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// "THE BATTLE" \\
(( 30/08/02 anada521 ))
\) (/
Much like an old bicycle safety Officer Friendly video once asked,
"ARE YOU DEAD ARE YOU DEAD?" Not me specifically. Everyone knows I live.
But what about Anada? Does it live? Or has it finally bitten the dust?
There's a straightforward way of doing things in life. A regular
way, a predictable way, a set way which has supposed set results. People,
I've lived that way. Most of us, in some capacity, live that way. I
certainly do, with my whitebread job and whitebread manners and whitebread
expectations of others to do the same. But I've come to the conclusion that
there is a time and a place for routine. My fun, my spare time, and my
artistic nature is absolutely *not* the place for routine.
Don't like it? Bring it on, motherfuckers. I'll battle you all. Or
better yet, run your own 'zine. You'll LOVE the people that are just like
you. Guaranteed.
--Gloomchen
>(o.o)< `,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`, >(o.o)<
TABLE OF CONTENTS
"The Battle For Darvin Greenfoot" by E.J. ...........................line 48
"Drama Queen" by HapyHzrd...........................................line 755
"Day By Day" by Unrelated...........................................line 780
>(o.o)< `,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`, >(o.o)<
"The Battle For Darvin Greenfoot"
by E.J.
The mass of college-educated people in this country is staggering.
As a college student trying to study in the almost eternal winter of a small
New England college, it is hard to think of the sheer population of college
students studying something or other in America. From my apartment
overlooking the bends and snowy fields of the campus, I can detect a copper
molded statue standing isolated in the center of campus, with snow packed
lightly on his shoulders and his head, like bird's droppings. He is
upright, and his back is to me and my window, watching without judgment the
students rushing to or away from classes in the bitter cold. It seems that
the summers of my past take on a life of their own in my mind against this
isolated landscape. When my mind decides to conjure up those memories,
songs play in my head but are not welcome. They linger there, until my
nerves tingle in agitation. The summer story I'm going to relate comes from
one of those little songs that was once soothing, but now cures any relaxing
moments in my mind.
After I finish up going to my morning classes, I usually nap for a
few hours before Naomi wakes me up. Earlier this week, she had taken a trip
to New York, then to Burlington, VT, before coming back home. So she woke
me up when she arrived and hurriedly slammed the front door to my apartment,
and I was at that level of consciousness that makes you incomprehensible for
the first fifteen minutes of conversation. She sympathized as I wiped the
nod out of my eyes, but pressed me about what I did over the weekend. I
gave her the same rigmarole I always do when I try to hide the truth, but at
the same time I tried with frustration to remember the dream I had before
she woke me. Thing is, nothing happened this weekend, and I wondered if
telling her this would make any difference.
Despite how I was brought out of the dream state by Naomi, I do
remember certain aspects of the dream. A few distinct memories, at least.
The first was in memory of the summer fade out, with everyone closing down
shops and waving nice sweet goodbyes to one another from the square of the
seacoast town I worked at last summer. Next to a white picketed fence in
the town was a large apartment complex where some crazy old ladies lived.
There was one old woman in that complex that none of the other old ladies
could stand, because every time she had tried to hug one of the residents,
she broke their ribs. She was the nicest lady, though. There was an
elevator to take residents and visitors up to the different flats, which
moved at about a 45 angle parallel to the ground. I met up with Darvin
Greenfoot there, a youngish (I'd guess his age to be 21) Native American man
with good intentions if only slightly drug addled most of the time.
Greenfoot is the kind of guy whose good intentions only arise because he
needs something to do. In any case, we took the elevator up to the rib-
breaking woman's flat, and Darvin consoled her. She seemed to appreciate
that, and tears flooded her eyes. Although it seemed that she desperately
wanted to hug Darvin, regardless of the outcome, she restrained herself. It
was my impression that few people ever consoled the rib-breaking woman for
her rib-breaking ways, but some do, and I think that that's for the best.
I mean, even nice old ladies with the best of intentions shouldn't have to
cry all of the time.
There was another part of the dream that had no connection with the
rest of it. But this was the part that Naomi woke me up during, so I
remember it the best. Although I have never studied dream psychology, I am
aware, like pretty much everyone I suppose, of the Freudian take on dreams:
that they are sexual wish fulfillment. Whether that's true of all dreams or
not, I suspect that this dream was direct sexual wish fulfillment. It had
something to do with an ex-girlfriend of mine named Mary. The weirdness of
dreaming about your ex-girlfriend in a sexual way is something that cannot
be described. She was sitting on a couch in a living room somewhere in
dreamland, and I was sitting directly behind her on some medieval apparatus,
kind of like a stirrup with slings. The traditional conversion of feelings
to visual dream images didn?t occur past this point, however. I just
remember feeling sexually frustrated from the dream. And her current
boyfriend, Bob, attacking both of us. Not with weapons or anything, just
with words. He is hurt that I am experiencing whatever I'm experiencing
with Mary, and I feel ashamed.
"do you still like her?"
"..."
"...i...know you still like her..."
I think Bob just left us in stunned surprise. His plain, triumphant
look, as if he knew about us, just as I had always imagined that he did.
Mary also was surprised, displaying a mute-like sense of guilt.
Most people seem to follow Darvin's battle along these lines: Darvin
seems to be fighting a 24-hour a day battle against ennui. Usually it seems
that the ennui wins most of the time. But Darvin will be high as a kite for
about five minutes, asking total strangers off the street their names and
phone numbers. He will earnestly explain to anyone willing to listen to him
that their astrological sign at birth greatly influences their daily lives,
and that they must do something, anything, special for a particular
significant someone on some particular day. I don't think that Darvin had
the faintest clue about how astrology worked, or even cared. He battled
fiercely and without thought. But after five minutes, you'd see him huddled
off alone in a corner somewhere, his face a perpetual mask of sleeplessness
and nod. He would sit and wait patiently for the next big thing.
Conflict is still the story telling medium of choice, and though I
believe that love can still be a tremendous source of conflict in any story,
it is not my choice. The conflict is a war, or at least a single solitary
battle, fought by one man. Darvin thought that it was a battle, and that
the battle was being fought in the fetid sluggishness of one's own ennui,
isolated from the rest of the mind. It was typical of Darvin that the girl
he was seeing over the summer, Shelly, was about 15 or 16 or so, and that
the place that Darvin and I worked together was a seacoast carnival with no
amusements. When he was bored, Darvin would roll a blunt mixed with tobacco
and smoke it during work, and he assumed that the management wouldn't mind
as long as the customers didn't. Every indication given to us seemed to
indicate that they didn't, or that they simply didn't know what we were
doing.
Darvin and I were alike in our quest to relieve boredom, both on the
job and off. The difference lies in the stream of communication between us.
I express all of my problems with daily life, and all of my problems were
consistently expressed to Darvin, for his ears only, who might've or might
not have been sympathetic to them, but who listened to them regardless. I
think it depended on his battle guard: sometimes he would quietly nod his
head with a dazed expression as if he were lost in space, other times he
would eloquently propose examples and solutions to tackle the problem. Then
he'd ask me to smoke a joint with him. What a guy.
Although I occasionally think of Darvin in the winter, the person who
probably occupies most of my thoughts when I think of the summer is Belle.
She was the one who sang to me softly. I'll bring up one example of her
behavior, which happened about a year ago, before things got hot. We're
coming back to our apartment building from class, walking and talking
rapidly because of the February cold. We were slipping all over the ice and
bumping into each other and into other people around us at the same time,
like a dodge 'em. At some point, we stop talking to each other, because
talking about classes gets old quick and by that point we didn't really have
anything to say to each other. So she started to sing in a quiet, almost
angelic voice. I strained to hear her over the cafeteria commotion of the
students talking in the commons as I skated over the ice, and she continued
to sing, as if in deliberate concentration. Everything about Belle, except
for her height, is soft. It is in her hair, her face, her eyes, and her
lips. Her height is in direct contrast to her appearance: she is a
beanpole. She is even taller than me, and I am considered tall for my sex.
Her long arms and legs give her an almost orangutan-like gait. She is very
thin and frail, which even further distorts her appearance. She moves her
limbs around like a puppet on strings.
Despite her unusualness, there is nothing ugly about her. She is
quite beautiful in the way she employs her charm with its supple oddities.
Her smile is sweet in the winter, and sheer honey in the summer. Her legs,
although lanky, possess an exquisite feminine shape that goes very well with
the short skirts that she uses to exhibit them. Her breasts are economical,
but pert. She is an affectionate drunk, and a smoker, and seems to enjoy
the dull contentment that being both drunk and stoned at the same time can
give you.
Belle, like me, is going through one of those things called a
relationship at this point in her life. This may be a source of grievance
to her. I do not know anymore. I do know that it is a source of grievance
to me. Darvin knows this well, but I'm afraid that he has responded to this
problem not with his simple elegance, like he did for the old rib-breaking
woman, but with his characteristic nod and single syllables of sympathy.
Being in a relationship has very little to do with being into a
relationship, as far as I can tell. Darvin, ever the Casanova, agreed with
me. My friend Had Lewis (actually pronounced 'had') did too, although it
was for different reasons. Had has been in a bad relationship for a little
over five and a half years now. He told me that he and his girlfriend break
up every four to five months, with no end for it in sight. Neither Had nor
his girlfriend Joanna has even formed an outside relationship in that time.
"The biggest problem with bad relationships," explained Had, "is the
simple fact that the nit picking and pressure put upon you by a neglected
woman is constant. This is different from the pressure put upon you by,
say, a job. The pressure miraculously disappears when you leave the office;
it patiently awaits your return the next morning. A neglected woman is
always there to cause you pain -- if you are at work, she will call you. If
you do not have your lunch break with her, she will suspect you of cheating.
There is no escape."
As willing as Had Lewis was to dispense advice, he was not nearly as
enjoyable to hang out with as Darvin was. Even when Darvin did tread on
your toes, he did so with a guilty conscience. His perpetually earnest
expression had been labeled "rat-like" by some people, but those were people
with whom Darvin had no interest in hanging out with anyway. His body was
equally "rat-like" in the lithe, unseen gestures he made randomly and
without pretense.
I say these things myself without any guilty conscious underpinning
because of a little romantic issue that developed right under my nose. Ava,
a pretty young girl with dark hair, dark skin, and coy eyes, was a fellow
employee last summer at a disgusting pizza place downtown. I was the
"fry-guy," in charge of the frylator, which scalded me periodically with
boiling black grease whenever I dropped a basket into it. It did not take
me long to develop second degree burns on my palms and the side of my
fingers, which, combined with the cuts and scrapes from cutting potatoes
en mass into crinkle cut fries, made my hands look almost corpse-like. Ava
was a promising local girl with promising breasts, and I had hoped she would
a quick romantic conquest of mine. I had been seeing her for about a week,
and she was slowly opening up to me on her own accord, but then Darvin
decided to fuck her. Darvin claims he had no idea that she was seeing me.
To him, it was an easy chance to get some quick pussy. Ava confessed, and
later, when pressed, admitted whom the conquistador was. I dismissed her
abruptly and quit my job at the pizza place to avoid seeing her again. To
truth be damned!
I do not flaw Darvin with taking the advantage, even if he did know
that Ava was seeing me at the time. My summer romance would come later on.
The thing that puzzles me most was the fact that what took Darvin one night
to do I wasn't even on firm enough grounds to attempt one week into the
relationship. He can size woman up, wrap them around his little finger, and
with his simple eloquence understand them in ways that he can quickly
manipulate to his own satisfaction. When I naively asked him about his
"secret," he explained that it was "just something to do to pass the time."
Time to Darvin is a useless thing, something to be consumed quickly and
without regrets.
Darvin emphasizes the ability to live each summer with quality, which
is something I think I try to share in his enthusiasm with. Each summer
seems to come and go with its share of disappointments and successes, but
regret seems practically impossible, as if the summers we live for are
nothing but a dream.
Naomi and I were fond of sitting out on the deck of my apartment
overlooking a set of railroad tracks at night and drinking under the stars.
The sea breeze would blow past us, and long legged dark girls would walk
along the railroad tracks from the bars to the seaside hotels that populate
the city. I would watch them with the same simple enthusiasm that they
seemed to share for each other as they giggled and sang to the music
blanketing the city from the bars. Naomi always seemed fond of asking me
if I was staring at them with some prurient interest, but I have never been
able to come up with the correct and suitable answer to this question. A
yes answer confirms guilt and also an implicit lack of interest in the
current relationship. A no answer confirms the fact that you are a dirty
and pathetic liar, with no "feelings" for your other. Questions like these
seem to be used to "put one in his place."
The deck to my apartment was equipped with a full bar, and I used it
to host parties for my co-workers, college buddies, and various other strays
from around town. Darvin was a frequent visitor, and we would go to the
beach to smoke a few bowls after a party and watch the darkness from the
ocean crash onto the sands. It was easy to imagine when stoned that the
color of the sea at 3:00 a.m. was the result of an oil barge miles offshore
being punctured and spilling its black contents into the ocean. We
discussed this image with its implication frequently that summer. Some of
the more wasted women we invited to join us in our adventures, which soon
resembled the parties we threw at my apartment in population. It was
presumably on that side of the beach that Darvin got to "know" Shelly.
Shelly, with dyed blond permanent curls, bleached skin, and an alarmingly
high-pitched voice. We referred to her as "Lolita Shelly" to Darvin behind
her back, which didn?t seem to bother him the slightest bit. Her face was
always overdone with makeup and badly smudged, probably from her frequent
public displays of affection with Darvin, and she wore leather jackets with
stainless steel buckles and sashes protruding from it like quills.
Had and I in particular complained to Darvin about hanging around
with Shelly, although I think everyone did to some extent. He would have
none of it. "She's a woman, really," he said to us once as we all laughed
at him, "she's nice, cleans my apartment, and she smokes weed. What more do
you want?"
"How about you getting a fucking clue?" asked Had.
To that, Darvin looked at each of us in turn, smiled, and just nodded
off somewhere else; looking for something else to do.
Belle was a frequent visitor to the beach. She would sit out in the
sun too long and get burned. It did not seem to matter what SPF level she
used on her cream coloured skin. She'd come to visit me at work with a
blushy red all over her exposed body after sunbathing on the beach, almost
ludicrously matching her hair. This did not seem to bother her too much.
She'd stroll over by herself or with her boyfriend Ben. Discussion topics
were almost always casual, but I could see something in her eyes and her
frequent reappearances that betrayed casualness. I took this as a sign of
trust between us, even with Ben there on certain occasions.
I had another dream about Mary the other night. In the dream there
was another non-descript communal home where Mary and I lived. There was no
omnipresent Bob there this time, but there was the same feeling of
excitement at being caught in some respect by the other residents. Most
of the dream I don't remember, except that Mary and I did not say much to
each other. But at one point I pulled her towards me, and she didn't seem
to mind. I brought her into my room and kissed her as her laid on my bed.
I told her how important she was to me, and that it would be "great" if we
met like this more often. She was reserved about it. The opening of an
affair is hard to believe in. It requires a great deal of coaxing on the
part of one of the participants to initiate it. However, it never was much
of a problem between Belle and I, probably because we at least initially had
similar expectations. Now that I think of it, I sometimes wonder if it is
even possible anymore for an affair to be initiated on a single kiss.
It seems that the mismatches have it all over the matches now. The
lover of the perfect match is somewhat at a disadvantage over the quick
fling. The betrayal of these quick flings when one has found what is
believed to be a match is hard to take, I believe. I do not know how Naomi
managed in those summer days. Perhaps with frigidity.
About two weeks after Darvin met Shelly, I asked Belle to lunch with
me at a cheapo Chinese restaurant on Grand Avenue, about half a block away
from where I work, and she accepted. She met me just as I was punching out
for lunch break with a light yellow sundress on; her slightly sun burnt
forehead was glistening with sweat, so that strands of her bangs clung to
it. She seemed out of breath. As we walked to the restaurant she smiled
and put her arm around me, and I did the same, more out of convention than
anything else. After finding a table and sitting down, she went into her
week at the bank. She was clerking for some bank in town over the summer,
and she never hesitated to say how envious she was of that I could work
outside all summer, while she was required to stay indoors and dispense
money to tourists all day. I sympathized with her. I didn't fail to
mention to her, however, that as an intern she was actually gaining some
job experience in her field, whereas I was just wasting my time and the
summer, so far as actually planning my career after college went. She
looked distracted, a delicate long finger revolved patiently around her
drink, and didn't say anything. But the entire time, I noticed that she was
constantly glancing at me and looking away through the corner of my eyes.
I questioned if it was possible to seduce someone without saying a word.
The town is littered with cheap restaurants and bars. I think this
produces the cheap environment that frequents it. Bikers mostly, looking
ugly and white. The male bikers give an air as if they are tough and mean,
but I don't think that I believe it. Their bare white arms protruding from
their denim vests seemed weak and unused. They are like old man arms. I
presume that they are not the bikers of legend, the Hell's Angels type, but
merely weekend warriors, trailer-park trash, looking to insult one and all.
They would come back from the bars into the carnival, and seemed drawn
almost irresistibly to Shelly. Four or five of them would gang up to hit on
her over at her booth. She was kind to them until they became insulting,
and then she'd ask them to leave the park. Sometimes, if they were drunk
enough, they wouldn't leave her alone. One of the other co-workers would
come by to break it up. We were constantly reminded we were a brotherhood
by some of the old hands when it came to a problem with customers in the
park. If any problems ensued, it was assumed that everyone working for the
park would team up on the customers and violently kick them out. I never
saw this happen during any of the summers there, but it was nice to know
that it would if the need arose.
Darvin was usually the one who looked after Shelly. She seemed
particularly vulnerable for those types of events. I think that most of us
could take care of an asshole, but Shelly had a hard time, perhaps because
she was younger than most of us and too sensitive. That sensitivity marks
you even more easily, though, if you're someone trying to present yourself
as older. And especially if it is fear that makes you present yourself that
way. One of the more annoying customers that came by to harass us was the
broken-nosed man, as we called him. He was pretty typical in appearance,
for a small New England coastal town: about mid fifties with receding orange
hair, a curling goatee and mustache, and giant sunspots flawed his wrinkled
skin like a burn victim. His sideburns were muttonchops, and extended to
his jaw line. He always wore a sweaty tank top over his exceptionally
flaccid beer gut, matched to pastel spandex pants. He was particularly well
known in the park for riding his bike everywhere when in the park, which was
a serious source of annoyance to the workers. To add insult, he would
heckle us constantly while riding his bike. His interest seemed prurient,
especially to Shelly, and he was particularly rude to her, of course. Her
primped up appearance would always incite some comment from the broken-nosed
man.
"Hey baby! Where can I get some action? Is your pimp around? I
understand you're the best on the street!"
"Fuck off!" Shelly would reply if she'd reply at all. He generally
rode off so fast, cutting off the customers walking through the park, that
she'd rarely get a word in.
The only unusual feature, besides the spots, that I can remember was,
of course, his broken, beaten nose, which had made him jagged and deformed.
It made him look like he was always snarling.
Belle was sitting across from me, her legs crossed, and her eyes
intent on me, waiting for me to say something. She had one of her elbows
propped up on the table, and her chin resting on the palm of her hand. I
asked her if she was looking forward to going back to school soon, and she
sighed with a breath, and stated that it was much too soon for her. The
summer was ending. She uncrossed her legs, tilting such that one of the
straps to her dress slipped and exposed her bare shoulder, and re-crossed
them. We again engaged in small talk, and had a second round of drinks.
Lunch arrived shortly thereafter. I remember glancing at my watch at this
point, saw that I had already gone 15 minutes past the time allotted for
lunch, and not caring.
At some point during lunch, I almost unconsciously reached my hand
out about halfway across the table. As she was talking, she mimicked the
action, and lightly brushed her hand against mine. I was immediately
conscious of Ben, but did not feel guilty because of him. I smiled as I
took her hand, and she gave it a gentle squeeze.
I paid for lunch, gave her a kiss on the cheek, and walked out
feeling as elated as I have ever felt in this life. We had made
arrangements to go out to dinner the following night. Not one word was
mentioned of Ben; he had become less competition and more like a decrepit
shadow to me. I got a strange sensation in my mind and body, as if it was
actually inappropriate to talk or even think about current or past lovers at
this stage. I went back to work, punched in 45 minutes late, and worked the
rest of the day in agony and impatience, awaiting some time in the future
where feelings could be shared again in private.
It is not easy to explain away what happened between Belle and
myself. I look at it now, through a snow-covered sphere of disenchantment
and envy. It is very easy to say that it was just one of those summer love
stories. And that might be true. But I have known Belle for a long time
now, always in my way a friend when she needed a friend. I never complained
about her expectations; I was patient and understanding. I guess that it
wouldn't surprise you if I said that I had felt attracted to her well before
that summer day when everything fell in place. Moments work well like that.
The only other reason I have come up to explain why she wanted to
have an affair with me is an occasion she had to watch me fight. I was only
an average boxer, and I lost most of my matches, although rarely by a knock
out. I tried very hard to protect my face, for it is still fair, and I only
fought in the summer, when classes are out of session. I enjoyed it simply
for the sheer adrenaline rush. It is a high I cannot compare with anything
on this earth, to be able to attack and protect yourself with your fists.
Despite my compulsive energy when engaged in the sport, I have never won by
a straight knockout. All of the fights I have won have been technical, or
won by points. For this reason, my fights were usually long and exhausting
to both me and my opponents. That summer, I didn't dominate any of my
opponents, and I was ranked last in my weight class. I was only strong
enough to block and move, and my natural ability limited me in landing a
good punch at an appropriate time. The night that Belle came, I was slated
to fight Jesse McNally. A completely ignorant blockhead, with his fish eyes
and shaved head, he is what many would consider a true boxing stereotype.
He was seeded only slightly higher than I was that summer, and I realized as
I climbed into the ring that I could dominate him. The match was long and
true to my style, but I did manage to get him down once that night. I was
ecstatic, knocking down a superior fighter, and as I glanced around at the
audience I started shaking from laughter. I couldn't help it. I was the
underdog, and it felt so good to put someone like McNally down. As I was
looking at the audience I caught the eye of Belle. I hadn't known that she
was coming, and I did not invite her, but I realized that if there was
anything to love about me, she saw it as she watched me in the ring. The
rest of the match proved that Jesse was indeed the superior fighter. I was
never knocked down, but he picked up on my fairly repetitious pattern and
countered it sufficiently enough that I ended up losing the match on points.
I didn't win one match that summer, but when I walked away from it for the
last time, I was at least confident in the knowledge that boxing was only a
hobby, and that college would be my ticket out.
I still cannot get over how beautiful she was that night. Beauty is
a physical quality, but I believe it also a circumstantial quality. The
circumstances were right for her to acquire my affections, although I cannot
say with any honesty how she felt about me that night. I have never asked
her. But for me it was perfect: her catching me in a moment of sheer joy.
Moments are like that.
As usual, both Had and Darvin had differing opinions on conducting
affairs. But surprisingly, they basically agreed that affairs were a good
thing if done discreetly. Had was really keyed on that whole discreet
thing, but even Darvin agreed that affairs shouldn't be flaunted around if
you were cheating on a girl that you even remotely cared about. In this
case, as in most others, I turned to Darvin for support. Had had never, as
far as I know, even flirted with a girl while with Joanna, and for that
reason, I basically put him out of the loop. I believed at the time that
Had concurred with Darvin for envious reasons, and I regarded him as a
coward in that light.
I took Darvin aside the night I had taken Belle to lunch and asked,
almost rhetorically, if he would ever cheat on Shelly. He said no, and this
also surprised me. Darvin was the type who only seemed to be concerned
about things when they didn't involve him. Since he was involved with
Shelly at the time, I didn't consider that her feelings about being cheated
on were of any import to Darvin. It further confounded me because I did not
understand the attraction between Darvin and Shelly. Darvin's smile
indicated that the case was closed. He probably did not understand the
attraction himself, but in any event, the discussion about him and Shelly
was over. I switched the topic to my dilemma over Belle. He replied by
questioning my about my feelings for Naomi.
I am still uncomfortable talking about Naomi. The only thing I offer
good friends when discussing Naomi is that she is good leverage. She knows
me well and she has decided that I am a keeper. That is confidence.
Confidence that I seriously doubt any other woman could give me, and so far
that has rang true, even with Belle. Darvin responded by reprimanding me.
He told me that this was not a good enough reason for a relationship, and
that I should break off with Naomi if I wanted to pursue a relationship with
Belle.
Well, Darvin had shocked me again. He smiled again, as if he was
providing me with a service, and I blew up at him. I told him to fuck off.
I would do whatever I pleased. Darvin seemed confused at this point, so I
clarified.
"You don't know what the fuck you want," I yelled, barely able to
contain myself, "what the hell gives you the right to me give advice about
my own relationship?"
"You came to me?"
I paused for only a second. "Look, Belle is very important to me.
She's not just some cheap whore!"
"But, from what I heard, Naomi is pretty important to you too."
"I don't give a fuck about Naomi!" I hissed.
"Well there you go, then," Darvin smiled. He had the most devilish
smile sometimes, and this time it was trained on me. I steamed.
"Should be a pretty clear cut choice, then, huh?" Darvin added.
I walked off. I could see crystal clear why some people got so upset
with Darvin. I knew he said what he said because he felt he was acting as a
friend. But Darvin, the conscientious friend? What the fuck!
My anger grew, and I felt like having a child-like old-fashioned
temper tantrum right there on the street. I had no outlet. The
consequences were there, and I had to abide by them. The only absolution I
would get would be from myself. And I suddenly felt very trapped and alone.
I kicked over a trashcan as I walked back to my apartment, and back to
Naomi.
When I got back to the apartment, I went to the kitchen and got a
beer. I checked my e-mail, and got a message from Belle, saying that she
wanted to go with me to "a secret place" after dinner tomorrow night. I
wrote back and said it sounded like fun. I then shut off the computer and
walked into my bedroom, where Naomi was sleeping. It was dark, so I could
only see the outline of her shape underneath the sheet. I changed into
another set of boxers and got into bed. As soon as I got in, she turned
over in her sleep, so that she was on her side facing me. In sleep, she had
a very peaceful, trusting face, but I wondered how much she trusted me while
awake. I knew that she suffered pangs of jealousy when she caught me even
looking at another woman, but did she trust me enough to believe that I
wouldn't make love to another woman? I remember thinking that it didn't
matter much. The peace on her face was a false presumption; it came from
ignorance of who I was. I must've looked at that face for an hour,
especially at her unfurled eyebrows, before I managed to fall asleep.
The next day at work Belle came to see me. She came without Ben, and
clasped my hands happily when she greeted me. Before she could give me a
kiss on the cheek, I pressed her about where it was that she would be taking
me tonight after dinner. She said "just some place -- you'll like it..."
and no more. She had bought me a pair of cheapo sunglasses, because "it's
too bright out -- you need a good pair, now." I took them out and put them
on for her. She told me she had to go to work, but that she was "really
looking forward to tonight." I nodded absently before she turned and left.
I picked Belle up at seven that night. We went to dinner at a
seafood place close by the beach, and, for my own amusement, I kept
pestering her about where she was going to take me. She said it was a
surprise. We ordered a few drinks afterward at the bar; she seemed a little
apprehensive at dinner. After a few, she beamed at me and said that she was
ready to go. We stopped off at the convenience store for a 12-pack, and she
gave me directions to the jetty, a pig pile of rocks extending for a mile or
so offshore. I was already well aquatinted with the jetty. I had taken
Naomi there a couple of summers ago, and made love to her in her car during
a storm shower. I had the crazy idea to walk to the end of the jetty, but
the rain made the rocks slick, and the high tide combined with the storm
submerged at least a third of the rocks on the other end. We only covered
about 150 yards, before turning around and going back to the car.
It was night and not raining when Belle and I went to the jetty.
Nobody was there. We got out of the car, and she pulled a blanket out from
the trunk so that we could lie down on one of the flatter rocks and watch
the stars. I brought out the 12-pack from the backseat, and we walked onto
the jetty. Judging from the graffiti on many of the rocks, the jetty
brought many visitors with the same intentions as Belle and me. On a large
rock read: "Joe and Jen and a night under the stars -- 6/9/89." Above the
message were a bunch of dots with lines drawn around them -- apparently an
interpretation of stars "twinkling." Other messages were equally enigmatic,
if not quite as romantic as Joe and Jen. "Drinkin' Beast light -- 40 oz to
freedom," read one; another said, "Julie sucked my cock here -- 4/7/85." I
was actually somewhat amazed that a sentiment like that had actually graced
that rock for more that ten years without being nixed. "Jenny was here,"
read another, no date this time. I wondered if "Jenny" was the same Jen who
had spent a night under the stars with Joe, or someone else entirely.
We finished off most of the 12 pack together, then I got out my bag
and smoked a bowl with her. The weed relaxed me, so I laid down on the
blanket with a cigarette in my hand and watched the stars for a while.
Belle sat next to me, watching my face as she rubbed my belly with her soft
hands. She sang a song for me. I don't remember exactly which song it was,
but it was soothing. The only time she ever sang to me before was when I
walked her back from class that day, and now I knew for sure that she sang
it for me. Her voice was soft, and all my nerves relaxed and just let the
song in. I pulled her close to me as I turned toward her on my side, and
like many a couple on a summer fling before us, she allowed me to make love
to her under a gorgeous night with no one else around.
We woke up early the next morning, lying together in a spoon-like
fashion. I drove her back to her apartment, without a clue of what kind of
lie she was going to tell Ben to explain last night. Perhaps Ben was the
trusting type. I imagined what my excuse to Naomi would be. Probably that
I got wasted the night before and ended up crashing at Darvin's; which was
fine as long as Darvin or Had hadn't called or stopped by our apartment last
night asking for me. Lucky for me, they didn't, so I managed to get off
clean. Naomi still wasn't happy, but there was nothing else she could say.
That night I celebrated by hosting another party at my apartment. I
didn't invite Belle, because Naomi was hanging out that night and I wanted,
I thought joyously, to avoid a scene between the two. We drank margaritas
all night. Darvin was there, but without Shelly, since she was night shift
with the carnival that night. He must've danced with or at least hit on all
the girls at the party, and Joanna and Naomi almost snorted in unison at
Darvin's display. Had took me aside, and explained in drunken fervor that
he had found a good paying job waiting tables down somewhere in New York,
and that he planned on proposing to Joanna sometime before next summer.
"Good for you," I said, and meant it in the same way you admire someone's
new used car.
Belle eventually did show up, with Ben. They had come over from the
bars, and were both soused. Despite that, Belle did nothing conspicuous to
betray our indiscretion from the night before. The only disturbance
happened when Belle lit up a joint, and I had to tell her to take it
outside, since Naomi didn't smoke. Belle asked me if I wanted to go outside
and smoke it with her, and I dutifully said that I couldn't. It was only a
minor infraction, nothing huge. But it would have looked bad to everyone if
I suddenly took off alone with Belle, and she shouldn't have put me in that
position.
In any case, Belle and Ben only stayed for a half-hour or so. Darvin
was still dancing around seductively with some girl when I stepped in on him
to go smoke over at the beach. The summer was almost over, and I would be
going back to school soon. It was time to wrap everything up. Darvin was
one of those perfect seasonal friends -- kind and funny and a barrel of
laughs when you're around him, but not missed when he's gone. It was around
3 AM and we were already both plastered. Darvin pulled a bowl out right in
front of the apartment outside, and we smoked it on our way to the beach. I
apologized to him for how I reacted a couple of nights ago. He understood.
"You just have to understand that I gave you advice based on what I
would do in such a situation..." Darvin said.
"I'm sorry... it's just not the sort of advice I expected to come out
of your mouth," I said.
"Anyway, Belle's a great girl, just don't expect her to run off with
you anytime soon..."
"Just as she should expect that I'm not going to leave Naomi for
her," I countered.
As we made our way to the beach, a sharp chill wind hit us coming
from the ocean. I had to be at work the next morning, but already I saw
that there was no point in going to bed. Darvin and I found a big piece of
beach wood to sit on, and we chatted lightly in the darkness -- the only
light coming from the crackling of burning embers from the bowl we were
smoking, until at last the morning sun rose from the ocean and I left to get
ready for work.
At work that morning everyone was very quiet, and the police seemed
to be around at every corner questioning the beach attendants. I later
found out that Shelly had been raped and beaten to death in a parking lot
only a block or so from work. Later on that afternoon, after most of us had
been canvassed by the police, the broken-nosed man actually came into the
police station uptown and confessed to the murder. The story was that after
the carnival closed, the broken-nosed man noticed, from his bicycle, that
Shelly was standing by herself on the corner waiting for her cab. He
offered her a ride home on his bicycle, and when she refused, he grabbed her
by her wrist. He then threw his bike down, grabbed the air pump from his
bicycle, and hauled her off, to the parking lot. She tried to make a
commotion, but unfortunately either nobody was around, or nobody cared
enough to intervene as she was carried off. He probably killed her in the
alleyway behind the parking lot, which was dark and inconspicuous, before
dragging the body into the parking lot. The murder weapon -- the air pump
-- was found in a dumpster nearby.
And so I was placed in the odd position of trying to comfort Darvin
Greenfoot. Shelly's death, and the manner in which it came about, struck me
as hard as it did everyone who worked with her. But Darvin was silent of
the matter -- he would not allow himself to be consoled. Whenever the
subject came up, he'd change it abruptly, although the subject was obviously
on his mind. The ennui moved over for a rush of quiet brain activity that
we sympathized with but couldn't quite understand. The role reversal was
strange; it made us talk like strangers, and I think it is safe to say that
we ended the summer as strangers as well. After that day, Darvin put up as
much distance as he could between himself and everyone else. He finished
the summer there working the carnival, without a heart, and then he was
gone, leaving no forwarding address to me or anybody else.
Belle heard the news on the radio, but there was little she could say
or do besides put on that "that's a shame..." attitude and call it good.
Belle never really talked to Shelly, and, what's more, it seemed Belle was
getting cold on me. Belle, who had never really had that much to say to me
to begin with, began responding only to my direct questions, and rarely
elaborating much more of her life to me. It was pretty clear that the end
of the summer would signal the end of our affair as well. We still talked,
went out on dates, and even had sex occasionally, but it was impossible for
her, especially, to believe that the affair would continue once classes
started in the fall. I didn't understand. Why burn the affair out so
quickly after it had just begun?
"Because..." Belle stated in an unusually draconian fashion, "I love
Ben too much."
So that was that. Shelly was dead, Darvin was gone, and Belle was
over. Classes began again, and though I am still with Naomi, I think about
Belle occasionally. Particularly her song, and who she was singing it for.
I don't know the answer to that anymore.
I had another dream about Mary last night. This time, Mary is on the
floor, in between Bob's legs, and she has her hand cupped over the mouth of
the phone. I am standing on the other end of the room, also with a phone in
my hand, apparently trying to communicate with her. I am frantic. I yell
and cry incoherently over the phone, but it doesn't seem like Mary hears it
at all, let alone understands what I'm saying. Bob is smiling and runs his
hand through Mary's dark hair. It never occurs to me to talk to her
directly, even though we're in the same room. My heart pounds itself up
through my fucking mouth as I try to speak, and then I finally give up, and
set the phone back on its receiver.
It just now occurs to me that you probably think this is just a
downer. You're probably right, but I think this needs a happy ending here.
And I think it does, if you look at it right. I mean, Darvin is going to be
content again, no matter where he goes. I don't think he's going to find
his summers boring ever again. And I think he learned something about being
a fighter along the way. Belle and Ben are happy together, presumably.
Someday, I hope that she gets emphysema and needs a trache ring from smoking
so much and it ruins her beautiful voice. Had probably got married at some
point, and maybe he even learned to accept Joanna. Naomi's got me, of
course, and I think that's fair. She probably deserves better, though.
Shelly got death, which isn't fair, but innocence is a fair quality, and I
think she preserved that in her in the end. And me? Well, I guess I'm
better off too. I mean, even old babies like myself shouldn't have to cry
all the time.
>(o.o)< `,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`, >(o.o)<
"Drama Queen"
by HapyHzrd
Spare me safe distances,
your curse of popularity.
You only heal as fast
as you can take it,
but learn twice as slow.
You've come to say no,
to say so, how it bothers
you, how it bothers him.
I ease pass with disregard,
willingly waiting,
eagerly watching.
The secrets that you speak
are all mine, there are none
that you keep.
Catch up on old times,
and moan about new ones,
but after what is such sweet sorrow,
there still isn't any applause.
>(o.o)< `,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`, >(o.o)<
"Day By Day"
by Unrelated
Day by day I stand at the edge of a cliff
Day by day I tell myself i'm finally going to do it
Day by day I tell myself I'm going to let go
Then I put one foot out,
I close my eyes,
I listen to the wind rush past my ears,
I slowly turn my head ever so slightly Downwards,
I slowly open my eyes,
I begin to tremble,
I bring my foot back in
/|/|
( @ @)
) ^
/ ||| (c) 2002 Anada E'zine www.anada.net * Anada is cat-friendly.
/ )|||____________________________________________________________________
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