August 25, 2009

•      "Do you remember what it looked like?"
       "What?"
       "Being afraid."
       I stopped tying my shoe and shot him a look of confusion. The ruddy lights from the sign of the restaurant behind his head caused me to squint. I looked to the floor once or twice before refocusing my view on him. I then opted to avoid the question. "Why're you here, again?"
       I had actually never met him before. Why he was bothering to talk to me I couldn't begin to fathom. Why he still sticks out in my memory might be another question I could ask.
       There was nothing (and I say this earnestly) about him which stood out at first glance; Hell, even if I had been given twelve hours to study him in detail, he defined ordinary. I'd describe him to you, but I might lose concentration during the process.
       He nodded over his shoulder toward the restaurant. "Waiting for my boyfriend to get off of work."
       In all the previous excitement, I hadn't bothered to give the establishment any attention. It was a Chick-fil-A - a restaurant you probably haven't even heard of and one that sounded like a generic version of KFC. Looking directly at the sign now, I noticed that some of the lights had burnt out. Still enough to be bright, but - honestly, way to stand out. I returned to finish the bow I had been tieing before for my shoe.
       "Ever had sex before?"
       "Seriously, dude - what the fuck?" I exclaimed, a little surprised by my own outburst. I fumbled to pick up the laces again, too irritated to bother giving him proper eye contact.
       "Sorry," he said between laughter, clearly not understanding that silence, at this moment, would be less grating than his voice. "I didn't know it was a sensitive subject."
       I'd like to say I gave him a questioning look then; in all truthfulness, I can't remember how I looked at him. "It's not." I just remember he was amused. Of all things, amused. He was still chuckling softly. "It's just not something most people talk about with those they just met," I told him, as if I needed to explain myself. "Have you?" I asked it with spite; I can realize that now. I hoped to embarrass him, unnerve him, just plain out bother him.
       "No," he said softly, looking back over his shoulder in the process. He hadn't struck me as being rash or harsh in his first approach. Forward and seemingly oblivious to the concept of social interaction, entirely - yet the way his eyes almost clouded over as he looked into the restaurant, folding back into themselves and getting lost in whatever currents seemed to now pull away his attention, surprised me. I could see his boyfriend in there, cleaning off some of the remaining tables.
       I looked at the ground again, not wanting to make eye contact. I would've laughed, if I wasn't so self-conscious of breaking the silence; I felt intrusive. Oh, the irony.
       "I'll assume," he started again, his voice no louder than a whisper and yet able to jerk my head up in response, "that your previous embarrassment meant 'no' to my question." The previous phrasing was merely because of common usage, I'd like to clarify right now. "Dated before?"
       This was a question I could answer cleanly. I returned my gaze and responded, "Yeah. Four girlfriends, in the past. I'm single now."
       He sighed lightly, looking out into the street. I was a little confused. I expected a response, yet he seemed lost in thought again with that same look he had looking back into the restaurant. I followed his gaze.
       On the corners of the block, the lights of the stoplights had just turned green. Mixed with the light of the moon above (it was a full moon, that night, as glorious as a silent hoping, too terrified to seek the future yet content and whole in the moment of perfection), the artificial and reflected light mixed upon the water still fresh on the pavement to refract and create a smeared multitude of colors. I breathed in my own gasp of air, reveling in the after-smell that the rain had left. A light breeze shook the trees across the street near the park, and the leaves parted their ways with the water; life could be so cruel. I wrapped my arms around myself, forgetting for a second there was still someone I was talking to; there was just a distinct glory to this time of night which I couldn't possibly recreate or make you understand by words; I worried, really, whether I could ever see such a time again or could feel like I understood so much and be shown so many answers as this midnight showing seemed to reveal again.
       "How long they last?" he asked, resuming the conversation that had seemed to cease entirely. I turned my eyes from across the street back towards him.
       "My relationships? Well, the first one lasted...3 days," I admitted. Instinctively, my eyes shot towards the pavement. I was fully intent on simply boring into the ground - visually, of course - yet the sound of his voice stopped me. He was laughing. My faced flushed, though he didn't sound deriding. I looked towards him quickly to see what he was doing. Repeating this all back to you now, it must've looked utterly ridiculous. Yet his laughter made me raise my head.  I started laughing with him - for a good 3 minutes straight.
       He gasped as he brought himself up (yeah, he had rolled over on the sidewalk laughing). "Three days?" he asked, wiping his eyes.
       Still chuckling, I nodded. The laughter felt too good.
       He finally managed to sit up, resting his arms on his thighs. His face was red, all over, I remember. He looked at me and began chuckling again.
       Despite my own mirth, I waved my hand to dismiss it; I wasn't bothered, more so giving him a hard time. "Alright, alright, enough laughter at my expense."
       He nodded, still cheery. "Fair enough, sir," he told me, mocking seriousness. "And your other lady friends?"
       I shook my head at him, smiling despite myself. I suppose I was beginning to warm up to him. Not like I was doing much else this night anyway (though my sitting outside a closing fastfood restaurant at night might have given that one away to you). "The second lasted 6 months. The third lasted 4, and the last lasted 2 years," I told him, fixing him with my own eye contact.
       He raised his eyebrows in amazement at that. "Two years, huh?" I nodded; I have to wonder now if he had caught the wistful nature of it. "Why'd it end?" Would it be cliché of me by now to say I wish he hadn't asked that, damn it?
       I shrugged. "It just didn't work out."
       His mouth was slightly open, the edges curling upward ever so. "Bullshit."
       "What?" I proclaimed, even scooting back to aid my show of bewilderment. I didn't expect that one from him, despite his previous audacity thus far.
       "You're copping out; you're giving me a bullshit response." Forgive me for not wanting to talk about the misery of a break up. He continued to look at me, sporting a look that I could only describe as confident cogitation. "You loved her."
       "Alright, what the fuck do you smoke? 'Cause plain weed could only create an oven with half the heat that your head is operating that brain of yours at." Of course, he found my response hilarious. This time, I didn't join in the laughter.
       I was defensive - I will admit this. Oddly enough, I remember drawing myself in (why I thought this would help in any sense is beyond me). I might've hugged myself, my arms were so close to my torso, except I didn't want him to get the idea that I was bothered.
       When he had calmed down, he looked at me again. "I was just asking," he said, as if this suddenly justified the reaction he had caused me.
       "And what about you?" I'd hate to say I spat it. The phrase, that is. Maybe I did. The breakup was three days ago.
       He silenced, thinking about my question. Again, his eyes seemed to change. But not for his boyfriend. He looked at me during it. I just remember that. It was...intense. So completely an intense stare that I couldn't have broken it, even if I had wanted to. His eyes were soft; they seemed so welcoming.
       He smiled, suddenly. "You know, he likes trains. I - I may never understand why, but he does." He laughed slightly, so much so I didn't hear it; I just saw him move. "You name the part, the model, the time period - whatever: he could tell you anything you wanted to know about them. He's never dealt with any before. Haha, if he ever did, he'd probably never do anything else. Geez, probably would get himself covered in grease all the time too, if I know him. I know he does a fine job of that already at his job. How, I may never know - nor may I want to, for that matter.... But I suppose they're like cars for him."
       By now, I could tell his focus had shifted away from me. Yet as I looked at him, I couldn't have borne to demand to be the center of his attention anyway.
       "You should see the look on his face the second you mention them. Like a little kid on Christmas, like you wouldn't believe." He rolled his eyes and chuckled to himself, looking down at his hands as he muttered, "He's adorable when he gets that passionate. I couldn't possibly think of anyone to trade him for."
       I didn't want to interrupt the silence that followed. It seemed almost too cruel of a thing to do.
       "So, you guys are in love, then?" I asked tentatively.
       "Hell if I know," he laughed.
       I can't remember what I said exactly, but I'm pretty sure it was along the lines of, "...What?"
       He continued chuckling, of course. "How'm I to know yet?" Once again, he was amused with me. How he could think that this behavior wouldn't be demeaning or intimidating, yet again, is beyond me. "Isn't it fascinating how easily love's been packaged by the media?"
       "You've aimed this to become a conversation about how our society has made love a manufactured good?"
       He stopped to think, then started to shake his head slowly. "No, I hadn't intended it." He fixed me with a look once more. I decidingly looked away.
       "He hates trusting people." I looked at the cracks in the black top, noting where they had filled tar in and which ones has escaped plugging up. "It - it has something to do with his past; I know he would never trust me again were I to tell you, but..." His voice didn't have the energy I had heard before. Even when he had slipped out of mirth and had made sure wonder was nice and snug, he had this driving energy to his voice. "I dunno, maybe it's just me, you know? I've been told I can be kind of smothering." He laughed; rather, it sounded like he was trying to laugh, but his throat was too dry and the noises were too big. It stuttered before dying. "I just - I like attention, you know? I can go for full hour, at least, just gushing about how wonderful he is to him. I wanna hold him, hug him, just remind myself constantly that he's mine, you know?" He sounded fragile.
       "And he...geez, well, it just made him cautious, if you know what I mean." I looked up at him. I was still fuming, unable to remember what had got me fuming in the first place, but I couldn't help myself. He was bouncing his leg up and down, looking across the street. "So he pushed away." He almost smiled, his face twitching. He seemed to come back then, slightly, shaking himself and looking down again. "He'd break away from me whenever I'd try to hug him for an extended period. He'd find reasons not to be around when I was someplace, or to get me to leave if I showed up. Stuff like that. Eventually, I got fed up." He hesitated, before stating, "I mean, I'm normally not one to get bother about anything. But if I do..." He sighed, looking up across the street again. "I kinda blew up on him. I meant to talk to him about it, and it ended up in some stupid yelling match. I yelled something along the lines of, 'You don't even give a shit about me,' and he just started sobbing." He paused for a moment. "He's...he's not the type to cry." He paused again, though more briefly this time. "Ever."
       He laughed suddenly, startling me. It stopped as soon as it began, dissipating with the beginning of the concentration. He brought a hand up to his lips, shaking as he stared off. His eyes were red; if you hadn't been watching him, you would've thought he'd been crying.
       "I don't think I ever wanted to hold him more strongly than I did right there. I - I can't really make this clear to you, but he doesn't cry. I honestly didn't think he knew how.
       "And, at 18-years-old, I don't bother to pretend I have any idea what love is but at that moment, when he was hunched down sobbing -" Without warning, he ducked his head between his legs, grabbing his scalp by his hair. His body seemed to pull together, attempting to clutch itself. "I just held him, the rest of that night," he muttered. "He's usually so damn shy; sits in the back of class all the time, too. And don't even bother to try to teach him public speaking, if it's your event you need assistance for. He prefers what he's used to and comfortable with."
       We just stayed there like that: me sitting and watching him, him crumpled in a ball with his head as a hostage. Finally, he looked up and smiled at me. "It'll be 2 years on the 23rd," he said, unwinding himself. He rested his eyes on me.
       "Do you remember what she looked like?" he asked me again.
       I had wanted to forget it; I still did. Still, I sighed. "She had brown hair," I told him, softly.
       He shook his head, lightly smiling once again. "What did you see on her face?"
       I had nothing to do this night. No plans, no desires. So I took to walking around, taking a look at what I expected to be uneventful. As I happened across this street, I saw a crowd near the end of the block. There was a lot of laughter, and everyone seemed to be having a fantastic time; I decided to see what the commotion was about. They were in a circle under one of the lampposts. When I reached them, those closest to me immediately made room for me to see.
       There was a girl in the circle, delirious and out of her mind with fear. She ran from one side of the circle to the other on all fours, apparently unable to think to break through the crowd that surrounded her.
       "She was sobbing her eyes out," I started. "Her breathing was hard and heavy." He just nodded. "She was shaking. For those split seconds she was running around, trying to escape, her legs barely seemed to be able to hold her up. There...there was a moment where she tripped over herself. Sprawled flat out on the pavement. And her arms just kept twitching. And then she just goes...fetal. I mean, just straight up hugging herself. I think she would've rocked herself if she could think straight enough to come up with the idea. And then she just snapped out of it. She started - she began looking around at everyone, incredibly fast."
       The crowd thought it was a riot. It seemed there was someone from everywhere in the area. The idea that people would call up their friends to watch a little girl get terrified to near death struck me as grotesque, but maybe I shouldn't have expectations. They seemed to find it good entertainment, though. Exchanging looks of tearful laughter with friends, bent over howling and staring at the ground as they tried to share their exileration with the gravel from the street, looking around at the empty spots of the circle to find amusement in the next spots the girl might flee to next, and bent backwards towards the sky, sharing their joy with the empty void of the universe.

  • 8:30 am
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