*Afternoon Theology
My internal body clock must have been made by Swiss Watch-makers. It’s that good. When I stir from my nap, my alarm clock reads 12:44. That’s more than enough time to get to Tilden for my Theology class. I sit up in my bed and stretch. My left thigh hurts. I slept on Abby’s key. I walk into the bathroom to wash my face. I have one of those red lines from the seam on the pillow going across my cheek. Only time can heal that. Shawn is in the other room.
“Hey, Kev,” Shawn says.
“Yeah,” I say.
“Don’t forget- football game at 4:30,” he says.
“Yup,” I say. Shit. I completely forgot.
“We got the engineering majors today,” he says.
“How are they?” I ask.
“They’re 2-1,” he says.
“They’ll be 2-2,” I say.
“Tommy’s Magic Flute kicks ass!,” he says. Tommy’s Magic Flute is the name of our football team, because, well, obviously, Tommy’s Magic Flute kicks ass.
4:30. Football.
I walk back into my room and pick up my backpack. I switch out my textbook and notebook. Last semester I bought one of those huge “5-subject” notebooks thinking I could save time and energy and effort if all my shit was in one place. And for about 5 weeks, I did just that. Until I lost the motherfucker and lost everything. You want to talk about putting all your eggs in one basket? Never again.
I exit the dorm building and am forced to squint. Apparently, my eyes haven’t readjusted to the sun’s brightness. I open my pack of cigarettes and take a look inside. I’ve got 7 left. One now, one after class will leave me with 5 more. I light a cigarette. I take a drag and exhale. Then I’ll smoke a couple on the way to Abby’s tonight. One the way there, I’ll pick up another pack. It’s an underreported story in the lives of cigarette smokers- how intricate the planning of one’s schedule is so as not to run out of cigarettes at a crucial time (ever). I’m okay, but I know people- like Paul- who have that down to a science. If he could apply those management skills to his management classes, he’d be amazing.
I feel like the stars have aligned for me a little. Theology is the one class where I don’t really have to pay attention because you can find all of the answers on the internet or in a book. In truth, most religions (other than Scientology) are so old that not much has changed over the past 50, 100 years. In fact, I pay attention just long enough to get the assignment in class. Then I open my notebook and pretend to take notes. What I really do is whatever I need to get by for an hour. Sometimes it’s song lyrics. Sometimes it’s my all-time basketball team. Whatever. But today, I actually have purpose. I’m going to write out Scott’s stupid list. I suppose it’s my stupid list. Whatever. I’m not proud of it, but again, I’m not much of a talker. I’ll probably need all the help I can get. I’m a little excited actually. Part of me wants to buy a quarterback’s wristband and insert my list into it. Then I can read the things to Abby from there. It makes me want to write everything in code so the other team can’t understand it by looking at it, but then I’d probably just end up confusing myself, too. But still.
I exhale and flick my cigarette butt into a storm drain. I always secretly fantasize that the storm drain is filled with some kind of highly explosive liquid that ignites on contact with the ember of my cigarette.
I arrive outside Tilden and plant myself on an old wooden bench near the building entrance. I figured out that the professor for this class is almost always late, so I just sit here and smoke until I see her stammering down the courtyard from the faculty parking lot. When she’s about 50 yards off, I head into the building ahead of her. It makes no difference, really, except that I get to smoke one more cigarette, and sometimes, that’s all the difference in the world. That said, I light up and extend my arms across the back of the bench. I lean my head back and blow the smoke directly skyward. I’m on the look out for Professor Shipley.
Like clockwork (I told you, the Swiss), Shipley is power-walking toward Tilden. She’s a football field away, so I take a final drag of my cigarette and put it out. I pick myself up and head into Tilden. Tilden is an old two-story building that’s pretty archaic. Which, I suppose is a perfect setting for a Theology class. My class is on the first floor. Thank God. And that’s about all the Theology I can handle for today.
I pick a seat at the back of the classroom and 28.9 seconds later, Professor Shipley pops through the door. She more or less hurls her bag atop the front desk and takes a few seconds to compose herself. She’s breathing pretty hard. Since today is Wednesday, that means a lecture. Shipley lectures Mondays and Wednesdays, then has us do essays about those lectures on Fridays. Pretty easy. Like I said, I don’t really pay much attention in this class. She begins talking about the New Testament and that’s the all clear to start crafting the list.
I take out a clean sheet of folder paper and write at the top of it Abby. I can’t decide what I hate more about it- its lack of originality or its inherent lameness. I have made the decision not to use bullets. I will instead number my list. This is for organizational purposes. I don’t want to get lost.
1. What are we?
Despite our new-found intimacy, I am still unsure of our status. Are we exclusive? I know I can call you “babe,” but can I call you “babe” in front of other people? What labels would you like to use?
I’m stuck. I just realized that everything hinges on this answer. This was a stupid idea. I have a million things I want to say to her, but none of them really matter if she doesn’t answer this question in the affirmative. You’re an idiot Scott. What if all these questions overwhelm her and she starts to rethink her decision? What if she just wants to keep it casual and I come at her with all this shit and she wants to run for the hills or any other landscape provided I am not there? She knows I’m crazy about her, though. Would she enter into this level of intimacy if she had no intention of seeing it through? Humans are unpredictable. And I’ve never really been able to read Abby. What if she didn’t want to talk to me because she’s already realized she’s made a mistake. No. She said I could call her “babe” this morning- so at the very least, she was moderately-to-pretty committed to this thing as late as 8:30. But I’ve been thinking about this all day. That means she’s probably thinking about this, too. What if she doesn’t reach the same conclusions. Maybe I was too eager to talk about it. Maybe she’s trying to pump the breaks a little. Am I too aggressive? Again, she knew how I felt about her. Maybe she didn’t want to open Pandora’s Box and now that she has, she just wants to let out a few demons and not all of them at once. But doesn’t she know that Pandora’s Box doesn’t work like that? Doesn’t she know that it’s like the Ark of the Covenant in Raiders of the Lost Ark? You open that shit and all hell breaks loose. Nazis dying and shit. I mean really, there’s no going back now. I’m not ready for heartbreak yet. Fuck. But the key, the key. She gave it to me. Which means she does want me to be there. Like Scott said. No, fuck Scott. But she does want me to be there, right? Otherwise, she wouldn’t have given me the key so cavalierly, right? Jesus Christ. I need a cigarette.
I slide my “list” into my notebook and close it. I leave my seat and exit the classroom. I walk down the silent hallway. I push past the double doors and make a fucking beeline for the bench. I sit and pull out a cigarette. I light it. I take a drag. I exhale. I take another drag. I exhale.
It’s not even 2 in the afternoon yet and I’m a wreck. How the fuck am I supposed to make it to 10- let alone play intramural football at a high level- then be able to have a half-way decent conversation with the woman I’m trying to convince to be with me? Shit. This doesn’t work. These are the exact kinds of conditions that lead to mistakes in car factories and result in maimings and sometimes death. The odds are stacked against me.
I take another drag and tilt my head back. I exhale with a little more force than usual. I cannot think rational thoughts right now. I look at my watch. It says 1:18. I have to get it together. I’m thirsty.
I get through the cigarette and carelessly let it fall at my feet. I put it out with my shoe and stare at the broken, ashen remains. I never got this tense before football games in high school. And I would take energy pills and listen to Pantera before those games. Man.
I have the desire to walk away from Tilden. I just want to go back to my room and sleep. I left my bag in the class, though. I walk back into the building and slowly move back down the hallway. I reenter class and take my seat. I always get a kick out of ostensibly leaving class to use the restroom, then returning smelling like smoke. What are they going to do? Give me detention?
Professor Shipley is going on about the merits of the gospels. Whenever I think of the Gospels, I think of the Beatles and KISS. You know- there were 4 gospels, both bands had four members. The Beatles and Kiss might be the only bands ever in which each member could be considered individually famous. Not like Incubus. Other than the shirtless wonder Brandon Boyd, nobody knows who the hell any of the other guys are. Amen.
I open my notebook and stare at my shitty list. Is it a list if it’s got just the one entry? I don’t know. It took Scott 10 minutes to talk me into this, and it took me 3 minutes in the attempt to realize it isn’t going to work out. I crumple the paper and leave it atop my desk. I return my thoughts to Abby and start making notes- none of them related to class in anyway- in my notebook. I draw what starts out as a treasure chest, but then it takes on a life of its own. The cover of the chest is open and all these “creatures” are flying out. One of them closely resembles Slimer from Ghostbusters, except he has one of the Ghostbuster’s backpacks and proton gun on him. I am a student of irony. Another of these beings has two heads- one head has a football helmet and the other has a fighter pilot’s helmet- and is doing a 5G inverted dive. There’s a dragon wearing Gene Simmons’ KISS make-up. There’s also motorcyclist kicking a dog off an overpass.
Under the chest, I’ve written block letters that read “Pandora’s Beezy.” I never said I wasn’t an idiot. Holding up these block letters is a figure who I initially meant to resemble Atlas, but I have altered him to look more like Samson of biblical fame. Well, what I think Samson would look like anyway. He is pretty much Atlas, but with long, flowing locks of hair. This is the pre-Delilah version.
That makes me wonder. History is rife with women ruining things for men. Eve got herself and Adam kicked out of Eden. Delilah destroyed the source of Samson’s mythical strength. Centuries of that stuff all the way to the present, including Sarah Palin ruining John McCain’s chances of becoming President, and arguably the most infamous woman-meddler of all time, Yoko Ono. But that’s the thing though. Any reasonable human would be able to come to the all too logical conclusion that Abby will somehow ruin my life, but I (like all other men, ever) will continue to pursue her and this thing we’re currently entangled in. Why? We have cars that can parallel park themselves and we still haven’t figured this shit out. It’s hard-wired genetically. That’s the only plausible answer.
My watch says 1:48 and that means the New Testament is almost over. Thank you, God. I have bigger fish to multiply.
