Love and Cigarettes (pt. 10)

*Emptying the Clip

Since my roommates and I have all taken the solemn “thou shalt not cockblock” oath, they let me shower first. Hot water feels good. I stand under the streams for a while and hope the jets of water can rinse the stink of failure off of me. As I lather up the shampoo, it occurs to me that despite everything I’ve already been through today, it’s not over. Everything’s been building to tonight. It has the feel of an M. Night Shymalan movie. I pray to God this ending doesn’t suck. If Abby were a TV character, you’d hate her. You’d never know what to expect from her episode to episode. This week she might be the shy virgin, unwilling to have a drink or make out on the first date. The next week, she might be on ecstasy getting “Hottie” tattooed on her lower back. Thank God this shower doesn’t run as hot and cold as she does.

I dry off and wrap the towel around my waist. I q-tip both ears in hopes that one of them will tap my brain and make me forget that I blew the game for us today. It doesn’t happen. I stare into the mirror for a minute silently debating whether or not I should put some hair gel in. On the one hand, it’s just Abby’s- but on the other hand, it is Abby’s, after all. I opt for the gel. If I’m going down, I’m going to do it looking good. I walk out of the bathroom and Paul is sitting on his desk chair watching ESPN News.

“The Engineers are holding a press conference,” he says. He turns to face me, then points at the TV screen. “Rumors are going around that they’ve traded for Kevin Manchester. All they gave up was a 24-pack.”

“Real funny, dickhead,” I say. I walk to my closet. “You guys never make that deal without 3 cartons of cigarettes.”

Paul laughs.

“Fuck,” he says.

“What?” I ask.

“You’re right,” he says.

I look for the pair of jeans with the frayed leg bottoms. I’m going for comfort tonight. I pull open the second drawer of my dresser and take an olive green t-shirt. It has a little impressionist (or something) tidal wave on it. I’m a fan of symbolism. I walk back to the closet and go with the charcoal hoodie sweater. I’ve got hair gel in. Zip-down capability is crucial.

“What’s your read on tonight?” Paul asks.

“With Ab?” I say.

“Yeah, you guys looked pretty cozy during the game,” he says. He turns the TV off and stands to lean against his bed.

“Honestly, I have no idea,” I say. I sit in my desk chair and put my socks on. “She runs hot and cold.”

“You ready?” he asks. He puts his jacket on over his t-shirt. “Let’s go get a smoke.”

Paul and I light up outside the dorm. I call Abby and tell her I’ll be right outside Hostetter.

“Look, I know I give you shit about Abby,” he says. He takes a drag. He tilts his head down. “But I know how much you want this to happen.”

“Like I said,” I say. I take a drag and tilt my head upward. “I have no idea.”

“Just the same,” Paul starts. He turns to look at me. “She’s a cool girl, I hope it works out,man.”

“Me, too,” I say. My eyes meet his and I smile.

“You’ll record it, right?” he asks.

“Record what?” I say.

“If you guys do get it on,” he says.

“What the fuck?” I say.

Paul smiles.

“I’m sorry,” he says. He laughs. “I couldn’t help it, I had to go for the joke.”

“Good God,” I say. I exhale. “I thought you were getting all emo for a moment there.”

“Pssh,” he says. He takes a drag from his cigarette. “I’m not wired that way.”

“Yeah, you’re the kind of guy who blows his load in his roommates bed,” I say. I’m terrified he’ll actually go through with it. “Beaver Trap,” remember?

“True…true,” he says. He exhales. ” Seriously, though- bullshit aside- good luck tonight, man.”

“Thanks,” I say. I toss my cigarette butt behind the bushes. “See you.”

I walk from Hostetter towards the street. It shouldn’t take Abby much longer to get here. There are still a handful of people walking around campus at this time of night and it trips me out. That’s one of the things I’ll miss the most about college: randomness. For the most part, there’s always a reason that my friends and I do the things we do, but those reasons don’t always make a whole lot of sense. We stay up taking turns trying to beat video games in one night. We start our weekends on Thursday. We say things like “It’s kind of cloudy today, I don’t think I’m going to class,” and somehow that’s perfect logic. Stay Gold, Ponyboy.

Abby’s car pull up to the curb. I open the door and fall in.

“Hey,” she says. She leans in for a kiss and I meet her lips over the parking brake. Apparently PDA Abby is still with us. There’s no telling when she’ll leave and Mime Abby will resurface.

“Hey,” I say.

She pulls away from the curb and turns the radio off. Thank God. If I have to listen to “Two Princes” again, I’ll shoot myself.

“How was dinner?” she asks.

I think of Paul’s genetic coding. I smile.

“It was good, actually,” I say.

“Why? Was it supposed to be bad or something?” she asks.

“Well, I did blow the game today,” I say. I look out the side window and watch the world pass by. “I thought I was going to get it.”

“How did you blow the game?” she asks.

“Well,” I say. I take a deep breath. “Those last two plays were on me.”

“Oh,” she says.

There are a few moments of silence.

“So you didn’t get it so bad at dinner?” she asks.

“No,” I say. I turn to her. “They let me have, jokes all around, and that was that.”

“Isn’t that good?” she asks.

“Yeah, it’s better than what I was expecting,” I say.

Let’s see if I can make it 2-for-2 in the “exceeds expectations” department.

*****

We enter her apartment and it smells like steak. I guess she made dinner already. I don’t know whether to feel that this aroma is a favorable omen or not. On the plus side, I like red meat. On the negative side, she grilled something, devoured it, then left the remains as proof of her conquest. But we do have steak in common. “Good omen” gets the slight edge.

“You want a beer?” she asks.

“Sure,” I say.

Abby walks to the kitchen and opens the fridge. She grabs a bottle and walks over to me. No free show tonight.

“You hungry at all?” she asks.

“Nah, I’m good,” I say.

I walk over to the couch and sit. I rest against the right arm and Abby grabs the ashtray and the remote control. She places the ashtray on couch and tosses the remote at me.

“I’m gonna take a shower,” she says. She unzips her sweater and tosses it on the back of the couch. “If you do get hungry, there’s some food in the fridge.”

“Thanks,” I say.

Abby disappears into her bedroom and I turn on the TV. I don’t want to watch Sports Center because it’ll only remind me of losing. I open my beer and take a sip. Abby doesn’t have many channels but I luck into Predator on a station in the 30s. Aside from boasting the longest, most homoerotic handshake ever caught on film, Predator is Arnold’s finest movie and possibly the most unexpected metaphor for a romantic relationship. They get dropped off in the middle of nowhere. They have minimal intel. They expect one thing, but must deal with something else completely. It takes Arnold the entire movie to figure out what the fuck is going on, and by then, most of his men and everything around him have been destroyed. Then, even at the end when he finally gains the upper hand, Preds decides to blow himself up and tries to take Arnold down with him. The lesson: Love is never what you expect, women will kill all of your friends, then when they finally get you alone, they’ll try to destroy you, too. I guess this makes Predator 2 a shitty rebound relationship. Danny Glover? Really? That’s like 16 steps down. He’s no Janet Olivera. Is that what’s going to happen here tonight? Am I going to express my feelings only to have three red dots appear on my forehead before Abby blows me away? Will I shout “I can make it!” only to have my frontal lobe annihilated by advanced weaponry? Fuck.

I light a cigarette and take a huge drag. I tilt my head back and stare at the ceiling. I can hear Arnold and Jesse Ventura lighting up the jungle and somehow it seems fitting. I exhale and watch the smoke rise past the idle ceiling fan. Why didn’t Abby shower before I got here? Is she stalling? The idea of her in the shower isn’t even a turn on at this point. I’m torn. I want her to hurry her ass up out of the shower, but I have no idea what I’ll do once she’s here. This is exactly how I felt about graduating from high school.

I hear the shower stop. I take another drag of my cigarette and blow smoke at the invisible Predator. I open my pack of cigarettes. At a glance, it looks like I have 10 or so left in the pack. I’ll have to hope that’s enough. It’s been a fucking long day, and his is what it’s come to. I wish Paul could have made me a playlist for right now. Track 1: “Ride the Lightning” by Metallica. Track 2: “99 Ways to Die” by Megadeth. Track 3: “Highway to Hell” by AC/DC. Track 4: “Genius of Love” by the Tom Tom Club. Track 5: “Lovefool” by the Cardigans. Holy shit.

Abby walks out of her room wearing pj bottoms and a tank top. Again, she’s made the wonderful choice of leaving the bra in the dresser. I ash my cigarette and stand. I don’t know why. It’s not because I’m a gentleman, I’ll tell you that.

“Predator?” she asks.

“Yeah,” I say. I’m shocked she knows that. How does she know that? Huh.

“How romantic,” she says.

She walks to the kitchen and returns with a beer for herself. She opens it and tosses the cap on the coffee table. Bradley Cooper, we meet again. She picks up the ashtray and places it back on the table. She sinks into the couch at my side and pulls her sweater over her chest. I lift my left arm and put it over her shoulders and she leans into me. She smells better than steak.

“You want to watch something else?” I ask.

“No, this is fine,” she says. Her beer appears out from under her sweater and she takes a sip. “It’s almost over, right?”

“No” I say. I take a sip of my beer. I wish this beer would do the work of 5. I’m a little tense. “There are too many guys still alive.”

She laughs.

“Isn’t that every action movie?” she asks.

“Yeah, it is, actually,” I say.

We watch an alien hunt down humans for a few minutes in silence. The wait and the weight are unbearable. She’s right here, in my arms. Shouldn’t I be okay with settling for this? She’s right about me, though. I have to know. Fuck me. I have to know.

“Hey, Ab,” I say.

“Hmm,” she says. She does not look up.

“What… what’s going on with you?” I ask.

She shifts her weight and pulls away from me slightly.

“What do you mean?” she asks.

Secure your seat-back tables. Make sure your chairs are locked in the upright position. Fasten your seat belts. Here we go.

“I don’t know- I mean- I’m not sure about what’s going on with us,” I take a sip of beer. “I’m confused about what’s happening with us.”

“We’re together. Here. Right now,” she says. She places her beer on the table. “Isn’t that good enough?”

She went there a whole lot earlier than I thought. Abby, Abby, Abby, you do know me.

“No, that’s not… I don’t get you,” I say.

“What don’t you get?” she asks.

“Last night and this morning: I kept trying to talk to you, and you kept avoiding it,” I say. Adrenaline has replaced my blood. “Then at the football game, it’s like we’re Kurt and Brenda Warner.”

“Who the fuck is that?” she asks.

“It doesn’t matter, look,” I say. A well-timed reference that flew completely over her head. Atta boy, Kev. No, really- this bodes well for the rest of the conversation. “What I’m trying to say is I don’t understand what’s cool, what’s not cool, when I can talk to you, when I can’t. I have no idea what’s going on.”

“We’re together,” she says.

“You run hot and cold,” I say.

“Hot and cold?” she asks.

“Yeah, I mean, one minute you don’t want me to say anything, and the next you’re coming to my games and kissing me on the sidelines,” I say. I reach for a cigarette, light one, and take a drag in one motion in less time than it took Eve to destroy Eden. The captain has activated the “lower expectations” sign.

“We’re together,” she says. Again. She motions with her hand for a drag of my cigarette. I oblige. That’s a good sign. We’re still on bumming terms. “I just don’t want to make a whole thing of it.”

“A whole thing?” I ask.

“I don’t want to make it more complicated than it is,” she says. She takes a drag. “You always complicate things, Kev. It’s what you do. I’m trying to keep it as simple as possible.”

“I don’t always-” I say. She cuts me off.

“Yes you do!” she says. She tosses her sweater to the floor. “You’re doing it right now! I’m in your arms and it’s perfect and you couldn’t let it be.”

“But it wasn’t perfect,” I say. I reach for her hand but she pulls it away. “I’m not at ease with all this.”

“Why?” she asks.

“Because I don’t know where I stand with you,” I say

Her eyes narrow. I may as well be speaking a different language. Klingon, perhaps. Or Latin, the language of the “The Others.”

“I’ve been thinking about you all day,” I say. I stand and take a drag.

“I’ve been thinking about you, too,” she says.

“No,” I say. I walk toward the window in the wall perpendicular to the TV. “That’s not what I mean.”

I glance out at the parked cars on the street below. They have no answers. How do I tell her that I’ve thought about her- constantly- since the first time we met? I need a woman whisperer.

“Okay,” she says. Her voice softens. “Come here. Tell me.”

She pats the couch and nods. I slowly walk back to her and sit.

“I’m crazy about you. I’ve been crazy about you. Then last night it all finally happens, but it’s not what I expected at all. I hold you, I kiss you, I sleep with you, but I’m not allowed to talk to you about it. Any of it. I went to class today and basically laid out this situation verbatim and somehow fucking related it to a philosophical discussion about perception vs. reality. Then I told my roommates that I have no fucking idea what’s going on with us, so we spent an ungodly amount of time going over potential battle strategies when we should have been going over shit for the game. The game! So after we talk about all that, you show up at the game and it’s like you’re my best friend-slash-fan-slash-lover, and it completely weirded me out. So while you’re there, I’m trying to go over all of this shit in my head because I have no idea what the hell is up with your fluctuating level of interest in me, and then some guy on the other team tells me you’re “cute” and it totally fucking rattled me. So I’m thinking about all of this shit: Scott’s stupid list and how amazing it is to wake up next to you. Then, I blow my coverage two plays in a row because I’m not focused. Game over. My teammates are pissed, and then I was pissed at myself for not being more angry that we lost because I was more happy that you were even there,” I say. Long drag.

“Wow,” she says. She takes my hand. “I had no idea that…”

“That what?” I ask.

“I had no idea that it affected you so much, I guess,” she says.

“You know me, Ab, you know I have to know,” I say.

“I know,” she says. She reaches for her beer and takes a sip. “I’m sorry. I guess the physical stuff is easy, you know? I mean, I like spending time with you anyway. Being close to you feels good. I just don’t want to wreck it.”

“How would you wreck it?” I ask.

“I don’t know,” she says. She places her beer back on the table. She’s plowing through it. “Maybe I say something and you don’t like it. Maybe you say something and I take it the wrong way. We’ll end up fighting.”

“We’re going to disagree, that’s just the nature of it,” I say.

“No, it’s more than that,” she says.

“What?” I ask.

“We’ve never had a real fight about anything before, Kev. Sure, you always argue over the reason I really like Incubus. You’ve been mad about me dating other guys- which I guess I can understand. But I mean, we’ve said angry things to each other because we were drunk, but none of it was ever serious. None of it ever lasted. It was always something like “hey, that was you stole my drink, drink-stealer!” We never gave each other a real reason to be upset with each other. That’s why I liked hanging out with you. It was simple and easy. All of that changed the minute you told me how you felt. Things will change,” she says.

Please let this come off as cool as it sounds in my head:

“Maybe you’re right, but I’m willing to prove you wrong,” I say. I empty my bottle. “This could be so much better.”

It doesn’t look like it. Ugh. It’s her turn to stand and walk away. She moves over to the kitchen and leans against the counter. I can’t see her face, let alone what she’s thinking. She doesn’t say anything.

I drape my arm over the back of the couch to look at her. A few minutes pass. She sighs.

I’m rolling red dice. Fuck it, I’m going to take over Asia. “This/we/it- is going to be amazing and I want to be with you, whatever that might mean. That won’t change,” I say.

She turns and walks over to me. She takes my hand.

“That’s the…come to bed,” she says.

I stand and follow her lead into her bedroom. She turns on the light and gets into the bed ahead of me. She turns on the lamp on the bedside table. I unzip my sweater and toss it at the foot of the bed.

“Turn that light off?” she says.

I do.

I walk to the bed and slide under the covers. She turns the lamp off. We are spoons again.

“I didn’t want to believe it,” she says.

“What?” I ask.

“That I felt this way about you,” she says.

“Is it a bad thing?” I ask.

“No,” she says. Two disembodied voices in the darkness. Like I said, awesome drapes. “It’s just that it seemed impossible, you know? That you and I…”

“I know,” I say. I kiss the back of her head. “I know.”

She turns to face me. Red Dice. I kiss her. She kisses me back. Her hand brushes against the side of my face. My hand finds the small of her back and pulls her even closer. Her hands wander under my shirt and her warm fingertips graze my chest. My heart is doing 68,000 BPMs. Her lips pull away. She pulls my shirt over my head and her lips make their way back to mine. I pull upwards at the bottom seam of her tank top and her arms reach over her head. Her top follows. I kiss her neck and she takes a sharp breath. Her fingers fumble with my belt, then the button, and finally the zipper. She slides my jeans and boxers down to my knees, then uses her feet to kick them off of me. I hook my fingers inside the waistband of her pants and underwear and slowly start to tug them down. Her hands find mine and we slide them completely off. Holy. Shit. We lie face to face, kissing still. Her fingers press desperately into my back, my hands cling to her hips. Her right hand makes its way up to the back of my head and she yanks at my hair, pulling me on top of her…

*****

It is still dark when we fall back to earth. The only noise in the world is our breathing. I lie on my back and she right next to me, rests her head on my chest. Her right hand over my heart (down to 63,000 BPMs), my right hand runs through her hair.

“You were right,” she says.

“What about?” I ask.

She doesn’t respond.

I don’t know whether or not she heard me.

It doesn’t matter.

Love and Cigarettes (pt. 9)

*Post-game Commentary

I plop myself down on the grass. I pull apart the knots of my shoelaces and kick my shoes off. I dig into my bag for my cigarettes and light one. I take a monster drag. I exhale without lifting my head and the smoke rises past my face. I don’t want to make eye-contact with anyone. I am afraid to. I feel a soft hand run through the hair on the back of my head.

“You alright, Kev?” Abby asks.

“Ahh,” I say. She squats down next to me.

“I’m sorry you guys lost,” she says. She gives me a hollow smile.

My gaze moves from her to my teammates. They’re getting ready to take off. Shoes are moving into bags and headbands are being taken down.

“So,” I say. I take another drag from my cigarette. “You want me to come over now?”

“You don’t need to,” she says. She pins some of her hair behind her ear. “I know you guys usually hang out after the game.”

I know that, too. But I don’t want to. I’m going to fucking hear it. I’m going to get it. They’re going to say that I was distracted and they will be right. And I don’t want to deal with it right now. If anyone ever needs proof that one man can’t win a game, but one guy can lose it, please feel free to cite this game and Kevin Manchester. Fuck.

“No, really,” I say. I lean back and exhale. “I can leave with you right now.”

She appears to consider this for a few seconds. Her eyes shift downwards to the ground.

“Nah, just give me my key so I can get in. Call me after you shower,” she says.

I hand her back her keys. I feel like Frodo at Mount Doom.

“See you then,” she says. She kisses me on the forehead and stands.

“Okay,” I say. I take the final drag of my cigarette and toss it a few yards away.

She walks off towards the parking lot and I turn to my teammates. Only Shawn, Scott, Anth, and Paul are still here. They’re standing with their bags over their shoulders. Paul has a cigarette lit and blows smoke in my direction. This is going to fucking suck.

I toss my shoes into my bag and tighten the strings. I put it on my back and stand.

“So…” Scott says.

“Dinner?” I ask.

“Yup,” Shawn says.

We start walking to the cafeteria. The silence sucks. I light another cigarette just to give myself something to do. Guys only behave like this under two strict conditions: Sports or Girls. This time it’s both.

“Kev,” Paul says. He looks at me through his cigarette smoke with squinted eyes. “The engineers voted you team MVP.”

Everyone laughs. I exhale.

“You can pick up the trophy in the engineering building,” Scott says.

“Dude, you sucked today,” Anth adds.

“Yeah, I’d bench you,” Shawn says. He rubs his right eyebrow. “But I don’t want it to get all weird in our apartment.”

More laughter. Thank God.

We enter the student center and the first thing we see are the engineers sitting at a table talking it up. Is that what we usually look like? Reliving shit that happened 15 minutes ago and talking about it like Bob Costas at the Olympics? Fuck, I hope we don’t look like such assholes. We probably do.

I am uninspired by the options for dinner. It’s pot roast and mash or a cheeseburger combo. I go with the burger. It’ll take less effort to eat it. I grab a Pepsi from the fridge and walk to the counter. I hand the checkout lady my student ID and she runs it. Another $8 I’ll eat then shit out in an hour.

I walk to the table that Shawn’s already sitting at. He’s too pissed off to eat. He takes this shit seriously. I put my plate down and fall into my seat. Shawn doesn’t say anything. He opens his bag and pulls out his Gatorade. It’s got to be soup by now, but he drinks it anyway. I turn to look at the engineers’ table. I couple of them catch me looking at them and they flash knowing smiles. I hate knowing smiles. You know what they know? They know I fucked up and they won because of it. Fuck. One of them taps the receiver that caught the final touchdown on the shoulder. He looks in my direction. He motions with a finger for me to wait. What the fuck? He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a lighter. He reaches over to a teammate’s plate and picks up a piece of bread. He lights the bread. What the f- oh. Toast. Me. Toast.

“Fucking asshole,” I say.

“What?” Shawn says. He looks at me, then where I’m looking. He sees the receiver with the bread and lighter. He starts laughing.

“That’s a nice touch,” Shawn says.

“They don’t have to fucking celebrate it,” I say.

Shawn is still laughing.

Scott, Anth, and Paul arrive at the table at once. I’d bet money that Paul “forgot” his card and made Scott pay for his meal.

“What’s so funny?” Anth asks.

“The fucking engineers,” Shawn says.

“What about them?” Scott asks.

“They fucking lit a piece of bread,” Shawn says.

“For what?” Paul asks. He takes the seat next to mine.

“They were directing it at Kev,” Shawn says.

It takes about 3 seconds, but all three start laughing.

“Ouch,” Scott says.

“You just gotta tip your cap, man,” Paul says.

“Fucking assholes,” Anth says. He opens his bottle of 7-Up. “It was pure fucking luck.”

“Yeah, two plays in a row,” Shawn says. He makes eye contact with me.

Shawn and Anth possess the same genetic hardwiring for competitiveness. I need to get out in front of this elephant in the fucking room. Shooting myself in the head once is favorable to being sniped for the rest of the night- and probably the week since we won’t play again until next Thursday. I just want to get this shit over with.

“I fucked up, guys,” I say. I take a sip of Pepsi. “I’m sorry I cost us the game.”

“What the fuck were you doing out there?” Paul asks.

“Seriously, I’ve never seen you get beat that badly,” Scott says.

“I, uh, I-” I start.

“He was fucking daydreaming,” Shawn says.

“Abby?” Anth asks.

“No shit,” Shawn says.

Anth, Scott, Paul, and Shawn stare at me. The firing squad has loaded its weapons.

“Really?” Scott asks.

They will know I am lying if I claim anything else. This is just a formality. I did not have sexual relations with that woman.

“Yeah,” I said. I no longer want to eat anything. “She, uh, I got flustered.”

“Fuck,” Paul says. He takes an angry bite of his burger. “She’s not that hot.”

Laughter. Delicious laughter.

“Fuck yeah, she is,” Anth says. He turns to look at me. “I mean, she is, Kev, my bad,” he says.

I laugh.

“It’s cool, man,” I say.

“How about you just keep her away from the field for the rest of the season, okay?” Shawn says.

“Unless she has hot friends and they want to start a cheerleading squad for our team,” Paul says.

“She got any hot friends?” Anth asks. He leans in.

“Calm the fuck down,” Shawn says. Shawn shakes his head.

Paul, Scott, and I laugh.

“Why?” Paul asks. He turns to face Anth. “So you can snap at her every time you overthrow Shawn?”

Laughter.

“That was fucking bullshit,” Anth says. He tosses a french fry back onto his plate. “I didn’t say it that loud.”

More laughter.

“Dude,” Paul says. His speech is punctuated with laughter. “I heard you and I was all the way on the other end of the field.”

“Yeah, Anth,” Scott says. He shakes his head and smiles. “It wasn’t an F-bomb. It was an F-nuke.”

“Er-er-er-er-er,” Paul adds. He uses the robotic voice and pantomimes frantically pressing buttons, “Meltdown, meltdown, the system has failed, the system has failed.”

Even Shawn laughs.

“Yeah, man,” Shawn says. He rubs his eyes with his hands. “You gotta get a handle on your shit, Anth.”

Anth just shakes his head.

Thank God. I want to sweep this whole thing under a huge rug. I want to cover it up like the Roswell alien landings. I just want it to go away and for all of this to be over. She’ll never come to another game, ever.

Each of us goes back to his meal. Shawn decides he is hungry after all and heads to the kitchen.

“So,” Scott says. He shoves the food in his mouth into one cheek. “You still headed over there later?”

I do not look up. I pray he is talking to someone else. I know he’s not, though. Fucking Scott, let it go.

“Kev,” he says.

“Yeah?” I ask.

“You still going to Abby’s later?” Scott asks.

I sigh and I really want a cigarette.

“Yeah, I’m supposed to give her a call after I shower and shit,” I say.

“So you won’t be in tonight?” Paul asks.

“Probably not,” I say.

“If I have a girl over, can we do it in your bed?” Paul asks.

“What the fuck?” I say. I swallow red meat and cheese. “Why the fuck would you do that?”

“So I don’t make the mess in my bed,” Paul says.

“Gross,” Scott says.

“Awesome,” Anth says.

He’d do it, too. He’s a fucking maniac.

“I don’t want to get in tomorrow morning and find your genetic coding embedded in my sheets,” I say.

“GATTA-TAGCCAA-GATTTCA-CCACA-GGATATTA-TGAAAGATA-TCCCACACCGA-TCT-ACTC,” Paul says.

Scott and Anth laugh.

“That’s fucking terrible,” I say. I have to admit it, though, it’s also fucking hilarious.

Shawn returns to the table in the middle of the laughter.

“What’s so fucking funny?” Shawn asks.

“Paul’s gonna splooge in Kevin’s bed,” Anth says.

“Why the fuck would he you do that?” Shawn asks. He looks at Paul with searching eyes.

“He’s not gonna be in tonight, so I got free reign of the manor,” Paul says.

“Abby’s?” he asks.

“Yeah,” I say.

Shawn shakes his head. He lifts his burger to his mouth and opens wide. He stops.

“Man, Kev,” Shawn says. He shakes his head. “After today, she’d better make it worth your while.”

“GATTA-CATCGAT-GCGGATGCGG-CAT-TTAGGCTA-TGCTTA-TA-TCGATG-CTA-GCA,” Paul says.

Glorious laughter.

Love and Cigarettes (pt. 8)

*What Time is It?

We arrive at the field 15 minutes before kick-off. It looks like all of the engineers are already here. The rest of our team is either stretching out or tossing the football around. Our football team is basically “6 Degrees of Shawn.” A couple of Anth’s high school classmates- Tyler and Garrett- play defense with Paul and I. Tyler’s roommate is on the O-Line with Scott, and a couple of Shawn’s frat buddies make up the rest of the team. It’s 7-on-7, so we’ve got a loose roster of about 15. A couple of the other guys didn’t have the dedication to schedule their classes around intramural sports. I guess they take their studies seriously or something. You can only hope they figure it out before it’s not too late.

I take my bag off my shoulders and pull out my cigarettes. I’m antsy. I need a little peace. Then I hear Slash’s incendiary guitar work and Axl Rose’s screeching vocals. “You Could Be Mine.” It’s Abby. What. The. Fuck. I pick up the phone.

“Abby…” I say.

“Kev!” she says.

“What’s going on?” I ask.

“Cheryl wanted to pick up a shift so she took mine. Whatcha doin’?” she says.

Shawn tells me it’s time for the team huddle. I tell him to wait. He smirks. He knows.

“I, uh, we have a football game,” I say.

“I’ll swing by,” she says.

“Oh,” I say.

“You always talk about how hardcore you guys are,” she says.

“No, yeah, we are,” I say.

“Cool. I’ll see you in a bit,” she says.

“Cool,” I say.

Jesus Christ. I cannot have a crisis right now. My figurative plate is full with defensive assignments. The ash on my cigarette is two inches long. I don’t even want it right now.

I join the huddle with the rest of Tommy’s Magic Flute. Shawn is doing his usual Ray Lewis impersonation. Something about not taking the engineering dorks lightly. I don’t even know what he’s saying. Abby’s coming. I do talk about this team a lot. I never thought she’d actually ever see me play. I’ve made myself out to be some kind of hybrid cross between Deion Sanders and Champ Bailey. She thinks it’s patently ridiculous for a grown woman to name her son “Champ.” She’s wrong. The Champ is what makes him great. Fuck me.

“Four and Oh, baby,” Shawn says.

“Four and Oh!” the team shouts in unison.

All I can think of is Abby.

We get the ball first at the 20. We only have a handful of set plays. Usually, the receivers will just tell Anth what they’re going to run. We basically try to score early with a bunch of set plays and variations of them. Shawn thinks they demoralize the other team. He says it makes us seem serious. He’s probably right. But then the serious part probably flies out the window when Anth starts calling out plays like “Kelly. Kelly Clarkson. Kelly Clarkson Yellow Thirteen.” That’s an out to the inside receiver.

We generally run 3-receiver sets so Anth only has to look in one direction. It makes things easier. We run this play 5 times over the course of the game, then later in the game, we’ll run it, but the inside receiver will take off up the field. 90% of the time, it works every time.

The offense is a well-oiled machine. Defense is a little different. We play man-to-man every single play. Two years ago, we tried playing zone for exactly 4 plays. We got toasted and we’ve never considered it since. It’s flag football. Somebody always gets open. We have one really fast guy (Garrett) on the team, and he always covers the other team’s fastest receiver. I got the other one. Most of the time, Paul will cover the running back or third receiver. Paul’s not really fast, and he’s not all that coordinated, but he’s a fucking animal out there. In high school, his nickname was “Beaver Trap.” It applied both on the field and also- well, let’s just say it’s pretty damned accurate.

Anth is marching the offense down the field. Garrett is one of the only guys who plays both ways. His speed is too much of a weapon to waste. He’ll jump in occasionally at running back. We only have two actual running plays. One is a simple toss left or right. The other play with the running back in the set is a pass to Garrett that’s pretty much unstoppable.

We’re all about mismatches. Once the receivers clear out the DBs, the linebacker is left to cover Garrett. In this league, you hide the guys without speed at linebacker (just like Paul). They can’t cover him, especially when he pulls the stop and go. We’d run it on every single play, but it gets kind of boring.

“Tsunami. Typhoon Season. Jedi Mind Trick,” Anth shouts.

Our sideline laughs. It’s coming. The pass to Garrett out of the backfield. Anytime Anth starts yelling about forces of nature, it’s on.
Touchdown. No goal posts mean extra points and two-point conversions are plays from the 3 and 5-yard line respectively. We hit the one point. 7-0 Tommy’s Magic Flute.

The engineers start their drive at the 22. I look around for Abby. She’s not here. Yet. I line up on the single receiver on the left. He’s not too quick. It’ll be a pretty easy day. They run a little out to the Garrett’s side, but the QB overthrows the receiver.

I don’t think this team runs set plays. It doesn’t look like it, anyway, the way the quarterback is making hand motions at his receiver. I don’t know how they’re 2-1. They try a little half back toss to my side. I see it coming. I shed my man’s block and charge. Capture the flag. 1-yard gain. Werp, werp, werp.

Third and long, and they’re going to pass. They pull the running back out to receiver. Three wide on the right. Garrett, Paul and I are lined up together and the only person missing is Pestilence. I mean, Garrett is obviously Time, I’m Famine, and Paul is death. The snap goes off and the three receivers try crossing us up by running a braid- nonsense crossing routes. It doesn’t work because we don’t cross, we only stay in our positions, backpedaling. This is the closest thing to a zone that we run. No one is open. Tyler sacks the QB. Fourth down.

We jog off the field shouting. The return team (Garrett) is back on. Garrett makes it back out to the 28.

Anth hits Shawn for 10 yards. Rolling.

“Hey, Kev.”

I turn. It’s Abby.

“Hey, Ab,” I say.

“How are you guys doing?” she asks.

“We’re up 7-0,” I say.

“Good!” she says.

“Yeah,” I say.

I turn my head from her to the field and back. I think this is the exact situation Mister Webster was thinking of when he wrote the entry “dilemma.”

“How are you doing?” she asks.

“I’m good. I’m good,” I say.

Anth overthrows Carter, Shawn’s frat brother.

“Fuck,” I say.

“What?” Abby says.

“No, nothing. Carter was wide open and Anth missed him,” I say.

“Oh,” she says.

“Fuck,” I say.

“Is now not a good time?” she asks.

I turn back to face Abby.

“No, it’s cool,” I say. It’s not, though. You shouldn’t divide your army or your attention.

“Is it alright if I sit here?” she asks.

“Yeah, but if you want, you can move out that way so you can see better,” I say.

This is the one time in my entire life I don’t want Abby anywhere near me. Fuck.

“Well, good luck, then!” she says. She give me a hug and a kiss on the cheek. “You’re cute all dressed up in your football stuff.”

“Thanks,” I say.

I turn back to the field.

“Blue. Blue balls. Blue balls Twenty Four Seven,” Anth shouts.

That’s not a fucking play.

The entire offensive unit is laughing. Fucking assholes. They run a slant for a first down. Nice. But still- assholes.

They’re about 25 yards out. Anth drops back and looks for Carter on an out. Carter slips. The ball sails right into the hands of the corner. Shit, he’s gone. Pick-6. The engineers lose their collective shit. Fuck. That’s the only way we’ll lose today. Their offense can’t move the ball. We just can’t make anymore mistakes. The offense jogs off the field.

“Fuck!” Anth shouts.

“My bad,” Carter says.

“Nah, fuck it, shit like that happens,” Shawn says.

“Yeah,” Anth says. He takes a sip of Gatorade. “Don’t worry about it.”

“Their offense can’t score,” I say. I light a cigarette since the O will be back on the field. “Just keep scoring.”

The offense jogs back onto the field.

“Anth looks pissed,” Paul says. He lights up next to me.

“Yeah,” I say. I take a drag. “He’ll go deep on the first two plays.”

“At least,” Paul says.

Sure enough, Shawn runs a post on the first play and Anth launches the football down the field. Shawn lays out and the ball caroms off his finger tips. Damn it. 5 inches the other way and that’s a touchdown.

“Fuck!” Anth yells. Mostly at himself.

The referee calls a 10-yard penalty for vulgarity. We deserve it, but Shawn still argues the point.

“He wasn’t swearing at anyone, he was mad at himself,” Shawn says.

“Doesn’t matter,” the ref says. He starts marching off the 10 yards. “Everyone here heard it.”

And this is the one thing that could completely undermine our season. It’s true, if we win it all, we’ll win it on the strength of Anth’s arm. But if we don’t, it’ll probably be because he has something of a temper. He’s got a short fuse. It’s the worst when he’s not doing well. It’s like he’s in a trash compactor, he feels the walls closing in, and he’s screaming for someone to shut it off. He’s young. Years of playing actual football prevent him from taking these games as anything but life or death. He’s dying right now.

Shawn calls a time out. It’s our last of the half. It doesn’t matter. There’s only a minute left before halftime.

“Calm the fuck down,” Shawn says.

“That’s bullshit,” Anth says. He isn’t even looking at Shawn, he’s still glaring at the ref.

“Hey!” Shawn yells. He shoves Anth in the chest to get his attention. “One minute. Let’s score. Let’s go into the half with the lead. We’ll run the QB read three times in a row, then light it up. Okay?”

“Alright, alright. Fine,” Anth says.

The whistle beckons the offense back to the field. I don’t know about this. Shawn’s the captain. It’s his team. No one really argues with him. I don’t know if they’ll have enough time to get down the field with 3 running plays. Even if that running play is a thing of beauty.

We’ll usually hold this play out until later in the game, but the stakes are pretty high right now. Also, I’m guessing Shawn doesn’t want Anth to make stupid throws while he’s on tilt. So, since the sexy thing in the NFL right now is the “Wildcat,” we run it, too. By now, the other team knows Garrett is a blazer. So in any play that resembles a run, they’ll key in on him. That’s an easy 5 or 10 yards for Anth the other way. We ran this play against the team from the freshman dorm. One of the players on that team was like: “A pulling lineman? In an intramural flag football game? Really?” Yeah, really. They couldn’t stop it. Here’s hoping lightning strikes twice.

Anth hands off to Garrett and he picks up only 4 yards. A lucky pull by one of the DBs. It’s 3rd and long. We run it again, this time Anth keeps it and gets the first down and the bonus of getting out-of-bounds to stop the clock. That’s heads-up football.

Shawn said they’d run the Read 3 times, but they’re out of the formation. They’re back in the 3-wide set.

“Chris Daughtry. Adam Lambert. Fantasia…. uh, Fantasia,” Anth calls. What was Fantasia’s last name? They’re going to run the inside-out again, but they’ll probably go deep, this time. Anth drops back, and it is the inside out. The linebacker bites on the route. Curtis (Shawn’s other frat bro) takes off. He has 3 steps on his man. The safety’s too far away to matter. In stride, Curtis cradles the ball against his bosom like a newborn. Touchdown. 22 seconds left in the half.

The offense hits the extra point and we’re ahead 14-7. The engineers return the ball out to the 23. I’m on.

They run a 3-receiver set. My man runs an out for 6 yards and gets out-of-bounds. Shit.

They line it up again and run the same play, but I jump the route. It’s a little long so all I can do is knock it down. That had “back to the house” written all over it. 12 seconds.

“Woo-hoo!” Abby says. She’s clapping. This is surreal.

I make eye contact with her and smile. I make eye contact with Shawn and his eyes are rolling. He snickers. He’s right. She has no idea what the hell just happened. She’s probably thrilled because I touched the ball.

The engineers try a Hail Mary down field that Garrett swats away. They line it up again with 4 seconds left. They try the Hail Mary again. No one is open, another sack for Tyler.

Halftime.

The team meets on the sidelines.

“I told you,” I say. They can’t move the ball.

“Yeah,” Paul says. He lights up a cigarette. “They don’t run set plays. The QB has no idea where the hell his guys are.”

I light up a cigarette. It is good. I take a drag and peer past the huddle towards Abby. She’s wearing jeans and a hoodie. She’s on her cell, but catches my eyes and give me a little wave. What the fuck is she doing? She avoids me all night and all morning, and now she’s my biggest fan? She’s bi-polar, but only regarding relationships. I’m Googling meds for that as soon as I get back to the dorm. By the time this game is over, she won’t want to talk to me again. She’ll get all cryptic and dramatic and tell me to save it for tonight. And then I’ll have even more questions to fake-write on Scott’s fucking fake list.

“Hey, sweetheart,” Shawn says. He punches my arm. Ow. “You hear me?”

“What, now?” I say. My eyes squint and I take a drag.

“Jesus Christ,” Shawn says. “Just keep them in front of you. Give them the underneath stuff if they want it. Make them make 15 plays if they want to score. Don’t give up anything deep.”

“Yeah,” I say. I exhale. “They’re not fast enough, anyway.”

“We can run it up on these guys,” Anth says.

“Don’t get greedy,” Scott says.

“No, he’s right,” Shawn says. He looks over the faces of the other receivers. “One more TD and it’ll be over. They’ll be done.”

Everyone nods.

“Just shut them down on the opening drive,” Anth says.

“Thou shall not pass!” Paul yells. He mimics Gandolf the Gray. He nails it except for the cigarette bouncing up and down on his lip. There is laughter. “Thou shall not pass!”

There are a few minutes left before play starts again, so I walk over to Abby.

“What do you think?” I ask. I hand her my cigarette so she can light hers.

“You guys are awesome!” she says. She lights her cigarette and returns mine.

“What do you think of our offense? Pretty crazy, right?” I ask.

“Shawn’s brother can throw the ball really far, huh?” she replies.

“Yeah,” I say. I don’t know what kind of analysis I was hoping for, but that wasn’t it. Ahh…

“You guys are starting,” she says. She points to the rest of my team, all of whom are staring at me.

“Luck!” she says.

“Thanks,” I say. I’m going to try to play this cool. I walk back to the huddle.

“I think you forgot your balls over there, man,” Paul says.

Scoffing and laughter. And you know what? I deserve it. If Vince Lombardi were alive, even he wouldn’t have a speech for me. Christ.

The engineers return the kick to the 25. We’re on again. They’ve made a few substitutions. They’ve got their safety and corner in at receiver now. Are they any faster? Doesn’t matter. The QB sucks.

The first play they run is a slant to my man. I’m right all over him and reach for his flag. He slaps my hand away and continues on for 10 more yards.

“Flag-guarding!” I yell.

The ref shakes his head with the whistle between his lips. He doesn’t even look at me.

“He slapped my hand!” I say. I slap my own hand. No idea why. Heat of the moment, I guess. “You can’t use your hands to prevent your flags from being pulled! We all went to the meeting! Make the call!”

“It happened right in front of you,” Paul says. He gets between the ref and I. “That’s brutal.”

The ref continues shaking his head.

“That’s fucking bullshit!” I scream.

A yellow flag ascends, then crashes into the earth.

“Ten yards, on the defense,” the ref announces.

I walk away. I am seething. I want to punch that stupid fucking ref in the fucking face. I am whispering the kind of curse words that would make your mother blush and Quintin Tarantino have multiple orgasms.

“Hey, we need you right here,” Paul says. He puts his hand on my shoulder. “Let it go. Make the next play.”

I’m still pissed, but he’s right. The best revenge is to fucking blow them out.

“It’s okay, Kev,” Abby says. She’s standing on the sideline directly across from me. She has her hands clasped together in front of her chest. I nod in her direction. No, Abby, it’s not fucking okay. These fucking games are hard enough to play straight up, then this asshole decides he’s going to up the goddamn degree of difficulty. Shit. Fuck.

I walk back line up against my receiver. It’s the safety, subbing in.

“Your girl’s cute,” he says.

“What?” I say.

“She’s cute,” he says.

I look over at Abby and the ball is snapped and my guy takes off. He’s got half a step on me. Fuck, fuck, fuck. Someone yells “ball” and I know it’s coming. I look back and see the ball on its way down. He’s still got a step when the ball gets there, but it’s slightly overthrown. He reaches out for it and it glances off his hands and falls to the ground.

“Nice hands, buddy,” I say.

He does not reply.

I’m fucking pissed. And I’m fucking lucky. There’s no way that should have happened- either way. Fucking A. Fucking Abby.

The next play is uneventful and they’re forced to punt. I jog off the field and pass Shawn as he jogs on.

“Get your fucking head out of your ass, Kev,” Shawn says.

“I know, I know,” I say.

The offense takes the ball at the 17. They run a wide receiver screen. It goes nowhere. That’s okay, though. We only use the screen to set up the fake screen. It’s coming.

The next pass is good for 6 yards. We design plays so that whoever catches the ball has one man to beat. Gotta make him miss. Carter doesn’t. On 3rd down, Anth tries to hit Shawn on a fly, but overthrows him. We punt the ball away.

The engineers’ offense takes the field. The starting receivers are still on the sidelines. They must be pissed. The DBs are playing both ways. They’ll be tired soon and it’ll show on one end or the other. They run a slant on first down and it goes for 12 yards or so. Garrett slipped trying to make the pull. Our safety made the stop, though. Another first down, another short route. This time they run a hitch right at me for 5 yards. Easy pull. Second down and it’s another slant. First down. This is weak.

The have the ball 35 yards out. The noise increases on the engineers’ sideline. For the first time all game, they’re actually moving. Shawn’s yelling all kinds of shit at us from our sideline. We do this to other teams all the time, though. They’re trying to set us up. They bring one of the original receivers in on the next play and he lines up on the inside against Paul.

“Fresh man,” Paul says. His eyes move in the direction of the new receiver. “It’s all G.”

“All G,” Garrett says.

“All G,” Billy, our safety, says.

Paul and Garrett are going switch, Garrett will take the fresh player. Our safety will cheat to the line so the QB thinks the deep pass is open. If they try to go deep, they’re in for a big surprise.

The ball is snapped and the fresh receiver takes off. Garrett leaves his man, Paul shifts to take him. It’s a footrace now. The receiver has a step, but Garrett is gaining. The quarter back never even looks at another receiver. He takes a 5-step drop, leans back and launches the ball down field. Everyone on the field but Garrett and the receiver come to a standstill. All heads are tiled back at a 39 (roughly) degree angle, eyes locked on the flight of the ball. Garrett’s already made up the ground and they’re running in tandem now. It isn’t a perfect spiral, but it’s got a lot on it. Not enough, though. The pass is under-thrown and Garrett intercepts it as both he and the receiver fall into the end zone. We go ape shit as Garrett stands and drops the ball at the receivers feet. A nice, subtle touch. Our ball at the 20. That’s what happens when you get greedy.

“Oops!” Garrett yells as he backpedals toward our sideline.

The whole team gathers on the field. Each of us high-fives and/or ass-pats Garrett when he finally arrives. He can take the next few plays off if he likes. He’s earned a little breather.

14-7 still. About 8 minutes left in the game. I gotta admit, there’s no way the game should be this close.

As I walk back to the sidelines, I see Abby bouncing toward me.

“That was crazy!” she says.

“I know, right?” I say. I fish through my bag for my cigarettes. I pull one out and light it.

Anth and the offense take over at the 20.

“You guys are so serious about everything!” she says. She has a huge smile on her face. God, she’s beautiful.

“Do you even know what’s happening?” I ask. I take a drag and turn to the check out the field. It’s second down and 6.

“Well, that guy’s on your team, and whenever you guys catch the ball that’s good,” she says.

I laugh. I place my hand on her right shoulder and rub it a little.

“Thanks for coming,” I say.

“No prob,” she says.

First down. Shawn on a slant. Clockwork.

“So what? You just want me to leave with you right after the game?” I ask.

“Oh, I don’t- don’t you guys have some kind of team meeting after game where you guys go over the game and stuff?” she asks.

“You mean dinner?” I say.

She laughs. She scrunches her nose. God, she’s beautiful.

“Well, I-” she says.

“Kevin!” Paul says.

I look at the field to see Anth chase a DB out-of-bounds.

“What the fuck?” I ask.

“Anth threw a pass behind Carter. He tipped it and the safety got there,” Paul says.

I turn towards Abby and she motions me to go ahead. Paul and I jog onto the field. We pass Anth. He doesn’t make eye contact and he’s silent. He’s a half-step away from Chernobyl.

The engineers have the ball on their 30 or so. less than 3 on the clock. We’ve outplayed them all fucking game. I have no idea how it’s still 14-7. If this game were on TV and you just flipped to it, you’d see the score and think it was a really close, contested game. Then you’d watch for 15 minutes and realize that both teams are actively trying to give the game away. Then you’d change the station and hope you catch The Shawshank Redemption on TBS. It’s ugly.

The first play is a quick out to my man. They’re trying that short shit, then trying to get out-of-bounds. They accomplish the first. 4 yards. Who gives a shit? Second down and 6.Timeout Our Future Bosses.

Does not having to go to work make Abby the happiest person in the world? She’s done a complete one-eighty since this morning. Quarterback drops back and hit the running back in the flats. Paul gets there and pulls the flag after two yards. The burn their final time out. Third down. I mean, really, it literally feels like we’ve been going out forever with the whole camaraderie and cheering and clapping and shit. It’s all out there in the open. Did she just assume I’d tell my roommates anyway? She isn’t trying to hide it at all. It’s obvious she here to see me. The ball is snapped and my man runs an out again. He makes the catch, but out-of-bounds. The clock stops. It’s fourth down and 4 yards, otherwise the game is over. Tonight. I haven’t really thought about it. What the fuck is going to happen tonight? You can never tell with Abby, apparently, because her mood swings like Hollywood in the 70′s. You know what is predictable, though? These fuckers are running an out. If not my guy, then one these guys is. I’m going to fucking end this shit. The ball is snapped and my receiver runs straight at me, then breaks hard for the sideline. I told you. I break and jump the route. He turns up the sideline. Oh, no. I dive and try to grab his shirt, his arm, his anything, but it’s too late. He’s gone. I lie on my chest and watch the quarterback let it go. Billy won’t get there in time. Fuck. Please drop it.

Touchdown.

Fuck. My head sinks and my chin rests on the cold grass. What the fuck am I doing? I’m fucking daydreaming out here. God damn it. Fuck me.

I pull myself of the ground and jog to the goal line. 14-13.

“They still gotta get in there!” Shawn yells from the sideline.

We stand on the goal line waiting for the fucking math dorks to call a play.

The quarterback walks over to the ref. Now what?

“They’re going for two,” says the ref.

Holy shit. They’ve got some fucking balls. There’s about 20 seconds left in the game and they’re going for the jugular. You have to respect that.

They line up with two receivers on the left and one on the right. I have the inside man on the right. This is the game right here. The ball is snapped and the QB takes a 3-step drop. My man takes one hard step and turns on the spot. I peek in at the QB and he’s winding up. I take two hard steps at my man and he immediately spins out of the spot. Fuck. I stop running and turn my head just in time to watch the ball leave the quarterback’s hand. I turn around completely and see my man standing in the end zone holding the ball. Fuck. The engineers are in orgy-mode. Fuck!

I walk back to the sideline and no one says a word. They keep their eyes on the field and pray that Garrett can break a big return. He makes it out to the 33. I turn to find Abby with a consoling look on her face. I should never have told her to come here. This is the book of Job. Maybe Revelations. Christ, this is a disaster. She never should have come.

Anth takes two shots at the end zone and both are incomplete. This is how it ends. 15-14, Your Future Bosses.

The teams shake hands and we drag ass back to our sideline in silence. I light a cigarette. So does Paul. Anth tanks his Gatorade and Shawn plops down and starts taking his shoes off. No one says a word.

Love and Cigarettes (pt.7)

*Pre-game Rituals

It’s 2:03 and the sun is still beating the holy hell out of the earth. I walk to my bench outside of Tilden and light up. I’m done for the day. I missed Accounting this morning, but it doesn’t matter. I know exactly what went on in there. Something about numbers, plusses and minuses that are supposed to add up to the original number. I fucking hate accounting. It makes all of my high school math classes seem like nonsense. What the hell am I ever going to need SoCaToa for ever again? Nothing, that’s what. If I ever need to know the area of a rhombus, I’ll just Google it. High school is a lie.

Despite the array of problems that Abby has caused for me today, I must put her out of my mind until 5:30. If I am to play flag football at a high level, then my mind must be clear. I take a drag of the cigarette and tilt my head back. Exhale. Bliss and all that. There isn’t a cloud in the sky. In ancient days, the Greeks might have taken such an occurrence as a harbinger of good fortune. It means I’m going to play the lights out. There is something to be said about finishing the last class of the day. It’s like a 200 pound weight has been lifted off of my spirits and my social calendar.

I stand with roughly half of my cigarette remaining. I’m going to walk back to Hostetter and take a nap before the game. It’s a ritual. The entire ritual is somewhat complex, and I’ve been doing it since high school (high school sports are not a lie). First, I will take a nap. Then, I will rouse myself from this nap and take a dump. I like to be light. As such, I won’t eat anything of consequence 2 hours before a game. I may choose to snack on things high in sugar, just for a quick boost. I didn’t sleep all that well last night, so there might be a Pepsi or a caffeine pill involved. That’s a game-time decision. Thirty to forty-five minutes or so before the game, Paul will play a playlist he’s hand-crafted for each particular game. His selections usually come from the genres of rap, metal, and rap/metal- and 90’s pop music- but sometimes he’ll sprinkle in some inspirational songs from movie soundtracks for effect. You kind of have to be there, but this is one of the highlights of game day. Somehow, he never selects the same songs twice. While the playlist is blaring, I will get dressed. Then we will hit the field about 10-15 minutes before the game starts to stretch and warm up. We used to sacrifice a virgin to the football gods, but then we realized it is impossible to find virgins on a college campus. It hasn’t hurt us, really.

I flick my cigarette butt into the hidden pile behind the bushes. I walk into the dorm and sigh before hitting the stairs. I’ve got to conserve energy. I am of the opinion that stairs and shoelaces are archaic pieces of technology. It amazes me that phone companies give away cell phones, but escalators haven’t been installed in any building two-stories or taller. This strikes me as horribly inefficient.

I walk into my room and it’s a full house. Scott, Paul and Shawn are all there. I am not surprised considering the 4 of us have a standing agreement to configure our class schedules around afternoon intramural sports. I can’t tell you how many 4 pm classes Paul missed during the first semester of his freshman year because he registered for classes before he knew the intramural sports schedule. I think he said something along the lines of “never a-fucking-gain.”

“Nap time?” Paul asks.

“Yeah,” I say. I toss my bag on the floor near my desk.

“Good,” he says. He turns to walk to his computer. “That gives me time to make the list.”

“You do that,” I say. I kick off my shoes and de-belt my jeans. They fall to the floor. “Remember, it’s the engineers today. Something about circuits and building shit.”

“Got it, got it,” he says.

My alarm clock says 3:14. I wake up and I don’t feel refreshed. I feel more tired. I look up and see Paul’s back. He’s hard at work on that playlist. He’s got his headphones on so none of us can hear what he’s working on. I swear to God, if Paul was anywhere near as interested in his studies as he is in useless diversions, he’d be on the Dean’s List. I walk to the bathroom to wash my face. Scott is in there brushing his teeth. Athletes are a superstitious lot. He eyes me through the mirror and gives me the head nod. Nothing said, yet so much said.

“I’ve got to drop the pre-game deuce,” I say.

He spits out his toothpaste and turns on the faucet.

“Hold on,” he says.

“No prob.” I say. I turn my back toward the mirror and lean on the sink. “I tried to write that list.”

He rinses and turns the faucet off.

“And?” he says.

“I got as far as question number one and quit,” I say. I rub my eyes.

“You’re just going to wing it, then?” he asks. He wipes his mouth with his towel.

“I think so. I figured out that every other possible question or comment is contingent upon the first question,” I say.

“Which is?” he asks.

“What are we?” I say.

There are a few seconds of silence.

“I think you’re right,” he says.  He reaches for the door leading back to his room. “I suppose everything kind of depends on her answer to that.”

“Yeah,” I say.

“Have a good one,” he says.

I lift the lid to the toilet and have a seat. I tend to do my best thinking on the toilet or in the shower. It’s probably the solitude. Tommy’s Magic Flute is 3-0 this season. It’s our best start ever. Shawn’s brother Anth (Anthony) is a freshman and our quarterback. He was a bad-ass in high school, but didn’t get any offers for college ball. A few JCs wanted him, but he wanted to go to school for school. I suppose that alone makes him something of a renaissance man. He’s really good, though. He’s the main reason our team is playing so well this season. And since we already knew better, he finishes class no later than 3 pm everyday. That’s just good coaching.

Shawn, Anth, and Scott all play offense. Scott plays on the o-line because he can’t catch, but he is strangely adept and getting in people’s way- as evidenced by his stupid fucking list. Anth is the QB and Shawn is a receiver. They have like a sixth sense. You know how they say twins have their own language? I swear to you that Shawn and Anth do, too, only it’s completely non-verbal. They just have to look at each other and the next thing you know, Shawn’s running a post, Anth takes a three-step-drop and launches a fucking missile and it hits Shawn in stride. It’s amazing, really.

I could probably use a little ESP tonight. I have no idea what she’s thinking. This entire conversation could go down a hundred different paths tonight.

So, what are we?

Um, like, what do you mean?

I mean, like, what am I to you?

You’re my boyfriend, right?

Am I?

We just made out. You call me “babe.” How could you not be?

So, what are we?

Can we just keep it casual?

What do you mean?

I don’t want any serious relationship right now.

So, what are we?

To each other?

Yeah.

I don’t know.

Well, what do you want to do?

I don’t know, how do you feel about it?

So, what are we?

Do we need labels?

I just want to be clear.

Isn’t it pretty obvious?

I don’t know, you didn’t tell me.

Can’t you tell?

No, I can’t, I’m not a mind reader.

And really, that’s the problem. If I had Professor X’s skills, I’d already have figured this out. Instead I’m sweating this out on the toilet. How humbling.

I walk out of the bathroom and back into my room. I smell of heavy air freshener. Paul is standing next to his bed in his boxers. The only other article of “clothing” he’s wearing is a headband.

“I got it,” he says.

“Let’s hear it,” I say.

“Go tell and Shawn and Scott,” he says. He hooks up his iPod to the stereo.

I walk back through the bathroom and open the door to the other room. Anth is there now, along with Scott and Shawn. Anth is always up in here. I think it’s because their mom gives the money to Shawn and Anth has to come get it from him.

“Hey, Paul’s got the setlist ready to go,” I say.

“Awesome,” Shawn says. He is wearing nylon sweat pants and Under Armor.

“Let’s hear it,” Scott says. He’s wearing Jordan basketball shorts and Under Armor, but it’s inside out. In his own words, he only “rocks Team Jordan” to intramural sports games. He’s also got a Jordan headband on.

“Go,” I say. I’m still wearing just my boxers.

There is silence and anticipation for half-a second. Then there is the best bass line in the history of music: “Billie Jean.”

Shawn, Scott, Anth, and I begin bobbing our heads in unison.

I walk back to my room and Paul has his t-shirt around his neck (still in boxers and headband) and is blowing into his hands. To each his own.

“Why the ‘Billie Jean’?” I ask.

“It’s perfect. We’re 3-0. We’re perfect,” he says. I told you. Fucking soul mates.

I dig through my drawer and pull out my uni for the day: silver Hurley micro-fiber boardshorts (less bulk than basketball shorts), Long-sleeved Under Armor (black), my Under Armor headband (silver), and no-show socks. I put on the Under armor first, then the headband.

I look up at Paul and he now has his winter jacket on. He’s still shirtless. He starts bouncing up and down as the final bars of “Billie Jean” fade.

“What are you doing?” I ask.

“Wait for it,” he says. He does not look at me, but stares straight ahead past his closet, into nothingness. He’s entering the zone.

“Hearts on Fire” from the Rocky IV soundtrack hits.

Paul begins running in place. There are cheers of approval all around.

I fucking love this song.

“I’m surprised you held this out until the 3^rd game,” I say.

“It took a lot of discipline,” Paul says.

“I know. I thought it was going to be track one, list one,” I say.

“So did I,” he says. He still hasn’t made eye contact with me.

I open the mini-fridge and take a Pepsi. I’m going to need it.

The five of us finish getting dressed and head down to the field. Each of us- except for Shawn- has a backpack filled with personal necessities for the football game. Scott’s bag is nearly empty except for the roll of athletic tape that he will use to tape his wrists and the wrists of anyone else on our team who wishes it. Paul has portable speakers and iPod in his bag. He does not carry his shoes by hand like the rest of us because he wears his to the field- he likes the sound of plastic cleats on concrete. I’ve got my cell phone,  cigarettes and lighter, camera, the bottle of Pepsi, and Abby’s keys (for good luck or something). Shawn dumped all of his shit in Anth’s bag and made him carry it. Shawn knows that Anth is the star of the team and has said that he believes making him carry all his shit all the time “keeps him grounded.” Whatever, we’re going to ride his arm to the ‘ship.

“Anyone know anything about the Engineers?” I say.

“They’re team name is ‘Your Future Bosses’,” Shawn says.

“That’s a little arrogant,” Paul says. His shoes go click-clack.

“Yeah,” Shawn says. He smiles. “I have a class with the running back. He said that they picked that name just to piss people off.”

“Who’d they lose to?” Scott asks.

“Sigma Chi,” Shawn says.

“It went into overtime,” Anth says. He makes eye contact with Shawn.

“The fucking ref made a bullshit call and called back an Engineer’s TD with like a minute left,” Shawn says.

That’s part of the unpredictability of intramural sports. Other students referee the game. A lot of times, they know little-to-nothing about the sport they’re officiating. During our first game, I pretty much mauled a receiver I was covering and the female (!) referee threw a flag for pass interference. I said “That ball was uncatchable!” It was uncatchable because I cut off the receiver’s route to the ball, but she didn’t understand that. All she understood was the “uncatchable” part because that’s one of the few things the rec coordinators go over with the refs before the season starts. Also, I dove in the general direction of the ball at the last second as to appear to be “playing the ball.” So, no flag, 4^th down.

“The game ended tied and went into sudden-death. Sig-Chi got the ball first and scored. Game over,” Anth says.

“We handled Sigma Chi, though,” Paul says.

“Yeah, but the quarterback didn’t play that game, remember?” Scott says.

There is a small chuckle among the five of us. The guys on Sigma Chi told us that their QB had a class and couldn’t make it. We later found out through various backchannels that it wasn’t class so much as it was drama with his girlfriend.

As we pass the Student Center, I reach into my bag for my Pepsi. I fumble it, though, and in the ensuing chaos, I drop Abby’s keys. I stop to pick them up, but it’s already too late. Scott sees them.

“Kev tell you guys about Abby?” Scott asks.

Fuck me.

“What about?” Paul says.

“She got him by the fucking balls?” Shawn says.

“We already knew that,” Paul adds.

Laughter. In 4-part harmony.

“Dude, she is hot,” Anth says.

“She’s a hot cock-tease,” Shawn says.

“Not anymore,” Scott says.

The entire group stops dead. They turn to look at me. I say nothing. They turn to look at Scott.

“Kev stayed at her place last night,” Scott says. He looks at me as if he wants me to take over the storytelling reins. “Aren’t you going to tell them?”

“Yeah,” I say. Fuck. I pull out a cigarette and light up. I usually don’t do this so close to game time, but I’m a fucking wounded animal in a fucking cage backed into a corner. “I’m supposed to head over there tonight and hang out with her.”

“You guys do it?” Paul asks.

“No,” I say.

“Well, what then?” he says. I think he might be hurt that he’s not the first to hear about this.

“We just hung out and stuff,” I say.

Apparently, that comment means we can start walking again. The field is in sight.

“The usual, then?” Shawn says.

“Sure,” I say.

Scott looks at me with judging eyes. Christ. We’re like fucking gossip girls or something.

“And also I slept in her bed,” I say.

“Where did she sleep? The couch? You’re a gentleman, Kev,” Anth says.

“Right next to me,” I say.

The group comes to a halt again.

“What?” asks Shawn.

“Seriously,” adds Paul.

“We just kind of cuddled, I guess,” I say. I take a drag from my cigarette and tilt my head to blow the smoke away from the group. Also so I don’t have to make eye contact.

“And the blueballing continues!” Shawn says.

More laughter.

“If you don’t fucking tell them, I will,” Scott says.

Anth, Shawn, and Paul are silent. They look at me like hungry children in an orphanage. Or at least what I think hungry children at an orphanage look like.

“Fine,” I say. I take a huge drag from my cigarette and launch the butt. “I can call her ‘babe’.”

No laughter, only silence.

“What does that even mean?” Paul asks. He smirks. “I fucking call you ‘babe’ all the time.”

“We kissed,” I say.

“Dude,” Anth says. His head buckles back slightly. “Awesome. Tongue?”

“No,” I say.

“You better get there,” Shawn says.

“Fuck, finally,” Paul adds.

“Fuck, guys,” I say. I haven’t even taken a sip of my Pepsi yet and I’ve got the jitters. “Let’s just get to the field. We’re going to be late.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Paul says. He is the first to snap out of it. “We’ve got some engineers to tear up.”

I am so not in the zone

Love and Cigarettes (pt. 6)

*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.

Love and Cigarettes (pt. 5)

*Love and Cigarettes for Lunch

As soon as Philosophy class ends, I make my way back to the steel-reinforced ashtray. I sit on the wall and fish through my left pants pocket for my cigarettes. I can’t get to them easily because I also have Abby’s apartment keys in the pocket, too. Fuck it. I close my hand over everything in the pocket and slowly remove the mass. My pack of cigarette, the lighter, and her keys explode out of their hiding place. I take a cigarette and light it. I take the first drag and exhale with relief. It is short-lived. I tuck my lighter and cigarettes back into my pocket and examine Abby’s keys. Actually, it’s just the one key, but the key chain is what makes holding onto it so cumbersome. She’s got this huge plastic key chain that reads, “Home is where you hang yourself.” Clever. I hope it was a gag gift or something.

“When did you tell her,” a voice says. It is Janet. She sits next to me on the wall, noticeably closer than before class.

“What do you mean?” I reply. I take another drag of my cigarette in hopes that my aloofness will prevent the conversation from going forward. It does not.
“When did you tell her how you feel about her?” she continues. She tilts her head down and to the right to light her cigarette. Her head rises. “You don’t expect me to believe that was all hypothetical, do you?”

“That’s what I said,” I say. I look over her with what I hope comes across as emotional detachment on my face. It does not.

“Right,” she says. She smiles when she says it. She places her cigarette between her lips. “A ‘friend’ of mine.” Her cigarette bounces on her lips. She actually used air-quotes to punctuate her sarcasm. Lemon-yellow air quotes. I have to admit it- this girl is interesting.

“Okay, detective,” I say. I reach my arm out for the ashtray-which I can’t reach while sitting- and ash my cigarette anyway. “I told her last night.”
“Wow, she says. She sounds genuinely surprised. “That’s wasn’t philosophy, that was current events.”

I laugh a little. I don’t know why.

“Yeah well, that’s exactly how it went down, so it’s not any clearer, really,” I say.

“Yikes,” she says. She takes a drag from her cigarette and puts it out even though she’s only smoked half of it. “I’ve got class in 5 minutes. See you Friday.”
I think this is supposed to be a statement, but it sounds like a question.

“Sure,” I say. I take a drag from my cigarette. “See you then.” Smoke escapes my lips as she walks away.
She stops and turns.

“Hey,” she says. She puts both hands in the back pockets of her jeans and pops her shoulders forward. “If you ever… you know, if you ever want to talk about it, I’ll listen.”

My brow wrinkles involuntarily.

“Thanks,” I say. I smile.

“Okay, see you,” she says. She turns and walks away.

I can only handle one female mystery at a time. You’re the back burner, Janet Olivera.

I don’t have another class until 1. I’m pretty hungry considering my intake so far has consisted of caffeine and nicotine. I pull my iPod from my backpack and search for some mid-day music. U2 it is. I zip up my bag and head over to the student center. I feel like Bono is a prophet: “It’s alright, it’s alright, it’s alright- she moves in mysterious ways.” Is he speaking directly to me? I don’t know. Probably not since he’s also musing about “living underground” and “eating from a can.” That’s not completely applicable, I suppose.

I walk through the doors of the student center and welcome the orgasmic sensation of frigid air conditioning on my exposed skin. Now that a little time has passed and we’ve got some perspective, perhaps the fellow who gave us fire is a little uneasy. I bet he felt like his particular contribution to the human race might never be eclipsed, but I humbly offer the inventor of air conditioning as a worthy rival. It’s close, but the fire-giver still has the slight edge because I can’t light a cigarette with cold air. Sometimes it really is that simple.

I decide that today’s lunch will be ethnically themed. My two choices are tacos and quesadillas from the grill or sushi from the fridge. Let’s make this as painless as possible. I walk to the fridge and grab a tray of California Rolls and a bottle of A&W Cream Soda. Usually, Id’ have taken a Pepsi without thinking about it, but the A&W doesn’t come around often. Something about opportunity cost, right? I’m not sure this will fill me, so I pick up a bag of chips on the way to the checkout stand. I just spent $8. Man, between these exorbitant food prices and swindling professors, I don’t know that I can afford my degree.
The seating area is pretty full. It’s the lunch rush, I guess. I spot Scott, one of my roommates. He’s already half-way through a steak sandwich.
“I thought you were dead,” he says. I sit at his table and he nods my way. “I decided to wait the full 24 hours, though. You know, the police won’t do anything until then anyway.”

“Your concern is heart-warming,” I say. I split my chopsticks and shower my sushi with soy sauce. “But thanks, I’m fine.”
“So where were you?” he asks. He leans back in his chair and wipes his mouth with a napkin. He then tosses the napkin onto the table. “And make it believable this time.”

“I was at Abby’s,” I say.

Scott laughs.

“I said ‘believable,’ asshole,” he says. He shakes his head and renews his attack on the sandwich. It really stood no chance. “That girl is no good for you.”
“No, really,” I say. I pop a roll into my mouth. It occurs to me that this is the 3rd conversation I have had about Abby today, and she was involved in exactly none of them. Fuck. This is going to be a long day. “I spent the night.”

“You hook up?” he asks. His voice is so devoid of emotion that it disarms me. It’s like he’s waiting for confirmation from the postal service or something.

“No.” I say.

“Then what the hell did you guys do all night? Drink and talk about music that no one else listens to?” he asks.

“Uhh,” I begin.

“I’m telling you, Kev, she just likes the attention you give her,” he says. He tosses the last bite of his sandwich down onto his plate. He is visibly upset that there wasn’t enough steak to fill the length of the bread. “It won’t go anywhere.”

“I slept in her bed,” I say. I take a sip of cream soda. Ahh… “With her in it.”

“Really?” he says. His voice jumps at least three octaves. “Okay, you have to be very clear about the details.”

“What are you talking about?” I say. I pop another piece of sushi into my mouth and shake my head.

“Did you guys-“ he begins. He leans forward, both elbows on the table and continues in a whisper. “Did you guys cuddle?”

“Yeah,” I say. I refuse to whisper. This isn’t a matter of national security. We’re not talking about stealing dinosaur embryos here.

“Spoonage?” he asks.

“Yes,” I say.

“Heavy petting?” he asks.

“No. Jesus Christ,” I say.

“Okay, kissing, then?” he asks.

“Yes,” I say.

“That doesn’t help me at all, Kev,” he says. He flings himself back into his chair. My father had the same kind of body language whenever I bricked a jump shot. “It’s college. Everybody kisses everybody.”

“Well, she said I can call her ‘babe’,” I say. I take a long sip from my cream soda to let the information sink in. Settle. Settle.

“Wait- you called her ‘babe’ or she said you could call her ‘babe?’,” he asks. He shoves his plate to the side and leans in so far he becomes one with the table.

“She said I could,” I say.

“How did that happen? Did you guys talk about it, or did she just throw it out there randomly?” he asks.

“I asked her,” I say.

“You asked her what?” he says.

“I asked her if I could call her ‘babe’,” I say.

“Just like that?” he asks.

“Yeah, just like that,” I say.

There is a beat or two of silence. His face vaguely resembles the expression my mother wore when she first found my cigarettes.

“You’re a smooth motherfucker, Kev,” he says. He hurls himself back into his chair. Again. “Don’t ever let anyone tell you any different.”

He’s right. I’m about as smooth as an old man’s ass.

“So what the hell does that mean?” he asks.

“I have no idea,” I say.

“What do you mean?” he says. He pulls his chair up to the table and leans in. How the fuck is it that he’s the one riding the emotional rollercoaster?

“I don’t know what any of it means, she won’t talk to me about it,” I say.

“So you guys make out, cuddle, you call her ‘babe,’ and neither of you know what’s going on?” he asks.

“We’re supposed to talk about it tonight when she gets back from work,” I say. I twist the cap of my soda back on. “Let’s move it outside so I can smoke.”

We toss our trash into the cans adjacent to the door. We leave the artificial comfort of the air conditioning and walk out into the sun. I light up a cigarette and offer one to Scott. I know he won’t take one, but I like to offer them as a formality. I think part of me secretly hopes he’ll take one someday. Like how Ben Affleck kept wishing that Matt Damon would just be gone in Good Will Hunting.

“So what’s your plan?” he asks.

“I don’t know. I didn’t know I needed one,” I say.

“I mean maybe a script or an outline,” he says.

“Of what I want to say?” I ask.

“Not necessarily,” he says. He places his hands on his hips and stares at the concrete before us for a few seconds. “Just a list of points you want to hit.”

“So I should bullet-list some main points and key ideas,” I say.

“Yeah, make sure you don’t leave anything out, you know?” he says.

“That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard,” I say. I exhale Lost’s smoke monster just to emphasize the point.

“Seriously, you don’t want to leave anything out, right?” he asks.

“I suppose I don’t,” I say.

“You’ve been agonizing over this girl since you met her,” he says. He starts making exaggerated hand motions similar to the conductor of a world-class symphony. “Don’t you just want to know where you stand with her?”

“Yeah, I do,” I say.

“Well, then,” he says. A little too emphatically, I might add. “She’s been Stonewall Jacksoning you for 24 hours, if there’s an opening, you’d better get it all out there.”

“Dude, I’ve been going over this shit since forever, I say. I mean it, too. I am farily confident that I have already mentally played out every possible scenario in my head, then dissected them in slo-mo at 1080p.

“But still,” he says. I suppose the pause is for dramatic effect, but that would be giving Scotty too much credit. “You don’t want to leave anything out.” Told you.

“So what are you saying?” I ask. I can’t believe he’s talking me into this. “Should I literally type out a bullet-list of the things I want to say to her, then have a separate column for things I want to ask?

“I don’t know if you have to type it,” he says. Again with the pause.

Maybe hand-written will be do.”

“Christ, do you want that in APA format, Professor?” I say.

“Hey, I’m just trying to help you out, man,” he says.

I take the final drag from my cigarette and drop it to the cement. I put it out with the sole of my left shoe.

“All I’m saying is that you’ve been waiting for this moment since before you could read,” Scott says. He looks at his watch. Maybe he has a noon class. He’s me roommate and all, and I know an amazing number of things about him- like how he played the lower half of the whale in his high school’s production of Moby Dick- but I know dick about what the hell he does in school other than he’s an English major, and therefore a poor decision-maker.

“You don’t want to screw this up,” he says. He turns to leave. “So you won’t be in tonight?”

“No, not if things work out well,” I say.

“When is she picking you up?” he asks. I can see his back.

“She’s not,” I say. I pull another cigarette. I know what I am about to tell him will make him late for class. “She gave me her key. I’m supposed to be there when she gets back.”

“What?” he says. Again, Scott is an English major. He has to analyze this. It’s what he does. He can’t help but look for hidden meaning. It’s the way his mind works. Some people have the habit of biting their nails. Scott over-analyzes everything. It’s the same thing, really. I mean when you’ve run out of fingernail, you just keep going sometimes. Just like Scott. The key means nothing. He will tell me that it means everything. “She gave you her key?”

“Yeah, I guess she didn’t want to have to pick me up,” I say.

“Wait, wait, wait. Hold the fuck on,” he says. He’s turned back to face me. “That changes everything!

I told you. Scott, you’re too easy.

“What are you talking about?” I say. I take the kind of drag from my cigarette that’s supposed to scream “nonchalant” but it probably says “melodramatic.”

“She gave you her key- this is the real deal- this means she trusts you,” he says.

“ Yeah, I know she does. I’ve been there a bunch of times. Not much to tell,” I say.

“No- that means she’s willing to let you into her world,” he says.

“Maybe you’re reading a little too much into it. There aren’t any metaphors here,” I say. I take a long drag. “It means nothing. Less than nothing. It’s an act of convenience.” I honestly believe this. It makes logical sense.

“I’m serious,” he says. He looks at his watch and winces.

“So am I,” I say. I let the smoke exit my nostrils for added effect. All it does is get in my eyes. I put the cigarette out. “She just didn’t want to have to pick me up. If she’s so willing to part the Red Sea of her world- you like that, huh- why the hell hasn’t she talked to me about all this?”

“That’s a bad analogy,” he says.

“What?” I ask.

“Nevermind,” he says. He turns away again. “It could mean everything.”

“Yeah, or nothing,” I say.

“But still,” he says. He begins to walk away. “That list is even more important now.”

I don’t have class until 1, so I head back to my room. I light up another cigarette because I know that it will take me 6 minutes at my regular gait to get there from the student center. That is more than enough time to enjoy more dessert. The sun is flexing its muscles today. It’s hot. Part of me feels like I should change into shorts for the rest of the day, but I’ve already gone to battle in these jeans. No sense increasing the dirty laundry pile for a half-day. Pragmatism, baby. The dorms are like casinos in Vegas. Since they’re so large, they create the illusion that you’re near them when in fact you’re still a ways away. I can see gold old Hostetter Dorm, but I’m not really close. Factor in the stairs and I’ve still got quite a trek ahead of me.

I finally get to my dorm and I flick my cigarette butt into the bushes fronting the façade. I enter and am bathed in AC. I take the stairs to the second floor. Someone is playing “With a Little Help From My Friends.” I don’t know what it is about college that some how awakens people’s supposedly latent interest in the Fab Four.  It’s like people go through the first 18 years of their lives not giving a shit about John, Paul, George, and Ringo, then the minute you move into a dorm, you start talking about how Sgt. Pepper changed your life. The Beatles never said anything to me. Sure, I grant that they pretty much invented pop music as we know it, but I’d still rather listen to Guns n’ Roses.

My dorm room is really a suite. Two rooms share an adjacent bathroom. Scott lives in the other room with Shawn, his high school classmate. Shawn is a cool guy. We both agree that GoldenEye is the single most influential video game ever because it was the first great 4-person shooter. I share my room with Paul, a guy I met freshman year. We’re pretty much heterosexual soul mates. We met at a kegger at one of the houses off campus. It cost $6 for a plastic cup and Paull and I made sure that we got our money’s worth. The beer tasted horrible, but if you are of the opinion that beer exists only to fuck people up, then it was damn good beer. Anyway, the guys throwing the party didn’t have a DJ per se, they just threw somebody’s iPod on the stereo and ran it at full volume. Paul was in front of me in the beer line when Survivor’s “Eye of the Tiger” began blaring. The conversation went something like this (we were pretty hammered by this point, mind you):

“What’s your prediction for the fight? I said. I said this aloud, though to no one in particular.

Paul turned around and said, “Pain.”

So began a series of high fives and run-away laughter that was punctuated with the two of us shouting things at each other like “I’ll fucking race you on the beach in short-shorts and high tube socks!” and “I’ll take you to a gym full of black fighters so they can stare at you and make you feel uncomfortable!” Good times, really.

Since the beer line was pretty epic, this conversation went on much longer than the song played. I don’t remember how it happened, but at some point we moved on to Rocky IV. I don’t remember all of the details, but I distinctly remember Paul’s coaching when I got into a chug-off with some chick whose boyfriend lived in the house. It was a double-fist chug-off. She started yelling at Paul and I in the line because we were fake-boxing, but she thought that we were fighting for real. She told us that we were “cut off” and Paul and I vehemently disagreed. Paul yelled something along the lines of “We’re fine and he’ll double-fist chug you to prove it.” He was pointing at me. This statement set off a chorus of “Oooohs” from the other people standing in line. I think this is what caused her to actually do it. So yeah, me and this chick are ready to kick the race off and Paul started rubbing my shoulders and calling me “Rock.” I’ve got a cup- filled to the brim with cheap beer- in each hand and I’m holding them at stomach level, elbows tucked into my sides. I look at this blonde girl and say “I must break you,” with a really shitty accent. Paul starts laughing hysterically. The blonde’s friend says “go,” and we start chugging. I’m half-way through the first cup and Paul leaned in close to my ear and started whispering “No pain, no pain.”

It was over. I spit the beer out all over the patio floor and couldn’t stop laughing. We laughed the entire way out of the house and laughed and smoked cigarettes the entire 5 blocks back to campus. And that’s my roommate.

None of my roommates is in when I enter my room. I know this because the bathroom doors are open and I don’t hear a TV or the clacking of a keyboard. And sometimes, you can just feel when people are around. I don’t feel it. I fall face-first into my bed.

Love and Cigarettes (pt. 4)

*Love, Cigarettes, and Philosophy

I’m sitting on a low wall fronting Shuster Hall. It’s 9:47 in the morning and I’m waiting on my 10 o’clock class. Abby dropped me off at my room 20 minutes ago. I had the strength to pick up my books and that’s about it. I can’t concentrate. I’ve been chain-smoking and drinking coffee since I emerged from the cafe 8 minutes ago. I think I might even have an assignment due for this class. I don’t even care. All I can think about is Abby.

You have to hand it to the University, they’ve installed an ashtray (screwed into the cement!) 40 yards away from Shuster’s main doors so all the smokers have to huddle around it like some kind of fucking tribal ritual. They’re fucking making it impossible to be a cigarette smoker in America. Somehow I think if Patrick Henry could see what I had to go through just to find a place to smoke a good cigarette, he’d be impressed with my pursuit of happiness and disappointed with America.

“21st Century Phil, right?” says a girl sitting next to me.

“Yeah, right, Philosophy,” I say. I’ll talk to you later, Patrick Henry.

The girl sitting next to me is cute. She’s petite and has a really short boy-ish hair cut. She’s got those cat’s eyes glasses that makes me think of Lisa Loeb.

“Are you a philosophy major?” she asks. She takes a drag from her cigarette and reaches out for the ashtray. She misses by two feet, but neither of us really gives a shit. “Or is it a pre-req for something else?”

“Um… no, I’m not a philosophy major,” I say. Although I have to admit I’ve spent every conscious moment today thinking about the myriad possibilities that could possibly describe the content and direction of the upcoming conversation between Abby and myself. And since I cannot empirically know what this conversation will entail a priori, I must simply run through all of the scenarios in my head until I have attained the knowledge a posteriori. “Just need it to fill a requirement.”

“Me, too,” she says. She puts her cigarette between her lips and fumbles around in her purse for her cell phone. She checks the time. “This was only the Philosophy class Monday/Wednesday/Friday after 10.”

“I had no idea,” I say. I watcher her put her phone back into her purse. It’s a small little thing, but apparently has 16 or so even smaller pockets inside of it. I’ll never understand women. “I just thought it would be the least boring philosophy class possible. I mean, at the very least, it’s modern.”

“That’s true,” she say. She takes a drag from her cigarette and turns to face me.

“”Oh. By the way, I’m Janet. Janet Olivera,” she says. She exhales a column of smoke.

“Kevin Manchester,” I say. I nod at her and smile slightly.

“Nice to meet you, Kevin,” she says.

She extends her hand for a shake. I reciprocate. She has really tiny hands and smooth skin. Kind of like Abby’s, but not as warm. And I don’t know if I care for Janet’s lemon-yellow nail polish. Some shade of red is probably the norm, black I could just write off as some goth/rock/emo/glam-metal/nightclub culture thing, but what the hell does lemon-yellow nail polish say about a woman? Other than she likes yellow, I mean?

“I’ll see you upstairs,” she says. She tosses her butt in the battened-down ashtray and heads up to class. My watch says 9:54. I’ve still got a little time. Aside from the obvious health benefits, that’s the upside of smoking.: it’s a wonderful ice breaker. All of the statues being created to quarantine cigarette smokers have created a sense of solidarity among us. It’s us against them. All the non-smokers of the world have done by oppressing us is made us into a stronger minority that won’t be denied. And also, the rise in prices has made cigarette bums more common. I don’t know which kind of person I hate more- the people who cough when the see me smoking-even though they’re 45 feet away- or cigarette bums. Perhaps I should bring this question up in class. It’s time to go.

I walk into class and notice that Janet is in the front row. I am not, nor have I ever been interested in sitting in the front row of anything- not class, not church, not the movie theater. But I make the compromise of sitting in the second row, a desk away from Janet. She’s the only person I “know” in this class and i’m still pondering the merits of day-glow nail polish. I suppose I will ask her about it at some point. By then, though, she may have moved on to sky blue or something. There’s not telling. Immediately after I pull out my notebook and pencil, the professor rises and begins his rollicking lecture on the power of perception.

“It has been said,” he says. He takes a brief pause. Like he’s trying to figure out how ot perfectly phrase the next part of his statement. I wish I had this ability. “that ‘perception is reality.’ Is this true?”

A girl three desks over on my left raises her hand.

“I think it’s absolutely true,”  she says. She is wearing jeans and an Ed Hardy t-shirt. Ed Hardy jumped the shark a long time ago. Once Ed Hardy started making car window shades, it was officially over. You just can’t be cool and keep cars cool at the same time. Scientists have proven this.

“Why do you feel that way?” the professor asks.

“Because people often judge others based off of one thing,” Ed Hardy Girl says. She shifts in her seat and leans forward so that her formidable breasts rest atop the desk. Like I said, I’m observant. “Like Jessica Simpson. She did that show where all they did was portray her as dumb, and like, that’s all anyone even knows about her.”

She’s probably right. It’s kind of like all of those people who became fans of Metallica after the Black Album. They based their entire view of Metallica on “Enter Sandman.” and they have no fucking idea that it was Metallica’s weakest album to that point. If they ever listened to Ride the Lightning start to finish, their heads would explode.

“But Jessica Simpson is stupid,” Janet says. She turns her body to face Ed Hardy Girl (and me). She wearing one of those short sweater things that reveal glimpses of mid-section whenever she moves a certain way. I am a fan, Janet. “Even after that show was over, she still played up the persona that the show had created for her.”

“Well, yeah, but I just meant  her as- you know-  an example of how people only care about one facid of other,” Ed Hardy Girl says. “Facid.” Great argument, EHG. “Like if everybody thinks something about you is true- even if it isn’t- then that’s what’s going to keep on perpetuating.”

Oooh, double-redundancy score.

“Ah,” the professor crows. He leans against his desk with his arms crossed. “We’ve arrived at the crux of the problem: what is reality?”

I have thought about this particular question for the better part of my adult life. Last night with Abby should have changed everything. But I don’t feel any different. The reality is we slept together, kissed, smoked breakfast together, and I called her “babe.” If a man calls a woman “babe” and no one else is there to hear it, did he really say it? More to the point, is she really his “babe?” Migraine.

“This is a semantic debate,” Janet says. She looks at me through her Lisa Loebs and in my head, I hear a woman’s voice say “Stay.” “Reality doesn’t matter. It’s like a diploma. The only value of truth and ‘reality’ is in its use.”

“Go on,” says the professor. He slides his right hand under his chin.

“Let’s say I believe that the sky is red and no one can talk me down from it,” Janet says. She’s the kid of person who needs their hands to talk. I guess I missed that outside because she was smoking. “Obviously, the ‘reality’ is that it appears blue. But if I somehow got everyone to believe it was red overnight, that would make it ‘reality’ wouldn’t it?”

I look around the class. Other than the professor, Ed Hardy Girl, and Janet, everyone else has a glazed-over look on their faces. I mean technically, they’re here. But I think they all checked out 5 minutes ago. I would have too, except…

“No, that would just mean that everyone is wrong,” says the Ed Hardy Model. She now turns to face Janet. There’s a 14% chance this gets physical. I would give away 93% of my possessions for this to happen. “It’s only their personal perception of the sky.”

“But technically speaking, if every single human being on the planet believes it to be true, doesn’t that make it fact?” asks Janet. her right leg is nervously bouncing up and down at a break-neck pace. “If there’s no opposition to the idea, doesn’t that mean it’s universally accepted as truth? As reality?”

“But the sky can’t be red,” Miss Ed Hardy says. Lincoln and Douglas, you guys had better watch the fuck out for this one. She’s a machine.

“I know it can’t be red,” Janet says. The professor cuts her off.

“This is good. This is discussion. Both of you make valid points,” he says. He scans the classroom only to discover the same thing I did- a sea of empty faces. “Does anyone else have ideas about this quandary?”

This is where I’d usually bow out and pretend to be thinking about it really hard. Usually, all it takes is to scrunch up my brow and squint a little. But them for some reason, Janet makes eye contact with me and I perceive that she wants me to say something. So I do. Fuck me.

“None of it matters,” I say. Quite matter-of-factly, actually. “The only things that really matter are the motivation and justification people are going to use to define their own personal realities. When it comes down to it, no one really cares what anyone else is doing- I mean, they care- buy only in so much as it affects them directly.”

“For example?” The professor asks. He is sitting on his desk now. I have to admit his brilliance; he’s getting paid to listen to ego-centric 20-somethings talk to each other about themselves. What a ruse.

“Let’s say that I really like this girl,” I say. Hypothetically, of course. “And after 6 months I finally tell her that I have feelings for her. Then she says ‘I know, I’ve known for a while.’ So then I say, ‘Well, why didn’t you say something?’ Then she says ‘I was hoping you wouldn’t say anything.’ Then I say ‘What does it matter if you already knew?’ And then she says ‘Because you never said anything, it wasn’t real. You actually telling me made it real.’ So does that mean I never really liked her until I told her? Because believe me, I did.”

“I’m not sure where you’re going with this,” the professor says. I am about to continue with what has to be the worst commentary in any class- philosophy or no- when Janet steps in.

“He’s saying that ‘truth’ and ‘reality’ don’t matter because people have the power to override them,” she says. She looks at me as though searching for confirmation. I don’t know what else to do, so I nod in the affirmative. “His feelings are real, and she knows they exist, but her reasoning is that since neither of them have truly acknowledged this fact, those feelings aren’t real.”

“Yeah,” I say. I lean back in my chair for the Cool Hand Kevin finale. “The reality and her perception of that reality are one and the same, but she still denies them to create a ‘false reality’ so she doesn’t have to deal with it. It doesn’t matter.”

“This problem,” the professor says. He is again carefully seeking out the right words. “… is what makes the human animal so fascinating.”

You’re a fucking con-man, professor.

Love and Cigarettes (pt. 3)

*Cigarettes for Breakfast

It’s 3 in the morning. At least that’s what Abby’s clock says. other than said clock, I am shrouded in total darkness. Abby’s Urban Outfitters window drapes do their job remarkably well. I would believe that I am completely alone in this room if not for the warmth pressed against me and its soft breathing. I can’t sleep. Abby knocked out 4 minutes after we got into her bed. I like to think that I honor the Boy Scouts motto, but I was not prepared for a sleepover. My sweater, tees, jeans, and socks are somewhere in the darkness. At least they have each other. I did, however, wear a nice pair of boxer briefs. I did put a little thought into that.

So apparently, I can hold Abby, I can kiss Abby. But I cannot talk to Abby because she is asleep and when she os not asleep, she prefers not to talk to me. She “shhhhhed” me 3 hours ago and we haven’t said anything meaningful since. But I suppose her comment/command of  “don’t sleep in that” was a highlight. It’s replaced draining an 18-footer for the win against Bailey High in the Top 3. That’s saying something. It really is.

Abby sleeps on her right side facing the doorway. I am nestled behind her. One of the reasons I fell in love with Ab is because she does these little things that just blow me away. She swept her shoulder-length hair to one side under her neck so it doesn’t end up covering my face like an alien spore. My nose is pressed up to the back of her head. My right arm is an I-beam running under both our pillows. I can’t feel it. It doesn’t matter. My left arm is draped over her side and the palm of my hand rests on her flat tummy. She cant’ sleep without a pillow between her knees. Since I’m the big spoon, I’ve also got pillow between my knees. I can feel the soft bottoms of her feet on the tops of mine. Her breathing is soft. She is at peace. That brings me some peace. Just a little. I’ve solved “The Mystery of the Head-Cup,” but it’s a whole different episode now, Bugs Meaney. Sleep…

My eyes open involuntarily. The clock says 7:12. It’s morning, but damn those are some amazing drapes. The sun doesn’t have the strength to poke me in the eyes. I am lying on my back starting at the ceiling. I turn to my right. Abby is facing me. She’s established a monopoly on the comforter. I have to admit that the scoundrel in me created fantasies based on sleeping with Abby, not merely next to her. And in all of that, I never thought of the simple joy that would be waking up to her in the morning. I feel like Smeagol staring at his precious.

But I’m cold. I try very quietly to steal some of the comforter back. My hand pulls the comforter at a glacial pace and I’m staring at Abby with gnashed teeth the entire time. This is a black-ops mission. I almost have it when she starts blinking. Maybe it’s just an involuntary subconscious reaction to external stimul- nope. She’s up.

Our eyes meet and for a moment she is expressionless. While this moment lasts little more than a few seconds, I feel like what I assume a high-level athlete feels when he is in the zone: everything slows down and every detail is pronounced. Like the dust motes listlessly floating in the dull rays of sunshine that have forced their way into our world.

“Hey,” she says. She smiles (no teeth, just lips) and closes her eyes.

“Morning,” I say. I don’t think I’ve blinked since 7:13.

She opens her eyes and leans in to kiss me. The palm of her light hand lightly brushes against my left cheek. My eyes are open when our lips meet and they’re the size of beach balls as our lips slowly drift apart.

“Good morning,” she says. She’s smiling again- this time with the teeth. And I realize that I’m smiling, too.

“This… you’re amazing,” I say. The fingers of my hand find hers and they interlock like puzzle pieces or the Lions of Voltron. “When’s your first class?”

“Wednesday, Wednesday… 10,” she says. She’s the kind of girl who is beautiful without the artificial assistance of make-up. I have never seen a more beautiful woman, real or on the internet. “What about you?”

“9, but I’ll skip it and head in with you,” I say. How the fuck am I supposed to concentrate on anything after all this? “Breakfast?”

“No,” she says. She closes her eyes. “Let’s just lie here for a while.”

But I don’t want to. I want to talk about this. All of it. I want to know exactly what the hell is going on. I am a pessimist by nature and in the middle of all this wonderful, I am terrified that it will simply go away.

“Ab,” I start.

“Hold on,” she says. She gets up from bed and walks to the bathroom. She closes the door behind her.

I wrote my nice underwear, damn it. I roll over to the edge of the bed and sit up with both feet on the floor. The sun is getting brighter and the room is getting warmer. The clock says 7:36 and I call it a liar. But it’s not. I hear the toilet flush and the faucet runs. A few heartbeats later, Abby opens the door and walks toward me. She stands before me and places her hands on my shoulders. I wrap my arms around her. I am eye-level with Heaven.

“Ab,” I say. In an amazing display of personal strength and discipline, I raise my eyes to meet hers.

“Yeah,” she responds.

“Is this for real?” I ask. I didn’t mean to phrase this particular question in the form of man’s greatest philosophical conundrum as dramatized by Laurence Fishbourne and Keanu Reeves, but that’s what happens. “I mean, really?” Good God. I mean, really.

She laughs, but it’s one of those half-laughs, half-sighs.

“We can talk about that tonight when I get back from work,” she says. She runs her right hand through my bed head. “I’ll give you my key. You’ll be here waiting for me right?”

“I’ve waited this long for you, what’s another 10 hours?” I say. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

She laughs, and it’s a full laugh.I am relieved. She walks out of the bedroom and into the living room.

I hate myself. I meant it, too. The downside (well, one of them) to my witty repartee is that I do an awful lot of inserting and removing my own foot from my own fucking mouth. I don’t know why I say the things that I do, some times. They just fly out of my mouth before I have a chance to really think about them. Fuck, who am I kidding? I think about this shit all the time and I still end up saying the stupidest shit ever. Honestly, I think I only have some kind of posthumous judgment or something. I only know if something is appropriate or not after I’ve said it. The first time it happened, I got grounded. The last time it happened, I lost a friend.

I walk out into the living room and head directly for the coffee table. I’m looking for breakfast. I pull a cigarette and light it. I toss the lighter on Bradley Cooper’s toothy grin. That makes two of us, Mr. Cooper.

Abby is in the kitchen. She’s still rocking the tank top and pajama pants. She pours milk into her bowl of Apple Jacks and puts the carton back in the fridge. She grabs a spoon from the drawer and walks over to the couch. She takes her time getting into the couch because her Apple Jacks are dangerously close to spilling over the top of the bowl. She always puts so much milk into her bowl. She never drinks it, either. I guess she just likes total coverage.

“That’s breakfast?” she asks. She opens up for a spoonful of orange and green.

“I’m a simple man,” I say. I kick my feet up on the coffee table and take a drag. “I’ll pick up something on the way to class.”

“TV?” she asks. It sounds like “E-E” because she’s got a mouthful of cereal. Initially, I have no idea what she’s talking about. She throws the remote at me.

“Sure,” I say. I turn on the TV. My first instinct is to dial up ESPN because I missed last night’s highlights. As such, I have no idea what’s going on in the world of sports. I would love the world-wide leader to fill me in. But I don’t think Abby wants to watch Sports Center. After all, she’s the same woman who during a Falcons/Seahawks game asked, “Are all football teams named after birds?” You m might think this made her seem stupid to me, but that’s how I knew I was really into her: it was kind of endearing.

“What do you want to watch?” I ask. The screen comes to life. Someone is trying to sell me something for three easy payments of $19.99. I’m not buying it. Literally and figuratively. “What’s good this early?”

“Don’t know,” she says. A drop of milk escapes from the corner of her mouth. She swallows the cereal, then wipes her lips with the back of her right hand. “I never watch TV this early.”

Add that to the list of things we have in common. So far that list reads like this- we: don’t watch TV in the morning, adore 80′s and 90′s pop music, think fine dining is overrated, think Bagel Bites are underrated, and grew up wondering why Chip and Dale seemed so small on TV, but were the same size as Mickey and everyone else at Disneyland. Yeah, Abby and I have spent a lot of time together just shooting the hell out of the shit.

I change it over to ESPN.

“I knew you were going to do that,” she says. She laughs a little as she maneuvers her spoon to scoop out the few remaining orange o’s.

“Do you want to watch something else?” I ask. I turn to her. I take the last drag from my cigarette and put it out in the ashtray.

“No, it’s fine,” she says. She sets her bowl down on the coffee table. It’s half-full with milk. “It just makes me happy to know what you’re thinking.”

Except she doesn’t know.

Love and Cigarettes (pt. 2)

*The Meet-up

Abby just called me to come over. She said that her roommate has left for the weekend to visit her parents. I don’t know if this information is supposed to mean nothing or everything- as in we will have the place to ourselves. I cannot lie. I am a mass of nerves being overwhelmed by an irresistible stimulus. I decide to shower before heading over because I don’t want to seem to eager. Casual, remember?

I decide on a light yellow t-shirt and gray v-neck sweater with jeans. If I’m going to go down in flames, I’m going to be comfortable and look good doing it. That’s just me. I grab my keys, wallet, iPod, cell phone, cigarettes, and lighter. I imagine I am Rambo during the scene in First Blood: Part II where Stallone is getting all of his weaponry ready for the HALO jump. I hope I don’t lose everything. At least not the cigarettes.

I begin the walk over to her apartment by putting my headphones on. I only have those little ear buds because I think it’s patently ridiculous to wear those huge ones that cover your entire ear. I select “Never Gonna Get It” by En Vogue. I like to think of it as an anti-jinx. Maybe I will get it. Whatever it takes, you know?

There’s something humorous about a guy such as myself listening to 4 black women tell me that I’ll never get their loving (individually or as a group, I assume). I light a cigarette. First of the journey. I feel like Hansel. I’m going to end up leaving a trail of cigarette butts behind me. It’ll help me get back home. Hopefully, it won’t be tonight. If everything goes exactly the way I envision it, then I’ll get there at 11:30, we’ll talk about everything until 11:45-midnight, then she’ll tell me she wants to be with me, too. Then we’ll make passionate love- the kind you see in soap operas, where no one’s hair gets mussed- for the remainder of the darkness, fall into each other’s arms sligtly before sunrise and wake up at 10 am for breakfast. That’s the hope anyway. And if things work out that way, I will believe that the moon landing really happened, we really can reverse the effects of global warming, and that one day, I’ll quit smoking.

I get to her door at 11:28 (I was a little antsy) and knock. Abby opens the door slowly. She’s wearing a baby blue tank top (sans bra- she doesn’t make it easy, I’ll give her that) and blue plaid pajama pants. She walks me in.

“Hey,” she says.

“Hey,” I say. Smooth, Kev.

She leads me to the couch in the living room and fall into it. I kick my feet up on the coffee table, careful not to kick the ashtray or Bradley Cooper’s face on the US Weekly. She saunters into the kitchen and heads towards the fridge. I turn my head to watch her. She opens the door of the fridge and leans over to stare into the abyss. Even under bed-time clothing, it’s pretty easy to tell Abby’s got the body of a pre-Seal Heidi Klum.

“What a beer?” she asks. She turns back to face me and I have to pretend that I was looking into the fridge, too. Fuck it, she knows damn well what she’s doing.

“Sure,” I say. I don’t know if one can make a single word reek of uncoolness, but I’m almost positive I just did. I’m glad we’ll be drinking, it’ll ease the tension a little. It should anyway. In theory, I mean. Hypothetically, I guess.

Abby returns to the couch and twists the caps off our bottles and tosses them down on the coffee table narrowly missing Bradley Cooper’s smiling mug.

“What do you want to listen to?” she asks. She walks over to the end table and squats to look over her CDs. The bottom of her tank top rises a little and the waist of her pj bottoms sinks ever-so-slightly. Take this for what you will, but something as miniscule as this can turn a “good day” into a “great day.”

“You sure I can smoke in here?” I ask. I already have the cigarette  hanging between my lips, the question is a formality. Like small talk. Fuck!

“Yeah, Charlotte and I do all the time,” she says. She’s still going through her CD collection. Please, God, not the Mariah Carey again. I don’t give a shit if it’s her greatest hits, she peaked on Unplugged.

“Where’d she go, anyways?” I ask. Like a lawyer- ask questions that you already know the answer to. I light my cigarette and take a drag. Small talk. Small talk. Small talk.

“Visiting her parents for the weekend, remember?” she says. She stands and turns to face me. The free show is over. Sad. “You got your iPod?”

“Yeah, I do,” I say. I shove my cigarette between my lips and jut my hips upwards, sliding my hand into my jeans pocket. I walk over and hand it to her.

“Great, obscure 90′s pop music,” she says. I’ve never been a mind reader, but I am observant, and I believe Abby has just utilized what literary scholars would call “verbal irony.” Nice move, Ab.

“Oh, an acoustic version?” she asks. She walks back to the couch and sinks into it. “You kind of have a thing for alternate versions of songs, huh?”

“Dare You to Move?” Really? It’s official, the music gods hate me. The omens are not looking good. Almighty Cobain, save your faithful servant.

“Yeah,” I say. Also, Abby, I have a thing for you. But I guess we’re not going to talk about that. In retrospect, my time-table is beginning to look a tad optimistic. “I think I like the idea of changes.”

“Why?” she asks. She turns to face me so that she is leaning against the arm of the couch. Her left leg straddles the end of the couch and her left foot rests on the floor. Her right leg is extended so that her bare foot brushes against my jean-covered knee. She has the kind of feet I imagine Cinderella had. I mean if you’re going to wear glass slippers, it’s not leaving anything to the imagination. You’ve gotta have some pretty cute feet.

“Why what?” I reply. Real cool, Kev, keep it up. She’ll be yours in no time.

“Why do you have a thing for acoustic versions of songs?” she asks. She picks up her pack of cigarettes and pulls one out. “Isn’t the one enough?”

“It’s not just the acoustic versions, it’s live versions, too,” I say. I lean forward and grab the US Weekly and the ashtray. I lay the magazine on the couch between us and place the ashtray on it. “I mean, studio versions are kind of set in stone, you know? I like alternate versions because it offers the artists the chance to play around with the arrangements.”

“But once that ‘different’ version  is recorded, doesn’t that make it the same thing?” she asks. Her eyes are hyphens again as she takes a drag from her cigarette. “Doesn’t that set it in stone, too?”

“Yes, but it’s still fundamentally different,” I say. I ash my cigarette into the tray and beneath it, Bradley Cooper is smiling. Good. That makes one of us. “Maybe time passes and the song doesn’t mean the same thing to Switchfoot- or whoever- as it did when they wrote it.”

I want to kiss this woman so badly, and yet I find myself completely engrossed in this conversation. I love music. But do I love music more than I love Abby? I don’t know. But if we keep talking about music, I might not implode.

“But I would think that they’d have already thought about all those possibilities before they recorded it,” she says. She lifts her left leg and aligns it with the right, the mag and the ashtray between them.

“Sure, but it doesn’t account for the passing of time,” I say. I take a sip of beer. It’s cold, but not cold enough. I need an ice bath. I’m only 22, and I wish I had a whole bunch of alternative versions of the things I actually have.”

“That’s part of your problem,” she says. She coolly takes a sip of beer. “You’re always thinking about the things you could or should have instead of what you do have.”

Are we still talking about music? Fuck. This is going nowhere. Fast. Usain Bolt-fast.

“I love this song,” she says. Her right arm holds the bottle and dangles over the back of the couch while her left hand holds the cigarette. “It’s kind of a happy tune, but it’s really, really sad.”

“I’m usually not a fan of narratives in song form,” I say. I take a sip of beer. I’m like Barry Sanders behind the offensive line, looking for an opening. Unlike Barry Sanders, I don’t have the moves to make my own opening. Coward. “But this I like.”

“It doesn’t surprise me,” she says.

“What do you mean?” I ask.

“It’s another song about wanting something else,” she says. She says this so mater-of-factly that I can no longer believe we’re talking only about music. “You’re not the piano man, you’re the bartender.”

“…the fuck?” I say. I take a deep drag while staring at her with cautious eyes.

“I know you think of yourself as the guy in the middle of things as they’re happening, but you’re not him, ” she says. She takes a long drag and puts out her cigarette. She then takes a sip of beer. She then places her bottle on the coffee table. She then crosses her arms. Something’s going to happen.

“You’re the bartender,” she says. She nods to solidify her claim. “All that stuff about him being a movie star if he could just get there- that’s you.”

I have no answer for her. But then I have the answer. I am 1,000% sure that she’s telling me (subconsciously or otherwise) why she won’t go out with me.

“You’re never satisfied with anything,” she says. She lights another cigarette and tosses the lighter at me.

“That’s not true,” I say. But it probably is. I light another cigarette and throw the lighter back at her. It bounces off her arm onto the couch. I don’t like where this is headed. I’ve got to blow up the dominoes ahead of the ones that are falling so they don’t take them all out. I have to do it now. Now!

“Wait- what are we talking about?” I ask. I suppose there was never going to be a good time. This is it by default. “Are we talking about you and me?”

“No,” she says. she raises her drink to take a sip, but doesn’t make eye contact with me. In fact, she turns her head away. “Yeah, I guess.”

“You don’t think you’ll satisfy me?” I ask. I want to punch myself in the face for asking that. It sounded stupid in my head, even worse on the way out of my mouth, and it is just plain unconscionable now that it’s out there. Yikes. “Wait, that’s not what I-”

“Yeah, you won’t be satisfied with me,” she says. She takes a long drag from her cigarette. Her hand is shaking. “Look at us now.”

“What about us now?” I ask.

“You aren’t satisfied,” she says. Her voice is starting to rise. Is this the way people feel when they’re standing on the sea-shore and the can see a tidal wave approaching from half-a-mile off? No, it can’t be this bad. “We’re great as friends and that’s not enough for you.”

“But only because I think we could be so much greater,” I say. I look down at the ashtray and ash my cigarette. I take a deep breath. “I love you Abby. I just want to be with you. It doesn’t matter. You said you knew anyway.”

“Of course it matters,” she says. Her eyes are welling. Her cigarette hand is not steady. If she were playing Operation against you, you’d win. “But until you said it, I could pretend that it wasn’t real. You made it real.”

Fuck Me.

“Oh, the irony,” she says. She wipes a tear from under her left eye and sniffles.

“You don’t even know,” I say.

“What do you mean?” she asks. She takes a drag from her cigarette.

“Nothing, nothing,” I say. I finish my beer and set the empty bottle on the table. “It’s nothing.” Damn you, music gods.

“You want another one?” she asks. Her bottle is half-empty.

“No, I’m cool,” I say. I am most certainly not, but beer isn’t going to help. Perhaps some Patron. Or a little Goose. Actually, a lot of it. As long as I don’t have to remember this fiasco.

“But yeah,” she says. She takes a sip from her beer. “This is exactly what I didn’t want to happen. I didn’t want to be in a spot where things would change.”

“Then why did you kiss me?” On second though, I could really go for that second beer. “You must feel something for me.”

“Of course I do, Kevin,” she says. She’s gonna blow. Watch out, Pompeii. “But I also know that sooner or later, you’ll want something else. I know you, remember.”

I am not a gifted speaker. I have never been able to persuade people with any kind of success. I’ve always known this about myself. I’ve come to the conclusion that this is why I hold such passionate views on music, the free-market economy, and whether or not Alan Rickman’s best role was as Hans Gruber or the Sheriff of Nottingham (Nottingham, obviously)- because no one listens to me. But fuck it. I am in love with her.

“You’ve known me since we started school here together, Ab,” I say. I take the final drag of my cigarette and put it out. I can no longer see Bradley Cooper. He may or may not be smiling. “And in all that time, I’ve been unhappy and pretty clear about it.”

“Exactly,” she finishes. She swallows the last of her beer and lights another cigarette. “That’s why-”

“Hold on,” I say. When I look back on this moment, I would like to say that I had this planned. That this is exactly how I drew it up. But that would make me a liar. “Isn’t it possible that the reason I’ve never been happy or satisfied with what I’ve been doing is that I wasn’t with you?”

Silence. Painful silence.I want to tell her “Uh, Abby, this is where you say something…” but that might be counterproductive. So for once, I say nothing. I ride it out. Sometimes- very rarely -I fucking amaze myself. And so I light a cigarette.

“That can’t be it,” she says. There are tears falling from both eyes now.

“It is,” I say. “It is.”

More silence. This could go in any direction and I wouldn’t be shocked. Really, this is a different kind of uncomfortable. Slightly less than being waterboarded, yet far worse than sitting in the middle seat in an airplane during a 7-hour flight. What the fuck is happening?

She picks up the ashtray and magazine and places them both back on the coffee table. She tosses the lighter at the table, but it slides off the far end of it. She turns so that her back is facing me and leans back into my chest. She takes my arms in her hands and wraps them around her. The top of her head fits perfectly under my chin. She doesn’t say anything. Neither do I.

Music gods, I worship at your altar. I am your humble servant. I shalt ne’er doubt thee again.

I have dreamed of this moment since I met Abby. But it’s not the way I thought. I still have no idea what’s going on. Is this real? And if it is, what the hell does it mean? In this silence, I think Abby must hear my heart racing. If she can’t hear it, she sure as hell must be able to feel it pounding into her back.

“Kev,” she says.

“Ab?” I reply.

“Okay,” she says.

In this following silence, I think this is the way Edison must have felt the first time his fucking light bulb started shining, then kept shining. I think that this is how Kirk Gibson must have felt when he lit up Eckersley in ’88 (if you think that I don’t want to fist pump right now, then  you’re fucking crazy). I think that this is what it must have felt like when Hilary stood atop Everest and saw the entire world beneath him. This moment is my Everest and Abby is the whole world.

“Hey, Ab,” I say.

“Sshhhh,” she says.

Fuck. She was right about me.

Love and Cigarettes (pt. 1)

*Love and Cigarettes

I love when it starts getting dark earlier. It makes me feel like the day ends more quickly. I know it doesn’t make a difference, but every little bit helps. I’m sitting next to the fountain in front of the business center again. Laid out before me is my life: my cell phone, a half-empty cup of black coffee, and a pack of Kool Milds. I play with the top of my Zippo lighter. I like the sound it makes, “ka-chink, ka-chink.” It’s soothing. It must be Feng Shui or something.

I reach for my cigarettes and pull on out. I place it on my lips and light it. A casual observer might look at this scene and mistake me for a rare bird that eats electronic devices and shits cigarette butts. I know, I smoke a lot for a younger guy. But she’s late again. I’m just waiting. Waiting gets boring is you have nothing to do. I’ve destroyed that jewel game on my phone already. No one’s going to beat my high score. It has become a bore to me. So that’s why the cigarettes. Well, not really.

She was supposed to be here 15 minutes ago. I am not worried. Promptness has never really been her strong suit. I am fucking convinced she’d show up late to her own wedding. I mean, I suppose there lies the possibility that something tragic has happened to her. I guess that’s not impossible- but the smart money is on her not being able to find the sweater she wants to wear, looking for it, then giving up, but then not being able to find the jacket she wants to wear instead, then finding the sweater she originally wanted, but then not being able to find the one side of the shoes she wants to pair with the sweater. I estimate that this entire debacle will take roughly 13 minutes. If she started getting ready her normal 4 minutes before we were supposed to meet, then she’d leave her apartment 9 minutes late. Factor in the time it takes to get here from her apartment and I’ve got roughly 6 or 7 more minutes of solitutde. And that’s one more cigarette.

She shows up 8 minutes later (I’m going to have to recalibrate my methods) apologizing like steroid-using baseball player.

“I’m sooooooooooo sorry I’m late,” she says. She places her cell phone on the table. It’s got one of those Hello Kittys dangling from it.

“Don’t worry about it,” I say. I mean it, too. The mere fact that someone of her physical attractiveness routinely spends time with me is more than fair compensation for a lonely 23 minutes and 3 cigarettes. “Everything alright?” I feign interest. I really just want to see if I nailed what kept her.

“What? Oh- yeah,” she stammers. She does this thing where she closes her eyes and shakes her head from side-to-side when trying to downplay something. “I just couldn’t find the sweater I wanted to wear.” Ding-ding-ding! We have a winner.

“So you wore that one instead?” I ask. I’m trying to sweep the category.

“No, this is it,” she says. “I was almost ready to give up, but I saw part of it hanging out from under my comforter.” I am in the running for a Nobel Prize.

I peek under the table to take a look at her shoes. Nikes. Runners.

“I like your shoes,” I say. I remove a cigarette which will have to do in place of a victory cigar. “They match the sweater- but I’d expect no less from you, Vera Wang.”

“Oh, hey, thanks,” she says. She looks down at them with an expression of mild pleasure. “I couldn’t find the left side. That’s also what took me so long.” I am a half-step away from total omniscience.

She pulls out a cigarette of her own and lights it. She might be my soulmate, but it could never work (I keep telling myself). She smokes Marlboro Reds. No menthol, just cardboard.

“Look, there’s probably no way to say this with any degree of tact, so I’ll just come out with it,” I say. I ash my cigarette on the bodies of his fallen comrades. “What’s going on with us?”

I raise my coffee cup to my lips, trying to hide behind it. No tells, no tells. Too bad my coffee has become cold soup in this harsh climate. But still, I pantomime the imbibing.

“What do you mean?” she asks. Her eyes become two hyphens separated by the bridge of her nose. “We’re still friends, aren’t we?”

I put the coffee cup down.

“Of course we’re still friends,” I say. That is what is called a concession. You agree with the person you’re talking to- makes them feel at ease. “But don’t you feel like something’s changed since we- since Sunday night?”

She takes a long drag from her cigarette.

“No, not really. I’m trying not to let it.” she says. She’s leaning back in the chair with her left arm across her stomach while her right elbow is propped up by her left hand. “It’ll only change if you let it.”

I debate whether or not I should tell her that I’ve loved her since the first time we met. I decide not to. This debate lasts 1.086 seconds.

“Fair enough,” I say. I will generally toss out a “fair enough” when I think what has been said to me is complete horseshit, but I don’t have the energy to rebut it. “But- and I can’t help this, you know how I am- I’ve been thinking about it all week.”

“Me, too.” She takes a final drag. She flicks the butt about 45 yards away. I bet she honed that skill flicking the shit out of the pocket clip of Papermate pen caps. “And I bet you’ve got a boatload of questions and another boatload of theories to answer those questions.”

“Well,  I do,” I say.

“I know you, too, okay?” she says. She’s almost spiteful.

There is about 10 seconds of silence, but let’s just round it up to the 3  years that it felt like.

“Go on,” she says. She leans forward in the chair and places her elbows on the table. She catches her head with the palms of her hands and holds it there.

“Fine, but don’t get mad at me,” I say.

“I’m not going to promise that,” she says.

“Fine,” I say.

“Okay, go already,” she says.

There’s a certain sound the human body makes (maybe it’s just mine) when the owner of said body is going to bear his soul. It’s a cross between a bridge collapsing and the groan a full room of students makes when their teacher says “Pop Quiz.” I just made that sound.

“What does it mean?” I ask.

“What does what mean?” she shoots back. That’s how she’s going to play it, huh? Fuck.

“Well, we sort of kissed,’ I say. I try to be nonchalant about it. No tells, no tells.

“Not ‘sort of,’ we did,” she says. She fumbles for another cigarette. “What do you mean ‘what does it mean’?”

She’s not going to make this easy. She never does.

“Look, we’ve been friends for a while,” I say. I have an epiphany. She and I have entered the territory just beyond friendship where you have to be careful of semantics. Every word must be painstakingly selected. “We kissed. What does that mean?”

“It was a kiss,” she says. She takes an ice age-long drag. “We were drinking a little and talking a lot, and we kissed.”

Right now, I am tempted to casually blurt out “Was it good for you?” but I remember the importance of semantics.

“True, but it did happen,” I say instead. They’re going to be able to erect a half-scale model of the Arc de Triomphe with all my cigarette butts. “So what did it mean to you?”

That was my best Erin Andrews impersonation. Ask a pointed question. Get a specific response. Not even Bill Belicheck could evade that one.

“It doesn’t mean anything, Kev,” she says. Her eyes are closed. Her head is turning from side-to-side. “It was a kiss- between friends- it happens.”

“Not to me, it doesn’t,” I say.

“You’re making this difficult,” she says.

“I just want some clarification,” I say. I again debate the merits of confessing my ferocious love for her, but reason gets the better part of my libido.

“We’re friends. I want to continue being friends,” she says. I’ll tell you, the bums are going to have a field day with all the butts at our feet.

“Is that how you feel about me?” I ask. Pointed questions, damn it. Fuck, I’m a coward.

“Is what how I feel about you? I already said, we’re friends,” she says. I don’t like where her tone is going. She’s getting frustrated. She’s getting defensive. If we were anime story, she’d have that little drop of water near her face. Shit, shit, shit.

Good-bye reason, you fought valiantly.

“It meant something to me, Abby,” I say. Nonchalant has left town.

“Look, I don’t want to make this more than what it is,” she says. She picks up her cell phone and checks the time. Hello Kitty is smiling at me. You vindictive little cat. I hate you.

“Can’t you tell I’m crazy about you?” I ask. Well, it’s more of a statement, I guess.

The Golden Gate, Brooklyn, and all the Bridges of Madison County have simultaneously given way while at the same time, every single student in every single classroom in every single school in every single country is clearing their desk and wishing they had studied.

Silence.

She turns her head to look away. She’s watching the water shoot out of the fountain and crash into the pool of water below. I light another cigarette. I don’t know what will kill me first- cancer or this conversation.

“Of course I know,” she says. She’s a few cigarettes behind, but she’s doing her damnedest to catch up. “Girls always know.”

This is the most frustrating thing about dealing with females. They claim omniscience but then don’t do anything with that supposed all-knowingness.

“So now what?” I ask. That’s it, Kev. Don’t be specific. I hate myself.

“We can’t go back now,” she says.

“Okay, so…now what?” I hate myself. Here it comes. “Do you feel anything remotely similar for me?

“I don’t know what you want me to say,” she says.

“Do you feel the same way about me?” I ask.

This is awkward multiplied by stupid added to straight retarded.

“We’ve got a good thing going, Kev,” she says. She takes a drag. “I don’t want to ruin it.”

“But don’t you think it could be even better if we took it to the next step?” I ask.

“Oh God,” she says. She rolls her eyes towards the heavens. “‘the next step,’ what does that even mean?”

She’s right, I’m flustered. I’m starting to rely on cliches. Fuck you American Pie. Fuck you, Zapp and Roger. Fuck you, Mr. Big. This is going to end worse than My Best Friend’s Wedding. And really, it’s hard to sink lower than dancing with a gay guy at the wedding of the person you’re in love with.

“I mean, I think we could be great together. We’re already, like, best friends,” I say. I have just used “like” in casual conversation. The Titanic has just hit the iceberg.

“I used to wonder about it all the time,” she says. She flicks her cigarette away not at all unlike the manner in which a ninja throws his stars. “But I never wanted to bring it up.”

“Why?” I ask.

“Because of this. Because of this feeling right here,” she says.

She’s probably right.

She reaches out with her hands and covers mine. I have been dreaming of this moment ever since I met Abby.

“Look,” she says. Any time anyone begins a statement with the word “look,” whatever follows- under any circumstances- cannot be good. “We really need to think about this before we decide anything.”

What Abby does not know is that I HAVE been thinking about this since what seems like infancy. In fact, this is all I think of besides where the next kegger is. And even then, once I get there, all I can think about is where Abby is and how cool it would be for us to do team kegstands. This is a mess.

“I’ve been thinking about it,” I say. I take a drag and exhale. I think Abby and I have done more damage to the environment today than the entire Industrial Revolution and the use of CFCs in hamburger containers combined. I put out the cigarette.

“I want to be with you,” I say.

There are times in a man’s life when what he says sounded so much better in the hypothetical form in his head. Well, here we are.

“Let me think about it, okay?” she asks.

She leans in to give me a kiss good-bye on the cheek like she always does. But this time, she cups the back of my head with her right hand when she does it. I spend the next 5 hours or so contemplating the meaning of this additional gesture.

“Come by my place tonight,” she says.

“When?” I ask.

“I’ll call you. Some time around 10 or 11, I guess,” she says.

She picks up her things and turns to leave.

I don’t know why I do the things I do.

“I’ll miss you,” I say.

She doesn’t respond.

I don’t know whether or not she heard me.