2005-03-11 - 8:49 p.m.
Nihilistic Tendencies (Part I: Mutual Funds)
His arms slipped around her bare shoulders, pulling her in close. She wore a gold dress, he a brown coat and his pride as a patch on the back of his pocket.
"Mon amour, tu es ma vie, ma monde entier. Sans toi, je suis rien. Pour toi, j'irais decrocher la lune, si tu me le demander.
"You'd kill me if you knew what that means." he said.
They were almost the same height and argued about it quite often. In all reality she was smaller since she was innocent and he was not.
She said, "You'd kill me if you knew you weren't the first boy to say that to me tonight."
She felt one hand between her shoulder blades pressing her into him and another around her thin neck, tight in a grasping-for-each-don't-go-of-me way he'd taught her many times before dawn. Her hands felt their way to the dip in the small of his back (she'd taught herself that). She couldn't remember much more, she never remembered correctly. She always got caught up with whose neck was whose and if he was going to kiss her or not.
He said, "Why don't we go out dancing anymore? I miss going out dancing."
She said, "When did we ever go out dancing?"
He said, "We used to all the time! Don't you remember?"
She said, "Well if we're getting into this conversation, I miss the hammock. I miss the balloons we filled with paint and shot darts at."
He said, "We did that once."
She said, "We don't anymore."
And then they seemed to realize they were still in a closet with chairs piled up against the green wall paper with the door was open and a band had started playing, in fact they were close to being finished...(Even though she was in his car halfway to Maine and he was already in the hotel room there.)
Dressed for winter,
They sat in his one room apartment under the hundreds of picture negatives taped to the wall. She couldn't tell what the exact colour of the walls were, everything looked tinted a soft green-grey and she smiled because it looked like a picture they used to fight about. He had sent her money to buy a train ticket and come see him. There wasn't any hesitation then, as soon as she saw the two dollars and dimes she had her coat and was at the train station. The train was nearly empty, an old man sitting near a window in the second row and the smoke stained engineer doing only what was necessary to make the train move, were the only other passengers. It was dark, dark and only six o'clock. That was what winter did to the world. The city was dark too, even though the lights worked perfectly well, dark and dirty. That was what being sketchy did to them.
He sent for her because he didn't have much money left and needed something to keep him occupied. That was the bare bones of it, he didn't know this at the time and she didn't either. He tried to play it off as being genuinely polite and keeping a promise that he had made her. So he taped some change and two dollars in a letter, wrote, “meet me” on a photograph, and at the time it had seemed like a good idea. But the lacking of careful planning tainted his expectations. That was what making mistakes did to him.
She leaned over and kissed his jaw line, right past his ear, "No evil, angel, love." she whispered, just as she had planned. Fireworks exploded in every vertebrae of his spine, growing increasingly more intense, traveling up to his neck where she was smiling. He turned and pressed his lips into hers, trying to soak himself with her presence and tasting her deeply disclosed antics. She always thought she'd have someone dark and tall, the things he was not. It didn't anger her exactly, even though she noticed she kept pulling at his hair. Slowly, it seemed, the layers of clothes between them disappeared, leaving him grasping her neck and it was as though they were fighting again, because they both always seemed to get some sort of satisfaction out of their arguments.
He was still breathing heavy an hour later, a nudging and uncomfortable heat crept up his hairline, the same place she had been kissing earlier. “I think I need to tell you something.” he said near her ear, half hoping she was asleep and didn’t hear him at all. She turned to look at his face; so close, she was so close. He blinked, everything was so dim. How was this supposed to go again? Why am I putting more obstacles out to tiptoe around? He wondered. “I think I need to tell you something.” he said again. “I know.” she said. “Well, since I’ve been here things have been going in a different order-” he started. “I know.” she said. “And some opportunities have come along-“ he started again. “I know. I said I know.” she said. “Wait. What?” he pushed himself up so he wasn’t on top of her anymore. “Wait. What? You called them “opportunities”?” she sat up too. “What do you know?” he asked. “What do you mean fucking “opportunities”?” she raised her voice, “I know every goddamn thing that’s what I know.” “How do you know? You know about the-“ he cringed. “Your friends told me after you left. That’s why I came here. You knew all along what you were and weren’t doing. I knew too, except I knew in a more sober way compared to your drunken “opportunities”.” she had a hand holding his neck, not in a tight way, it was just the way she always made him listen.
He kept remembering other times in different apartments having the same conversation, feeling the same hand at his neck. He stood up, too close for comfort he decided. Looking around in the dark he felt foolish and reached for his pants. “Don’t play this shit with me.” she shouted, getting up too. He was surprised how she just stood there; unembarrassed, still white innocent even after everything was said and done. With the same look too, like he had just hit her, though he hadn’t; this wasn’t one of their physical fights. The same hands twirling her curls. He saw it; she always looked the same when he disappointed her. There was one time that she was showing art and he promised he’d come see, he hadn’t and she knew why now. Oh god! She knew about the – he cringed. Oh god, he was thinking, she knows everything, there’s nothing to hold against her and the worst part is she’s standing there with that same wounded face.
She wasn’t like other girls when it came to disappointing them. Mostly they cried a bit and then stormed out. But she was the best at making him feel the worst; she always made him feel the hurt. And she never cried. He knew she did in the aftermath, when she was alone, when he couldn’t see and that’s what made him sick. That she still cared enough to not cry in presence. And god knew he tried to make her. They’d rage and rage; where had his temper gone?
“Oh god. Oh goddamn.” he knew he was audible, he cold feel his voice outside his head. “You know everything. And what we did. What I made you do!” She said, “You knew I’d come didn’t you? You knew I’d come and you knew what we’d do. Because we always do! How about you be the man for once! How about you clean up this mess for once! What’s wrong with you? You got what you wanted right?” Her words kept bouncing in and out of the room, in and out of his closed eyes, breathing in and out her old words, new words. This was a bad trip; everything was dark, dark and fuzzy blue, so dim and much too close. He felt his skin crawling, he felt so dirty, he had made her dirty. He couldn’t move from the crouched position on the thin, thin carpet. His chest was gauged open, an upside-down bowl right below his ribs.
She was still standing, one hand covering her mouth, eyes closed and shaking, frail and so white. That was what revenge did to her.
