run through grass. I liked the camaraderie of it, too. How we all huddled around the cooler after games, sweaty, exhausted, drinking blue Gatorade from paper cups and dissecting what we did right and wrong.<\/p>\n

As I watched their game, I knocked my iced-tea spoon against the ice chunks and when I pulled it out the body was freezing. You don\u2019t use iced-tea spoons very often. It\u2019s the type of spoon you would only really need one of.<\/p>\n

But I didn\u2019t identify with any of these spoons. I didn\u2019t identify with any type of spoon at all.<\/p>\n

\u2018I don\u2019t know,\u2019 I said. Peter smiled smugly.<\/p>\n

\u2018Because you\u2019re not a spoon,\u2019 he muttered.<\/p>\n

\u2018No,\u2019 I said loudly. \u2018I\u2019m not a spoon.\u2019<\/p>\n

The others stared at me with pitying looks and I almost wished I had an oval strapped to my head. I wished that I wasn\u2019t the only one who didn\u2019t have a costume, who didn\u2019t have a story. I wished, most of all, that I hadn\u2019t been so excited for this goddamn party. At the prospect of making more friends in the city. People that I could meet for a cold beer after work. Who would find the Midwest things that I said charming, like \u2018pop\u2019 instead of \u2018soda\u2019. Who would come over to my apartment so the space wouldn\u2019t feel so blank.<\/p>\n

\u2018It\u2019s just going to be a little gathering with some close friends,\u2019 Jay had said at the bar, buying another round of cider and cheers-ing with me. The cold liquid sloshing on to our fingers. \u2018Why don\u2019t you come by? It would be great to have you.\u2019 When he had invited me, I felt flattered, chosen.<\/p>\n

Now I stared at the group of spoons. \u2018I\u2019m not sure I understand what we\u2019re doing.\u2019 I looked over helplessly at Jay. There was pity in his eyes. I wished that he was annoyed with me. Pity was worse. Pity made me feel naked and helpless, all those eyes staring at me, faces made larger by the ovals of plastic and wood behind them, expressions amplified. I felt dizzy. When I stared down at the polished floorboards, not looking at anyone straight on, it seemed like their faces were flat. Flat, smooth and spoonlike.<\/p>\n

I felt flabby, three-dimensional. As if my nose and forehead jutted out into the center of the room and my face was all waxy, fleshy. My cheeks burned. This cocktail was really starting to go to my head.<\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t want it to be my turn anymore, so I just said something, anything, to get them to stop looking at me.<\/p>\n

\u2018I\u2019m a spoon you eat breakfast cereal with. A silver spoon with a blue plastic handle and I belong to a little girl who lives in Michigan and who eats Coco Pops with me every day while her mom listens to local news on the radio. I sit on a red and white checkered table cloth.\u2019<\/p>\n

The group smiled. Jay beamed with pride and raised his martini glass to me and took a sip. My body began to cool down. Peter was grinning at me, looking pleased with himself. Then I saw him take out a black moleskin notebook and begin to write something. He looked up at me periodically, then down at the paper again. It was almost like he was trying to sketch a portrait of me.<\/p>\n

People shared a few more stories and then we all stood up again for a break. I moved to the window. There was a little balcony and I stepped out onto it, looking down at the street below.<\/p>\n

Jay came and stood next to me. The air suddenly felt warmer, boozier and he leaned down and patted my shoulders.<\/p>\n

\u2018Sorry about all this. I wasn\u2019t very nice,\u2019 he said.<\/p>\n

\u2018It\u2019s okay,\u2019 I said, looking out at the house opposite. They were having some sort of dinner party. Candles twisted at the center of the table. All of it framed in red curtains like they were actors in a play. Like, if you got close, all of the fruit would really be made of wax.<\/p>\n

\u2018I really am sorry,\u2019 he said, slumping against the railing.<\/p>\n

\u2018It\u2019s alright. You forgot to tell me. It happens. I think I might head off now though –\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018I didn\u2019t forget,\u2019 murmured Jay and at first I thought I didn\u2019t hear him properly. He wiped his mouth and looked down at me. Again, those watery, pitying eyes.<\/p>\n

\u2018What do you mean?\u2019 I asked.<\/p>\n

He leaned towards me, like we were co-conspirators. I felt my cheeks burn a little as our faces got closer. \u2018It\u2019s kind of funny really. Peter told me that I should invite one person to the party who didn\u2019t know what it was going to be and then we\u2019d see how they reacted. To see how far you\u2019d go along with it. I\u2019d be like . . . performance art, you know? He\u2019s writing about it for his blog.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018Performance art?\u2019 I repeated. I wasn\u2019t entirely sure what that meant, but I hadn\u2019t come to see some sort of art. I had come to meet people.<\/p>\n

And it seemed they had all lied to me.<\/p>\n

\u2018All that stuff about forgetting to tell me?\u2019 I asked.<\/p>\n

He just smiled weakly at me and waited, as if he expected me to smile back. As if he was waiting for me to let him off the hook, waiting for me to say, \u2018Oh Jay, it\u2019s okay. You lured a complete stranger here under false pretenses so that you could make a fool out of them for some sort of fucked up art thing.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018This is messed up!\u2019 I gestured indiscriminately to the whole city street. I thought of the girl who had walked up the street earlier that evening, nervously ringing the doorbell, adjusting her shirt, hoping that she\u2019d make a new friend, or at least acquaintance, tonight. I felt sorry for that girl.<\/p>\n

Jay\u2019s expression darkened. His head was sagging onto his chest, like his neck could no longer hold it up. \u2018Seemed like a fun idea at the time. We were going to tell you the truth, eventually.\u2019<\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t say anything else, but just walked off the patio, crashed through two spoons who were talking and sent some gin and tonic splashing to the floorboards. I grabbed my backpack and hoisted it on. The music stopped abruptly, but maybe I was imagining that.<\/p>\n

I walked straight downstairs and out the front door, back into the night air.<\/p>\n

A fucking spoon. I told them that I was a spoon that a girl used to eat cereal.<\/p>\n

There were no sounds as I walked down the street towards the subway station. No cars, no wind, and the quiet seemed to stretch out forever on all sides. Row after row of houses where people didn\u2019t know me. And I didn\u2019t know them.<\/p>\n

I knew everyone on my block back home, but nobody inside these houses would recognize my face if they peered out the window. They wouldn\u2019t know that I\u2019d fallen out of a tree when I was five and broken my knee. That I still had a white, comma-shaped scar on my kneecap. Nobody knew that. To them, I was just a narrow shape running through the autumn dark.<\/p>\n

My lungs were burning by the time I got to the subway station. I gripped the cold metal railing outside the subway entrance, trying to catch my breath. I glanced over at the empty park nearby, where I\u2019d seen people playing soccer a few days ago. Even in the dark, the open field looked inviting. I remembered the shouts of the players, red faced, hair flying, high-fiving each other as someone kicked the ball through the gap between two trees.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Originally from Austin, Texas, CARLY BROWN<\/strong> is a writer, performer and PhD student based in Scotland. She is the author of a children\u2019s picture book, I Love St Andrews<\/em>, and a poetry chapbook, Grown Up Poetry Needs to Leave Me Alone<\/em>. In 2013, she was Scotland\u2019s National Champion of Slam Poetry and 4th at the World Series of Slam Poetry in Paris. Her website is: carlyjbrown.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Carly Brown     \u2018Why aren\u2019t you a spoon?\u2019 \u2018Excuse me?\u2019 I asked. He gestured to my striped t-shirt, my jeans. \u2018You\u2019re not a spoon,\u2019 he said. There was a cardboard oval behind his head. The oval was spray-painted silver … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"parent":7542,"menu_order":3,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-7546","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/P15duy-1XI","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/7546","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7546"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/7546\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7562,"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/7546\/revisions\/7562"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/7542"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7546"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}