Kosher
After college, I started looking into grad school. I was told that I should learn French, most of the work in my discipline having been done in that language, and since my job offered tuition reimbursement if I took a full load, I decided to enroll for another full semester at my old community college, just to keep myself busy and to get a couple languages under my belt. German, the other. Of course, this was the same school she now attended. I can’t say for sure if I didn’t look forward to that a little bit.
So we’d been apart for a while, at least a couple months, and we’d talk every now and then and it wasn’t sobbing, pleading conversation anymore. It was civil, at least. I mentioned I’d enrolled in classes, and I was worried about what would happen when we saw each other on campus. She asked which classes I enrolled in, and when I told her I was also signed up for a class on archaeology, she froze.
“I’m in that class too.”
“… Shit. Really?”
“There’s only one section.”
She lost her temper, accused me of knowing that she was going to be in the class, and the conversation ended with me being terse. Later, she’d call me and tell me that she shouldn’t have gotten mad about it, that we should be adult. Hell.
I was seeing a psychologist, and by sitting in a room and being encouraged to talk to myself for long periods of time, I was able to decide that I shouldn’t contact her anymore. Every time I talked to her, whatever had started to heal inside of me, whatever had started to scab and scar over, it bled fresh again. I remembered new and terrible things, things which wouldn’t let me sleep or stand up straight. Around December I stopped calling. She e-mailed me every now and then, and two weeks into January I got a call from a number I didn’t recognize. After a while, once I realized it was hers, I was proud. She wished me a belated New Year’s, Christmas, everything.
“I just wanted to make sure everything was kosher.”
She told me about spending New Year’s Eve sick in her new guy’s bed. How his cousin sang her a song and played her the guitar which he was teaching her. I had spent it, though I didn’t tell her so, drinking wine and smoking cigars on a friend’s porch all night while the entirety of the party rotated outside and in, just to be around me. I was the life of that party, am the life of most parties, which would be much to her disappointment.
I was heading home to see a movie with my brother and, thankful for the excuse, I told her I had to go. It was nice not to be the one holding on for once, to be free. I said goodbye.
I got an e-mail from her of a Labrador with a tennis ball running alongside a yapping Chihuahua. She said it reminded her of us. Not just the size difference, but that she was always barking at me. I thought it was a sweet sentiment, and wrote her back saying as much. I didn’t talk to her again for another two weeks, first day of class.
About a week before class started, I really started to dread that Monday. I was going to have to face her, there wasn’t any way around that. The only thing that could happen was one of us bowing out and dropping the class, which I wasn’t about to do. As terrifying as the prospect was of seeing her, as terrifying as that pain was, I was not going to rearrange my life for fear. I wouldn’t be a man if I ran away from it, and yes it would be strange and possible painful, but I couldn’t just run away. I couldn’t bring myself to retreat.
That’s what I told myself, in my conscious mind. When I had to rationalize it, when I told my friends about my apprehension and they would suggest dropping the class or taking something else to replace the units, that’s what I would tell them. That I wasn’t about to get pushed around. Not me. Not Max Naylor. And yes, it was true to a large extent, especially the idea of having to find another class that interested me that would fit into my schedule. But, were I to be completely honest with myself, I wanted to have to see her. I liked the fact that we’d ended up in the same class, that we would have to spend three hours together every week. I looked forward to it. And I feared it as I fear death.
The week passed with ulcer-inducing anxiety, every day closer to Monday feeling like one less day I could be happy, which I wasn’t anyway I worried so much. I thought, This must be what death row feels like. Every day one day closer to death. Waiting for it to be over as much as you’re wishing it will never come. Time’s a tricky bitch, and can’t be shirked or cheated. The days tick away, the nights come and go, and all the bourbon you drink and all the cigars you inhale don’t stop the obstinate march toward your deadline, whatever you’ve decided your next deadline is.
I wanted to get there first. It was early in the morning, so the cards were already stacked against me, but I knew what was at stake, and I was committed to getting there before her, committed to making it her choice how she dealt with the other in the room. Where should she sit, would she say hello, would she be cold and indifferent? These were to be left squarely with her while I sat and awaited my education.
Both my alarm clocks went off at 8:00am. I had to be there at 9:35. After playing dueling snooze buttons for a while, as the setting had different timing for either alarm, I finally got up showered dressed collected sundry electronic devices and reading materials and headed out the door. It was about 9 and campus was, in bad traffic, up to an hour away.
Shit.
It was strange heading back to that place. Flying down the freeway, trying to make up for lost time, I remembered being late for class, stuck in standstill congestion, and hopping into the carpool lane all on my lonesome, consciously thinking every time that the carpool lane was merely the “laws of men” and trying to think it loud enough to bury the guilt.
I hadn’t been back to the old campus in three years and the structures had all changed, buildings had sprouted and had been razed but I knew where I was going, so no big deal. I parked, the lot a madhouse, and began the long walk to the classroom. I drank Snapple and listened to music on my hand-me-down ipod and thought about what I was going to do. I thought a lot about how I must look, so early in the morning. I wanted to be pretty. I wanted to show her what she was missing. Like you do. I thought I saw her in the parking lot, but I wasn’t sure. It was ten minutes to class, and I just wanted to make it there before her.
I would have smoked if I didn’t care about smelling good.
I threw the bottle in a dumpster and, in turning, felt my stomach lurch into my throat. She was walking in from the parking lot, hair breezing in her stride and a shirt I’d never seen her wear before. I turned and walked. I was going to make it there before her. I’d won. I would sit down, then she’d come in, see me, and have to decide what the social standard was going to be. God, I am not good at being human.
I found the class easily enough, briefly remembering having taken an Ethics class in the same room years and years before. I surveyed the room, and sat down in an empty aisle with two people sitting in chairs in front of me on either side. I got comfortable, took out a book, got ready to relax while she decided what the next move was going to be. I hate games, and I wasn’t playing this one to be coy. I was avoiding having to make that choice, having to be that brave, or that cowardly. I wanted out of the equation. I glanced down and saw the Coach tennis shoes I had seen so many times before on the girl sitting in front of me, to my right. My eyes moved up, saw the curve of the hip, first, then the jacket and the hair. The complexion. The girl outside had been far away, and I’d not been wearing my glasses.
Fuck.
So I’d sat directly behind her, and one row over. I could have reached out and touched her. I could have said hello, at least. Instead, I sat there, and looked away while, out of the corner of my eye I saw her look back at me, give a start, then turn back around. Well, that was it. We weren’t saying hello. She took out her phone and opened it, and for a moment I saw digital picture of them cheek-to-cheek on the screen. And I thought, in all honesty, You know what? He’s not so pretty.
The professor called roll, we both responded to our names and didn’t react to each other’s. The class proceeded and, while I found it fascinating, I couldn’t stop thinking about her being there. Seeing her again. Was she thinking the same thing? Was she having as much trouble breathing as I was? I looked over at her from time to time, I tried to see if her left hand, the one visible to me, had been the one scarred so terribly during a fight with her mother, if it had finally faded over time which she’d always feared it wouldn’t and which I’d always assured her it would. Anyway, it was the right. She was wearing a ring I’d never seen. I felt tired and underwater,
Class ended, and as we were getting up to leave, we met eyes.
“Hey.”
“Hey.”
“How’re you doing?”
“Good.”
We started to walk out.
“So, that was weird.”
“Yeah.”
We walked for a while, and she seemed extremely uncomfortable. She didn’t say much. I asked if she was on the same kind of schedule as last year, and she said yes. There was an awkward pause.
“Is it going to be weird all semester?”
“I think so.”
Then we walked away from each other. I didn’t say goodbye. It might have been because to say goodbye would belie a familiarity that is not presupposed in whatever relationship there now exists between us. That saying goodbye would intone an engagement with each other that isn’t assumed anymore.
It might have been because, even now, I just can’t say goodbye.
I had to take care of something at the records office. NYU had contacted me letting me know that they didn’t have my transcripts from the very institution I was now attending again. The old records office had been shut down in the time I’d been away, and where the abandoned library had once stood was now a new state-of-the-art administration building, inside which I could request the transcripts. I filled out the paperwork and stood in the line, the system still familiar even if the surroundings had changed.
At the counter, the teller asked me what my discipline in the arts was.
“Critical studies. Film.”
She asked if I had looked into Loyola Marymount. I said I hadn’t. She said I should. I told her I wanted to go to the east coast, that I’d spent some time up there, in New York, and that I loved it out there, that I wanted to go to school up there. She didn’t smile once the entire time she was making small talk.
“Well, for a change of pace.”
I went to where I knew a men’s room to be, and was relieved to find it was still there. I decided, in the mirror, that I looked good, and left worrying that I was losing too much hair. I walked out to my car, wanting to see her again, wanting to talk to her. Wanting a chance.
There was always Wednesday.
So we’d been apart for a while, at least a couple months, and we’d talk every now and then and it wasn’t sobbing, pleading conversation anymore. It was civil, at least. I mentioned I’d enrolled in classes, and I was worried about what would happen when we saw each other on campus. She asked which classes I enrolled in, and when I told her I was also signed up for a class on archaeology, she froze.
“I’m in that class too.”
“… Shit. Really?”
“There’s only one section.”
She lost her temper, accused me of knowing that she was going to be in the class, and the conversation ended with me being terse. Later, she’d call me and tell me that she shouldn’t have gotten mad about it, that we should be adult. Hell.
I was seeing a psychologist, and by sitting in a room and being encouraged to talk to myself for long periods of time, I was able to decide that I shouldn’t contact her anymore. Every time I talked to her, whatever had started to heal inside of me, whatever had started to scab and scar over, it bled fresh again. I remembered new and terrible things, things which wouldn’t let me sleep or stand up straight. Around December I stopped calling. She e-mailed me every now and then, and two weeks into January I got a call from a number I didn’t recognize. After a while, once I realized it was hers, I was proud. She wished me a belated New Year’s, Christmas, everything.
“I just wanted to make sure everything was kosher.”
She told me about spending New Year’s Eve sick in her new guy’s bed. How his cousin sang her a song and played her the guitar which he was teaching her. I had spent it, though I didn’t tell her so, drinking wine and smoking cigars on a friend’s porch all night while the entirety of the party rotated outside and in, just to be around me. I was the life of that party, am the life of most parties, which would be much to her disappointment.
I was heading home to see a movie with my brother and, thankful for the excuse, I told her I had to go. It was nice not to be the one holding on for once, to be free. I said goodbye.
I got an e-mail from her of a Labrador with a tennis ball running alongside a yapping Chihuahua. She said it reminded her of us. Not just the size difference, but that she was always barking at me. I thought it was a sweet sentiment, and wrote her back saying as much. I didn’t talk to her again for another two weeks, first day of class.
About a week before class started, I really started to dread that Monday. I was going to have to face her, there wasn’t any way around that. The only thing that could happen was one of us bowing out and dropping the class, which I wasn’t about to do. As terrifying as the prospect was of seeing her, as terrifying as that pain was, I was not going to rearrange my life for fear. I wouldn’t be a man if I ran away from it, and yes it would be strange and possible painful, but I couldn’t just run away. I couldn’t bring myself to retreat.
That’s what I told myself, in my conscious mind. When I had to rationalize it, when I told my friends about my apprehension and they would suggest dropping the class or taking something else to replace the units, that’s what I would tell them. That I wasn’t about to get pushed around. Not me. Not Max Naylor. And yes, it was true to a large extent, especially the idea of having to find another class that interested me that would fit into my schedule. But, were I to be completely honest with myself, I wanted to have to see her. I liked the fact that we’d ended up in the same class, that we would have to spend three hours together every week. I looked forward to it. And I feared it as I fear death.
The week passed with ulcer-inducing anxiety, every day closer to Monday feeling like one less day I could be happy, which I wasn’t anyway I worried so much. I thought, This must be what death row feels like. Every day one day closer to death. Waiting for it to be over as much as you’re wishing it will never come. Time’s a tricky bitch, and can’t be shirked or cheated. The days tick away, the nights come and go, and all the bourbon you drink and all the cigars you inhale don’t stop the obstinate march toward your deadline, whatever you’ve decided your next deadline is.
I wanted to get there first. It was early in the morning, so the cards were already stacked against me, but I knew what was at stake, and I was committed to getting there before her, committed to making it her choice how she dealt with the other in the room. Where should she sit, would she say hello, would she be cold and indifferent? These were to be left squarely with her while I sat and awaited my education.
Both my alarm clocks went off at 8:00am. I had to be there at 9:35. After playing dueling snooze buttons for a while, as the setting had different timing for either alarm, I finally got up showered dressed collected sundry electronic devices and reading materials and headed out the door. It was about 9 and campus was, in bad traffic, up to an hour away.
Shit.
It was strange heading back to that place. Flying down the freeway, trying to make up for lost time, I remembered being late for class, stuck in standstill congestion, and hopping into the carpool lane all on my lonesome, consciously thinking every time that the carpool lane was merely the “laws of men” and trying to think it loud enough to bury the guilt.
I hadn’t been back to the old campus in three years and the structures had all changed, buildings had sprouted and had been razed but I knew where I was going, so no big deal. I parked, the lot a madhouse, and began the long walk to the classroom. I drank Snapple and listened to music on my hand-me-down ipod and thought about what I was going to do. I thought a lot about how I must look, so early in the morning. I wanted to be pretty. I wanted to show her what she was missing. Like you do. I thought I saw her in the parking lot, but I wasn’t sure. It was ten minutes to class, and I just wanted to make it there before her.
I would have smoked if I didn’t care about smelling good.
I threw the bottle in a dumpster and, in turning, felt my stomach lurch into my throat. She was walking in from the parking lot, hair breezing in her stride and a shirt I’d never seen her wear before. I turned and walked. I was going to make it there before her. I’d won. I would sit down, then she’d come in, see me, and have to decide what the social standard was going to be. God, I am not good at being human.
I found the class easily enough, briefly remembering having taken an Ethics class in the same room years and years before. I surveyed the room, and sat down in an empty aisle with two people sitting in chairs in front of me on either side. I got comfortable, took out a book, got ready to relax while she decided what the next move was going to be. I hate games, and I wasn’t playing this one to be coy. I was avoiding having to make that choice, having to be that brave, or that cowardly. I wanted out of the equation. I glanced down and saw the Coach tennis shoes I had seen so many times before on the girl sitting in front of me, to my right. My eyes moved up, saw the curve of the hip, first, then the jacket and the hair. The complexion. The girl outside had been far away, and I’d not been wearing my glasses.
Fuck.
So I’d sat directly behind her, and one row over. I could have reached out and touched her. I could have said hello, at least. Instead, I sat there, and looked away while, out of the corner of my eye I saw her look back at me, give a start, then turn back around. Well, that was it. We weren’t saying hello. She took out her phone and opened it, and for a moment I saw digital picture of them cheek-to-cheek on the screen. And I thought, in all honesty, You know what? He’s not so pretty.
The professor called roll, we both responded to our names and didn’t react to each other’s. The class proceeded and, while I found it fascinating, I couldn’t stop thinking about her being there. Seeing her again. Was she thinking the same thing? Was she having as much trouble breathing as I was? I looked over at her from time to time, I tried to see if her left hand, the one visible to me, had been the one scarred so terribly during a fight with her mother, if it had finally faded over time which she’d always feared it wouldn’t and which I’d always assured her it would. Anyway, it was the right. She was wearing a ring I’d never seen. I felt tired and underwater,
Class ended, and as we were getting up to leave, we met eyes.
“Hey.”
“Hey.”
“How’re you doing?”
“Good.”
We started to walk out.
“So, that was weird.”
“Yeah.”
We walked for a while, and she seemed extremely uncomfortable. She didn’t say much. I asked if she was on the same kind of schedule as last year, and she said yes. There was an awkward pause.
“Is it going to be weird all semester?”
“I think so.”
Then we walked away from each other. I didn’t say goodbye. It might have been because to say goodbye would belie a familiarity that is not presupposed in whatever relationship there now exists between us. That saying goodbye would intone an engagement with each other that isn’t assumed anymore.
It might have been because, even now, I just can’t say goodbye.
I had to take care of something at the records office. NYU had contacted me letting me know that they didn’t have my transcripts from the very institution I was now attending again. The old records office had been shut down in the time I’d been away, and where the abandoned library had once stood was now a new state-of-the-art administration building, inside which I could request the transcripts. I filled out the paperwork and stood in the line, the system still familiar even if the surroundings had changed.
At the counter, the teller asked me what my discipline in the arts was.
“Critical studies. Film.”
She asked if I had looked into Loyola Marymount. I said I hadn’t. She said I should. I told her I wanted to go to the east coast, that I’d spent some time up there, in New York, and that I loved it out there, that I wanted to go to school up there. She didn’t smile once the entire time she was making small talk.
“Well, for a change of pace.”
I went to where I knew a men’s room to be, and was relieved to find it was still there. I decided, in the mirror, that I looked good, and left worrying that I was losing too much hair. I walked out to my car, wanting to see her again, wanting to talk to her. Wanting a chance.
There was always Wednesday.
posted by DeadLanguage at 1:11 PM
3 Comments:
Although I didn’t know which order to read them, I eventually finished all the posts. It’s strange how addictive a relationship can be, or even how addictive the idea of a relationship can be. Especially when you want to forget, something else wants you to remember. If there is the twinge of struggle or memory that won’t leave you alone I suggest burning the lobster. These things are too precious to throw away, to give to another and even if you did they would still be out there, somewhere they exist. Somehow burning lets go, you watch it disappear… speaking through my own experience, it felt wonderful. Then again, you might not need it at all. It took me three years after the break up to be able to completely let go. I thought it was rather unfair considering we were together for a year less then that. I hope you’ve experienced real healing.
-Rae
I said this as much in another one of my bloge'-s, and every woman in the world will harbor a resentment towards me for saying it, but here's what I've learned about possessions gained during a relationship:
Women keep the jewelery. They burn the rest.
I don't like burning things just because it seems so... melodramatic. I'm not trying to forget my dead father who was estranged for all those years or conceal delicate information on government mimiographs. I'm trying not to think about this chick that broke my little black heart. I think not allowing the thing to have that much significance to me to warrant burning is the most devastating blow I can deal to her influence on me.
So forever ago I wrote a long reply which was lost in a blip of internet failure. But long story short: I thought what you said was ironic, because in my case the jewelry was the first thing to go, goodwill. It was the letters, some pictures and a stuffed animal that were ritually sacrificed. After who knows how long (since I made the last reply) I can safely say that burning it did shit in the long run. And now how things are, I wish I had those pictures and letters to remind myself that at one time someone cared a lot. Not that I will forget, just seeing it makes it feel like it's real and not apart of my crazy fantastical mind.
I was resentful at first, just because I didn't burn it out of spite or revenge, but in attempt to physically let go of something I was holding onto so dearly. Knowing they no longer existed helped me (for short time) to not attempt turing to them when I was hurting. Granted, in my case the relationship ended with absolutely no negativity. As I am currently cleaning out my room, I have not the same attachment to the various keepsakes acquired in the past two years.
It wasn't so short, but there ya go.
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