𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐈: 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐎𝐧𝐞 𝐖𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐒𝐚𝐧𝐭𝐨 𝐆𝐞𝐭𝐬 𝐓𝐨𝐧𝐬𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐬
𝒲𝑜𝓊𝓁𝒹 𝓎𝑜𝓊 𝒷𝑒𝓁𝒾𝑒𝓋𝑒 𝓂𝑒 𝓌𝒽𝑒𝓃 𝐼 𝒹𝑜 𝓎𝑜𝓊
𝒴𝑜𝓊'𝓇𝑒 𝓉𝒽𝑒 𝓆𝓊𝑒𝑒𝓃 𝑜𝒻 𝓂𝓎 𝒽𝑒𝒶𝓇𝓉
𝒫𝓁𝑒𝒶𝓈𝑒 𝒹𝑜𝓃'𝓉 𝒹𝑒𝒸𝑒𝒾𝓋𝑒 𝓂𝑒 𝓌𝒽𝑒𝓃 𝐼 𝒽𝓊𝓇𝓉 𝓎𝑜𝓊
𝒥𝓊𝓈𝓉 𝒶𝒾𝓃'𝓉 𝓉𝒽𝑒 𝓌𝒶𝓎 𝒾𝓉 𝓈𝑒𝑒𝓂𝓈
- Love Buzz by Nirvana
. . . ❂ . . .
Her teeth grace the air with an elegance I could never achieve, but it’s one that I admire and associate only with her. Her hand graces my bicep, exposed by my falling sweater, before draping it around my shoulder. 𝙐𝙩𝙩𝙚𝙧 𝙗𝙡𝙞𝙨𝙨. As always, I couldn’t help but return her innocence, her openness. The bangles adorning her wrists crash into my shoulder, leaving a mark I wish could last forever. But she doesn’t notice how closely I grip her hand, pull it to my cheek as a keepsake. No, she’s too busy chatting up the bartender, convincing him of our twenties when Barney has seen us in here one too many times. Hell, he’s seen us at Columbus, smoking outside of the door that leads directly into the art room. He waved to us, but he’s willing to entertain Jac, even if it’s only for her face. And that smile! After a few more seconds of puppy-dog flashing, he gives in, relinquishing his precious Bud Light.
“The liquid of the gods!” leaves my lips before she, Santo, and I knock cans together.
Santo takes a glug, hands his beer to me, and says, “I’m gonna get in on the action before shit gets serious with Kurt. You guys wanna come with?”
I shake my head, looking over to Jac, who’s playing with the ends of her braids, ignoring Santo’s request. “Nah, we’ll sit this one out.”
He laughs before saying, “I don’t even know why I ask.” Donning a smirk, he looks to Jac. “You have a miraculous way of keeping our dear Birdie away from the bruises, blood, and immature glory of banging to Bratmobile.” Despite a seeming jab at Jac, he walks back to her, mumbles something about “just joking around,” and pulls her in for a bear hug.
“Oh and Bird, can you keep an eye out for Selene?”
I cock up an eyebrow, Bond-style. “Who in the 𝙛𝙪𝙘𝙠 is Selene?”
“My date.” His eyebrows furrow as though this is the most obvious damn thing in the world. His voice takes on a slight shrill. 𝙒𝙝𝙞𝙣𝙮 𝙗𝙤𝙮.
“Well don’t get an attitude, now. You act like she’s a regular appearance.” My hands adjust themselves on my hips, standing up a little taller. Smirking, I ask, “Where’d you meet her? Honor Society?”
He glares back at me, flipping me off as he begins to walk away. Before joining the pit, he shouts, “Just make sure she doesn’t get knocked around, ‘kay?” That’s the last I hear of him before he’s lost in the crowd.
“It’s Nirvana, by the way, you fuck!”
. . . ❂ . . .
I study the rim of my beer, looking into the abyss that I know the bottom of, but for a moment, I can convince myself it goes on forever and always. The sweat from the can line my hand, and deja-vu hits me. 𝙏𝙝𝙞𝙨 𝙛𝙚𝙚𝙡𝙨 𝙡𝙞𝙠𝙚 𝙖 𝙡𝙤𝙪𝙨𝙮 𝙨𝙘𝙝𝙤𝙤𝙡 𝙙𝙖𝙣𝙘𝙚. Replace the streamers with industrial lights, cafeteria tables with barstools and stained tabletops with cigarette holes burned into them as a memorial for an “unforgettable evening,” and of course, loaded punch with open containers of beer. Downing the rest of the can, I look over to Santo, who’s been united with his catch of the week. His hands rest on her hips, wrapping one arm around her ever so slightly. They’re swaying to Kurt’s gravelly voice, which punctuates the mood of the bar. Everyone is either headbanging or listening with tremendous intent. I used to be that person… 𝙖𝙧𝙤𝙪𝙣𝙙 𝙩𝙬𝙤 𝙗𝙚𝙚𝙧𝙨 𝙖𝙜𝙤.
𝐼'𝓁𝓁 𝓉𝒶𝓀𝑒 𝒶𝒹𝓋𝒶𝓃𝓉𝒶𝑔𝑒 𝓌𝒽𝒾𝓁𝑒
𝒴𝑜𝓊 𝒽𝒶𝓃𝑔 𝓂𝑒 𝑜𝓊𝓉 𝓉𝑜 𝒹𝓇𝓎
Turning over, I glide my hand into Jac’s, who’s still playing with the ends of her hair. I pull it towards my heart and tilt my head against the wall, using it at an axis point.
“You know what I love about you?” I start, a little bleary-eyed.
I’m telling you, I’d be a lousy drunk, given I’m a lightweight and all. While my grandmother is apparently the strongest drunk out there (40+ years of straight vodka and she can still pass a road test and use her kidneys), I get tipsy after a few sips. I set the can down, carrying her hand like a chic clutch or a security blanket. Standing up, using the wall for support once the dizziness hits, and I look into her eyes. They swim around, big swimming pools of lake water. Not the clear kind either- there’s dirt, algae, and golden crabs that move around with the slightest jolt of her pupils. God, you wish she looked at you like this. 𝙊𝙧 𝙖𝙩 𝙖𝙡𝙡. 𝙄 𝙠𝙣𝙤𝙬 𝙄 𝙙𝙤.
“The way you’re so independently you, the way you just,” I stop, tucking her hair behind her ears. “You have such pretty eyes like they just speak about who you are, ya know?”
Jac laughs, tucking the rest of her tawny hair behind her ears, leaving my hands nowhere to go but her cheeks. “No, I don’t. What about them?”
𝐵𝓊𝓉 𝐼 𝒸𝒶𝓃'𝓉 𝓈𝑒𝑒 𝓎𝑜𝓊 𝑒𝓋𝑒𝓇𝓎 𝓃𝒾𝑔𝒽𝓉
𝒩𝑜 𝐼 𝒸𝒶𝓃'𝓉 𝓈𝑒𝑒 𝓎𝑜𝓊 𝑒𝓋𝑒𝓇𝓎 𝓃𝒾𝑔𝒽𝓉
“They’re just so… Did you know you have little bits of freckles?” I begin to glide along the bridge of her nose before boop-ing the tip. She moves her head, pointing an ear towards me to hear better.
𝐹𝓇𝑒𝑒
She takes my hand, intertwining her fingers with mine, revealing a bit of the glistening pearls she was flashing Barney earlier. “Yeah… what about them?”
𝐼 𝒹𝑜 𝐼 𝒹𝑜
“A few months ago, while you were sleeping at Santo’s house, ya know, when he had that party?” Jac nods. “Well, I sat there and counted every single one.” I smile, gazing up at her, moving in for the kiss. 𝙇𝙤𝙧𝙙 𝙄'𝙢 𝙖 𝙡𝙤𝙪𝙨𝙮 𝙙𝙧𝙪𝙣𝙠. “You wanna know how many you have?” I move my lips towards hers, breathing out the last words, undoubtedly spraying her with the smell of old gym socks.
𝐼 𝒹𝑜 𝐼 𝒹𝑜
She dons a cool expression, one I can’t read. “How many?”
“42,” I whisper, settling my lips upon hers. “They’re like a subtle Pollock on your face.”
The kiss ends quickly as the next song starts up. I try to cup her face, but she turns on me, resting her back against the wall. A poster for St. Patrick’s Day hangs beside her, illuminating her face in a green glow. “Can we just watch the show? He’s your favorite person in the whole world.” She looks down at her various bangles and beads, and it isn’t long before her dungarees become the ire of her affections.
𝐿𝑜𝒶𝒹 𝓊𝓅 𝑜𝓃 𝑔𝓊𝓃𝓈, 𝒷𝓇𝒾𝓃𝑔 𝓎𝑜𝓊𝓇 𝒻𝓇𝒾𝑒𝓃𝒹𝓈
𝐼𝓉'𝓈 𝒻𝓊𝓃 𝓉𝑜 𝓁𝑜𝓈𝑒 𝒶𝓃𝒹 𝓉𝑜 𝓅𝓇𝑒𝓉𝑒𝓃𝒹
“Why can’t I kiss my girlfriend?” I move in front of her, blocking out the view of the shaggy blond with his fellow dark-haired hellions.
She crosses her arms, looking up at me with heavy-lidded eyes, and her lips form a weird line, so thin I can’t even see them. “Come on, 𝘽𝙞𝙧𝙙𝙞𝙚. Can’t we just watch the show?” She punctuates my name like it’s a slur.
“Why do you have to be this way?”
“What way? If anyone’s being any ‘way’ (she throws up air quotes), it’s you.”
𝒮𝒽𝑒'𝓈 𝑜𝓋𝑒𝓇-𝒷𝑜𝓇𝑒𝒹 𝒶𝓃𝒹 𝓈𝑒𝓁𝒻-𝒶𝓈𝓈𝓊𝓇𝑒𝒹
𝒪𝒽 𝓃𝑜, 𝐼 𝓀𝓃𝑜𝓌 𝒶 𝒹𝒾𝓇𝓉𝓎 𝓌𝑜𝓇𝒹
Now, here’s where I get a little more upset than what’s necessary. Or at least what’s a normal amount of upset-ness for the crime. “What the fuck was up with that?”
“What?” She dons an innocent-bystander look.
“Come on, 𝙅𝙖𝙘. Stop being such a frigid bitch when your girlfriend is just trying to have a nice time.” I cross my arms, face warming more than the planet.
The whirlpool lake of algae and seaweed narrows, a haze of thick eyelashes settling over her face. She pushes past me, bumping into Serena… Selena?, and knocking Santo into the wall.
𝐻𝑒𝓁𝓁𝑜, 𝒽𝑒𝓁𝓁𝑜, 𝒽𝑒𝓁𝓁𝑜, 𝒽𝑜𝓌 𝓁𝑜𝓌
𝐻𝑒𝓁𝓁𝑜, 𝒽𝑒𝓁𝓁𝑜, 𝒽𝑒𝓁𝓁𝑜, 𝒽𝑜𝓌 𝓁𝑜𝓌
“Fuck you” is all that surpasses the din.
Santo looks to me before yelling, “What the fuck did you do this time?”
. . . ❂ . . .
Santo’s latest victim abandons us at the parking lot, leaving him as the caboose to the absolute train wreck of an evening. I’m stuck in the center of a circle’s 20 feet diameter, though it isn’t long before Santo closes the gap and makes the line between the three of us a radius.
“I can’t leave you alone for twenty minutes before you fuck something up, eh?”
I sling my arm around his waist. You see, I’m one of those types who can’t really get through anything combative without either crying or needing a literal beacon of sanity, reason, and body warmth. Luckily, Santo is always a willing victim. “I don’t even know what I did this time…”
“Oh it’s always something. She’ll probably tell me later.” He looks at the light that passes over our heads.
“I should probably talk to her.” 𝙒𝙝𝙞𝙘𝙝 𝙨𝙤𝙪𝙣𝙙𝙨 𝙖𝙗𝙤𝙪𝙩 𝙖𝙨 𝙢𝙪𝙘𝙝 𝙛𝙪𝙣 𝙖𝙨 𝙚𝙭𝙥𝙡𝙖𝙞𝙣𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙩𝙤 𝙢𝙮 𝙥𝙖𝙧𝙚𝙣𝙩𝙨 (𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙞𝙧 𝙫𝙖𝙧𝙞𝙚𝙙 𝙨𝙝𝙤𝙬 𝙗𝙪𝙙𝙙𝙞𝙚𝙨 𝙬𝙝𝙤 𝙣𝙚𝙫𝙚𝙧 𝙨𝙚𝙚𝙢 𝙩𝙤 𝙝𝙖𝙫𝙚 𝙝𝙤𝙢𝙚𝙨 𝙩𝙤 𝙜𝙤 𝙩𝙤) 𝙬𝙝𝙮 𝙄 𝙛𝙖𝙞𝙡𝙚𝙙 𝘼𝙋 𝘾𝙝𝙚𝙢𝙞𝙨𝙩𝙧𝙮. At least I don’t have to do both on the same day.
He chuckles. “Ya think?” Removing my arm, he pushes me and shoos me along. He winks before adding, “I’ll be right behind you in case things go south.”
. . . ❂ . . .
“Hey…” I call out softly, closing the gap between us and touching her tawny shoulder that’s lined with the strap to her tank top. “Wait up.”
She turns on me, jutting her hip out. “What?” Her brows furrow, and it’s cute how she tries to look furious.
“Don’t be like that.” Still soft.
“Oh! I thought I was a frigid bitch. I was just to appease you, darling.” 𝙋𝙚𝙧𝙝𝙖𝙥𝙨 𝙨𝙝𝙚 𝙞𝙨𝙣'𝙩 𝙩𝙧𝙮𝙞𝙣𝙜...
“Jac, come on. Why can’t we just talk this out?” Remain soft.
“I don’t know, Bird, maybe it’s cause you refuse to hear any criticism against you without turning cruel. Or maybe it’s the fact that you can’t just respect boundaries. Not everyone wants to make out when they go to a concert.” Santo’s becomes the receiving end of a dirty look from the dirty lake despite being a few feet away.
I move to touch her, but Jac jolts away, hair whipping around. The sound of shuffling denim bound to chafe. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be that way.”
“Well you are! How many times have we had this conversation?” She huffs, moving her hand to collect mine. “Look. You aren’t going to change, and neither am I. It’s better if this ends here.”
I grab her hand tighter, her rings digging into my flesh. If you really wanna know about it, I’m a needy fucker. Attached doesn’t even begin to express it. It’s no wonder that even while we’re fighting, my heart pitter-patters. “Don’t be like that. I’ll change!” I examine her fingernails, with their growing stockpiles of grime under them. 𝙎𝙝𝙚 𝙝𝙖𝙩𝙚𝙨 𝙞𝙩 𝙬𝙝𝙚𝙣 𝙝𝙚𝙧 𝙝𝙖𝙣𝙙𝙨 𝙖𝙧𝙚𝙣'𝙩 𝙥𝙧𝙞𝙨𝙩𝙞𝙣𝙚. I meet her eyes. A hardness hits my voice. “We can work through it. What? It was just a little tiff about PDA. I shouldn’t have reacted the way I did, but I’m a little tipsy.” A beat, and the softness returns. “I’m sorry.”
She rips her hand out, nicking me with her moonstone, and digs it into her hair, covering her elegant forehead. Her voice rises. “That’s the thing! You’re always full of excuses, telling me it isn’t one way when it is!” She backs away, stuffing her hands into her overalls, exposing her elbows. Her body fills with tension. “Just admit you were mean! You know how I feel about PDA, it’s no surprise I didn’t react well. God! You only hear the sound of your own damn voice.”
“Well… you’re never open to new things! If I didn’t push you out of your comfort zone, you would have never done half the shit you love to do now. Hell, if it wasn’t for me, you would never be here! You woulda never heard of Kurt or Bikini Kill or any of it. You wouldn’t have Santo, Barney, or any of ‘em.” I take a breath. “Come on man, our first date was literally me smokin’ with you for the first time. Now, who’s the resident pot-head at school?”
“I told you that I wanted to try those things. I- you know what. Never-fucking-mind.” She’s yelling now. “It’s over! You’re like talking to a wall. God!” She spins around, scuffling her hair. After a few seconds, she stops, squares her shoulders and balls the insides of her pockets once more. “It’s over, okay? We’re done.” No more haunted pools. With a brief cursory glance at Santo, she walks away. The street light highlights the curve of her back until she fades into complete obscurity.
“You really fucked yourself this time.” Santo attaches himself to my hip, swinging an arm around me. He flashes me with eyes filled with pity. God, if you ever want to know something about me, I hate it when people do that. Act like they get what’s going on with you and act accordingly.
I begin to walk in the opposite direction, tucked close to him, and say, “Eh. We just need a few hours to simmer down. We’ll be fine by tomorrow.”
He looks at me with an eyebrow raised. “I guess it’s good you’re remaining optimistic.”
“Trust me, Santo. Everything’s going to be fine.” He nods, refusing to look back at me again.
I jab him in the side before beginning to sing, “Schlemiel!”
Looking over at me with an uncertain smirk, he continues our after-show ritual, “Schlimazel!”
And then, together: “Hasenpfeffer Incorporated!”
. . . ❂ . . .
Look, I’ll be honest with you, I can’t help but feel the impending sense of doom, even as I drown myself into another beer. There’s nothing to worry about, but Santo won’t shut up about the end of the world coinciding with the end of Birqueline (an asinine name he came up with about two minutes ago in the midst of our drunken and high ramblings).
“You see, it’s all going downhill for y’all along with the rest of this god-forsaken planet. I mean. It’s no coincidence that Jac breaks up with you-
“Which isn’t going to last more than a day,” I butt in.
“Uh-huh, right. So, it’s no coincidence that she breaks up with you on the same day that greenhouse gases are reported at an all-time high. Just sayin’,” He finishes, taking another hit. I take the joint from him.
“And… that’s enough for you, mister.”
“Don’t ruin my fun.” His blurred eyes narrow, and his eyelashes shadow his face. “Not all of us can skip third period to make out with their girlfriend in the broom closet.” Smirking, he plucks it out of my hands.
Taking another swig of his dad’s homemade beer, I glare at him. The moonlight streaking through the garage door window is the only source of light. As I shift in the woven lawn chair and tuck my legs into a criss-cross, the creaking fills up the thickening silence. He gives me a road-weary look with a hint of a smile remaining. My face probably isn’t very kind-hearted, whimsical, or any of the other forms he probably wants me to assume given our state.
I retrieve the blunt once more, sticking it in my mouth. Settling in, I attempt to look like I’m a loan shark, hanging it out of my mouth like a cigar. “Well, ya see, sonny-boy, you really don’t know what I was doing during that time, do ya? No siree. Ya don’t! Don’t assume nothing now, or you’ll end up sleeping with the fishies.” I wink, take a puff, and pass it back to Santo.
“You should go into acting, you goose.” His face becomes gooier and trickster. “I mean… you’re even able to convince yourself that Jac isn’t serious. That’s some serious skillzz, home skillet.”
“You are far too drunk and high to comprehend what’s going on.”
“Same could be said about you.” Looking me dead on, he ashes into the Mickey-Mouse coffee mug I bought for him when we were 12 and we went to Disneyland. It became our sacred ashtray sophomore year.
I’ll tell you, being fully honest and all that, I’m getting uncomfortable. His gaze is becoming too much, and the way he reads me and has always read me made me just want to scream. I don’t, thankfully, but I feel like a mouse in one of those endless mazes, where you think that there’s an end but there isn’t one. Or maybe the other experiment where the mouse keeps getting shocked, but he gets food each time so he soldiers on. Yeah, that’s the better metaphor for conversing with Santo.
I return his gaze. “Can we just have fun? Ya know, celebrate the end of the year and all that?” Another sip of beer and a few seconds of silence. If he could, he’d probably ponder this request with a white, fat cat in his lap and pipe hangin’ from his mouth.
Finally, an “Of course!”
“Thanks, man.” I crush the empty can, going for a three-pointer from my chair to the recycling bin. A few beats pass after I miss. “So. You hear anything about that program?”
“Nah. I should get a call tomorrow though. They said they’d call by the 10th.”
Sluggishly, I sloth over to the flightless can. I rub his shoulder as I pass, saying, “They’d be stupid not to give you the scholarship. I mean your PSAT scores alone…”
“Yeah. I don’t know. They haven’t seen my SATs yet though, and that’s the next step.” He stares into the can’s opening like I did earlier. 𝙊𝙝! 𝙏𝙤 𝙘𝙤𝙢𝙥𝙧𝙚𝙝𝙚𝙣𝙙 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙖𝙗𝙮𝙨𝙨. 𝙉𝙞𝙚𝙩𝙯𝙨𝙘𝙝𝙚 𝙬𝙤𝙪𝙡𝙙 𝙘𝙧𝙮.
Grabbing the mug from his as I walk back, I flop back into the chair and almost unsettle its footing. “Come on, no one actually believes in all that bullshit that standardized tests ‘demonstrate’ (air quotes, of course). They’re probably really understanding, ya know, given your background.”
He cocks an eyebrow, a signature move that feels like a gun loading. Except maybe a gun full of smiles and laughs instead of blood, death, and guts. “My background? (again, air quotes, of fucking course.)”
“Hello? Kid of a single dad, Mexican, A+ student, National Honor Society darling, all that. You getting a shabby (or even normal score, considering it’s Santo) score on the SAT wouldn’t be that much of a deal-breaker.” Fiddling with the ends of my shaggy sweater, I jump a little when he scoops up the mug and the joint.
He chuckles a little, shaking his head. “I think you severely underestimate the competitiveness of the world, Bird.”
I push myself to the front of my seat. “Oh come on! The world isn’t all black and white.”
“Uh-huh.” He looks at the rafters, ashing once more. His face equally as gray as the bottom of the cup.
“The world’s changing, at least a little bit. I mean I doubt that it’s ever going to be perfect and there’s a fuck-ton of problems, but. Look, you’re going places and there’s people out there who’ll help you get there.”
“Maybe I want people to help me because I’m smart and not because I happen to be what some people call ‘disadvantaged.’”
“It’s not like that! It’s just evening the the playing field, that’s all.”
“My brothers were just fine with their brains and big britches. You don’t see them on a quest for affirmative action.”
I stand up, placing my hands on my hips and swaying my XL sweater. “What about Eddie and Gabriele? They wouldn’t have made it without help either and no offense to Gabriele but he isn’t that smart.”
“He’s also one of the best football players in the Seattle area so.”
“Okay, touche. But still. Eddie stands by it.”
“Eddie’s an award-winning novelist.”
“Okay I wouldn’t qualify the Bestseller list for the Olympia Journal, but you still proved my point. He’s living proof that it works. How else would he have gotten into UC Berkeley?”
Now he’s standing. “That’s not fair to blame affirmative action for all his achievements.”
“No but it’s not like it isn’t working.”
“Look. You asked to not talk about Jac, can we not discuss my future?” He pleads with his eyes, though his stance is still strained and tested like a rubber band.
I flop back down. “Yeah. Of course. Sorry,” I whisper in a choppy, stop-go voice. If you haven’t figured it out yet, I’m awful at this. At expressing myself without fucking someone else over or fucking up what I want to say. By the look on Santo’s relieved face, I don’t know when to stop until someone asks. 𝙉𝙤 𝙬𝙤𝙣𝙙𝙚𝙧 𝙄'𝙢 𝙬𝙝𝙚𝙧𝙚 𝙄'𝙢 𝙖𝙩 𝙬𝙞𝙩𝙝 𝙝𝙚𝙧.
In thirty seconds, he downs another entire can. Gasping for air like an alcohol-soaked fish, he runs his hands through his hair. Resting his head on the worn back of his chair, letting it cradle his head, he sighs. “I wish we didn’t worry about the stupid things and didn’t care about the right things.”
I’m tempted to give a “Hail, Mary!” or a “Cheers to that my friend,” but the silence feels too important to interrupt. Like it, too, has a voice, and it’d be rude to stop its delirious speech about the trials and tribulations of youth. You probably think I’m losing it.
Once a minute or two passes, I sense the speech is over and it's ready to hear my testimony. “Maybe that’s what youth is for, ya know? Learning to know what’s the important stuff and what isn’t.”
“And what happens when we don’t?”
. . . ❂ . . .
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