PIZZA BAGELS IN LATCHKEY TOWNSHIP

Jul 27, 2023

ANOTHER VOICE FROM LATCHKEY TOWNSHIP

When we refer to Vanessa Saft in our house, we always say “Leather Jacket Vanessa” to distinguish her from the other Vanessas we know because when my partner first met Vanessa, it was at an 80s-themed rollerskating party and she was wearing a black leather motorcycle jacket, pockets brimming with a treasure trove of tiny love notes from a college sweetheart who had carefully cut on the lines of a piece of notebook paper, wrote lovely things about her, and then rolled each one up. The notes had been in the pockets of the leather jacket since the late 1980s.

Vanessa and I worked together over a decade ago at a progressive education school where the students performed plays in third grade about the 1963 Birmingham Children’s March. They also sang “Cold as Ice” by Foreigner for their end-of-the-year choral recital. Vanessa was all soothing voice and long linen dresses within school walls but was a perfectly improper, good weirdo everywhere else. She is kind, radical, and irreverent.

I love that Vanessa’s contribution to Lactchkey Township says SO MUCH with so few words. It is a piece of writing you can savor like a poem, filling you with complicated feelings as you dart from prank to desperation. It is the perfect ode to latchkeyness.

Here I am, adding a love note to your pocket, Vanessa.

OCTOBER 23, 1982

by Vanessa Saft

I watched General Hospital, tried to fry yogurt, put a dead pigeon in the mailbox across the street, burned candles and practiced piano, lit the woodstove, walked the dogs, made pizza bagels on Sara Lee bagels with Prego jar sauce, had panic attacks and stood by the window, terrified my mom wouldn’t make it home.