12 thousand people all holding their breath
or yawning or clapping for the little men
down on the grass. We came here to eat hot dogs!
We came here to drink beer and see baseballs
climb the sky! To see outfielders launch
themselves into smooth green walls!
Beautiful women and beautiful children
were in the crowd and beautiful weather
hung in the air. Everyone knew
it was a perfect night. The lights
winked on like Diamond earrings.
My cousin Tony and brother Max and I
snuck down to the front row,
where we could yell insults at the
bullpen or the umpires and they might
hear us. We ate green hot dogs and spilled
Pepsi on a statue of a businessman.
An accident, we decided it was a protest
against them building a statue of some guy
just cause he spent a lot of money.
We yelled obscene things about #34's wife
as he warmed up in the bullpen
and when they released him into the game
we felt almost a little proud
like he was our friend or a guy we knew
in high school. Top of the ninth,
we're up 3 runs and the crowd chimes
according to every ball and strike.
Our friend #34 threw into the emptiness
of the batter's swing three times
and we heard the ball swallowed into nothing
and stood and woo-hooed! We won! The whole
skyline was on it's feet over the outfield.
We walked the three blocks back to my house
and two men in a silver car stopped
us on the corner in the dark.
Who won? Clippers. Score? 11-8.
It was minor league, they weren't playing
for anything, but it was a stadium record
attendance. Me and Max and Tony breathing
the same Summer air as everyone else, alive.
Showing posts with label Summer. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Summer. Show all posts
16 February 2011
22 June 2009
Worker's Compensation
Russ put his broom up and leaned on it, his face, back, chest all doused with sweat. "They don’t pay us enough for this shit," he said.
"The view is good, we’re getting a tan, a workout," Woody said. Woody was handsome, jaw hard as poured concrete, but spoke with the cretinous lisp of a mad scientist’s hunchbacked assistant.
For a week they had been on top of the Adams Tower, a dormitory that could be seen from miles around alongside its twin, Morris, both 15 stories tall. The wind blew hard up there, but the sun bouncing off the tar was so hot that it pretty much negated any refreshment it might have brought. In high school Russ had been pudgy and pale, but his three summers with Kyber Roofing had pounded and baked his flesh into sturdier shape. He hated the work, and told himself he was going to quit all the time, but after drunkenly charging through a red light at 3 am and subsequently flirting his way to an OMVI and a suspended license, he didn’t have much choice but to keep at it, as Woody, his roommate and bestfriend since they met at 6th grade wrestling camp, could drive him to work.
“Jesus Christ, what time is it?” Russ said.
“It’s almost five.”
The radio played country music in the background. Russ looked out at the city, the football stadium, the campus, the rivers, the freeway, downtown. He could see for miles. He had spent so much time on the roofs that he had almost forgotten the danger of falling. He remembered seeing those pictures from the 20s and 30s of guys in newsboy caps and overalls eating their lunches on thin steel beams, high above the faint grey mist of a city, as casually as if they were sitting on a park bench. He used to think those guys were crazy, and though he’d never worked on a skyscraper, mostly because they didn’t build skyscrapers in Columbus, if they paid him, he probably would’ve. You only fall if you’re a dumbass.
Russ didn’t do much of anything as the last fifteen minutes of his shift dripped away. At five o’clock he and Woody took the regular elevator down, at the chance they might see some co-eds, whereas the other guys took the service elevator. There were no girls on the elevator, and they got in Woody’s pick-up and flipped the air-conditioner to full and it chilled them like a wonderful arctic blast. They lived in one of those apartment complexes where people are filed away into little rooms furnished with beer pong tables and cinder block shelves. To them it was a kind of paradise though. They were living alone for the first time in their lives, making money, with little responsibility to anyone but themselves. The amenities were great; A lake, too muddy and shallow to swim in, belonging to the ducks, with a rather limp fountain gurgling in the center, but good for fishing; a pool with a waterfall and built-in concrete bar stools; a small gym, and what was advertised as a movie theatre but was actually just a a small room with a couch, a few folding chairs and a projection TV with an image of a basketball game burned into the screen. They got home, cracked a couple beers and headed to the pool, where one of their neighbors, a carpenter named Bobby, was sitting at the concrete bar. Bobby had a hunch in his back, and could no longer rotate his neck, but rather turned his whole body to focus on whoever was speaking. He nodded from his chest and seemed to have a different injured-on-the-job story every night.
“I fell down a set of stairs on this site over by Ravenwood, tripped over a bucket of nails, fell 13 concrete steps to the basement floor. Cement. Fucked my spine all up. They had to take 3 vertebrae out of my lumbar, fused a couple together in my neck. They gave me a shitload of oxycotin and vicodin though, so I feel fucking great.”
“I thought you weren’t supposed to drink while you were taking that stuff,” Russ said, commenting on Bobby’s margarita.
“Shit, I don’t know. Half the stuff Doctor’s say you gotta figure is bullshit.” Bobby said. Russ and Woody shared a laugh. “If you want any I’ll sell’em to you, 20 bucks a pop. Tell your friends. I got hundreds of the little beauties.”
“I’ll take some,” Woody said.
“Come on by the place. I’ll hook you up,” Bobby said.
“Hell yeah,” Woody said.
“Cost fifty grand for the surgery, course my medical shit’s all covered so I don’t have to worry about that. I can’t hardly bend anymore, except from the waist, but I get compensation out the ass. I just sit around high as a motherfucker watchin’ Speed channel all day, cashing checks. Beats the shit outta working for a living.”
Russ laughed and shook his head.
***
On the last day of work on the tower, after they’d packed everything into the truck and everyone else had left, Russ asked Woody to take a picture of him with his camera phone on the roof in front of the football stadium. He stood near the three foot wall that rimmed the roof.
“You gotta get closer to the edge,” Woody said, looking at the screen. “I can’t get you and the field from this far back.”
“I’m standing two feet from the edge, dickhead,” Russ said.
“More like two yards,” Woody squinted and maneuvered the camera around different heights and angles, trying to frame Russ. “You’re gonna have to sit on the edge or something.”
“Just hold the camera higher,” Russ said, “Point it down.”
“I’d have to be ten feet tall,” Woody said. He got an empty gray bucket, placed it upside down and stood on it. “Since you’re such a pussy and won’t go near the edge.”
“I don’t care about the edge. The edge doesn’t bother me, it’s just that you don’t know how to take a fucking picture,” Russ laughed.
“Bullshit, I took Photography all four years in high school,” Woody clicked a few pictures. “Who are you, Johnny fuckin’ Kodak?”
“Johnny Kodak? Who the fuck is Johnny Kodak?”
“Shut up. I couldn’t think of anybody famous who takes pictures.”
“I took some pretty famous pictures with your mom.”
Woody lost his balance and the bucket teetered a bit.
“Don’t fall there buddy,” Russ said.
“I’m not gonna fall,” Woody hopped down from the bucket and held the phone so they could both look through the pictures. The sun was too bright so Russ took the phone and shielded the screen with his hand.
“Dude, your fucking thumb is blocking out half the picture.”
Woody laughed and looked at the phone. “Sorry dude.”
Russ held the camera at arm’s length and took a picture of himself. “Now I’m gonna look all emo taking my own picture.”
“Cause you are emo. You’re a pussy who wouldn’t go near the edge.”
Russ faked like he was going to punch Woody and Woody flinched and laughed. “I’ll bet you 500 bucks right now I’ll hang down over the side,” Russ said off-handedly as he cycled through the pictures.
“Deal.”
“Bullshit,” Russ pulled a can of chewing tobacco from his pocket and stuffed a load into his mouth.
“500 bucks. Right now. Do it.”
“You got 500 bucks on you?”
“I’ll go to the ATM.”
Russ stroked his chin, considering the bet. He spit a thread of juice. “I don’t know. I want to see the money first.”
“Dude, it’s me. I live with you. What am I gonna do, not pay you?”
Russ wasn’t afraid. He trusted his own strength. He was smiling, tantalized by the idea.
“I’ll tell you what, you climb over the edge, hang there for 30 seconds, I’ll pay your share of the rent this month,” Woody said. “And the utilities. That’s more than 500 bucks.”
Russ examined the roof, figuring the logistical aspects: what he’d grasp onto, how he’d pull himself up, where he’d put his feet. “I feel like we should get a video camera or something.”
“I’ve got one on my phone.”
“What if Ronnie comes back up and finds my ass hanging over the roof.”
“Ronnie’s not gonna bring his fatass back up here. We already took everything down. He’s probably in the drive-through at McDonald’s by now. If he comes up, we’ll just say you tripped.”
Russ chewed his tobacco slowly. “Would you do it?”
“Fuck yeah I’d do it. Piece of cake. Easiest 500 bucks you’ll ever make.”
“You gonna pull me up if I start to slip?”
“Fuck no dude. You’re on your own,” Woody said. “Of course I got you. I won’t pay you the full 500, but I got you.”
“How much if you pull me up?”
Woody considered it. "None."
"None?"
"It's an all or nothing deal, bro."
Russ hocked his wad of chewing tobacco over the side. He watched it twist and fall, its path bending until it hit the ground in the gravel near a bank of air-conditioners with blades whirling. “30 seconds?”
“I’ll count.”
“All right,” Russ said. He clapped his hands together, breaking from the stillness of his consideration.
“All right?” Woody said, surprised at the answer.
“Let’s do it,” Russ said. “Shake on it.” They shook hands. Woody snapped his phone open and clicked the camera on. Russ stepped one foot over the wall, clasping it between his ankles. He knelt down, hugged the wall and gently let his legs down, one at a time. He was hanging from the edge.
“Count Motherfucker,” he said.
Woody began to count, “One-one thousand, two-one thousand...”
Russ’ face, normally a tomato-red, grew to the purple of an eggplant as the numbers got higher. He could feel the breeze against his legs. His steel-toed workboots dragged at his feet, but he didn’t have to strain to keep himself up. He felt the sweat on his forearms slide from the rim like butter on a hot pan, his grip slipping. He clamped his fingers harder against the gritty stucco wall.
“...Twenty-one thousand, twenty-one-one thousand...”
Russ scraped his boots against the side of the tower, pushing himself back up, as if he were getting out of a pool.
“Twenty-nine-one thousand, Thirty-one thousand.”
Russ threw a leg over the wall and rolled onto the tacky black roof.
“You motherfucker,” Woody said.
Russ laughed and huffed in great breaths of air, rolling back and forth in ecstacy. He stood up and pumped his fist, held his arms over his head victoriously.
“I can’t believe you did that. You’re crazy, dude.”
“You said you’d do it!”
“No fuckin’ way! You fall you’re a dead man.”
“Did you get the video?”
“Yeah dude,” Russ sidled around to look at the screen and they watched the video, “Holy-shit”ing” and “Dude”-ing and spinning around as if they’d just won the Super Bowl.
“You gotta put that on facebook,” Russ said. “You better pay up.”
“Of course I’m gonna pay.”
“Beer’s on me tonight.”
“Damn right beer’s on you.”
They walked towards the door to the stairs, the sun still flaming in the sky.
“Shit,” Russ said, “I’da done it for free if you’da asked me.”
"The view is good, we’re getting a tan, a workout," Woody said. Woody was handsome, jaw hard as poured concrete, but spoke with the cretinous lisp of a mad scientist’s hunchbacked assistant.
For a week they had been on top of the Adams Tower, a dormitory that could be seen from miles around alongside its twin, Morris, both 15 stories tall. The wind blew hard up there, but the sun bouncing off the tar was so hot that it pretty much negated any refreshment it might have brought. In high school Russ had been pudgy and pale, but his three summers with Kyber Roofing had pounded and baked his flesh into sturdier shape. He hated the work, and told himself he was going to quit all the time, but after drunkenly charging through a red light at 3 am and subsequently flirting his way to an OMVI and a suspended license, he didn’t have much choice but to keep at it, as Woody, his roommate and bestfriend since they met at 6th grade wrestling camp, could drive him to work.
“Jesus Christ, what time is it?” Russ said.
“It’s almost five.”
The radio played country music in the background. Russ looked out at the city, the football stadium, the campus, the rivers, the freeway, downtown. He could see for miles. He had spent so much time on the roofs that he had almost forgotten the danger of falling. He remembered seeing those pictures from the 20s and 30s of guys in newsboy caps and overalls eating their lunches on thin steel beams, high above the faint grey mist of a city, as casually as if they were sitting on a park bench. He used to think those guys were crazy, and though he’d never worked on a skyscraper, mostly because they didn’t build skyscrapers in Columbus, if they paid him, he probably would’ve. You only fall if you’re a dumbass.
Russ didn’t do much of anything as the last fifteen minutes of his shift dripped away. At five o’clock he and Woody took the regular elevator down, at the chance they might see some co-eds, whereas the other guys took the service elevator. There were no girls on the elevator, and they got in Woody’s pick-up and flipped the air-conditioner to full and it chilled them like a wonderful arctic blast. They lived in one of those apartment complexes where people are filed away into little rooms furnished with beer pong tables and cinder block shelves. To them it was a kind of paradise though. They were living alone for the first time in their lives, making money, with little responsibility to anyone but themselves. The amenities were great; A lake, too muddy and shallow to swim in, belonging to the ducks, with a rather limp fountain gurgling in the center, but good for fishing; a pool with a waterfall and built-in concrete bar stools; a small gym, and what was advertised as a movie theatre but was actually just a a small room with a couch, a few folding chairs and a projection TV with an image of a basketball game burned into the screen. They got home, cracked a couple beers and headed to the pool, where one of their neighbors, a carpenter named Bobby, was sitting at the concrete bar. Bobby had a hunch in his back, and could no longer rotate his neck, but rather turned his whole body to focus on whoever was speaking. He nodded from his chest and seemed to have a different injured-on-the-job story every night.
“I fell down a set of stairs on this site over by Ravenwood, tripped over a bucket of nails, fell 13 concrete steps to the basement floor. Cement. Fucked my spine all up. They had to take 3 vertebrae out of my lumbar, fused a couple together in my neck. They gave me a shitload of oxycotin and vicodin though, so I feel fucking great.”
“I thought you weren’t supposed to drink while you were taking that stuff,” Russ said, commenting on Bobby’s margarita.
“Shit, I don’t know. Half the stuff Doctor’s say you gotta figure is bullshit.” Bobby said. Russ and Woody shared a laugh. “If you want any I’ll sell’em to you, 20 bucks a pop. Tell your friends. I got hundreds of the little beauties.”
“I’ll take some,” Woody said.
“Come on by the place. I’ll hook you up,” Bobby said.
“Hell yeah,” Woody said.
“Cost fifty grand for the surgery, course my medical shit’s all covered so I don’t have to worry about that. I can’t hardly bend anymore, except from the waist, but I get compensation out the ass. I just sit around high as a motherfucker watchin’ Speed channel all day, cashing checks. Beats the shit outta working for a living.”
Russ laughed and shook his head.
***
On the last day of work on the tower, after they’d packed everything into the truck and everyone else had left, Russ asked Woody to take a picture of him with his camera phone on the roof in front of the football stadium. He stood near the three foot wall that rimmed the roof.
“You gotta get closer to the edge,” Woody said, looking at the screen. “I can’t get you and the field from this far back.”
“I’m standing two feet from the edge, dickhead,” Russ said.
“More like two yards,” Woody squinted and maneuvered the camera around different heights and angles, trying to frame Russ. “You’re gonna have to sit on the edge or something.”
“Just hold the camera higher,” Russ said, “Point it down.”
“I’d have to be ten feet tall,” Woody said. He got an empty gray bucket, placed it upside down and stood on it. “Since you’re such a pussy and won’t go near the edge.”
“I don’t care about the edge. The edge doesn’t bother me, it’s just that you don’t know how to take a fucking picture,” Russ laughed.
“Bullshit, I took Photography all four years in high school,” Woody clicked a few pictures. “Who are you, Johnny fuckin’ Kodak?”
“Johnny Kodak? Who the fuck is Johnny Kodak?”
“Shut up. I couldn’t think of anybody famous who takes pictures.”
“I took some pretty famous pictures with your mom.”
Woody lost his balance and the bucket teetered a bit.
“Don’t fall there buddy,” Russ said.
“I’m not gonna fall,” Woody hopped down from the bucket and held the phone so they could both look through the pictures. The sun was too bright so Russ took the phone and shielded the screen with his hand.
“Dude, your fucking thumb is blocking out half the picture.”
Woody laughed and looked at the phone. “Sorry dude.”
Russ held the camera at arm’s length and took a picture of himself. “Now I’m gonna look all emo taking my own picture.”
“Cause you are emo. You’re a pussy who wouldn’t go near the edge.”
Russ faked like he was going to punch Woody and Woody flinched and laughed. “I’ll bet you 500 bucks right now I’ll hang down over the side,” Russ said off-handedly as he cycled through the pictures.
“Deal.”
“Bullshit,” Russ pulled a can of chewing tobacco from his pocket and stuffed a load into his mouth.
“500 bucks. Right now. Do it.”
“You got 500 bucks on you?”
“I’ll go to the ATM.”
Russ stroked his chin, considering the bet. He spit a thread of juice. “I don’t know. I want to see the money first.”
“Dude, it’s me. I live with you. What am I gonna do, not pay you?”
Russ wasn’t afraid. He trusted his own strength. He was smiling, tantalized by the idea.
“I’ll tell you what, you climb over the edge, hang there for 30 seconds, I’ll pay your share of the rent this month,” Woody said. “And the utilities. That’s more than 500 bucks.”
Russ examined the roof, figuring the logistical aspects: what he’d grasp onto, how he’d pull himself up, where he’d put his feet. “I feel like we should get a video camera or something.”
“I’ve got one on my phone.”
“What if Ronnie comes back up and finds my ass hanging over the roof.”
“Ronnie’s not gonna bring his fatass back up here. We already took everything down. He’s probably in the drive-through at McDonald’s by now. If he comes up, we’ll just say you tripped.”
Russ chewed his tobacco slowly. “Would you do it?”
“Fuck yeah I’d do it. Piece of cake. Easiest 500 bucks you’ll ever make.”
“You gonna pull me up if I start to slip?”
“Fuck no dude. You’re on your own,” Woody said. “Of course I got you. I won’t pay you the full 500, but I got you.”
“How much if you pull me up?”
Woody considered it. "None."
"None?"
"It's an all or nothing deal, bro."
Russ hocked his wad of chewing tobacco over the side. He watched it twist and fall, its path bending until it hit the ground in the gravel near a bank of air-conditioners with blades whirling. “30 seconds?”
“I’ll count.”
“All right,” Russ said. He clapped his hands together, breaking from the stillness of his consideration.
“All right?” Woody said, surprised at the answer.
“Let’s do it,” Russ said. “Shake on it.” They shook hands. Woody snapped his phone open and clicked the camera on. Russ stepped one foot over the wall, clasping it between his ankles. He knelt down, hugged the wall and gently let his legs down, one at a time. He was hanging from the edge.
“Count Motherfucker,” he said.
Woody began to count, “One-one thousand, two-one thousand...”
Russ’ face, normally a tomato-red, grew to the purple of an eggplant as the numbers got higher. He could feel the breeze against his legs. His steel-toed workboots dragged at his feet, but he didn’t have to strain to keep himself up. He felt the sweat on his forearms slide from the rim like butter on a hot pan, his grip slipping. He clamped his fingers harder against the gritty stucco wall.
“...Twenty-one thousand, twenty-one-one thousand...”
Russ scraped his boots against the side of the tower, pushing himself back up, as if he were getting out of a pool.
“Twenty-nine-one thousand, Thirty-one thousand.”
Russ threw a leg over the wall and rolled onto the tacky black roof.
“You motherfucker,” Woody said.
Russ laughed and huffed in great breaths of air, rolling back and forth in ecstacy. He stood up and pumped his fist, held his arms over his head victoriously.
“I can’t believe you did that. You’re crazy, dude.”
“You said you’d do it!”
“No fuckin’ way! You fall you’re a dead man.”
“Did you get the video?”
“Yeah dude,” Russ sidled around to look at the screen and they watched the video, “Holy-shit”ing” and “Dude”-ing and spinning around as if they’d just won the Super Bowl.
“You gotta put that on facebook,” Russ said. “You better pay up.”
“Of course I’m gonna pay.”
“Beer’s on me tonight.”
“Damn right beer’s on you.”
They walked towards the door to the stairs, the sun still flaming in the sky.
“Shit,” Russ said, “I’da done it for free if you’da asked me.”
15 July 2008
Communion
Everybody else in the yard sings Don’t Stop Believin’
though they don’t know the words.
They are looking for the magic.
We are all looking for the magic.
Some find it through drugs, or religion,
some through art, some
sports or music.
Some through love.
Wings aflutter, alone or together,
we are all beating
our way up to God.
The Summer air is charged
with static electricity
or maybe it’s streaming
through my veins.
Touch ignites my skin.
I can never tell if the spark
comes from me or the girl.
I guess we made it together.
A flower petal drops into
my glass of water and
I drink it up.
though they don’t know the words.
They are looking for the magic.
We are all looking for the magic.
Some find it through drugs, or religion,
some through art, some
sports or music.
Some through love.
Wings aflutter, alone or together,
we are all beating
our way up to God.
The Summer air is charged
with static electricity
or maybe it’s streaming
through my veins.
Touch ignites my skin.
I can never tell if the spark
comes from me or the girl.
I guess we made it together.
A flower petal drops into
my glass of water and
I drink it up.
Up to My Ass in Daisies
I first saw Rita at a bohemian coffee shop where a mutual friend was performing a magic show. She had a blond, beehive hairdo, eyes that could read every thought you were trying to hide and lips soft and plump as strawberry taffy. I drunkenly searched the Facebook guest list for her later that night and recognized her by the honeycomb on top of her head. I sent her a message and, to my surprise, she gave me her phone number. I called many times, but never got past the voicemail. "Hi, this is Rita, leave a message." I memorized the timber of her voice, the little girl panicking over whether she should get the raspberry sorbet or the peanut butter brickle. I was in love with her for a few weeks but gradually gave up on the idea that she was going to save my life.
Six months later I was in an arty dive bar (the kind where you can't tell the difference between the scruffy hipsters wearing the carefully frayed 200 dollar jeans and ironic trucker hats and the scruffy people who are actually poor wearing frayed jeans and trucker hats) when I saw her for the second time.
"Oh shit," I said to my friend Oscar, "I think I know that girl."
"Which?" he stood on his toes and craned his neck.
Oscar is, as he is proud to admit, a huge smartass. He goes by the creed "It's better to be a smartass than a dumbass," although I would argue that this isn't always true, that sometimes your mouth can get you into situations that your body can't get you safely out of.
"With the hair," I indicated.
"Go talk to her."
He pushed me out onto the dance floor and I dawdled over to her, half nodding my head to the music, which was nearly unlistenable. There was a band onstage playing noise rock with a golf club, a filing cabinet and an electronic sample of frogs croaking.
She was swirling her drink around with a blue straw. I tapped her on the shoulder and when she turned around I was taken aback to see how much more beautiful she was in person.
"Hey!" She said and gave me a hug as if we were old friends.
"You have more freckles than I imagined," I said.
"Thanks," She said, smiling.
Our conversation was going well and she traveled with me to a booth by the pool table where Oscar and I were playing against two lesbians. We were down five balls and I got up to hit a difficult bank shot. I am a fair pool player at best, but I sunk it right in the pocket. Rita held up her drink and raised her eyebrow at me. I sunk another one across the table into the corner pocket, cutting it gingerly and putting the english on it necessary to keep the cue from going into the opposite pocket. I didn't look at Rita, as I was "in the zone" and I knew how cool I looked and I wanted to show her how casual I was about the whole thing. I sank another one in the side pocket and slicked my hair back like Tom Cruise in "The Color of Money." I could see out of the corner of my eye that Oscar had sat next to Rita, and I figured that they were probably talking about what a great guy I was.
After hitting it in the side pocket I left the cue in a bad position and my only shot was an attempt at the corner which I had to jump over a stripe to make. I slid the cue smoothly between my fingers and chipped briskly at the point where the ball met the felt. It jumped, arched over the edge of the table and clacked against the concrete floor. One of the lesbians caught it and her friend handed her a cue. I shrugged my shoulders as she set the ball back down on the table. I sat next to Oscar and tapped him on the shoulder but he didn't turn around. He was gesturing aggressively at Rita.
"That's bullshit," he said belligerently, "You're full of shit."
Alarmed, I butted my way between them.
"What's bullshit?" I said. "What're you talking about?"
"You know this girl?" he said, pointing at her with his beer.
"Yeah. Sort of." I smiled at her. She was searching the room for her friends.
"She doesn't believe in relationships."
"What do you mean?"
"She doesn't believe that a man and a woman, or two woman, or two men should be in a monogamous or open relationship. Ever."
"Why's that?" I said. Oscar started to answer. I cut him off. "I'm asking her. It's your shot." I handed him the cue. He pounded the rubber end softly on the floor. I tried to catch her attention. "I think that's really interesting. Why do you believe that?"
She espoused a lazy explanation of her philosophy. "I just think that you should experience everything and committing to another person like that really limits what you can experience. It's like you're betrothed to that one person."
Betrothed. I remembered how, when I used to correspond with her on Facebook, her messages were grammatically fairly incoherent, but she would throw in a five dollar word every once in a while, one she had clearly learned from a "Word-A-Day" calendar or the like.
"Mutual romantic love is the ultimate thing you can experience in this universe," Oscar yelled, cutting her short. She smiled curtly.
"It's your turn, Oscar." I tried to push him off the seat.
"You can be in love," she said. "I didn't say you couldn't fall in love."
"How're you going to fall in love with someone if you're not in a relationship with them?" Oscar said. I leaned so far off the seat trying to see around him that I almost fell off. I was in disbelief. He was murdering my chances with this girl. He knew how lonely and pathetic I was and he was killing me.
"I fall in love all the time," she said. "Love is transitory. It's not something you're meant to hold onto. It flows."
He mimed jerking off, "Give me a fuckin' break."
She stood up. "I'm gonna go find my friends. 'Bye Pete." She waved a small wave to me while looking around the room and walked away.
I took Oscar by the shoulder. "What the fuck are you doing?"
He went to hit a shot. "That chick was fucking crazy."
"So what? She's gorgeous. You just killed my chances with her."
Oscar rammed a ball off the rail and missed the side pocket. "You never had a chance. You heard her. She doesn't believe in relationships."
I could see her across the room standing in a loose circle with her friends. They were all wearing colorful summer dresses and when they went out the front door I felt like beating Oscar to death with the thick end of the pool cue. Why would he torpedo me like that? He had a girlfriend. He wasn't trying to meet girls, but he was the only friend I had who liked to go out. I went out with him three nights a week, salivating at every attractive girl in every bar we went to, too timid to approach them. We usually ended each night drunkenly barking into the speaker at McDonald's and pathetically nibbling at McChicken sandwiches. I didn't want to end up at the drive-thru that night.
I walked over to the door. I pushed it open, surprised by how cool the air was for June. Rita and her friends were trying to hail a cab. I ran to her and grabbed her by the elbow.
"Hey, Rita," I said, "I just wanted to apologize for my friend. He's kind of an asshole when he's drunk."
"It's fine, don't worry about it," She looked completely unconcerned about Oscar's opinions on anything. She got into the cab and it pulled away.
"You ready to fucking go, man?" Oscar appeared behind me, lighting a cigarette.
"Let's go get a fucking McChicken sandwich," I said, and we went home in Oscar's parent's mini-van.
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